Snowfall

by Brandon Cornwell

  Giriraj's voice reached out to her as if from a great distance, sinking into her soul and melding with it like warm honey, She felt heat on her skin, a tingling wave that passed over her, and her skin became covered in goosebumps. There was a sense of vertigo, and she felt herself slowly leaning backward, the sensation giving her a head rush. She feared she would pass out, and her eyes opened, at first seeing nothing before they cleared, revealing the ceiling of Giriraj's bedchamber. She tried to reposition herself, but her limbs refused to obey her will, and so she lay on her back, her arms stretched above her.

  “Now feel my energies. Feel them around you, encompassing you, and filling you. When we are together, our energies are as one. We are one.”

  She felt her sash being pulled as it was untied, and the skin of her chest and stomach were exposed to the air, the soft fabric running over her nipples. It made her back arch, sending another wave of goosebumps over her skin, and she caught her breath, closing her eyes again. Strong hands lifted her legs to her chest, reaching under her buttocks and pulling the waist of her trousers down, sliding them along her legs and over her feet.

  Fingertips traced paths from her collarbone to her hips, passing over her breasts and running along her stomach. Every touch was electric, leaving trails of sensation across her skin like oil or paint. She was able to look down and saw Giriraj in front of her, her feet together against his chest. He ran his hands up the back of her thighs, then parted her knees, moving her legs to pass on either side of his waist as he leaned over her.

  Again, he ran his hands down her chest, cupping her breasts and gently rolling her nipples with his thumbs, and her body responded, a heat growing in her stomach and between her legs. He leaned closer, sliding one hand under her neck to cradle her head. She felt something firm against her center, rubbing along her opening, and she knew that he was preparing to enter her.

  Part of her suddenly yearned for it, and her legs involuntarily tightened against him, pulling her backside closer to him, causing his tip to slip past her front, rubbing his length along her. He paused, his other hand setting against her cheek.

  “Lie still,” he said, “and do not lose your focus.”

  He repositioned himself, and the tip of his member pushed against her center, edging into her. He pulled back and thrust again, slipping ever so slightly deeper.

  Suddenly, the sensation on her skin was gone. She still felt light-headed, but the euphoric tingling that had consumed her body faded in an instant. As Giriraj reached down again to cup her breast with one hand, his hand twisted to look like a reptilian claw, talons digging into the skin of her chest. She looked up at him, and in his place was a copper-scaled dragon, pupils like slits staring down at her. Its wings were outstretched above her, shadowing her from the muted light of the lanterns. Giriraj's soft skin turned into hard, rough scales against her legs, scratching against her as she moved. Amethyst stiffened, and Giriraj the dragon paused, the tip of him still nestled between her legs. With one thrust, he would be able to bury himself into her.

  Panic gripped her. She scrambled back, her robe wrapping around her arms and tangling about her waist. Giriraj sat up, startled by her sudden movement, the image of the dragon vanishing.

  “Amethyst, what are you doing?” he demanded, surprise and anger in his voice.

  Moving with a speed and agility she didn't know she possessed, she darted forward, snatching her trousers off the bed where he had thrown them, and sprinted for the door. Giriraj was shouting her name, but all she knew was that she had to get out of there, she had to escape. All around her, the shadows under the tables and in the corners came to life, and the gentle tingling on her skin was replaced by a roaring maelstrom that threatened to consume her. All of her senses were overloaded, and she found it impossible to think.

  Clumsily, she drew on her trousers and ran barefoot to the door. Just as she reached it, bars of stone rose from the ground, sealing it shut. She reached out into the barrier and dumped a frantic surge of energy into them, causing them to shatter. As she worked her magic, she felt the stone around her draw out her strength, nearly causing her to fall. Gritting her teeth, she released a primal growl, melting the smoldering remnants of the pillars back into the gray stone. She stepped around the sharp fragments that littered the floor, threw the door open, and dashed down the hall, Giriraj's voice fading behind her as he called her name.

  Amethyst's feet slapped on the floor as she ran, her robe streaming behind her. She didn't know where she was going – she just knew that she had to run. All around her, the shadows swirled, reaching for her as she dodged her way through the Citadel. Before she knew it, she was in the library, each nook and cranny seeming to come alive, forming arms and legs and mouths full of dripping teeth. She screamed as something grabbed her arm and shook loose, bolting towards the entrance without bothering to look back.

  She held her hands up to the stone barrier in front of her and again poured as much force into it as she could. It shimmered, as if resisting her, and Amethyst's head swam, threatening to abandon her to unconsciousness.

  Go. She had to go.

  The room filled with a surge of purple light, banishing the shadow demons as she brought her hands down. The stone doors that blocked the entrance to the Citadel dissolved before her, revealing a raging blizzard outside. Without hesitating, she bolted through the door and into the driving wind and snow.

  By the time Amethyst reached the end of the bridge, the Citadel was completely lost to her sight. The cold stung her skin, feeling for all the world like she was standing too close to a roaring fire, and the driving snow struck her like thousands of bees all at once. She continued her mad dash down the trail of the ridge, stumbling in the waist deep snow. She went under its surface, and for a single blessed moment, the storm's assault was abated. Under the snow, she felt as though she were drowning, so she clawed her way to the surface, and was greeted by a fresh blast from the icy wind.

  She had made it halfway to the platform that she and Giriraj had arrived on when her feet slipped out from under her, and she rolled to her left. As she landed in the soft snow, she felt the ground sag underneath her, Even through her drug-induced frenzy, Amethyst knew that she was going to be caught in an avalanche. Images of the climber that had fallen on the way to the summit of Mount Stromgard flashed in her mind, and she clawed her way back towards the ridge, but it was too late.

  Amethyst saw a flash of the underlying stone as the sheet of snow slipped away, crumbling beneath her. She desperately reached for it, her fingertips slipping off the icy rocks as she sank into the rapidly dissolving hillside, the weight of the avalanche rolling her backward. Snow pressed in around her, falling into her clothing around her waist and through the legs of her trousers. It felt as though she were being scorched with ice, every fiber of her being screaming out in agony. She flipped again and lost track of which direction was up – all she knew was that she was rolling. She tried to reach out into the mountain to draw up some stone to catch herself on, but she had no focus and saw nothing but blinding, surging white flowing around her like a river.

  Something struck her, scraping against her shoulder and flipping her around. Amethyst cried out in pain as she continued down the slope. She tried to pull herself upward, and though her hands broke through the surface of the snow, she was almost immediately swallowed up again.

  She tried to curl up, clutching her arms and knees to her chest as the rumbling, roaring cascade of snow dragged her down the side of the ridge, but the powerful forces pulled at her, forcing her limbs away from her core.

  After what seemed to be an eternity of tumbling, she came to rest. She felt like her skin was on fire, and somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew that it was from the cold. Her equilibrium was wholly destroyed by her trip down the side of the mountain, but she was alive. She clawed at the snow around her, and it flowed into the gaps she made as she moved. She pushed herself into the direction it fell from and slowly, painstakingly dug her way
to the surface.

  She was surrounded by rough snow, tumbled and broken from its slide down the mountain. To her left was the ridge, soaring above her out of sight, small avalanches still cascading down its steep slope. To her right was a dense evergreen forest, the closest trees half buried in the snow that had carried her into the valley.

  The storm seemed less severe in the forest, so she struggled through the shifting, collapsing snow until she reached the scant protection that the trees offered. Her feet burned as she staggered across the frozen ground, and she shivered uncontrollably, clutching her ice-encrusted robe around her body. She tried to tie her robe shut, but found that she had lost her belt in her trip down the mountain.

  She needed to find shelter, and she needed to find it fast. Whatever had been in the drink that Giriraj had given her kept her jumping at shadows and losing sight of her needs. Sometimes she would stagger back, fearing that a shape in the forest was an ogre, only to see that it was nothing but a boulder or a pair of trees covered in snow.

  By the time she reached another sloping ridge that climbed up above the forest, she had lost the feeling in her feet and fingertips. Her hair was frozen to her robe, and her trousers had become stiff with frost and ice. She looked up the ridge in front of her and despair took hold. There was no way to tell if there was anything this way that might be able to protect her, to get her out of this cold that would most certainly kill her if she waited for too long.

  Summoning every piece of will she had, she reached out into the forest, searching for her element. It was buried deep beneath her in the floor of the valley, though it was much shallower at the ridge ahead of her, where the stony mountain rose above the forest. She gripped the stone with her mind and pulled it from the ground, drawing a slab from the frozen soil until it was about four feet high. She pulled another at an angle to form a sort of stone lean-to, then two more to seal both sides of the structure.

  Amethyst stumbled up to the stone and pressed her shaking hands against it. Slowly, it softened under her touch, allowing her to claw the material away like clay, digging a hole through the slab in front of her. Once it was large enough, she crawled inside and piled snow against the opening, sealing the wind outside. She reached up, scooping handfuls of stone from the inside of the crude shelter, forming it into a sphere as best she could. She held it in her hands, focusing on the energy of the earth. It was weaker here, and much harder to connect to, but she managed to form a tenuous link to the element. The sphere was not made of obsidian, nor was it well shaped, so it was inefficient, but it began warming the makeshift shelter, bringing back feeling to her hands.

  She almost wished it hadn't. The pain in her fingers was so severe that she gritted her teeth, crying out in pain as tears sprang to her eyes. She forced herself to keep her hands on the stone, warming her fingers until they gained a rosy tint. She put her feet near it as well, hunching over the source of heat in the drafty shelter.

  Exhaustion threatened to overwhelm her as she sat on the freezing ground, her head still swimming from the drink. Laying on her side, she curled around the stone, resting her head on her arm and shivering as she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  ~~~

  7th Waxing Sap Moon, Year 4368

  Amethyst lay on her back as her senses slowly returned to her. The soft clack-clack-clack of someone grinding something with a mortar and pestle filtered through a haze, as well as the crackling of a fire. While it was still cool, it was much warmer than it had been when she had fallen asleep. Slowly, she opened her eyes and struggled to sit up, pain flaring in her hands and feet.

  “Well now,” said a soft feminine voice. “Welcome back to the land of the living.”

  Amethyst turned her head and blinked, clearing her vision. She saw an elven woman sitting on a stool next to a hearth, holding a stone mortar and pestle, grinding herbs into a fine powder. She had hair as white as clouds, and skin that matched. She was older, perhaps in her fourth or fifth century, though her face held the youth that all elven kind did. She wore a simple white dress, woven from white fiber, perhaps cotton.

  “You're lying on a table,” she said to Amethyst, “So you may want to be still. You don't want to fall off.”

  “Where am I?” Amethyst croaked, her throat dry. “What happened?” Her head was pounding at even the dim light of the room, and she closed her eyes to try to shut out the pain.

  “There was an avalanche, you were presumably caught in it, tried to make yourself shelter, and passed out.”

  Amethyst scowled, keeping her eyes shut. “I remember... most of that. How did I get here?”

  Soft footsteps came closer, and then the elven woman was next to her. “When we sent our hunters to search the area for any game that may have been scared out of the path of – or killed by – the avalanche, they saw your stone shelter, since it had no snow on it. They found you inside and brought you back.” The woman raised an eyebrow at her. “You have our skin, our hair, but you cannot stand the cold. Where do you come from?”

  Amethyst opened her eyes again, squinting at the woman. “I am from Lonwick, of course.”

  The woman looked at her for a moment, before shaking her head. “That's strange indeed. Now, hold still. You have frost burns on your hands, feet, and chest. I am going to put an ointment on them, made from honey and herbs. It will be very warm, and you may feel like it is burning you, but if you wish to heal without scarring, then I would recommend you leave it on.”

  Amethyst took a deep breath and nodded, watching the woman as she prepared the mixture.

  Pulling a glass jar out of a pot of steaming water, she poured the powdered herbs into the golden honey, mixing it with a flat piece of wood. Once it was blended, she moved to Amethyst's feet and started drizzling the searing hot mixture over Amethyst's toes. She flinched and pulled away, and the woman stopped, looking up at her. Amethyst was surprised to see that she had purple eyes, almost the same color as Amethyst's own, perhaps a shade brighter.

  Gingerly, she pushed her foot down and forced herself to hold still as the woman poured the honey over her feet, spreading it with the stick as needed.

  “What is your name?” she asked, closing her eyes and measuring her breath, trying to hold still despite the pain.

  “Your people have a difficult time pronouncing my name properly,” said the woman. “You may call me Keeva. What is yours?”

  “I am Amethyst Leonus,” she said, the pain in her feet subsiding as the honey cooled.

  Keeva raised an eyebrow. “Leonus?” she said, wrapping Amethyst's feet in thin strips of white cloth. “Your father... is his name Alberic?”

  “You knew my father?”

  “I did. I met him on my travels, many, many years ago.” Keeva moved to Amethyst's side and gently lifted her hand. “He was wounded and near death, just past the border into the Northlands.”

  Amethyst nodded. “He told me about that. So you're the snow elf he met? The one that stayed in Castle Lonwick for a time?”

  Nodding, Keeva applied the mixture to Amethyst's hands, wrapping each finger individually, using the honey as a sort of glue to hold the cloth in place. “I am.”

  Amethyst had more questions she wanted to ask her, but she held her tongue. Keeva worked quickly and efficiently, spreading the honey over both of Amethyst's hands and wrapping her fingers. She leaned over Amethyst and gently pulled the robe aside, exposing her chest.

  There were angry red patches on her breasts and stomach where the snow and ice had frozen her. She had heard of Northmen getting frostbite and needing to have fingers and toes amputated, and felt a pang of worry.

  Keeva spread the ointment over the red patches of skin, the hot mixture bringing a flash of pain followed by gradual subsidence. When she finished, Keeva lay strips of cloth over the ointment, then helped Amethyst sit up. Gently, she pulled off Amethyst's robe, applied more honey to her back, then wrapped a long piece of cloth around her from just under her arms to her waist.

  “We
ll,” said Keeva, washing her hands in the pot of water that she had used to heat the honey, “that should reduce your pain as well as speed your healing. You should get some more sleep.”

  “I have a lot of questions to ask you,” said Amethyst.

  “I am certain you do,” Keeva replied, “and I have many questions for you as well. But those can wait for tomorrow.”

  She took Amethyst by the hand and helped her off the table and over to a small bed. Once Amethyst was situated, Keeva unrolled a blanket made of several lambskins stitched together and laid it over her.

  After tossing more wood on the fire, Keeva walked to the door. “I will return in the morning to check on you. We can talk more then, once you've had a chance to rest.” she said, pausing with her hand on the latch. Her violet eyes caught the flickering light of the fire. Amethyst nodded, and Keeva closed the door gently behind her.

  Amethyst lay in the bed, staring at the ceiling. She didn't know why she panicked during Giriraj's ritual. She had known what was going to happen, and she had prepared herself for it. Even with the hallucinations she had suffered of Giriraj turning into a dragon and the shadows reaching for her, she should have known that was all they were – hallucinations from the drink he had given her. Now, how could she ever go back to the Citadel? How could she ever face him again? She had doomed herself to a mundane life of mediocrity.

  Rolling to her side, Amethyst winced as she flexed her shoulder. She pulled the fur back to look at her skin and saw that it was abraded, long scratches leaving angry black scabs over the top of a dark purple and black bruise that faded to brown and finally green as it went towards her elbow. She rolled her shoulder and was relieved to not feel any pain in the joint. With any luck, the bruising would fade, and there would be no lasting damage.

  She stared into the fire, lying on her side. She still had no idea where she was, beyond the fact that she was in the home of a snow elf; the same one that had come to Lonwick before Amethyst had been born. She had remarked that Amethyst had the hair and skin of their kind... was it possible that her father had some connection to the reclusive cousins of the blonde-haired, blue-eyed southern elves of Lonwick? After all, his hair was black, like hers, and not blonde like every other elf she had ever met. That would explain Amethyst's fair complexion, violet eyes, and dark hair.