Since I despise the wait between my final upload of the book files and the release date, I’m going to post the first few chapters of The Deathless Sons, book 4 of The Frostmarked Chronicles, over the coming weeks! Hopefully these wet your appetite for some more Slavic mythology. Do note, though, that I do not recommend reading ahead if you haven’t finished The Daughters of the Earth, as there are definite spoilers.
With that all finished, here’s chapter 1!
Chapter 1 – Wacław
Will Jawia ever bloom again?
Death claimed the living realm.
Marzanna’s blizzard obscured my foggy breaths as ice and snow crunched beneath my boots. Frost crept up to mid-calf, snatching me with every step before I finally broke free of its frigid grasp. Shivering, I pulled my furs tighter. There was no end to the snowfall in sight.
The winds circled me, as if begging for me to wield them as a Naw płanetnik—a half-mortal, half-demon of the storm. We shared that desire, but in the weeks since the Huebia Revolt, each wintery tempest had fought my control of our flight. One like this would make it near impossible to even hold myself aloft, let alone fend off the demonic chały that lurked in the dark clouds.
I yearned to be free.
With the waxing moon above covered by the storm, only the twinkling of our campfire ahead offered any real light. Luckily, I didn’t need sight. The tether binding me to Otylia pointed the way to her, growing tighter with each haggard step.
Her shadowed form blocked one side of the fire. Black hair hung freely down her back, covered only partly by the silver fox pelt she draped over her shoulders to warm her neck. One hand clutched her fur coat shut as she stared into the flames. She didn’t sit, not when I was away. It was hard enough to get her to rest when I was by her side, trying to calm her nerves as we grew ever closer to finding her mother, the wild goddess Dziewanna.
Even from here, I sensed Otylia’s anticipation. Our souls’ bond prevented much in the way of secrets. That didn’t stop us from trying, and she hadn’t told me everything that had happened in the last few moons. I let her hold back. The walls around her heart and mind were strong, requiring care—not force—to be brought down.
It was that bond that alerted her to my presence amid the noise of the gales. She looked at me over her shoulder, her ivy green eyes alight against the campfire and her thin lips curled into the slightest of smiles.
The chill’s clutches melted away at the sight of her.
I collapsed into Otylia the moment my feet slipped onto the thawing mush around the fire. My thighs throbbed from pushing through the snow. My face stung from the hail. The fire slowly dulled that ache, but it was nothing compared to her silent embrace.
We’d traveled hundreds of miles since leaving Vastroth, and each day wore us down more than the one before. Our support for each other was the last flame keeping us moving forward. Dziewanna had to be close. We would save her, and then she’d help us end Marzanna’s winter over the living realm of Jawia. If it could be ended at all.
“You’re rarely this quiet after scouting,” Otylia said, pulling down my snow-covered hood and running her warm hands over my ears. They’d been numb, and when their feeling returned, so did the pain. A pin prick compared to the demonic hunger she quieted with her touch.
I gave a solemn smile and rested my eyes for a moment. Black and red danced across my eyelids with the flames. “The storms are getting worse. I’m worried for Mom and for Kuba and the others. You can survive from offerings and me from animal blood, but the crops are dead. Game is scarce. If we don’t find Dziewanna soon, it won’t matter what Koschei and the Frostmarked Horde do. They’ll conquer our tribe’s skeletons.”
“Krowik exiled you.”
“They feared me.” I pulled back, circling the fire. Its constant motion held my gaze, some primal part of me not wanting to look away. “Huebia proved they were right to.”
She crossed her arms and gave me a warning glare. “Don’t do this again, Wašek, not tonight. You’re tired. That’s it. Tell me what you saw and then we can rest.”
“A dead forest, like all the others.” Having rounded the fire, I stopped beside her, taking her hands. “There’s a river to the east of it and another to the west, so maybe this is the one we’re looking for?”
We’d agreed one of us would scout ahead during the blizzards bad enough to stop both of us from flying. Going alone was dangerous, but she’d needed the time to recollect her strength through offerings from her worshippers. She despised drinking the blood from her moonlight altars. We had little other choice with the risk of demons and Horde patrols ahead. For a few hours of scouting, though, a goddess and demon were each plenty capable of handling a few enemies without the other. Our bond allowed us to call for help through our minds anyway if the situation escalated.
A larger group would’ve made the journey easier. I missed Kuba and Xobas, and Otylia had smiled so much more around Ara, the nymph Sabina, and the Mothermarked Vastrothie girl Ta-naro. With the blizzards growing ever more brutal, though, we’d had little choice but to leave them with the Vastrothie army, who’d used Mokosz’s szeptuchy to travel through the mountains and toward Dwie Rzeki. We barely slept between treks. Every step and flight between those rests was met with Marzanna’s frigid wrath. No mortal or nymph would’ve survived at the pace we were going, and through our marks, our friends would ensure we remained in touch with our allies—no matter how far.
“Vida and Jaryło’s memories showed two rivers meeting at a bridge before her palace on the frozen bay,” Otylia said, nose wrinkled. “This could be it, or it could be just another dead end.”
The Frostmarked szeptucha known as Minna had controlled Vastroth until Otylia discovered she was actually Vida, a girl we’d thought had died during the szeptucha initiation rituals almost five years ago. Vida had chosen to kill herself rather than remember what had happened to her. The rumor was that she’d been brought back from death multiple times by Marzanna. I feared what that did to a person, and what it meant if Vida wasn’t the only one.
“Your Thread of Life still shows northeast?” I asked Otylia. As the goddess of endings, she saw the connections that bonded us to those we love and heard whispers of ends both future and past. The power frightened and fascinated me at the same time.
Our Threads appeared as Otylia’s eyes flashed pure white. Stretching from our chests to those we loved, they glowed brilliantly—hers green and mine light blue. We’d followed the single green strand traveling north. It had to show us the way to Dziewanna.
“Mother’s Thread hasn’t moved since I discovered I could see it,” she said. “We’re going the right way, but when does the land end?”
“I have no idea. Zorza Wieczorna’s evening gate in the sea was a long way west, but it feels like we’ve traveled further from Vastroth.”
Her eyes returned to normal as the Threads disappeared, and the pulsing of our shared mark on my forearm faded with them. It reminded me that seeing the Threads with her was a gift only I had. “Weles claimed Jawia is far larger than Nawia, but I didn’t even see the entire realm of the dead. The tundra could go on forever.”
“Then we’ll follow it forever,” I replied, pulling her close and resting my forehead against hers. She was warm, and despite weeks of travel and her Ascension, she still smelled of wild herbs burnt in offering to her mother. A scent I’d known so well when we were little. “I’m sorry. I wish I could take the pain of her loss away.”
For a moment, Otylia didn’t react at all. We stood still with our heads touching and our souls sharing both love and loss. Silence was her choice, so I let the crackle of the fire and the howls of the dying blizzard replace our voices. She’d talk when she was ready. Until then, I shared her pain.
She stepped back when the fire smoldered to little more than orange ash and the sun’s dull glow appeared in the east. Neither of us moved to restore the flames. Without the storm’s cover, the daylight would expose its smoke and alert any nearby Frostmarked to our presence.
“Rambling won’t save her,” Otylia said, her head tilted down as she looked back at me. “We should rest until then.”
I nodded. “Then tomorrow we fly.”