In the foothills of Summerling Ridge, Arrad crouched behind a shrub, keeping his breath steady. He glanced at the spot where he expected Tomyko to be. A few moments later, he saw the scantest hint of movement. Tomyko lifted his head just high enough to clear a rotted log and make eye contact. Arrad smiled. A smile his brother returned.

The hunt had gone well. They’d arrive home early, their cart piled high with game. Arrad could already picture how Tomyko would swagger when they walked into town, and hear the excitement in his brother’s voice as he exaggerated their exploits. Better than facing a village of hungry people. Besides, Arrad always got a kick out of hearing what twists Tomyko dreamed up over the hearthfires once the feast had ended.

None of that mattered to Arrad. All that mattered to him was his return. With this hunt, he’d join his father and the other hunters, no longer a boy, but a man. They’d tried to disguise it, but he’d caught on. Initiation awaited him at home.

Arrad looked at the elk doe they’d tracked to this ravine. Her sides heaved with exertion, her brown eyes rolling warily around the dead end of a clearing, and ears twitching to sense whatever had goaded her into this place.

It would be over quickly. He’d thank her spirit for the sustenance she’d provide the village. Arrad never liked taking a life. In the moments before his arrowstring hummed and his prey fell, Arrad always considered the same thought: animals never found a peaceful end among these wild mountains. They’d be ripped apart by some predator while still alive, feeling pain all the while. Or they’d succumb to disease, or starvation, or from some festering wound. None of those ends were as peaceful as his arrow would be.

Perfectly poised as he and Tomyko were, one or both of their arrows would surely find the elk. Arrad steadied himself and prepared to give Tomyko the signal to unleash his arrow.

But something stopped him. A dragonfly zipped directly into Arrad’s line of sight and hovered there, darting between his eye and the doe, as if purposefully interfering with his aim. Sunlight reflected crazily from it’s body, glittering with a color so fierce and indescribable that it hurt his eyes to look at it. Arrad closed his eyes, wincing at a sudden headache.

By the time he opened his eyes again, the dragonfly had flown to the doe. It came to rest on the elk’s forehead.

Fine, pale wisps of white brightened the elk’s quivering hairs. At first Arrad believed that his eyes were still dazzled from the afterimage of the dazzling light that had hurt his eyes. Then he thought perhaps a breeze had kicked up to reveal the doe’s lighter skin between tufts of hair. But no breeze stirred. And his eyes had recovered. He looked on in fascination as the tips of the elk’s hairs whitened, its color fading as he watched. The deep brown of her fur blanched into pure white.

The dragonfly curled up and fell to the ground. The doe’s breath calmed and she closed her eyes. When she opened them, Arrad gasped at the sight. Strange light whirled in the depths of her eyes, like something from a half-remembered dream. A sense of comfort enveloped him.

The white doe knelt, snorting in pain. Her gaze wavered.

Arrad rose to his feet, his heart pounding. Tomyko hissed and motioned to the ground, but Arrad ignored him. “Mother?” he asked.

The doe ducked her head, as if in greeting, then walked right between Arrad and his brother on unsteady legs. Tomyko raised his bow with trembling hands. The doe looked at him until he dropped it, then turned to Arrad.

Urgency flooded his mind.

“Let’s go,” he said, and followed the elk. It picked its way through the roots and fallen trees, guiding them back toward their horses. Two with saddles, hitched to trees, and one hitched to a crude cart filled with skinned and dressed game. The elk would have been their final addition before riding home from the hunt. Instead, it led them past the horses, over sloping ground, to a steep hill.

An unexpected tang in the air chilled Arrad’s face. Unexpected, yet familiar, for he’d invoked the same sensation many a time: essentiæl ice. With the strength of the scent, it had to have come from a large group of icers. He felt a surge of anticipation, for he’d never known another icer. Perhaps they could give him knowledge of the arcane that he lacked.

His hope fled as soon as he came across the first dead body. A woman in a gray cloak, with pure white hair and boils blotching her face. She’d been completely drained past the point of survival. She must have been desperate to cast such a spell.

But women plyed aeolia, not algidon. So where had the ice that covered the ravine below come from?

No, not just covering. What he’d at first mistaken for snowy boulders glimmered with translucent inner light. Blue light. These boulders surrounding the lip of the ravine were not rock, but ice. Ice larger than any he’d ever seen. In midsummer?

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The second body deepened the mystery. By the third, Arrad felt rising panic, which he could see Tomyko shared. These Winders had all died from drain. Some had burn marks. Some had bled from the inside, their skin distorted and purple from pooled blood about to burst through. All of them were blanched and lifeless.

The doe picked her way through the aftermath of whatever battle had been fought here. The idea shocked Arrad. Plyers devoted their lives to the arcane. For one to disrespect another to the point of murder made no sense at all to him.

The elk stopped next to another corpse. A man, about Arrad’s own age, dressed in strange garb. A sword hung at his side; a weapon Arrad knew from drawings and stories, but had never seen. The pattern of ice crystals coating the ground originated from this point. He could still see a faint wisp of steam in the air, coming from the man slumped against a tree, with lifeless eyes. One dark, one silver, unlike any Arrad had ever seen.

“This one lives,” Arrad whispered. The urgency swelled within him as the doe met his eyes. He saw images flicker in his mind, barely coherent, of Arrad carrying the young man away.

“I will,” he said to the doe.

She collapsed to her knees and closed her eyes. She lay on the ground and became still.

“Help me,” Arrad told his brother. They lifted the soldier, a dead weight, who seemed to have no awareness of them at all. Grunting with exertion, they carried him up the slope. Each took a shoulder and hauled him by the armpits, legs dragging behind, until they reached the cart.

Arrad shoved the game aside, then they lifted the stranger into the cart.

“We have to get him home.” Arrad saddled up, waited for his brother to do the same, then set off.

The woods closed in around them. The pace of the horses slowed as they retraced a path barely wide enough to allow the cart to pass. At last they emerged onto a proper trail.

The sun darkened behind clouds. Arrad looked into the sky and felt his stomach drop. The clear blue had been swallowed up by a storm. A massive, seething storm on the horizon. He didn’t wait to gauge its path, but urged his horse down the trail.

As they rode, their pace faltered, burdened by the cart. Arrad brought his horse to a halt, jumped down, and tossed the dressed game onto the ground.

“What are you doing?” Tomyko cried out.

“Reducing weight. We have to ride faster.”

“Why?”

Arrad pointed behind them at the stormclouds. Tomyko’s eyes widened.

When the cart had been emptied, they set off again, faster this time, but not fast enough for Arrad’s liking. He leaned over, tense and anxious, watching the cart horse as it struggled to maintain pace.

Arrad heard rattling in the bushes, which he assumed to be wind. But again, no air stirred. From the corner of his eye he saw movement. Cautiously he grabbed his bow and fitted an arrow into the string. He held the bow in his lap, looking to see what had made the noise.

Ahead of them, a gray form wriggled free of the bushes. Its fur bristled as it turned to face them, with a shriek that startled him. Before he’d even gotten a good look at it, Arrad drew his bow and tried to steady his aim. But the movement of his horse made the arrow tip wobble. He held his breath and loosed the arrow, which skittered away into the trees.

But Tomyko’s arrow found the beast, which shuddered on the ground. Arrad rode past and looked down. The beast resembled nothing he’d ever seen. Gray, with pallid claws, and several fanged mouths snapping at him from somewhere in the creature’s belly.

“What is it?” Tomyko asked, his voice thick with concern.

“No idea,” Arrad answered.

Arrad’s horse whinnied. More bushes rattled, and more gray forms emerged. But what startled him most was the mound of dirt that appeared in the trail ahead. A long snout emerged, claws scrambled on the ground, and a triple-mouthed rodent shrieked at him just as the first had done.

Not trusting his bow, Arrad raised his hand and focused. The creature in the path stiffened. Arrad knew its blood was freezing in its veins. It ignored them as they rode past.

Focused as he was on the spectacle, he didn’t see the birds. Or what might have once been birds. They seemed leathery and featherless. They flocked around him, silently clawing at his face, like living shadows. Arrad ducked his head down and felt talons scrape along his arm. He felt heat fly past him and the birds scattered.

“We have to leave the cart behind,” Tomyko said. “We must ride harder!”

“No!” Arrad said. How could he explain the feeling of familiarity, and the urgency the doe had invoked in his mind? He knew he had to see this man safely to Hiehaven. Why he did not know, but felt it in his bones.

Arrad grit his teeth, knocked another arrow, and prepared to fight.