Shadows Across the Snow

Three days had passed since the siege broke, and Frostfang felt caught between worlds — half-ruined and half-reborn. Smoke still curled from shattered towers. But the sound of hammers rang through the courtyards, and children ran in the snow again, chasing each other as if the Queen's soldiers had been no more than a bad dream.

Kaelin oversaw repairs from dawn until the stars came out, refusing to rest. Stone had to be reset in the wall, timbers replaced, gates re-fortified. Every clang of a hammer was a small vow of survival.

On the third morning, a rider arrived from the south, his horse streaked with frost and lather.

"My lady," he panted, sliding from the saddle, "I bear word from the villages on the river. They speak of… creatures — men twisted into beasts, walking by night."

Kaelin's heart sank. "Where?"

"Everywhere," the scout whispered. "They leave no tracks but their howls — and they obey someone none dare name."

Kaelin closed her eyes. The Queen's magic was still at work. She is not finished.

Maerlyn sat by the window of her recovery chamber, swaddled in a thick cloak. Her body still ached from the wounds, but her mind had become sharper, clearer, since waking from her near-death dreams. The visions still haunted her — the mirror, the spear of light, the coronet of flame — as if some prophecy had crawled into her soul and refused to leave.

Rowena entered with a steaming bowl of broth.

"You should eat," she coaxed.

Maerlyn tried to manage a smile. "Is this how you keep me from saving the world? Too weak to stand?"

Rowena laughed softly, placing the bowl in her hands. "If I have to tie you down to keep you from burning yourself out, I will."

A moment of quiet passed between them, filled with a strange, tender electricity. Maerlyn touched Rowena's fingers, holding on.

"While I slept," Maerlyn whispered, "I saw something… powerful. And terrible. Something still waiting for me."

Rowena's jaw tightened, but she nodded. "Then we'll face it together."

The council gathered that evening in the battered great hall, where smoke-stained banners still fluttered from the last battle. Kaelin addressed them, her voice steady.

"We cannot assume this is over," she warned. "If the Queen's corruption is spreading into the countryside, we have to be the shield that holds. We must ride out to these villages and stand with them."

Captain Bren frowned. "We've barely caught our breath."

Kaelin met his gaze with iron resolve. "If we wait, these twisted things will grow stronger. We cannot give them that chance."

The captains exchanged uneasy glances. Finally, they nodded.

Rowena stepped forward. "Let me go with them," she volunteered. "Maerlyn can help us track the Queen's magic."

Kaelin hesitated, seeing the shadows beneath Rowena's eyes — and Maerlyn's fragile health — but nodded. "Be careful. We cannot afford to lose you."

At dawn, Rowena and Maerlyn rode out with a small band of scouts. Frost clung to the trees, the roads silent except for the breath of their horses.

As they passed through the villages, horror met them. Houses had been torn apart as if by clawed hands, livestock gutted and left in ritual patterns. Strange symbols were carved into the doors, bleeding magic that stank of rot and despair.

Children cowered in cellars. Old folk wept openly. No one dared speak the name of their tormentor.

Maerlyn felt the Queen's signature in every broken bone, every bloodied floor — like the echo of a curse too deep to scrape away.

They pressed on, deeper into the foothills.

That night, they made camp on the edge of a frozen marsh. Mist curled across the ground in snaking tendrils. Maerlyn sat close to the fire, trying to chase away a biting cold that seemed to gnaw at her very spirit.

Rowena settled beside her.

"Tell me what you're seeing," Rowena urged.

Maerlyn hesitated, staring into the flames. "There is a thread connecting these attacks. A dark well, deep and foul, that the Queen draws on. It's growing — feeding off every death."

Rowena looked haunted. "How do we cut it?"

Maerlyn shook her head slowly. "I don't know. Yet."

A rustle from the marsh made them both freeze. Shapes moved in the mist — tall, twisted, their eyes faintly aglow with a sickly green light.

"Gods," Rowena breathed.

The things stepped forward on malformed limbs, their bodies half-man, half-shadow, teeth like splintered stone. They wore the rags of what might once have been villagers.

One of them hissed a word that made the world around them tremble:

"Submit."

Steel rang as Rowena drew her blade, rallying the scouts. Maerlyn forced herself to stand, staff in hand, power swirling around her fingers.

The creatures came on, slow but unstoppable, their jaws opening wider than any mortal mouth should. Their eyes were empty pits.

Rowena struck first, cleaving through the nearest beast — but where its blood should have been, a foul mist spewed, stinking of iron and graveyard soil.

Maerlyn spoke words of light and storm, a dazzling arc that shattered three of the beasts at once, sending shards of bone spinning across the marsh. But still more came.

One of them leapt, catching a scout by the throat. Another dragged a horse into the darkness, its screams cut off in seconds.

Rowena was everywhere at once, blade flashing, voice raised in rallying cries. Maerlyn stood behind her, weaving wards, bolts of pure light, burning away the corruption.

But they were being overwhelmed.

A horn sounded in the distance.

Kaelin's voice, ragged but furious, rose through the night:

"Frostfang! With me!"

She and her riders thundered into the marsh, axes swinging, crashing into the twisted monsters like an avalanche.

The things shrieked, breaking before the cavalry's charge, and scattered back into the mists.

For a moment, there was silence — only the wind, and the heavy breathing of the survivors.

Kaelin dismounted, running to Maerlyn and Rowena.

"Are you hurt?"

Maerlyn shook her head, exhausted, her magic drained nearly to nothing. Rowena just nodded once, teeth clenched.

Kaelin scanned the marsh, eyes hard. "This is only the beginning. She is trying to weaken us before she strikes again."

Maerlyn forced herself to stand straighter. "Then let her try. We are not broken yet."

They rode on through the night, hunting what was left of the corrupted beasts, driving them into the shadows.

At dawn, the mountains rose ahead of them, dark and solemn under a pale sky. Somewhere beyond those peaks, Maerlyn knew, the Queen was gathering her next blow.

She tightened her grip on her staff, feeling a quiet fire in her heart.

If she wants a war, Maerlyn thought, then let it come.

Frostfang awaited their return, battered but unbowed, its walls a promise that no darkness would take them easily.

Maerlyn looked back once at the marsh, the bodies of the twisted dead half-buried in frost.

This is only the beginning, she told herself again.

But even beginnings could be turned into hope.

And in that, there was power.