Frost Winterchase's Arc

Chapter 6 of 8

The morning after she fed her wild serpent, Frost brought the old book to Caeleth. She wanted the next lesson. He sat under the frost tree, tracing runes on the cracked cover. The snowflake lock glinted. She told him she was ready to feed all her serpents from herself, the way she had saved the wild one. Caeleth did not open the book. "You saw one lesson," he said. "You did not see the rest. The feeding you learned is half a technique. The other half stops it from taking too much." He set the book down. "Use it wrong, and you will not just spend yourself. You will tear the bond loose. The serpent goes wild again. You stand alone with no pack when the riders come." Frost knelt beside him. "Then teach me the other half." "I cannot read all of it," Caeleth said. "This is old script. My teacher never finished with me. I know the giving. I do not know the closing." He met her eyes. "If you feed them without it, you gamble every time." Frost looked at her three summoned serpents in the grass. The bonded one circled her wrist, bright and strong. She thought of a dozen riders and no defense. She could wait, or she could learn by doing. "Then I find the closing myself," she said. She called all four serpents close. She opened her hands and let them draw, the way the dying one had drawn. The pull hit her spine, sharp and cold. Her three summoned serpents brightened. But the bonded one pulled harder, and she felt the bond stretch thin, ready to snap. Caeleth gripped her shoulder. "Now close it. Do not push. You surrender to open. To close, you name what is yours and hold it." Frost fixed her mind on the bonded serpent. Not the magic pouring out, but the thread between them. She did not grip her power. She gripped the belonging. Mine, she thought. Come back. The pull slowed. The thread firmed. The serpent's scales cleared and it wound tight to her arm, still hers. She sat back, drained but whole. Four serpents circled her, all fed, all bonded. She had found the closing. Across the valley grass, a new shape formed from her leaking cold. It stood tall as a horse, with legs like sharp frost and a body of pale glass. An ice steed, drawn by the pack's magic, its eyes cold and watching. It had not existed before she opened herself so wide. Caeleth stared at it. "That is not a serpent," he said. "You called something larger. Something the old script warns of." His voice dropped. "Feeding four at once draws things you did not summon. You closed the bond. You did not close the door." The frost steed took one step toward Frost, waiting to see what she would do.