Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

I hope you’re all spending time with your loved ones and having a wonderful December. I know Christmas is still a few weeks away, but I wanted to go ahead and post this, since Christmas should be reserved for family and not someone’s blog post. So, early Merry Christmas to you!

This year’s been a long one, with good things and bad. But, we’re all finally here, so I hope you’re somewhere warm, with good food and good company to wrap up the final few days before 2024.

As for why this is a specifically Christmas post and not just for December, I have a gift for you. Please enjoy the story snippet below! Hopefully it will tide you over until I release Volume 2 in 2024.

Interlude II: What’s in a Name? Do you know?

Fighting the creatures that have appeared in the water chamber isn’t like her magic practice with her mage teacher or her ‘dance’ lessons. Rather, it’s a terrifying mix of knowing she’s about to die, and doing everything she can do not to die. She twirls through her sword dance forms not because she wants to, but because her life depends on it. For once, she feels distinct gratitude for being made to run through each form so many times before moving onto a new one. 

“Repetition builds muscle memory, Lady Cecily. Muscle Memory is when you no longer need to think about what your muscles do while you dodge from a fatal blow.”  Master Dorian’s voice rings through her head as she leaps aside to avoid a blow from the male creature’s dagger. Twirling, she brings her wand arm up to fire an ice spell at the creature’s shoulder. The spell blooms upon contact and digs into the creature’s shoulder in a messy spray of dark ichor and ice shards. The immediate gage reflex that builds in her throat doesn’t help her.

“Ee-Yai!” Cecily gasps out a strangled noise when she has to twist around another blade from the creature’s female partner. The movement sends her towards the center of the room and she nearly stumbles into the central pool. Doing so would mean certain death for Cecily, if the barrier magic keeping the water pure still works. Somehow, she has the sneaking suspicion that it does. She’s been able to freeze the top of the water channels leading away from the central pool, but she’s as of yet unable to freeze the central pool. Some sort of ancient runic magic prevents Cecily from freezing it and if she cannot freeze it, she cannot bypass the runic protections as she did with the water channels.

Yet, being unable to retreat any further leads her to a devastating realization: the monsters have cornered her against the central pool. Cecily has no other place to run and her ice magic barely affects the monsters. Her eyes widen, and ice slinks along her spine.

Oh. This is why Master Dorian always tells her to keep an eye on her surroundings. The thought crosses her mind between one heartbeat and the next as time seems to slow to her perception. She takes in the approaching monsters as they stalk towards her. They walk menacingly slowly now that they’ve cornered her. The abominations know they’ve caught her and have slowed down to savor her fear. 

With every ounce of surety she has in her body, she knows she’s about to die. Perhaps that’s why the next seconds will forever be branded into her mind. The male creature raises his dagger to strike her down but for some odd reason the light across his face shifts. The creature’s lone golden eye flicks upwards, towards the ice chandelier hanging above the center of the spring. Cecily has the time to register his creepy eye widening before a whirl of glowing blue floods her vision. The blue catches both monsters and carries them with it into the iced over canal. Under suh weight, the ice cracks open with a thunderous split, breaking apart to allow both creatures and chandelier to sink.

Cecily hears them screech before a an even louder boom rocks her off her feet. Bright light floods her eyes before she squeezes them shut, and even then she sees a corona of reds and oranges. Crumpled onto the frost-kissed earth, she curls her body into a hedge-hog position and covers her head with her hands. 

Wind whirls past her with the strength of a winter blizzard. Smoke burns her nose with bitter heat as debris scatters everywhere. For several long seconds the bright light behind her eyelids and the ringing in her ears is all she’s capable of perceiving.  

When the light fades, she opens her eyes slowly to the burning remains of the ice chandelier being disintegrated by the protective arrays of the canal. It sputters and hisses, shooting off stray sparks every few seconds. When the chandelier fell, ithad broken Cecily’s ice and reactivated the magical defenses ont he waterway. Even now, chunks of half melted ice pop off of the conflagration to settle, steaming, into the nearby ground. She sees no sign of the monsters. Have they been destroyed by the canal’s protections? Regardless, the protection holds firm; the water flows clean and clear beneath the magic barrier.

She shakily rises to her feet and looks up. The chain holding the chandelier still hangs in the center of the pool. Only now, the end appears to have been melted. The chain’s clear, smooth ice gives it the appearance of still being in a liquid state, despite being completely frozen. 

Who had melted the chain? The only other person down here with her is…

“Little Sage,” Cecily breathes in realization. She frantically seeks his form atop the central pillars and columns, but doesn’t spot the tiny reptile. Where is he? To cause the chandelier to fall, he would have had to have been up there with it, or very, very close. 

Cecily blinks and turns towards the still burning chandelier with wide eyes. Dread and panic begin to churn in her stomach. She hurries over, and peers towards the wreckage as much as she can. Even as the last of it is burnt away, she still has trouble looking at the light source directly. She squints harder but doesn’t see the newly familiar white form in the canal or on the chandelier.

She doesn’t see anything left of the monsters either. Cecily feels tears rise to her eyes as she glances around desperately.

“Little Sage!” She calls again. Her voice wobbles with her emotions and she takes a moment to rub her eyes. She can’t search for him with blurry eyes, but she finds new tears welling up anyway. She looks up at the columns again, but still sees no sight of her tiny companion. 

Is this it? The question gnaws at the eight year-old similar to how her brother’s collapse eats at her. It feels as if the floor is dropping out beneath her, and she can’t help but scrabble desperately against the revelation overcoming her. 

The Little Sage can’t be…

She doesn’t even finish the thought in her mind. She can’t. It’s not an outcome she’ll accept so she stubbornly sweeps her gaze over the ground. All of the pathways gleam teal and white and it makes it difficult to discern anything with Little Sage’s snowy scales. And, when the chandelier fell, it scattered shards of ice and bits of snow everywhere. Her white scaled friend is just too hard to see. That’s why she’s not finding him. He’s not-

Something white moves in the corner of Cecily’s eyes. She swerves her head and rubs the tears out of her eyes again. The little white blob shifts again.

“Little Sage!” Cecily shouts as she bolts over. The baby dragon lies under the overhang of one of the overgrown bushes. He blinks his gleaming yellow eyes open and sluggishly turns his head to look at her. Several burns dot his body, but none of them appear very severe. Somehow, miraculously, he has managed to escape nearly unscathed. Relief lightens her feet and burns into her lungs.

Cecily falls to her knees next to him and scoops him up carefully. Immediately, she can tell that something’s not right. Little Sage has always felt like a miniature brazier to her. Yet now, his infant soft hide feels cold. 

“Little Sage?” She asks. The tiny lizard lifts his eyes to her, but doesn’t do much more than slowly tilt his head. When he blinks, his eyelids close for long seconds before edging open again. 

Cecily’s mind flashes back to her father’s words, the night he found Little Sage. 

Sages can’t absorb mana from the world around them. And Little Sage had probably just used a lot of mana to melt the chandelier’s chain. Tears gather again in her eyes. 

Creatures without mana die. And she can’t give him any of her mana, because a Sage’s hide rejects both light and mana. She takes a shuddering breath and watches her little friend shift around in her palms. 

Taking the little lizard to her father will take too long. She can feel his body cooling further in her hands. If she tries to go up all those stairs, she knows she won’t make it in time. Cecily blinks and tears roll down her cheeks to land wetly on her fingers. One lands across the Little Sage’s wings. He closes his eyes again but this time he doesn’t open them back up. 

She has a choice before her, and it’s not a fair one. Her friend needs help, but she can’t get him there in time. She doesn’t have the skill to save him herself. She’s never taken lessons on healing magic and even if she did, what the Little Sage really needs is a mana infusion. 

There’s only one way for her to save him and it’s something she knows is forbidden.To give him a mana infusion, she’s going to need a connection to him that bypasses his skin. If she and the Sage were related, she could use that connection to give him mana. However, as it stands she’s not really connected to the Little Sage at all. She’s known him for about twenty-four hours and holds no bond beyond friendship with him. 

Friendship isn’t enough to give him mana. Cecily needs something tangible, something real. She swallows back her fear and tries to weigh her options. There’s only one way to save the dragon’s life at this point, but if she does that, she’ll be breaking one of the most important rules she’s been given to uphold as a mage.

Yet, if Cecily doesn’t break it, her new friend will die, right after saving her life. If Cecily were older, fifteen instead of eight, perhaps she would weigh the consequences against the dragon’s life. Would his life be measurable when compared to the treason saving him would mean?

 But, alas, Cecily has lived only eight years. And the Cecily of eight years only hesitates briefly to ponder what kind of trouble she’ll be in if her father finds out before she takes action. This dragon is her friend and was given to her to look after. She’s not about to let him die.

“I am Cecilia Iceborn Snoweldon.” She begins her enchantment by calling upon the strength of her name. She holds no titles and has no legends laced upon it to call upon, but it still rings true upon her lips and brings her magic to a cold churning beneath her skin. Below her, he personal sigil etches itself into the icy pave stones in frigid blue light. 

“And I call upon my right as a Lady of the Snowy Weldwitts. I bear the heart of the mountain. It is ice in my bones, snowmelt to my blood, and frost to my skin.” She focuses as much of her mana as she can bring to bear into her mouth. She needs these words to take as much weight in her casting as possible. It will solidify her place and strength in what she’s about to do. A snowlit crown circles her brow in power.

“I name you Frost.” She feels the magic snap into place as she Names him. She feels it press upon his core, writing her will into a spot deep inside of his mind and being. Frost. That’s who he is now. The first hint of winter, a messenger, vanguard, and shield all in one. Untainted, frost covers everything it touches with a layer of thin ice. It’s the blanket to cover the earth when winter bares its fangs. When spring comes, it releases its icy grasp to reveal  tiny green shoots from the seeds of the last season. 

Frost. A protector and a warning. 

“After the first frosts that come in the fall to form protective barriers over the earth, I name you Frost in the hope that you retain that goodness in all that you become. Remain kind, remain faithful, remain good, Frost.” Cecily ties her words to the dragon with threads of shimmering hope and determination. She needs him to remain good. Frost cannot become like all of the other Named monsters. She doesn’t know if her intent behind his name will change anything, but she has to try. This is her friend, and she doesn’t want him to become an abomination. 

“You are a Protector, Frost, and you belong to me and to these mountains. Be my dearest friend forevermore, Frost Everfire.” Cecily ties off the last of the arcane bindings between Frost and her. The ties thrum with golden power, spooled between the two of them in a dazzling weave of incandescent strands. For a moment, it brightens considerably, and Cecily squeezes her eyes shut. Even behind them, she can see the bright yellow, glowing brighter than even the sun. 

The light fades a little, and Cecily opens her eyes to see Frost’s golden eyes staring back at her. Shock echoes over to her even as the ties that bind them fade from the physical plane. Frost, despite being at most a week or two old, has grasped the ramifications of what she’s done. Perhaps, better than she, going by the worry she can feel across their new bond. 

“Cecily,” He barely gasps physically, but she can hear his childish voice loud and clear. “You named me.” His voice lays over his soft churs strangely, but she doesn’t mind. Instead, she focuses on what she can feel of Frost and her own growing relief. Frost is certainly no human; she can feel the fast, pointy way his mind works. But Frost isn’t bad either. He’s emotional and very, very smart, but Cecily senses no ill will from him. He’s not going to be an abomination. He’s her friend. 

“I know. I had to. You’re my responsibility. And my friend.” Cecily says then. She doesn’t know if her voice echoes in her head like his voice echoes in hers. It doesn’t really matter at this point though. Or, at least it doesn’t feel like it does. She’s still too busy feeling relieved that giving mana to Frost worked and that he didn’t take his name and become an abomination. And tired too, from the amount of mana she’d had to invoke just now.

“Thank you.” 

“You’re worth it, Frost.” Cecily doesn’t want Frost to ever doubt that. He’s her friend, and he’d more than proven himself already. Whatever the future brings, she knows she won’t be facing it alone.