The Story So Far: A pariah as a woman who negates magic in a world full of it, Mara Spell-Breaker has fled persecution alongside Aallotar, a soul cursed to bestial rage and feral fury. Mara's spell-negating powers can suppress the curse, but to break it, she has apprenticed herself to the demon Sammael the Torturer, Venom of God, who saved them both from execution by Mara's father, the lord of Sjaligr. Danger is coming to the Red Mountains, a punishment for old sins, and the oracle Kalevi predicted that Mara would have a part in it. Now she and Aallotar have been sent to search an ancient ruin unearthed by an earthquake, the workshop of Sammael's creator. As things have gone on, Mara and Aallotar have grown closer and closer.

Content warning: There is a queer romance in this story, particularly in this chapter. If you would prefer not to read, that is perfectly understandable.

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Trekking through a blizzard in the middle of the night was a good way to get herself killed, but Mara had no intention of letting Sammael down. She trudged through the snow with her head down, following in Aallotar's tracks as her thoughts turned over her master's words relentlessly.

If they find you or learn of your gifts, they will destroy you down to the very atoms of your being. Part of her wondered how different that really was from her own people. It was a bitter thought, but the anger it brought kept her pushing forward despite the gnawing of cold on her right arm. The pain was coming back with a vengeance since they had no time to stop and spread more salve on it. Finding shelter was much more important. Fortunately, there was no chance of anyone tracking them in this snow.

Aallotar reached back, pulling her through the dense trees where the snow was thinnest to the mouth of a cave, sheltered by branches creaking under the weight of their frozen burden. "There is no bear," the wildling said with confidence. "I would smell him. Let us be gone from this weather."

Mara thanked their lucky stars and slid down the last slope of snow to reach the cave. It was warmer than the surrounding area without the wind blowing through it, a welcome relief. "We need a fire, fast," she admitted. "As soon as we start to warm, everything we're wearing will need to dry."

"I will fetch wood."

"Don't stray too far," Mara said softly. "We do not want the beast returning."

Aallotar nodded and disappeared out into the snow. The flurries were so fierce that Mara could barely see two feet out of the cave. She heard some sharp cracks and soon Aallotar was back with freshly gathered branches and a number of chunks of deadfall that brought with them dead needles. It was only a matter of arranging it properly then. Much of it was set aside to dry as well, but Mara carefully stacked what she could and then closed her eyes, holding her hand beside the tinder that they'd gathered to start the kindling. She thought of Sammael's lessons, focusing her will as she tapped into the devouring emptiness of Void.

All things are in motion, no matter how still they seem. The difference between a pot of boiling water and a pot of ice is only the speed at which it moves.

Mara felt the air around her bandaged hand grow hotter and hotter the more she pressed with her will. She had to twist her fingers, crafting a spiral of air in motion, a current so slight it was imperceptible except for the heat it generated. Magic was flashy and obvious, in her experience. The paltry control of Void she had was much more subtle in its application. She couldn't conjure a fire, but she could send particles racing from one side to the other, pulled by the Void, sparking a flame in the tinder. The agony in her arm was well worth the sudden flash of light and heat. She had done better than she realized: soon the kindling had taken and they could add sections of log.

She let out a hiss of breath and clutched at her arm as she released her grasp on her power. The whole length of her arm throbbed and burned from Sammael's attempt to push beyond the next wall holding her back. Aallotar was there in an instant, bandages in one hand and salve in the other.

"Mara, let me see it." The worry in the wildling's golden eyes sent a sympathetic stab through Mara's heart.

Without thinking, the sorcerer nodded. She stripped off the heavy wool cloak she was wearing and two of the shirts she had layered on. It left her with one, which she pulled her arm out of, holding the shirt to her chest with her other hand. Not that it mattered much. Compared to Aallotar, she was soaked almost to the bone. Even wet wool could only do so much. She knew that she would have to strip and dry her clothes near the fire now that it was going.

Aallotar gently spread the numbing salve across the inflamed wounds, some of the curling fractal burns worsened by her use of sorcery. Then she bandaged the arm expertly. "You shouldn't have had to do that, Mara. Flint and steel—"

"We would have been here for an hour or more trying to get that thing to spark." Mara gave Aallotar a gentle push and a smile to show she was feeling better. With the salve on her injured arm and shoulder, the pain was barely perceptible. She just hoped that it would heal before they ran out of salve. Then again, since Sammael had begun his project, she had noticed that she recovered faster and faster from her wounds. She wasn't certain if that was sorcery he had added or her native pain tolerance increasing.

Aallotar sighed, a reluctant acceptance, and then stepped over to their packs to tuck away their supplies.

For her part, Mara was all too eager to shed her clothes. Wet wool was heavy and not the most comfortable apparel in the world. With the fire now at a comfortable crackling, the cave was warm enough. She pulled off her boots and socks, hanging them on the pile of wood to burn. Both sets of her pants followed and she went to pull her shirt over her head, stopping only when she realized Aallotar was staring at her. It was a look she had never seen on her friend's face, a mix of fascination and indescribable longing.

She had only seen it on the faces of Sabine's suitors, directed squarely at her heart-breaker of a sister.

"What?" It was absolutely impossible not to feel self conscious under that gaze. She let go of the hem of the shirt, letting it fall back into place. Suddenly, the clothing didn't feel like enough. It was just a thin layer of cloth, damp from the snowmelt, and a sudden shiver ran through her body at the flash of feral golden eyes in the firelight.

Aallotar averted her eyes abruptly, a flaming blush spreading across her tattooed cheeks. "I am sorry."

Mara had absolutely no experience with that look, only Sabine's sometimes too graphic stories of her adventures with the occasional young man. "I should be the one apologizing," she said softly. "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable, Aallotar. I just wanted to warm up."

"I know," the wildling said, turning on her heel and striding quickly towards the mouth of the cave. "I will see if I can warm the cave more by blocking up some of the entrance with snow. That will help with the light, too."

The sorcerer sighed and combed her fingers through her dark hair, a sudden frustration with herself blooming. Now she had driven off Aallotar again, to face cold and snow. She unrolled their bedrolls, slipping into hers. She didn't particularly feel like eating with the unease gnawing away at her stomach. Mara closed her eyes, willing herself to sleep. Normally a warm fire and exhaustion were enough, but for some reason the flash of golden eyes in the dark stayed lodged in her mind. No one had ever looked at her that way, as if they…

Mara couldn't even complete the thought. Aallotar accused her of being unreadable, but the wildling was hardly any more communicative. She wanted to talk about it, to ask about the words that she had seen hiding behind closed lips, but she had a feeling that the silence would only continue.

The sorcerer rolled onto her side and watched the fire until finally warmth and fatigue pushed her to sleep. The dreams that came were not the darkness of Void or the old pains of former home. Those golden eyes haunted her instead, promising things that the Spell-Breaker of Sjaligr knew nothing of.

She woke to a bank of coals carefully arranged to keep them warm all night and an empty bedroll, a chill against her back. Immediately, Mara snapped into a full awakeness: Aallotar hadn't come to bed.

The wildling sat over by the narrow window left in the snow wall, face turned up towards the sky with her hands clenched into fists. Aallotar was a picture of tension, like a caged beast, not the familiar warmth that Mara had become so accustomed to. Even the lines of the muscle in her neck seemed taut.

"Aallotar."

Abruptly her friend shifted focus to her, away from the falling snow. Mara saw with a sudden clarity more of a war inside Aallotar than she had seen since they were dragged apart in her father's hall. The beast was awake and stirring in a way it shouldn't have been. "Mm?"

"Come to bed," Mara said softly, patting the bedroll beside hers. "I took the one nearest the fire so you wouldn't roast."

Aallotar tensed, shaking her head mutely.

The sudden shock of insecurity hit Mara like a bolt of lightning, not that it ever took much to spawn those worries. She slipped out of her less than perfectly comfortable travel bed, missing the misshapen mattress they shared in Sammael's workshop already, and padded closer to Aallotar on bare feet. "Is it the beast?" she asked softly as she approached.

Again, a shake of the head. As soon as she started to move, Aallotar rose to her feet and tried to take a step back. Unfortunately for the wildling, there was a very well constructed snow wall behind her.

"Am I so unbearable?" Mara demanded as she stalked forward, a sudden welling of anger bubbling up as she felt the fear grip her. It was like her friend was slipping through her fingers, transforming into just another one of the people who couldn't stand to share a room with the Spell-Breaker.

The golden eyes that had watched her with such fascination for those few moments suddenly could not meet hers. "No."

"I want you to look at me and tell me the truth," Mara said fiercely, even though parts of her were absolutely terrified of that exact thing happening. Experience had taught her often how cruel the truth could be. She would have rather had her heart ripped out than have Aallotar view her with the same distance and contempt that so many others had.

Aallotar looked up abruptly. "I cannot." The stilted pattern of her speech was back, a sign that whatever was going on had pushed her closer to that half. "You would never look at me the same if you knew."

Mara closed the distance between them further, even knowing that a cornered Aallotar was far more dangerous than the regular variety. "No more secrets." Silhouetted by the glow of the fire, she hoped she didn't seem as menacing as she might have. "If you care about me at all—"

The war in Aallotar's eyes raged on, but now Mara could at least see it. "When you…I…all I…" The wildling was struggling with her words, growing closer and closer to a growl. "I feel so…so much…and the beast…"

Mara reached out, fingertips brushing along a line of blue as it traced across Aallotar's collarbone. "I am not afraid of your beast," she said with absolute certainty, ready to rip the last wall between them down.

If the look Aallotar had given her undressing at the fire was an ember, the glow to her eyes now was an inferno. The wildling caught her by the hips, her nails sharper than usual as they dug into soft flesh, and pulled Mara in. Now the only thing between them was a thin layer of fabric and the inner layer of clothes Aallotar had kept on. Their lips collided in an imperfect symmetry, and the moment they touched was like a dam breaking inside the wildling. Suddenly any touch was not enough, instinct and need overriding all of her apprehension as if it had never been there.

Mara gasped into the kiss, surprised by the intensity. The sound turned into something softer and lower in her throat when Aallotar's hands started to roam so possessively over every bare inch of skin she could find, sharp nails digging hard enough to leave marks. As soon as she felt the wildling start to pull back from the kiss at that sound, Mara chased Aallotar's lips with her own. Even if she had almost no idea of what she was doing, she knew that she wanted this forever.

No, she wanted more.

The answer was a growl low in Aallotar's chest that sent shivers through the sorcerer's whole body. The next thing Mara realized, she was against the rough wall of the cave with Aallotar's teeth scraping along her collarbone. Every touch felt emblazoned on her skin, scratched in some places by sharp nails, as if a reminder that she was Aallotar's alone. The soft moans rising out of her as the wildling explored her body seemed only to spur Aallotar on. The wildling left lovebites down the side of her neck that were probably more forceful than intended, but the sorcerer had no complaints. The feeling of being desired and desiring was too intense.

Mara untucked Aallotar's shirt from behind her belt with a single tug, ignoring the flash of pain in her right hand. She slid her hands up beneath the cloth, gliding across smooth skin and the muscle playing beneath it. The gasp from the wildling against her throat was well worth the sting in her hand, a cascade of hot breath that did nothing to cool Mara's intentions.

It only took her a split second to make up her mind. Nothing in her life had ever felt so right, not even sorcery. "Aallotar." Her voice was low and definitely breathier than it had ever been before, but it immediately caught the wildling's attention.

A flash of hesitation crossed through those golden eyes, but Mara pressed a finger to the wildling's lips before she could apologize or ask if it was too much too soon.

The sorcerer had waited her entire life for love and desire, and had no intention of waiting a night longer. She used words she thought she would never say: "Take me to bed."

Fangs gleamed in the wildling's wide smile, her canines slightly more pronounced than usual. Aallotar's shirt and pants hit the floor as they made their way, Mara taking every chance to explore the wilding's curves as more and more fabric fell away. She made note of every place that made Aallotar shudder or seemed to push on the beast, demanding more from it. Her sorcery could keep it in check, but there was something special to Aallotar in not shying away from it. Besides, it felt so good.

Mara had long ago abandoned any thoughts of being a lover. She would be forever grateful that Aallotar had stumbled into her life. Gone were all thoughts of ruins and demons, death and danger, Void and even the morning with all of its questions about what this meant. In the moment, she was Aallotar's and Aallotar was hers. That was enough.