Frost Winterchase's Arc

Chapter 2 of 8

Frost stayed in the warm valley and practiced. She wanted to call more than one serpent. One had nearly slipped free. To stop the riders, she needed a whole pack under her hand. So each morning she knelt in the grass and tried. Each morning she failed. She pulled the cold inward, shaped two serpents at once, and lost them both. The forms bent wrong. Ice spat sideways and hardened the grass into brittle spikes. Once the cold whipped back and split the skin on her knuckles. She wrapped her hands and tried again. The book lay open beside her, its runes still foreign. The pictures did not show how to hold two. By the fifth day she was shaking with anger. She reached deep and forced three serpents up at once. They rose, twisted, and tore loose. Cold burst from her palms. A nearby elk with crystal horns startled and bolted. Frost fell back into the frost-crusted grass, hands raw, breath ragged. She slammed the book shut. "You are gripping it," a voice said. "That is why it breaks." An old ice elf stood at the tree line. His skin was pale blue, his beard long and white, his eyes lit like cold lamps. He wore a robe stitched with snowflakes. He had been watching her, she realized. He watched a while longer before he stepped closer. Frost scrambled up and raised her hands. "I am not your hunter," he said. "I live here. I hide, same as you." He looked at her bleeding knuckles. "You fight the cold like an enemy. It obeys enemies for a moment. Then it turns." "I have to hold them," Frost said. "Riders are coming. Many. One serpent is not enough." "So you squeeze harder." He almost smiled. "That is how you lose a hand." He knelt beside the shut book. "I taught this magic once, to someone I was forbidden to teach. My people would kill me for it. They may still." He tapped the cover. "So I understand a stolen book. But a book cannot show you the feel of it." He held out one hand. Cold gathered above his palm, slow and quiet. Three small serpents formed. They did not strain. They swam in a loose ring, calm, waiting. "You are not the fist that holds them," he said. "You are the water they swim in. Stop clenching. Make room." Frost stared. Her whole body ached from clenching. She had been doing the one thing that ruined it. "Show me," she said. The old elf let his serpents melt to mist. "I am Caeleth," he said. "I will teach you. It will hurt less. It will still hurt." Frost lowered her raw hands. Her days of failing had an answer now, and it stood in front of her. But the lesson had not started, and the riders had not stopped.