Glass flies, wood splinters, gilded edges snap. And then with one final flip, the carriage groans and slams against a mound of snow on its side, where my head smacks against the wall in a sickening crack.
I feel an explosion of pain, a flare of that red, red fire burning behind dimming eyes. And then I black out, the sound of those voices still there, like a turbid presence infecting the air and engulfing me completely.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Strands of a long-forgotten sun soothe over my eyes, golden streaks caressing my closed lids.
I hum in my sleep, joy leaping up, nostalgia pulling at me. I turn my face toward that shining warmth, but I can’t quite make it, can’t quite feel it.
Another silken graze over my brow, and I manage to open my eyes, only for a burst of pain to greet me. I blink against the pulse that triggers through my skull, as two of my ribbons fall away from my face, moving to caress my arms instead, as if those are the next things they aim to rouse.
Not beams of sun, then, but my persistent, protective ribbons. The comforting glow was only in my head.
Groaning, I sit up to gain my bearings, just as everything rushes back. My entire body stiffens as I catch up to the present, and I look around at the still, broken carriage lying on its side.
Snow is crowding in beneath me through the broken window, already numbing my legs where I landed against it. I manage to pull my feet beneath me, my eyes adjusting to the near pitch-black as I attempt to get up. The door is above me, and I slink slowly to a stand, my fingers coming up to feel for the handle.
Grabbing hold of it, I flinch at the sound of fighting outside. There’s the unmistakable clashing of swords, guttural groans of the injured, shrieks of the women. It makes me cower for a second, the noise making me want to curl up into a ball and shove my hands over my ears.
But I force myself to stay standing, despite how badly my knees shake, regardless of the dizziness that sweeps through my head. I push through it because I can’t pass out again. I can’t cower or hide.
Sail is out there. The other guards, the other saddles… So I tighten my hold on the handle to steady myself and then lift my head out of the empty window frame. Just a bit, just enough to peek over.
But all I see when my eyes lift is a man climbing onto the carriage, a heavy thump marking his ascent. I flinch back, smacking my already sore head against the window frame as I try to pull myself back into the carriage, as if I have any hope of hiding. But before I can fully scramble back, the man leans down, a pair of eyes latching onto me as I try to sink down, his hands snatching at my arms, hauling me right back up.
I shriek and struggle, but he lifts me up as if I weigh nothing, as if my fight doesn’t hinder him at all. The man pulls me out of the carriage, the hold brutal against my arms, my waist scraped against the jagged edges of the broken window pane.
I’m barely out of the carriage and standing on top of it with him before he turns and tosses me carelessly over the side.
I don’t even have time to pull in a breath before my body tips headfirst, and I fall into the snow pile on the ground. I land cold and hard, on a hidden rock buried beneath the white. My shoulder and lip smack into the sharp edges, and I instantly taste blood in my mouth, wincing at the pain.
Dazed, I hear the person on the carriage jump down nimbly behind me, and then he’s yanking me to a standing position by the back of my coat, the fabric pulling tightly against my throat.
By the veiled ethereal light of a hidden moon, I can just make out one of the horses dead in the snow, still attached to the broken carriage. The other one is gone, pole strap snapped free, reins abandoned.
Sail is nowhere in sight.
Fingers wrapped in thick white bandages grab my chin and turn my face, forcing me to look at the man holding me. The first thing I notice is that he’s dressed head-to-toe in white fur. Blending in with the landscape around us, except for the blood-red cloth around his face—the notorious band of the Red Raids.
“What do we have here?” His voice is muffled but rough, like his voice box froze a long time ago in this frigid world, a throat iced over, words that dig out like shards of ice.
“Get the fuck away from her!”
My head snaps to the left, and I see Sail being hauled forward at knifepoint by three more pirates. Gone is his gold-plated armor and his cloak. He’s even been stripped of his uniform, leaving him in just his thin tunic and trousers. His face is swollen and bruised, a crack of blood clotted against his brow—either from the carriage wreck or a struggle against the Red Raids.
The pirate holding me laughs at Sail’s struggles, but the two holding him by the arms easily subdue him by punching him in the stomach and making him bow over with a cough. A pained breath pointed at a sagging snow, droplets of blood landing at his feet.
“Now, let’s get a look at this one,” my captor says before shoving my hood back.
The moment my hood is pushed off my head, the pirate grabs my chin again and tilts my head, pointing it up at the cloaked light. His eyes widen, flicking over my hair, my skin, my eyes. I don’t know how well he can see, but it seems like it’s well enough.
“Take a fuckin’ look at this one.”
My stomach tightens, fear tensing along with the ribbons caught in his punishing grip at my back.
“She’s got paint all over her face.”
I blink, but I don’t dare look relieved. I don’t dare speak.
The one holding Sail licks his lips. “Hmm. She’s a pretty one. Cap’n Fane will want to see her.”
The pirate grunts in reply and drops his hold from my chin. “You three bring ’em,” he says before stuffing two fingers in his mouth, letting out a deafening whistle. “I’ll make sure the carriage gets pulled in.”
One of the others snorts. “Good luck. That fuckin’ thing is heavy as shit. Look at all the gold on it!”
“Aye, heavy enough to fetch a pretty price,” the pirate replies.
Behind me, I hear movement, and I see a group of more Red Raids coming, answering my captor’s whistle. The first pirate releases me, just to hand me off to another. The brutal grip on my arm digs in as I’m dragged forward despite whatever protests I try to put up. Sail and I are led away, up a hill, leaving the broken carriage behind.
Sail keeps his eyes on me, ignoring the way the two pirates manhandle him, struggling not for himself, but to try to get closer to me, as if he wants to shield me, protect me from this. “Don’t fucking try anything,” one of the Pirates sneers, holding a blade against Sail’s side in clear warning.
The stricken tears that blot in my eyes are cold. So, so cold.
“I’m so sorry, my lady,” Sail says, defeat and anger in his gaze.
Apart from his armor, the pirates stripped him of his helmet too. With stark fear on his expression, he looks even paler than usual. Only the bruises and blood give his face any color at all. The grim terror he holds is so unlike his familiar joviality, so different from the open kindness normally worn on his face.
“It’s not your fault, Sail,” I say quietly, trying to ignore the way the pirate to my right grips my arm so tightly that it cuts off my circulation. My body wants to shake in terror, but I staunch the urge like a pressed hand against a flowing wound. Suppressing it. Holding it in.
“Yes, it is.” Sail’s voice wobbles, and my heart cracks with the sound of that trembled concession. Cracks deeper with the way his throat bobs, as if he’s trying to swallow down his panic, trying to push through, despite our circumstances.
And all I can think of are the stories he’s told me as we rode side-by-side these long nights. Of his four older brothers, who ran barefoot and wild down the slums of Highbell. Of his tough but fierce-loving mother, who swept them out of the house with the end of her broom and a scowl but would walk all night alone searching for them when one didn’t come back in time for supper.
He doesn’t deserve this. He made it from the shanties to the barracks, to a personal guard of the
king’s favored, all without a coin in his pocket. He’s the kindest person I’ve ever met, and he doesn’t deserve to be shoved up a hill by a pirate with no name.
Sail looks over at me, his blackened eye growing darker, puffier with every passing second. He looks tortured. Not for himself, but for me. That apple in his throat bobbing again. “I was supposed to guard you. To protect you—”
“You did,” I say fiercely, cutting him off. I refuse to let him blame himself for this. “There was nothing else you could’ve done.”
“Alright, shut the fuck up, you two, or we’ll shove gags in your mouths.” The pirate holding me shakes me to emphasize his words, turning me limp, despite the steel I try to hold in my spine.
Sail’s blue eyes flash with anger at the sight of the pirate being so rough with me, but I shake my head at him, telling him not to react, not to fight.
We fall silent as we’re shoved onward. The scar at my throat throbs, like a pained premonition. A physical pessimism, as if it knows my life is being held against a knife’s edge once more.
My ribbons itch to wrap around it, wanting to protect the vulnerability there, but I keep them down, keep them wrapped around me.
Behind us, the mountain pass is a looming backdrop. Howls of wind rush out from that gap between the crests, pushing us even further away. I turn my back on its dark outline, hating the sight of its mocking mouth gaping at us, wide open, as if to laugh.
Too far. Much too far away. Our only chance at escape, and we never had any real hope of reaching it. Even the mountains know it.
The laughing wind continues to blow.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Sail and I are dragged uphill.
We make heavy, sloppy tracks as we go, snow shin-deep, threatening to topple us with every step. But the Red Raids carry on easily, as if buried legs and pushed steps hold no difficulty for them at all.
Just a few dozen steps, and yet with the effort it takes for each one and with the pirate’s jostled hold on my arm, it’s enough to leave me panting by the time we crest the top.
I’m too busy catching my breath for a moment to take in the sight. But once I manage to look at the flat land below, my eyes widen. Beside me, I hear Sail suck in a breath.
Gone is the emptiness, the flat landscape of nothing except the snow-white expanse that the Barrens are known for. Instead, it’s been overrun.
There are three large pirate ships made of white wood below us. They sit on the snow drifts like ships docked in an ocean’s harbor, except they have no sails. Where waves of water and windy skies normally drive a boat out to sea, these ships are more like massive snow sleds, pulled not by wind or tide or oars, but by an entirely different force.
“Fire claws,” Sail says in shock and awe beside me.
My wide eyes hook onto the snowy felines below. They’re massive. Ten feet tall at least, with hooked fangs dripping down past their lower jaws, the ends shaped like shovels, used to scrape at snow and ice.
But the most remarkable part of them, aside from their sheer size, is the glowing flames that lick around their paws. Some are lit, some not, some have all four footsteps blazing red, while on others, only a single burns, as if they have one foot standing in the doorway to hell.
That explains the balls of fire we saw in the distance.
When one of the Red Raids raises his whip, cracking it over a line of the creatures to make them move the ship forward, a massive growl emits from the entire row of them, baring their ferocity in a unified growl. The noise cuts through the air and soaks into the ground, vibrating my very feet.
That explains the thunder.
“I thought fire claws were a myth,” I say.
The pirate beside me chuckles. “More like a nightmare,” he says, and even with his face covering, I can tell he’s smiling. “One swipe of their paw and they can kill a man—or woman.”
I look back at him, struggling not to shiver.
“You’re either gonna be dead from their razor claws or burned to a bloody crisp from their flames. Not a good way to go, either way.”
I don’t want to go anywhere near those things. Unfortunately, the pirates begin to tug us down the other side of the sloped hill, heading closer to the beasts, heading closer to the ships and the hundreds of more pirates below.
My eyes take in as much as I can, searching for familiar faces, both hoping I’ll see them and praying that I won’t. As we get closer, I can see signs of struggle, more dead horses, another carriage that’s being stripped bare and hacked up into pieces, every gilded inch pried away and carried onto the ships.
The pirates work methodically, pilfering everything, right down to every trunk and carriage curtain.
The surviving horses are being led onto one of the smaller ships too, their hooves clopping against the wooden ramp as they go, most of them eyeing the fire claws nervously. Crisp is one of them. I spot him by his tail, by the gold twine I braided into it.
Pirates crawl everywhere, hauling screaming saddles away, looting through all of our things. Fighting and taunting our vastly outnumbered guards. Every single one of them wears the same white fur clothes, the same red cloth wrapped around their faces and heads, leaving only their eyes exposed.
The flames from the fiery feline paws light up the scene, basking it in flickering red, somehow making all of this so much worse. My eyes sweep down from one of the ships, and I notice the blood splattered over the white snow—so dark that it looks black. And then I start to notice the unmoving guards littered on the ground.
Beside me, Sail goes still. Silent. Dread curls into my chest like acrid smoke, burning my eyes, polluting my chest.
Everywhere I look, there are dead or captured guards being stripped down to nothing but their underwear. The ones alive are battered and bloodied, shaking from the cold, even their boots stolen from them as their clothes and armor are thrown into a pile, to be distributed to the ships.
I bite my tongue so hard that the taste of copper drips against my cheek. I hold it there, crush it between my teeth, biting, biting.
When we get closer to the ships, the heat from the rows of fire claws chips away at the fierce chill of the night, but it doesn’t warm me. Doesn’t hold a lick of comfort.
I search the guards, seeking past the swarming pirates, but I don’t see the face I’m searching for. I don’t see Digby.
A gruff pirate sees us approaching and cuts over to us. “Another saddle?” he asks, looking me over. “Bring her over there.” He jerks his head to the left, and my head turns in the direction. The saddles are there, lined up, a group of pirates looking them over, leering, touching. Rosh, the male saddle, gets shoved onto his knees, the pirates mocking him, spitting on him. His blond head hangs down.
I whip my head back around. “Sail.” My voice cuts off, because I’m already being dragged away, while the pirates holding him head in another direction.
“It’ll be okay,” he promises, but even in my state of shock, I can hear the lie tremble from his lips.
“Sail!” His name is a cry. Panic expanding, bursting all at once. “Sail!” I scream again, struggling against the man who holds me.
Nothing. My struggles do nothing. Even if it did, even if I managed to break away from him, there are hundreds more to grab hold of me.
“It’s okay,” Sail calls, voice tight, face agonized. “It’s okay, it’s okay.”
His repeated reply sounds like a plea.
I’m wrenched away, Sail torn from my line of vision as I’m shoved toward the twelve other saddles. I get lined up with them in front of the largest ship, dozens of fire claws at our backs, their paws of red bringing steam from the snow, a haze turning the ground ruddy with temper.
When I’m put in line at the end of the other saddles, I face forward, my back to the ship, and I see Sail being dragged across the way, where he’s shoved onto his knees in the snow, next to the other guards who are still alive.
The pirate leading him sends a crushing kick to
his side, ensuring he stays down. But even as Sail coughs and clenches his arms around his middle, he keeps his head up, keeps his eyes on me. Like he wants to make sure he doesn’t lose me, or that he wants to show me that I’m not alone.
At the sound of a whimper, I look to my left and realize it’s Polly trembling beside me, with tears running down her freckled face. She’s crying so hard that she’s having trouble breathing, her dress ripped in several places, the top bodice in pieces. And though her shaking hands try to hold the scraps together, it’s too ruined, her breasts nearly bare.
Anger rises in me, anger and despair. I quickly remove my coat and place it over her shoulders to help cover her. She flinches when I touch her and tries to smack my hand away, but when she sees that it’s me, the fight seeps out of her. “What are you doing?” she asks, the usual mocking bite from her tone absent.
I ignore her question and instead grab her arm and shove it through the arm of my coat before helping her arm through the other side. When her arms are in, I do up buttons, though my hands are shaking so hard that it takes me several tries just to get the top one done.
When she’s covered, she looks over at me, a harsh line slashed against her cheek, clearly marking where she’s been slapped. “Thanks,” she mumbles.
I nod, feeling the cold air bite at me more aggressively now, but bright side? At least I still have on my heavy wool dress and leggings. One look at the mostly naked guards is enough to make me grimace for them. If they don’t get out of the cold soon, they could go into hypothermic shock and be at risk of having frostbite.
“What are they going to do to us?” I ask, noting the pirates as they continue to work. A couple of them are watching over us, making sure we stay put, but aside from crying and whispering, none of the saddles dare to move.
A few people down the line from me, I can see Rissa speaking in low tones to the girl beside her. She’s one of the newer and youngest saddles here, and I still haven’t learned her name. She’s small and waiflike, with silky black hair and almond-shaped eyes, and right now, she looks petrified. Rissa catches my gaze, but her expression is grim despite the way she holds the girl’s hand, offering comfort.
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