It was one of the clearest memories I had of home: putting my lips to my mother’s ear and comforting her as she wept.
“I lied,” I told her. My voice was hoarse, exhausted. “Iwasangry with you. With both of you. You especially. You cried, but I didn’t. I stayed strong. You didn’t.”
“I know,” she said, holding out her arms. Her blue-and-gold eyes were full of sorrow. Blue like Gemma’s. Gold like a god’s. “Let me carry him now. We must hurry.”
If there was still a chance to save Gareth, I had to take it. I placed him gently in her arms, and without his weight against me, reassuring me that I hadn’t lost him, I felt untethered. My knees buckled. I couldn’t feel my fingers.
Before I could fall, strong arms came around me, and someone lifted me off the ground. I glimpsed a hood, a beard, brown eyes like Farrin’s. Like mine.
“Hold on to me,” said my father, his voice steely and his grip like iron. “You’re safe now.”
And for a moment, Ididfeel safe. Like I was a child again, and I’d had a nightmare, and my parents were going to soothe me back to sleep. Whatever monsters I’d dreamed up were not real, and they couldn’t hurt me.
I slumped against my father’s chest, and as he ran, his long sentinel strides carrying me quickly through the snow, I found my earlier prayer and recited it under my breath, too exhausted to pray but too terrified not to. Gareth would not die. I would not let him. He would not die. He would live. My mother would save him. If she couldn’t, I would kill her. It was her fault we were all in this mess in the first place. If she and the other gods had been more careful, if they hadn’t destroyed themselves to create the Middlemist, if they’d built abetterMiddlemist, none of this would have happened.
I pressed my fists into my father’s chest, willing away my exhaustion. We traveled like lightning, the dark snowy world peeling away at the touch of my mother’s gliding footfalls until everything turned white, and so cold that the air burned my skin. I could no longer feel my father’s arms or see where we were going, but a great force was pulling at me, like I was being swept away down a river. I sensed that we were still moving, faster now than my eyes could comprehend. Through the brilliant glare I caught a glimpse of a golden-eyed woman wearing platinum armor. Her dark hair shone with jewels.
Kerezen.
My mother.
Suddenly the river stopped, and I blinked like a shocked newborn as Father gently deposited me onto my feet. The world around us was soft and green, and warm with sunlight: Wardwell. My mother’s private sanctuary, hidden deep in the northern forests of Gallinor and protected by layers of godly magic. No one could enter unless sheallowed it. They could walk right past it or even through it and not see what was truly here. The world we had left behind was a blizzard; here, it was mild summer.
This made me irrationally angry. That Mother could hide up here in her endless peaceful summer while the rest of the world stormed and fought and died felt so unfair that I saw red.
I pushed away my father’s offered hand and forced myself to move, following Mother through the flowering clover and into her little house with its thatched roof and smoking chimney. My legs were jelly, my whole body burned from cold and shock, and the remnants of whatever power had gripped us left me queasy.
But all I could focus on was Gareth.
Here in Wardwell, he looked even worse than he had in the storm. The only real color left to him was the blood staining his neck and torso. He looked naked and vulnerable without his glasses; absurdly, that frightened me most of all.
“How did you find us?” I managed to say, my teeth still chattering.
“I heard your prayers,” Mother replied wryly. “They were quite loud.”
“Really?”
“And we were already en route to Falkeron,” she added. “While at Rosewarren, I learned where you were.”
“Rosewarren?” Alarm bells clamored in my mind. “Why were you there? Please tell me you didn’t reveal yourself to anyone.”
“You think so little of me. Rest assured, daughter, that my visit was completely covert. Clear the table,” Mother commanded, her voice sharpening, and only then did I realize we were not alone in the house. Gemma and Farrin were there, and Talan, and Ryder, and they all moved quickly to make space for Gareth on the small kitchen table. He was too tall for it—when Mother laid him down, his legs dangled off the side—but then Talan dragged over a small sideboard, and Gemma gently laid Gareth’s legs atop it.
Mother sat in a chair by Gareth’s head and took his face in her hands. Her expression was grim but resolute. “Ryder, boil a pot of water,” she said. “Gideon, bring my kit. It’s in the cabinet under the stairs. Farrin, take Mara to a bedroom upstairs and check her fingers and toes for frostbite. Gemma, get her warm. Make sure she eats and rests.”
I stood beside the table, staring down at Gareth’s face. I couldn’t tell if he was breathing. I felt like I was drifting through a world I did not know, no longer attached to my body. Not even the surprise of seeing my sisters could rattle me.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said.
“You can’t help him,” Mother replied. “Only I can. And you don’t want to see what I have to do.”
Farrin touched my arm; I jerked away from her. “I won’t leave him.”
“Don’t make me drag you upstairs.” Mother glanced up at me, the air around her shimmering with heat and light. She was my mother, but she was also Kerezen, goddess of the body, and she would not suffer defiance. “You’re strong, but I’m stronger. And the longer you delay me, the more likely it is that he’ll die.”
I held her gaze for only a moment before I had to look away, blinking back furious tears. Gemma murmured my name, and I turned toward her and let her and Farrin lead me upstairs. They gave me food and drink, which I forced myself to consume even though every bite made me want to retch. They moved me about like a doll who had no will of her own, checking me for injuries, massaging my hands and feet with an acrid balm. Farrin built a fire; Gemma helped me into a fresh linen shirt and trousers and then crawled into bed beside me.
I observed them as if from a great distance, cataloging their movements with a soldier’s precision. But beyond the instincts of my training, my mind was numb, my blood cold and quiet.
