“But I’m going to stay there,” he goes on. “Get back to thriving in my little wedge of the world. I look forward to living again. It hasn’t escaped me that I have been afforded something so many people wish for. A second chance at life?” He kisses me, softly, and says, “I won’t fuck this one up.”
It strikes me then to think about his immortality. About mymortality.But I can’t go there right now. I can’t even begin to think about that. About whether we’ve exchanged those particular traits as well.
“So what does your cottage mean in regard to thisleaving younonsense?” I say, burying my other worries deep.
“It means I have something grand to look forward to. Something to drive me to endure and make it to Winterhold. Because not only areyouthere, but myhomeis there as well. And I want to show it to you.”
“But you won’t tell me how this miracle will take place.”
He shrugs. “I’m not entirely sure yet. But I believe in myself. I just need you to believe in me, too.”
It takes another half hour before I can make myself do it. A half hour before I can gather my pack and strap on my sword and stand before Neri, ready to sift alone.
“One month,” I tell him, knowing that so much can change in that amount of time. “That’s it. If you don’t show, I’m calling for you with this.” I hold up the remnant of his heart. “And if that fails, I’m coming back here, and I will hunt until I find you.”
A crooked smile makes his eyes sparkle. “Deal.”
I give him a look at that word, but he clasps my face and kisses me before I can say anything sarcastic about it.
When he pulls away, he lets me go and moves to the far side of the cabin, holding the urn of Elias’s memories to offer distance so the aether will answer.
When the wind arrives, Neri winks and says, “I’ll see you soon, little bird.”
“Thirty days,” I remind him, just before the aether takes me.
I think he replies, but I’m gone too fast, his voice lost in the wind.
28
NEPHELE
Three weeks pass at Winterhold, and there’s still no sign of Neri.
To keep my mind focused on the important tasks here at the castle, I work on the veil daily with the other Witch Walkers after my business meetings and village rounds. I also spend time in conversation with some of Colden’s closest advisors, people he turned to for things like the North’s spy chain and managing efforts along our border. I’m learning. Or I’m trying, at least. Worrying every day that Thamaos will attack, loathing that I didn’t inherit an ability to see like Raina.
I could sift south and talk to Alexus. I think that would make me feel better. But my magick is much of what’s holding the veil around Winterhold, and I won’t dare leave for a moment until Neri is here. Not knowing about those who matter to me is killing me.
I try to sense the wolf in any way I can. Morning, noon, and night, I stroll down to the barrier’s glistening edge and wait for a while alone in the cold and snow. The villagers from the valley arrived after two weeks, but my wolf never shows, and the remnant around my neck never warms.
To survive physically, Rowena helps me make a version of Mari’s stew every few days, and after a bowl for supper and a glass of wine, I usually feel like I can finally rest.
But when the fourth week begins, my nerves win the battle I’ve been fighting, and sleep evades me. I only drift once exhaustion sets in, then I wake each dawn, half expecting to see Neri lying next to me.
Rowena can tell I’m not feeling well, so she prepares a hot bath almost nightly during that final week, replete with lavender oil and dried rose petals from last summer’s gathering. She even brings a cup of chamomile tea to my room each night, doctored with a heavy dose of honey and whiskey—to make it tolerable—and sits with me, until every last drop of her concoction is gone. All I can think about after I slip into my bed every night is how the whiskey and honey remind me of Neri’s eyes.
When I wake on the thirtieth morning of this torturous month, it’s with a sense of dread in my gut.
I dress in dark pants and boots, and a red velvet longcoat, then I set out to begin my day of leading here at Winterhold. I have a meeting about sending a second retinue to the Iceland Plains, and another with Joran’s bowyer apprentice about our archery defense. Eight years at Colden’s right handdidprepare me for something. Something I think my father understood.
That there would come a time when I would have to help lead Winterhold and the Northland Break in war. Possibly alone.
As I sit in the library, reading up on anything I can find about Thamaos and the Land Wars so I might better learn his defense practices and godly war tactics, I notice a sudden warmth at my chest.
I grip the remnant, my own heart fluttering like a little bird inside my chest as I hurry into the main hall and rush outside without grabbing my cloak. It’s frigid out, the snow thick and coming down hard, but I can’t care.
It’s hard to believe I feel so much right now at the simple thought of the wolf’s arrival. I’ve spent a month in his absence, but it feels as though he’s been gone to war for a year.
As I scan the barrier and the snowy forest beyond the village for any sign, my chest aches for Alexus and my sweet little sister. To be so impossibly separated seems a far more painful thing than I ever truly realized. So many impossible circumstances surround them. Will they conquer them?
