When the world quieted again, the stretch of road surrounding them was free of snow. Instead of loose powder on the ground, it had coalesced into icy, spiraling stalagmites that twisted around his legs, up his body, anchoring him in place. Twin icicles wrapped around each other, rooted to the ground and twisting around his wrists and hands. The ice stretched high above his head, continuing and meeting in a spiraling point that shined in the lamplight.
Vellion gasped loudly, caught by surprise but suspended by awe. He hadn't seen that coming. Hell, he had never seen a display such as that. Her power almost had him questioning his decisions. She was far more than he had previously expected. It took him a moment to realize he was securely stuck.
As snowflakes fell to the ground like dust settling, the buzzing in Amaya’s veins quieted, soothed by the release. That weightless feeling grew – it was a heady mix of relief and adrenaline. She tried to breathe through it. Her arms were raised in the night air, the afterimage of her casting. She lowered them as she cast an evaluating eye over her work. It felt… foreign. Like it hadn’t come from her at all. Too great, too quick, too
instinctual, when before her casting had been controlled and precise.
She grit her teeth and forced herself back to the present. The crimson on her sleeve was larger now, blood pushed out by her pounding heart.
Evaluate. Control. They were all looking to her. The guards, Elara… Amaya felt the weight of their eyes on her skin like a blanket of snow coating the mountaintop. Her gaze didn’t leave the hooded man as she spoke.
“He injected me with something.” Amaya forced her voice to steady, to be controlled and unhurried. She held her bloody forearm out to the side in silent request. It would need to be looked at sooner rather than later – Elara’s healing abilities were why she’d been selected, afterall. She thought of this morning, the way Elara had offered to get her a drink, if only to have some way to take care of her. The way she saw through her careful performances like no one else could. Amaya wondered what the scene looked like — what
she looked like — to Elara’s eyes.
Elara had seen Amaya cast before, but this... this was something else entirely.
The jagged, spiralling ice that ensnared the hooded man glinted with a cruel, almost otherworldly beauty beneath the moonlight. The sharp, biting air seemed alive with residual magic, a faint hum that pressed against Elara’s skin and rattled through her chest. Even the guards, so disciplined and steadfast, shifted uneasily where they stood.
Amaya stood at the center of it all, her arm extended slightly, a crimson bloom spreading across her sleeve. Elara’s gaze locked onto her friend’s outstretched hand, noting the faint tremble in her fingers and the frost still clinging to her skin. Without a second thought, her feet moved instinctively, carrying her closer to Amaya.
“Let me see,” Elara said softly, hovering her hands just above the injury. The familiar tingle of magic sparked to life in her fingertips, a sensation that buzzed softly like distant chimes in the wind. Cool and soothing, the energy coursed through her hands, pooling at her palms before spilling into Amaya’s wound. She drew upon the moonlight above, its silvery glow weaving into her spell like threads of liquid light. Shadows at her feet stirred in tandem, responding to her emotions with a gentle but purposeful shift, as though they, too, sought to protect the princess.
As she continued to heal, her eyes flicked to the twisting, jagged ice encasing Vellion, the shards glinting sharply under the moonlight.
“What exactly did you give her?” she asked. Her sharp gaze locked onto him as though daring him to deflect or deceive. All the while, the shadows at her feet curled and uncurled like restless tendrils, mirroring the tension threading through her body.
Elara coerced no reply from Vellion. His hood shuffled as beneath it he altered his gaze. The glimmer of distant torch and moonlight flickered in his hungry eyes, drawn to the bloody cloth and closing wound. Involuntarily, driven by subconscious desire, his tongue rolled out across his lips. Oh how badly he yearned for just a taste.
Amaya’s eyes narrowed as she watched him, how he shifted and licked his lips. Another piece of the puzzle found its home: his food source.
Blood.“Answer.”"Nothing!" he finally growled aloud in response.
"Come check my pockets if you don't believe me," he taunted.
His mental connection to Amaya was fast fading, his presence in her mind softening. Whatever he had done, or was doing, seemed to be weakening by the second. Be it her resistance or his weakening power, soon he wouldn't be able to communicate with her. Sensing this fraying connection he spoke faster and more hurriedly in her mind.
Words flooded into her head. He knew if he wanted any semblance of trust from her that he was going to have to start offering real truths.
"It was just my blood so we could speak in private, and yes, I can and did play on your emotions. You are not the only one with magic." He tugged on her anger a little flaring it up for a second before fanning her curiosity briefly. He quickly relinquished them both along with any traces of his involvement. His demonstration was an obvious one so that she might perhaps see that she was not being manipulated now.... or was she. How much control did he have? How much insight into her mind? Amaya was disoriented, unsteady, with the lack of control she had over her own thoughts. She thought of how he’d all but
hypnotized her outside of the inn. How much more potent would he be, now that he was in her
blood?His words in her mind seemed even quieter, more distant after that.
"But everyone is always doing that already. From the way they dress or the tone they take. Fluttering an eyelid or sharing a well placed smile. I just have other tools at my disposal. Look, Amaya —"“It’s his blood.” Amaya’s eyes were like ice as she watched him.
“He’s using it to communicate telepathically, because he mistakenly thinks he’s entitled to any privacy at all with me.”The revelation churned in Elara’s mind, a searing mix of anger and protectiveness that burned away the lingering chill of the night.
“You used your blood,” she said, her voice like a blade drawn in warning,
“to force your way into her mind, to manipulate her emotions, all while hiding behind your lies?” The disgust in her tone was unmistakable, her anger tempered only by her concern for Amaya.
She shifted closer to her friend, her body instinctively moving into a protective stance. The chill of the night bit at her exposed skin, but it was nothing compared to the frost in her veins as she confronted the man before her.
“What gives you the right?” she demanded, her voice rising slightly as her shadows coiled tighter, a reflection of the fury she kept carefully contained.
“Amaya doesn’t owe you anything—certainly not her trust.”Elara’s gaze flicked to Amaya, noting the faint crimson bloom still marring the fabric of her sleeve.
“If he’s still in your head,” she said,
“We have to push him out somehow.” Amaya’s eyes met hers, a flicker of fear moving through them beneath the anger.
Vellion hadn't expected Amaya to so bluntly blurt out his confided confessions. An unjustifiable pain of betrayal coiled up in his chest, slowly reforging into anger and then a malice as cold as the ice around him. He knew telling her the truth was a stupid idea, nothing good ever came from the truth.
Stuck there in the icy tendrils, surrounded by accusations and mistrust, head hung low, Vellion let out a soft chuckle. Apparently he found amusement in his dire situation. Powers seemingly depleted, he had little left to influence this situation, but never nothing.
Vellion was a predator, through and through. A hunter in life and even more so now in death. The blight has adapted him to this new world. In the space of cleared snow, there was no way anything was approaching him unaware – even a small, ordinary-looking car. His every sense caught onto the creatures movements, for there was nothing natural about a cat coming at him through the ice, or even hanging around after Amaya's magic.
"She really cares about you."The echoes of his voice chilled Amaya to the bone.
A voice eventually came from out under his hood, but it was not the smooth enticing spell he had once used. This voice was something else. Something old. It was strained and coarse. There was a lacking to its articulation and a faint chilling hiss under every word. It held in it an utter disregard for all things. It was as dark and empty as the moonless hours.
"I did! Because I can. These gifts were given to me, that is my right!" He snarled at Elara.
"Maybe my attention has been on the wrong person."A slender hand reached forward to curl around Elara’s wrist – like Amaya could pull her back, away from the hooded figure.
"You want to be free of me? Of my influence? You have two options.""Why could you not just hear me out?"He had only given the cat as little thought as he had because his attention was needed elsewhere. But now, who was he to question fate when it finally decided to throw him a bone, or in this case, a free meal. He continued to ignore it as it climb up him until the most opportune moment.
"You can bleed it all out. But I promise you it has mingled far. Or distance will also set her free. I'd say the festivities should be far enough. Either way, do it soon before I change my mind... or hers.""Would be a shame if something were to happen to her due to someone else's petty ideals of justice."Amaya stopped breathing. Her hand tightened around Elara’s wrist in warning, blood dripping between the seams of their skin.
Just what kind of unconventional party had Valthyr just crashed into unintentionally ? His thoughts had picked up on their pace, hidden from everybody in full spite of his now feline head harboring them being in everybody’s plain view if they only wanted to look at him. The fact none did would make his next move a bit more surprising perhaps: he released a feral hiss, then jumped at the blightborn with claws extended! It was quite the leap to get him over the icy prison Elara had fabricated, but there also was a reason why people said that cats formed their own, pseudo-fluid state of matter with their body fitting through everything their head could fit through.
Valthyr could have done nothing and just walked along until they finally reached the temple, he had even considered doing just that bit of nothing for a moment, but it had felt just too uncomfortable for his conscience. Also that nice, thick fur clad him in more than just protection against the elements. It also gave him an aspect of anonymity or at least so it felt for the druid.
The feline crawled up along Vellion’s leg and onto his back to then scratch violently on his clothes. He was digging up all the textile fibers he could get a hold of and continued to hiss and meow angrily. Not that he expected to do any damage to Vellion’s body, at least not until he would somehow have managed to punch a hole into these clothes, but that was not the point. A bit of returned pain was enough and it was even fun to do it from this different perspective. When did circumstances give him this opportunity the last time ? Valthyr couldn’t even remember.
As claws stuck into his clothing, Vellion tore his hands free and grabbed at the cat. If it had drawn blood, it was even more stuck. Only the foolish would believe his arrogance wasn't warranted. His arms had been free since his first attempt but he allowed others to have the illusion of safety. It was not through strength or brute force that he found freedom, no, why fight the ice. His arms simply weren't the same thick muscled appendages of a young man that they once were, no longer taking up the same mass that the ice formed around.
His sleeves tore and remained frozen to the prison but his arms slip out with lightning speed only incurring a few minor abrasions around the wrists. The injuries were near unnoticeable along his unnatural sickly arms. Skin marred with old injuries and even the odd strip of loose torn flesh.
Amaya’s eyes widened as she pulled back on Elara’s arm sharply, staggering a step backwards. The two guards shouted, swords raised in an instant.
Vellion cursed them all. Why had they forced him to reveal himself? He had only ever sought to explain himself, to make a deal and feed from one, without anyone else ever knowing. Now, overcome by hunger he would devour this cat in front of them all and who knew what would come next.
The closer guard – more senior, more experienced, more willing to get his hands dirty when the time called for it – lunged. Sir Abel’s sword glinted with moonlight and frost as he swung for Vellion’s neck. The other jumped into the space between the threat and the two women, sword raised. The time for standing down was over.
The attack nearly caught Vellion off guard in the way an army charging down a hill with a war cry in their lungs might surprise an opposing force. He knew it was coming just not when and while he didn't expect it so soon, he still had plenty of time to react.
He disregarded the feline, leaning and twisting below the blade maneuvering in closer to the too-eager-to-die guard. The two handed swing was heavy and full of momentum. Vellion followed it pressing up against the guard and grabbing him, trapping his sword arm across his body, at the same time putting the guard between him and everyone else.
Face to face with his attacker, for a moment they stared into each other's soul. Then with a deathly inhuman snarl, Vellion's jaw stretched open perhaps wider than should be able and bit at the man's most exposed part, his face.
Amaya couldn’t fully see the act from behind the other guard – but she could hear it. The pained scream, the snarling, the
tearing.
The blood splattering on the ground.
A horrified sound tried to wrench itself from Amaya’s throat. But her voice was silent.
“Run!” The guard’s command was sharp, cutting through the chaos.
Elara’s breath hitched as the guard’s scream tore through the frigid air like the cry of a wounded animal. The scene before her was chaos incarnate—jagged ice glinting like shattered glass, shadows flickering madly in the torchlight, and the haunting snarl of the blightborn that had thrown their world into disarray. Her gaze darted to Amaya, heart tightening at the sight of the frost crawling up her friend’s arm, its crystalline tendrils spreading like a living warning.
We have to leave. Now.“Amaya,” Elara whispered, her voice low but urgent. The cold bit at her skin, every breath a visible puff in the icy night.
“We need to move. That frost on your arm… I don’t want it to spread.” She paused, choosing her words carefully.
“And it might, if we stay.”. And that, under any circumstances, could not occur. Not here.
Amaya tore her gaze away from the guard’s back to finally look at Elara. Her eyes were wide with naked fear.
The other guard stepped in to grab Vellion, but his effort was rewarded by a powerful boney fist to the face. As he staggered back the blightborn ripped his sword from his scabbard and spun...
Abel's head thudded to the floor a moment later. Vellion was now visible through the shower of blood spurting from the headless body. Amaya looked back just in time to see it. This time she
did scream. It was short and high, piercing the air. Ice crawled and crawled her way across her skin. But she didn’t notice. All her attention was on Vellion.
His hood back, mouth covered in blood, face a ghastly gruesome sight, dead eyes alight with carnage. In that moment he saw Amaya from around the remaining guard’s body. Their eyes locked for a stuttering heartbeat.
“Your Highness, run!” Hand tight around Elara’s, Amaya turned and ran as fast as she could.
Valthyr had jumped of Vellion’s back the moment the latter had decided to do something that Valthyr had been unable to see, but certainly able to hear and, later on, even smell. At least the snow was gone in the immediate vicinity so that only helped with his speed, but he only stopped once halfway burrowed into the white stuff again a few more feet away.
He had seriously underestimated Vellion. That man was crazy, very crazy! And that put it mildly… One without a face – no idea whether this village actually had any healer that had any hope of salvaging this – then without a life, and two women who obviously were rather scared by now. And frankly to some degree was he himself.
Shift? Not shift? The wolf would have had tremendously better chances against this blightborn should the need arise, but the transition was risky due to it neither being instantaneous nor safe from putting anybody else into yet another shock. Who’d expected a fluffy cat to turn into an oversized wolf ?
No, he would stay the way he was and follow the two women who ran away. As long as this Vellion guy would not return, he would probably be safe and still had a chance of achieving some of his own goals.
The recent injection of blood, Abel's blood, had Vellion’s voice enter Amaya’s mind with a thundering clarity and force, even as the distance grew.
"Amaya... it didn’t have to be this way. This is your fault. You and your little pet. Until next time my pretty snow dove…”And as if on cue, Sir Abel’s body slumped to the floor and the other guard charged with a short blade. Vellion was stepping back against the young man's rage and was soon disarmed. Weaponless, he snarled and then ran. The guard looked over his shoulder to see the others running, before turning back to Vellion and giving chase.
“Fly."Elara’s breath came in short, ragged gasps as she sprinted alongside Amaya, their hands clasped tightly together. The icy night air stung her lungs with every inhale, sharp and unforgiving. Beneath her boots, the snow crunched in uneven rhythms, muffling the chaos behind them but doing nothing to ease the pounding in her chest. Her heart ached, each beat heavier than the last, and she dared a glance over her shoulder. Vellion's ghastly form blurred into the distance, the carnage they’d left behind flickering in her mind like a nightmare she couldn’t shake.
The shouts of the guards faded into the background, replaced by the relentless pounding of their footsteps against the frozen ground. Amaya’s grip was ironclad, a lifeline of fear and desperation that tethered Elara to the moment. Every step sent jolts of pain through her legs, but she forced herself to keep moving, her voice a shaky whisper as she urged her friend onward.
“We’re almost there. Just keep going.”When they stumbled into a narrow passage between two wooden buildings, the world finally seemed to pause. Elara collapsed against the rough slats of one structure, the wood cool and solid against her trembling back. Her legs nearly gave out beneath her, every muscle in her body screaming from the exertion. Around her feet, her shadows curled and flickered, restless, reflecting the turmoil roiling inside her.
“Amaya, what were you thinking?” The words burst from Elara in a broken whisper, her voice shaking with barely contained emotion. Amaya jolted up at the sound of her voice, their gazes locking. Elara’s eyes, wide and dark with fear, locked onto her friend, who stood hunched over, clutching her frost-coated arm.
“That man…he would have killed you.” Panic, shock, guilt,
grief... it was all a petrifying mixture that filled Amaya until she overflowed. She was shaking. She could barely
breathe. Tears were already freezing in tracks along her cheeks.
Elara’s chest heaved, and hot tears blurred her vision, defying her attempts to blink them away.
“I can’t lose you,” she choked out, pushing off the wall and reaching toward Amaya’s frost-bitten arm.
“Please, promise me…promise me you won’t do something like that again.” Her gaze searched Amaya’s, seeking some semblance of assurance, of understanding.
“Please.” Something shattered in Amaya at Elara’s plea. Any excuses she had, any justifications, the explanations for her choices… they all seemed feeble and naive. They died in her throat like fresh sprigs trying vainly to push through a thick layer of frost. She’d been such a
child. Her mind seemed to spin at breathless speeds and freeze in place at the same time. There were no thoughts – only memories.
Sir Abel’s dying scream.
Blood staining the snow crimson.
The voice in her mind, echoing,
Would be a shame if something happened to her…I can’t lose you either.Amaya gave a stuttering nod before throwing herself into Elara’s arms. It was less an embrace and more
desperation. Like she hoped to keep Elara anchored in a storm – or stop from flying away herself. Her whole body shook violently, whether from the cold that still spread across her skin like a virus, or the tumult of emotions that threatened to drown her.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she repeated over and over again through her sobs.
They couldn’t stay there in that alley. They didn’t know if the guard survived, if the hooded man would find them again,
if they were safe – they needed to find somewhere protected. They needed to tell someone about the horror that had unfolded.
But if the goddesses were merciful, they would allow them this brief moment of holding their hearts against each other and remembering that they were both alive.
Echotech71
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Snowdrops
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