Chapter 1
Under the bruised light of early dawn, I sneak through the rear door of the baker’s hut, swipe two loaves of fresh bread off a cooling rack and slip into the silvery fog creeping through our sleeping village.
No one sees me. No one hears me. I’ve been quiet and stealthy all my life, used to being the overlooked witch without a voice.
But I’ve never been a thief, and I’ve never been a murderer.
People change, I suppose.
With the bread bundled inside my apron, I rush into the empty cottage I share with my mother and drag my pack from beneath the bed. That sweet yeast-and-honey aroma makes my empty stomach grumble, but I must stay focused. The stolen bread could save my life in the coming days.
The last few weeks have given me reason to believe that those I love can have a different future than the one that has stretched before us for so many years—one of fear, dread, and loss.
Finally, we can leave Silver Hollow and this valley, find a new life far away, someplace safe from the heavy hands of immortal rulers.
I just need to manage the unthinkable: kidnap the Frost King’s right-hand man, force him to guide me through the forbidden Frostwater Wood, find a way to sneak into the kingdom’s guarded castle at Winterhold, kill my enemies, and take back my sister.
Alone.
Once I’ve added the loaves to the other items I’ve prepared for my journey, I shove the pack back to its hiding place. Most young witches in the village are probably huddled by warm fires with their families, worrying about being selected later today, while I’m plotting a one-woman uprising.
Unlike other witches in the vale, I’ve never feared being chosen. Witch Walkers sing their magick in Old Elikesh, the language of the Ancient Ones, something I’ve never truly been able to do. Born without the ability to speak, I learned to communicate using the language my mother taught me.
A language of signs spoken with hands.
Creating magick in this way is a difficult skill.
Sometimes, when I attempt to translate Old Elikesh into signs, I get an incantation wrong.
A word here, a refrain there. That struggle, and the fact that not a single witch’s mark lives on my skin, has made me invisible to the Witch Collector.
The chosen Witch Walkers are taken to Winterhold, where they’re trained to use magick to protect the Northland Break’s borders and the kingdom seat itself.
What would Colden Moeshka—our immortal Frost King—want with an unskilled witch like me?
A grin tempts my lips.
If only he knew all that I can do.
A hard thud smacks the door, and the sound reverberates through my bones. I jerk around, worried it might be Mother, her arms overloaded with apples as she toes the door for me to let her inside. But the unmistakable scent of death wafts beneath the threshold. The smell is weak, but it’s there.
When I drag open the door, a dove lies on the ground, its wings splayed and unmoving.
With a gentle touch, I cradle the bird in the bend of my arm, trail my fingers over its head and breast, and carry it inside.
The poor thing’s neck looks damaged, but it’s still alive, though barely.
I have a few minutes to save it, but that’s all.
More often than not, the chance to help a fading soul passes me by.
It’s safer if no one knows I’m a healer.
I’ve never dared tell my parents or anyone else, for that matter.
Not even my closest friends, Finn and Helena Owyn.
Only my sister, Nephele, knows I possess this skill.
She always said to be thankful I have no witch’s marks, because the power living inside me makes me valuable.
And valuable things get locked away.
As the scent of death grows sharper, I sit in Mother’s chair near the hearth and nestle the dove in my lap. Its death smells like pine needles and damp moss mixed with a hint of chilly rain.
On a deep inhale, I close my eyes, absorbing that scent, and watch as the shimmering strands of the dove’s life unravel like a spool of thread in my mind’s eye.
I’m not sure if this is the wisest decision, given what I face today.
Healing can be exhausting, depending on how near death is and the size of the life I’m weaving back together.
A tiny dove should be a small effort, though. I can’t just let it die.
Concentrating, I imagine the dim strands of life becoming a gleaming braid, and the dove soaring high over the valley.
This is the first part of every rescue—manifesting a vision of my will.
Next, I dredge up the ancient song I’ve known since the first time I saw the threads of life floating in the air around a dying doe and form the lyrics with my hands.
“Loria, Loria, anim alsh tu brethah, vanya tu limm volz, sumayah, anim omio dena wil rheisah.”
The strands glow and tremble, drawn together like iron to lodestone. I keep singing, repeating the words until the strands have entwined, and the gilded construct of life is once again solid and resplendent.
The dove’s wings flap and ruffle in my hands. When I open my eyes, its heart pounds so hard that its breast moves with each beat. Those little eyes flutter open, too, and then it’s up, flying from wall to wall.
Worried the little one might be scared and confused, I shove open the shutters and try guiding it outside. When it lingers, wings flapping wildly around my head, I grab the broom and swat at the air, until it finally gives up and dives for the window.
Smiling, I hurry to the ledge and watch the dove take off into the cold day, vanishing in the distance near the orchards and the forest’s boundary. I’m a little tired and dizzy, and a cold sweat slicks my brow, but I’ll recover.
For a long moment, I close my eyes, smile fading as a familiar eeriness settles within me. This is the strangest part of healing a life so close to its end, when the stolen death coils inside me like a sinking shadow. I only have a handful of deaths tucked away, but I feel the darkness of each one.
Finally, the eerie feeling passes, and I move to close the shutters. Instead, something makes me pause and take in the view of another morning in the village—possibly my last.
To the west, where Frostwater Wood curves over the hills that lead to the western mountain range, the midnight shift of Witch Walkers moves along the forest’s edge near the watchtower, gliding through the gloom like ghosts.
And in the mist, just beyond the village green, a few women appear from the east. They carry baskets of apples on their heads, surrounded by chilly clouds of their own breath.
All else is calm. For now. A village on the cusp of waking for the most dreaded day of the year.
After stoking the fire, I exchange my cloak for a shawl and head to my worktable.
The sun is almost up, which means Finn will wake soon, and like the others carrying their apples, Mother will return from the orchard at any moment.
There’s work to do, a plan I must see to the end, though it’s hard to imagine leaving everyone and everything I’ve ever known.
But I cannot stay. We live in a world where war simmers between two of Tiressia’s continental breaks—the Eastland Territories and the Summerlands to the south.
For centuries, every eastern ruler has tried to conquer the southern lands, longing to claim the City of Ruin—a citadel believed to hold the Grove of the Gods, the burial ground of Tiressia’s deities.
Or so says the myth.
To the Frost King’s credit, I’ve never known war, even in a world divided.
Tiressia once existed as a single continent populated by people of all kinds.
A massive quake struck the land five thousand years ago, dividing it into what would eventually become four kingdoms, each with its own god—including the archipelago to the west of the Northlands, known as the Western Drifts.
The Northlands have remained neutral under a centuries-old treaty with the East, though our citizens—whether protecting the coast, the mountains, the valley, the Iceland Plains, or the king himself—must live according to the Frost King’s wishes, guardians of this land above all else.
It’s noble, I suppose, to give up one’s freedoms and family to live a life of magickal servitude, but it’s also not the life I want.
And each Collecting Day, I’m reminded how little say I have in the matter.
I believe I now have the power to change this. To end the Frost King’s immortal life and make us a free land governed by its people. Free to live as we choose.
And that’s what I aim to do.
Father’s old whetstone sits at the bottom of his trunk.
I gather it from beneath his other work tools and scoop a cup of rainwater from the wash bucket for the grinding task.
Just as I sit to work, Mother bursts into the cottage carrying a bushel of apples.
She kicks the door shut, but not before a bitter wind out of Frostwater Wood follows her inside.
With a grunt, she drops the laden basket on the hand-woven rug covering our wooden floor.
The cold wraps around me, and I tug my shawl tighter, the colorful one Nephele knitted ages ago.
Lately, my sister’s memory is everywhere.
Even the rime-covered apples at my feet make me think of her.
Nephele looks very much like my father—her snow-white skin, pale blonde hair, and sky-blue eyes.
Yet she loved the orchard and enjoyed the Collecting Day harvest like my mother.
She also didn’t mind living on the Northland Break, one of four land masses that made up Tiressia’s shattered empire.
She wasn’t bothered by the touch of winter that clings to our valley after every harvest moon either.