The Crimson Blood On White Snow

Prologue: The Crimson Blood on White Snow

By Lenn Marcus

If death doesn’t take me, the curse will.

The crimson stain bled into the white snow — red, fresh, and screaming of death.

Blood dripped steadily from my shoulder, painting a trail for the shadows hunting me with ice-cold eyes. Their growls echoed through the mountains like war drums in the silence.

My silver hair whipped across my face, strands brushing just above my shoulders.

The cursed mark at the base of my neck pulsed faintly, nearly burnt out.

It was the source of my power — and now, my sentence.

I pushed forward, my feet plunging through the knee-deep snow, battling the roar of the storm.

I didn’t have time.

Not for him.

Not for me.

I had one shot — and it had to count.

Failure wasn’t an option.

I had to get to him before time repeated itself.

Before the mountain roared.

Before he died again beneath a wall of ice.

My father.

I shut my eyes and drew what I could from the curse mark, feeling the tingling surge crawl across my skin.

My legs tensed.

Then, a blur — I shot up.

Gravity bent to my iron will.

Twenty feet into the air.

Snow exploded beneath me with a heavy thud.

But when I landed, my ankle buckled.

Pain screamed through my leg, and I collapsed with a shout.

“No… I have to keep moving! Come on!”

The storm howled behind me.

They were near.

I ducked behind a frost-covered tree, breath sharp in my lungs.

I dared a glance — just in time to see it.

A towering hellhound ripped through the snow.

Its form was wolf-like, but monstrous — larger than a grizzly, rib bones jutting through blackened skin, eyes burning like coals in a furnace.

It sniffed the blooded trail.

It felt me.

It knew.

It was coming — thirsty for blood.

Hungry for death.

Then the mountain groaned.

A deafening crack shattered the sky.

Snow — tons of it — broke free and roared down the slope.

“No… No. I’m too late.”

The beast thundered toward me, its massive legs shaking the earth.

I raised my hands — not at the beast, but at the mountain behind it.

I poured out everything I had.

A shimmering force field burst from my palms, wrapping the avalanche in a bubble of light.

The air around me hummed with crystalline tension.

The shield held — barely.

But the beast was already in mid-air — fangs open, aimed at my throat.

I had nothing left to give.

I was out of time.

But one thing was certain:

I lost him once.

I won’t lose him again.

Not now. Not ever.

My name is Winter Summers.

And this is my story.

WOODWICK