Call of Ice and Shadows

Chapter 1

My eyes linger on the empty field as I face the window above our - my - kitchen sink. My hands had stalled on the pan I'd been scrubbing as a repressed memory bubbles to the forefront of my mind.

A flash of his grin. The warmth of his touch. The callouses adorning his palms as they grazed along my soft skin. Those callouses hard earned from years of working the field I now gazed at through the window.

How long does it take for someone to disappear?

How long does it take to notice?

Three heartbeats, if I recalled correctly. I had been in this very spot, washing this very pan, when my world crumbled. He'd waved and grinned and I looked down to scrub the pan for just a moment. Then I looked up and he was gone.

In a peaceful world, a person would believe their husband was simply out of view. But I knew better. Our world was anything but peaceful. They were always watching, always waiting. There were theories as to why they took us, but no one ever came back. No confirmation.

I shattered that day. I lay crumpled on the floor until my brother had stopped by with game he'd prepped that morning. He found me, utterly dazed and empty.

I didn't speak for three months. A shell of myself. And the dreams... The dreams I'd had since childhood  - that had faded over the years - came back full force since he'd disappeared.

Strange, dark dreams. And cold, so very cold. Vague images of obsidian buildings with moonstone-like glass and always a shadowy figure. Sometimes I woke up gasping for breath, my lungs burned as if I was breathing poison. Other times that shadowy figure called to me, like a siren to sailors.

I refused to move in with my brother and his wife. They didn't need the burden of my eccentricities plaguing their home. Not when I felt something calling me to the woods, like the figure in my dreams. The woods that none of us dare get close to.

Where they lived. Fae. Faeries. Whatever you wanted to call them. Some of the crazier village members claimed Fae ancestry. Insane. Outcasts. I believed those things of them before. But I wasn't so sure now.

A thrumming sort of pain had taken up residence in my skin, my fingertips especially. That urge to run to the woods was stronger, but I resisted. They took my husband from me, like they had so many others. That's what it was, Fae magic to lure the unlucky to them.

Did they want to enslave us? Hunt us? Eat us?

I wouldn't find out. No matter what, I would stay here. For my brother Aurel and his wife Jenika. For the child they were expecting in a month. Our parents were long gone and they'd need my help.

I finally tear my eyes away from the field and make a mental note to board the window before putting the pan on the drying rack. I stare at it for a moment then grab it and storm to the back door of my small home. With all the rage I could muster - which wasn't much after that day - I chuck the pan as far as I can. "Good riddance," I mutter, wiping my hands on my pants as I return to the kitchen.

A knock breaks through my brooding thoughts and as I know who it is, I call out to let them know they can enter.

Aurel stands in the doorway, his blonde hair is mussed and his amber eyes have that same look in them since he found me carving "doodles" in the floor of my home. Concern, mostly, but suspicion as well. He knows something is wrong and doesn't know how to help. Not that I'd let him.

"When's the last time you were outside, Sorin?" he lifts a brow as he stares at the glimpses of my pale skin, his is golden brown from hours in the sun. "A moment ago, I discarded something I no longer need out the back door," I snip back and shift my stance so he doesn't see the new carving beneath my feet.