He wasn’t asleep.
Nor was Juli, her arm tucked around Lilah’s waist, drawing her in close.
The fire was burning bright in the pre-dawn twilight, none of them daring to let it go out. Grayson had risen, several times, stoking the embers and fanning it back to roaring, before returning to the make-shift bedroll where his sisters lay half-shivering in the winter air that seemed to have descended upon them.
You fool.
She could hardly believe the words had left her lips.
We should go north.
No. What they should have done was find a human settlement. Barter their labor in exchange for passage back to the Capital. Escape this gods-forsaken place once and for all.
The hills had been stained red with the blood of livestock.
Still, the sight of the gutted lamb, ripped to ribbons, vacant eyes full of fear…it was unstoppable every time she closed her eyes.
It didn’t matter what had done such a thing, rockwolf or no.
Lilah didn’t want to be anywhere near it.
She wanted, more than anything, to go home.
Wherever that was.
Lilah was lost in half-dreams of a non-descript house somewhere far away from vora and frost festivals when Grayson gave her a nudge.
She blinked back exhaustion, half on the edge of tumbling into unconsciousness as she lay wedged between her brother and sister. An admonition already half-off her tongue, she was moving to shove him right back, serve him right for waking her—
His finger was pressed to his lips, though, eyes wide as he nodded behind them.
A pair of eyes, glowing in the dark.
Vora.
Vora, if they were lucky.
Crouched down on one knee, he was groping for an arrow, bow shaking slightly in his hands.
Perfect.
That was just perfect.
Their only defense was a quivering twenty-year-old who could barely hit the target on a still summer day.
Lilah lay pressed against the cold earth, tucked in beside Juli, whose grip around her waist had tightened to almost-suffocation.
She could not tear her gaze from the glowing eyes.
Not just two, she realized, staring beyond the fire and into the dark.
Four.
Six.
Panic was rising as they bobbed through the night, the fire seeming to flinch and flutter to their movement.
Not vora.
Decidedly not vora.
Take the shot, Grayson! Come on, just shoot!
He nocked the arrow, drawing back—and he held.
You idiot, aim before you draw!
The arrow sputtered off, veering hard left from the eyes growing closer.
Something spindly seemed to be skittering towards them, darting back and forth like the sandcrabs of her childhood along the rim of firelight.
Grayson was fumbling with another arrow, now, beads of sweat on his brow.
A screech broke the night, chilling and long, and Lilah started with a sharp inhale, jolting to sitting.
There was no safety against the ground.
The ice that shattered the air had seemed to ignite something in her heart, a deep, burning kind of fear she hadn’t known for a long time.
The kind she hadn’t felt since their mother died.
Juli was trying to tug her back in close, like she always did when any of them were hurting, but Lilah yanked her arm away.
When Lilah burned, she needed space.
Lots and lots of space.
Juli had been furious that she’d locked herself in her room, after their mother died, because what Juli wanted more than anything was for them to grieve together. She loved that Grayson was heartbroken about Nik, because it meant she wasn’t alone in whatever pain she was feeling, and that, Lilah realized, was probably why Juli wanted her to like boys so gods-damned much. So they could be disappointed together.
But if Juli didn’t want to burn, too, she’d back off.
And in her heart, she knew it, because she let Lilah go without much of a fight.
“Li,” Grayson warned, voice quaking.
She brushed him off, though.
They knew what she could do. And they knew there was no stopping her, once she’d made up her mind.
A thin, icicle leg, jutting with hoarfrost was testing the ground illuminated with the firelight, and then another, and another—
Great bulging blue eyes had been stuck at the apex of the legs, a mess of fractals hiding long, dripping fangs, and the thing hissed, charging them.
Lilah closed her eyes, and let the fire take her.
She was the flame.
The anger beneath the surface wasn’t hard to find.
It’d been simmering for as long as she could remember. Juli’s incessant chattering. Gray’s indecision. Her father’s own incompetence, the thoughtlessness, that her mother had just died without so much as an effort to go on living, the Basin, in all its hopelessness, the friends she had left behind, the enemies she’d carried with her, the boys she was supposed to love, the girls that never caught her eye—
The heat was beautiful, kissing her skin.
She heard, in the distance, a shriek. The crackling of skin, the roar of fire, the most delicious sound in the world, and someone tried to pull her away, Juli, probably, but she gave a scream of pain as her hand found Lilah’s, burning.
Burning.
Burning.
Chapter 11
JULI
"Lilah!"
Tears were streaming down Juli’s face, her hand blistering as she backed away from her sister. “Lilah, stop it! Right now!”
Perhaps the command had been enough.
More likely, though, Li hadn’t heard it, and had simply decided to stop, from boredom or exhaustion, it was impossible to tell.
But the wall of fire that had roared up to the sky fell with a crash, and Lilah dropped her hands to her side, out of breath.
In the wake of the darkness, a crisped shell of the monster.
It was smaller in death.
A burned ball of legs and teeth, smoking viciously.
And this was the girl who did not believe.
Who did not fear, that was more likely, if this is what she could do.
Grayson had abandoned the bow in the dirt, and was pushing Juli’s hair back, now, taking her hand in his. “Jules…”
“Lilah first!” Her voice was watery as she glanced back to her sister, still staring at the corpse. “She—she was burning, you—”
“I’m fine.” Lilah’s voice was cold as she turned to meet their gaze. Her eyes softened, though, falling to Juli’s welted hand. “Oh, gods—Jules—”
Already, though, Grayson had let her hand fall to her side, was rifling through his pack.
Oh, thank the gods.
He’d had enough sense to bring some salve.
It wouldn’t do much.
But it might be enough.
Disoriented, a deeper, throbbing sense of pain was starting to well beneath the burn, and Juli squeezed her eyes closed, fighting back the wave of nausea.
She wasn’t prepared for that kind of pain.
Didn’t know, in truth, if she could survive it.
She felt Grayson take her hand once more, and winced, a glob of something cool and oily getting smeared into the skin.
There was something more than that, though.
Something more than the mix of relief and agonizing pain of the ointment.
Another fire.
Deep.
Unescapable.
Like a thousand pins and needles, and she was trying to hold back the sobs, now, as he worked her hand over mercilessly. There was a tang of iron in her mouth as she bit her tongue, swallowing another cry of pain—
“Jules.” His voice was soft as he cradled his arm around her.
In the echo of agony, it took a long moment for her to register that the pain had faded.
Blinking back tears, she opened he
r eyes.
Red.
Irritated, to be sure, inflamed, a blistering residue callused across her palm, her fingertips, and it was shining with the balm he’d rubbed into the skin.
“Gray,” she breathed, starting to shake, “what did you do?”
He only shook his head, lips pursed.
And she knew.
He hadn’t done a damn thing.
This was her.
All her.
She knew there was healing in her hands. It was why she kept them close, her brother and sister, when they let her.
She had the Touch.
Maybe she’d sensed his hurt, when he’d tried to rub the balm into her hands. You could sense these things, with the Touch. Broken hearts as much as broken bones.
Maybe she’d been trying to fix him.
Or maybe she’d finally been tired of hurting.
Of grieving.
Of watching everything crumble and die, of fighting this hopeful fight again and again, of trying to fix everything and everyone except herself.
“Juli.” Lilah’s hand was trembling, reaching for her sister’s arm. She paused, though, hesitant. “Juli, I’m so sorry—”
What she wanted to do was pull Li into a hug.
To hold her close, and Gray, too.
Instead, she retched, losing her dinner in the scorched dirt.
Chapter 12
GRAYSON
Grayson shook the cold from his bones, pacing around the fire—a fire he wasn’t brave enough to ask if Lilah was fanning.
The creature lay, a crumpled mess, opposite them.
“We should move it,” Juli whispered, where she sat in Lilah’s arms.
Grayson nudged the singed carcass with the toe of his boot, watching as the movement shook a rain of ash onto the pale dawn earth. “No. It’s a warning.” He glanced over to Li, her look of skeptical disdain for once absent, leaving her looking painfully young. “What we should do is leave. Get up into the foothills. There’s better shelter up there, and vora, too. They’ve avoided these—whatever they are—”
“Ice spiders,” Lilah said softly, eyes sparking.
“Fine.” Grayson felt the corners of his mouth twitch upwards. “The vora have managed to steer clear of the ice spiders for this long. It’s like we agreed. Either they can help us, or at least tell us how to find the wards. Personally, I favor the latter. It’s only a matter of time before the settlement gets hit. And…” He met Lilah’s gaze. “They don’t have Li anymore, which means they’re vulnerable.”
No Lilah to defend them.
No Juli to heal them.
And no Grayson to tremble like the coward he was.
He’d known his sisters were special.
Anymore, though, their talents were useless. What good was Lilah’s fire in the Capital, where the best she could do was burn it to the ground? It’d been kept close, a family secret. Too many good men and women had already died for the talents they couldn’t master.
Juli’s Touch was easier to overlook. More useful. Nobody said anything about it, but she’d been good at mending from the start.
Then there was Grayson.
Grayson, the little boy who’d liked to play in the dirt.
Grayson, the adolescent who’d romanced his days away with lace cuffs and fetes.
Grayson, who’d sworn to be a different sort of man in the Basin.
Grayson, who got fucked in a barn and left behind.
You will have your moment, he could recall their mother saying. There is some magic in you, yet.
Not that he believed it.
Nor would she, if she could see them now.
Grayson pulled Juli to standing, then Lilah, trying rather clumsily to brush them off as he did so.
They left the beast, burned to a crisp, before the dying embers.
A warning of what they’d do.
Of what Lilah was capable of.
An omen not to follow.
But the ice spiders did, anyway.
The days waned into weeks, and the ice spiders followed.
Into the foothills, around the twisting switchbacks trod by game and vora alike, chasing the three of them up, up, up, to find an early winter.
Each night felt the same.
Grayson hardly slept.
They were supposed to take turns, ostensibly, but he didn’t want Li, or else Jules, to be alone. Not that he could do much.
But at least he was a wake to watch Lilah’s fire wall them in.
During the days, they kept watch for any signs of life or ward. Any pebbles, as white as snow, or berries yellow, or leaves of brilliant green. Any vora, friendly or no.
Nothing.
And it started to seem like folly, this fool’s errand.
Only the ice spiders, and the thought of Nik’s berried pin, kept Grayson going.
The only proof any of it was real.
There were patterns, though, some method to their wandering. The spiders loved the water. The closer to the river they kept, the more the spiders converged—the further they drifted, the easier the nights became. It became a game, then, of winding towards water in the mornings, veering off in the afternoon, praying there wasn’t a hidden spring, or else some sort of lake or pond to take them unawares.
When water wasn’t the aim, they followed smoke, the only evidence they’d yet to see of the vora.
But if the vora were camping in the woods, they were clever, their tracks left hidden.
It was from necessity that Grayson’s aim with the bow and arrow had started to improve.
Hunt, or die, that much, they’d started to see quite quickly.
And Lilah could do a hell of a roasted hare.
The problem, increasingly, was Juli.
She was sick, and getting sicker.
Li had rightfully suggested they make something closer to a permanent camp for a few days, let Jules recover.
It’d done little for their middle sister.
She hardly kept down her food, her body aching all the time, and Grayson felt a looming cloud of guilt, pushing her forward.
Juli didn’t want to stop, though.
She didn’t want the rest they offered. The three days they’d settled, far from the river, she’d been hellacious, only Lilah’s temper cooling her heels somewhat.
So they carried on, Lilah fighting off the spiders, Juli, sick, and Grayson, praying that soon, they’d find the vora.
Chapter 13
LILAH
"What do you mean, late,” Lilah hissed, glancing over her shoulder.
Grayson had disappeared into the woods to take a piss, leaving Lilah and Juli milling about beside his pack where it leaned against a great pine tree.
“I mean, late,” Juli whispered. Her honey eyes were watching Lilah, voice trying to maintain some semblance of calm.
“How late?”
Juli only sighed, eyes flitting into the forest for any sight of their brother. “Late enough.”
“That doesn’t mean anything. You’ve been sick. We—we haven’t been eating, not that much, the stress—I mean, I hardly even…” Lilah trailed off, at a loss. Her own cycle had been light. Hardly worth noticing, even, barely worth the linen strips she’d torn off the shift now ripped to ribbons inside her pack.
“Li, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. I haven’t been properly ill. Just…late.”
Lilah’s eyes flicked up to meet hers. “You’re sure?”
She gave a small nod. “I’m sure.”
“You have to tell Grayson.”
Juli just scoffed, sinking down beside their brother’s pack. “What for? So he can fuss and fret more than he already is? He’s losing hope, Li, day by day, and I am, too. We’ve got those—things—on our trail, we’re chasing the vora through the forest. You really think adding a baby to that’s going to help?”
Lilah frowned, crossing her arms. “You can’t be considering keeping it?” They could find the herb, surely, in all this wandering—it’d be
a task, collecting it under Grayson’s watchful eye, but doable. They’d have to make a camp, a proper camp, really let Juli rest as the tea worked through her body, and Grayson was going to have to down a proper deer, but…
Juli only shrugged.
“Oh, gods.” Lilah was watching her sister, searching for some hint of a plan. “Gods, Jules—you were planning this?”
“Fin and I wanted a family,” she said dully, not looking up. “I’m not saying the timing is exactly what I wanted. We had plans. And I know Fin’s gone, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want a family anymore. It…just looks a little different, now.”
Juli and Fin.
And suddenly, it wasn’t just Juli talking about boys. It was Juli. Living her life. A woman. Making decisions. Trying to move on.
“Please don’t tell Gray,” Juli said softly. “Not yet. It’s still early, I might—it might not even make it. And you know, Li, that loss would kill him. He’d think it’s his fault.”
“What do I think is my fault?” Grayson was coming around a bush, brushing off his hands.
“Nothing,” Lilah sighed, pulling Jules up to standing.
“Nik,” Juli filled in at her brother’s look of protestation.
That shut him down quick.
Grayson’s eyes clouded with pain as he scooped up his pack once more. “I’ve been thinking,” he said, voice shifting from the jovial tones of that morning to something gruff, harsh, even. “We need to start climbing.”
“The mountains?” Lilah scoffed. “Gray, that’s ridiculous!” Already, the weather was miserable in the foothills, winter moving into full swing. To summit the mountains would be a death-wish.
“We don’t have another choice—”
“We have every choice! Let’s go west! There is no purpose, consigning ourselves to a snowy death!”
“Your brother is right.” A thin, airy voice cut through the argument, and Lilah started, turning.
Reed.
“You must go up before you go back down,” she snickered, coming to lean against a tree. “Then again, you’ve been wandering about the hills for the better part of two months, so I suppose you’re really not the brightest bunch, are you?”
“Watch it,” Lilah snarled.
Festival of Frost Page 4