Page 46 of Omen of ice
15
Keltania
My entire body is numb.
I force my eyes open and fight back a shiver as I try—and fail—to move any of my appendages. There’s something heavy on top of me. Not quite as cold as the surface I’m lying on, but not at all warm, either.
A familiar sigh fills the silence.
I open my eyes.
I’m on Valen’s floor, just inside the door.Drip. Drip. Drip.The entire room is encased in ice, slowly melting into large puddles all around us. Valen lies on my left side, one arm beneath my head while the other is across my midsection.
“What are you— Get off me!” I bat his arm away and scoot back. I make a move to stand, but the room dips and sways so violently that there’s a good chance I’ll lose the contents of my stomach. “What happened?”
He stirs and groans, slowly lifting his head from the wet floor. “I would have warned you if I could. I tried… I wasn’t set to donate for another few weeks.”
“Donate what?”
“My magic.” With wobbly effort, he stands and practically has to drag himself to the edge of the bed. His shoulders are taut, his fists clenched so tight that his knuckles have gone pale. “It’s called panashere. Technically, the practice was outlawed centuries ago, but there’s no other way to extract the magic. They take a small portion of my power from time to time to keep the wolves at bay, so to speak. Orbik uses it to enforce protection over the Winter Lands.”
I press the heel of my hand into my temple, breathing in and out slowly. The spinning slows just a little—thank the Goddess. I can’t remember ever being so nauseous. “Donateandtakeare two very different words…”
“I do it willingly. To help my people.” He’s shaking just a bit, trying to hide it, and he squares his shoulders. Sitting up a bit straighter, he says, “Unfortunately, it…takes a toll.”
“I felt as though the air was being sucked from my lungs. It was like my internal organs were all collapsing.” I brace my hands against the small table beside the door and shudder at the memory, sure I’ve gotten a taste of what it will feel like to die. “I still can’t see straight.”
“We’re going to need to fix this…whatever it is, before they have to do it again.”
“Agreed.” I’m not going through that again. Valen shouldn’t have to, either. I don’t care if I have to kill us both to prevent it.
“Ideas?”
I’ve gone over everything a thousand times, and I can’t understand what I did wrong. At this point, there’s only one place I can turn to fix my mistake. “The only thing I can think of is to send a message to my high priestess.”
I hate the idea of admitting I’ve screwed up so badly, but my life—Valen’s life—hangs in the balance. While we’re connected, there are too many variables. Too many possibilities that something could go wrong. I’m human, after all. What would happen if I was mortally injured protecting him? If I was killed? What would that mean for him?
“If there’s a way to fix this,” I say, “Levina will know.”
She has to. If not, there’s a good chance Valen’s life will kill me.
…
It takes just over two weeks for Valen’s messenger hawk to return with word from Levina. It’s hard to judge her tone from the sprawling cursive and druidic seal, but I get the impression she’s disappointed in me.
Or maybe that’s my own shame eating me up slowly.
I wait in Valen’s room with Levina’s message clenched between my fingers. He went out with Kopic early this morning. A Fae solstice hunting tradition, they said.
Valen is moody and obnoxious with an overly inflated sense of self-worth, but he’s also thoughtful. He treats me with respect and as an equal, seeming to genuinely enjoy my company now even though we bicker constantly. Some days it’s a toss-up during any given hour as to whether I want to laugh with him or kill him. He has no regard for his own safety and doesn’t take anything seriously, but it’s hard to imagine my life without him now. This isn’t what I expected our bond to be, but it’s something I’m not sure I could live without.
He’s the closest thing I’ve ever had to a friend, and sometimes, when I catch him watching me, I feel like there’s something more brewing between us.
Even though that’s not possible.
The door handle jiggles, and a moment later, Valen appears in the doorway. Kopic is right behind. “Tania!” He blushes when he realizes his mistake, and he corrects himself. “Aphelian…”
When we’re alone, he uses my name. When we’re not alone, though, he uses my title. He insists it’s a sign of respect, but the way he says my name when it’s just the two of us—like he’s whispering a prayer to the Goddess—makes me wonder if he doesn’t understand me more than I give him credit for.
