Tales of Winter and Whimsy

Chapter 1

Chapter One

If anyone asks what I do for a living, I tell them I’m a healer’s apprentice. I leave out the part that my boss can’t trust me in the apothecary anymore or to do basic healing spells.

No one needs to know I’ve been placed on chicken-babysitting duty. Indefinitely. Just as the last thing anyone needs to hear upon first introduction is how I have a rooster nemesis with a devoted cult of chicken followers.

Knowing me, I’d probably open my big mouth about how he ran through my legs and tripped me one time. I fell headfirst into a bag of feed, and he used his wing to slosh water onto my back. I think he was trying to baptize me….

The gods must’ve decided my life was too simple, though. That one nemesis wasn’t enough. They determined that I, Merselli Maledri, deserved to be tested, because they gave me two.

My second nemesis is a tall, muscled, scowling, overly-prepared-for-everything, sarcastic pain in my ass.

And his name is Cedrik Frost. Blacksmith by trade, and my assigned guard anytime I’m sent beyond the walls of Grim’s Keep.

Which is often, and for him, that’s apparently a fate worse than death.

Gods forbid the man be forced to endure nature and not be beating his hammer in the forge for five minutes.

Wind bites at my cheeks as we march toward the coop, my satchel bumping against my hip. It’s stuffed with vials, roots, dried herbs, and the vague hope that I won’t screw anything up today.

Beside me, Cedrik carries a sack of chicken feed over one shoulder, as if it weighs nothing. His long legs eat up the ground, and I have to hustle to keep up with him. When I start to fall behind for a third time, his lavender eyes flick toward me.

“I didn’t need your help,” I huff, adjusting my glasses. “Why do you even have to come with me anymore?”

“Because you’d die.”

“Lies.”

He shifts the bag so he can glare at me properly. “Tell that to the squirrels.”

I wince. “That was one time.”

“They were bald for weeks. Some of them still are, Mersi, and it’s winter. How do you think they feel?”

Look, I meant to stabilize myself when I tripped into the bag of feed. Instead, my magic burst out and zapped the nearby treeline. The squirrels never forgave me. Now they throw acorns at my head and make rude gestures with their little paws whenever they see me.

We pass the herb shed and the compost heap, still softly smoking from my last failed potion. Cedrik doesn’t comment, but the twitch of his mouth gives him away. Almost a smile.

“You’re exhausting,” he mutters, dropping the sack with a dramatic thump.

“You act as though I’m helpless.”

“You almost poisoned yourself yesterday with pix root. You think I trust you alone with grass?”

“I have magic!” Grabbing the bag, I give it a good yank, but the weight nearly pulls my shoulder out of its socket. My glasses fog up as I pant and tug again, cloak flapping like it’s trying to escape the scene.

Cedrik crosses his arms, looking more and more like an oversized tree with opinions. It’s infuriating and detrimental to my pulse. One of his dark eyebrows lifts at me in question.

“Are you going to help or would you rather watch me dislocate something?”

He sighs. “Somehow, you’re still the worst healer I know.” He pulls a dagger—where from, I’ll never know—and slices the bag open. “Do me a favor. If I’m hurt, find Steve. Don’t attempt to fix me yourself.”

Then he presses the hilt into my hand, his fingers curling around mine, steady and warm. A spark.

I pretend not to feel it.

“Thanks,” I say, gripping it like it might explode.

“I’ll be in the forge,” he mutters. “For when you inevitably need a babysitter to find rosemary or rescue you from angry squirrels.”

He stalks off, tunic cinched tight, arms bare despite the cold, looking every bit the annoyed guardian of my absolute chaos.

I watch him go. Not that I mean to, but my eyes do what they want. Then I turn, and face the real threat: Eggory, the sacred omen rooster of Grim’s Keep.

He’s believed to be able to foretell the future but all he’s ever brought me is misery.

He’s intelligent beyond what poultry should be and I swear it’s contagious.

Since he’s been here in the coop with the other chickens, he’s formed a cult-like mentality.

A shrine has even been erected with their belief system scraped into the wood.

I was never taught to read or write. My family didn’t think it was necessary, seeing as I was fated to grow up and count beans on the family farm. Learning words wasn't required for such things. So, while I personally can’t read it, Cedrik has told me what it says in passing.

According to him, the inscription that the chickens carved in the shrine says, ‘Six Grains an Hour, or Else.’ The residents of Grim’s Keep are too scared to learn what the ‘or else’ could be and therefore we just keep feeding the poultry as they’ve demanded.

Eggory sits on his throne as if he’s a little feathered god, one claw on the armrest, gaze smug and all-knowing.

The others kneel before him, eyes closed and wings tucked in reverent silence. It’s his throne now. Our Lord, Griffin Morningstar, donated it to the chicken coop after the rooster pooped on it so many times it was permanently ruined.

I fill a bucket with feed, then tip it toward the coop’s gate. “Let’s not be a dick today, all right?”

The rooster locks eyes with me. He cocks his head to the left. Then the right. He almost looks innocent, but it’s a lie. Eggory has tasted blood. He’s pecked at guards. He’s pecked at me. He once trapped Cedrik in the feed house for four hours using only a rake and a goat.

I won’t trust him.

With a sigh, I wave my hand, undoing the enchantment on the coop gate.

“All right. I’m coming in. No funny business, or I’m turning you into a pot pie.”

I lift two fingers to my eyes, then point at him. “I’m watching you.”

I step inside the coop.

One step. Two—

“Bawk!”

Eggory shrieks a war cry, and the chickens jerk their heads up from prayer. They storm toward me at once, and the ground shakes.

“Nope!” I dive sideways just in time as a hundred chicken claws thunder past me in a blur of feathers and malice.

The entire flock floods through the open gate like tiny flightless berserkers.

“Not again!” Cedrik’s voice bellows from somewhere near the strawberry patch. “You’ve got to be kidding me! I didn’t even make it to the forge!”

Groans come from all over.

“Sorry!” Waving my hands, I try to cast a spell to get the chickens to come, but I can’t get it to extend far enough. Only a few of them listen and go back to the coop. Most have wandered past my magic’s reach. I’ll have to catch up to them and try again.

A single chicken lingers in the coop. Hennifer. My favorite of the lot.

She darts behind the throne as though she wants me to follow, and I do. Because I’m brave. And also because I don’t want to face Cedrik right now.

Carved into the back of the throne is a layout of Grim’s Keep. And beneath it, is a line of squiggles, scratched in furious claw marks. I think they’re words.

“Huh…” I run my fingers over the angry lines, attempting to sound them out. “Wui. Reof. ccff. dccwuiinn, flufks.”

We riot at dawn, clucks!

My mouth falls open. They have better handwriting than I do.

Hennifer stares at me solemnly. I pet her head.

“Good girl,” I whisper.

This must be Eggory’s master plan. It shows a bunch of lines leading toward the blacksmith shop, the apothecary, the herb shed, and one toward the front gate.

What is Eggory trying to do?

I bolt out of the coop, Hennifer in tow, and scramble for my magic. Flinging a spell into the chaos, chickens drop mid-sprint like confused statues, blinking but otherwise unable to move.

One group makes for the apothecary. Two chickens run interference, flapping in the guards’ faces while a third is catapulted through the window with the help of the others.

Another climbs the roof of the herb shed and slips down the chimney, wings up.

In the garden, three hens form a circle around a tomato plant and stomp it like it owes them money.

I watch in frozen horror as they systematically rip up every lavender sprout as if it’s sacrilegious to grow them.

Cedrik skids to a stop beside me, boots kicking up a spray of dirt. His arms are full of flapping feathers and his tunic is rumpled from chicken warfare.

“Where,” he pants, brushing a wing out of his face, “is Eggory?”

“How should I know?” I’m breathless, half hidden behind a tomato stake hoping and praying that’ll somehow protect me from his judgment, and that vein in his temple that’s starting to throb.

Cedrik stares at the carnage like he’s just watched a vegetable genocide. “They’re… they’re organized.”

A rogue chicken struts around the corner with a ribbon-bound stack of parchment clutched in its beak.

Cedrik freezes.

“No,” he breathes, tone suddenly deadly.

The hen hops triumphantly into the center of a circle of chanting chickens and raises the letters high like she’s found the sacred texts. One winged follower begins plucking at the ribbon with its beak.

Cedrik surges forward. “Absolutely not. Give me those!”

I blink at the fluttering stack. “What are they?”

“Nothing!” He yanks at the papers, desperate to pry them from the chicken’s maw. But it’s strong and stubborn, clinging to its found treasures for dear life.

The stack breaks apart and letters explode out in every direction. He dives into the fray. The poultry squawk, feathers float to the ground, and he flings an ankle-biting chicken through the air. It’s chaos incarnate.

“They’re mine,” he growls, snatching up parchment pieces before the chickens can get them.

One lands at my feet, and as I pick it up, I spot a rather manly heart in the corner.

Cedrik rushes toward me in an attempt to snatch it out of my hands, but the chickens grab onto the strings of his boots and he trips.

Letters fly, and seeing as they’re simply folded in half, they flip open across the ground.

Cedrik turns pale. “Mersi, close your eyes. Don’t look.”

“Why? Oh my gods.” I gasp, slapping a hand to my mouth in scandalized glee. “Are these love letters?” I glance down for a split second just long enough to see that they do look like letters to someone but I wouldn’t be able to know who or what they said.

His eyes are round enough for me to know I’m right. “I said not to look.”

“I know! I’m sorry! I had to! Who are they for? Please tell me it’s someone terrifying. Oh wait—is it the butcher’s daughter? I heard she keeps knives under her pillow and sharpens them in her sleep—”

“Drop it, Mersi. You’re not funny.” He yanks the letter from my grasp like it’s dipped in poison and scowls at me, jaw tight.

I blink, deadpan. “You don’t have to be such an angst-ridden thundercloud!”

He jams the pages into his pants pockets like he’s smuggling contraband.

Before either of us can take the conversation of Cedrik’s love letters any further, a commanding bawk echoes through the courtyard like thunder.

We both turn.

Eggory stands on the other side of the outer gate, wings spread like a villain in a final act. He’s made it out. Past the guards. Past the wards. Past the wall that circles the grounds of Grim’s Keep.

He’s free.

He squawks once—sharp, smug, holy—and the mist curls at his feet like it’s bowing to its new god.

“No…” My voice wobbles. “What do we do now?”

Cedrik grabs a stray hen as it tries to flee. “We do nothing. Good riddance.”

The chicken tucked under his arm stares at me with wide eyes.

“We have to go after him!” I cry. “Eggory is a sacred omen! Do you know how hard it is to get back into an apprenticeship once you’ve been fired for poultry negligence?”

Cedrik looks me up and down, then snatches up another chicken.

“I’ll be blacklisted! My only option will be that shady mail-in wand certification course that uses glitter glue!” I’m pacing now, ranting, hands flailing, accidentally statue-ing chickens mid-ramble.

“I’ve already messed up so much. I can’t lose this too. My family’s going to make me come home and count magic beans for the rest of my life!”

He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose like this is somehow his problem. “Beans?”

“Yes, Cedrik! Beans. Magic beans. Our family grows them, counts them, sorts them into little rainbow bags. Do you want that life for me? Do you?”

He rolls his eyes like he can’t fathom me being upset about something so remedial. “Promise me you won’t go after him.”

I hesitate. There’s no getting through to him. He wouldn’t understand. Just as I know Cedrik doesn’t believe in Eggory’s gifts or care about me or my apprenticeship, I know he wouldn’t go help me find him before my boss gets back.

I’m on my own.

So, the best thing I can do right now is tell him what he wants to hear.

“Promise me, Mersi,” he says again. “Promise me you won’t go after that demonic omelet.”

I meet his gaze. Steady. Innocent. Brimming with lies. “Cross my heart,” I say sweetly.

“And hope to die?” He arches a brow.

I hesitate. Then lift my chicken off the ground, the one who showed me the scratches behind the throne. Can’t leave my good girl behind.

Raising two fingers in the air, I swirl them in a very impressive little spiral. A puff of glitter shoots out of my palm. A few sparks and a faint pop later, I stand a little taller. With a smirk, I tiptoe backward. Very slowly. Very sneakily.

“Ha! It worked,” I whisper, pulling my cloak tighter around me as I scoot away. “I’ve vanished. I am the mist. I am air.” I lift my cloaked arm up until it’s level with my eyes, and continue. “You can’t see or hear me, you grumpy—”

“You’re not invisible, Mersi.”

I freeze mid-sneak, one foot hovering in the air.

“What?”

“I can still see you. You’re… glittering.”

I look down. So many sparkles.

“Fuck me.” I bolt, with Hennifer clutched under my arm.