The dark thing will send its creatures,said the voice.Protector must leave. Come back another day.
Hekla wanted to laugh at this strange phantom vision, but she was too tired. She needed to close her eyes. Rest for a moment...
“Hekla!”
Her eyes flew open in time to see the squirrel’s russet tail vanishing beneath a dead shrub. The chill had truly sunk its claws into her now. She curled into a ball. Teeth chattering, Hekla wondered if she’d ever been so cold in her life. What was it Silla did? Think hearthfire thoughts?
Hekla tried to imagine a hearthfire. Tried to remember what it felt like to be warm. But she was wrung out, as though she’d just fought the most arduous battle of her life. And perhaps she had. Surely, she deserved to sleep, just for a little while.
“Hekla!”
The voice cut through the silence like a greataxe, its echo pulsing in her skull. The trees swayed back and forth, and a chill prickledthrough her. When the voice called again, Hekla rallied all the strength she could.
“Here!” she called out. “I’m here!”
A twig snapped, footsteps crunching on moss, then a figure with hazel eyes loomed over her.
“Foxie,” she croaked.
Eyvind crouched before her, a thunderous expression upon his stupidly beautiful face. “Mulish woman.” His expression shifted to concern. “Where are you hurt?” Those large hands ran along her body, searching for injuries.
Hekla stared up at him. “Your eyes are like gemstones,” she mumbled.
“Gods, you’re burning up.” The back of his hand pressed to her forehead, and she nuzzled against it.
“You feel like a hearthfire.” A violent shiver racked her body, and it felt as though she’d never been warm in her life...like she’d never be again. But this man had heated her through. Had made her trust, if only for a night...
“This fever...I must get you to a healer.”
The trees swayed as he hefted her into his arms, cradling her against his chest like a gods-damned damsel in distress. His smell surrounded her, the planes of his chest solid against her cheek. Too close. Too much. She couldn’t...she wouldn’t...
“No.” She pushed against his chest, but his hold was ironclad. “Let me walk.”
“You cannot even stand. Determined to be a pain in my arse, aren’t you, Lynx?”
Trees flew by, the foliage jostling above them. The man was running through the forest with a grown woman in his arms. Distantly, Hekla recognized this was an impressive feat. But the thought flitted away with the rest of them, and she was pressing her cheek into his tunic, sinking lower, lower.
“Stay with me, Lynx,” he panted as the minutes bled together. “Tell me what happened.”
“Spiral Stave,” she mumbled. “You must follow them?—”
“The mist,” he said sharply. “We heard the heartbeat. Tell me it didn’t touch you.”
Thick white mist filled her mind’s eye, that insatiable hunger impossible to forget. A moan slid from her lips, and she curled toward him. Toward safety.
No. Not safety. She made herownsafety. Hekla shuddered, then tried again to escape his grasp.
“Stop squirming, woman. Tell me about the mist.”
“Wolf,” she managed.Squirrel, she thought, but did not have the strength to say it aloud. That voice rang in her ears once more.Kritka banished the dark thing, but it took much strength.
“Stay with me, Hekla.”
But the cold was absolute, a blanket of darkness settling all around her.
“Fight, Hekla. Do not give in.”
It wasn’t giving in when it was inevitable. When it was destiny—when it was warmth, and she was so very cold.
