Teeth gritted, I brace myself for the strike of aches that reach all the way into my insides and turn my stomach—and I force myself to sit up against the wall of the crate.
But no pain comes.
I forget my surroundings for a beat, one healthy and strong heartbeat in my chest, a chest that isn’t raspy or sore or tight, and I just… sit.
I test my shoulder.
I roll it back, once, slow and slight, then again, stronger, more width. It moves unhindered.
Under the glare of torchlight, I wrestle back the layers from my shoulder, a sweater, a jacket and a top—and I am struck silent by the sight of it.
My brow knits, my mouth parts, and for a beat, I just stare at the smooth curve of my skin. No knife wound, no bruising. Just pale and freckled skin.
I don’t know what that powder is, the stuff he forced down my throat, but he told me it would heal me.
I just never thought it would literally vanish every one of my injuries from existence, undo it all like none of it ever happened, and all I would do is sleep through it.
That’s what I’m left with, sleep. It lingers with a blanket of grogginess draped over me, but no wounds or pain.
That’s a good trade.
Even if it came at the hand of a demon.
My teeth bare at the reminder of him, ofthem, and I tuck myself up in the corner of the cart, wedged between the giant plastic water bottles, some of them large block containers, others are water cooler refills.
I peer over the wooden edge of the cart…
And find the faint greenish hue of winter eyes.
So he was there, beside the cart, all that time, walking alongside me.
On the other side of him, she keeps pace, the female with icy hair now a rope down her back, dishevelled by winds that must have passed a while ago.
Maybe I slept through the winds.
There is only the gentlest of breezes here.
Here…
I drag my gaze from his and look around the glow of crimson light, how it dances and splinters off a glacier land.
I’ve been here before…
At least, I’ve been to a place like it, maybe not exactly this one. But my dad took me, years back when I was still too young to decide I didn’t want to visit him and his new family in Canada.
Hot springs.
At the end of the torchlight’s reach, a rush of crystal blue waters passes by with the churning sound of a river. But between the river and the cart, there are pockets of steaming waters, circled by soft rocks and boulders.
I feel the heat in the air, like a soft mist, a welcome warmth in the bite of winter—but it’s a winter chill I don’t feel as sharply anymore.
My mind flickers back to the oil I covered myself in, rubbed into my skin, something that became a barrier of protection against the cold.
I wonder how long it’ll last—and the thought is jerked out of my mind the moment that the cart halts on the gravel path.
I arch my neck to look all the way up the unit to the general. She dismounts her steed at the final pool, shrouded in the steady mist of steam.
She’s the first to dismount. The moment her boots touch the rocky ground, more follow—until the neat line of the unit is dispersing.
