Chapter 11
The moment we stepped through the gate, the air changed.
It didn’t become any colder. It just felt different. That would’ve made sense if it were a Frosttaken. The air was thinner, as if something had been taken out of it.
I felt it in my chest first. A shallow pull when I tried to breathe, the air not quite wanting to fill my lungs.
Behind me, boots crunched over the snow as the others followed. No one spoke. Even the soldiers seemed to feel it now. Which meant that I wasn’t imagining it.
“Close it,” I said quietly.
No one argued. The gate groaned as two soldiers pushed it shut behind us, the heavy iron sealing with a dull, final thud. I heard the sound of the wooden deadbolt sliding across the doors, which would prevent them from being opened.
The sound carried, echoing down the empty street, bouncing between the stone buildings and coming back to us warped and hollow.
We all stilled, waiting to see if anything would hear us, or worse, if something would answer. Nothing did. No sound from the mercenaries either, and that was worse.
The houses in Skallfen were nearly identical.
Made of stone, they were one-and-a-half stories tall with thatched roofs.
Inside, the ground floor featured the living area, which included a large fireplace for heating the house.
Most homes had their kitchens within the same room, with no wall separating the two areas.
A hatch in the ceiling, along with a permanent stair or ladder, led to the upper level.
If used, the ladder could be pulled up at night for safety.
I took a step forward and stopped when I saw a shadow move just ahead.
“Don’t take another step.” Nicco’s voice came from the side of the building.
I hadn’t heard him approach, or maybe he’d been waiting there the whole time.
I looked down at the snow. My boot hovered just above the ground, and the snow beneath it wasn’t smooth.
It looked smooth, but there was something underneath. A ripple, unnatural, as if the surface had melted, then frozen incorrectly.
“What is it?” Nicco asked me. “What other monsters roam this land that we don’t know?”
I didn’t look at him or reply. “Where are the others? Did you go inside?”
“They’re fine. We’re scouting, making sure it’s alone.” He glanced at me. “What is it?”
I gaped at him. “Did you kill it?”
“What is it, bunny?”
“A Frosttaken.” I licked my lips. “I’ve… I‘ve never seen one before.” I looked at the men around me. “I didn’t think they were real.”
Nicco scoffed. “In this fucking kingdom, let’s just assume every myth is real.”
Someone huffed from behind us. “Because only monsters would live in a place like this.”
I turned to glare at the men behind me. “Really?” I met each of their gazes. “Do I look like a monster?”
“In the interest of not losing any more of your men, Captain, I wouldn’t let anyone answer that,” Nicco murmured as he scanned the street ahead. “We’ve all seen her anger issues.”
Anger issues? I didn’t have anger issues. I almost snapped at him to say that, and then I noticed his slight smirk, knowing I was about to give him an angry retort. Instead, I kept my mouth shut. I refused to play his game.
Asshole.
“What do you mean alone? Are there more?” I asked instead, keeping my voice level.
Nicco’s gaze flicked back to me, something sharper than amusement there now. “Inside,” he said. “Come see.”
I almost didn’t want to. Was I afraid? Of the Frosttaken or him? If it was the latter, that wasn’t reassuring.
“Stay close,” Captain Marson ordered, though his voice had lost some of its certainty.
I didn’t wait for the others. I stepped around the warped patch in the snow, careful not to touch it, and followed Nicco down the street.
The farther we moved in, the worse it felt. The air pressed thinner against my lungs. Each breath was shallow and unsatisfying, like I was breathing through cloth.
The door to the house I’d been in earlier stood open. It wasn’t broken, just…open. Nicco walked past it and stopped in front of the neighboring house. I saw that the door to this house was open, too.
Nicco pushed it wider with the back of his hand and stepped aside, letting me look first.
I didn’t want to, but I did it anyway. The room inside was untouched — table, chairs, and a hearth gone cold.
I stopped myself from going any further.
“Shades…” someone breathed behind me.
The man in the center of the room wasn’t torn apart. He wasn’t even bloody. He sat slumped in his chair, head tipped forward, as if he’d fallen asleep mid-meal. That could have been plausible, since a bowl still sat in front of him. But even from here, I could see it was frozen solid.
I stepped closer before I could stop myself. Something about it felt wrong. That word again, though I had no other way to describe this feeling. It was death, but not the death I knew.
I crouched slightly, ignoring the way my chest tightened further the closer I got.
“Don’t touch him,” Nicco said quietly from behind me.
I hadn’t realized I’d reached out. I paused before pulling my hand back to my side. Then leaned in just enough to see his face.
His skin, what’s wrong with it?
I swallowed hard. His skin was too pale. Not the pale of cold. Not the gray of death.
It was the pale of something taken.
Drained from him.
His lips were colorless. His eyes were half open, glassy, unfocused, and overwhelmingly empty.
“Is this what it does?” Marson asked behind me, his voice little more than a whisper.
“Yes,” I said quietly. “That’s what the stories say, anyway.” I scanned the man’s body. “Your only escape is death.”
I heard the uneasy shuffles of feet behind me at my words.
But something wasn’t right. I straightened slowly, my gaze moving across the room.
“No,” I corrected. “This isn’t what it does. This is what it leaves. They take your body's heat, its warmth, and only leave the frost behind.”
Silence followed my words. Heavy and pressing in the small room.
Nicco shifted slightly beside me. “There’s more.”
Of course there was. “There’s always more,” I muttered.
He didn’t say anything about my pessimism. “Upstairs,” he said.
I froze. The memory hit me — the dust, the wood splitting, and something forcing its way down through the ceiling.
It hadn’t been coming in. It had been coming down.
“Amarya.” Nicco’s voice was quieter now, more focused. “You seeing it yet?”
I dragged my gaze to the ceiling, to the faint, uneven marks running across the beams. They weren’t scratches. Not quite. More like grooves, as if a heavy something had dragged itself along the wood.
Slowly. Deliberately.
Waiting for its chance.
My stomach turned. “It wasn’t finished,” I said.
No one spoke.
Then, an almost silent sound came from above. Not loud, nor violent.
It was simply a shift. Just weight adjusting above us.
“Captain Marson?” one of the men whispered. “Orders?”
My eyes were fixed on the stairs to the side of the room. A simple opening led to the floor above. Worn wooden steps ascended into shadows too dark to see, and beyond them lay an unnatural stillness.
I didn’t move. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Marson assess the room. No, not just the room, the terrain.
Nicco didn’t move, and neither did anyone else.
“Amarya?” the captain asked.
I raised a hand, signaling him to stay quiet without looking away. “Don’t anyone move,” I said.
Behind me, a soldier shifted, his boot scraping lightly against the stone.
The sound was small. On any other day, it would be insignificant. In any other place, it wouldn’t have mattered.
But here, it echoed. Not outward… but rather upward. We all heard it. Felt it. The air grew thinner, tugging at my lungs.
And then something changed. Not the sound or the light. But the pressure. Something in the space above us had… noticed.
My stomach dropped. “Back,” I said softly. “Slowly.”
No one argued this time. They started to step back, controlled and careful, trying not to make a sound.
Another shift above us.
Getting closer now. It wasn’t moving fast, nor was it rushing.
That was worse.
Nicco moved into my peripheral vision, neither in front nor behind, but beside me.
“You were right,” he murmured.
I didn’t ask about what. My gaze stayed locked on the top of the stairs. On the darkness. On the spot where something should have appeared by now… but hadn’t.
“Amarya,” Captain Marson said, tighter now. “We’re at the door.”
“Keep going,” I told him. “Do not run.” Because if we ran, then it might decide we were worth following.
The presence threatened above us.
I took a breath that barely filled my lungs and prepared to step back.
Then, a shape shifted into view at the top of the stairs.
Not fully revealed. Not entirely visible.
Just enough to make out something. It was pale.
So pale. Frost crept across the shadow from where it stood.
And where it met the edge of the wood, the frost didn’t extend.
It disappeared. Vanished. As if the cold itself were being taken away.
I stopped breathing. Because suddenly… I understood. It wasn’t feeding on us. Not yet. It was feeding on the world around us.
And if we got its attention, we would be next.
“It’s gone.” Nicco’s jaw was tight. “Move. Now.”
I didn’t argue with him, and Nicco moved when I did.
We gained ground inch by inch, my gaze fixed on the dark where the Frosttaken had been.
The moment my heel hit the threshold, I stepped back into the street, and only then did I allow myself to breathe properly. Cold air rushed into my lungs, fast and sharp.
Behind me, the soldiers seemed to be gulping in as much air as I was.
The door swung slightly in the stillness and then settled closed. Nothing moved in the window above. Nor in the streets behind us.
“We need to find Baxley and Larana,” Nicco said tightly, a low murmur that I think only I heard, “and get the fuck out of this town.”
I agreed with him.
“What in the shades was that?” someone demanded behind us, voice shaking despite their effort to steady it.