Annie Hayden's Arc

Chapter 9 of 27

The fire in the wide hearth had burned low. Annie stood in the middle of the great room, holding her wand, and realized she had nowhere to go. Frostwyn had said to rest, but no one had said where. Outside, the wind pushed against the pointed windows. The cold pressed through the stone walls. Her thin jeans and crop top did nothing against it. If she slept in a chair by a dying fire, she would wake stiff and weak. Dawn training would break her before it began. Frostwyn leaned on his crystal-topped staff and studied her. "You shiver already," he said. "A student who freezes tonight is no student tomorrow." He turned to his son. "Kaelen. She cannot bed down in the hall." Kaelen frowned at the hearth, then at the stairs. "There is the spare room above," he said. "It has a hearth of its own." "Then light it," Frostwyn said. He struck his staff once on the floor and shuffled toward his own chamber. "I have no patience for a frozen apprentice." Kaelen led Annie up the curving stairs. The spare room was small and clean. A narrow bed sat under a window. He knelt at the little hearth, stacked wood, and pressed his hand to it. Frost crept from his fingers first, then blue light, then flame. The fire caught. Warmth spread across the floor. The fox trotted in, circled once, and settled by the hearth with its tail glowing. "This will do," Kaelen said. He looked at her thin clothes and his face tightened. "But those will not." He left and returned with a folded bundle. On top lay a green dress with silver leaves stitched down the sleeves. Under it lay something Annie did not expect. Fitted layers of soft leather and green cloth, shaped for movement, with guards for the arms and shins. "The dress for the house," Kaelen said. "The other for the arena. My father's training will tear anything less." He set the bundle on the bed. "You cannot fight the cold in what you crossed over in." Annie touched the leather guard. It was the first thing in this world made to fit her, not borrowed, not given in pity. "Thank you," she said. "For all of it. Even when I didn't trust you." Kaelen paused at the door. "Sleep. He begins the moment the sun clears the ridge." Then he was gone. Annie changed out of her jeans and pulled on the dress. It hung warm and light. She laid the training garb across the chair where she could reach it fast. The fire snapped. The fox breathed slow beside it. For the first time since the mushroom ring, she had a warm bed, a closed door, and clothes for what came next. She lay down and stared at the ceiling. She had a room. She had a teacher. Now she only had to survive his first lesson.