Chapter 38
Chapter thirty-eight
The Guardian Tree of Frosthaven was dying. The sight of it emptied Gisela's lungs.
Its leaves had turned the color of ash, the trunk bending as if crushed by its own grief. Around it, dark creatures prowled the ruins of what had once been a haven.
She reached out, her fingertips brushing the tree’s surface. The bark was cold—too cold for something still alive. The tree still clung to enough strength to bring her here, but not for much longer.
The creatures scented her distress and advanced, circling closer. She stilled, though every instinct screamed to move. She reached inward, summoning her power, only to find it slipping away.
“Eira, what’s going on?”
Eira materialized next to her. “I feel weak here. It’s the tree . . . the land.”
Gisela pushed, digging deeper and deeper inside to find a scrap of power.
Power flickered beneath her skin, weak and scattered.
Eira dropped to the ground, her glow dimming. “You’re pulling from a dying source,” she rasped.
“Then we need a new source,” Gisela said through clenched teeth.
The power inside her was slipping. She shut her eyes, reaching past Eira’s fading glow, past the dying hum of the Guardian Tree.
Please, she thought, though she didn’t know who she was pleading with—the gods, the land, or whatever still listened.
A pulse answered, faint and ancient. It wasn’t a word she heard, but a resonant hum vibrating in her marrow.
Frost crept up her arms, burning cold. The air trembled. Eira’s light flared again, stronger, drawn to whatever force Gisela had tapped into.
The beasts charged and a thick sheet of ice exploded from her hands. The barrier held them back and froze two of their snarling forms mid-leap.
She didn’t see the third one.
It lunged from the side, claws flashing.
Gisela stumbled back, tripped over a gnarled root, but caught herself.
With a hoarse cry, she forced another surge of power. Frost exploded outward and the last creature stilled, encased in ice.
Their guttural roars reverberated through the clearing as they thrashed against their icy prisons.
She ran.
She fired blasts of ice whenever a beast lunged toward her. Each surge pushed them back, their snarls muffled as frost locked around them.
The plants she once collected were withered and lifeless, their vibrant colors replaced by a muted gray.
The devastation only deepened as Gisela advanced out of the forest. Trees that had once stood tall and proud were now twisted and blackened.
Every step sounded too loud in the silence of what had once been alive.
From the forest’s edge, she looked out over the field and into the village of Frosthaven. A makeshift wall was being hastily erected around the perimeter. Jagged and uneven, it stood like a fragile promise of safety—but it held.
Snow fell, dusting her hair and eyelashes. Gisela tilted her head to the sky, her chest swelling with a small, cautious hope. She was home.
She darted across the field, as she had done countless times before, boots punching through crusted snow. The cool air swept across her face, biting and exhilarating. She was more alive than ever. Remnants of the power she tapped into vibrated under her skin.
Once she reached the wall, she conjured blocks of ice to climb up and over.
She landed on the other side and scanned the empty streets. The village was eerily quiet, its usually vibrant streets now deserted. Every shadow too still, every window too dark.
She moved swiftly through the shadows, knowing every turn and narrow cut.
Her heart skipped in her chest as she turned onto her street.
Her house came into view, and a hollow ache opened beneath her ribs.
The exterior was a patchwork of scars—scuffs and structural repairs that hadn’t been there before.
Curiosity surfaced, but she pushed it aside and focused on what mattered now.
She reached for the door, her hand hovering inches from the wood. She almost knocked, then remembered. This was still her home.
Inside, Noah, Vivi, Ivy, and Orion were gathered in the living area. Their faces went slack, shock and disbelief etched into every line.
Ivy brought her hands to her mouth, a sob slipping through her fingers.
Orion looked exhausted, dark circles shadowing his warm brown eyes. His face appeared sunken, and his clothes hung loosely on his frame.
Vivi tilted her head at Gisela, a smile breaking through the tension. “Sissy?”
Gisela’s heart soared. “I’m home.” Gisela shut the door behind her, and as she turned around, Noah was there, pulling her in close.
He stepped back, brushing snowflakes from her shoulders, searching her eyes. “I don’t even know what to say.”
“You can say you missed me.” She hugged him again, inhaling his familiar scent. “Because I missed you.” She glanced over his shoulder at their parents, where Ivy clung to Orion, her face pale.
“We woke up and you were gone,” Orion said stiffly. “Why?”
“I—” Gisela’s thoughts flashed back to the night she left. She thought someone had watched her leave. “Didn’t you see me leave?”
Ivy rushed over, tears streaming, and buried her face in Gisela’s neck. “I missed you, terribly.” She grabbed Gisela by the shoulders, as if afraid she might vanish again. A shock ran through Gisela’s body, and her sense of balance shifted.
“Aren’t you freezing?” Vivi asked from the table.
Gisela hesitated, feeling like she was in a dream. The warm scent of herbs drifted from the kitchen.
She couldn’t believe she was really looking at her family.
“Tea. I’ll make tea,” Ivy said, hurrying toward the kitchen.
Orion approached Gisela and hugged her. “Where did you go?”
Gisela hadn’t decided how much of her journey she would share. The state of the villages made her feel she could reveal some truths, but the fear of putting them in danger still weighed heavily.
“I saw the plants you put in my room,” Noah said, breaking the silence. “You went to figure out what was happening, right?”
Gisela nodded, strangely at a loss for words.
Noah looked back and forth between her eyes. The room was filled with a heavy silence, broken only by the distant clinking of dishes and the soft murmur of Ivy preparing tea.
They all walked to the table.
Orion’s chair scraped against the floor and the sound pierced Gisela’s ears.
“Eira, tell me . . . tell me I don’t sense what I think I sense.”
Eira hesitated, feeling like she was betraying the other Primal in the room. “Your mother.”
Something in Gisela fractured.
Orion’s eyes locked onto hers, worry deepening. “Gisela, can you please say something?”
“Mother,” Gisela whispered, still holding her father’s gaze.
Ivy returned, her teacup clattering in her trembling hands. Her eyes were wide with fear as she looked at Gisela.
“What in the hell is going on?” Orion demanded, shifting his gaze between his wife and daughter.
Gisela reached into her pack and pulled out Helena’s journal.
“What is this?” Orion asked, scratching the back of his head.
Gisela opened the notebook to the page with the ingredients for hylja and slid it across the table.
Ivy looked at the page with tears welling.
“It was you. You taught Helena how to make hylja,” Gisela said.
“What is hylja?” Noah asked.
“You knew Helena,” Gisela pressed, ignoring her father and brother. The wind whipped against the windows, rattling the panes in the silence.
Ivy wiped the tears from her cheeks as she sank into a chair. “She was my best friend.”
Gisela slowly sat down beside her mother, putting a hand on Ivy’s arm.
“I’m going to need someone to tell me what’s happening!” Orion yelled, slamming his hands onto the table.
Gisela took a deep breath and said aloud, “Eira.”
“Who’s Eira?” Noah asked.
Eira appeared beside Gisela, her presence elegant and regal.
Noah stumbled back, crashing into the table while Orion gasped.
Ivy pressed a hand to her forehead.
“How—how did you . . .” Orion stammered.
“I’m a Mystic, Father,” Gisela said.
Orion vehemently shook his head. “No. The inspections. They would have seen—”
“I used hylja,” she explained. “A putty I made from a tree in the forest to cover it up.” Ivy closed her eyes, tears streaming silently down her cheeks.
“We have no lineage. This doesn’t make sense,” Orion said, shaking his head.
Gisela turned to her mother as a surge of unfamiliar anger bubbled inside of her. “I could have been better prepared.”
Noah, Orion, and Vivi all turned to Ivy, waiting for her to respond.
“I wasn’t sure,” Ivy said, her voice trembling.
“Ivy?” Orion said, his face wrinkled with pain.
“Come, Glacia,” Ivy said, her voice barely above a whisper.
A Primal emerged from within her.
Glacia was a vision of icy splendor, resembling Eira in form but surrounded by a shimmering aura of frost. Delicate crystals of ice adorned her body, reflecting light in intricate patterns.
A wave of ancient frost swept the room, turning their breath to mist and raising goosebumps along Gisela’s arms.
Noah recoiled.
Orion clenched his fists.
The room fell silent, the fire snapping loudly in the hearth.
“What a relief,” Glacia moaned, stretching.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Gisela asked. “What if I never figured out how to make hylja? I would have been slaughtered.”
“The same reason you didn’t tell us about you,” Ivy said, her words tumbling out in a rush.
“I didn’t want to put any of you at risk.
I had a feeling, but I couldn’t be sure.
And the moment I said it out loud, it would have made it real.
” Ivy hurried down the hall and returned with a black notebook.
Gisela knew it in her bones. This was the notebook from her dream.
“I made sure the knowledge was there,” Ivy said, setting it on the table. “The Guardian Tree. The hylja. Everything you could have needed.” Her voice wavered. “I hoped you’d never have to use it.”
Gisela swallowed. “It was you,” she whispered. “You saw me leave that night.”