Finnvid stared at him. “Why?”
“Because it can’t do any good—it won’t stop them. And without the note, if they catch up to us, you can claim you were kidnapped. I mean, youwerekidnapped, right?”
Finnvid wanted to argue. He wasn’t sure why, but it seemed important that he make some sort of declaration, to the Elkatiandthe Torians. He wanted them to know that he’d chosen a side. Right or wrong, he’d made a choice.
Andros didn’t look interested in his internal musings. “Let’s go. Get the note, and grab an end of the stretcher. Let’s see what we can do.” He peered at the horizon, the clouds that he’d said might bring snow. Finnvid still wasn’t sure how that would help anything.
Maybe there wasn’t any help to be had. So Finnvid retrieved the note, and they hefted their burden and started walking.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Finnvid struggled, even with the snow flats. Theos was heavy, and Finnvid hadn’t slept the night before, and—and it was impossible to forget what he was doing. He was running away from his valley, his home. His family.
When he’d left the night before, it had felt temporary. He was taking a trip, that was all. Eventually he’d go home and grovel a little and be forgiven. But he wasn’t sure he could do that, not anymore. With the number of men following him into the mountains, people would know he’d helped Theos escape. It couldn’t all be hushed up, not with hundreds of witnesses.
It was treason, he supposed. Strange to think of it that way, when his motives were so pure. He wanted Elkat to survive, and he didn’t think an alliance with the warlord was a good way to ensure that outcome. It seemed right that he was taking action.
But it was action against the wishes of the king. And who was Finnvid, to question his brother’s decision? A dilettante, a child, interfering in matters far beyond his ken. An idiot.
He trudged on through the snow, and looked down at the man dozing on the stretcher. Even in his sleep, Theos tended to frown, and the determined grumpiness should have made Finnvid impatient and frustrated with him. Itshouldn’thave made Finnvid want to reach down and smooth the tension from the man’s face. It shouldn’t have made him daydream about waking up next to him and kissing him into one of his sweet smiles.
Finnvid had left home for Theos. He’d like to deny it, even to himself, but there was no use. He thought he was doing the right thing, trying to ensure that the Sacrati took their revenge at home rather than in Elkat, but that wasn’t what had made him race through the castle, throwing winter survival gear into his pack before stopping by his brother’s office and snatching the letter as an afterthought. A justification.
He’d abandoned his family and betrayed his king for the man lying on the stretcher in front of him. The manfrowning in his sleep, as if even his dreams couldn’t live up to his impossible standards.
The tension was boiling within him, frothing and fighting toward the surface. If the emotions escaped, Finnvid wasn’t sure what he’d do. Drop his end of the stretcher, probably, and launch himself on Theos’s falling body. But would he attack the man with punches, or kisses? Anger, or love?
Andros stopped moving, and Finnvid stumbled as he tried to recover his balance. Theos’s eyes opened with a blurry complaint, then drifted closed again. “Set him down,” Andros ordered, and Finnvid did as he was told. He hadn’t realized how long they’d been walking until he tried to move his arms and found that his shoulders had cramped into position. He shrugged cautiously and bent his head back, letting the cold snow fall on his effort-warmed face.
It was snowing. That should mean something, he remembered. He squinted at Andros, who was watching the sky intently. Then the Sacrati turned to Finnvid and said, “You need to decide. Commit. It’s not too late for you to go home, but if you try to leave after this . . . I’ll have to stop you.”
Friendly, easy-going Andros was gone. The man in front of him was assessing him like a potential enemy, and it chilled Finnvid more completely than the wind ever had.
“I can’t go back,” Finnvid said. “I don’t think I can. They’ll consider me a traitor.”
“You can tell them you were kidnapped. Tell them you saw one of us taking the letter and chased after us, and we grabbed you. Torians are cruel, and you were afraid.”
It might work. He could make it work. Finnvid felt his panic starting to subside. Hewasn’ttrapped. Thiswasn’tall beyond his control. And that was enough. “I’ll stay. I’m committed.”
Andros waited for a moment, then nodded and smiled. “Good. Grab your end and be ready for some tricky ground—we’re leaving the trail.”
“We are?”
But Andros was already crouched by his end of the stretcher, so Finnvid forced himself to bend and grasp his own handles. His body complained as they stood, but he made himself ignore it.
As promised, Andros turned almost at a right angle and started into the pine forest. He seemed to be picking out a path of sorts, but everything was rougher and harder going, and several times they had to backtrack when they hit an impenetrable spot.
Finnvid didn’t ask questions; he just focused on the task at hand. He’d told Andros he was committed, and now was the time to prove it.
Finally, Andros stopped and grunted, “Put him down.”
Finnvid was only too happy to comply, and they both stood for a moment, stretching their muscles and catching their breath. Then Andros nodded toward a huge pine with snow drifted up around its trunk. “You should be able to den up in the snow under those branches,” he said. “You start digging while I go back and make sure our trail is well covered.”
“Wait,” Finnvid said. “You said ‘you.’ Not ‘we.’” He paused, hoping to be contradicted, then said, “Where areyougoing to go?”
“I’ll probably den up with you, for tonight. And then I’ll move parallel to the trail until I figure out where your soldiers are. I want to avoid them, but I can’t afford to sit around and wait for them to get tired and go home.”
“Butyou’regoing home? Without Theos?”
