The shadows disarm me. Quickly, they yank my arms behind my back, curl around my wrists and ankles, then slam me to the cold ground.
As I gasp to catch my breath, the prince strolls over and squats low.He pushes my hair away from my eyes, and I do my best to peer up at him, one side of my face pressed against the frigid earth.
“Nephele Bloodgood, is it? How interesting. And nice to meet you.”
“Go rot, you spineless bastard,” I grit out, spitting across the dirt.
The prince just smiles and jerks his chin at his men. “Bring her and round up the others. Gag them. The last thing we need are wagons filled with singing witches.” He stands, that cruel grin still curling the corner of his lips. “I believe we have what we came for.”
The man named Rhonin brings down his dagger and drives it into the ground beside my shoulder.
He does it again, for effect. He’s good at pretending.
He pretended in the construct many days ago, letting me run after I fled Vexx, precious God Knife in hand, as if he couldn’t catch me.
And he pretended when we were in the cave. He knelt at my feet, willing to do whatever I asked of him, save for what Vexx demanded—anything but that. He would not lift a hand against me, no matter what awaited us in the ravine. I had to blacken my own eye with a small rock. Bust my own lip. Scream to the top of my lungs and pretend to be the wounded victim the general wanted.
Discreetly, Rhonin slides his blade beneath the sleeve of his leathers and jerks it free. He grips the bend of his elbow and squeezes, letting red blood run over his hand and stain the snow. He glances over his shoulder, and when he turns back to me, his face is ashen, his eyes downcast. With his unwounded hand, he touches a key dangling from his neck and briefly closes his eyes, as if torn between what to do.
“I hate leaving you alone,” he whispers, “on foot,no less. But I swear I’ll take care of your friend. Avoid Winter Road, if you can. We’ll be making camp there. Instead, stay north. Get to Winterhold some other way. You’ll find shelter with the king. It can’t be far. Maybe a day, day and a half to walk.”
He touches my brow with gentle fingers, and a certain sadness saturates his blue eyes, but then he walks away, leaving a crimson trail in his wake, as though the blood that drips from his blade is that of the Knife Thief and not his own.
That’s what General Vexx called me, earlier, but also in the construct, before the shadow wraith claimed me.
But I can’t linger on the thought. As Rhonin stalks away and the rest of the Eastlanders clear the ravine, my mind slips toward irresistible sleep, though I’m aware of an odd sensation brushing up against me. An icy, silken wind.
And somewhere, a white wolf howls.
I’m alonein the ravine, staring at the purple sky as it ushers in the rising dawn. I haven’t seen a real dawn in so long. I feel frozen in place, but I sit up, aching from sleeping on the frigid ground, my limbs stinging with chilly needles. Otherwise, I’m fine. I’m alive, thanks to Raina and Rhonin, and that’s all that matters right now.
Because I have to find her.
I wipe a layer of frost and snow from my face, hair, and leathers and shove to my feet. It takes a moment for my legs to work right and my sight to adjust, but soon I’m stumbling up the white riverbed.
Ahead, bodies lie in the snow. Four of them.
The first three are the Eastlanders Raina killed in the cave. Vexx didn’t grant them the respect of a burial, but worse, he didn’t even give them the respect of a deathbed. They lay piled together with limbs at odd angles, their eyes wide open.
I didn’t do this for anyone in the village, either. I’d been too distraught.
But I’m not too distraught now.
Carefully, I drag the bodies to individual resting places and close their eyelids. I even offer a prayer for their souls.
But my heart isn’t in it, much as I wish it could be. War makes devils of people who would’ve never been devils otherwise, but they were devils to my village all the same.
Standing over the last body, I feel…stunned. His chains are gone, but it’s the Witch Collector. Alexus Thibault. Un Drallag. The immortal man who carried Neri.
Are they both in the Shadow World now?
Willing myself not to cry at the thought of evil succeeding, I bite the inside of my cheek. Though I didn’t truly know him, I mourn Alexus’s loss. I’m sure Vexx made Raina watch him die. I’m certain he made her watch me die, too.
I think of how I can bury the Witch Collector, but the boulders here are too large to carry to cover him, and I’ve nothing to dig a grave. With as much reverence as I can offer, I roll his heavy body to his back, cross his hands over his bloody chest, and sing an Old Elikesh prayer for his soul, directing it not to Neri but to Loria.
She’s the only god I will pray to now.
I still don’t recall much of my time with the Collector in the wood, but I do know that he spent three hundred years protecting Tiressia from disaster, and for that, he deserves an eternity in the Empyreal Fields.
