Briar Thorne's Arc

Chapter 4 of 11

The bound thread held. Warmth spread from the fox kit, and the frost let go one bloom at a time. Briar knelt over a planter and eased a pink flower free of its ice. Beside her, the kit stretched and yawned, moonlight rippling along its fur. For the first time, the garden felt like it might live. Then the kit stopped. Its ears went flat. A low sound came from the dark at the garden's edge. Briar rose slowly. A gaunt shape stepped onto the stone. It was tall as she was, ribs sharp under white fur, black antlers branching wide above its skull. Ice cracked along its legs as it moved. Its eyes fixed on the fox. The warmth of the garden had drawn it here, and it was starving. The fox pressed against Briar's leg. She understood at once. If the beast took the kit, the fire died, and the garden died with it. She could not tend a single bloom while it prowled between the planters. Briar spread her fingers. Frost was her one gift. She flung a sheet of ice across the stone. The beast slid, caught itself, and kept coming. Cold did not frighten a creature made of it. So she stopped fighting the cold. She fought the hunger instead. Briar scooped up the fox and ran to the far planters, the ones still frozen thick. The beast followed, jaws snapping near her heels. She reached the deepest ice and set the kit down behind her. Then she drove her hands into the frost and pulled. Old blooms broke loose in her fingers, red and pink, sweet with the smell of thawing sap. She threw them wide across the open stone. The beast's head swung toward the scent. It lunged past her at the scattered flowers and tore into them, gulping frozen petals and melting ice. While it fed, Briar climbed the low garden wall with the fox in her arms. She found the crack she had marked days ago, a narrow gap in the stone below the planters. She pushed the kit inside and pressed her back to the opening. The beast raised its head, petals hanging from its jaws. It smelled the fire again and charged. Briar waited until its antlers filled her sight. Then she loosed all her frost at once, not at the beast, but at the stone above the crack. Ice sheeted the wall slick. The beast hit it, slid sideways, and crashed against the planters. Blooms and broken ice buried its head. It thrashed, then wrenched free and bolted downslope into the dark. Its cracking steps faded. Briar sat in the wreckage, breathing hard. Half the flowers she had freed lay eaten or crushed. But the fox crept out unharmed and licked her hand. Its warmth returned to the ground. The hunter was gone. So was much of what she had saved. To wake the rest before the cold season ended, she would need more warmth, and faster.