The yaeger sat himself on the thicker blanket, laced with bright colors and intricate patterns that did not resemble anything Cyrilian that Linn had ever seen. He nodded at the makeshift chi pallet. “I’ll take first watch. Get some rest.”
Linn dredged up every last ounce of strength left in her and stumbled over to the chi. It was older, stiffer from lack of use, but if she clutched it in her fists and closed her eyes, she could pretend it was the one Ama-ka and her Wind Masters had gifted her after her Affinity had manifested; the same one she’d taken with her when she’d flown with Enn, and they had lain beneath a star-strewn sky and whispered about their futures.
The light of the stars was cold, the night sky as black as her grief. Her fists shook as she wrapped the chi around her, wishing it could cocoon her from the reality of a world in which she might never see her family and her home again.
“Kemeiran girl.” She heard the yaeger’s voice as though from a distance. “I never learned your name. We…started off on the wrong foot.”
The last thing she wanted to do was to answer him. After all, she didn’t plan to go far with him. In the next few days, once she had healed adequately to journey by herself, Linn would leave him.
Still, he had saved her life. She owed him this.
Linn pushed past the ache in her throat. “My name,” she said, “is Linn.”
Sleep came to her, its edges jagged with the promise of uneasy dreams. Dimly, in the twilight between wakefulness and dreams, she thought she heard his response.
“My name is Kaïs.”
Snow fell, dusting the world in an eternal gray.
Ana brought her valkryf to a stop, her breath curling in a misty puff, the pain in her back muted in the cold. Up here on the mountains the air was thinner, the conifers frozen beneath a coat of white that offered little shelter against Cyrilia’s unforgiving winter storms.
On the other side, though, was the start of Southern Cyrilia—and her destination, Goldwater Port.
The regular route to Goldwater Port was around these mountains, on the main road that merchants and trade wagons frequented. It would also be crawling with Imperial Patrols. Injured and alone, Ana had made for the quicker and far more dangerous path: the notoriously difficult Ossenitsva Cross.
Overhead, the sky had turned a shade of dark gray that promised snowfall.
She pressed a hand to the small of her back. She’d found a flesh Affinite healer who’d closed her wound in a remote village, asking no questions about the scarf Ana kept wrapped tightly over the lower half of her face. But the flesh was still raw and puffy as it settled into a puckered scar, and she’d been instructed to clean it each night. The constant ache still drained her, slowing her pace considerably.
The Ossenitsva Cross should have taken her less than a day’s time to pass. But night was falling, and still the maze of conifers stretched beyond her sight, icicles clinking erratically in the wind.
She should stop and make shelter before true night fell and the temperature plummeted.
And yet…
She had heard stories of the Ossenitsva Cross, where the Deities’ Lights pressed low against the mountaintop and, in the darkness, turned to a magic more vicious and haunting. Hunters and traders and excursion scholars had disappeared up the frozen roads, never to return.
Ana squinted at the distant horizon, where the last light of the sun drained a cold, ice blue from the sky, yielding to night. She was so close to the bottom of the mountains. Another hour or two and she should be there.
Ana clicked her tongue and dug her heels into her valkryf. The steed huffed and began to steadily plow ahead, its clawed hooves finding grip through the snow more easily than any other horse, its milk-pale gaze cutting easily through the dark. Ice had frozen to its thick white mane; snowflakes clung to its long lashes.
By now, Ana had thoroughly given up on brushing or shaking the snow off herself. Her fur cloak, varyshki boots, and leather gloves were iced over, the scarf she’d wrapped over the lower half of her face frozen from the humidity of her breath. It scratched her cheeks as she swayed astride her valkryf, the world blurring into a mass of darkness and pale gray.
Her valkryf snorted.
Ana blinked, unsure of when she’d fallen into a stupor. It was easy to become drowsy in the cold, and in the days when she’d traveled with May or Ramson, they had kept each other awake and talking.
Phantom laughter flitted through the trees.
The hair on her arms rose. All around, a strange silence had fallen to replace the howl of the winds. Snow fell, in agitated flurries. The air thickened.
Her valkryf gave a shrill whinny. The sound raised gooseflesh on Ana’s skin. Her steed had slowed and begun tossing its head, the whites of its eyes rolling. Ana tightened her grip on its reins and flared her Affinity, searching for traces of blood in the storm.
Nothing.
It was then that her valkryf screamed, and Ana heard it: a high-pitched howl, threading through the vast, empty mountains.
Beyond the blinding curtain of snow, something moved.
