I laughed, a single, mirthless expelling of air. “Death has a name?”
“He has many,” he said, those vibrant, amber eyes glinting.
I took a moment to catch my breath before asking, “What do you want? Why are you here again?”
That smile returned. “To pay my respects, of course.”
He took the hat off his head and bowed deeply, flourishing his cloak. His long, dark auburn hair fell in thick waves over each shoulder.
I backed away another step.
Death—Sadriel—straightened and replaced the hat atop his head. “You are queen of the forest now, empress of the wild.” He grinned. “You have been at it for days!”
“So you’ve come to mock me,” I spat.
“Has no one else?” he asked, glancing about the glade. “But that’s right—there is no one else.”
Those few words crushed my anger to crumbs, and a wintry breeze stole them away from me, leaving me with nothing but my emptiness. But I refused to cry again.
Sadriel stepped forward. This time I did not move.
“My offer stands,” he said. “I can help you.”
The smile returned to his lips, and he got down on one knee and opened his arms to me. “Come with me, Smitha.”
My hands began to throb from their tight grip on my bag, but I didn’t loosen them. “To be queen of hell?”
He barked a laugh. “I’d have none to rule beside me, Smitha. Certainly not a mortal, however obscured your mortality might be. But I could make you free.”
I frowned and forced half-frozen spit down my throat. “Would I have to die?” I whispered, shocked to hear the question pass my lips. Still, I pressed on. “I would, wouldn’t I?”
He lowered his arms. “Not in the way you know death. You would merely . . . change. No sickness, no aging, and very little pain.” He snapped his fingers. “You would hardly notice. I’d even make it fun, just for you.”
The glade around us darkened, the storm overhead thickening as it always did when I stayed stationary too long. I almost laughed, but instead quipped, “No one can ‘merely change.’”
I gazed at him for a long moment, feeling the chills shoot up my arm and legs. Then I asked, “Could you make me warm again?”
“Smitha,” he said, folding his arms, “with or without me, you will never be warm again.”
A single snowflake fell between us as his words—his proposition—floated over me.
Never. The finality of the word was unacceptable to me.
I shook my head. “No. No.”
The faintest frown touched Sadriel’s lips, but a grin quickly hid it. After bowing one last time, he dissipated, leaving me alone in the forest once more.
I hesitated for a moment before walking to the spot where he had stood and waving my hand through the air, half expecting to find some remnant of him. Nothing. I was alone. As Sadriel had said, there was no one else.
My rejection did not deter Sadriel from visiting me as I continued my march north—he sometimes called when the noon sun shone beyond the congested sky above me, or I would awaken in the middle of the night to see him watching the burning embers of my fire. The heavy snow and bitter winds never once touched him.
On none of his visits did he help me. He would neither stoke the fire nor help me gather wood. When attempts to wash my clothes in ever-freezing water left me in tears, he never offered a hand, not even when I begged it of him. He only came to chat or silently observe, rarely staying for more than a quarter hour. But every time he appeared—every time, even when they were the only words he spoke—he presented his offer to me, and I refused. His promises meant nothing to me if they could not make me change. Still, part of me was comforted by his visits, for as I struggled to survive the cruel restrictions of my curse, Sadriel was the only company I had, however fleeting. I confess there were times when I craved his company so badly, when I felt so utterly alone, that I convinced myself to accept his offer, to join him in the realm beyond—as a servant, as a lover, as anything he would allow me to be, for what Sadriel wanted seemed to change by the day, and he never spoke directly. Fortunately, Sadriel never appeared during those moments of despair, only in times of clarity.
He finally asked me, after nearly two months in the wilderness, “Why do you go north?” He grinned, following a pace behind me, watching my worn shoes pick their way through a rocky mountain pass. “You’re not seeking wizards, are you?”
I glanced back at him. “What do you know of wizards?”
He laughed. “I love wizards. They’re always killing one another in the most fascinating ways.”
My steps slowed, but I kept moving forward.
“Do you know how their magic works?” he asked, clasping his hands behind his back. “They harvest manna from the bowels of the earth, scraping it out of the bodies of beasts that died long before your kind ever took form. They covet it, kill for it, then eat it until their eyes glass over and their brains fill the realms adjacent to yours. Sometimes they die from it, but they take the risk in the name of ‘magic.’” He chuckled again. “Good luck getting one to use his manna on you. Then again, you already have, once.”
A fresh chill ran down the back of my head and zigzagged over my spine. I did not entirely understand Sadriel’s description, and I still don’t, but I did not press for further explanation. “They’re my only hope.”
Before Sadriel could dispel the claim and repeat his monotonous offer to me, I asked, “Where are they? Where can I find them?”
He glanced ahead, over narrow valleys, to where the mountains grew thin, spiky, and white. “You know where they are, Smitha. So far north even you could blend in.”
He vanished and I, my mouth dry, moved onward. And I did blend in—the snowcaps on the mountain peaks gradually moved down until they filled the valleys with seas of white. I assumed I’d passed into Yorkishan, a small, sparsely populated country ruled by a regent rather than a prime minister, as was the custom in Iyoden. Beyond the fact that it exported coal and people spoke Northlander, I knew little about it.
I found new, bizarre villages of men and women so pale they almost looked blue beneath their furs. Avoiding the main roads that would lead to larger cities, I trekked through the mountains until I reached Yorkishan’s northern border, where the people lived in tiny, weather-beaten houses. I passed near one or two villages when I could find no other route northward. Though travelers had to be rare in this part of the world—and I, the rarest of all—those who saw me said nothing, only kept their heads down and went about their work. One man caught me stealing a few pathetic, half-filled sausage casings from his smokehouse and didn’t even bother to stop me. In my haste to flee back into the scant wood, I overheard one shivering woman telling another, “—screeching again. The initiation. If they involve us, I’ll kill myself. I won’t lose another baby.”
It didn’t take me long to learn why. These were people who knew better than to dabble in enchantments or the enchanted.
I continued my northward trek through mountains so high I would never see their peaks, even without my storm. The air about them smelled strange, something like spoiled wine: sweet, tangy, and nauseating. Between these mountains stretched a passage so tall and narrow no sunlight could reach its floor, and I knew without explanation that beyond it lay the territory I sought—the land where the wizards lived.
But around this pass hung horrors upon horrors—men, women, even children and animals strung up by their ankles or necks, cut up in the most terrible ways or mutilated to look like demons and fairy-tale chimera. Magicked in ways that made me retch those precious sausages onto the snow. If this was the working of wizards, I wanted none of it.
I ran from that place, never stopped by the locals who seemed to fear me as much as they did the wizards. Taking advantage of their humility, I stole provisions from them so I wouldn’t have to forage on my way back. So I could put as much space between myself and that unknown world as possible.
“H
ow do you stand it?” I asked Sadriel when he appeared to me again, weeks later, somewhere near Iyoden. I sat before a fire, smashing walnuts between rocks and harvesting what little meat fell from their centers. My hair—now white to my chin, the blond quickly fading—fell in a braid down my back. “What the wizards do . . . How does it not bother you?”
“I see such things every day,” he answered, nonchalant, pacing about my fire. “But if you came with me, I would hide it from you.”
I scoffed. “Why do you care?” It had been roughly three months since my village cast me away. Three months without the slightest waiver in my predicament, either for good or for ill. “Why do you persist, after so long?”
“Because you’re fascinating,” Sadriel answered, leaning against the trunk of a pine tree some six paces away. “The living do not see me, and the dead do not hear, but you can do both. You are special, Smitha. And you are beautiful, even with your aged hair and gnarled hands.”
I frowned and focused on my walnuts. Though I had prided myself on my looks for most of my life, I hardly thought myself beautiful now. We lingered somewhere in northern Iyoden, though where precisely, I could not be sure. There was a village some five miles south of me, and I admit to having considered entering its confines to steal as I had done in the far north. I needed clean clothes and better food than what I could forage. I still had not dismissed the idea, but I did not have the courage to approach the town after what I had witnessed at that pass.
“And think,” Sadriel continued, staring off into the valley beneath us, “how much more beautiful you’ll be when mortality no longer drags on you, and without these dismal clouds hovering over you day in and day out.”
He made a weak, skyward gesture with his hand.
I cracked another walnut and struggled to collect the pieces with the limited dexterity of my fingers.
Grabbing another nut, I placed it before me and lifted my rock, but Sadriel stopped my hand. Whether he had walked over to me or merely flashed himself closer, I had not seen.
“You need me, Smitha,” he said, taking the stone from my grasp. “Think of it this way, if you will. A wizard’s magic—your curse—is held by the laws of the mortal realm. Leave the mortal realm, and the curse loses its power.”
The gooseflesh that covered me stiffened, like a pheasant newly plucked. I met his gaze, his amber eyes penetrating me, and for a moment I felt naked, the worn fibers of my dress stripped away.
I forced my eyes from his and took back my stone. “You told me I would always be cold, didn’t you?” I asked, smashing the walnut. “That I couldn’t change? No, Sadriel. Please don’t ask me again. You know my answer.”
Why I managed to so readily reject his offer, I’m not sure, even today. Leaving with him would have been a simple matter. I know I wished to see my family again, for the memory of my fleeting farewell to them had come to pain me. Maybe, deep inside, I was unwilling to believe the curse would last forever.
Perhaps I said no simply because I did not trust Sadriel. His words were too careful, his eyes too sly. His being extended so far beyond the scope of my own that I could not begin to fathom what accepting him would have meant for me.
“Think on it,” he said, standing. “If nothing else, I can offer you a real bed and better food.”
I crushed my last walnut, and when I looked up again Sadriel had disappeared. Slowly chewing the nut, I gazed out into the valley and noticed that snow was falling beyond the force field that followed me. A cool autumn had settled on the outside world. For a brief moment, I reflected on Sadriel’s words.
Change. Could I change? Could I possibly break the curse myself? I did not see how such a thing could be possible, but I clung to the idea. I had no resources, no contacts, and my heart beat as cold as it had that first day in the willow-wacks. Surely Mordan had not built me a curse fragile enough to break.
I gathered my harvest, left the broken shells behind, and followed the line of the mountains west, away from the unnamed village below. I had no idea how to begin the task I had laid out for myself, and in my desperation for survival, I put little effort into the venture.
CHAPTER 6
I never adapted to the cold.
Even the most stubborn of pains can be forgotten when one is distracted by a good book or song, or when chores demand the mind’s full attention. My curse worked differently. Even after a full year under Mordan’s spell, the cold still bit down to my bones. I never grew accustomed to it, and not once did I forget its presence. Sleep provided my only respite from the insufferable chill, yet even in the bliss of slumber my body shuddered with winter. Dreams where I was myself—my old self—became less and less frequent, but I clung to the few I had despite the sting of awakening from them. Memories of warmth, of home, of family. How desperately I missed my family—my mother’s home cooking, my father’s laugh, Marrine’s candor. I no longer held any ill feelings for them, for a year spent alone had opened my eyes to my own shortcomings.
I spent most of true winter in the valleys, for the natural snows in the mountains grew too steep for me to ascend. I ran out of food quickly, no longer able to forage. It took a toll on my frostbitten body, making me gaunt and doll-like. More than once I snuck into nearby villages or townships at night, when the natural snow blew hard and masked my curse. I stole whatever I could find—eggs, oats, even chickens, though the relentless weather made fires nearly impossible and forced me to eat most of my meat raw. Sadriel found this especially amusing, though I saw less of him in those months. More men died in winter than any other time of year. At least, I assumed that was what kept Death away.
I tried not to steal too much from any one village, for I feared being seen. I knew the distaste my own village held for wizards and the craft; I could only imagine the disdain others had for those cursed by it.
As soon as the earth began to warm and the snow melted, I climbed back into the mountains somewhere on the west edge of Iyoden, and there I remained, moving between camps when my snow grew too deep. I carefully built a fire to dry my newly snow-scrubbed clothes. They all needed mending, but I had not thought to bring a sewing kit with me, all those months ago. I doubted my inflexible fingers could manage a needle, besides.
I sat near the fire, my skirt pulled up to midthigh so it wouldn’t burn, the worn volume of Ancient Phonetics of Larcott sitting beside me on the earth. I watched the flames caress my frozen hands and taste the tiny cuts along my knuckles and the icy calluses of my fingers. No matter how long I kept them in the pit, the fire’s heat never touched me.
I kept my long, white hair tucked into the back of my dress, for it would burn, and I still fancied it after spending a year in the wild, despite knowing the atrocity of my appearance. I had not seen a mirror since I left Euwan, fortunately.
My braid slipped from my collar and I started. Looking back, I saw Sadriel behind me, deftly unbraiding the strands. I made no effort to pull down my skirt and make myself modest—after so long on my own, I hardly thought of such things anymore.
“No old men to escort today?” I asked, turning back to the fire. “No sick children? Birthing mothers? Soldiers?”
He didn’t answer me. He simply finished unbraiding my hair and ran his fingers through it. I bit down hard to keep my teeth from chattering as he worked through a snag. Finally he picked himself up and found a seat across the fire. The flames’ heat didn’t bother him any more than the brisk cold of the mountain morning did. They didn’t bother either of us.
He leaned his cheek on his fist and watched me for a long moment.
“You could turn over that chemise,” I said, jutting my chin toward my drying laundry.
He made no move to do so. “Have you reconsidered my offer?”
“Do I ever?” I picked up a coal and turned it over in my fingers.
“You’ve been in these mountains a long time,” he said. “It’s not like you to remain stationary. The cold must have reached the nearby village by now. How sad, after such a
harsh winter.”
I frowned, thinking of Euwan. I had lived as a cursed woman for only three days within its borders, yet because of me Bennion had died, and many others had sickened. I may have killed livestock, too, and ruined countless crops. That guilt weighed heavily on me, pushing against my slow, cold heart. I never had apologized, not even to the Hutcheses for killing their little boy.
“I don’t need you to remind me,” I whispered, not sure if he could hear my words over the crackling of the fire.
Mordan still haunted my thoughts every day—it was impossible not to think of him. The anger I held for that man, the contempt, was often the only fuel that got me up in the mornings. I would brush off my blankets of snow and live another day, if only to spite him. Still, I realized I could have—should have—dealt with him more gently. Despite what he had done to me, the horrors he had unleashed on my life, I believed his feelings for me had been sincere.
“Oh, but you do,” Sadriel said, grinning as usual. He reached across the fire—the flames bent away from him—and stroked my jaw. “Because I’m the one who can make you forget. It’s been too long, Smitha. Come with me. The dead make poor companions.”
I jerked away.
He didn’t quite frown, but his lips pressed into a thin line for a fleeting moment. He stood, adjusted his hat, and said, “By the way, there are hunters with dogs heading up the mountain. You may want to run, or you’ll be in my domain sooner than expected, and not in the manner I would prefer.”
He grinned and tipped his hat.
I stiffened at his words and pulled my hands from the fire. “There can’t be,” I protested. “I’ve stayed far enough away from the villages. My curse doesn’t reach them!” I stabbed my finger upwards, toward my eternal storm, to illustrate my point.
“Ah,” said Sadriel as he faded away, “but it reaches the springs.”
My breath caught in my throat. I leapt to my feet and peered higher up the mountain. Springs ran down from the snowcaps up there; I had passed them often between camps.
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