Frost Sage's Arc

Chapter 1 of 3

Frost Sage pressed her palm to the frozen lake and felt the disaster coming. She wanted to build an order of seers who could stop such things before they killed. But first she had to read this one warning, and the ice would not speak plainly. Shapes moved under the surface. A crowd. A collapse. Screams she could almost hear. She could not tell where, or when, or who. She had walked out of the blizzard to reach this lake. Her staff bore a cracked shard of old glacier ice, cold enough to sting her hand. She had always known things she should not. But knowing was not enough. A wrong warning would send frightened people running the wrong way. She had seen a false seer do that once. People died in the crush. "Show me true," she said. The vision only blurred worse. A small dragon landed on the ice beside her. It was no larger than a cat, its scales pale blue, its wings thin as frost on glass. It tilted its head and studied her face. Then it breathed a slow cold mist across the lake. Where the mist touched, the ice went smooth and clear as polished glass. Frost Sage leaned close. The vision sharpened at once. She saw a house of brown timber with warm lit windows and flower boxes at the sills. She saw a roof heavy with snow. She saw the beams inside crack, then break. She saw people asleep beneath them. She knew the house. It was the shelter where wanderers slept for a meal and a warm floor. A ragged young man chopped wood there for his keep. She had passed it on the road that morning. The dragon's mist gave her the smooth surface she needed. The blur was gone. Now she could see the true danger, and she could name it. Frost Sage stood. Her knees ached from the cold ground. "Tonight," she said. "The roof gives way tonight." The little dragon lifted from the ice and circled her once. She raised her arm, and it settled on her shoulder like it had chosen her. She turned toward the road. The wind was rising again, and snow already fell thick on every roof for miles. She had her warning now, clear and certain. But the shelter sat far off, and the storm had beaten her here first. If she was slow, the beams would break before she reached the door. She gripped her staff and started walking fast into the wind.