White Stag (PERMAFROST #1)

Chapter Eleven: To Feel

Chapter Eleven:

To Feel

When my eyes opened again, I was back on the cold ground of the black ice caverns. Vines lay in a pile around me and I coughed as dust and cobwebs stirred up in the air.

My mind reeled. The bruising from the fight on the mountainside and subsequent fall was now an ugly yellow instead of the hideous purple and pale scabs covered where my wounds once were.

I glanced at my hands, half-expecting them to be coated with my father's blood, but there wasn't even the burn of iron on my fingertips. Bile rose in my throat. It'd all been so real.

"I do not envy you, child." Donnar approached from the darkness, his tail swishing up the dust.

"What...what happened?" I coughed. The dust and cobwebs stirring in the air didn't help my already parched throat.

"You simply made your choice," he said. "And though Winter Law dictates that I be impartial in the wars to come, I must say that I believe you chose well."

My bow and quiver lay against one of the rocks. I scooped them up, the familiarity of the bow against my back easing my anxiety.

"Was it real then? All of it?"

Donnar frowned. "When faced with a choice between what has been and what will be, either option is as real as the other. You chose your future over your past, though the decision took quite some time." I blinked in confusion. It couldn't have been an hour since Donnar kissed my forehead. Donnar smiled at me sympathetically. "A few days, dear, nothing drastic."

A few days could be a lifetime on the Hunt. I shivered. Soren could be dead; he could think I was dead. He saw me fall down the cavern with Elvira, I was certain of that. All that time I was in my limbo, he was alone and ally-less, if not dead. Soren is strong. I tried to convince myself. He can survive without help.

"He's down here," Donnar interrupted my thoughts. "Your goblin. I can tell. He smells like another who came before, they must've been related."

I frowned. "What do you mean?"

Donnar shrugged. "It was a long, long time ago. Some seek more knowledge than they can bear. They usually do not last long. I wouldn't concern yourself with such things. Either way, you will find who you are looking for down here."

He began to turn away, but as he did something he said stuck out. "What do you mean, 'the wars to come'?"

Donnar met my eyes. "For thousands upon thousands of years you have sat beside your throne, firmly rooted into the earth. After thousands upon thousands of years the roots are devoured and torn away. A thousand wars have been fought for you, thousands of deaths offered to you. Each time you have been ripped from the earth and each time you regrow stronger than before. One day your roots will spread across the worlds and when they do, they will be all that is there to anchor it in place. As I said, I do not envy you."

"I was hoping for something a little less cryptic," I said, my voice quivered at Donnar's warning. Gooseflesh rose on my arms and I rubbed it away.

"I must go now, child," the svartelf said. "Don't linger in this place, it is not for your kind."

"Wait!" I called. "You must be able to tell me something else."

The svartelf's soulless eyes started into mine. "By the new moon's time, all will come undone. Now go." The words came with a powerful wind, blinding me and pushing me to the ground. When I stood, the svartelf was gone.