Embers in a Dark Frost

“Where are we going?” I shouted, surprised when Balen veered into the Grasslands and away from the battle.



“Home!”



Stunned, I pulled the large animal to a stop. It danced, tossing its head, eager to continue. Balen catered back, a thunderous look on his face. “Now?” I asked, incredulously. “In the middle of the fight?”



“I told you before we were going home.”



“With the rest of your people! Are you mad? We can’t leave. They’re back there fighting, dying.”



Fury hardened his features. “You think I don’t know that? You think this is what I want?” he shouted, angling his horse closer to mine as the beast pranced and pawed the ground. “Stop thinking, Deira,” he said coldly. “You and I have a battle far greater than this. My legions were never going to accompany us tomorrow. I don’t leave them lightly. I leave them to save them—their families, their children, their world.”



He slapped my mount on the rear and galloped on.



We rode hard, crossing league after league of Grasslands. Plenty of time for the guilt to settle in. My words had been rash, questioning his loyalty, his bravery, his decision to do what was best for his people.



Sweat darkened the hair behind my mount’s ears and along its long, muscled neck. The coarse mane tangled in my grip. I was grateful with every stride that Father had insisted I learn how to ride. I glanced over my shoulder many times to see the camp lit up with fire. Any moment I expected to be caught, but so far no one followed. Why did we go alone?



But we weren’t alone, I realized, as a shadow glided overhead and then soared upward with a screeching cry.



The War Raven.



* * *



My horse, munching loudly on grass, woke me. Whiskers tickled my ear. A soft nose nudged my shoulder as the beast’s lips tried for a clump of grass beneath me.



I rolled over, giving him what he wanted, and pulled my knees to my chest, using my arm for a pillow. My face and eyes were puffy, my body stiff, and the insides of my thighs ached.



I hadn't ridden a horse in so long; just drawing my legs to my chest had hurt. Warm breath blew on my cheek. My hair was tugged as my horse mouthed the strands.



I sat up and removed my hair from his mouth. “That’s not grass, you fool.” I scratched the white star between his eyes, not yet wanting to rise and knowing how much I’d hurt when I did. The gelding stuck out its nose to breathe in my scent then returned to scavenging for grass.



We’d camped in a dense grove of trees where small blue flowers carpeted the ground beneath wide branches. Birds chirped and flitted from tree to tree. While the cold had come upon our land slowly, wearing us down, it seemed as though the wildlife here was too stubborn to admit defeat. Give it another year or two, I thought, and no matter how hard life wanted to bloom, it would not. I rubbed my eyes and yawned, noticing Balen’s horse grazing nearby.



We were getting close to the Woodlands—deep, ancient forests, home to the descendants of Dagda, goddess of earth and the one house that remained neutral in the fight against Nox.



I remembered the smells of grass and flowers, of rich earth and cool water. I raised my arms over my head and stretched, then bent forward to touch my toes until my muscles lengthened. “Oh sweet Dagda, that hurts.”



Tipping my face to the dim light above, I soaked in what little warmth there was, knowing with a heavy heart that soon it would fade forever. Our world would cease to exist, frozen and forgotten.



Nox had chosen our time of greatest need to wage war on us all.



As I approached Balen's horse, flashes of light glistened through the trees. I ducked under the wide branches and trailed my hand over the blue flowers, glad they had forced their way into the world even if for a brief time. The flashes drew me, and I saw they came from water running swiftly over rocks.



Balen crouched by the edge of the stream. His armor was gone, revealing a simple padded tunic in black, his leggings, and boots. He splashed water onto his face three times then dragged his wet fingers through his hair.



I stopped behind him, nervous in the light of day, nervous at our solitude, and still feeling badly that I’d questioned his decision to leave the camp. “You really believe in this foretelling?” I said at length.



He rose as I went to the water. After a drink, I straightened and saw that he was sitting on the bank, resting his back against a rock, one knee drawn up.



“All of my mother’s foretellings have come to pass,” he said as I found a flat rock to sit upon. “This one will, too.”



“Even if it means your death?”



A weary exhale blew past his lips. His gaze shifted to the water. He leaned forward, resting both elbows over his knees. “Aye, even that.”



“You would accept it so easily?”



“You assume I have. Did you not ride to the docks thinking the same—that you might die? Yet you rode toward it as surely I will ride toward mine. It is never easy.”



“I’m sorry. I know it’s not...” Why did everything I say come out wrong? “What does the foretelling say exactly?”



He pushed to his feet and approached me, his expression tumultuous. I jumped up, wary. A tense moment passed and then he lifted a curl from my shoulder. “It is truly like flame.” His voice was low and filled with the reverence all Sydhrs had for fire. The simple observation made my pulse skip.



I struggled with my reaction, hoping he couldn’t see the whirlwind taking place inside me or the confusion it brought. He was beautiful, strong, and powerful—I’d seen plenty like him in my life, but none had looked at me without bias, without hate or disgust or fear.



Sadness filtered into his eyes, but it fled as quickly as it came. “The foretelling says only a being of both worlds can find the Lia Fail. Such a person can bear the Light and bring it home.” He tugged on my hair and gave a wry smile. “That person is you.”



I stepped back. “It’s not me,” I tried to convince him, to let him down gently. “How can it be? I don’t know what to do, where it is, or how to get it back. Don’t you understand, Balen? I have no power. None.” None that mattered, anyway.



Frustrated, I glanced around us, wishing the grove was as it should be—vibrant, greener, and flourishing in perpetual summer. But bringing back our Light, defeating Nox? That was a quest for a champion, for an army, not me.



Balen’s brow rose as he crossed his arms over his chest, my words apparently having no weight at all. “That’s why it must be you. Name another with hair such as yours. Do you know how many years I’ve waited to find one with the blood of both lands running through their veins? Once the gates were closed, I thought such a being would never again exist. Now I know the foretelling to be true.”



“Such a being is destined to take life not save it,” I said, unable to hide the emotion in my voice, hating that was part of who I was, part of the blood running through my veins.



“Aye, the halflings took life. They used their power just as we use ours. The offspring of Danaan and human were gifted with a power we’d never seen before or expected. And some of them used it against us in the war. How one uses their power is up to them, a choice. We aren’t ruled by it. And I don’t believe your kind was either.”



“They were outlawed, put to death, the gates closed against them. Whatever they did, they caused the law today.” I hugged myself and stared at the water rushing over the rocks. “I don’t want to become the monster they say I am.”



“Then don’t.” He stepped up behind me, put his hands on my shoulders and turned me around. “I don’t see the heart of a monster. I know what you are, Deira. Your grandfather told me. I know you have the power to steal the life force from any living thing you desire.” I cringed. He smiled. “So you learn how to control it and you choose what to do with it.”



“You speak of choices and yet you will walk down the path your mother set as if you have no choice of your own.”



He shrugged. “Such is the nature of fate. Sometimes we come right back around to it, no matter all the other choices we’ve made.” Confidence blazed in his eyes. “Together we will set right to the wrong, Deira.”



He thought fate and foretelling would drive us, make us succeed at an impossible task. How many warriors had gone through the Deadlands and the Void in search of our Light? No one had ever returned.



“You put too much faith in words, Balen.” I headed back to the camp.



Where most Danaans believed their fate was set in stone before their births, humans possessed a strong sense of will, a belief that they could change their lot, to make a better life, to rise above fate and make their own way—or so my Father often said. I didn’t believe in fate.



I couldn’t.



Otherwise I’d be admitting to myself that I was simply a puppet, that I made no real decisions or choices of my own. I’d been living that way in Murias for too many years. I wasn’t about to do so again.



As I slipped the bit into my horse’s mouth and tugged the bridle over its ears, I watched Balen coral his mount and do the same. I was angry. I didn’t want to be part of his quest. I didn’t want to save the world. I stilled, my hand on the horse’s neck.



I didn’t want to save the world.



It was a hard, terrible truth to swallow, and I hated myself for thinking it, for feeling it.



Balen came and hefted the saddle onto the back of my mount. “How exactly do you propose we find the Lia Fail anyway?” I asked, handing him the girth under my horse’s belly. He grabbed the end and pulled it tight.



“Travel across the Deadlands and through the Void and into Éire.”



“Éire?” My father’s homeland.



“It must be you, Deira. You alone know things, things learned from him that will aid us. So much was destroyed after the war; anything about humans was put to the flames.”



Balen finished with my mount and went back to his. A tiny spark of . . . something blossomed in my chest. My stomach somersaulted at the thought of Éire. Seeing my father’s homeland had always been a wishful, unattainable dream, something I never thought possible. Until now.