The Western Ridge is treacherous.
In summer nights, this is grazing ground for massive elk. In midwinter, it is an execution ground.
Sol walks. The cliffs to the west loom, sheer and dark. He stops at the edge, takes a breath, and peers over.
He looks down. Nothing. The void yawns. He cannot see the river far below that runs to Elm, his village.
He steps back, clasps his hands together, and exhales.
He turns north, toward the slope.
The slope is supposed to be a shortcut, one only Sol and a handful of Elm's young Geherrim know, a way to reach the other side of the Stake, the massive mountain standing before him.
If his memory serves, there should be a cavern usually accessible in summer.
He does not know whether that cavern is accessible in midwinter. No one has tried.
The snow thickens.The wind calms.Sol swallows. It is a gamble.
He finds tracks, long and wide.
"…Elk."
He follows.
A cavern opens in the ridge, the same the young ones use to laze around, its mouth veiled with light frost.
He enters.
The stone is damp. The air is still.
His eyes adjust at once. The tracks continue northward. The elk is moving toward the hidden field at the northern base of the Stake.
He keeps walking in the dark and never stumbles. His eyes are always better than the others'. He has always known it.
There, a natural depression in the rock. The exit to the northern base, to the hidden field.
Snow lies soft and untrodden. Dark green pines sleep beneath white coats.
Sol sees only absence. The elk tracks remain. He just has to follow them, kill it, and get back.
If he is lucky, a human caravan might pass through. He could take one of them, hopefully a natural-born sorcerer with the aptitude to absorb mana. Maybe then the village chief will grant him another chance. Maybe he will receive his mac'ga and finally be an adult Geherrim.
His eyes sweep the field. The sky is clear. Stars glitter like old memories, reflections of the past.
He stops. His eyes catch on something in the middle of the white. A figure, shining like a star in the snow.
Small. Still. Standing at the center of the field. Not animal. Not demon, unlike him. This person gazes at the sky, expression hard to read.
Then Sol notices a shimmer, like a thin veil of aurora where moonlight touches ice in the air.
A sorcerer, perhaps natural-born.
He crouches. Watches.
She does not move. She does not shiver. She stands impossibly still, watching the sky.
He takes a step forward, then another. Slow steps quicken.
A branch snaps beneath his boot.
Crack.
Sol turns to her. She turns to him.
Their eyes meet.
A massive, sharp-fanged maw bursts through the snow to devour him.