Though a week passed, the memory of his father's resignation still gripped Etien's insides with an unleashed fury. He left for the mountains the next day. He could not bear to live in a house with such a coward. He could not sit across the table from his father, watch the old man drink Fabian wine, eat Fabian lamb, and call himself the Duke.
Even the icy mountain had not cooled his anger.
Etien was Fabian. At seventeen, he had gone to war at his father's side, and learned what this really meant. Men died for that name. They died willingly. The name brought respect from some and fear from others. Etien could recite all the heroic deeds of his ancestors. They watched him from portraits hung on the castle walls. They whispered to him on the winds, which blew down from the mountains. Their bodies rotted in Fabian ground, becoming part of the beauty, which never dulled in his eyes. They were all around him in these mountains. They were the snow under his feet, the...
Those spirits rumbled, with sudden ferocity. Etien looked up, unbelieving. Thunder? No, the sky was still clear.
Avalanche. The White Death.
Behind him, the mountain peak blurred in a silent cloud of snow. The noise followed like an afterthought, like a stampede of gods. Etien jumped over the cliff, heedless of the jagged rocks and ice. He landed on a ledge of soft snow with only seconds to regain his balance. The mountain shook icicles off itself, like a sacrificial bull shaking flowers from its mane. Etien pulled his feet together and tucked. His skis cut deep into the virgin snow, slowing him. He dared a look behind and wished he hadn't. A white wall, a wave of snow, ice and debris, bore down on him. He ducked into the trees, hoping they would slacken its pace.
Home was still leagues away. He would never make it. He should have been terrified, but the race exhilarated him. The White Death was a rival that no one mocked, and many cursed. He would outrun it or join the spirits of his ancestors. Either way, this race would be immortalized along with other tales of Fabian glory.
His skis were extensions of his legs. The wind no longer worked against him. He sliced through it like one made of ice. The pounding of the snow matched the pounding in his veins.
Faster, he begged his skis. Faster!
He raced like lightening echoed by thunder, a buck chased by the arrow.
At the head of his father's land, in the spare orchards at the base of the mountain, he flung away his poles and tucked tighter. A dozen people ran out of the castle keep, but they were too far away to help. If the White Death claimed him, he would suffocate in minutes.
The world shrank to his skis and the roar of the mountain. Trees whipped past his face. The avalanche licked at his heels.
Closer. Closer to home; closer to death.
His ski caught on a chunk of ice, and he tumbled down the slope, skis, legs and arms snapping like straw.
The avalanche rushed to claim him and Etien saw an angel riding the wave. Blue hair, diamond eyes--the White Death was beautiful.
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