Storm maiden

A Storm maiden is one of the Wanderers, a foreign soul with a heart demon in the place its core once filled. It comes out of the Mist each Turning and rides for whoever pays.

It serves in Reverie, the affinity of dream, illusion and mind that Aefenna, the Lamplighter holds. Its weapon is cold. Storm maidens say the storm's cold is a dream of winter held so hard that it becomes real. Pyre, the affinity of fire, lies across the ring from Reverie, and the two repel each other, so fire slides off the storm.

It fights hand to hand, and it grows stronger and harder to kill the longer it serves. In time it lends the army courage before battle. Later it drives a lance of ice into one enemy company, selected by chance. Last, it shields its own army against fire. The card shows what each stage does.

Aefenna, the Lamplighter added the counter to the Law of Equals, so that a recorded wrong could be answered beyond the ordinary range. The maidens claim they ride first when a grudge is repaid, because a counter is a storm that remembers where it came from.

It is paid well in geld and costs mana too, more as it grows, and it leaves when the pay stops. Kill one, and its service ends for the Turning, but its soul goes on, and so does its kind.

Those of its kind say the demon wants to ride the wind that pours through the Scar at the Unsealing, and be the one thing in it that does not come apart. Whether a maiden can be freed is not known.

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