The chill of the blizzard bit deep down into his bones, and he shivered.

The landscape was eternal white, broken only by the darkness of the distant trees and, at the village's center, the church.

Lukas took a step and his foot sank knee deep into the snow. He could feel it sapping heat and mana from him, like the bite of a leech. His mind slowed, his vision grew blurry. Opening his satchel, Lukas downed a mana potion and felt his power return.

Cursed mage, he thought. Whoever their foe was, they were powerful. Not so powerful as himself, of course, but even the strongest of combatants could be killed when taken unawares. I’ll have their head on a spike.

Beside him was Rowena, standing strong. When he reached out towards her with his mana he felt hers, a sliver of power barely worth mentioning. Even the blizzard paid it no mind, stealing from it almost nothing. Magic for targeting mages. Do they know who we are?

“Damnit all,” Lukas muttered. Rowena turned to him. “It’s nothing. Press on.”

He took another difficult step. His body was cold and heavy, as if he was already dead and now was only driven forward by sheer will. But even that was waning, and he stopped, right hand grasping weakly for another mana potion.

Where is it? Damnit all, I just took one, where is it!?

“Lukas,” Rowena said. Lukas stirred and saw he was no longer facing the church, and that his right hand was grasping air. Right hand, despite his mana potions being on his left hip.

“You have to take me!” he yelled above a gust of biting wind. “My..my mind is lost.”

Rowena approached him with effortless movement, as if the snow between them did not exist. Putting her back against his chest she crouched, slipping her arms beneath his legs as she lifted him from the ground.

The earth wobbled beneath him, and Lukas leaned. He would have fallen had Rowena not held him firm and shifted her weight to accommodate.

Damnit all. He reached for another flask of mana potion and downed it, the liquid sending icy tendrils down his throat. But it woke him from whatever was happening to him.

She’s stronger, he thought as Rowena plowed through the snow with little effort. How do they do it? All his life he had wondered how knights obtained their power. Normal men could train every day and never see the same results, a fact he knew from first-hand observation. That mages were the stronger of the two was by mere technicality: one cannot stab a foe who can kill you from across a city.

But as Rowena tread through the endless snow, releasing giant white clouds from her lungs as she breathed, Lukas wondered if that gap might cease to exist some day. There always seemed to be more and more knights, yet each year the number of suitable applicants to the Magehead grew smaller and smaller.

It was only a matter of time.

Reaching the church, whose tip stuck out of the snow like a beacon, Rowena punched the circular stained glass window. Putting Lukas down, she crawled into the church, then waited for Lukas to do the same.

Inside the air was warmer by a hair's breadth; the cold still seeped into his bones, and the opened window made matters worse as wind and snow flew in in heaps.

They descended the stairs to where the others were, the whole place smelling of smoke. Separated into two groups, they were huddled together by a fire at the center of the pews, its orange fingers dancing and dark smoke rising into the rafters in a choking smog. Yet somehow the fire, which was the size of two men combined, did not look warm in the slightest. The people shivered, and a few had stopped moving altogether. As he drew closer he saw that those unmoving were dead, their faces pale as if the skin itself had frosted over.

Lukas’s men muttered at the sight of him, loudest of all his students.

“Lukas,” Amadou said, rising up. “What’s happened?”

“The blizzard will not stop,” he said.

“Sure feels that way,” Simon said, his great shoulders shrugging. Simon always was the largest of the trio, as broad as two men and muscled like an ox, such that Lukas often felt he was more apt to be a knight than a mage. But he had talent like few others, and Lukas was not one to let talent go to waste.

“I do not mean it as a complaint, lad. The storm is magic in nature; it is draining our mana, and the heat. Now get up; we have work to do.

The Argmont trio surrounded Lukas in an instant, awaiting orders with sly smiles.

“First–” Lukas began, stopped by a great creaking noise that came from above. He looked up, searching for its source among the rafters. Then he saw it.

The very ceiling of the church itself began to buckle bit by bit, the wooden supports groaning underneath the weight of the snow. Then, they broke.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Wood, glass, and snow fell upon them in an avalanche, throwing them into darkness. They were saved only by the quick act of Simon, who cast a barrier over them, the tumultuous carnage smashing against it and sliding down its sides until it began to settle. The noise was deafening, and it was all Lukas could do not to hold his hands to his ears; hands clasped onto Simon’s arms, he fed the boy enough mana to sustain the barrier.

“What the hell happened,” Maxime yelled, flailing himself awake from his bed and shivering uncontrollably.

Lukas let out an exasperated sigh. Of course he lives.

“The roof fell in,” Lukas said. Snow and wind came down upon them in a flurry, and he felt his mana seeping away. We do not have much time.

“Come again?” Maxime asked. Lukas ignored him.

“Mana potions,” Lukas said to his students. The three dispersed themselves into the wreckage, searching among the splinters and the bodies.

How many of our people died? A quick look said more than half, though he thanked the Gods that most of the corpses were those of the savages.

Most of his men had been relegated to the church, however; knights and mages both, along with a number of squires and men-at-arms that carried out the day-to-day labor. And now they lay dead. Moving further north would be difficult without the men-at-arms and squires. Fighting the Mihajaan would be impossible without the knights and mages. And I’ve likely lost both.

“None,” Karine said, shrugging.

“Same here,” Simon said.

Knelt over a pile of wreckage, Amadou reached down and pulled out a leather sack. He reached inside, winced, then pulled forth a single potion of blue-tinted liquid, a streak of blood running down his hand.

“Just the one,” he said.

Damnit all. His head began to pound with pain, and his vision blurred. We have to do it now.

“How much mana do you three have?”

The trio of siblings formed circles with their hands and almost instantly opened them again.

“None,” Simon said. The other two parroted his answer.

“I feared as much.”

“Why? What’s the plan?” Rowena asked.

“We have two choices,” he said. “There’s not enough time to come up with a third. The storm is caused by a mage. A mage we have to kill, but don’t know the location of. And we don’t have the mana for all three of us to be involved. I’ve been studying the storm since we left our quarters. I think I can disperse it.”

Though keeping it dispersed is another matter. As soon as the storm was undone the enemy would set about remaking it. Lukas could keep it away, maybe, if his insight into the storm was correct. And if I’m wrong we’ll all die here.

“The second?” Rowena asked. Lukas looked into her eyes and held back a wince.

“Amadou can find the mage, for certain,” he said. “After that, it’ll be up to you. You’re the only one fast enough to get there before this blizzard buries us all alive. But there’s no telling what you’ll be facing. This mage is powerful, Rowena. And if it’s more than one mage, then…”

“I understand,” Rowena said. Always so headstrong. He hated that about her. And yet he loved her for it, just the same. “What are your orders?”

Lukas stilled as he thought, the cold forgotten. Could he do it? Could he bear to send her alone?

No, came the answer. From deep within him, at the back of his mind and at the core of his heart. I can’t. I won’t.

“I–” he began, intent on giving the order. His eyes met Rowena’s, and he stopped.

It’s decided then.

“Drink it,” she told Amadou, and the boy obeyed. Then she turned to Lukas. “Don’t ever be the fool again. I do not fear death.”

Yes, but I fear your death a great deal.

“You must be quick,” he said.

“I know.”

“You must kill the mage responsible immediately.”

“I know.”

“There may be other mages, maybe even warriors. There’s no telling how strong they might be.”

“I know.”

“There may even be knights, or similar.”

“If I didn’t love you I’d punch you in the mouth, Lukas. But test me again and I will, make no mistake.”

He feared she might.

“May the Gods grant you their favor,” he said.

Rowena smiled. “The only favor I need is from you,” she whispered. Then she was in front of him, her lips touching his, the world forgotten.

“Ahem,” Amadou said. He winced as the two looked at him. “I’m ready.”

“As am I. Begin.”

Lukas gave silent prayer as he watched Amadou produce a thousand lights from his hands. Before, the images he conjured had been crisp and clear. Now, however, the lines of the buildings blurred, and the dots that were each person had merged into disconnected blobs. Most of the other homes, at least, still had survivors.

“There,” Amadou said, a distant dot flaring brightly. “That’s the mage.”

“There are others,” Simon said.

“I count twenty–no, thirty people, maybe,” Karine said.

“Or more. The blizzard is–” Amadou said, and the lights of his magic disappeared. “That’s it, then.”

Lukas looked to Rowena, knowing what she would say before she had even said it. She gave him a reassuring smile. “It’s enough.”

She disappeared in a blur, the falling snow sent into a cascading flurry in her wake. She will return, Lukas thought. But he felt hollow, lonely, as if he knew he was wrong. She will return, damnit. Please, O mighty Gods above, return her to me. I shall ask nothing more.

But he would ask, he knew. He was a greedy soul, no different than any other, and when difficulties arose he would turn to the Gods again and beg for more like a wastrel.

They waited together in silence, listening to the howl of the blizzard’s winds. The fire had gone out, and there was not a scrap of mana left between them.

“It’s cold,” Simon said.

“No shit,” Karine scolded.

“We could huddle together,” Amadou offered. The other two looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. Perhaps he had.

“Enough bickering,” Lukas said. “Look.”

Above them the gray storm clouds of the blizzard began to shift to white. The blustering wind eased, and the chill went with it.

“The snow’s stopped.”