The Winter Queen
an excerpt

It was midafternoon, three days past Midsummer, when a royal messenger entered the shop and requested a headache powder. It was that sort of day; Yora had already sold a number of the things. The sun was far too hot, and the already sparse patches of shade seemed to have shrunk to almost nothing under its harsh glare. She would have closed the shop already, but could think of nowhere more comfortable to go; even the river was low and dry this time of year, and filled with idling boys besides.

She gave the ensign his powder, dissolved in a glass of cucumber tea, and stood watching him drink it for want of anything better to do. His livery was stained with sweat and covered in traveler's dust, but the bold red tabard was still clearly visible under its crest of gryphons rampant. His boots were enormous, and poorly maintained; they were also caked with dried mud, which flaked liberally onto the floor with every step he took.

He was beautiful, in an arrogant way. (Of course, they were all arrogant, the King's men. Yora had met more than a few of them in her time at Court, and in the City they were everywhere.) His golden hair curled at the ends, like a child's, and his blue-green eyes were a pleasure to see.

After she had stared a minute or two, he began to show his irritation. He glared at her, then half sneered, and swallowed the rest of his tea in a long, hard gulp. A few overflowing drops slipped out of the corners of his mouth and slid down his chin, threatening to fall, until he brushed them impatiently away with the back of his gloved hand.

"Have you heard of a witch called Yora?"

Yora found herself irrationally irritated that anyone had the nerve to call her a "witch." Even in her earliest stage of study, she had technically been a sorceress, and now she'd far surpassed the requirements for such a description by any calculations. Still, she couldn't deny that at this point the distinction was moot.

"I haven't seen her," she said, picking up a rag to dust the counter. "Haven't heard from her in, what, probably a week or two now." The counter was actually quite clean; aside from her sales of headache powders, there had been few customers that day and little to do, and Yora had indulged in a spot of mindless housekeeping. After a few absent swipes she set the cloth back down. "She might have gone up to Gonnarsville, in this weather. Lovely shade trees up there, and Yora's mad for trees."

The messenger looked around for a minute more, taking in the rows and rows of glass jars half-filled with infrequently used remedies. The population of this village were generally healthy, and even when they took sick they generally went to the healers first. The apothecary came last, if at all, and after what she had heard of her predecessor Yora could hardly blame them. Nevertheless, the ensign seemed to approve; at any rate, he purchased a large bunch of all-heal and a packet of aniseed before he left. At last he clumped outside, leaving a trail of mud clods across the newly swept floor.

Yora watched him mount his horse and ride away; then she went to the back room and sat down, hard. She waited for it all to come back, the memories she had put off by keeping low, the ties she'd meant to sever forever. Even her family weren't privy to her location. If the King's men wanted her...

Yora knew that magic had almost destroyed her.

Twelve years before, she had begun to study magic at the Grand College of Witchcraft, in Sun's Hallow. It was not, in fact, a school for witches, but a Grand College it certainly was, enormous and rambling and echoing in its beautiful stone structure. In winter, the howling winds filled the hallways and sent all the dogs scurrying for the warmth of hearths and rushes, filling the dining hall with a shivering, stinking crowd all bound together by their fear of the killing cold outside. "Sun's Hallow" was, in fact, a very strange name for a place where winter arrived at the end of the tenth month, and lasted well into the fourth of the following year.

The danger had started with the dance of power under her skin-- as, indeed, it started for nearly everyone, as far as she could tell. Next it became a call-- first whispering, then murmuring, then louder. The voice of magic was like the memory of an unspeakable dream: sultry, echoing, haunting, and impossible to ignore. It caused things to curl and writhe in the pit of one's stomach, and lower. Yora had begun to spend much of her time alone-- as, she had noticed, did most magicians.

She had taken no lovers that year; she had needed none.

Her teacher had understood, and had warned her to use caution. "It takes some people harder than others," he had said. He had, she knew now, been rather understating the case. Five years into her studies, the magic had taken over, and Yora had been lost.[...]

When the worst of it had passed and she had finally recovered at least the better part of her senses, she had retreated to a small village to avoid embarrassment

She had fallen neatly into her position as mistress of the village apothecary because she already knew the plants and most of the remedies. She was no specialist, of course. She'd done passably well in the appropriate classes, and that was all that was required, or more, for a job like this. In fact, Yora was inclined to believe she was considerably more qualified than the town's last apothecary had been, if only because he had been driven out after a string of untimely deaths credited to his incompetence.

It had really been too lucky, the position coming open for her just when she had needed it. Yora didn't try to fool herself into thinking it had truly been luck. She had too much experience with the whims of magic not to know better.

It was true what they said, in any case: once you begin to fool with magic, it never, ever stops fooling with you.

It didn't take the messenger long to find his way back. "You lied to me," he said, stumping through the door at sunset.

"You called me a witch," she replied, neatly refilling an empty jar with dried wolfberries. "Will you have more tea, sir?"

He declined with an irritated shake of his head. "My name is John Follows," he said. "I'm here to give you some unpleasant news."

"What is it?" Yora said, her voice as even as she could make it. She set down the jar and ran her fingers across the rough grain of the wooden countertop. "Has something happened?"

The question was idiotic, of course, but the messenger continued as if she hadn't spoken. "It's about the Grand College, in Sun's Hallow." The words feel with unusual weight. Yora leaned against the counter, suddenly weak with the sure knowledge of what had happened.

She asked anyway.

"It's gone," he said.

"What?"

"Gone. Destroyed."