Finally, I nod. Once.
Vexx stuffs the gag back into Nephele’s mouth, and with a look from the prince, Rhonin drags me from the tent.
Rhonin saws a knife through the ropes between my ankles so I can walk with longer strides. He leaves my hands tied and linked to the short rope leading to my feet. He reminds me of someone.
Maybe Mena? It’s the hair.
When he finishes, he grabs a woolen blanket from a pile, hangs it over my shoulders, and leads me up a small embankment to Winter Road.
As we walk, snow crunching beneath our boots, I take in the encampment. To my right, the Prince of the East and his general stroll to a larger tent pitched beneath two tall trees, its canvas glowing in the falling dusk. Obscured figures wait inside, backlit by lamp light. Unwounded warriors, at least fifty, sit around a few scattered fires, roasting various small animals for a meal. They’re guarding three wagons nested in a clearing and a few dozen tied horses. Far fewer than they need.
I think of Mannus and Tuck. They have to be here.
Above, heralding the coming night, the prince’s spies roost, athousand beady eyes staring down. How I’d like toFulmaneshevery single one of the little pricks.
From the corner of my vision, Nephele’s long, pale curls catch my eye. An Eastlander leads her along the road’s edge, then across the wood to one of the wagons. A woman unlocks the doors, and the man throws my sister inside.
Not wagons. Transportable prisons.
Is Colden Moeshka in there, too?
To my left, along a snowy path, sounds of pain float through the forest. Rhonin guides me toward those sounds and the injured, and also toward another tent set back in the wood.
“I hope you’re not weak-stomached,” he says. “It’s like a battlefield out here.”
I shake my head, but the truth is that I’ve seen more death and wounds since becoming trapped inside Frostwater Wood than I’ve seen in my whole life. I haven’t had time to be sick. I’ve been functioning in a state of survival. But I have enough years in me to know that all of this horror is going to crash down on me at some point.
Those cresting waves.
Torches have been staked into the ground every ten feet or so, creating a path, and to each side, more fires burn. In the pools of firelight, on woolen blankets and against trees, dozens of warriors lie wounded, with no relief save for the wine that a few attendants ladle from a wooden bucket. Stolen from Winterhold, I’m sure. I can smell the bitterness.
Wine won’t do much to stave off the pain, though. These warriors have broken limbs, disjointed bones, blade wounds, burns, and pieces of iron and steel wedged into muscle.
And frostbite.
No. It’s more than frostbite. Some have blackened hands and arms that might need amputation if I cannot weave them back to health.
Damn Rhonin. The sightdoesmake my stomach queasy.
Between Nephele’s construct and Colden’s power over frost, these men had a difficult time.
Rhonin and I reach the tent. He flips back the flap andleads me inside. I can’t help but notice how quickly he seals us up, away from the rest of the world.
When he faces me, straightening to his full and towering height, I take a nervous step back. Another. There’s a tree stump in this tent and a scorched worktable behind me. Another find from Winterhold, no doubt. Two oil lamps burn instead of one, and a pouch of mender’s tools sits on the table.
I am not this kind of healer, I want to tell him, but even if he could read my hands, I wouldn’t have had the chance to form the words.
He takes me by the shoulders, oddly careful to avoid my wound, and puts his face close to mine. Too close. It’s such a sudden action that I stiffen at first, tucking my chin back to create distance. Then I think to headbutt him, but he speaks in the softest whisper before I do.
“Listen very carefully. I’m a spy for the king, stationed in Quezira. I did not harm your friend in that cave. I refused. I couldn’t. She harmed herself with a rock so that we might survive Vexx. And when he sent me to kill her, I did not.” He forces the sleeve of his jacket up enough to reveal the end of an angry-looking gash. “I bled into the snow and on my dagger to make it appear as if I killed her, but she was alive when I left her in the ravine. I told her to avoid this road and get to Winterhold. I swear my life to the Ancient Ones if I’m not telling the truth.” He glances at the tent flap. “I only pray she listens and travels around us instead of crossing our path.”
I shake my head in stunned disbelief, even after he’s finished talking. I keep waiting to hear a lie in his voice or to see one in his gaze, and yet it never comes.
My heart stutters, and relief I struggle to process rushes through me. Hel is alive? And the king has spies in the East? Of course, he does.
The flinty eyes of this giant of a man soften to the point of gentleness. “I wanted to save the Collector, too, but I couldn’t be in two places at the same time. I didn’t know that part of Vexx’s plan. I’m sorry.”
The cavern inside me burns, his words salt to a raw wound.
