Frost Winterchase's Arc

Chapter 1 of 8

Frost Winterchase gripped her hands into fists to keep them from freezing the grass. She was an ice elf, and the frost magic in her blood had woken wild. Somewhere behind her, riders still hunted her across the ice. Only one thing could stop them. She had to master this magic. But raw, it obeyed nothing, not even her. She knelt at the edge of the warm valley. Gentle creatures grazed near her, small and slow, unafraid. Winterberry bushes hung heavy at her side. She wanted to practice, but she feared what would happen. One slip could turn these soft animals to ice. Or the cold could twist back and take her hands. Inside her pack lay a weathered book she had stolen the night she fled. Its cover showed a snowflake ringed by runes she could not read. She had been afraid to open it. She opened it now. The pages held drawings of a serpent, sleek and pale, its body scaled with frost. The runes beside it were foreign, but the pictures were clear. Cold was not to be forced outward. It was to be called and held. The book showed a shape to make with the hands, a way to gather the cold into one thing instead of letting it spill. Frost tried. She pulled the cold inward, the way the drawings showed. Her breath came out white. The grass at her knees stiffened, then held. She shaped the cold above her open palms. A form took hold. Ice curled and stretched. It grew a head, then a long body, scales shining pale. The serpent from the book coiled in the air before her, alive with her magic. It turned its head. Its eyes were bright blue. It watched her, waiting. Her heart pounded. This was the shape the magic wanted. Not a blast thrown out to freeze whatever it touched, but a made thing she could aim and command. The nearby creatures had not frozen. Her hands did not burn. The cold ran through the serpent instead of through her. But the serpent tested her. It pulled against her hold, hungry to move on its own. She felt the strain in her arms, in her chest. Hold it, the book had shown. If she let go, it would break loose and freeze all it touched. Frost breathed slow. She tightened her grip on the cold. The serpent stilled, then bowed its head to her. It sank back into her palms and left only mist. She sat in the grass, shaking, alive. The magic had not turned on her. She could shape it now, and she could hold it. But she had felt how badly it wanted free. One serpent had nearly slipped her grasp. The riders were many, and closing. To stop them, she would need to call more than one. And she did not yet know if she could hold a storm of them without it turning on her.