Outdoor survival had been a game when we were young. The echoing halls of our home was never so far away that we could not retreat to it when we got too cold or too hungry to continue. The loss of somewhere to go back to was almost as devastating as the loss of my teacher and cohort. They are simply gone. Gone. Every day I hope to find one of them. To feel a sense of home again. At least we might be destitute together, that way.

  From the journal of Drago? Buh?scu

  It had been too cold to sleep that night. The paltry fire Dragos built had barely held back the snap of frost’s teeth. The ground hadn’t frozen enough to keep his numbed fingers from digging up rocks, which, warmed by the fire, became his bed. His breath plumed above his huddled form, hood pulled down over the tip of his nose.

  The zmeu sat beside him, tending the fire. It was fascinated with the element, its orange eyes reflecting the dance and play of flame, immune to the numbing blanket that fell over the world.

  The frosted majesty of the forest rose and leaned in; slumbering trees crackled with frost, bare limbs creaked above them.

  When the dimmest light promised day would indeed come, and Dragos would live to see it, he forced himself up, stiff-limbed and aching. Zgavra looked over at him, silent gaze still entranced by the fire.

  Their wandering search had been as fruitless as the Platou, spare in forage and with no sign of cohort refugees like himself.

  Dragos picked up the rocks, which had gone cold under him, and dropped them close to the pit where they could warm again. He’d put a few in his pocket to keep his hands warm. He shuffled as close as he dared to the heat, which licked at his stinging, cold flesh.

  “Have to go somewhere,” Dragos murmured, his bones creaking with every motion. “I’ll freeze to death out here. It turned cold so fast…”

  It didn’t, not really.

  He knew it would be coming, but he resisted going to civilization. He hated the tight bustle of stinking flesh, misery, and rot that cities were. The countryside, with its tight-knit villages full of superstition and untrusting ways, was still preferable, though he disliked those, too.

  People were trouble.

  “There’s a city, not very far. Sigovara.” The zmeu’s reptilian eyes narrowed at him, the gangly limbs of its half-human form unfolded into a stand. “Can you manage the flight?”

  “Rather not,” Dragos murmured, teeth rattling in his jaw as a hard shiver overtook him. He struggled to his feet, intending to walk. “It’s brittle up there.”

  “Very well,” Zgavra replied. Its form unspooled, plumed, and spilled into another. A black horse with burning orange eyes stood before him, bending to touch its nose to his hood.

  Dragos looked up, his nodded reply jerked with the trembling.

  Aching muscles protested as he slowly crunched across the frosted ground to his box nearby. Slinging it around his shoulders, he adjusted his cloak. He hauled himself onto zmeu’s back after a few shaky tries.

  The beast in horse’s guise wove through the trees, Dragos clung to it, hands splayed over its neck for warmth. The northern breed it chose had shaggy winter fur, which he dug into for tenuous protection. For a creature with a belly full of fire, it did not give off half enough heat for his liking. Still, it was better than fast-cooling rocks jabbing his side, grinding against his weary bones.

  Once they gained the road, it was faster going. The zmeu’s gait picked up speed, moving from a jolting trot to a smoother gait. The road was a paved one, cobbled with flat limestone slabs, though cracked over time. The zmeu’s unshod hooves clapped smartly, driving them forth.

  Hopefully to a taproom, though Dragos had precious little to pay for more than a beer. He deeply regretted not taking payment from the Croitoru house. It had felt like being paid for a betrayal. He’d left Mirel—Maria. Abandoned her.

  No. He gripped Zgavra’s mane harder. She’d have died already if he kept her. Jaw clenching, he bowed his head against the chill wind. No mistake was made there. He should have taken the money. He’d failed himself.

  Lamenting his emotions betraying his reason, the time to Sigovara vanished in weariness and rumination. The sprawling town outside the high walls plumed with smoke from chimneys without number. The streets began wide and narrowed as they drew closer to the watchtowers and the walled citadel.

  “Never been here,” Dragos murmured to a flicking ear.

  “You missed nothing,” Zgavra replied in the same low tone. Though dawn had barely broken, the city was already in motion. People stepped out into the narrow streets. High, overhanging windows glowed at the edges of shutters. Zgavra veered to the side to allow a wagon piled with crates to pass. The horse team was much larger than it, bulging muscles under glossy horseflesh bespoke the weight of the burden they pulled.

  “Tavern,” Dragos sighed. A spot to buy some ale and doze by a fire was all he cared for. Once he was warm, hunger would have to be addressed. One thing at a time.

  The zmeu’s head lifted, nostrils flaring. Dragos barely noticed. It clattered on past vendors, bustling citizens, and the occasional beggar. Dragos noticed one had frozen to the ground. Perhaps had been there a while, but not quite long enough yet for the body collectors to have discovered it.

  That fate could easily have been his own. Could still be.

  With a sigh that puffed a cloud of vapor around him, he looked away. Other people walked the streets, some looking as miserable as he felt. People shied away from the large horse he rode, though he couldn’t tell if it was the size, or Zgavra’s ominous aura that drove them away. Dragos had become used to it in the months he’d travelled with the zmeu, chasing whatever rumor of witches he heard.

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  He rubbed his cloak under his unfeeling nose to scrub away the salty drip there and leaned on the horse’s neck, trusting it to find him somewhere to warm up.

  The walls of the upper city loomed. Zgavra mingled with the carts, somehow slipping past the checkpoint without ever being stopped. Perhaps some glamour on its part, or just looking like it belonged to the procession ahead of it. Dragos barely cared.

  The creature travelled the upper city, which pressed in like a maw of stone teeth, the streets narrowed like gaps between them. The walled houses loomed upwards with their stone spires and parapets. A massive clock tower rose above it all, visible beyond the steep roofs all around. Still, the hooves plodded, and the beast snuffed and whuffled, following its nose. Somewhere.

  “Where are we going?” The chill wind had been cut off entirely by the high walls, and Dragos already felt a little better for it.

  The zmeu’s head swung around, clearly looking to see if anyone lingered near before it responded, “I smell blood magic. I can nearly taste it now. We’re close.”

  Blood magic? Dragos, who had been languishing against the horse-monster’s neck, sat up. Solomonari used blood magic. The Cohorts used it, and so did he, albeit sparingly.

  They entered into the long shadow of the tower. Dragos looked up to its soaring face, the long hands on its marbled face stark, as severe as time itself. He stared at it and shivered in the chill of its shadow until Zgavra passed from it, moving along a side street. Businesses gave way to a walled garden and a gate where two bored men lounged, passing a bottle back and forth. Some liquor to ward off the cold, no doubt.

  Zgavra lowered its head and nickered. It sounded like a chuckle to the wanderer’s ears. As usual, something about them amused the beast, but it never seemed to share what made it laugh.

  When they arrived at the gate, Dragos swung down, the impact ran up dulled feet and into his frozen spine. He winced and turned toward the men. Their gazes swept over him and the horse. One sniffed. Dragos tugged his hood lower, using the appearance for warmth and hiding his strangeness.

  “Domnilori,” he said as he approached the gatemen, “Can you tell me where I am?”

  “The Lady’s Stag,” the taller one said, scrubbing his nose on the woolen sleeve of his coat. His moustache was crusted, and the underside of his nostrils rubbed raw from the material.

  A flick of a glance beyond suggested what it was. A pleasure house. Not some cathouse that people wandered into, but something refined. Being within the walls of the upper city, it was clearly not for the rabble. Their eyes combed over him and had already discerned what he was. Zgavra had no tack. He had no gold. The zmeu butted him in the back with its big head, causing him to stumble toward them.

  He narrowed an accusing glare at Zgavra and said, “Ah, my horse led me here. You must have something in your stables that he desires.”

  The other man laughed, his cheeks rosy with cold and drink. “We’ve got a few mares, but not much of a stable, truth be told, traveller. Tell your horse this isn’t a stud farm.”

  Dragos chuckled mechanically and nodded. “If he’ll ever believe me. Good day, sirs.”

  Instead of attempting to charm his way in—for he knew was not and never would be that kind of charming—he turned and caught an arm around the horse’s neck. “Come, Zgavra, this place won’t have us.”

  The horse’s ears lay back, and it showed its teeth at the men, flapping its lips in horsey impudence. The men laughed. Dragos glanced over his shoulder and grinned. They wouldn’t laugh if they knew what this ‘horse’ could do to them. Should he allow.

  Pushing the dark thoughts aside, he nudged the beast down the street and along the next. It was quiet, empty of folk. There, he paused to whisper, “They wouldn’t let us in. It’s a house for courtesans.”

  “That is where the blood magic is. There. It has hexes and charms in layer upon layer. I’ll go in, even if you can’t.”

  Zgavra’s form wavered into smoke. Dragos felt a clench of some unnamed emotion as the shadowy cloud streamed toward the back wall of the garden, nearby. Dragos hissed angrily. “Wait! I’ll come, too.”

  The eddy of fog paused, lingering against the wall.

  “Give me a hand up,” Dragos grumbled.

  Zgavra’s form coalesced once again, this time into the figure of a handsome young noble. His finely chiseled features and sun-kissed skin surprised Dragos. His tight curls were concealed in a large woolen hat that sagged down to his shoulder, where a wolf fur mantle hung over fine robes, his legs beneath swathed in crimped i?ari. His boots were leather and wolf fur, as fine as any that could be commissioned.

  Dragos narrowed his eyes. “You won’t be taking a wife here.”

  Zgavra scowled and made the ugly expression attractive, somehow. He huffed, “As you say. I won’t.”

  He bent and offered his laced fingers to give Dragos a lift. The wanderer stepped into his palms and found himself thrust upward faster than he imagined. He grabbed the top of the wall, causing a disconcerting rattle of the contents in his peddler’s box, hooked a leg over it, and surveyed the yard.

  The cold had driven everyone away from the gazebos and pavilions. Abandoned for the main building’s warmth, the structures waited silently, casting their shadows in the morning light. Trees etched skeletal lines across the ground. The sun hadn’t yet dipped into much of the yard, leaving a frosted gray beside where the line of light lay.

  Perfect.

  Dragos slipped over the edge and dangled, then fell to land in a crouch. He moved aside, but Zgavra simply bounded the wall, pausing briefly atop it to gather where he was before landing and straightening his garments. The Unspoken in man’s guise strolled across the empty yard, glancing around, chin up.

  The manor had proper windows. Some had cut and colored glass locked in lead to depict charming images of birds and flowering trees. Dragos trailed behind the beast, feeling like a rat in the galley.

  Nerves fluttered his heart. Briefly, he wished he could simply become something else to fit in, as Zgavra had.

  Sound murmured, then bubbled as they drew close to the main house. A few smaller buildings dotted one side of the large area within the bailey wall, and one was built into it. A single door led that way, a bar lain across it. As his gaze flicked this way and that, Dragos almost collided with Zgavra, who had stopped. He stared at a window, still a good twenty feet off.

  “There. The source of the blood magic is just there,” he whispered. A curious solemnity lingered in his words as he pointed at a window.

  Dragos crossed to it, gripping the cold stone sill to see within.

  Within was an audience chamber, of a sort, with scattered alcoves veiled off. Many of the curtains were open, revealing men and women alike seated, entranced with the performance. The wanderer leaned, pressing his cheek against glass to get a better angle at the center of attention.

  A woman in rare silks sat before a zither. Music hummed through the glass, the vibration soothing to his cheek. The woman’s hands danced in complex beauty, her expression serene. Warm brown hair piled on her head in an intricate design, lantern light catching flashes of red. When her eyes lifted, his icy heart trembled in his chest.

  Palm on the glass before he’d realized he’d touched it, Dragos breathed, “Viorica!”

  (zmyeh-oo): Dragon shapeshifter

  (plah-TOH): Region in Calruthia

  Domnilori (Dom-NEE-lor-ee) Plural form of Dominule, polite reference to men meaning Sirs or Lords.

  Rate and review here.