After what Dragoslava told me, hearing the word witch come from the peasants' mouths did nothing to comfort me. I was not ignorant of the treatment suspected witches received, and the idea of being the subject of the fear and paranoia associated with them was not a desired outcome.

However, when my father failed to show the same level of worry, my fears eased themselves somewhat. Despite the boost of confidence he gave me, I still lacked the confidence to leave his side.

I found some solace in watching the villagers back off, giving us plenty of room to breathe or react to anything anyone tried.

“I am aware there are stories about my daughter circulating amongst the Medvedev territories. Stories that she has caught the plague, that she is a witch, and that we have bound her to the basement. Worst of all, we have heard some believe she has passed, and we did not want the death of our only child to get out. I come to you today to dispel those silly rumors. Cast aside such ideas and see the truth as she stands in front of you all!” my father boomed.

To drive his point home, he picked me up and placed me on his shoulders. My father was not the tallest of men, but that did not make him short, and he made up for it with broad shoulders. With the extra height I gave him and the irregular sight of our carriage, I stood out like a lighthouse with all eyes focusing on me.

I was not expecting him to do such a thing, and I did not know how to react. The best thing I could think to do was wave at the villagers with a weak smile.

The villagers looked amongst one another as they conversed in silence. A few returned my wave, a handful of five scoffed, but the majority stood in silence, eyes focused on me and my father with unimaginable thoughts running through their heads.

Two older women isolated from the larger group did not fall into any of the categories. The older of the two looked seconds away from turning into dust, and the other looked on the wrong side of forty.

Both of them wore jewelry in the shape of snowflakes, an oddity among serfs, but what was stranger was the shape of them. Instead of the gems being cut into geometric shapes fitted into precious metal. The jewels possessed a clarity rivaling water and clung to their clothes above the sternum, where a necklace would hang, at their wrists, and on their ears. Apart from the gems, the first thing I noticed about their appearance was the cleanliness of their clothes: pristine white. The way grime avoided them should have attracted as much attention as I did, but no one bothered looking in their direction.

The two women murmured into each other’s ear, giggling in ways unbefitting for adults. I wanted to point them out to my father, but knowing I would draw the village’s attention to them as well, I settled for monitoring them regardless of how little I could do.

I stared at them for a few seconds longer before they realized I was looking. When our eyes met, the two women gave me an odd wave, opening and closing their fingers to do so. They couldn’t wave for long before my father lowered me off his shoulder which took me out of sight, something I felt grateful for as it got me away from the women’s glares.

“Guinevere, let one of them shake your hand and then come back,” my father advised.

For a moment, I wanted to disobey his instructions out of fear of the women, but with my inability to use the same telepathy my father could, there was nothing I could do to tell him about them without being overt. Knowing I couldn’t refuse, I relented and outstretched my hand to the serfs.

No one knew what to do at first, and looking back, I don’t blame them. The daughter of a noble, their noble, offered them her hand. When combined with the distance my family built around us, it shouldn’t have surprised me they didn’t know how to respond.

Eventually, a younger boy, just reaching puberty, took up my offer. The look everyone around him gave was as if he reached out to touch a fire, yet no one moved to stop him.

No one but the older woman. While I contemplated how she made her way from the outskirts, through the group, and to the forefront of the villagers, she pushed the boy out of the way and took my hand in hers.

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My reflexes pulled my arm away, but her strength was unnatural, and her grip felt as if she covered my hand in stone. Right before I or my father could do anything further, she started cackling.

“She’s a witch! She’s a witch! She’s a witch!” she sang.

The serfs did nothing at first, but they started screaming in unison once her words dawned on them, they scattered as if staying would cause their untimely demise. Even the younger of the two mysterious ladies ran, though I questioned whether it was for the same reason.

“Wench!” my father shouted, stepping in to intervene.

His powerful hands grabbed a hold of the woman’s shoulder as well as mine to peel us apart. The struggle he faced, while overcome, was more than he expected, and he tossed the woman further than he would have otherwise to put more room between us.

I flinched when I saw her frail body slide against the snow, surprised that my father would throw an old lady as hard as he did. When the woman stood back up with the fluidity of someone a fraction of her age, I froze.

“Guinevere, get in the carriage,” my father warned as he stepped in between us.

“For shame, woman! Walking in broad daylight, drunk as a sailor!” he cursed, his voice enhanced with magic to boom throughout the village.

“Drunk, I haven’t been drunk all winter. Not that you could blame me with how you run the place,” she whispered.

“Father, something’s not right with her,” I said, hugging close to him instead of listening.

“Get in the carriage, Guinevere,” he repeated, earning him a chuckle from the crazed woman.

“Run, run, run, little witch. Run along to safety, run along and hide,” she chirped, her tone not matching the expression she wore.

Her words sent me clamoring into the safety of the carriage faster than anything my father could have said, and I felt the door shut behind me.

From the window, I saw my father raise a hand into the sky, causing a wave of yellow light to explode outward, blasting its way through the village.

The few villagers who ran from the woman collapsed once the light hit them and those who ran into their houses suffered a similar fate, and I watched as their bodies collapsed through the windows.

“Oh, keeping the rabble out of this, my lord?” the woman cooed.

“Who are you?” my father demanded, his voice laced with venom and the threat of what would happen if she refused to answer his question.

“I am Illithic, and I am, well, I suppose I am what you would call a witch,” she answered, oblivious to the tone my father was using. “A Winter Witch, if you will.”

“And you have the audacity to call my daughter a witch?” he seethed.

“Isn’t she? I suppose she hasn’t been at it for long—a witchette, perhaps? Or are you one of the strange ones who-” Illithic considered.

My father flicked his hand up toward the woman, causing her to cut herself off as she jumped back. The frozen ground below her did not hesitate to shoot up spikes as she gathered her footing, pointing toward her neck and locking her in place.

“If you know about my daughter’s progress as a sorceress, you have been watching her. How?” my father asked, closing his grip and persuading the spikes to close in on her throat.

“My, oh my. To think a lord, sorry, a boyar—that is what you prefer, isn’t it?—has such a temper,” Illithic teased.

Dragging the back of her knuckles against the pillars threatening to puncture her neck, crystals all too familiar to me spread against the rock. With a light push, the woman shattered her earthly prison and stepped free.

“This isn’t a fight you want,” my father warned, stretching his arms out and causing blue energies to swirl into balls above his fingertips.

“A fight? Whoever said I wanted a fight?” Illithic asked, mimicking the innocence of a child.

“You should have expected a fight the moment you had the gall to call my daughter a witch.”

The old lady considered my father’s words for a few seconds before shrugging.

“But is she not a witch? You called her a sorceress, but what difference is there? If your people somehow discovered what she is capable of, what do you think they would choose to call her? A venerable sorceress, or an accursed ice witch just like me?” she asked.

“You are speaking to Boyar Boris Medvedev. If you continue to speak to me or my daughter in that tone, you will bear full responsibility for whatever happens next. Your magical knowledge is but a drop in the ocean compared to mine. Choose your next words carefully,” my father warned.

Illithic was not impressed by his magic, or at least she did not show it on the surface. Instead of cowering away like so many would, she faced down my father with a smile. What she could not hide was a step back—a small detail that brought me a great deal of comfort.

“Like I said, your majesty, I am not interested in a fight. I am interested in talking,” she protested.

“About?”

“Dragons. Aren’t you tired of dragons?”