Terror froze her in place as he reached out a hand, spindly fingers reaching for her throat.
Found you,he said, and the ice all around them shattered.
—
Lan woke to the sensation of her arm being cut open by a hot knife. She opened her mouth to cry out—and tasted copper warmth against her tongue. Dawn was but a whisper in the gray-slatted sky beyond the canopy, and the ground was covered in a dusting of frost. Over the tufts of grass, she could see the top of Zen’s head; he slept a strict six paces from her, yet as they’d progressed farther north and the nights had grown colder, she’d been quietly closing the distance between them long after his breathing evened out, huddling behind him for warmth.
She tried to speak his name again—and instead doubled over in a fit of coughing. Blood dribbled down her chin.
Zen stirred. He rolled over to face her, and as his eyes found her, all fog of sleep cleared from them.
“Lan? Lan.” He was on his knees in an instant, gloves off, hands on her pulse. His fingers were like ice against her skin; she jerked away.
“The magician,” she gasped. The words sounded garbled. “The Winter Magician—he said he found me—”
“Lan, calm down.” Zen’s grip tightened on her arms as she thrashed. “You had a bad dream.”
A dream—it had only been a dream.
So why had it felt so real?
Zen took her left arm and flipped it over. Lan saw a horrifying sight: her flesh had turned green, the metal within her veins running a sickly dark gray.
“It’s infected,” she heard Zen say. There was confusion in his tone, the way his brows stitched together as he examined his Seal. “I don’t understand. It has only been one week since I Sealed it. The Elantian’s spell seems to have gotten stronger—”
Lan bit back a scream as pain sliced through her arm, stabbing into her bone. Sweat was beading on her forehead; she felt it roll down her temple. “You can…fix it…right?” Her breathing was ragged.
“I—” For the first time, a shadow of panic flitted across his face. “I cannot, not for long. We must get you to the school. There are practitioners of medicine there who can help—”
Even through the mist of pain, an image seized her, a purpose twined tightly around her heart, refusing to let go. Snow, a woman in white robes, the song of a woodlute.
“Guarded Mountain,” Lan croaked. “I have to go there—”
“There is notime—”
“Please!” Her cry pierced the calm of his demeanor; he looked taken aback. She felt tears tracking down her cheeks,cool against her skin; felt, once again, the claw of powerlessness dragging her back, back from what she’d been searching for her entire life when she was so,soclose. “It’s the last thing my mother left me—my last chance to understand why she died. Ihaveto find it. Ineed to.”
Her vision was blurring, whether from tears or from a slipping consciousness, she could not tell. Lan blinked, forcing herself to focus, and found the practitioner’s face looming very close to hers. Somehow, she’d clawed a fistful of his shirt, drawing him down. Locks of his hair were plastered to his forehead, and his eyes darted between hers. Searching. There was a storm in those eyes, a swirl of fire and smoke, of a war raging deep inside him.
Then his expression cleared. His hand gently closed over hers. “I will take you to Guarded Mountain,” Zen said. “But right now, I must bring you to my school so that the magician’s festering metalwork in your arm may be neutralized.”
She did not let go—of his shirt or his gaze. “You promise?”
“I vow it.”
She let go then, her energy spent. She sensed the practitioner lean forward, his sleeves brushing against her as he lifted her left wrist. His fingers tapped over her Seal, sending numb sparks shooting down her arm, and she felt her consciousness slipping.
When Lan opened her eyes again, the sky had brightened. Her arm still ached, but the pain had dulled compared with the bright-hot agony from earlier. When she turned her head,she found a new Seal on her wrist. This time, she recognized thesignature ripples of black that resembled flames.
Looking up, she found the practitioner slumped against the trunk of an evergreen. Even in the shadows, his face was drawn and pale.
Lan pushed herself into a sitting position. “Zen?”
His eyes fluttered; he regarded her through his lashes. “Are you all right?”
She nodded. “Are you?”
He shut his eyes again. “Countering Elantian metalwork…takes energy. Allow me a little time to replenish my qì.”
