CHAPTER FOUR
KERA
Five months had passed since Licia found me, when I woke to a world gone white. A hushed stillness blanketed everything, and the snow piled so high it swallowed my boots whole.
I’d started school that fall. I’d begged my parents, said I wanted to learn to read and write, to know more about the world, and my parents finally agreed, but only if Einar went with me.
It was about a half-hour walk into the village.
We followed the main road, then cut through the market, where the smells of fresh bread and dried fish tangled in the air.
Einar walked me in every morning, and I talked the whole time.
I told him everything—who sat where, what I was learning, which kids kept getting into fights, and about the boy who pushed me during playtime.
Einar stopped walking for a second. “Wait. Someone pushed you?”
I shrugged. “It wasn’t that bad.”
“If anyone messes with you again,” he said, his voice low and serious, “you tell me. Got it?”
I nodded. He was annoying most of the time, but at least he was paying attention. He always was.
After a while, my family even let me play with Licia alone again. I hadn’t thought they would, but I think they got tired of keeping such a close eye on me. Or maybe they just wanted me to have something that felt normal.
A childhood.
But I still felt it, they didn’t want me to leave. I felt it in their eyes, in the pause in my mother’s breath when I came home late. In Einar finding excuses to check in on me, and my father asking too many questions at dinner. Their fear was a leash. Thin and invisible, but tight.
It had been five months.
They wanted answers. Names. They wanted the monsters who took me caught and hanged in the clearing, but I didn’t remember their features. In all of my nightmares, they were always faceless.
I just remembered the cage. The dagger that pierced my heart. The cold, the blood and… dying.
I couldn’t give them what they wanted, and I think they always feared that whoever took me would come back.
Licia and I went to the lake that afternoon.
The cold seeped through my gloves as I trudged through the snow.
I’d never loved winter. But Licia did. She had been waiting all year for the lake to freeze over, and the moment the ice looked even halfway ready, she was there, tapping her knuckles against the ice, listening to it.
Testing it. She started where the lake was shallow, where even if it cracked, she’d only fall knee-deep.
And when she was satisfied, she laced up her ice skates and took off.
She moved like something from a fairytale, not like a clumsy troll wrapped in scarves, clomping through the snow like me. No, Licia glided, light and effortless, like a fairy, perhaps, or a princess. I told her I didn’t know how to skate, but the truth was that we couldn’t afford skates.
Licia must have known.
I was sipping hot cocoa on the morning of my birthday when I heard a knock at the door, and there she was, cheeks flushed pink from the cold winds, holding the most beautifully wrapped gift I had ever seen. The ribbon itself would have been more than enough.
“Open it,” she said, nudging the box toward me.
I hesitated. The box looked like it came from a shop with glass counters and city prices. I wasn’t sure I could accept it.
“Open it,” she repeated.
Inside, nestled in tissue paper were white skates with pink laces, sparkling like fresh snow. I didn’t know what to say.
“Oh, what a lovely gift,” my mother said over my shoulder.
Licia grinned. "Try them on! I hope they fit.”
I dropped to the floor and started lacing them up.
“Not on the wood!” my mother snapped.
We burst into laughter. I slipped on my boots and wool coat, grabbed the skates, and we took off through the snow, heading for the lake.
Licia did her careful routine while I sat on a log, lacing the ice skates, which fit like they were made for me.
Licia helped me up and showed me how to keep my balance, but it was harder than I thought.
She just made it look easy, but it wasn’t.
I fell, day after day, but I kept trying. Kept getting up.
One afternoon, as the snow glittered like stars beneath the setting sun, I was attempting small spins on the ice, while Licia worked on jumps and one-legged turns.
And then, we heard voices.
“Over here, this is perfect,” someone called, and two boys stumbled through the trees, laughing like idiots.
Will and Aran.
Everyone knew them. You couldn’t grow up in Novil and not know them.
They were the kind of boys who turned boredom into chaos and never seemed sorry after.
Climbing roofs, stealing produce, always daring each other to do something dumber than the day before.
Einar had warned me more than once to stay away from them, they were nothing but thieves and liars, he said. Trouble. He wasn’t wrong.
Aran was trouble, he always had that glint in his eye like he was seconds away from doing something he shouldn’t. But Will... Will was different. He followed Aran’s lead, but it never felt like his heart was really in it, and his soft smile made my heart flutter.
Aran had an axe slung over one shoulder and a saw in the other hand. Will carried two fishing rods and a small tin of bait. His brown hair was a wind-tossed mess, clinging to his forehead, and his blue eyes stood out against the red in his cheeks.
“What are they doing here?” Licia muttered.
Her movements turned stiff, her jaw set. The lake was hers. Ours. She didn’t want anyone else there. Didn’t want them there.
“Come on,” she sighed, already skating toward them.
I followed, my legs steadier now but still unsure. Will looked up as we approached and his eyes locked on mine.
My heart hiccuped, and I looked away too quickly. Aran raised the axe and brought it down hard against the ice with a sharp crack.
“What are you doing?” Licia demanded.
Aran didn’t even look up. “What’s it look like?”
“Ice fishing,” Will explained. “We thought we’d catch something.”
”Yeah, something big,” Aran said, squinting at Licia’s skates. ”Hey, give me one of those.”
“What? No,” she retorted. “Why?”
“It’s sharper.”
“You’ll just destroy it.”
“I won’t! I promise! Please?”
”You’re dumb,” she muttered, yanking off one of her skates and tiptoeing on the other foot to keep her balance.
I think we both liked them, though we would’ve never admitted it.
Every time we ran into those boys, something thrilling happened.
Whether they dared us to cross an old bridge, or steal a bag of coin from a merchant, whatever it was, it made adrenaline pump through my veins.
And we were drawn to their chaos like moths to flame.
“Break it and I break your face,” Licia warned, tossing him the skate.
He grinned like it was the best deal he’d ever made. “You’ve gotta catch me first.”
”Please, I’m faster than you,” she said, rolling her eyes.
He crouched down and scraped the blade of the ice skate against the spot he’d struck with the axe, the sound a horrible, high-pitched screech.
Licia crossed her arms. ”My mother says if the ice groans, it means it’s too thin.”
“My father says if you’re scared of everything, you should stay home,” Aran shot back.
Will looked at me and smiled.
“You skate?” he asked.
I nodded. “Sort of. Licia taught me. I’m still awful.”
“You don’t look awful,” he said. “I mean, you’re not even flailing.”
“I was earlier, you just missed it.”
”Oh shoot.”
“Do you even like fishing?” I added.
He shrugged. “Nope, but it’s something to do. Better than helping my mum mend socks all day.”
“I actually like mending socks.” I said with a smirk.
He scoffed. “I like coming here. The lake, it’s… quiet.”
“It’s not quiet with you boys around,” I said.
That made him laugh. “Fair.”
Aran scraped harder with the blade, and Licia leaned in, scowling. “You’re doing it wrong.”
“I’m not!” he snapped. “You don’t even know how ice works.”
“Yes, I do,” Licia said. “You hit it too much in one spot, it cracks. That’s how.”
“It’s fine,” Aran said flatly. “My father does this every year.”
She sighed, then handed him one of her skates. “This is really dumb.”
“I know what I’m doing,” Aran muttered.
I looked at Will. “What if it is too thin?”
“It’s probably not,” he said and shrugged.
"Ugh, this is taking forever," Aran shouted, dropping the blade and reaching for the axe. I saw him grip the handle, the way he shifted his stance, and I knew exactly what he was about to do.
“Wait—” I said, stepping forward.
But he didn’t.
He swung, and the ice cracked.
A jagged line split beneath his feet, and no one moved. I should’ve stopped Aran. Should’ve shoved him. Screamed. Done anything. But it happened so fast.
Then came the sound. A low, groaning wail, like the whole lake was straining to hold itself together. Like it was a living breathing thing, and we’d wounded it. Cut it open.
A cold sweat slid down my spine, and I knew what would happen before it did. The crack snaked toward Will, his boots right in its path. He looked at me—confused, just for a second. Then the ice gave out.
And he was gone.
I couldn’t even scream. I just stood there, heart pounding so hard it hurt. Licia grabbed my arm and yanked me back just as more cracks split the ice where I’d been standing.
“Will?” Aran’s voice exploded. “WILL!”
He fell to his knees, crawling toward the hole, searching for his friend.
“HE’S GONE!” he cried.
Licia dropped to the ground, pressing her palms against the ice.
“He’s not coming up. He’s not—”
She didn’t finish. Instead, she kicked off her other skate and flung it aside, then closed her eyes.
I could only stare at her. It was such a strange reaction. She looked like she was listening to something only she could hear, and when she opened her eyes again, she fixed them on Aran.
“Go get someone!” she shouted. “Now!”
He didn’t argue. He turned and ran, slipping once before disappearing into the trees.