The Crimson Snow (A Realm of Chaos and Void #1)

Chapter 7

The Hidden Wolf

And there, in the heart of the forest,

He stood, gazing upon what he believed to be a mere mortal,

Yet, knowing deep within, she was far more than flesh and bone.

Retrieved from the Grim Wanderer’s journal.

Grim Wanderer

The Grim Wanderer walked across Coldhaven, just beyond the eerie whispers of the Weeping and Wailing Forests. Moving silently like a specter, he felt equally ethereal.

This place, however, he wished to traverse quickly. Despite knowing the girl was safe, asleep in the sheltering woods, urgency gnawed at him. A myriad of tasks lay unfinished, this one proving most formidable.

As he skirted the perimeter of Iceveil Square, the clock tower loomed in the distance, its hands frozen as if clasping the past. He had witnessed its unchanging face for centuries, echoing his own temporal stasis. Tonight, his path diverged, leading him toward a cottage on the town’s outskirts—an abode now surrendered to decay, its fetor wafting across the cold night air.

Years ago, the crimson-eyed girl had cursed that house. He remembered watching her, but he hadn’t stopped marveling at her. Such a curious mind from such a young age. At the front of the house no one dared approach, the Grim Wanderer knew it wasn’t inhabited.

He wondered if she, too, sometimes delighted in the fact that she was able to create such a disaster from a young age. Still, he knew he had no time for that topic now.

Then, he brushed a finger under his arm, where another blood-inked tattoo lay on his skin, representing another of his familiars. The tattoo moved, and a creature appeared in front of him. Just like the cat, he had collected some interesting friends over the past decades.

This time, it was a barghest named Grimnight. It was large enough that most people would mistake it for a wolf, but it was a monstrous black dog that lived in the darkest corners of the Otherworld. He smirked. My father had certainly loved them. They were vicious, with large teeth and claws, yet very easy to command. Grimnight had been his for a long time, a reminder of his past and family.

They both ventured inside the cursed house. The house’s exterior walls, once painted a cheerful hue, now bore the scars of neglect, with paint peeling away to reveal the rotting wood beneath. Vines crept up the sides like fingers seeking to choke the life from the bricks, their grip unyielding.

As he stepped inside, the air grew thick with the musk of mold and the sharp tang of mildew. Each footfall kicked up clouds of dust, the particles dancing in the slivers of moonlight that pierced through the cracks in the boarded-up windows. The floorboards groaned under his weight, the sound echoing off the walls of the narrow hallway that led deeper into the house’s darkness.

A boggart waited at the end of the hall in what used to be the living room. The creature was perched atop what once might have been an ornate armchair, now nothing more than a frame covered in tattered fabric and festooned with cobwebs. The boggart’s skin was leathery and wrinkled, mottled with patches of mold and fungus that seemed to pulse with a life of their own. Its eyes were too large for its face, bulbous and unblinking, glowing faintly red in the gloom.

Its mouth, twisted into a grotesque smile, revealed rows of sharp, jagged teeth, like shards of broken glass, ready to tear and rend. The boggart’s hair was a tangled mess of knots and leaves, with insects crawling in and out of the dark tresses.

“Hello, little thing,”

the Grim Wanderer spoke, his voice a calm contrast to the unsettling hiss that perpetually seemed to emanate from the boggart.

The creature cocked its head, the movement jerky and unnatural, as if it were not used to being addressed so casually by something it couldn’t dominate or terrify. The Grim Wanderer still could not believe that his crimson-eyed girl had turned this brownie into a living nightmare, a boggart. Oh, what a funny way to trick humans.

“I must apologize. I was a little late. I had some… unpredictable things come my way,”

he said smoothly, producing a folded letter from one leaf and extending it toward the creature.

The boggart’s fingers, thin and bony, snatched the letter with surprising swiftness, its nails scraping against the paper. After reading the letter, the creature’s smile widened.

“So, I can return home and be free of this house?”

Its voice was a harsh whisper that seemed to scratch at the air.

“Only if you do as I said in the note. No mistakes.”

“I will make sure to proceed with the most expected outcome, but there is something missing…”

The Grim Wanderer interrupted him. “Here.”

He gave the boggart the bottle that his cat sith had retrieved from the Shadowmarket. The bottle was beautiful to the eye but as deadly as a beithir.

“Be careful with that. You shall return the remains of the bottle’s liquid to me after the first part of the deal is finished.”

“I won’t fail you,”

the boggart said and then disappeared again, hiding in the wall of the rotten house.

“Good,”

he said more to himself before leaving the house.

It was still dark, and the Grim Wanderer still had some time before the girl would wake up. So, he headed to the last standing place for this checkmate move.

The Grim Wanderer threaded his way through the forest’s darkness again. He took a detour near the edge of the woods that was shrouded, bordered by gnarled trees with thorny limbs that reached out like the fingers of the dead. Every step stirred the scent of decay, the undergrowth crunching underfoot. He moved with silent urgency, accompanied by Grimnight.

A frozen lake lay at the center, its surface a mirror to the starless sky above. The air was sharper here, each breath a razor slicing through the lungs. Most hunters avoided this place, and he was sure the crimson-eyed girl knew about the whispering tales of the frozen lake at the border to the Weeping Forest.

“Isn’t this a pleasant surprise?”

a raspy female voice said.

He looked around toward a blackened tree near the frozen lake and smirked. “I am pretty pleasant indeed. Why don’t you come out and say hi, darling?”

The voice muffled a dark retort. “I hope Nemera plucks each limp of your body.”

“Ah, my memory is quite dusty. I just recalled it!”

the Grim Wanderer said, laughing, moving closer to the dark tree. “You cannot move, a beauty cuffed to a tree, caged between realms. What a twist of fate.”

As he neared the tree, he saw a figure hidden behind the old tree, which was rotten to the core as the creature bound to it—a baobhan sith.

The creature was a horrifying tapestry of beauty and terror, draped in a gown of shimmering emerald that clung to her form like moss to a tombstone. Her skin was an unnatural shade of alabaster, luminescent under the moonlight, making her appear as a spectral apparition. When they met his, her eyes shone with a predatory gleam, reflecting a hunger not for sustenance but for suffering.

Long, tangled hair the color of raven feathers fell around her shoulders, moving as if alive with a serpentine life. The air around her was heavy with the scent of blood and the faint, almost imperceptible, whisper of decay. It was said that the baobhan sith could enchant with her gaze, luring her victims to a gruesome demise with the promise of her lips, which were as red as the blood she so craved.

Her lips curled into a smile of cold, calculating malevolence. As the Grim Wanderer approached, her chains rattled softly against the tree she was bound to, a chilling sound that seemed to echo across the frozen lake.

“Let’s make a deal, shall we?”

With a flourish, the Grim Wanderer produced a key using another one of his leaves, the metal glinting ominously in the moonlight.

Leaning close, he whispered into her ear. As the key turned in the lock, the shackles fell with a thud to the snow-dusted earth, liberating the baobhan sith from her bonds.

The Grim Wanderer handed her a piece of red cloth, the color vivid against the stark whiteness of the snow. Her smile widened, a grotesque display of cruel intentions as her long, sharp teeth gleamed ominously in the moonlight.

Freed, she moved with unholy grace toward the city, her every step an elegant menace.

Seraphine Ashcroft

Seraphine awoke with a throbbing headache, her thoughts foggy as if she had slept for an eternity. The strange dreams that haunted her sleep were already starting to fade, slipping through her fingers like wisps of smoke. She tried to grasp the threads of her nightmares, but the effort made her head pound even harder.

“You do sleep a lot. You know that, right?”

The Grim Wanderer’s voice broke through her haze.

So, it hadn’t been a dream after all. Seraphine had no idea how long she had been lying there in the snow of the Wailing Forest. Then, she noticed a faint light rising, illuminating the surroundings.

She had lost the entrance to the veil. Damn the Ancients!

To her own surprise, she found herself smiling, feeling inexplicably lighter. Perhaps the Grim Wanderer was a good influence, or maybe she just needed the rest.

“I do not. I was just tired,”

she retorted, noticing a bizarre taste of pine in her mouth. “Do you ever take that hood off your face?”

“I do, but just in front of those who are worth it,”

he replied with a teasing lilt, his eyes gleaming beneath the hood.

Would I ever be worthy of it? She wanted to be, for some reason.

“And you snored. A lot.”

Seraphine rolled her eyes at him but then remembered the tale he had told her before she had fallen asleep. The idea of having a heart frozen, free of everything—no pain, no remorse, no fear—intrigued her. She had pondered such a state many times, but now, with his story in mind, she couldn’t help but wonder aloud, “If I were to ask for that deal you mentioned in your tale, would you do it? Do you have the power?”

The Grim Wanderer was silent for a moment, his mouth a straight line. “Freezing a heart requires someone from the line of Sorrowspring or a higher authority in the Otherworld. That being said, I would, and I can.”

His words were heavy with caution.

Seraphine wondered whether he was from the Sorrowspring line or if he held a more politically significant position he wished to conceal.

As he turned away, he continued, his furred cloak flowing like a dark river, “But I must implore you—never make that deal if you can avoid it. The horrors and sacrifices required to complete the deal carry a terrible cost. I won’t deny you the choice, but if you can, please avoid it. You are destined for an amazing life regardless.”

At that, the Grim Wanderer knelt in front of her and held her hand, spreading it open.

Seraphine held her breath at the touch. His hand was warm like the sun but soft as snow. He cleared his throat. “You know what I see in your crimson eyes?”

She was afraid to know, but she shook her head gently. He placed a small snowflake, perfectly shaped, on her palm, his hand still holding hers. “You are like a rose in the middle of winter.”

The snowflake shifted, and from it, a stem started to grow, creating a rose made of ice and snow. “A red rose, unreachable but lasting, enduring. Something you would not expect to grow against adversities, but that beautifully does so. And more.”

Then, the Grim Wanderer pulled his other hand away, never leaving hers, and bit his own finger. He moved his finger and let a drop of blood fall onto the frozen rose on her hand.

“A starlight of crimson that perseveres over the winter and heartbreaks. A touch of spring in an eternal winter,”

he whispered as the rose absorbed his blood and turned red, slowly melting and transforming into a real flower—unlike those she had seen in books.

Seraphine touched the rose, the petals softer than velvet. When she smelled it, she felt as if she were inhaling life.

“Beautiful,”

she muttered, as if in a daze. Not even in the Otherworld had she seen a real, common spring rose.

“That she is,”

the Grim Wanderer murmured.

While she could not see his face, she felt as if he were looking at her with a depth of feelings she longed to understand. He seemed as alluring as he was dangerous.

“Can I keep it?”

she asked softly. The rose might die and freeze soon, but she just wanted to hold it a little longer.

He smiled, a gesture so subtle it felt like a secret shared between them. “You can keep everything.”

She stood, holding the rose and missing the warmth from the Grim Wanderer’s touch. It was time to go home. He knew the way out, so she walked with him, following a few steps behind. His presence was comforting, somehow familiar. She pondered whether he was the same presence she had repeatedly felt. As she walked, she realized she also needed to concoct an explanation for why she had been kicked out of the fishery and why she hadn’t brought home any coins that day.

“Oh, Brannon, help me,”

Seraphine whispered.

Grim Wanderer

The Grim Wanderer was exhausted. He had barely made it to the Wailing Forest in time. Now, he trailed alongside the girl with the crimson eyes.

Not to mention, Seraphine was smiling. One could die for a smile like that.

As soon as they reached the edge to Coldhaven, she moved past him, her scent enveloping him. She turned to him, her crimson eyes shining with eagerness and a sentiment he dared not define, and waved in farewell. Her hair flowed smoothly in the chilly air, her eyes sparkled, and a pang of guilt washed over him. The Grim Wanderer knew all too well that her happiness might soon evaporate.

“Thanks for the rose,”

she shouted and then pointed a finger at him. “But stop messing with my head. I know you are the one whispering here and there!”

“So bossy. I was just messing around. I told you before, I am harmless.”

He wasn’t, but he felt like enjoying himself with her chattiness and beauty at dawn.

Seraphine huffed, and he couldn’t help but want to approach her again. He could go as far as draining his whole blood so she could have a million roses just to see her smile a million times more. All he had done to get to this point could reflect on how mad he was for wanting her, for seeing her, even if it meant losing her.

“Don’t do it, especially if I am naked in my bathroom, you pervert.”

She sneered, but he sensed an undertone that implied she was joking.

“I promised, I saw nothing. I was far enough, and one could define me as a gentleman.”

This he was. He had been across the wall of her cottage, hiding in the shadows. Now, he was indeed tempted to see all of her. When it came to her, there was nothing but want. “Unless you wish me to, in that case…”

The Grim Wanderer saw her blush even from afar. He had to bite his lip to keep from saying something utterly inappropriate. Or something entirely cheesy, like how he could compare those rosy cheeks to the colors of the sunset on days when the light was at its peak and the moon rose at its brightest.

“You have a death wish. Now, I shall go. It wasn’t unpleasant to cross paths with you… Grim Wanderer.”

Seraphine turned back again.

The way she pronounced that name sent a shiver to his core. Little does she know. Still, he would do anything for her to call him by his real name. For her to remember.

As she walked away, she seemed like she was dancing with lightness. He truly smiled, savoring what might be one of the last times he would see her like this—smiling, not yet despising him.

Before he could lose sight of her, he opened his palm. A tiny blue leaf began to swirl in the air, tracing her path before slipping discreetly into her dress’s pocket.