Breathe.
“Good,” Mage Marna said curtly. “Now get out and warm yourself before you die.”
Bryn needed no further encouragement. She scrambled out of the stump with limbs that screamed in pain. Her extremities were already dangerously numb. Soaking wet, she fell on hands and knees in the snow. Her heart pounded so erratically she was afraid it might give out.
“I must . . . get back . . . to the Hold,” she stuttered.
“It’s too far. You’ll freeze before then. You have to warm yourself here.Now.”
Bryn tossed her head up in incredulity, but the mage was serious. She suddenly understood the nature of this test. It wasn’t to see how much Bryn was willing to suffer . . . it was to judge the extent of Bryn’s current abilities.
“The spark spell,” Bryn gasped out between shivers. She held up her cupped palm. Her hand was snow-white and turning blue at the nail beds.
“Kora yoquin,” she whispered in a trembling voice. Nothing happened. She tried to steady her shivering hand as best she could and focus on her pronunciation, as Valenden had taught her on their long days on the road.
“Kora yoquin!”
A small flame sprung to life in her palm. It died in the blink of an eye—but it had been there.
“See?” Bryn looked up desperately at the mage. “I did it. Please, I have to go back now—”
“I already told you there isn’t time. That one flame won’t warm your whole body. You’ll have to find dry firewood.”
“The forest is covered in wet snow!”
Mage Marna kept her lips pressed tightly together. Bryn let out a frustrated cry. She couldn’t feel anything below her ankles. The chill had settled so deep into her bones that she felt them clacking together in her ribcage.
“Do youwantme to die?” she yelled.
“You won’t have ideal conditions when you need to cast most spells. You must be able to cast when you’re hurt, distracted, sick. Now go on.Save yourself.”
Bryn’s mind was numb with the cold, but she circled frantically through all of her options.
The finding spell?
She closed her eyes and focused all her attention on sensing the location of dry wood. She ignored her shivers and clattering teeth. She pretended her robes were dry instead of freezing into ice.
“Jin jan en veera,” she whispered.
A tug pulled her attention to the left. Eyes snapping open, she crawled on hands and knees through the snow, not trusting her legs to hold her upright, to a fallen log on the far side of the stump. It had collapsed over a small, rocky outcropping that made a sort of rooftop ledge. Feeling beneath it, she discovered winter-dead moss and some dry twigs sheltered from the snow.
Her heart squeezed briefly with hope.
Scrambling back to the stump, she quickly arranged a fire with the moss and twigs, though her shaking hands made it take twice the amount of time it should have. Tears sprung up at her eyes, though she didn’t dare spare a moment to wipe them away. Her body thrummed with urgency: she had to get warmnow.
Would Mage Marna stand there and watch her die? Would the mage save her life at the last moment? Bryn didn’t want to find out.
“Kora yoquin,” she whispered with enough control that a flame sprung up on the dry moss and caught. Bryn blew on the flame until it spread to the twigs. Soon, a small fire roared on the dry wood.
Bryn sagged with relief as she held her frozen fingers over the flame, but they were too numb to even feel the warmth. Desperate, she started untying the sash around her waist to shed the wet clothes, but her hands were shaking too badly.
“I . . . can’t,” she breathed. “The fire . . . It’s not enough.”
“No,” Mage Marna agreed. “A small fire like that can’t warm your body before hypothermia sets in.”
“But then . . .why?” Bryn’s mind was numb. Her vision darkened around the edges. Her heart had stopped thumping hard in her chest . . . she could barely feel her own pulse.
“Think,” Mage Marna said sharply. “You have other hexes.”
