Page 13 of The Frost Witch (The Covenants of Velora #1)

I had a knife, but pulling it out to trim the points from my nails seemed unwise with the armed guards looking on.

My teeth had to do the job instead. I kept my eyes down as I moved from altar to altar, but none of the other supplicants approached me.

By the time I reached the blood fountain to eat, they were nowhere to be seen.

I hadn’t been in a temple since Janessa’s death.

They were all roughly the same—an entrance at the front, an exit at the rear, and a wall with an altar to each of the gods. The blood fountains were unique to the temples that preceded each of the gates.

I could still remember the scent of my sister’s blood as it coated my hands.

More than three hundred years had not been enough to dull the memory.

Her screams pierced my ears, overtaking the bubbling of blood as it fell from one tier of the fountain down to the next.

I blinked, and I did not see the fountain at all, but my father, standing there presiding over the gore, gaping and fucking useless.

He should have been the one to die that day, his obsession with the fae bringing nothing but death and?—

“Your meal.”

I blinked. The memory was gone, replaced by a trembling acolyte who stood between me and the blood fountain, a tray balanced across her forearms.

Garbed in the same emerald-green robes as Tomin, this acolyte avoided my eyes and hurried away as soon as I accepted the platter of food. Good. I wasn’t in the mood to chat.

My mind blanched at the prospect of eating with the memory of Janessa’s death so fresh and visceral.

But by the time I balanced the tray across my lap and picked up a utensil, my stomach was already grumbling traitorously.

It had been months since I’d had a full, rich meal, and the array spread out before me was nothing short of magnificent.

I might not need food to survive, but it made life a lot more comfortable.

Thick pats of butter melted atop three slices of crusty brown bread, the edges sopping up the red wine sauce that bathed a cut of meat the size of my hand.

And along the other edge, sliced and roasted to perfection, were vegetables .

Thick asparagus, vibrant orange carrots, seasoned purple potatoes…

fully colored, fully mature, and fucking delicious…

not the stunted, pale versions that popped out once out of every hundred sowed in the farmers’ fields.

I hadn’t even realized food like this still existed in Velora. The gardens of the temple must be exempt from the gods’ curse. Or maybe they were imported from across the sea… I didn’t care. I ate.

I was taking my last bite when the others began to appear.

More acolytes in emerald, taking up places at even intervals around the perimeter of the fountain. They remained standing. I kept my seat on the stone bench and chewed slowly, drawing out the pleasure of every dash of salt and drip of butter.

When one of them took my plate, I sighed but didn’t resist. Not because I was above sopping up the remains with my fingers, but because the first of the other supplicants had arrived.

A young woman about my height appeared. Pretty, her gold hair was pulled back in a tight braid that made her large, doe-eyes appear even bigger. Those eyes darted around the circle, widening at the blood fountain, landing on me, and then flinching away to stare at the ground.

Not much of an opponent. Unless she was putting on a ruse. She continued to stare at the ground. I stared at the blood fountain, but every other sense was attuned to her, making mental notes.

If I was going to masquerade as a human, then I could not use my active power.

That left me with spells, but I’d have to be very careful and judicious with how I used them.

Spells had to be spoken aloud, so I would have to be out of hearing range of the other competitors; not impossible, given how poor human hearing was.

But the fae would be trickier. And I could only use spells when their consequences could be attributed to something else, like the gates themselves.

Quick footsteps and another supplicant appeared—another woman I’d peg in her mid-twenties, dressed in worn homespun clothing but neat and upright.

Unlike the doe-eyed girl, who had taken a spot on the opposite side of the fountain, this one took the space directly to my right, with only a singular acolyte separating us.

She leaned forward, looked at me, then turned to the acolyte. “When will we begin?”

The acolyte shook their head, keeping their eyes fixed forward.

The new supplicant frowned, shook her own head, and then pushed her gaze past the acolyte to me. “I don’t think they’ll talk to us.”

I kept my eyes from rolling upward. Why was everyone in this cursed place determined to talk to me?

“It appears not,” I said.

“There are more women than men.” As she spoke, she scanned the perimeter of the fountain, pausing for only a moment on the girl before deciding I was more interesting. “Is that usual, do you think?”

I had another weapon at my disposal—nearly four hundred years of experience with life. They would never know me, but I could learn as much as possible about them. And I supposed that started with the nervous-talker to my right.

“I don’t think desperation discriminates based on gender,” I said, softening the syllables of my voice from their usual sharpness. Covering another part of myself, just like I had with my coven mark.

“No, I don’t suppose it does,” the woman hummed in agreement. “I am Nimra. I don’t know if they will introduce us.” She didn’t offer a hand, which I was grateful for, but I couldn’t very well keep staring straight ahead.

I bobbed my head, taking in more details about her appearance.

Her clothing indicated she was familiar with struggle—like everyone else in Velora—but her upright stature and the ruddiness in her cheeks indicated general health.

She was a bit thinner than the width of her shoulders might have called for were food in abundance, but her eyes were clear.

She’d fill out nicely—if she lived through enough of the gates to take advantage of the food the temples offered.

“Koryn,” I offered, and no more.

The corner of Nimra’s thin lips quirked, but she didn’t push for more. We turned in unison as the third and fourth supplicants arrived. First, the thin man who’d cowered while eating. Then the fae.

The blood in my veins chilled, my rage frosted with ire and a cold burn as deadly as any flame.

I clenched my fists at my side, determined to keep my power in check.

The woman at my side—Nimra, my mind filled in—was still babbling on.

I should be listening to her observations; she’d been here longer than me, days, perhaps; who knew what information she could offer on the other supplicants, including the fae female.

“Garrick the Red is here.”

That earned her back my full attention.

“The bounty hunter?” I asked, managing to close my mouth after the question left it. But there was no disguising the surprise in my tone.

Nimra nodded, her mouth flattening into a grim line.

My mind flashed to the man with the wine-red hair who’d been busy staring down the fae female. The lanky man had flinched away from him. He must have already learned who he would be facing in the gates.

Not that supplicants needed to take one another out, really.

The gods would do it for them at the gates.

But what did I know? Each of the gates represented a different god.

Pava, the Goddess of Peace, would hardly require murder to pass through her gate.

But Edravos, the God of Justice? Or even the witches’ own creator, the Dark God? Who knew what price they would demand.

My gaze swept over the supplicants arrayed around the fountain. The thin man, the doe-eyed girl, the fae female, Nimra, and me. Five. That left two—and I already knew both of their faces as they appeared one right after the other.

The hulking beast of a man from the tavern the night before, who’d almost pulled Kyrelle into the temple instead of me.

My stomach turned, the rich food inside of it threatening to revolt as I realized how close I had come to losing her.

Even as I looked over his shoulder, past him, I felt his eyes land on me.

Less intensity than before, but why me? I was the shortest female, the softest and roundest. I bore no visible weapons.

But he’d seen me in the tavern the night before, when I’d been selling spells. He knew I was a witch. Dark God, be with me.

Before I could come up with a solution to that, the other man appeared.

Garrick the Red. If his deep scarlet hair had not been enough to convince me, the expression on his face would have.

He looked around the group of supplicants like a vicious mountain cat ready to pick off a human who’d wandered too close to the village’s edge.

He was smaller than the man from the tavern, several inches shorter, not quite as wide.

But still taller than me. And unlike the brute from the tavern, whose face was unreadable, Garrick the Red did nothing to hide his ruthlessness.

His dark eyes paused on each of us in turn, his grin growing a bit wider with each supplicant he appraised.

This was the man who’d gained such notoriety over the past twenty years that even my coven stayed clear of him.

A man who had come to Velora, rather than fleeing from it.

Where others had run, he’d seen an opportunity.

If a tenant farmer fled his lord after failing to pay his tithe, Garrick the Red was happy to hunt him down.

If a lordling needed to find his wayward daughter, running away from an arranged marriage for the farce of true love, Garrick the Red would locate her and escort her home.

And he’d kill anyone who delayed him for sport.

There were even rumors he’d been a guest at the fae fortress beyond the mountains.

What reason could a man like that have for attempting the Seven Gates?

When that cruel smile landed on me, I believed every word and rumor I’d heard.

I shivered despite the cloying heat of the temple.

He saw it, his mouth stretching over his teeth.

They were crooked, but all there. And it looked like he’d sharpened a few of them to points.

I wished my power was earth-based. I could have whispered a spell to make every one of his teeth fall out.

But my active power was water-bound. Without access to my coven sisters to share power, any spells I cast on my own would have to draw on the water that in my veins took the form of frost and ice.

I will get as creative as I need to. For Kyrelle. And for myself.

The debates I’d had with myself back in the courtyard outside the temple did not matter now. I was in the temple. There was no alternative but to attempt the gates. I would get through them, and I would get back my coven. My sisters. I would protect my power and myself.

And I’d pray to the Dark God that the gates took out Garrick the Red before I had to.

Nimra exhaled slowly beside me as Garrick the Red took his place between the last two acolytes. The familiar footsteps of the priestess approached.

“Better pick a god and start praying,” Nimra said quietly.

My coven mark burned on my forehead. I hoped the paste was thick enough to cover it. I did not look at her as I said, “I already have.”