I looked back below to the witch, hunkered down, her thin shoulders rising up like the twin edges of a shovel as she worked desperately on her bone.
As Kerstin moved back from the edge, I didn’t watch her go. I just listened to the soft sounds of her departure until I couldn’t hear her anymore. Until she was gone, swallowed up by wind and snow.
22
TAMSYN
IFELT ACHINGLY ALONE PERCHED HIGH ON THE RIDGE, THEwind buffeting me on all sides.
I stared down at the dragons who had taken Fell. I remembered that first time I’d seen them, or some of them, on my flight with Fell from the Borg into the Crags—my terror as they’d materialized beside me.
The way they had attacked us, crashing into us with such brutality, trying to bring us down without knowing anything about us. It was enough to make me want to turn around and forget about this rescue attempt, to get away from them.
The truce could not protect me from them. Vetr had established that truce for himself and the pride. Out here, I was not one of the pride. Out here, I was on my own. These others could take me, claim me as they had Brenna’s sister, possess me as they did this poor creature gnawing on a bone like a starving animal.
And yet I could not move from my perch.
The night howled around me. Discarding my gloves, I continued to blow heat into my cupped palms, careful that none of the red glow from my breath escaped outside the shelter of my hands.
I reminded myself that I had been alone before—lost in the skog, just after I turned, after I’d incinerated Arkin into a smoldering pile of ash. A frightening time. I had thought it the loneliest of my life, but now there was this. A different kind of lonely.
Desolation threatened to swallow me as I waited in the dark, not knowing my next move, not knowing how I could possibly breakthis witch away from her captors. I watched and waited for some sign, some idea to come to me as they settled in for the night, their movements below quieting.
I dozed atop the ridge, on a hard outcropping of rock, exposed to the snow and razor-sharp wind.
I was half asleep when the sign appeared, jerking me to full waking alertness.
Just when I thought the skelm was done for the night, one of them lumbered to his feet again. The mountain from earlier strode to where the witch hunched low to the ground. He yanked her to her feet by the elbow and began walking them a distance, deeper into trees. Her feet worked double time to keep up.
I tensed and sat up a little higher, noting they were moving off to where the others had gone at various times, presumably to relieve themselves away from where they camped.
This was my chance. Perhaps the only one I would get.
Turning, I snatched my knapsack and slung it on, scrambling down the sloped backside of the ridge in a flurry of sliding steps. Fortunately, the night wind was blustery and eating up the less-than-stealthy sound of my descent.
I slowed when I reached the bottom and made my way carefully in the darkness, hardly breathing, my heart a bolting horse in my chest. I was abreast of the camp now, a few dozen yards separating us. The outlines of their sleeping bodies struck terror in my bones, and I wanted to put as much distance between me and them as possible.
I bit into my dry lip until I tasted blood, creeping like a shadow, wishing for invisibility, wishing I was a visiocrypter so I could make myself vanish altogether in this moment.
I dove into the cluster of trees, moving deeper into the brush until I could hear the huge onyx and the witch stirring about, leaves rustling, feet stamping on the snow-packed ground.
“Hurry up, would you,” he snapped amid a bounty of other curses. “Wasting precious sleep on you. Should have told me you needed to piss earlier.”
With a furtive glance over my shoulder, I reassured myself I’d left the camp well behind. I could handle the mountain. He was only one. I could catch him unaware. Fear tripped through me at the prospect, but mostly because I didn’t know yet what I was going to do in the moment. Would I actuallykillhim? Could I?
I did not know what my dragon would do tonight—would it be like with Arkin? Instinct taking over? Whatever the case, I was going to trust it—myself—to know what to do.
I spotted the mountain first. He was shifting his weight from foot to foot anxiously, his massive back to me, long black hair trailing amid the pelt of his cloak. He didn’t bother giving the witch any privacy. She was squatting a few feet away, going about her business. He kept up his grumbles and curses. He wasn’t listening to the soft crunch of my nearing steps.
But then I was not listening either.
Not as I should have been—too confident that I had put enough distance between me and the others.
Of course, it should have occurred to me that they had posted a lookout, someone stationed beyond the camp, outside my periphery when I was up on that ridge. I’d given myself away when I came down.Or… perhaps one of those sleeping figures in the camp had not actually been asleep. Either way, I’d been seen, and I realized my mistake too late.
Suddenly, frenzied footsteps rushed behind me. My heart lodged in my throat. I didn’t even manage a full turn to face the threat before I was knocked off my feet and sent flying, crashing into the hard-packed snow.
The moment echoed all those times I was laid low in the arena, except the force of this was stronger, more brutal than any practice spar I’d endured. I landed on my side, the impact radiating through my shoulder, rattling my teeth, sending my still-mending rib screaming.
