He grimaces. "On that note... let’s get out of here, Kahlia!" Grabbing hold of his sister’s swinging legs, he takes off at a jog, bouncing her up and down, drawing squeals of delight.
Chuckling, I follow at a more leisurely pace, taking in the scenery of the season’s change.
Winter has come early again this year, unfurling over the land in a canvas of soft whites and quiet greys. It seems over the last decade, each autumn has been shorter than thelast. I could’ve sworn it was just yesterday we three were racing each other to finish our shaved ices before they melted down our arms under the scorching sun. The ground, only recently alive with autumn’s fiery hues, now lies dormant under a thick blanket of snow, the trees standing bare and graceful like silent skeletal sentinels against a pale, endless sky. Crisp and pure, each breath of air I draw in tingles inside my lungs, each exhale blooms into a delicate mist that quickly fades into the white stillness.
I’m not in as much of a hurry as Janus to reach town, having only agreed to accompany him on the walk to stretch my legs—and because I always enjoy his company. When he knocked on my door ten minutes ago, cheeks as flushed as Kahlia’s, asking if I would "honour him with the pleasure of my mediocre company" on his walk into town to make his monthly Offering, I couldn’t say no.
My generations-old cloak is pulled tightly around me as I tie a knot in the belt, not for cold, considering I’m never cold, but to ward off the inevitable unease that grows with every step we take toward the village. Truth is, I tend to avoid the town centre on Collection Days—when King Halford’s Collectors come to our village to accept the villagers’ Offerings of their magic to the realm. For compensation, of course. With historic levels of scarcity of work and the winter months already freezing the ground, rendering the private produce gardens all but useless, our villagers need those coins now more than ever.
Since the Winter Fever tore through the kingdom almost fifteen seasons ago, leaving me with barely a breath in my body, let alone any trace of magic, Collection Days are just a reminder of what I have lost. That and… considering the numerous petty andless-than-petty crimes I’d unknowingly committed in my younger days, seeing any of the King’s Guards sets my instincts on run.
"Fucking Samfer," I curse my former guardian under my breath, a slimy, unpleasant chill trickling down my spine at the mere thought of him, and I tug my cloak even more tightly around me.
"Kahlia, do you think Eira is trying to lose a race with a sloth?" Janus yells loudly from fifty metres down the road, pulling me out of my reverie. Little girl giggles float through the crisp air to me, and I rock back on my feet for momentum before dashing forward, catching up with them in seconds.
"You should’ve picked me as your horse, Kahlia! Yours looks a little lame!" I shout over my shoulder as I pass them, swinging the basket in my hand, relishing the chilly winter air on my burning cheeks.
As we all turn the corner in a gallop, the village square comes into view. A spacious quadrangle upon which the village church sits, lined by clusters of rundown buildings huddled together as if to shield against the cold. Smoke rises from the chimneys, mingling with the snow that is starting to layer atop the rooftops. Despite the cold, the square is bustling with activity, crowded by long lines of bundled-up bodies moving with a sense of urgency that matches the season’s harsh turn. Nobody wants to miss their turn to make their Offering. Their food parlours depend on it.
"Busier than I thought it would be," Janus mumbles to me as Kahlia slides down his back and onto her feet.
"Not surprising. No one’s giving up their coins today."
Janus grasps Kahlia’s tiny hand as we stop on the edge of the square. "We’ll meet you back here in half an hour?" he says, eyeing the crowds.
Gratitude makes me smile. He knows that I might have agreed to come into town with him today, but I would rather be as far from the Collection lines and the King’s Guards as possible.
"Sure, unless I find someone else I’d rather spend my Saturday afternoon with," I joke.
"Well, there are some bulky men in armour standing over there that look like they might be able to string together a sentence," he jokes, gesturing to the guards standing in the middle of the crowd.
I stifle a giggle; as wary of the King’s Guards as I am, Janus and I have shared many a private joke at how we’ve never heard the guards express more than a grunt or two at a time.
Giving the siblings a wave as they leave to join the end of the line, I wander across the busy street to the food stalls lining the village market. The produce stalls’ offerings have been meagre lately, having been carted in from who knows how far away. But even so, as I eye the small piles of winter vegetables, the prospect of a hearty soup for dinner sounds divine. I make a mental note of what looks good so that after Janus receives his coins for his Offering, we can come back and quickly pick up supplies for the coming week. Over the past few years, we’ve developed an understanding, especially as times have gotten tougher for everyone. We simply share everything between us. He covers most of the cost of groceries, and I prepare meals that can nourish and sustain us all through each season.
Once I’m happy that we can procure enough to make a decent amount of meals for the next week or so, I wander over to Larriver’s Library, the small, familiar stall where a solitary bookshelf sags under the weight of the worn, well-thumbed volumes. About fifty books line the shelf, each bearing the marks of time and use. I’ve read every single one, over and over, their stories so familiar they feel like old friends.
Samfer hadn’t left me with much except for the scars, the claustrophobia, a criminal record, and a never-ending thirst for books and learning. As a passing vagabond-cum-healer, he’d taken me under his wing when I’d awoken from my week-long,Winter Fever-induced delirium to find myself an orphan and magicless, but with my family’s one-bedroom cottage to my name. He’d swiftly moved in under the guise of providing me guardianship and taught and taunted me in equal measure.
On days he felt generous, he taught me to read and write, knowing that since I didn’t have any magic to speak of, I’d have to either use my body or my brains to earn a livelihood one day. On other days, he showed me basic healing tasks to help me nurse the wounds he himself inflicted. Regularly keeping me captive in the cottage for weeks on end, he’d then surprise me with trips to nearby towns to visit a never-ending list of second cousins and for “supply trips.” What I hadn’t realised then was that the supplies he had me carrying back were less paid for and more “borrowed, payment pending… never”.
After six years of being his stolen goods mule, and oftentimes whipping post, I woke one day to find Samfer and almost everything in the house that wasn’t bolted down gone, and the King’s Guard banging on my door with a hundred questions I couldn’t answer. Janus and the other villagers quickly came to my defence, swearing blue in the face that every single time Samfer had been seen in the nearby towns with a “young girl with black and blue hair”, I had been having breakfast/lunch/dinner/sleeping at their houses.
Eventually, the King’s Guards left, with no small amount of threats that if they ever acquired evidence that I was involved in Samfer’s dealings, they would be back for me.
Why they didn’t arrest me for the unmissable striking blue streaks I had in my hair alone, I may never know. But I wasn’t about to ask them.
“Nothing new for you, Eirabella,” Larriver says with an apologetic shrug from his stool, pulling me out of my reverie. “Holly did say that she’d be sure to bring over any books forgotten in the inn after everyone goes home after today’sCollection. Check back next week, I promise to give you first read if there are any.”
The smile I give him is wide and appreciative. Ever since I mused to Larry once that I wondered what it would be like to open a brand-new book, its pages crisp and untouched, we always treat the second-hand books he gets in as if they are. Oh, but to own a book, one that I can call mine, to place it on a shelf in a space of my own.
Someday.One day.
“Chilly day, isn’t it, Eira!” Bonnie calls from her hot cider stall at the end of the row, barely visible behind the giant plumes of steam wafting from her cauldron each time she dips her ladle into it to pour another cup.
“I’ll have to take your word for it, BonBon!” I say, making my way down to her.
She lets out a loud laugh as she reaches over her table and hands me a steaming cup. “One day, Eira, you’ll know what it’s like to feel cold again. And you’ll know what the rest of us have been whining about all these years.”
