Festival of Frost

by C. H. Williams

  Grayson’s eyes flicked to Lilah.

  He was laughing.

  Laughing, as he sank to his knees, running the piles of pebbles through his hands. Juli had pressed her hand against her mouth, fighting back tears that came anyway, watching.

  And Lilah.

  Lilah was making for them both, sheer relief flooding her bones.

  Relief that she was not alone, anymore. That their lives lay, now, not solely in her hands, but in the hands of each other. That, more than the love they could give each other, there was fight in their hearts, and the understanding that they would not fail each other.

  Not again.

  Chapter 17

  JULI

  "Oh, gods, Gray,” Juli snickered, weighing his pack in her hands. “Got enough, don’tcha?”

  Grayson merely shrugged, expression serious. “I won’t risk running short. None of us knows what this ward requires, and I do not wish this to become an annual pilgrimage, as much fun as running from ice spiders and Sleeping Stones is.” His eyes flicked up to hers, though, and there was something playful in the pale blue.

  This was real.

  A pack, making his shoulders strain, pockets stuffed with rocks, and this was real.

  More than three children terrorized by the minions of the Festival of Frost, driven from their home by vora whispers and a bloody massacre.

  This was real.

  “I bet you anything the berries are at the top of that mountain,” Juli mused, leaning against a boulder, surveying what would doubtless be a wretched assent.

  At least she wasn’t puking her guts out every five minutes.

  So there was that.

  Lilah looked worried, though, joining her sister.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” Lilah muttered, “it’s just…I’m wondering who it was that the vora made the vow to. It doesn’t seem likely they’d swear a sacred oath to a herd of ice spiders. And I keep wondering, if someone had enough sense to stop the vora from spreading the news of a ward powerful enough to stop something worse than an ice spider…”

  “Then who’s putting on the Festival of Frost,” Grayson asked, voice dark.

  “Exactly.”

  They all exchanged looks, saying nothing.

  The words didn’t need to be said on the heels of such a victory.

  “We should go, then,” Grayson nodded, sighing. “Storm’s passed—I’ll take that as a good omen. Can’t be a coincidence, we find the stones, and the snow stops.”

  A good omen—or a trap.

  Juli wasn’t prone to cynicism, but she favored the latter.

  Perhaps so much time together, and Lilah had started to rub off on her.

  The trek would’ve been slow going, if it hadn’t been for their youngest sister, though. Burning bright, the snow hissed into great pillars of steam as Lilah led the way up the mountain slopes.

  Grayson seemed lost in thought as he walked, a smile flickering across his lips every now and then, and Juli had swallowed a laugh when he’d sent little waves of dirt and stone into easy steps before them, saving her the bother of clamoring up the mountain side.

  Juli had let her hand drift to her abdomen, the faint bulge feeling more familiar beneath her hand with each passing day.

  It was hardly anything, yet. Like she’d been back in the Capital and eaten one too many pastries.

  How could any of them go back, after this.

  Return to fetes and lace after seeing the Wilderness. Seeing the magic.

  The world was alive, and it was begging them to stay and play.

  I promise, Juli thought. I promise, my child, I will show you this world. The rest will forget the magic, in the end.

  But we won’t.

  We won’t.

  They would find the wards.

  And they would rebuild the Basin.

  Rebuild it proper, not the way their father had, haphazard and reckless, but thoughtfully, lovingly.

  Only a few summer months in the Basin, and ice spiders had come crawling.

  But when the danger had ebbed, what beauty would come forth in its wake? When they’d built their homes, when they pushed back the storms, when they’d armored themselves with the loving protection only brought by the fierce loyalty of brother and sister, what goodness could bloom, when given the chance?

  A tremendous roar shattered through the air.

  What goodness, indeed.

  Towering above them all, with a snarl to shake the ground and fangs like the mountains they dared to summit, a great white bear.

  It’d come from nowhere, caught on a trail where it’d been in solitude.

  Lilah had thrown her fire into the familiar wall that guarded them in the night, but it was useless against the great beast.

  Roaring up onto its hind legs, the massive bear let out a yowl as it crashed through the flames, white fur smoking as it caught, Lilah pushing the fire into its flesh.

  Such pain, Juli realized.

  Such agony.

  Trapped.

  “Stop!”

  “It’s a beast from the Festival of Frost,” Grayson shouted back, arms straining as he sent the dirt around them swirling. His eyes were locked on a boulder easily as big as the bear itself, determination in his gaze.

  “No, Gray—”

  With a grunt, though, he sent the boulder upward in the air, hands raised to the heavens.

  “They know!” Lilah snapped at her sister, pressing the flames in tighter. “They know, Jules! We’re close—”

  Juli had braced herself for the burning even before she’d thrown Lilah to the ground. Li had grown hotter, in their months of warring, and Juli felt her flesh writhing even as it mended itself, furious at the burning.

  “Juli, back,” Grayson warned, eyes locking on hers, the boulder wavering in the air above both her and the bear.

  He couldn’t hear it.

  Couldn’t hear the shrieks.

  The crying.

  All he saw, she realized, was a beast, rearing its head and roaring violence.

  Of course, that was all he’d see. That was all he’d ever seen. Danger, around every corner, because that was what happened when he’d let go, once upon a time.

  And Lilah…she remained the skeptic. Mistrustful of any and all.

  Juli’s body stood poised before the great white bear, eyes fixed unblinking on her brother. Her sister.

  If it’d wanted to hurt her—hurt them—it would’ve, this, she felt in her gut.

  For who would not go roaring through the trees when they saw a chance for reprieve.

  Maybe it’d wished for death, at their hands. Fire and stone offered no mercy, though.

  “Juli, move,” Grayson growled, taking a step towards her, arms shaking with the strain.

  “You’ve grown too used to fighting,” she breathed, shaking her head. “You can’t see anything but enemies, anymore. And it’s true, they’re all around. But I will not let you destroy what you don’t understand just because you’re afraid. You, of all people, Gray, should know better. And you, Li.”

  “Jules—”

  “If you are so determined to end this creature, then end me, too,” she said softly.

  Arms wavering, his shoulders sank. And with a sigh, he cast the boulder aside, sending a rumbling crash through the trees.

  The sound of defeat.

  Juli turned to the bear, finding its glistening, black eyes.

  So much pain.

  And she had the Touch. She mended, hearts and hurts, all the same.

  Gently, she reached out, fingers combing through the singed white fur, and closing her eyes, she began to work, humming as she healed.

  Chapter 18

  GRAYSON

  Muscles burning from the strain, Grayson stood panting, aghast.

  She was insane.

  Juli was literally insane.

  She’d thrown herself in front of that beast, like it was a wounded puppy, sat now, soothing it, her touch mending the burn
s and scrapes, remaking the creature.

  Lilah was furious, fire sparking in her hands, but she did nothing except pace angrily back and forth.

  To set the beast alight was to let the flames swallow their sister, too.

  Juli moved with ease, fresh white fur left in the wake of the blackened crisp, and yet, even when the creature was whole, she kept working.

  “Jules,” Grayson muttered. “C’mon. It—it…”

  But he trailed off.

  What it was, exactly, he realized he didn’t know.

  Beneath her fingers, the fur began to shed, falling away in great, white clumps to meet the muddy ground where Li had melted the snow.

  The bear only gave a soft groan, rolling over to expose its belly to her hands.

  It’d been taller, too, Grayson realized with a jolt.

  Hadn’t it?

  It had to have been.

  Easily the size of the boulder he’d discarded, and now…

  “Gray,” Lilah whispered, her hand tugging on his sleeve. Her fingers were still hot, burning holes in the tunic, but he didn’t care.

  His eyes were fixed on Juli.

  Juli, and the man now laying in the mud beside her.

  She was whispering to him, now, this man with white hair, dark eyes searching her face.

  “Li, get some water,” Grayson mumbled, dropping his pack, sliding off his cloak.

  Lilah stopped him, though, sliding her cloak off instead, leaving her in thin trousers and a tunic, ripped half-off by an ice-spider. “I’ll be fine,” she said softly, fire in her eyes. “Really.”

  He nodded dimly, taking Lilah’s cloak as he edged towards Juli and the strange man.

  It might be a trap.

  An illusion, to prey on their sister’s kindness.

  But the man seemed half-conscious, slurred words dribbling from his mouth as Juli took his hand in hers.

  “Here,” Grayson muttered, tossing Li’s cloak across the naked man.

  Her eyes flicked to his, silent thanks written in them.

  Don’t thank me yet, Jules. He’s liable to devour us still.

  “What happened,” Grayson nudged.

  Juli only pursed her lips. “I don’t know. All I saw was a heart that was hurting.”

  So was the Touch.

  Mending heart and hand, all the same.

  There’d been little choice, after that, to make camp.

  Lilah struck the fire inside the shelter of stone Grayson had tumbled into being. The moving of the earth came back to him quickly, like something he hadn’t even really forgotten. All the same, though, he wished it’d felt better, sending the rocks piling together.

  Wished it’d been some sort of release for the anger he felt, at himself and at Juli.

  He hadn’t trusted her.

  He believed that she’d been compromised, throwing herself in front of that monstrosity.

  It’d been a foolish sort of thing she’d done, though, all the same.

  And she’d taken no interest in the man, afterwards. Oh, certainly, she’d helped him to the shelter, set him up by the fire, but then, she’d curled up on the bedroll of her own, turned her back to the fire, and slept.

  You are not my burden, Grayson thought, eyes flicking from the quail roasting over the fire to the man, leaning against a boulder.

  There was another thought, though, that came unbidden.

  But I want you to be.

  The thought sparked discord in his heart—his heart that, he realized, had let go of the last love.

  Let go, and he hadn’t even felt it vanish.

  Hadn’t even known it didn’t dwell in his heart anymore until it’d long since left.

  In its wake, an empty sort of hurt.

  “You have a name,” Grayson asked dully, glancing once more to the man. He’d been quiet, without Juli, eyes glassy and unseeing.

  The man glanced up, some life coming back into himself. “A name,” he echoed, voice hoarse. “I…don’t know. Do I?”

  A loon.

  Lilah, though, seemed unperturbed by the disorientation. “Do you remember being the bear?”

  “Asking the important questions, Li,” Grayson muttered, rolling his eyes.

  The man gave a quiet laugh.

  Grayson glanced up.

  You made him laugh.

  “Remember…is the wrong word,” the man said slowly, like his tongue couldn’t quite recall how to shape the words. “Feel. I feel what it was like, in the before.” His eyes drifted to Juli. “What is she?”

  “She has the Touch,” Grayson snapped.

  He will never love you.

  Lilah gave him a hard jab with her elbow, glaring. “Stop it,” she hissed.

  “Stop what,” the man asked, watching them both.

  Stop chasing after impossible loves.

  That’s what she’d meant.

  Stop running after people who can only break your heart.

  Stop running after these monsters.

  And maybe she was right.

  Maybe he wasn’t that kind of boy, the kind that tamed the wild beasts.

  Maybe he was something different.

  He was dirt.

  The best kind of dirt.

  The kind that people loved for gardens, the kind where flowers flourished, the kind where plants could grow. The kind of dirt that gave and gave and gave, all summer long, and in the winter, the flora gave back, restoring him once more.

  The kind of dirt that didn’t deserve to be trampled on.

  “Sorry,” Grayson breathed, finding the man’s eyes. It’s not your fault I got left with an empty place in my heart. And it isn’t mine, either.

  He’d find someone.

  It just wasn’t this one.

  Chapter 19

  LILAH

  Lilah found her brother outside the shelter long after night had fallen, a handful of the white pebbles in his hand.

  One of three.

  And so far, no sign of the ice spiders.

  “You look worried,” Lilah said quietly, sinking down into the snow beside Grayson. Waves of heat were rippling from her skin, a mirage dancing in the light from the fire inside, melting the ice where they sat.

  “No, just…” Grayson sighed, glancing over to her. “What are we going to come home to?”

  A fair question.

  The months were passing them by, winter in full swing with no end in sight, and home felt years away.

  “We’re collecting these wards, trying to stop the Festival of Frost, and I—I want to save them,” Grayson said. “But what if there’s nothing to save?”

  “They made their choice,” Lilah shrugged. “As did we.”

  “You think the vora warned them all.”

  “You do, too,” Lilah countered. He’d said as much, when he’d talked about Nik leaving.

  He hadn’t talked about Nik in a while, now.

  Lilah crossed her legs, mulling it all over. Their father hadn’t listened to the vora’s warning. So, Reed had taken to the people. Told each of them, in turn, of what might be coming. Some had returned to the Capital, or else, tried to find a different settlement to take them in. Others brushed it off, as superstition, as she had. Some were afraid, and others, hopeful that perhaps this meant magic was still alive, terrible or not.

  In the world below, it’d been dying.

  The magic.

  She felt it, in her blood, climbing up away from it all.

  It withered, in the disuse. And their people were happy to let it die.

  There’d been the wars.

  Terrible, bloody wars, and it was better, their predecessors saw, to let the magic die than sacrifice those who carried it.

  Nurtured it.

  Loved it.

  “When we go home,” Lilah said softly, “I don’t want the magic to die. I don’t want to forget this fire in my blood. I don’t want to relinquish any part of myself, climbing down this mountain, and I’m terrified that I will. That we’ll find this ward, and as
this twisted magic fades, we will, too. And we’ll forget.”

  “Then remember,” Grayson said simply.

  Perhaps he had a point.

  She would burn. Burn, unceasingly, unendingly, burn until all that remains is the charred earth, fertile, ready to begin again. And what was left when she was done burning, naught but the gods would imagine.

  Even now, she could feel the fire sparking in defiance beneath her palms.

  She would not forget.

  Chapter 20

  JULI

  Juli felt him, laying down beside her.

  The bear man.

  Whatever had happened in the snow as he’d shed his fur, it had bonded them.

  Bonded irreparably.

  His skin was soft, his naked body warm against hers, cloaks and blankets piled around them, soaking up the heat from the fire.

  Words felt…superfluous.

  She said them anyway.

  “Gray asked if you had a name,” Juli said quietly, letting their legs tangle together.

  “I wish to be called Espen,” he said, after a moment of thought. “That is what I was called. Before.”

  “Espen,” she echoed.

  His hand drifted down her waist, tracing the curves of her growing belly. “You are with child,” he breathed. “I can smell it on you. The scent of life. And yet you are alone.”

  “Not alone,” she amended.

  Fin was no bear in the Wilderness.

  Finley, she realized, had been more lost than anyone she’d found in these woods.

  “What will you do now,” Juli asked quietly, watching Espen’s dark eyes on her.

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. Part of me wishes to become the bear once more. And yet, to shed this skin, to run into the forest—that is to leave you behind, Juli with the Touch.”

  “There is no reason you cannot do both. Shed your skin and run wild amongst the trees. And when you wish to return home, I will sing you back to human,” she smiled softly, “and we will have each other.”

  What a marvelous thought it was, too.

  That they would have their freedom.

  That their lives, so intertwined, even from the start, could diverge, only to meet again when they both grew tired.