But we can’t stop. Not yet.
Heavy mist cloaks the landscape, but if I squint, I can make out a crenellated silhouette glowering from the furthest, loftiest hillside: Galtair – the final stronghold. The most northerly city still inhabited by our people, governed with an iron grip by the Arx Magnum.
A shudder rips through me as I remember my father’s threat to sequester me there with the Veiled Sisters. Not so long ago, I dreaded this place – now, reaching Galtair is my sole focus. It brings us one step closer to finding the lost sceptre, to fulfilling my oath to forge a new fate for the realms. Though it remains to be seen what kind of welcome we’ll receive when we arrive at its cragged walls.
‘You’re sure the Arx Magnum acquiesced to our demands?’I whisper silently to my Guardian.
Relief sweeps through me like a warm breeze as the door to our mind-bridge swings open. I’ve missed our secret communications; I’m glad to have Orthriel close again, even though they haven’t materialised once since their return. Not to me, at least.
‘He agreed to grant the requests outlined in the Kingswrit: sanctuary, and supplies for your onward journey. Fret not.’
Orthriel’s words should comfort me, but staring up at that stony façade, forbidding as a raised fist, unease gnaws my gut. Galtair is known as a city of hardened men, clinging by bloodied fingertips to survival. Its warden is no friend to the Crystal Throne. His attempted uprising proves that.
My mother has always maintained the Highlanders are more sympathetic towards the Branded, but the insults and rocks thrown by the villagers in that hamlet suggest the opposite: that old prejudice dies hard in these parts. What if Orthriel is wrong? What if the roots of ill feeling towards the enemy races, and my kind too, run too deep here to be easily weeded? We need their help, and their supplies, if we’re to survive the mountains.
‘Leilani? The horses…’ Astrophel says again, sharper this time. Despite being soaked to the bone, hair plastered to his brow, he still manages to cut an elegant figure as he draws level with me. ‘We need to think about making camp. Night’s drawing in, the horses are exhausted, and frostfangs roam these hills.’
The memory of the hoarclaw rises, but I swallow my fear and fix him with a stare my father would be proud of. ‘If we ride hard, we can reach Galtair by dawnrise.’
‘Travel through the night? You’ve lost your mind. Stay out here in the dark with frostfangs circling us… The horses won’t make it, much less the riders.’ He looks over his shoulder.
I turn too. Tansy, astride Briar, leads the pack behind us. Her ringlets are sleeked by the rain, her hands trembling as she clings to the sylvanmare’s mane. Delphine is a few paces behind her. The only one enjoying the weather, she tilts her face to its drumming fingers, invites its icy caress. Behind her, Blayze and Maris ride together, swaddled under the travelling cloak I gifted him.
Blayze had never been on horseback before he came to Meissa, with precious little cause or opportunity in the Necropole, but he’s a natural rider – already almost as confident as Astrophel. I wish I could say the same for Maris. She can’t stay in the saddle. Thrown three times before we even left the fields to enter the steeper barren paths of the High Hills. After the third fall, she abandoned her horse at the next village we passed through, declaring it lame. Blayze offered to carry her after that, and from the way she’s leaning against him, I don’t think Maris minds this new arrangement one little bit.
The wind gusts stronger, and a shiver ripples through me. My thoughts drift, and before I can stop myself, I’m imagining being bundled under that cloak with Blayze, gathered in the circle of his strong arms, cradled close against his sculpted chest. Feeling the beat of his heart, inhaling his earthy scent of musk, amber and dreamroot. Right now, I’d give anything to feel a breath of warmth on my pebbled skin. Even being enfolded in the arms of Blayze star-damned Arcuri.
I consider asking Delphine to weave the weather again, as she did on the river. But the strain of land-dwelling is evident in the dark circles bruising the pearlsprite’s eyes, the shrivel of her skin, drawn tighter now across her cheekbones.
I place a hand to my chest. Use the steady pulse of the starstone to recentre myself and strengthen my resolve.
I turn back to face Astrophel. ‘We go on.’ Setting my chin against the rain, I kick my heels. Pain sears through my thighs, the skin chafed from hours spent in the saddle in wet skirts. I grit my teeth and kick again, spurring the beast forwards. The howl of a frostfang cuts through the night, shrill as a knife scraping a plate. The horse’s ears prick. Its muscles bunch.
‘Take care.’
Orthriel’s warning comes an instant too late.
Spooked by the wolf’s cry, the horse whinnies, rears up, then bolts. Its muscles heave and slide beneath me. I slump forwards, breath crushed from my lungs. Clinging to the reins, I try to grip with my legs, but my hands are clumsy with cold, my thighs aflame. Every jerk is agony. I’m not the accomplished horseman Astrophel is, my riding experience limited to sedate turns around the palace gardens, reprimanded if I exceeded a gentle rising trot. I sink lower over the horse’s neck as it surges forwards, breaking into a gallop, Astrophel’s mount – and Blayze’s too – thundering after me. Almost drawing level.
My body jolts and bounces, pitching about like a sack of flour in a wagon. My right foot slips from its stirrup and I tip to the left, clutching the reins for dear life. Shooting pain rips through my other ankle as it twists, wedged against biting metal. Rocks the size of starfruit line the ground. Images of my skull being dashed to pieces flash before my eyes as the slick leather wrenches from my grasp. I can almost hear the wet thud, taste the metal in my mouth as I lose the other stirrup and tumble sidelong from the horse.
There’s a split-second of freefall.
Heart in my throat, I screw my eyes shut. Hunch. Brace.
But warm arms meet me, not rock. A familiar scent envelops me. Musk. Amber. Dreamroot. One arm tightens around my shoulder, the other supports my head. The same arms I imagined holding me only moments ago.
Blayze’s eyes narrow, lingering on my hair. My Starborn hair. I scrabble for my hood. Cover myself.
‘P-put me down.’ I wriggle to escape his iron grip. Maris scowls down at us from their horse.
Blayze sets me upright and gets up from his knees, boots sloshing in the thick mud that cakes his breeches.
I force myself to look full into the golden depths of his eyes. ‘I owe you a debt.’
He winks. ‘And don’t think I won’t be collecting it.’
Insufferable brute.
