"No one has ever come for their sacrifices," the Icewitch continued, unperturbed by Ashlan's shock. "It would be convenient for someone to come in and clean up."
"Curse you!" Ashlan shouted. "You speak of my brother like refuse!"
Fury overriding his grief, Ashlan struck out at the woman with his sword. The screeching shattering sound that his blade made as it struck some invisible barrier between them blasted his ears. He tried again, forcing all of his strength into the blow. Sparks flew from the barrier, stinging his face and singeing the furs he wore. A roar deafened him and sent him sprawling to the ground holding his ears.
Ignoring the pain in his head, Ashlan rose to the challenge again. He lashed out at her with a bolt of his power. Impotently, his best effort sputtered against her shields like summer lightning.
"If you but knew how to use what you have, you could be like me," the Icewitch offered with a seductive smile. A wave in his brother’s direction and Aryn’s body blazed up like seasoned kindling, flaming the blue of a summer night.
Ashlan did not dignify her with a response. Instead, he threw himself toward her, grasping her slender throat between gloved hands. Gasping, he backed away leaving the palms of his gloves behind him. Idly, the Icewitch pulled the leather scraps from her body and let them fall to the floor.
“No wonder your mother loved your father so,” the creature marveled. “You came from such strength, such power. I wonder, were you one of the dragons, the lions.”
Love? Ashlan paused, staring at the woman. She’d just spoken in a tongue his mother had taught only him among her children. The rich musical sound with its rhythmic tongue clicks stayed his hand.
My father’s language. Despite himself, he stood entranced.
“You think your mother would have kept a child she didn’t want, particularly one forced upon her by a man she didn’t care for?” The Icewitch shook her head, ruefully. “You know the power she has with waters, the very humors of her own body. She could wash an unwanted seed from her womb with a thought.”
Despite himself, Ashlan nodded. Lyrell rutted like a beast and created more seed than his mother could bear and live. While she’d never spoken of it, he’d known she’d prevented herself from bearing many years.
“Alle had to let Lyrell believe she was a victim else he would not have had her as wife no matter how beautiful she was.”
Ashlan swallowed back a bitter taste. Of course, Lyrell would have sported with a woman who’d been with another, but he would not have claimed her as his unless she’d told him a convincing story. And, if he had not claimed her, Mother would have become one of the camp women.
“Don’t you tire of the snow-skinned people with their harsh tongues?”
Ashlan caught himself nodding before he realized and stopped forcing a frown to his lips.
"I could offer you something much more interesting," the Icewitch's voice was low and cajoling. "It has been long since I have taken a strong man to my bed. I give you my word, I would not harm you. Like you, I am alone here and from a far-off place.”
An overwhelming sense of heat struck Ashlan. Hands twitching, he contemplated removing the furs covering him. Already he was sweating. It was a dangerous situation. As soon as he went outside, his flesh would freeze.
"Perhaps my present form does not please you?" Before his eyes, soft flesh replaced the armored shell. Lustrous gold hair sprouted from her bald scalp. Her eyes were the deep blue of mountain lakes.
Stepping back, Ashlan shook his head, denying the temptation.
"Would a woman of your own breeding please you more?" As if it were sun kissed, her flesh changed to a woodsy brown. The curves of her body softened. Golden hair turned the rich brown color of fine wood. Dark eyes, expressive and deep, beckoned him. Her mouth grew full and ripe like summerfruit. His body replied in a manner his voice could not.
"You are so lonely," the Icewitch crooned in that secret language that spoke to his heart like no other. She gestured him to another bedchamber above the present one, even more fine than the first.
They sported many times. In between, the Icewitch told him stories of a place to the South. In this country, the mage-gifted shaped fire as his Mother did water. And, the mages ruled. They were revered almost as much as gods.
Later, as Ashlan rose from her bed, he could not say why he answered her seduction. Ultimately, he could not resist pretending that there was someone else like him even if it cost him his life. He still marveled that the Icewitch left him alive to tell the tale.
"Why?” he demanded when she stood beside him returned to her cold form.
"Have you ever eaten a large meal and still felt unsatisfied?" When Ashlan nodded, she continued softly. "You have given the first strength of your life-force to the other women you have lain with; thus, you would not nourish me."
“There was no child with the camp woman.”
“There did not have to be,” the Icewitch’s tone was amused. “You spent your first energies in her. That was enough.”
"Still, you left me alive," Ashlan protested.
"Here, you are one of a kind like I am," the Icewitch answered simply. "Once, I was like you, outcast from our people. It is a land kissed by sun and fire. My powers were unlike theirs, so they thought I was an oddling, cursed. The Master Sorcerer refused me acknowledgment as a mage or even the most basic instructions. Desperate for some way to control my powers, I discovered secrets my people would not have me know. I left the place where I was born
