God had pressed His instructions clearly in his mind, and Evan would carry them out with every part of his being.
With his head bowed, he started a fervent beseeching, a prayer that he hoped would affect much to save Brielle.
Brielle had no idea if she was going the right direction.
But she pushed through the numbing cold, forcing one step in front of another. It must be nighttime, but the white swirling around her made it impossible to see the moon and confirm she was going north. She hadn’t spotted any landmarks for a while, not since the grove of trees she passed about an hour before.
If someone held a knife to her throat to force her to say whether she was lost or not, she would have to admit she was. But she had to keep moving. She would never find Marcellus if she wasn’t looking for him. And if she didn’t keep her body heated with activity, she would freeze to death within minutes.
Even now she couldn’t feel anything below her knees.She’d stumbled and fallen so many times, snow might have seeped under her furs. She wouldn’t know for sure until she took them off, but that wasn’t an option out here.
She no longer screamed for Marcellus. Her voice had grown so ragged, the sound didn’t carry very far. At least the howling of the wind didn’t seem as loud.
A dark mass appeared on her right, and she drew up to catch her breath and squint at it. The form was only a shadow, so she couldn’t tell whether it was the sheer face of a cliff or the bushy branches of a cedar.
She stumbled forward, paused to steady her footing, then trudged on again.
The mass took on the shape of stone, and she scanned her memory for where she might be. She knew of no vertical cliffs in the southern area, at least not where she should be. Even so, the rock could provide shelter from the wind.
She reached the stone face and pressed her gloved hands against its smoothness. Ice coated the rock, but the surface was too vertical for any snow to settle.
As she pressed close to its side, the force of the wind eased its pressure on her. Relief made her want to sink to her knees and sleep right there at the base of the stone.
She jerked herself straight. She couldn’t stop. Not unless she found a way to make some other form of heat.
Staying as close to the stone as she could manage, she shuffled sideways, hopefully moving northward. She still had no memory of this rock, whether it was simply a big boulder or the side of a mountain. But the farther she went, the more the latter seemed to be the case.
From somewhere in the benumbed recesses of her mind, a psalm crept forward.From the ends of the earth I call toyou, I call as my heart grows faint; lead me to the rock that is higher than I.She couldn’t summon a prayer to accompany the words, but the verse itself was prayer enough, releasing a burst of warm hope within her.
The vertical slope tilted and took on more of a craggy texture with snow piled in the grooves. Still, the rock served as a buffer from the worst of the wind.
She kept moving, and the stone seemed to curve in a gradual arc, like it really might be the base of the mountain. She strained to remember the peaks in this area that didn’t have trees near the base. In truth, she had no idea where she might be.
But since she had something solid to follow, she kept moving, ducking low from the wind and staying close to the rock. The stone’s incline grew vertical again, for which she was grateful. It warded off more wind that way. This time the surface wasn’t smooth, though, jutting out in points and crags. If her mind wasn’t so weary, she might stop to ponder what made it different from the other.
But her head had grown numb, even her thinking.
Her stomach cramped, and she reached into the satchel for the bundle of dried berries. She was rationing the food as much as possible, eating only a bite or two every few hours. At this point, she could be out here another day or two. Especially if she couldn’t find the way back.
If she survived it all.
So far, she’d not let her mind drift toward the possibility that these might be her last hours. But she had to face reality.
Evan’s face filled her thoughts, that intense way he had of looking deep inside her made something twist in her middle. She might never see him again. She should have told him howshe felt, no matter whether it was too soon or not. She only knew that her heart had connected with his in a way she’d never thought possible.
If she never returned, maybe Audrey would tell him how Brielle had felt. She and Audrey had never spoken of it, but her friend had given her a look during the feast that said she knew something was growing between them. That look had promised a reckoning, that they would soon have a conversation about the man.
At least her other dear ones knew how much she loved them. After they lost their mother, Papa made sure the four of them never held back words of affection. They all knew how quickly final moments could come without warning. Her last words to Charlotte had been those of love. At least she didn’t have that regret.
Her foot caught on something in the snow, and she stumbled forward, dropping to her knees. Pain jolted through her wrists and up her arms. Weakness washed through her, but she worked to push herself upright. She had to keep moving.
She used the rock beside her to keep her balance as she started forward again. Right hand forward. Left foot forward. Right foot forward. Right hand forward.
Except her hand didn’t find the rock for placement. It plunged into empty air, and she tipped sideways as she scrambled for a hold.
At last, her palm struck stone, and she leaned into a hollow indention in the mountainside. She forced her fuzzy gaze to focus on the place. Between her exhaustion, the swirling snow, and the darkness, her mind was slow to form the picture of what she saw.
Like a large hand had scooped stone from the mountain, the rock formed an overhang on top and both sides.
