Frost

Kate Avery Ellison

Copyright © 2012 Kate Avery Ellison

All Rights Reserved

Do not distribute or make copies of this book, electronically or otherwise, in part or in whole, without the written consent of the author.

IT WAS COLD, the kind of cold that made bones feel brittle and hands ache. My breath streamed from my lips like smoke, and my feet made wet, crunching sounds in the snow as I slipped through the forest. As I ran, my lungs ached and my sack of yarn thumped against my back. My cloak tangled around my ankles, but I yanked it free without stopping.

It was quota day in the village, and I was going to be late if I didn’t hurry.

The path stretched ahead in a white trail of unbroken snow, and on either side the ice-covered limbs of the trees hemmed me in with walls of frosty green. Even the light took on a grim, almost gray-blue quality here, and the world was blank with silence. I could hear only the ragged noise of my own breathing and my own footsteps. I felt like an interloper—too loud, too clumsy, too disruptive.

The Frost was always like that. The snow-covered trees had a deadening effect. They absorbed everything—animal calls, voices, even screams for help. Something could come from behind without warning, and you wouldn’t hear anything until it was right upon you. Until it was almost too late.

A branch snapped in the woods to my left. I flinched, turning my head in an effort to locate the source of the sound.

But silence wrapped the world once more. The shadows lay still and gray across the snow. Empty.

“It’s still light,” I whispered aloud, trying to reassure myself. In the light, I was safe. Even the smallest child knew that much.

The monsters didn’t come out until after dark.

I moved faster anyway, spooked by that branch snap even though a blue-gray gloom still illuminated the path. A shiver ran down my spine. Despite our often-repeated mantras about the safety of the light, nothing was certain in the Frost. My parents had always been careful. They had always been prepared. And yet, two months ago they went out into the Frost in the daylight and never returned.

They’d been found days later, dead.

They’d been killed by the monsters that lurked deep in the Frost, monsters that barely anyone ever saw except for tracks in the snow, or the glow of their red eyes in the darkness.

My people called them Watchers.

Color danced at the edges of my vision as I passed the winter-defying snow blossoms, their long sky-blue petals drooping with ice as they dangled from the bushes that lined the path. They were everywhere here, spilling across the snow, drawing a line of demarcation between me and the woods. Every winter, the snows came and the cold killed everything, but these flowers lived. We planted them everywhere—on the paths and around our houses—because the Watchers rarely crossed a fallen snow blossom. For some reason, the flowers turned them away.

Usually.

I touched the bunch that dangled from my throat with one finger. My parents’ snow blossom necklaces had been missing from their bodies when they were found. Had the monsters torn the flowers off before killing them, or had they even been wearing them at all?

Another branch snapped behind me, the crack loud as a shout in the stillness.

I hurried faster.

Sometimes we found tracks across the paths despite the blossoms. Sometimes nothing kept the Watchers out.

My foot caught a root, and I stumbled.

The bushes rustled behind me.

Panic clawed at my throat. I dropped my sack, fumbling at my belt for the knife I carried even though I knew it would do no good against the monsters because no weapons stopped them. I turned, ready to defend myself.

The branches parted, and a figure stepped onto the path.

It was only Cole, one of the village boys.

“Cole,” I snapped, sheathing the knife. “Are you trying to kill me with fright?”

He flashed me a sheepish smile. “Did you think I was a Watcher, Lia?”

I threw a glance at the sky as I snatched up my sack and flung it over my shoulder once more. Clouds were rolling in, blocking out the sun. The light around us was growing dimmer, filling the path with a premature twilight. A storm was coming.

His smile faded a little at my expression. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I should have called out to warn you.”

“We’re supposed to stay on the paths,” I growled, brushing snow from my skirt. I didn’t want to discuss my irrational panic. I’d been walking the paths through the Frost my entire life. I shouldn’t be jumping at every stray sound like some five-year-old child.

Cole pointed at two squirrel pelts dangling from his belt. “Quota,” he said simply, adjusting the bow hanging on his back. He moved past me and onto the path. “Speaking of which, we’re going to be late for the counting.”

“You’re a Carver,” I said, falling into step beside him. “Not a Hunter.”

“And you’re a Weaver, not a Farmer, but you still keep horses and chickens,” he said.

I shrugged, still annoyed with him for startling me. “My parents took that farm because no one else wanted it. It’s too far from the village, too isolated. We keep animals because we have room. I don’t bring them into the village on quota day.”

“The quota master gives my family a little extra flour if I slip him a pelt,” Cole said. He glanced down at me, his smile mysterious. “Besides, the forest isn’t dangerous this close to the village, not in daylight.”

“The Frost is always dangerous,” I said firmly.

Cole tipped his head to one side and smiled. He refrained from disagreeing outright out of politeness, I supposed. Having dead parents usually evoked that response from people. “I can take care of myself,” he said.

I looked him over. He was tall, and he carried the bow like he knew how to use it. He might be called handsome by some, but he was too lean and foxlike for my taste. He had a daring streak a mile wide, and his eyes always seemed to hold some secret. His mouth slid into a smirk between every word he spoke.

Our gazes held a moment, and his eyes narrowed with sudden decision. For some reason, his expression unnerved me.

“Lia—”

“We’re going to be late,” I said, dodging, and hurried ahead.

I could hear him jogging to catch up as I rounded the curve. Here the path crawled beneath a leaning pair of massive boulders and alongside a stream of dark, turbulent water. I scrambled around the first rock, but then what I saw on the other side of the river made me freeze.

Shadowy figures in gray uniforms slipped through the trees, rifles in their hands. There were two of them, sharp-eyed and dark-haired. Bandoleers glittered across their chests.

Cole caught up with me. I put up a hand to quiet him, and together we watched.

"Farthers," I whispered.

“What are they doing this close to the Frost?” Cole muttered.

I just shook my head as a shiver descended my spine. Farthers—the people from farther than the Frost—rarely ventured beyond the place where the snow and ice began. They had their own country, a grim and gray place called Aeralis, and we knew only rumors of it, but those rumors were enough to inspire fear in us all. I’d been as far as the roads that ringed their land once. I’d seen the horse-drawn wagons filled with prisoners, and the sharp metal fences that marred the fields like stitches across a pale white cheek.

The men crept down to the bank and stared at the dark water. They hadn’t seen us. One gestured at the river, and another pointed at the sky and the approaching storm clouds that were visible through the break in the trees. They appeared to be arguing.

“They won’t cross the river,” I said, confident of it despite my fear. “They never do.”

“They’re afraid of Watchers,” Cole said.

I laughed under my breath at the irony of it. The monsters in the woods protected us as much as they endangered us.

After another moment, the Farthers went back up the bank and vanished into the trees. Like I’d predicted, they didn’t cross the river into our lands. I sighed.

Cole spat at the ground in disgust. “Those Farther scum.”

I didn’t reply. Another glance at the sky confirmed that the storm was fast approaching with the night, and our time was dwindling. We still had to deliver our quota.

I turned back to the path and ran for the village.

THE WOODEN ROOFS of the village began to poke above the evergreen trees, and some of my anxiety eased.

Almost there
.

I struggled down the steep hill that led to the gate, my feet slipping on icy rocks. The sack in my hand bumped against my thigh. Cole was right behind me, his boots crunching against the snow.

When I reached the bottom, I brushed twigs off my cloak and hurried through the wooden gate with its faded etchings and carved name of the village—Iceliss. Nobody called it that, though. It was simply our village,
the
village. There was nothing else here in the Frost but us.

Inside the village proper, people clothed in the muted colors of a snowy forest swarmed everywhere. Their arms overflowed with the goods they were bringing to satisfy their quota, the weekly work their family was assigned by the village Elders. Children ran past me with bundles of firewood, baker women balanced baskets of steaming loaves, and fishermen carried strings of fish that they’d pulled from beneath the icy lakes and streams. I left Cole behind as I shoved through the throng, heading for the center of town and the quota master who would mark my name off the list and give me my earned weekly supplies of salt, sugar, and grain.

I reached the line just outside the Assembly Hall and glanced again at the sky. The clouds were still piling up like dirty wool on the horizon. The storm was fast approaching, and getting home might be difficult.

My stomach squeezed with fresh worry. I shouldn’t have come so late. But my sister hadn’t done her chores, and I’d lost track of time while finishing them for her.

“Lia Weaver,” the quota master called. He looked from the list to my face.

I stepped forward, presenting him my sack, and he pulled out the contents and glanced them over. My face grew hot as he scrutinized the mess of yarn—I hadn’t even had time to roll it into the neat balls I normally did—but he didn’t comment. He handed me the sack of supplies that I had earned, and relief slipped down my spine as I accepted it. I turned to leave, enjoying the heavy feel of the sack in my hand.

“Lia!”

My friend Ann Mayor leaned over the stone fence that edged the Assembly Yard, her face framed by a bright red hood. Village dwellers didn’t always wear the muted blues, whites, and browns of the forest like those who roamed the paths of the Frost. The villagers didn’t have to, because they stayed safe behind the high walls.

“Ann.” A twinge of something like apprehension touched me at the sight of her, because she’d been avoiding me lately and I didn’t know why. The muddy snow that covered the ground crunched beneath my boots as I hurried across the yard to her side.

“Are you well?” Her eyes searched my face. “You look frightened.”

“I saw a few Farthers across the river,” I said. I didn’t mention my silly panic on the paths, or Cole’s annoying advances that made me squirm with discomfort.

She closed her eyes briefly at the mention of Farthers. “Oh.” Farthers were not something anybody liked to discuss, but Ann had a special terror of them.

“They went away,” I added quickly. “They always do.”

She bent forward and lowered her voice a little as she changed the subject. “I didn’t see you at Assembly last week.”

I flushed. The weekly Assembly was necessary so each household would know the quota and supply levels, which fluctuated with the needs of the village. We were all cogs in the machine, doing our parts with our individual quota output to keep the village production at its peak. Order, production, discipline, rules…without them, we would starve in the harsh winters and bleak summers.