The Vampire & Her Witch

Two nights to prepare felt like far too little, and as Erling watched Khorijin calmly stringing her bow, he could all but feel the confidence radiating from her. After two days spent learning sorcery and watching what Milo was capable of doing with his longbow, Erling understood well where her confidence came from.

Dirar called her a ’Master of Three Constellations,’ which, as Erling understood it, meant that she’d mastered three different forms of sorcery. She likely had skill in several others, extending far beyond her mastery of the bow itself.

She was a terrifying opponent.

His fingers traced through the arrows in his quiver, silently counting them again even though he knew what the count would be.

Eighteen.

He had eighteen chances to interfere with Khorijin as they raced through the deadly forest, and she would have just as many chances to interfere with him. Only, he would have to expend some of those chances in the hopes of leveling the playing field.

”Nothing comes for free,” Erling muttered as his hand tightened on the riser of his bow.

Five paces away, he watched Khorijin making her own preparations. She pawed at the frozen ground with a hoof, testing her traction as she prepared to dash across the fifty paces that separated them from the forest.

In a race, every length counted, and her greatest advantage would come in the moments at the beginning and the end when they were outside the forest itself and she could sprint like a racehorse.

”Champions, at the ready!” Ashlynn called behind him, bringing Erling’s mind sharply back into focus.

”Good luck, friend Erling,” Khorijin said, pawing at the frozen earth one last time as she prepared to dash for the Frozen Forest. ”I hope you do not die tonight.”

”I don’t plan to die,” Erling said with a light laugh. ”I hope you don’t die either,” he said, projecting far more confidence than he felt.

Erling bent his knees and slowed his breathing while his eyes swept over the edge of the frozen forest, picking out the largest of Ice Fruits swaying in the wind. For his first arrow, he needed the easiest target he could find...

”Begin!” Ashlynn shouted, her voice echoing across the hollow like a peal of thunder.

Khorijin dashed across the frozen ground like a racehorse in its prime, only no racehorse that Erling had ever seen could match the smoothness of her start, and within a pair of heartbeats, she was already halfway to the edge of the forest.

Erling’s eyes tracked ahead of her movements while his hands moved on their own, quickly bringing an arrow to the nock and letting it fly.

-PFFEEEET!-

-CRACK!-

His arrow found its mark, striking one of the largest Ice Fruits he could see just three paces ahead of Khorijin right as she reached the edge of the Ice Forest.

In the blink of an eye, a flurry of snow exploded outward, enveloping the champion of the Southern Steppe and blinding her right at the moment she needed to adjust her course to enter the winding, tangled terrain of the forest.

Seventeen.

He was down to seventeen arrows, and he was far from done making preparations.

”The wind is a sheet,” Erling recited, focusing on the thread of power that Milo had taught him to feel coursing through his body. It was thin and feeble, like a muscle he’d only just begun to train, but if he was lucky, it might be enough.

”With this arrow, I set the first pin,” Erling said, fitting another arrow to the nock and pulling back as far as he dared, before he let loose.

The arrow left a cerulean streak across the sky as it flew in a long arc, as it sailed over the frozen forest. On the hillsides, where the commoners sat, thousands of eyes turned as one, watching as the Lord Governor of Fayle did... something. Something none of them understood.

Clearly he wasn’t shooting at any of the Ice Fruits. The arrow sailed far beyond the entrance of the Frozen Forest where his opponent had yet to emerge from the flurry of snow. But if he wasn’t shooting at the fruits near his opponent, then just what had his strange, glowing arrow been aimed at?

A hundred paces.

Two hundred paces.

”With this arrow, I set the second pin,” Erling said, loosing a second arrow before the first had fallen to the ground.

Three hundred paces.

Four.

Finally, the first arrow plunged into the ground on the far north side of the Frozen Forest, wreathed in a cerulean flame that burned like a torch planted in the earth. It was less than two dozen paces from the silk scarf he had to retrieve, and Erling mentally marked the feeling of its location to use as a guide once he entered the forest.

Two heartbeats later, a second arrow fell, this time on the far east side of the Frozen Forest, adding its own cerulean flame to the magic of the night.

”With this arrow, I set the final pin,” Erling said, drawing lightly and firing an arrow into the frozen ground at his feet.

In an instant, the wind calmed, and the swaying branches began to slow.

Three pins were the minimum number of arrows he could place to still the winds in a place as chaotic as the Frozen Forest, where the giant sails of ice bent and redirected the flow of wind in different directions. Like a sheet of parchment held down by just three stones, there were still places where the wind caught and pulled at the forest.

But three pins were also the maximum number that Erling could sustain for the length of time the contest would take. Already, he could feel the cerulean flames burning away at him, like three hot brands pressed to his chest.

Fourteen.

He was down to fourteen arrows, and he had yet to take his first step into the Frozen Forest.

”But when have I ever been on the same starting line as anyone else?” Erling asked rhetorically as he began his own dash toward the forest.

He was starting from behind, but that had never stopped him before, and it wouldn’t stop him now.ℴℴ𝘮