Matthias Crane's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

The cold spread faster than he could move. Matthias stood in the center of the frozen sigil, watching frost crawl across the floorboards toward the door. Outside, voices rose in alarm. The forge wasn't the only thing freezing now. The rift he'd torn open was still pulling, still hungry, and the cold was reaching for the people gathered in the square. Matthias grabbed the tome and ran. His boots skidded on the ice as he pushed through the tavern door. A tall pine tree at the edge of the square had turned blue-white, its branches heavy with ice that glittered like glass. Frost was creeping outward from its trunk in a slow wave, reaching toward the crowd backing away from the frozen forge. He had to anchor the spell now, before it spread any further. He slammed the tome open on a barrel near the tree, his fingers numb as he traced the binding sigil he should have drawn first. The words came out ragged and fast. The frost stopped moving. The pine tree remained frozen solid, but the wave reaching toward the townspeople halted three feet from the nearest boots. Matthias sagged against the barrel, his heart hammering. He'd stopped the spread, but he couldn't reverse what he'd already done. The rift was closed, the spell anchored to the frozen tree—but the forge and the pine would stay frozen until he found a way to undo the damage. He'd bought the town safety at the cost of leaving his failure standing in the square for everyone to see. A woman stumbled past him, her breath clouding in the cold. She'd dropped a candle in her rush to escape. Frost climbed its waxy surface in delicate patterns, the flame still burning at its tip even as ice gripped the base. Matthias picked it up without thinking. The warmth against his palm was small, but it was there. Fire and ice, side by side. His instructors would say it was impossible, that opposed forces couldn't coexist in a stable working. But here it was in his hand, proof that the rules bent when you pushed hard enough. Across the square, the blacksmith stood frozen mid-stride, caught in a block of clear ice. His hammer was raised above his head, his mouth open in a shout Matthias would never hear. The man's apprentice was screaming, pounding against the ice with bare fists. Matthias walked toward them, the candle still in his hand. He'd felt the fog's pattern when the spell broke open. He'd touched something old and deep, something that might lead him to the ancient working he needed. But the blacksmith's face stared at him through the ice, wide-eyed and terrified, and Matthias couldn't look away. This was the cost of cutting straight to the center. This was what happened when motion mattered more than the walls you left behind. He'd learned what he came for. Now he had to live with who paid the price.