“You will be. Just as soon as this squall breaks.” Itwouldbreak. It had to.
I found some dry kindling and moss and started a fire. We huddled close together next to it.
“Do you think it’s morning yet?” Kerstin asked, staring out into the gusting snow not twelve feet away. It was impossible to know. There was no sky or sun to assess.
“I think it must be. We walked for hours.”
The fire cracked and popped, a branch crumbling and sending up a flurry of embers.
“I’d love to see their faces when they find us gone. They mustbe in fits.” A smile played about Kerstin’s mouth, but I could share none of her humor envisioning that. I shivered a little and pretended it was the cold.
Leaning forward, I added more wood to the fire.
It was strange how life could change in a day. Less time than that—in a breath. In the space between heartbeats.
Yesterday, I had thought my life entwined with the pride’s, and with it, Vetr’s. I’d thought I was moving on, forward.
Now I was going back.
Back to Fell.
Except … now I knew the truth. He had never left me.
I shifted my fingers inside my gloves, and the fabric scratched against the sparking X. It hadn’t stopped flashing with heat since I’d decided to leave the pride.
And it wouldn’t stop flashing. Not until I found him.
19
TAMSYN
WE WOKE TO CLEAR SKIES.
Kerstin gave a cry of delighted relief as she got to her feet. “Finally!”
I felt a stab of urgency at the sight. If the sun was out, that meant the pride would be, too. “Come,” I said hurriedly, “we must be on our way.”
“What about breakfast?”
I fished out bread from my knapsack and tore it in half, thrusting a piece at her. “There. We can eat as we walk. Let’s get moving.”
She pouted but started packing up.
The squall might have passed, but it left drifts of snow everywhere. We sank up to our knees with every step. It was slow going, and after a few hours I was reminded that a couple weeks ago I’d been close to death.
My breaths fell in labored pants, and I perspired beneath my garments. Every time I felt my energy flagging, I thought of Fell and my motivation renewed.
Kerstin complained endlessly as she worked to keep up. “Why can we not fly? We will cover so much more ground that way. Can’t youfeelFell from up in the air, as well as on foot?”
She knew about our connection, that since my svefn, I had felt him as never before—as though I’d found him there in that hazy state between life and death. When I’d woken up in the infirmary, a part of him had returned with me.
I flexed my hand, stretching out my gloved fingers. “I can,” I said. “But if we fly, we could be sighted.”
Kerstin grunted in acknowledgment as she trudged along, her cheeks glowing pink from exertion. She knew I was right. As a dragon born to this world, she did not need me to point this out to her. We could not risk being spotted by the pride, who were undoubtedly still looking for us … or by the skelm or the other things that lurked in these mountains.
At times I thought I felt eyes on me, but when I glanced around us, I saw nothing. No one. In the harsh, beautiful whiteness, it felt as though we were the only two souls on earth.
Still, the sensation of being watched clung as we traversed, our steps cautious and measured. The terrain was thick with snow, but the ground beneath that was uneven, jagged and sharp with rocks that could slice through the bottom of our boots or make us roll one of our ankles. Not irreparable damage, but it would slow down our progress, and any slower a pace could cost us. That could be all it took for the pride to catch up with us.
