Page 4 of The Frost Witch (The Covenants of Velora #1)

I left the tavern an hour later. There was a cadence to the evenings in such places.

When the second prostitute arrived and the noise ratcheted up, it was time for me to leave.

Once the humans began brawling over their company for the night, it was too easy to get injured and harder to control my power.

Best to be gone before desperation took on its more dangerous shades.

There was enough coin in my purse to buy a night of shelter—many nights, if I was not too particular about my accommodations.

Getting my boot patched would be trickier.

Or I could save it all. Not enough for passage out of Velora—not yet. But soon.

The door that stuck earlier gave way to me without a hitch.

The walking death threat must have knocked the door into submission.

He was still seated at the counter when I left.

He did not glance my way, and I didn’t glance his.

Whether that eerie perusal allowed him to recognize me as the threat I was did not matter. I would never see him again.

The cold whipped in from every direction, pressing against the thick layers of my cloak and in through the leather and wool and linen beneath. There were never enough layers to truly keep out the cold. Not in Velora. Not in the last decade.

I died on a night like this. Back then, such extremes were rare. Now, we went months without seeing the sun.

But I could see just as well in the dark—a gift of the ancient power that moved my blood through my veins. Or more specifically, from the Dark God who created the witches.

I noted the pair of men huddled just within the dark alley that separated the tavern from the boarded-up remains of a general store.

They were just that. Men. Too short to be fae, a possibility that had not even entered my mind in years until that huge hulking beast entered the tavern.

And they were certainly not witches, for the simple fact that they were not female.

The tiny hairs at the nape of my neck prickled again.

Wearing it like this was driving me mad. I reached over my shoulder, dragging the thick braid forward and dislodging my other hand from inside my cloak to pull out the knot that held the plait in place?—

My hands froze, every muscle in my body tightening.

It blended with the snow, white and so finely ground that it was nearly impossible to see. But I felt the impact immediately, as if I’d been punched in the gut, all of the air forced out of my lungs.

Salt.

The two men stepped out of the alley. A smile curved one of their faces—the bigger of the two, his cheeks still full and round. The rich and the evil were the only ones left in Velora with full cheeks. And the former were mostly gone.

“I told you she was real,” the slighter man said, rubbing his bare hands together against the cold. He held his place behind the larger man, lingering just over his shoulder as they approached, leaving a trail of shuffling footprints in the fresh snow.

“The salt was worth the price,” the bigger one agreed, his smile still in place.

Salt was expensive this far inland even before the gods cursed Velora. With so few people left on the continent, the once flowing trade routes from the sea had thinned to a trickle. A vial of salt could buy an entire month of shelter. Or capture one witch.

Anger rolled through my veins. This would never have happened if I were with my coven. If I was where I belonged.

You did this to yourself , a voice that sounded like an eerie mixture of Maura’s and my own hissed in the back of my consciousness. There was no hint of kindness in either. I could be gentle with others, but never with myself.

I was the one who got banned from my coven. My actions. My choices.

The same choices that had landed me here, trapped by two dirty, stinking men.

My fault.

But what happened next would not be. Men who hurt women all deserved to be punished.

The men moved closer, emboldened by the rigid lines of my muscles where the salt held them in place.

“She does not even try to hide her dark master’s mark,” the smaller remarked, rising on tiptoes to see over his accomplice’s shoulder.

My coven mark, the one that proclaimed me a member of the Midnight Coven, burned on the center of my forehead, protesting the salt that held my power at bay.

The paste I’d dabbed across my skin to soften it hours before had rubbed away.

I did not need a mirror to verify that the lines were clear and dark now.

I could feel each one where it was carved into my skin.

I’d thought it was fading as the months and miles separated me from my coven, dwindling along with my power, as Maura had always warned…

but maybe this resurgence of power had reinvigorated the mark.

That was power crackling in my veins, solidifying within my blood.

What these rash humans did not realize was that when they trapped me, they trapped all of my latent power as well.

Instead of seeping from my skin with every drop of sweat, pouring from my lungs with every breath, it was trapped within me. Building. Building. Until it burst out.

I may be weakened, like all of Velora. But without realizing it, these two vermin had shoved me into a pressure-cooker of power.

Words formed on my tongue, but without the ability to move my lips, I could not speak the spells into existence. Spells must be spoken to have power. But the power that curled through my body was not bound by movement. I summoned the energy, molding it into deadly shards, waiting.

The smaller, more skittish man halted several feet away, letting the other approach on his own. “How long will the salt hold her?”

“How should I know,” the bullish one answered, circling me. He let out a low, appreciative whistle as he inspected my backside, the curve of my cloak where it was belted around my waist outlining my full hips. “That purse on her belt is full.”

The thinner man paled. “And it’s nothing compared to?—”

“Speak for yourself, I’ll take every coin I can get for this job.”

Do it. All I needed was for him to put one bullish foot out of line, to break the constrictive ring of salt I’d stumbled into, and I would immobilize them both.

The smaller man threw himself into the space between us.

“No. We…” his eyes flew around the deserted street.

The only eyes watching us belonged to a singular crow, perched on the half-caved in roof of the abandoned general store.

It cawed plaintively, hopping from foot to foot. Not much help to any of us.

“We can’t ,” he finished, eyes turning up to his partner. The wide shoulders squared in protest.

Yes, I silently urged. My fingers began to tingle.

“Then I’ll take what’s mine.” Spittle sprayed the smaller man’s face. But before he could wipe it off, the bigger one spun, reaching across the barrier of salt for the small leather purse tied at my waist.

Mistake.

He hadn’t disturbed the ring of salt, but he’d willingly put himself within its power. Within mine.

His hand never made it to my waist. Frost engulfed the tips, spreading up his fingers to his palm before his feeble human heart could pulse a single beat. Curls of sparkling ice snaked around his wrist. He jerked back violently, colliding with the other man, sending them both sprawling in the snow.

He howled, clutching his ruined hand. Already, his fingertips were darkening to black, frostbite setting in.

“We can’t touch her,” the other one rasped, crawling backward. Realization turned his features paler and paler until they nearly matched the snow all around us.

The injured man huffed, clouds billowing out from his nostrils like an angry bull as he clambered back to his feet.

He shoved his ruined hand inside of his overcoat, between the buttons.

A soundless laugh rolled through my unmoving chest and throat.

Let him try to warm that hand. He would lose the fingers, regardless.

Before, his dark eyes had been filled with greed. Now they gleamed with hate.

Good . Hate was one step away from fear. And fear made men stupid. That was a lesson I’d learned long before becoming a witch.

“We don’t need to touch her.” He reached inside the pocket of his overcoat with his uninjured hand, digging around even as he kept his eyes firmly fixed upon me.

The smaller man was on his feet again as well, though he’d put even more space between us. His eyes darted from side to side, lingering on the alleyway where they’d lain in wait to accost me. He was going to bolt.

I’d decide later whether to hunt him down and punish him. I kept the larger share of my attention on the wide man in front of me. I knew the moment that he found whatever it was he was searching for. Those eyes, dark and full of malice, shifted to something more than hate.

“What do we do with witches?” He did not wait for an answer as his lips curved, drawing the device from the confines of his overcoat. “We burn them.”

Dark God, be with me.

Even immortality had its caveats.

The skittish one froze mid-step, his eyes flaring as the other clicked the device together. Shiny metal against glittering pyrite. A pale gold spark fell to the ground at his feet, disappearing instantly in the snow.

The power in my veins stuttered. But the thin ring of salt held me in place, so that while my insides recoiled, my body could not.

“You won’t get to try that trick again.” Click. Another spark fell uselessly into the snow. He was playing with me now, confident that he’d found my weakness even if I could not so much as twitch an eye to prove him right or wrong.

Stupid or desperate. Not the latter; he was well rounded, if unkempt. A man used to doing unconscionable things to keep his belly full. The smaller one was gaining confidence as well, his shifty eyes no longer searching out an escape route, though he still hovered a few steps behind.

They wanted to kill me.

But you cannot kill what is already dead.