Page 105 of Winter Gods & Serpents

We ran through the thick coniferous snow-covered forest, several men ahead of us were running away, peaking back as they murmured words in Darsan.

The princess, one of them said. They recognized her.

My magic flickered open dragging the tree shadows toward them, but they moved quick lifting a wall as my shadows crashed with theirs.

Caiden and Mal separated from us chasing few men as we entered deeper inside the forest. The group of Adriatians ahead of us split and she turned to me. “Go after that one.”

“I am not leaving you on your own.”

“I lose one of them Kilian, my father will have my head and I really love my head, I will be fine.” Her eyes rounded in beseech. “Go…please”

What was I doing? My feet moved away from her as I took one last look at her, and parted towards the other side of the forest. There was something in her voice or maybe her plea that lurched guilt in my stomach, that made me obey her. I’d seen her in a fight, she was skilled, it would do to put my restlessness to some quiet till I dealt with the man afront.

Magic creeped from me and slithered on the ground, aiming and catching the man at his feet bringing him to a halt.

“Henah, you are her guard,” he said wide eyed, panting furiously.

“What are you doing here? The Highwall not tall enough for you? Our kingdom not enough for you?”

His body trembled; fear, longing and pain circled him. “No, not enough. My family starves in Lyra, the unblessed come steal our produce and raid our homes, the last lands I farmed are now under water from the storms that have not stopped for months. Amaris is overloaded in population, the only place my family can sleep is under the stars of Henah. We did what was forced into us, survive.”

The man’s words fell hard on my ears, hearing that my body cursed in guilt—guilt of not having helped them, of not being able to help them in time before they took such choices.

“You call this survival? She will kill you, Silas will kill you.”

He shook his head. “He won’t, he is the one that employed us—saved us from the curse of our lands.”

“What?”

I begin recalling her conversation with Aster back in Kirkwall and it all clicked together. The person they had worked for was Silas. She aimed to stop Silas from using our Aura. Why? Spite? Fear?

Tears rushed down his face, and he spoke breathlessly through a cry, “I want you to know that I died for my family, for survival.”

He opened his arms wide, his eyes veiled black, dark mist leaking out of him.

“No, no, no!” My warning was too late as he begun warping in gusts of gurgling shadows.

I took off as he busted in a wave of hungry dark cloud. We called it a Malefic. It was rare magic demanding one’s life. Forbidden, branded cursed and evil. An Umbra channelled their magic to control shadows, but one could also channel it outside the body, creating shadows that extended and did not need the favours of light to be controlled. Very few—very few who were no longer alive and belonging to hundreds of years ago could manage such thing, out of all our Aura only Obscurs could produce magic—darkness magic, but those were extinct as well, only one bloodline left, the Adriatian king’s. Different from them, Umbra could only control flow of mana inside oneself, attempting to draw it out could accidentally draw life mana with it too. But the life spent from the Aura was not the worst risk, the gust of magic floating unmanned and uncontrollable out of him was.

The shadows rushed chasing behind me. I avoided its tentacles wanting to leech onto me and feed onto life to fuel their course of magic. Pure chaos, unamenable, uncontrollable. I could only hope his magic was not as strong, the best you could do was wait it out to be dispersed, wasted, or absorbed by the earth.

Everywhere was now covered in black mist to the furthest eye could see, my mind boggled a thousand thoughts. If this had arrived near the princess it would kill her, I’d have to reach her before it spread further.

“Princess,” I called onto the silent air, moving rapidly past through the dense forest. Suddenly a clang sounded nearby, and I rushed quickly towards the commotion finding her head-to-head with another.

The Malefic mist begun surrounding us, swiftly I did the only thing I could do, trap us in the middle of it. Lifting a wall of shadows around us, the mist hit the barrier, stopping and spreading around it without reaching us.

I finally turned to the princess again. Two men already dead on the white forest floor and her sword through the last man’s chest before he dropped to the ground dead at the precise strike.

She had stilled for long moments, facing away from me.

“Princess?”

Her knees wavered, collapsing her down and I ran faster than I’d ever ran before. Her expression frozen, eyes wide open, her breath shallow and stuttering. The look of pain.

I took her face in my hands. She was cold, clammy, and paler than usual. “Hey, hey, I am here, I am here. What happened?”

She trembled all over, a tear slid down her cheeks and then another. They almost made me flinch. Her eyes filled silver could make gods shake. She could not breath, clutching her chest, her mouth gaped open unable to get air in her lungs.