Chapter 1

1

ALEXUS

I have known cold.

Years and years of long and unkind winters in the North, but I’m not certain I’ve ever known cold like this.

Lamp in hand, I bring Mannus to a halt and dismount, my booted feet crushing through a snow drift that reaches above my ankles. Surrounded by an orb of faint light from my lantern, I gather the heavy blanket around my shoulders and trudge against the wind and falling snow toward the women.

I still don’t know how to feel about the blacksmith’s daughter. Something is wrong. Something I’ve yet to place. She carries a stench my mind remembers from many years past, an odor that sparks a warning in my mind, but it’s an impossible thought. Impossible.

“You have fire magick, yes?” I say to the girl.

She bristles, as though the sound of my voice offends her. “I’m not good at fire magick.”

Her tone is harsh and bitter. Rude and quick.

“You don’t have to be good.” I grit the words through cold teeth. “I just need you to help me get a fire going.” I glance at Raina, shivering beneath my cloak against Helena’s back, and jerk my chin toward Mannus. “There’s a rocky overhang over there. I’m hoping this is Nephele’s doing.”

I have to believe it is. Even if I don’t feel her here, I have to believe she will somehow protect us from freezing to death out here.

As I stalk back toward my horse, the blacksmith’s daughter scoffs and speaks two words she isn’t wise enough to keep quiet. “Foolish man.”

Perhaps I’m only tired, or perhaps I’m irritable from the blistering cold. Whatever the culprit for my easily roused temper, I halt and turn around, lifting my lamp so I can see Helena better in the darkness.

She knows nothing about me save for that I am the Witch Collector, a title I’ve never wanted. But in moments like these, the legend surrounding me often dampens the bravery of those who consider speaking so unguardedly as Helena. I suppose I’ve become used to such deference, because her blatant disrespect pisses me right the fuck off.

“I’m wiser than you think, girl. You would do well to remember that.”

Clenching my teeth, I bury my irritation and find shelter for the horses beneath the tallest part of the stone overhang. It’s the shape of a crescent moon, perfect for shielding much of the wind.

After the animals are settled, I gather any dry wood and brush I can find, which proves to be a task though not impossible. When all is said and done, I’ve collected a hefty armful of under-limbs from a dying tree, broken branches shielded by needly boughs from the weather. Some are damp but will hopefully light.

Back at our makeshift camp, I dump the kindling on the ground where Raina has cleared the ground. She sits an arm’s length away, huddled beneath my cloak. I can feel her watching my every move as I shield the oil lamp and begin the work of taking flame from the wick using the wool from the tinder box. When a rough wind sucks away my flame, I try again, but the wind blows the tiny fire to nothing.

“Gods’ death.” I snap the glass door on the lamp closed. “I can’t risk losing the only light we have.” I take a seat beside Raina, sensing her attention moving toward her friend who sits across from us, oddly silent. There’s an easy way and a hard way to survive the cold tonight. The easy way lies with her, yet she makes no effort to help. “Fulmanesh,” I say to the girl, trying to prime her into action. It seems unlikely, but perhaps she’s still in shock. “That’s the word for summoning fire,” I remind her. “ Iyuma if it needs urging.”

“I told you, Witch Collector,” she all but hisses. “I’m no good at fire.” She gets up and, without another word, heads to the far corner of the overhang. Wrapped in the gambeson, she turns her back to us amid the shadows, as though she’s going to sleep.

Raina scrubs her hands over her knees, then starts to push off the ground to join her friend. I can sense her concern, but I sense something else in the air, too. Something that screams at my instinct.

I reach out and capture Raina’s dainty wrist in my grip, halting her from leaving my side. But the moment she turns those dark blue eyes on me, I let go. Not because I see anger there, but because something dead inside me flares to life when I touch her, let alone when I look into her eyes at the same time. It’s too much connection, a dangerous combination that might make me want to do something I have no business doing when it comes to her.

I’d give just about anything to understand what I’m feeling for her, but there’s no explaining it. No reason for it. It’s ridiculous and overwhelming. I tell myself she’s only awakening an old part of me, the man who could become a master player at seduction when seized by the sultry gaze of a beautiful woman. But I am no longer that man.

“Let her rest,” I sign, a little too uneasy about her friend to insist she help us. “Perhaps she needs to sleep it off.”

“We need fire,” Raina replies, her hands and fingers moving stiffly.

“We’ll get fire. Even if we have to conjure it ourselves.”

I tug the blanket tighter over my shoulders and attempt to build a fire with the contents of the tinder box again, but unfortunately, it’s no use. My hands are so cold they’re shaking, and the wind that slips under the overhang makes the effort impossible.

To save what light we have, I close up the lamp and shove the tinder box aside, burrowing beneath the blanket as an idea strikes me. “I can show you how to summon fire,” I offer. “You might not like it, but I can show you. One time, that’s all it takes. After that, with some practice, you should be able to seek out fire threads for yourself.”

In the pale light, I swear her cheeks grow pink with warmth. “I know what must be done to see them,” she signs.

I can’t help but lift my brows at that. “Yet you don’t know how to summon fire? Who taught you how to see the threads but didn’t take the time to help you master them? Or is this another skill I had no idea you possess?”

I glance at Helena, buried under the gambeson, sleeping as though we aren’t in the middle of a frozen nightmare. She must’ve taught Raina a few things when it comes to fire magick. Or maybe it was someone else. The lover she lost to the fire. It doesn’t matter. I feel a strange dislike at the thought of anyone but me teaching her anything.

“Not a skill, and I cannot see them,” Raina clarifies. “I only know what is necessary to do so.”

“Or you think you do. I fear you might’ve had an inadequate experience.” The moment those words leave my mouth, an image of her staring up at me, face soft and lips pillowy, hungered eyes reflecting golden candlelight, flashes through my mind. It’s so fast—there and gone. Not a memory, but perhaps a longing.

It’s the last thing I should do considering the struggle I feel when it comes to her, but I open my arms anyway, holding the blanket out, and spread my legs. “Come here. Let me show you.”

Her reservation is obvious, a war in her wide eyes and turmoil on her face. But after several moments of indecision, she moves toward me regardless. It seems I’m not the only one doing things I shouldn’t be doing.

To make the position more comfortable, I scoot until my back is against the stone behind me, and Raina carefully fits herself between my legs. It’s unnerving how much I want to draw her to me, to feel every curve of her body against mine. But the blanket and closeness will provide much needed warmth for us both. At least that’s what I tell myself as I fold my arms around her.

“You can relax,” I say near her ear, smothering a small smile. I know she loathes being so close to me, but I sense her thawing when it comes to the idea, so I can’t resist poking fun. “This is far easier if you’re not stiff as a tree. As long as you don’t try stabbing me like you did that scarecrow.”

She cuts a murderous look in my direction. “I am frozen.”

“Frozen or not,” I say after a laugh, “we need heat or fire if I’m to help you harvest the strands. So you might as well get comfortable. Body heat it is.”

She glances at the lamp and widens her eyes. Even without words, I know what she’s communicating.

“No lamp,” I reply, wishing I was still capable of providing light so we didn’t have to depend on that singe flame flickering in the lantern. “If it blows out, we’ll be in total darkness, and believe me, collecting fire threads from body heat isn’t something you want to do in the dark if you’re worried about touching me. Now sit back and cooperate. The faster we gather the threads, the faster you can warm yourself by a fire and not against me.” I lower my voice. “Since I’m clearly so horrible to be near. Your friend is a wretch and smells like an un-emptied chamber pot, and you chose to ride with her anyway. I’m not sure how to feel about that.”

She glares at me even harder, but I just smile.

“Come on. Stifle your pride. It’s bitter out here.” When she still hesitates, I say, “Am I truly so awful that you would rather die than be near me?”

She rolls those lovely eyes and finally relents, leaning back against me. We’re both shivering, but soon enough, the shaking eases, and I’m left completely unraveled from this simple moment of closeness with Raina Bloodgood.

To soothe her and my nerves, I rub my hand from her wrist to her shoulder to create more heat. She feels so small beneath my touch, yet so very familiar. So very right.

I try to ignore the way my heart skips a beat when she turns in my arms, facing me, and begins doing the same to me. Her touch isn’t quite as reverent or admiring as mine, but the feel of her hands on my body…

A small wind rushes over us, chasing away the thought, and I curve around her like a shield to block it out. Once it passes, I pull back, placing a few inches between us. Unexpectedly, she relaxes against me again, quickly erasing any distance.

“Close your eyes and keep them closed,” I tell her, trying to focus enough to continue the lesson I’m supposed to be giving. “Then touch my chest. Right over my heart.”

She lifts her hand and pauses for a moment before finally resting her palm exactly as I instructed.

Gods, she must feel my heart racing.

“Imagine strings,” I say, hoping to distract both of us from her obvious effect on me. “That if you move your fingers delicately, like playing the harp, you can lure those strings right through my skin and into your grasp. You can do this with flames, too. Some witches, mages, and sorcerers can even harness fire threads from storms. There’s much power in the air during a storm. Heat and light. Fire threads can even be gathered using glass and sunlight. You just have to focus and summon them. They will come.”

She flutters her slender fingers against my chest, and as the connection between us forms, growing warmer and warmer, she looks up at me with surprise.

“Close your eyes, you little rebel.” A smile tempts the corner of my mouth, and a grin tugs at her lips as she obeys. “Now, fulmanesh ,” I whisper. “Fulmanesh, iyuma tu lima, opressa volz nomio, retam tu shahl. Think of my heartbeat. The force of life within me. Reach for the deepest part of me. Keep strumming, just like you are now. Then close your eyes and repeat those words in your mind. Fulmanesh, iyuma tu lima, opressa volz nomio, retam tu shahl.”

Instead of repeating the words in her mind, she signs them against my chest, repeating them over and over. “Fulmanesh, iyuma tu lima, opressa volz nomio, retam tu shahl.” Fire of my heart, come that I may see you, warm my weary bones, be my place of rest.

Again, something inside me—something so dormant it’s as old as the god that hides within me—sparks to life. These words… They meant something to me at one time, something I just can’t remember. But I try. As she repeats them, signing them against my heart, gods do I try. But I don’t know what I’m looking for, and even if I did, it would still be shrouded in the shadows of centuries long past and mostly forgotten.

A broken breath shudders out of me, my hand resting on Raina’s wrist. “Do you see the threads yet?”

I need her to see them. I need her to stop tapping those words into my soul.

Thankfully, she nods.

“Good. Now give me your hand.” When I pull her fingers from my chest, I feel the threads leaving me, tugging at my core. The sensation sends a shiver over my skin, like she’s tethering me to her, even though I know that isn’t what’s happening. Another broken breath escapes me, and I cup her hand in mine, palm up, blessedly stilling her fingers. “Very good. Again. In your mind only. Fulmanesh. Think it.”

Her face falls into a mask of concentration, and in seconds, a small flame bursts to life above our hands. Clearly sensing it, she opens her eyes and jerks upright, that bright stare landing on me.

I jump up, dropping the blanket in the process, and take the tinder from the tin. Squatting, I stuff the wool between two pieces of wood. “Now. This is the hard part,” I tell her. “Just send the fire over here.”

She gapes at me as though I’ve gone mad.

I stalk across the small space between us and settle behind her on my knees, cupping her hand and aiming it toward the pile of twigs. “It’s mental. You will the fire where you want it to go. Like most any magick, it will do what you want once you’ve harnessed it. Think of the thing you want most in this world,” I say against her ear. “This can strengthen your magick. It’s where true power comes from. We often hold the most will for our strongest desires.”

The wind blows stronger, and a blast of snow whips through her hair, making her tremble in my arms. Suddenly, the flame flickers out.

Raina opens her eyes and turns a look over her shoulder, panic clear on her face. “I can try again,” she signs.

I can’t help but frown, but not out of disappointment. Out of confusion. “What happened? You were doing so well.”

She shakes her head and turns away from me, drawing her knees to her chest like a child.

The need to soothe her again is strong enough that I run my hand over the curve of her back. “It’s all right. I imagine we’ll have plenty of cold to practice in these next few nights.”

I go back to the kindling and tinder box, my hands shaking harder now. It takes at least a dozen tries or more, but the flint finally strikes and a tiny flame catches the wool and holds. That’s only half the job, though. I keep working, building the flames higher, until a true blaze warms and lights our shelter.

Relieved that we most likely won’t die tonight, I blow out the lamplight to save the oil, toss the blanket over my shoulders, and sit close to the fire. Raina nods at me in thanks, her own relief visible in the softening lines of her face, before getting up to check on her friend. When she returns, she sits beside me, sinking into my cloak and holding her hands near the heat.

“Sorry,” she signs after a while. “I tried.”

I nudge her with my shoulder, proud of her regardless. “I told you. It’s all right. We’re going to live. Besides, you came so close. It isn’t easy, fire magick. You made it look that way, though.”

“Until I lost it.”

I shrug. “Again, at least we’ll live to try another day.”

After a time, she says, “Fire magick would have been useful in the vale. All those winters.”

“I’m sure. But magick like that has a tendency to spread, taught from parent to child, friend to friend, mentor to student.” I pause, unsure about my next words, but it’s a lesson I feel needs reiterated. “Fire in a village can be dangerous.”

I don’t mean to bring up terrible memories, but our paths will part after this, and I’ve just begun the teaching of fire magick. She has to understand how dangerous that sort of power can be, even when it feels like it’s no more than a party trick to light a bonfire. It can have devastating consequences. Moreover, the conjuring of a flame is only the beginning of fire magick’s potential.

When sadness flashes across her face, I change the subject, hoping my point has been made well enough. “Your ability. You’re a Seer, a Healer, and a Resurrectionist? What is that like?”

“Seer, yes,” she signs. “Healer, yes. But Resurrectionist? No. Is there such a thing?”

I can’t help but laugh at the face she makes, but any humor dies fairly quickly. Surely I wasn’t mistaken when I saw her chanting her mother back to life. “But on the green, I saw you…”

“I heal,” she says. “But I have never brought anything or anyone back from the dead. I have saved animals from dying, and you, but that is the extent. I am not very skilled. I thought my magick was secret. I taught myself.”

“You’ve done well to make it this far with such complex abilities without a teacher,” I say, wondering why her mother did what she did. “And yes, being a Resurrectionist is a thing. It’s usually a darker type of magick and a form of necromancy. I wasn’t sure about you. The line between healing and resurrecting is often thin. It seemed that was what you were doing—or trying to do—with your mother.”

There’s a certain pain in her eyes, the same pain I saw when we stopped in the wood to camp that first night. I mentally scold myself for not being more careful with my words, constantly reminding her of her mother. Sometimes, grief feels strange for me, even grief in others. It’s like an old friend to me. Something I don’t fear but accept. I’ve lived with grief for so long, grief for a life I can’t even remember anymore.

Before I can ease the discussion in a different direction yet again, she does it for me. “What happened to your magick?” she signs. “Why can you no longer use it?”

Ah. The question I dread most. Time for this conversation to end. “It died. A long time ago.”

“When you were a child?” she presses.

The wolf inside me laughs, his spirit roiling under my skin, all that godly darkness mocking me. From the way Raina looks at me, I fear she can see him in my eyes. It wouldn’t be the first time someone noticed his presence.

“Something like that,” is the only answer I offer before I lean back and lay flat on the cold ground, staring at the stone ledge above. “Enough questions for tonight. You must be tired. Get some rest while you can.”

Thankfully, she doesn’t push for more information as I close my eyes and pray for sleep. I know she’s curious about me, and she has every right to be. And gods, a part of me believes I could talk to her all night if we were in any other situation. But there are some things I just cannot share, and those seem to be the things she’s most curious about. I am not a puzzle to be figured out. More a tomb to be left undisturbed.

I have a feeling, however, that Raina Bloodgood isn’t the kind of woman to leave well enough alone.