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The burly man looked over his shoulder at the long, red tapestry.
“Will you promise to bring it back?”
“On my power as a witch.”
“Take it, then. It’s no use to me if you have a better need.”
“Precautionary.” I waved a hand, letting magic rejuvenate me as the storm pulsed outside, giving me a boost I didn’t need. The banner shrank to the size of a handkerchief, and I shoved it in my pocket.
“And if I don’t see you in a day or two?” he asked, wringing his hands with worry.
I plopped four coins onto the counter. “Then the room is paid for.”
He swiped the money and hobbled his way around to take my hands. “It’s not the coin I’m worried about. You’re a good tenant, to be sure. Hardly knew you were up there, but Atlas would have my hide if he knew I let you go traipsing off into this storm.”
“Should that ever become a problem, I will tell him you insisted I stay, and I had to sneak away.”
He pressed the coins back into my hand. “Should that man turn up here looking for you, I’m afraid it will be too late for all of that. Keep the coins. There’s a cabin halfway between this village and the castle, nestled into a line of dead trees. That’s Bertie’s place. She’s a mean, old coot, but she’ll give you shelter and a hot meal for these.”
I didn’t plan on stopping, but the careful way his face wrinkled between his bushy brows told me he’d only find peace with a half-hearted promise.
20
“Follow the snow-covered gap between the buildings until you make it out of the village,” the innkeeper had told me.
Sound advice unless the storm was too powerful and you couldn’t see beyond the stretch of your own arm. In a blizzard, it doesn’t matter how much snow is falling when the wind and moisture swallow the details of the world. I had an extraordinarily strong sense of direction thanks to my hunting endeavors, but even that skill was lost to the fury of nature.
As I trudged through snow as deep as my knees and drifts that could bury me, it wasn’t long until I knew I should have waited. I could have given it a day and started fresh in the morning. But my heart wouldn’t let me sit in that inn, picturing Atlas wandering the world, lost and alone. No matter my plight in this blizzard, his was likely worse.
Most of my Solstice hunting was done while traveling through snow and always in the cold winter, but I’d never walked through a blizzard that tried to erase the world as if something had infuriated the goddess and she was showing her wrath.
I tried to keep a straight line of footprints behind me, but within four or five paces, they were filled in. The world had been swallowed by white, wind whipping and ice forming on my frozen lashes. There were no trees. No visible landmarks at all, and though I’d wrapped myself in layer after layer, exposing only my eyes, the chill had set in.
Hours into the day, I thought maybe the storm had finally relented. The cold no longer bit as hard, the wind seemed to silence, and the muscles in my legs felt as if they worked a little less. Only when I realized that I’d become numb to everything around me, including my own self-awareness, did the worry set in. There was no end in sight. I’d never be able to see a pearly white castle in the distance, no matter how close I came. It could have been right beside me, and I’d have never known.
Eventually, the goddess—and whatever war she raged—won, and I could no longer move. I could not force a single step more. I collapsed into a snowdrift, nearly burying myself. Struggling to move, constricted from the layers of clothing and protest of my body, it took several tries before I could get the innkeeper’s tapestry from my pocket and cast to make it large again, covering me in bright red like a blanket. I thought maybe the insulation from the snow would warm me enough to push onward. But as my eyes refused to battle one second more, as icy lashes fell upon frozen cheeks, the universe won, and I’d likely die frozen and alone.
Always alone.
* * *
The light of the full moon kissed my cheeks, drawing some kind of fight out of my exhausted body as the sound of fabric snapping yanked me back to a world determined to send me to an early pyre. Blurred vision gave only a hint of a large, masculine figure standing over me.
The storm had passed. Or so the mirage would have me believe as I blinked and brought frozen fingers to my eyelids, trying desperately to clear the blur. He was there. Rimmed in moonlight. And maybe I couldn’t see the lines of his face or the details that made him beautiful. But those eyes twinkled with starlight, reaching into my chest and ripping my heart to pieces.
I couldn’t save him. I hadn’t saved myself, either. Only the brink of death would deliver such a cruel and desperate vision.
My heart had conjured Atlas.
“Go away,” I croaked, though my voice was hardly a whisper, the edges of my sight turning black as oblivion threatened to steal me once more.
The red fabric snapped again, wrenching me into reality as I waited for the man I’d failed to fade away.
“Trust me, Frostbite. You don’t really want me to do that.”
The smooth tone of his voice was echoed as if he stood at the end of a long corridor, speaking only loud enough for the world to carry those words to the tips of my consciousness.
I couldn’t feel a single limb as brawny arms reached around my numb body and lifted me. Forcing my eyes open, the man turned into the moonlight, stopping my heart from beating.
