Under his arctic stare, I freeze.
Twisted around, my weight presses down on my shaky arms, and I’m still—until he lifts his hand and gives a curt, unenthused gesture.
Come.
I twist my face in answer, a grimace that steals me as I push up to my feet. My boots are uneasy beneath me, and I stumble a step.
Slow, I straighten my spine.
The captives move as uneasily as I do, like we’re all paper pamphlets tacked to a wall and battered by winds.
Behind me, there’s the faint grunt and thump of a fall. I look over my shoulder at the scrawny man who collapsed back down onto his knees.
Hands reach out for his arms and hoist him up to his feet. But even with the support of his fellow captives, the two women that flank him, and loop their arms around his, his shakiness threatens another fall.
It pauses me.
The worry that pinches the faces of the two women—the ones with long, straight hair and sharp angled jaws and hooked noses—holds my attention.
Sagged, the sickly pale one is held upright, a slight glisten of sweat on his rashy forehead, but even his worry shows in the raspy breaths that ribbon from between his parted, pale lips, and the side glances he throws at the guards…
My own weight sways on my boots, and I can hardly keep myself straight—but then a guard swerves into my line of sight.
A stroke of gold.
Golden hair, golden-hued skin, golden eyes, and yet there’s nothing warm about him. He is cold, a sword, and his stare on the sick man gleams with anticipation.
A prickle of ice touches my cheek.
I flinch against the sudden sensation.
It wrenches my attention away from the guard and the sick man, and I swerve my stare to the cold warrior.
I expect him to be standing next to me, touching my cheek… but he’s where I last saw him, over by the trees, his eyes on me.
Again, his hand lifts, higher this time, and his fingers flick inwards towards his palm. It’s such a curt gesture that I feel his prickly irritation in the command.
Come.
I don’t waste another second before I’m pushing into a staggered, uneasy step. My boots thud on the sleet, the snow softening into slippery slush.
These boots aren’t meant for the snow.
The grips are, frankly, shit.
So I watch my steps as I squeeze by the captives that start to spread out from the tight-knit circle.
I’m sure I walk with a gait of some kind, a limp.
It slows me down as I stagger towards the guard in my way—the one who turns his lilac eyes on me.
A stack of stone piled into a body, the fae towers over me, a harshness etched all over his burn-scarred face.
My lips part around nothing for a beat before I find the words and the will to lift my finger. I point at his arm, the one obstructing my path. Beyond it, the arm of solid muscle, is the warrior.
My voice trembles, “I’m just go—”
The words are struck right out of me.
