The messenger came at midnight.

He waded through the boggy marsh surrounding her hovel carrying the letter in hand and with a Jui-Topaz lantern to guide the way. Accepting it with a nod she sent him away.

That boy never returned.

Two weeks later, a second letter came—once more delivered by a child. Charlotte repeated her actions again. Taking it with a nod, she watched him trudge back to his horse tied by the marshlands edge and returned his wave. Once he vanished into the thicket filled with staring crows, she held up the letter for the creatures to see and tossed it into the flames, the contents never read.

Every two weeks another letter arrived, and the cycle of actions started anew. Each time the messenger was a child. Each time, once the letter had become nothing but ash and melted wax, she’d walk outside to the back of the shack and draw another tally on the bricks.

72 were there.

72 deaths weighed on her mind, all caused by them learning she existed.

Every two weeks the pattern repeated.

Rainy autumn turned to cruel winter and she stayed inside more; huddled beneath her blankets to read the snowing days away. Letters continued to become kindle for the fireplace for her single-room hut. None ever read.

With the dawning of spring, change came. No more letters. Far less snow. Days passed through two means. Huddled over garden pots filled with vegetables, and staring at the dense thicket waiting for movement to stir. Movement, which wasn’t caused by the return of the dead-eyed crows. She never turned their way. They never stopped looking at her. Despite all that, excitement and joy clung to the air around the dreary hovel and songs, in the tongue of the Astriks, were hummed.

Blistering summer stopped the songs. Worry engulfed the air around her abode and change happened again. Each morning crows greeted her from atop of the leaning shack with a letter in beak. Every time she’d storm inside, pull out her worn broom and shake it at the beasts. They flew away and the cream parchments fluttered to the ground.

During the first week, every day she picked them up and tossed them into the flames. By the third day of the second week, she’d given up, allowing them to remain littering the floor—sometimes scooping a handful up to set aside to dry for kindling during the future months.

Not once did she read them or cast the crow wax-seal they all bore a second look.

​

***

​

Charlotte read her book in the nook she’d made her bedroom. Squished between the curve of the outer wall and the fireplace, where she cooked her meals, the small space didn’t leave much room to do anything but sit on her bed without entering the section she dubbed the living room. Nor, she had learnt as a child, offer the space to put an end table in to hold a light or her books. So she read by flame and star light—with the crackling fire and a pot of bubbling water hanging over it to keep her company.

Dry mud stained the torn ends of her bedraggled dress. Soot clung to her lanky hair and the smell of smoke had become her perfume due to the hours spent by the fireplace during the freezing nights.

Shivering, she pulled the blanket higher.

She turned the page. Her eyes skimmed over the words without acknowledging the latest smear of blood her fingers dragged along the sheet’s bottoms. It would dry soon; joining the other darker and older prints left over the years due to toiling in the garden with frostbitten fingertips.

Trembles rocked her body.

She was cold. No, Charlotte was freezing.

Except for summers afternoons which always seemed far too hot, Frostwich was always cold. It always threatened to steal her life from her numb grasp and send her to join the others who had died to the gruelling climate.

​

She pinned the blanket between the cot and her legs and shuffled nearer the flames, tightening her grip on her book so it didn’t fall close to the fireplace and potentially burn like past ones had done when she was younger.

Every night during that first year she’d stare at the burning fire and imagine her home and friends in the depths of orange and red. Then winter arrived. Surviving became her priority.

Throughout her first winter, in her desperation to seek warmth, she had crawled from her cot over to the fireplace and sat by the stone hearth with her hands held so close to the flames, that minor burns had formed.

Carlson’s facade broke during those cruel months. For months he’d watched as she almost sliced off limbs as she attempted to chop wood for the fireplace; or collapsed on her bed, begging for extra food or water until sleep consumed her mind. He’d even watched her mourn the crops that failed to grow. He hadn’t lifted a finger—favouring munching on the supplies he’d brought with him or had gathered from somewhere beyond the thicket.

That winter they’d grown close. He went from keeping to the other side of the hut, to holding her as she cried from the pain the cold made. Every night she’d fall asleep in her future executioner’s arms, huddled beneath the cloak he wrapped around them both and listening to the songs he hummed in his native tongue.

They never spoke during those months. Talking would come with springs return when at last, after months of no sunlight to break through the expanse of grey, they’d see the light and a break from snow.

It returned later than they expected. Yet spring did return, bringing with it a sense of hope. Still, its return never came soon enough and never without sacrifices having already been made. Over the years Carlson had lost a few toes and a pinkie. Their livestock had died to snowstorms and during that first winter, her hand had been lost to frostbite.

That hand had become their permanent reminder of how cruel winter could be and that trying to grow winter crops wasn’t a viable action. It reminded them why they both worked during summer despite the high temperatures leaving them woozy and ready to faint.

It was the finest thing she owned, admittedly, and she loathed it. Carved by Carlson’s wife when she was twelve, it was far too small for her as an adult. The handmade aspect meant the fingers were sausage-like and often stiff when moving. She wished she’d decided to deal with a stump instead. Yet with a stump, she’d not have survived this long and even if she could have, it was far too late to take it off, not without a specialists aid which she had no hope of finding in the middle of nowhere.

One day she’d buy a newer model. One that didn’t rely on a Jui-Topaz to keep it warm so the wood didn’t crack or freeze, and a model that didn’t rely on a tiny Jui-Ruby to make it move either. One day she’d afford a modern hand which would connect to her nerves and be made from metal. It wouldn’t rely on magic. Nor add another strike upon her head if the king found out it contained two jewels.

Perhaps, on that day, the day she could pay for it, she’d be free.

 

A dull thud drew her attention to the floor and loose pages skittered across the ground where her book fell. Some landed by her bed, most settled on the hearth. Charlotte cursed beneath her breath. Sliding off the bed, she grabbed the sheets from the floor. Barely half of the contents had been stuffed back into the book when the door opened with a creak and a figure ducked through the doorway. Silhouetted in black, it took her a moment to recognise the wide shoulders clad in green.

“Carlson,” she said with a smile.

“Three minutes.”

“Pardon?”

His brows furrowed, shadows and sadness hid the warmth they usually held.

“Run.”

“What?”

Her heart leapt in her chest. Moustache quivering, his mouth opened and snapped close. He shook his head and the wrinkles defining his tawny beige face deepened.

“Two minutes.” His hand rested on the hilt of his sword.

“But—”

Charlotte knew she was in trouble the moment fanfare trumpets halted her reply.