Darkness was when the Acolyte attacked, and the battles of the night began.
But the daylight was indeed waning. And the road ahead was thick with untouched snow, deep enough that it would certainly slow their journey.
‘First lesson!’ Arawn called out, finally addressing them all. ‘You’re not in the south anymore. You’re close enough to smell the blood upon the wind. To hear the cry of the brave men and women who fall in war, fighting for the light.’
Ezer’s stomach twinged as she thought of Ervos.
He hadn’t fought in this war.
He’d only minded the ravens.
But it had still claimed him in the end. She didn’t even know how.
‘This is shadow wolf territory, for the Acolyte’s beasts like to circle the ward’s outskirts like moths drawn to a flame. So, unless you wish to find your intestines strung across the snow … you will walk. And you will not utter a singleword.’
He held out his sword in signal.
The prisonersbegan to walk.
Ezer turned to follow, frozen to the bone.
But the sword stopped at her middle.
‘Not you, Minder,’ Arawn said. A spike of fear stabbed her in the gut as those blue eyes narrowed upon her. ‘You’re staying with me.’
The path ahead was far narrower once they passed through the rune-marked trees. It was only a mere six feet across from treeline to treeline. Aspens and pines towered over them, casting everything in deep shadows.
Each glance upwards, Ezer swore the sky was darkening.
Each step, she swore she saw the shadows gathering between the trees. The scar on her face seemed to squirm in the cold, like it sensed the danger that was oncoming if they didn’t make it to the warfront before dark.
To the safety of camp.
But whatwassafety, she wondered, on the front lines? They battled in the sky, the mages and their eagles taking the brunt of the attacks from the raphons. They battled on the snow, too, people just like her who were untrained for war, ripped from their homes so they could defend Lordach against a monster.
A monster who mademonsters.
At least, that was what she’d always heard of the Acolyte. And suddenly she was terrified, for though she’d held pieces of parchment written this far north, though she’d been in constant communication with garrison after garrison across Lordach …
She realized she knewnothingof war.
She squeezed the ring on her thumb, a reminder that she had once been loved.
But now her chest ached, and it was not from the cold or the breathlessness in her tired lungs.
In this world, she was now well and truly alone.
The sound of the chains, of boots shuffling across snow, thrummed in time with Ezer’s heart.
Her legs began to tremble until she feared she might not be able to take another step. Her ankles screamed, weak from years of little use beneath her shackles.
Gods, the air was thin here.
Her head had begun to spin.
A mile, Arawn said.
It felt like ten.
