Heir to the Empire

40. Know your enemy - Loldirr

Cold, so cold.

Never before had Loldirr experienced a cold like this before. The wind stung like thousands of bees and cut deep through to the bone. Despite the constant rubbing of her hands across her body, she only felt the unbearable pain of pins and needles on her fingertips. Her cheeks burnt like fire but felt cold to touch, and despite wearing the bearskin coat she purchased before reaching the Everpeake Mountains north of Lionmane, her body ached for warmth.

For days now she had travelled north over the mountains and turned west towards the Fæordic tribes in the hope of gaining an alliance, but the trek had been one of the most brutal she had encountered.

Over the mountain tops, she had been hunted by wolves, though fortunately, she had outwitted them, only to walk unknowingly directly into an endless blizzard that brought visibility down to zero.

The snow bombarded violently against her face, and every step was fraught with danger, not knowing what was ahead of her. She longed for warmth, longed to stand next to fire even for a moment, but the below-freezing temperatures instantly eliminated every flame she tried to create.

On another day, Loldirr would have spent her time complaining about how she got into this predicament, but she could not think. The pain that tore through her body was the only thing that embraced her thoughts. How long could she endure this torture?

Sleep had been difficult. It was impossible to find anywhere safe and the cold floor would tear through Loldirr's body like the blaze that engulfed her at Lionmane. Which was worse, she could not recall, she just hoped this nightmare would end soon.

Every step forward disappeared into a thick blanket of snow, making travelling feel like walking through treacle. Loldirr's body ached yet her determination kept her going.

If only she could see the sun, at least then she would be able to know for sure which direction she was heading.

Taking a step forward, the crunch and sinking feeling of the snow in front of her had become supremely familiar, when placing her next foot in front the crunch and sinking feeling never came, and before she knew it, she was falling.

It couldn't have been a long fall, but the unknown made it feel like an age. As her mind span tales of plummeting to her death, she fell into deep snow, feeling it envelop all around her.

Her body ached from the cold; her mind was exhausted from the tribulations; she just wanted to curl up in a ball and let death embrace her.

"You are the Elemental Sorceress, the True Empress of Isovine" the voice of Erdudvyl echoed in her mind. Loldirr realised that her subjects and the world needed her to survive, to overcome and to endure.

Despite the pain that coursed through her body, she pushed herself up, gradually losing even more feeling in her fingertips than before, determined to keep ongoing.

Looking up Loldirr couldn't tell how far she had fallen, the blizzard was too thick. As she looked down her imprint that her body had left was already being covered in a blanket of snow, looking behind all that could be seen was darkness.

A cave!

Without hesitation, she clambered into it, thankful that her face was no longer being stung by the cruelty of the weather.

Fear briefly embraced her, what if she was not alone in this cave? It was so dark, so mysterious that an animal could have taken shelter here. In the end, it did not matter; Loldirr would instead have faced some dangerous creature for the right to have protection than to endure more of this atrocious weather.

Opening the palm of her hand, all she could feel was the stinging sensation of the cold yet something else stirred inside of it. A warmth that wasn't there before. Concentrating on that warmth, it grew and grew to culminate into something more significant. As she closed her eyes that heat turned into a burning sensation that she embraced wholeheartedly, opening her eyes, she could see it floating tentatively above her hand.