When Snow Falls

-Chapter 17 -

I opened my mouth to shout, but no noise came out. My father's shape turned fuzzy, then blurred out into white non-existence.

Send me back!

Something jolted me, like if a carriage had suddenly stopped. Wind whipped past me, blowing at my face, but not moving anything. A blinding white light seared into my eyes.

Then, I was shoved into darkness. The burning light vanished, replaced by utter black. I couldn't scream, couldn't cry out. There was no noise or air.

There was nothing.

Fear gripped me. There couldn't be nothing, there had to be something. There had to be. Even after death, there is something, not nothing.

And just like that, the nothingness turned to darkness.

I blew a shaky breath, trying to calm down. My insides twisted into a giant knot, then unraveled.

"Hello?" I spoke the word in the softest breath I could, half hoping to not get a reply. If there was no reply, then it could be chalked up to a dream.

A woman's voice tore through the black. "Clair?"

Mom. That's Mom.

My chest rose and fell quickly, faster with each passing second. "Mom? Mom, where are you?" I started to push forward against the black but went nowhere.

"A place you don't need to be, Clair. Stay still. Don't fight."

Her calm words bounced off the walls of my prison and went through me like a pulse. My heartbeats went from a million miles a second to matching the beat of my mother's voice.

"They're hurting Dad," I whimpered. "Before I was here, I was with him. They're hurting him."

A spark of rage boiled up in my stomach. It swirled around for a moment, then vanished.

"I know." I swear Mom's teeth ground against each other. "I've heard."

She's heard. Either that means that she's heard muraes talking, or she's heard...

I didn't allow myself to finish the thought.

"They're going to Luschon next." My mother's voice faded slightly. "I heard one of them say something about a--a cavalier. I'm assuming you know what that is because I've no idea."

Luschon. Luschon's next.

The most heavily guarded of the countries was next, and Nutcracker and I had to beat an army of used-to-be-dead magical creatures there and steal a stone.

I bounced my arms off my legs. "Awesome," I muttered under my breath. "This'll go really well."

VYECHERS, REMEBER? SEE IF SHE KNOWS ANYTHING ABOUT THEM.

Shut up.

Something pulled me back, back away from my mother.

"Mom! I need to know about vyechers!"

Because muraes have their blood.

A muffled noise clogged my ears. I heard a shout, but it banged against a wall and didn't completely reach me.

Something crammed itself into my palm and twisted, sending daggers of pain through my hand. My arms snapped back and yanked me out from the darkness. It threw me into the morning light of my bedroom and snapped me back to reality.

A scream tore its way out of my throat. The air around me suddenly went frigid. Icicles formed from nothing in the air and dangled for a moment before hitting the floor. One of them hit a desk across the room, splintering the wood like it was glass.