The world, cold and harsh, spread out below the peak. Mountaintops like blades of ice-covered stone, endlessly deep valleys where the sun had never shone. The sky above was dark and threatening grey, and the cold wind was a harsh as a knife through Apprentice Aversham's body. Aversham drew his robes around him, thankful for once that the academy required such a heavy and elaborate uniform from its junior warlocks, and trudged a few more steps through the icy snow.
In the lands below, where homes and temples were buried in drifts of snow, the people were huddled around their fireplaces acting out the midwinter festivals. Some of them feasted, some told stories, most of them prayed. It was easy to assume that the festivals had grown up simply because winter was so harsh and long there had to be some celebration just to make it bearable until spring. But the mages of the Hallowed Academy knew otherwise. The festivals had at their root the most crucial of rituals, ones upon which the cycle of life depended.
The mages said that every winter, the world died. And if it was not woken, then there would never be another spring. The mages had come to the mountain to wake up the spring, but they were old men. It was Aversham who had made the final climb to the shadow of the mountain's peak.
'Bastards,' hissed Aversham and he dragged himself into the lee of the peak, where the wind bit a little less. 'What do you expect me to do here? I'm just an apprentice, I don't know what the hell this damn ritual even is...'
He hauled the pack off his back. It was full of books, candles, sacred bowls and magic trinkets. Presumably in one of the books was buried the ritual he was supposed to enact. The elderly mages, huddled in their camp on the slope far below, had told him that Aversham carried everything he needed for the ritual with him, but there wasn't even enough light in the stormy twilight to read by.
The horizon was black with a dense, swirling blizzard. It slowly began to dawn on Aversham that he was probably going to die up there.
There was a crevice in the rock of the peak that looked like it might offer some shelter from the storm. More likely it would just become full up with snow and suffocate him, but in truth Aversham just wanted somewhere he could lie down and sleep while whatever happened, happened. He struggled into the darkness of the crevice, but there was no cold stone touching the hand he reached out. He fell, tumbling down a slick slope of rock, until he came to a rest.
It was soft beneath him. Soft and warm. The light was dim but Aversham thought he could see dark foliage like a forest around him, deep and green. It was fanciful thought, since he was at the top of a mountain in midwinter, but it was a good thought to fall asleep with.
Just as sleep overtook him, Aversham imagined that he laid his hand on smooth, warm skin, the flank of someone sleeping beside him. Then, he didn't imagine anything at all.
When Aversham awoke, he wasn't dead. He forced his eyes open and even the weak light around him was almost too much. He didn't know how long he had been asleep, and he didn't know where he was. He knew that he had been in the freezing cold, thinking about his own death – but it seemed he was very far away from that now.
There was grass beneath him, deep and mossy, as soft as a mattress. He was aware of heavy boughs hanging over him, laden with leaves. The air tasted fresh, like a forest after the rain, and he was warm beneath the many layers of travelling robes he had slept in.
Aversham turned onto his side, and his fingers brushed someone sleeping beside him. He froze in surprise. There was someone in there with him. He turned his head and saw the other person was lying on their side with their back to him, curled up on the soft grass. It was a woman. Aversham's eye followed from her shoulder to the curve of her waist and the gentle rounding of her hips. She was naked. Her skin was pale and flawless, like sapwood, and her hair was green-black and feathery like fern leaves.
Aversham reached up and touched her hair. It was as soft as down. He stroked it and leaned forward – her hair smelled like virgin ground, deep and earthy. He rested his hand on the elegant curve of her shoulder and stroked down the long slope to her waist, then ran it up the rise of her rump.
She made a sound, little more than a breath. She was just waking up. Aversham withdrew his hand, but the woman didn't seem alarmed to be waking up next to him. Slowly she turned her head and Aversham saw her face. She was quite astonishingly beautiful. Her skin was perfect and her face long and sorrowful, with delicate pouting lips and high cheekbones and brow. When she opened her eyes, she was complete. They were of the most brilliant green, and they seemed to light her up.
Her lips parted, as if in recognition. In spite of himself, Aversham touched her cheek. Her eyes closed and she took a short, sighing breath.
