The snow fell so hard and fast that it obliterated the landscape, leaving an expanse as pale and featureless as a funeral shroud. I pulled my cloak tight, but it wasn’t enough. Warmth and feeling leeched from my flesh. Disoriented, I stared through the falling flakes, seeking any path home.
There was only the white.
Grief spread like ice across my heart. Not just grief for myself, but for what my family would feel at losing me. Grief for their grief, and for the struggles that would follow. Then rushing after it, like an avalanche down a mountainside, came crushing isolation. I was going to die alone.
Adrift in the endless white, my mind slipped numbly from the present. A memory stirred: my first childish experience of grief. A white fox had come limping down the mountain, her fur ragged and her leg broken. I had tried to nurse her back to life, despite my parents’ disapproval, but my love and care came too late. In the end, all that mattered was the comfort of my embrace, warmth and softness as she faded into stillness, and my tears when it was over.
I cried again now. For her. For me. For my family.
Tears hit the snow and froze to gleaming points. They became eyes staring up at me, the centre of a face formed from the white. My fox emerged with slow, uncertain movements, her fur still ragged.
She nudged me with her nose, then limped away through the merciless snow. I couldn’t watch, unwilling to lose her again. She yipped, the child-like sound demanding my attention, and she nodded with her head, pointing purposefully into the pale void.
“I can’t,” I whispered. “Too cold.”
She came back, took a corner of my cloak between her teeth, and tugged.
“What’s the point?” I whispered. “I can’t even feel my feet.”
She tugged again and growled, forcing me to follow. I put one foot in front of the other, dragging my legs through the thigh-deep snow. Step by step, I made a path, and with each step, feeling returned to my toes, warmth filling my body and soul.
I didn’t see the rise until I was on it, white ground parting from the white sky. Houses appeared, their shapes indistinct but familiar. Was that my village, or was it someplace else, standing perfect and forever amid winter’s shroud?
The fox stopped her limping tread. Her shining eyes became tears again, and she melted away.
“Thank you.”
I ran my hand over the place where her fur had been. The cold had left me, and the grief with it. This time, I hadn’t lost her. She had found me. She had brought me home.
***
This story was first published in the British Fantasy Society Monthly Bulletin, December 2021. I like it so much, I thought I’d share it here as well. If you’re based in the UK and you want to get more involved with fantasy fandom, or just to meet more like-minded writers and fans, then I totally recommend signing up to the BFS. They do a great job of providing a home for Britain’s fantasy community.
If you enjoyed this story and would like to read more like it then you might want to sign up to my mailing list, where you’ll get a free ebook, updates on new releases, and a flash story straight to your inbox every Friday.
***
The goldsmith Cualli lives in a land of endless summer, where blood sacrifices hold back the dark of winter. Through her craft, she grants power to priests and soldiers, channelling the magic of Emperor Sun. But what matters to Cualli is not power; it is proving herself as the empire’s finest goldsmith.
Not everyone feels blessed by the empire’s blood-stained faith. Dissent is turning to rebellion and the rebels want Cualli on their side, whether she likes it or not. When the season of sacrifice threatens the lives of her closest friends, Cualli must face a choice: will she fight for change through the illegal magic of silver, or will she bask in her own triumph and the endless golden summer?
Silver and Gold, a novella about friendship, magic, is out now.