by Ellie Cypher
Her eyes burned. She weren’t shakin cause she were cold.
Slow, we came up next to her. I near stumbled as we stopped. Vela turned her glare on me, her mouth a thin line of pressed rose. Cody cleared his throat.
“I—shouldn’t we keep going?” Cody asked, shifting Bren’s weight a little more onto his shoulders from mine. Gritting my teeth, I shifted it back.
“Yes.” Vela snapped her teeth loud enough that the crunching bone echoed through the chamber. She made no move to go on.
Cody and I exchanged a look. What were she waiting for?
“And?” I promoted.
“And nothing,” Vela shot back. “This is the way you want to go.”
My eyebrows shot up in surprise. Vela didn’t want to go down that tunnel. Something were making her uneasy. And she were angling away, holding her arm strange like. But whatever it were, even I could feel the difference in the air. There were a new sharpness to the cold. Like a closing of teeth through snow. There were a storm outside. Near enough to taste it. We were so close.
Vela stood silent in the dark crescent of the tunnel, cold wind snagging at her clothes, her face, her hair. A silver tempest in the growing dark, as all around her the barest of hints of a setting sun pooled liquid and gold around her silhouetted body. Something were dripping from where her hand clamped her upper arm. Water? No, it weren’t water. It were thicker than that. More like liquid mercury…
“Vela?” Cody hesitated at my side, giving me a look. I took Bren into my arms. He approached her, strides even. Slow. “What’s wrong?”
He were close enough to reach her, but he didn’t. “Is this the way out?”
I didn’t like this. I didn’t like the stillness. Made my skin crawl. I made to step toward them. At my side Bren began a low, breathy moan.
“Bren?” I turned to my sister. Her eyes were rolling something fierce under the lids. “What’s wrong?” The farther we left that passage, the more animated Bren had become. I checked her pulse. Racing faster than it had any right to. As if she were afraid.
I spun. A clatter came from the tunnel behind me. Followed short by Cody’s cry. Pain. Warning. Only it came too late.
One moment I were standing at Bren’s side, the beat of her heart under my hand, and the next I were falling.
Vela, eyes vicious wild, had grabbed hold of my coat and were dragging me down.
Nails scraped at my skin. Cold and unrelenting. Tearing the fur from my neck. It were all I could do to focus. To put up hands, useless against the wild of the girl above me.
“I saw it,” she screamed. Scraping at my chest, my coat, my neck. “Where is it? Where is it?” She kept repeating the words. Over and over. Desperate. “What have you done with it. It is mine!”
Where her hands set upon me, great threads of ice began to grow across my skin. Burning with cold. I gasped. Vela’s eyes were… untethered. Glowing. There weren’t nothing left in them to recognize as the girl we had found. Nothing.
“I don’t—understand.” I tried to roll. To be anywhere but here. Tight as chains her fingers clamped down around my wrists. Pain tore through me. “What do you want?” I panted. Under her stare I struggled, hair whipping at my face, the uneven tunnel jutting into my spine, cold burning at my bones.
Then quick as a snake her weight were gone. Gulping down air, I scrambled to my knees. And saw her, sprinting down the tunnel. Running right at Cody and Bren.
“No!” I screamed. Then I were running.
But it all began to slow. The shock in Cody’s eyes, the sway of Bren’s body at his side, but there weren’t nothing I could do. As Vela ran into them, and a hand on each, pulled them into the darkness of the tunnel and the waiting black beyond. A silver chain sparking bright in her hands. The ice-stone pulsing silver-red in her grip.
In that single moment, the rock unhinged massive jaws and swallowed them whole. I called and called. Yet nothing came back at me. No Cody, no Bren. No Vela. Just the cold echo of the rocks around me. A burst of wind scuttled through the space, bringing with it heavy flakes of snow.
I ran. Stumbled. Forced my way forward.
A scream erupted in the stillness. Vela.
The cries grew louder. So too did a scent of snow. A deep rumble filled the space, joining a crunching of ice and rock under my thundering feet. Vela, Bren, Cody. None of them were there. This was the only way they could have gone. I ran faster. My heart thundering, my body screaming.
The Flats—cold and white and hungry—burst out before me. Heedless of the pain, the cold, of anything else, I threw myself out into their waiting embrace.
CHAPTER 41 This Echoing Dark
A face in the cold stared down at me.
“Bass.” I pushed to my feet.
“Pigeon!” The blond woman smiled for all the world as if we was long-lost friends. “How nice to see you again. Our last meeting cut so unfortunately short. Sneaky, sneaky. I’m certain Dev told you there ain’t nothing out here I can’t find. Even when it tries so desperate to hide from me.” She shot a look over her shoulder. “Let’s just call it my secret gift, that.” She tapped the side of her nose.
Frantic, I searched the snow around her. On either side, Bass were flanked by what must have been twenty men. And their wolves. Their Tracers. And the reason I reckoned Bass would find us. Sooner or later.
“Jorie,” a small voice croaked out behind me. “We’re here.” I spun. Cody were there, propped up against the rock wall of the mine’s opening. At his side, his arm clasped protective like round her shoulder, were Bren. Somewhere behind me Bass barked out a crude laugh.
I lurched, hitting my knees on the hard black rock as I came to their side. I grabbed a hold of Bren. She didn’t look no worse. I ran a hand over her forehead. But also no better. “You alright?” I asked Cody.
Eyes focused over my shoulder, he tilted his head. But whatever small moment of comfort I had, it were cut short. A woman were approaching.
“And who is this? A third one now, is it?” Bass asked. “You sure are picking up a lot of strays, pigeon.”
“My sister is none of your business,” I snapped.
“A sister? Of course there is.” Bass let out a rolling belly of laughter, hand on her stomach. After a long while, she wiped at her eyes. “Tsk, tsk. So rude. You haven’t even thanked me yet.”
I glared. “For what? Asking stupid questions in the snow?”
“For saving your ungrateful life.” Bass looked me up and down, smile sweet and slow, her finger trailing a long line down the side of her neck. She reached out to the space between us. I recoiled.
“Rill!” Bass snapped. Behind her, the largest man struggled with something in the snow. After a moment, what were giving him no end of grief came into view.
Vela.
Vela with a wide silver collar choking tight around her neck. From which linked heavy chains. Clunky shackles bound her arms and legs. Vela’s body twisted. Patches of red flaring hot and angry everywhere the metal seared her skin.
Rill yanked Vela to her knees, thick fingers gripping the chains. Vela were hissing, face a mask of rage. Under her in the snow, the darkness of her shadow flickered.
“Cost us a pretty number of men and women, she has. Never have been able to lure her out into the snows whole enough so to catch her.” Bass leaned in close and tapped the side of Bren’s face, a lingering smirk in her eyes. “At least this one looks like your mother.”
I blinked between the three of them.
“Seems I only needed to set the right bait to catch a me Witch.” Bass gave me a flick of knowing look before turning away. Gesturing over her shoulder for Rill to bring Vela. He obliged. Hefting her weightless as a sheet of silk onto his shoulders.
I could feel Cody behind me, his breath warm on the back of my neck. Ignoring Bass and her gunslingers, I lay a gentle hand on Bren’s face. And took a deep breath.
“Cody, are you sure you’re alright?”
“I’ve had better moments, I must
admit.”
I gave him the wry twist of lips the comment deserved. He coughed.
“What’s that?” Cody asked.
I followed his gesture. “The ice-stone,” I said surprised. And quiet as I could, I stole over. My fingers closing round the gem in the snow, its surface cracked open. Broken. As if something had fallen out. Deep fissures ran into the metal settings. I closed my hand around it. A jolt shot up my arm.
“It was what she wanted.”
From behind me Cody spoke, eyes tired. “When we were in the tunnel, Vela went wild. Screaming about pieces. Where were her pieces, she could feel them. The scent all over us. And then she found that.” He indicated the necklace. I placed a hand on my chest where it had been. Where Vela had been searching.
With careful fingers I opened Bren’s eye. I don’t know what I were expecting, but I was sore disappointed. That mote were still there. Red-gold and perfect. I wanted to claw it out, right here. Right now. Instead, I raised my hands, spun, and spit right into the face of the man sneaking up behind me. Eyes furious, he wiped it away as the others closed in on us, a tight circle. Guns raised.
“Into the sled with ’em. It’ll do ’em good to see what they’ve been missing. And there’s some mighty big questions I’d like the answers to.” Bass barked order after order to her men, bare a glance in our direction, as five sets of hands descended upon us.
This time they didn’t bother with the hoods. And though our hands were bound, they were loose enough that they didn’t cut into my skin. Though they mightn’t have troubled themselves. It were as if all the wounds I’d sustained before the ice palace slammed back into my bones. Even my marrow hurt. Whatever power had kept us unaware of our hurting clear weren’t working now.
I couldn’t have run if I’d wanted to. And I didn’t. We needed to get to Bass’s camp. In fact, as I pressed a tired shoulder against Cody’s at my side, I were counting on it.
We passed through Nocna Mora first, Bass’s men driving the wolves fast, until the town’s fallen buildings were naught but crumbling black specks behind us. After an hour, my teeth felt near to rattling out of my skull. My lids became heavy with a thick clotting of frost. Gusts of wind swirled around us, methodically picking their way under cuffs, collars, and wool alike. I fixed down the thin bearskin they’d given me to cover Bren. Another hour passed. Then two, three. Finally, an outcropping of white unlike the snow around it came into focus along the horizon. The musher snapped the reins, sending the wolves snarling as they kicked up speed.
As we got closer, the wind shifted and the smell of burning wood and tanning hides drifted out from Bass’s camp. I swallowed hard. This was sure about to get interesting.
CHAPTER 42 What Lingers on the Soul
I were tossed to the ground rough, knees skidding on the familiar floor of Bass’s tent. Cody slung out right after me.
The tent flap opened again as two men between them brought Bren inside. With care they set her down on a pallet of blankets in the corner. Legs like rubber beneath me and brain spinning light, I crawled to Brenna’s side. Cody joined me. Vela and her silver chains weren’t nowhere to be seen.
“If you done hurt her…” I ran a hand over Brenna’s face, searching. But there weren’t a scratch or bruise on her that weren’t there before.
One of the men gave a short snort before letting the tent flap fall back into place. My threat were idle and they knew it. I tucked a blanket up under Bren’s head for a pillow. What troubled me was the change. A deep blue tinged her mouth, and little lines of frost had begun growing along the creases of her cracked lips.
A moment later a woman appeared. Dressed in the same gray clothes as the rest of ’em, she didn’t make eye contract as she came into the room and set down a pitcher on a small wooden tray. She left it on the floor just inside the tent flap.
Slow, Cody lurched and retrieved the tray. On it sat a flask of melted ice as well as three cold, smoked sweet vetch roots and some salt-cured herring. Vetch never had been a favorite, though bears and caribou did have a mighty fond taste for the mealy tuber. Cody gave them all a long sniff. My stomach growled. So too did his.
Cody handed me some of the herring. Even if it were drugged, that at this point drugs would be better than starvation. I took a long swig of water. And nothing happened. No smell or taste, no shaking of my blood. Carrying the flask over, I tilted up Bren’s head and gave her the water.
Finished, I came over and sat cross-legged by Cody’s side, offering him some. He took a long pull before setting it down again. Everything hurt.
“I’ll eat it first, and if I don’t keel over dead…,” I said, tearing off a slim strip of fish meat and mashing it with some of the smoked white root.
Cody let out a little scoff. “We’ll eat it together then.” He took up a piece of the sweet vetch and popped it in his mouth. “Really could use some salt.”
I gave him a small smile.
Together, we ate the sparse meal in silence. When we were done, we each fell into sleep. Alone.
A heavy shouting mixed with canine howling racked me from my uneven sleep. I jolted straight up. And immediate regretted it. I raised a hand to my pounding skull. Felt right like a narwhal were trying to spear its way out from behind my eyes.
Careful like, I pushed myself up to a sitting position against Brenna’s pallet. Across from me Cody were already on his feet. The tent flap snapped open.
Three heavily armed men strode in, Bass right behind. A sliver of moonlit sky flashed in and out of brilliance before the tent flap once again closed.
They arranged themselves across the entrance. Bass gave us a critical eye, roving between the three of us. After a moment she gave a brusque nod, as if something had been decided.
“Get ’em up,” she said. “They’re coming with me.”
The men jumped to Bass’s order. They were certain prompt, I’d give the bastards that. One took my shoulders, draggin me to my feet, the others picked up Cody and Bren. I scuffled with the one holdin me, but he only laughed. I fought his grip as he tried to pick me up.
“I can right well walk myself!” I said, baring my teeth. The man looked at me the way an amused cat might look at a drowning rat.
“Suit yourself,” he snorted.
Growling, I pulled up every ounce of what I had left and on shaky but working legs walked. Outside the moon were still clinging to the new ripening morning sky.
The tent we were taken to was four times the size of all the others I’d seen. Two heavy men, their faces covered with thick wool scarves, waited sentry outside. As our party approached, they exchanged a few words before pulling back the tent’s entrance.
The heat inside was an unwelcome warmth. One that stank of beer and unwashed bodies. It made my skin feel like it were on fire. Arrayed all around the inner rim of the tent like some human rind, people and wolves stood silent. Following us with eager eyes.
Three empty chairs—two together, one just a little apart from the others—rested in the cloying heart of the tent. Torches and lanterns hung about the room, giving off smoke and casting trembling shadows about the air. The man holding me marched us to the center of the circle, onto a floor thick with rugs.
They stepped back, leaving Cody and me alone. I rubbed the pinched, bruising skin of my neck. Bren they deposited into the arms of the single largest man I had ever seen. He took her weight as if it were nothing but a bolt of starlight.
A low anxious murmur began. A few people shuffled their feet, rocking back and forth, exchanging half-hidden mutters. Eyes fixed not on Cody or me—or even Brenna—but on the empty chair in the heart of the tent.
Unlike ours, this chair were fixed and crisscrossed with tarnished metal chains.
Howling split the night. Tent went dead silent. I spun in my chair, metal slick below my legs. Bass strode into the room. Her back stiff and head high. Right next to the chain-covered chair.
“Warders!” Bass turned about the room, meeting eye after eye. “We
are people who have known little of this life save blood and ice and toil. Who have starved, who have lived and died for this land. Who have suffered. And for what? So that we may watch our world—our friends and families—be swallowed, year after year, by an ever-hungrier winter tide. To have lungs and breath and life only to stand by silent as our very bodies grow cold and our lives stolen away in the night for a bargain we did not strike. I say no. I say enough.” Bass shook her head. Her whole body boomed with her words, the power of her will. The room buzzed with it. “We do not have to be beholden to some arcane promise our ancestors made out of fear and desperation. I say that there is another way. And that now, here today, I will rip us free. I will see us thrive.”
Fevered on her own words, Bass’s smile grew and grew. She held up hands for silence. The room stilled.
“Our lives, our children’s lives, our very liberty cannot be the cost of victory. We are not prisoners to the past. We are not the promises of our forbearers. And to those of you here that ramble on about old sins and long shadows, I say you are wrong. I say that we, every woman and man and child, every Warder, deserve a life of their own choosing, of their own wanting. To those amongst us who flex and bow to convention, to promises long past keeping, I say this most of all. There can be no true victory without survival. And this.” Bass gestured round the room. “This is not surviving.”
Heads nodded. The room thrummed with her every word. And she knew it. Bass raised her hands. “Bring me the Witch and I will break her heart. I will kill her and set us free.”
The room erupted. A raucous roar, one that shook the very earth under my feet, vibrated down the white length of my bones. Warders beating on their chests, Tracers howling at their sides. All of them hungry.
Cody and me spun in our seats as three women, heavily armed and dressed in thick coats woven tight with silver threads, dragged in a lone supine figure between them.