Page 118 of Autumn Queens & Shadows

I waved at them. “On her side, I’m afraid.”

“Aren’t you going to tell me to stop?” she asked me. Looking ahead at the villagers, her shadows flashing uncontrollably with more shades of colour than I'd ever seen as an Empath.

“Do you want to stop?”

She cocked her head to the side and thought about it for a minute, the colour of anger and hate growing a bit more prominent than the others. “Not really.”

“Then why should I tell you to stop?”

“Isn’t it the right thing?”

“Since when am I a moral compass, little bird?”

“Please,” the little boy beside her pleaded, crying. “Please do not hurt my grandma. She is all I have.”

Everyone halted in their tracks as Thora looked down at the boy, hate and anger disappearing from her colouring entirely. A shade of gloom falling over the rest of her emotions. “Sometimes, it is better to have nothing rather than something that will corrupt you to the point that you will feel empty and alone even in the midst of a crowd, surrounded by people, being hugged by a loved one, when you desperately need comfort. Even a rose will start to wilt next weed.”

The boy shook his head. “I’ll grow up to be good. You have my promise.”

“I do?”

He nodded and Thora's eyes glazed over as she gave him one of her smiles. Not the one I thought she’d give him. The one she usually hid because too many had wanted to take that soft smile and twist it. “Once, I said the same. Look at me now.”

A shrill pierced the silence and all of our attention rose to the hills and cliffs surrounding the village. Hundreds of six legged creatures resembling spiders and a deer melded together began descending down to us. Soon, that number turned to thousands. There were so many of them surrounding the village that I didn’t know which side to be aware of first.

“Protection,” Thora absently said. “They’ve come to protect the village.”

“No,” the young boy by her side murmured. “They never come close to us. The narok are never supposed to. They’re pure magic and we could taint them, and that could kill them.”

The largest among the creatures slowly made its way to where she was standing. And rooted on the spot as if she’d been bewitched, Thora did not move at all.

“Little bird,” I called, readying to step ahead when the boy grabbed my hand, drawing my attention to him.

He shook his head and then pointed to the creature which had reached Thora close enough to pierce an antler through her with ease. “We do not disturb them either. If the narok wants to get near her, she has no choice but to let it.”

As if possessed, she reached a hand forward and touched it. The spot on the creature’s head lit up like a glow, and a pitched bell sound ghosted over the air. It was followed by gasps. Hundreds of gasps from the Isline villagers who watched the scene unfold with wide eyes and an expression that almost bordered between awe and terror.

“Valeria,” another boy murmured. “Only she could touch the narok.”

“What?”

“She looks like the winter bride. Krig’s wife,” he told me. “He was ice, and she was the brisk wind, a guardian of the Sky God. He gave the land winter and she gave it soul. Ice has no soul. Ice is ice. Winter does though. Because of Valeria.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Because Valeria’s heart was buried here,” another older kid said. “She loved this land and the mountains. It reminded her of home in the heights of Caelum. When she found out Krig’s magic wouldn’t let anything survive in Isea, she asked for her heart to be buried here, to keep the land and its people alive. She was the winter nature itself.”

The creature suddenly stepped away, startling Thora when it shrieked loudly enough to make the ground shake.

More of a warning than a threat.

She’d not been the only one distracted, I’d been, too. An arrow pierced through the frosted wind and shot just an inch away from her face, grazing my shoulder when I faded close to push her away.

The spider-like creatures shrilled again and then marched down from the above ground towards the village, almost trampling over us and the villagers who were still frozen still under Thora’s control.

Her small hand cupped my arm, trying to stop the bleeding as the animals swarmed around us, stomping and shaking the ground.

“It’s nothing.”