Page 10 of Winter's Echo
The low height of the branches I stayed in through the night gave me a better vantage point than I would have had on the ground, but the dark, densely packed trunks still limited my visibility.
I listened to my surroundings, wildlife too small to see on the ground, rustled through the snow without fear. Birds took flight around me, ignoring me as they started their morning.
I hesitated, and then slowly, I let out a thin trickle of magic. My fingers sketched out a quick pattern, a Glyph. One I’d learned in passing from a merchant's tent two years ago, as they tried to sell wall hangings with the magical glyphs of the Verei Kahn.
I waited as I felt my magic respond to the command. Glyph magic was the foundation of magic on the continent. It was the easiest to learn, they said, for those Chosen to attend one of the four magical institutes across the four lands.
Only the Chosen could learn to develop the magic within them. Only the Chosen were fortunate enough to be born with the power of the gods.
I felt my magic return to me, letting me know no other humans lurked in the shadows of the trees nearby.
With a smug smile, I descended from the trees to the crisp snow below. Hefting my pack over my head and shoulder, letting the strap rest cross-body, I set off, eager to keep distance between me and the town of Eirhollow.
I had been born with the spark of magic, but I was not Chosen.
Ichosenot to be.
Instead, I lived my life on my own terms, with my own rules, and I used the magic I had been born with, sparingly and with care.
I never used it when I was leading a trader or a caravan of travelers. Too many people saw too much, more than was good for them. Any hint of magic, and I would be handed over to the nearest Watch or Guard and put on a wagon to the nearest Institute of the Verei Kahn.
Instead, I froze in the wilds of my homeland and scraped for food like everyone else who was born without magic. I lived like the others, and in doing so, I made sure I never stood out. I drew no attention to myself.
Unless I had been caught stealing a coin purse.
Typical.
The fact that he deserved more than his purse cut from him wouldn't matter to the watchmen at all.
As I made my way through the trees, the rough terrain masking my footprints naturally in the snow, I kept my magic bound, relying on my human senses to navigate the trail to the next village.
A tern flew overhead, a sharp kip to let me know I’d probably disturbed them as I passed their nesting place.
I watched it fly across the gray gloom of morning and cursed myself for not mastering the bow better. I could have been eating that for dinner.
My other brother, Derva, tried one summer to teach me how to use the bow, but in the end, we decided that close combat was better for me — and those around me — because I kept missing my targets.
The walk to the next village was long, rough, and cold.
Crystallese was always frigid, but during the coldest months, it felt like a physical assault. Snow and hail had been battering me since I left the shelter of the trees. The sharp wind howled, drowning out all other noise, but I knew I was making progress. My staff dug into the snow, aiding me as I walked through the snowdrifts.
Few towns and villages in Crystallese were far apart. We were a land that relied heavily on its neighbors. When the cold could kill you between one and the next, you built close or you didn't survive long enough to build at all. But surviving close togetherdidn't mean surviving alone. We needed the south the way a fire needed air. We just didn’t have to like it.
I was close enough to Collharrow to see smoke rise from chimneys in the frozen air before I crested the next rise, but the sound of wagons had me crouching close to the ground.
The Darysian soldiers had been traveling north, so I had deliberately headed east, but from what I could hear just over the wind, there was more than one wagon and more than one traveler.
I stayed where I was. The glacial air penetrated through my many layers of clothes as I considered my options. The Darysian soldiers had been on horseback. That was not the sound of men on horseback.
It could be the traders from the market. Darysian soldiers in Eirhollow would have slowed trade, and more than one of the merchants might have decided to move to the next town sooner.
Reasonable.
I had almost decided to move on when I felt the cold press of steel between my shoulder blades.
He leaned over me and said in a deep voice at my ear, loud enough to be heard over the wail of the storm, “Got you.”
A hand grabbed my shoulder, and I was hauled to my feet.
