Frost crept over the window. A hollowness shrouded the room—one I knew well from the aching winters after my mother’s death. When I was little, this hollowness would sometimes come to our house. Then, my mother would sit by the hearth and whisper madly to it—
Until the moon has waned and waxed again.
The thought came sharply. I slid my hand into the pocket of the coat to clutch the still-warm pebble. An echo of mischievous laughter spilled like sunlight through me, thawing the ice in my veins.
Did I wish, in my final days, to do my mother such dishonor? Did I wish to die filled with memories stained with scorn and fear? To let the small-minded folk of the village in the vale have such power over me?
I took the memory with great care, as if it were an old artefact, and I cleansed it from the stain of rumors and whispers.
I found, underneath, something precious, untainted.
And I remembered... I remembered not just that my mother sat by the hearth and whispered madly to herself. No, I remembered that she wore a soft smile as she sang and that the crackle of the fire rang like music through the house. Iremembered that she and I danced merrily in streaks of mid-winter sun.
The words of the song were long lost to me, but its rise and fall remained etched into my bones. I hummed quietly, breath turning to mist as I brought the incense to the candle. I placed it gently on the tiled mantle. Sweet smoke curled in the air. A deep, lively warmth swept through the chamber and folded itself into every corner. There was a mirthful crackle as the fire burst to life.
“Welcome,” I whispered to the spirit of the hearth.
TWENTY-ONE
Littered with hazards, this town.
Islept fitfully in the nights of the waning moon.
The bed was strange, the sounds were stranger, and I often startled awake thinking I heard howls in the wind, paws in the snow, the terrible gnash of teeth in the creak of wood. When I woke, drenched in cold sweat, I’d clutch the still-warm pebble for a fleeting moment of relief.
I worked my fingers raw and blistered, twisting nettles into talismans. I tied one to the door, another to the window, one to the iron-wrought bedframe, but they repelled neither the nightmares nor the dread that surged whenever I looked outside and glimpsed the churning mists.
The storm had come swiftly for the far hills.
Until the moon has waned and waxed again.
None of us said it, but the stiffness between us betrayed what we all feared: That we would not have as long.
Almira faded. She faded with every hour and with every breath, and I could do nothing but tremble like a withered sapling in the sharp winds as I sacrificed rivulets of blood to thesoil and to the river—to no avail. The cold and the dark seized me, and the monster broke loose, and magic bled like tar from my cursed fingers. The earth around the burrow was black like a fire-scorched glade, the soil red with blood.
“Focus,” Almira snarled at me from her bed of withered autumn leaves. Her impatience wore on me, though I knew it stemmed from fear, not malice.
“You must rest,” I’d chide Adrik whenever we met for supper with Lorell, frightened to discover another shadow on his face. He cooked bland stews of whatever edible thing Lorell gathered from the shrinking stores—shrivelled potatoes, bruised apples, coarse grains, and cabbage, a lot of it.
“You too,” Adrik would murmur with a dark glance at my mangled palms.
Despair would lure us back into the cold before we’d finished our meals. Back to the burrow to spill blood into the earth. Back to the castle to prepare for the impossible task of moving a thousand people and more through snow and storm and stone.
The moon faded, just like Almira, thinning to a sickle. I glared at it, pale against the dawnlit skies, as I brushed aside the curtain of wilted roses and stepped from the teahouse. The cold bared its teeth and sank them through layers of pelt and wool—the coat no longer kept me warm. I became even colder at the sight of a deep red cloak and the only face in town that wore a permanent look of displeasure.
Malek stood among the naked trees in the square, grunting as he shook the snow from his shoes. They did not seem like the sort that kept out the cold and neither did his cloak.
“Good morning, madam,” he said as I passed. He did not look like he was having a good morning at all. I’d seen him a few times when I’d gone to the castle, weaseling around the kitchens, but never in town. “I was wondering if you could guide me to the teahouse.”
“Good morning to you, too, sir,” I said in my brightest voice. I knew from experience that those determined to be ill-tempered found nothing more irritating than being greeted with cheer. “Is it not the perfect weather for tea?”
His forehead twisted with irritation. “Yes, but where do I find it?”
“Just through this door,” I said, pulling his cloak gingerly that way. “Do you come often to the teahouse?”
“No.” He halted at the door, leaning over the frame as if to peer inside with unseeing eyes. “There is much to do at the castle.”
“No one lives there.”
