Alina trudged forward, every muscle in her body locked in protest. The wind snatched at her hair, yanked tears from her eyes, and sent the hem of her jacket flapping like a tattered flag. There was nothing to break the monotony: not a tree, not a bush, noteven a stray sheep or the black dot of a distant bird. Only the wind and the endless, ankle-twisting slog of ground that wanted to swallow her whole.
She walked because there was nothing else left. She kept her head down and her thoughts on the next ten steps, then the next. If she looked ahead, the flat horizon stretched so far it made her dizzy. The sun blinded her from above while the wind battered her from every other direction with not even a second of respite. Every so often, she would stumble on a patch of loose scree or an outcrop hidden beneath the yellowed grass, barely catching herself before pitching forward. Her palms were raw, her knees stiff from the long descent and the shock of the cold. Hunger and thirst gnawed at her, but she ignored it, afraid that even a single pause would let the chill creep in and claim her.
She’d been walking for what felt like a lifetime when the ground changed. The grass grew sparser, the mud underfoot giving way to a strange, glassy crust that cracked and hissed with every step. She slowed, uncertain, the cloud of her breath ripped away by the gale. The wind was even stronger here, whipping across the surface and sending shards of ice skittering ahead of her like the scatter from a shattered glass.
She moved with more caution, boots crunching on the thin crust, her hands out for balance. Her mind, always her worst enemy, began to make up stories about the plain: how it was haunted by the ghosts of lost travelers, how the wind here could peel the flesh from your bones and leave you nothing but a memory. She tried to laugh at her own foolishness, but the sound was ripped away by the gale.
Ahead, the land dropped away. Not sharply, not a cliff, but a slow, deceptive sloping, the ground curling down into a wide,shallow basin at the center of the plateau. Alina hesitated at the rim. She could see, even from here, that the hollow was ringed with bands of bare rock, black and gleaming where the sun hit it just right. The wind funneled down into the depression, making the air there seethe and tremble. She could go around it, but the basin stretched for miles in either direction, further than she could see. Crossing it was her best option.
Alina set her jaw and started down.
The footing was worse than she’d feared. The crust broke beneath her boots, each step a risk. At one point she hit a patch of ice and slid five feet before regaining her balance, arms pinwheeling, her bag adding to the imbalance, making it even harder to stay upright. At the bottom, the wind was so strong she had to lean into it, hands splayed, eyes squinted to keep out the grit.
That was when the ground betrayed her. Without warning, it caved under her left foot, dropping her half a leg’s length before she could catch herself. The jolt sent a spike of pain up her calf and knocked the air from her lungs. Instinctively, she threw herself backward, only to have her other foot slip and send her sprawling onto the frozen surface.
She lay there, stunned, cheek pressed to the slick, cold earth. The wind pounded at her, flattening her against the ground. For a moment she was a child again, helpless in the grip of a world that had always been too big, too wild, too hungry to care. It didn’t escape her notice that she very easily could have broken her ankle and then what? An injury like that was a death sentence out here.
Surprisingly, panic set in. She had thought she’d accepted that she might vanish out here in the cold. But confronted with immediate danger, her survival instincts kicked in. The crustbeneath her groaned, the sound vibrating up through her chest, and she realized the basin was riddled with hidden cracks, each one waiting to swallow her whole. She scrabbled to her hands and knees, desperate to find a patch of ground that would hold, but every move made the fissures widen, the surface shudder. The storm was a howling, clawing beast now, and she could feel the old, familiar fizz of the Gift in her veins, the electric charge that signaled something terrible was about to happen.
She tried to stand, but the crust caved under her again. This time, her body reacted without permission. The Gift surged, a hot, white thread twisting up from her ribs to the top of her head. The air around her crackled; her hair lifted and splayed out in every direction, each strand charged and alive. The world went silent for a split second, then thunder cracked through her skull.
A shockwave pulsed outward from her chest, flattening the grass for a dozen yards in every direction. The crust beneath her liquefied, then refroze in a sheet of splintered, frost-rimed glass. The wind, caught in the backlash, stilled for a single, breathless instant.
And then it was over. Alina collapsed, limp, the Gift spent and gone as quickly as it had come. The ringing in her ears was deafening. Her arms and legs twitched with aftershocks, tiny spasms that wouldn’t stop no matter how hard she clenched her fists. Her head thudded with a pain that was almost comforting in its intensity.
She lay there, cheek pressed to the cold ground, and tried to remember how to breathe.
Eventually, she rolled onto her back to stare up at the sky, which was too bright and too blue for the violence that had just ripped through her. Her chest heaved, heart knocking at her ribs like it wastrying to break out. She flexed her hands, saw her blue-red fingers trembling, and wondered if she would ever be free of this, of the outbursts and the destruction that came with them.
A laugh bubbled up, sharp and bitter. “Congratulations,” she muttered to the empty air. “You made it one whole day without a disaster.”
She forced herself upright, knees buckling. The landscape was changed. The ground around her was fused into rippled glass, the cracks sealed by the heat of her magic. The wind, which had been a constant for hours, now swirled gently, as if wary of her presence.
Alina stood, legs trembling, and surveyed the basin. Her outburst had saved her from being swallowed, but the price was evident: her strength was sapped, her mind fuzzy, her limbs heavy as if filled with wet sand. She wiped the blood from her nose—another gift of the Gift—and pressed onward.
The climb out of the basin was a nightmare. The fused glass was slick, and every step sent new shards skittering away. Alina moved slowly, wary of what might happen if she fell again. At the top, she paused, wiped sweat from her brow, and looked back.
There was a scar in the earth where she had lain—a bright, curling line of glass that shone in the sunlight. A warning, or maybe just a reminder. Either way, it was proof she had been here.
She didn’t linger. The wind was returning, and the cold was sharper now. She fixed her eyes on the far horizon and started moving, mindlessly putting one foot in front of the other like an automaton.
She had no idea where she was. No idea where she was going. And she was glad for it.
In the afternoon the land turned cruel again, and Alina found herself among ridges so barren they made the earlier slopes look like a summer orchard. The wind had whipped itself into a raging storm once more, but this time it felt almost purposeful, as though it resented her presence and meant to drive her back down the way she’d come. Each gust scoured the exposed stone, pelting her with needle-fine grit that stung the skin and filled her mouth.
The way forward was nothing but a jigsaw of boulders and shale, the ground littered with the leavings of ancient avalanches. Alina picked her path slowly, testing each stone before committing her weight, but even the surest step sent little landslides clattering down the incline behind her. The air was thin, and with every breath her chest ached more sharply, the space between her ribs a little tighter.
She’d lost count of how many hours she’d been walking. Her stomach knotted with emptiness, and her lips were split and crusted with salt. The handkerchief Finn had given her was pressed tight against her palm, a makeshift bandage for the cuts she’d earned in her last fall. Her fingers had gone white, then red and blue, then back to white again. When she tried to flex them, only the first two would obey.
Still, she walked.
Every ten steps or so, the world titled unexpectedly. The fatigue was like a fever—at first it had been only a background hum, but now it became a full-body shiver that threatened to drop her where she stood. Her vision blurred at the edges, the landscape distortinginto a smear of colorless rock and cold. She blinked hard, but the spots swimming in front of her eyes refused to go away.
She tried to focus on the summit, to set small goals—make it to the next outcrop, the next half-collapsed cairn, the next patch of moss. But the ridgeline never seemed to get closer, and the stones underfoot were treacherous, moving with a slyness that felt deliberate. Once, she placed her foot on a flat slab only to have the whole thing tip, sending her sliding sideways until she caught herself on a spike of granite. The impact split the skin on her forearm, but the pain was so familiar by now that she barely noticed.
The sun, ever so bright, offered nothing but the illusion of warmth. The wind was relentless, the cold seeping into her bones and making her teeth chatter even behind clenched lips. At the same time, she was sweating, but every drop of moisture turned instantly to chill. She wondered, vaguely, if this was how people died out here—not with a scream or a fight, but with a slow surrender, each step a little softer until they simply never took another.
Her body rebelled. She stopped, just for a second, to catch her breath. When she tried to move again, her left leg seized with cramp, the muscle locking so tight she nearly tumbled backwards down the slope. She gritted her teeth, massaged the frozen flesh with her stiff fingers, and willed herself to keep going.
