Cautiously, she skirts her mare around the icy burial ground. I follow, guiding Mannus, trying not to look at the faces anymore. They’re the faces of the enemy, but there was a time when those of the East were good. A time before the love of their god and his old greed corrupted them and their kings. Something in me still foolishly hopes for a return to peace.
Real peace.
It’s a long trek, but after a time, we finally clear the warriors’ icy tomb, and we’re within strides of the opposite lakeshore. I’m confident that Nephele must sense us now because if she hadn’t, would the ice have held?
Raina steps to surer land, tugging the mare with her. I’m right behind, leading Mannus, thankful when rocks and snow crunch underfoot.
My faith is restored until a woman hurtles out of the darkness near the trees—screaming a war cry—and launches herself right at me.
Before I can dodge her attack or even think to grab my sword from the saddle, she’s on me like a starving dog. I hit the ice and slide across the lake on my back.
The woman sits astride me, teeth bared and eyes wild. Her brown skin, covered with small nicks and cuts, gleams with a sheen of sweat as she points a knife at my face.
My knife—that I never felt her take.
I grab her wrist to keep her from pushing the blade into my skull, and she bears down. She’s strong. Powerful enough to make this difficult.
Control is critical, so I wrap a leg around her waist and flip her over, pinning her arms against the frozen water beneath us. Her hand fists tighter on my blade, and she pushes against my hold.
I slam her wrist to the ice repeatedly until she relents, noting the sound of my weapon skating and scraping across the lake.
She bucks her hips, once again stronger than she looks, and I’mweaker than I believed. My hands are so numb that my grip loosens, and my left hand slips on the slick ice.
On the edge of my vision, I catch movement, but not before she lands a blow. Her fist connects with my temple, a hit so unnaturally hard it sends me sprawling backward into Mannus’s legs. Startled, he whickers and bolts for land, taking my sword with him.
As I move to stand, I lock eyes with a drowned warrior beneath the ice. There’s even an outline of the red and gold Eastlander flag, that haunting, ever-watchful eye in the center.
The lake didn’t take them all, though. At least two survived—the bastard who drove his knife into my thigh and this beast of a woman.
When I meet her glaring eyes, she stomps the fragile ice layer with a heavy, booted foot, over and over, in a voice that makes my skin tighten.
“Your journey ends here, Witch Collector.”
I rise into a crouching stance, ice cracking beneath our weight. Deep inside, my darkness awakens, aching for freedom, singing promises of aid. I shut it down and focus, releasing my fear, then lower my head and charge.
If I’m going down, this bitch is coming with me.
We collide, and the impact sends us sliding again, this time toward the shoreline.
Toward Raina.
She stands a handful of strides away, unmoving on the bank in the gambeson, chest heaving. Her hood is thrown back, dagger frozen in her hand. Her eyes are bright with alarm, sparkling like she holds fire within. Ever the virago.
I open my mouth to forbid her from coming out on the ice, but the Eastlander woman rams the heel of her hand into my chin. Seeing stars, I struggle to my feet, grabbing a fistful of her long, dark hair on the way.
I haul her to her knees and set her head inside my arm just right, choking off her air. I might be out of practice, but I will never forget this part of my past, my body operating from muscle memory, so naturally a killer. A quick twist is all it will take.
But as my vision clears, I hesitate.
The woman claws at my forearm, teeth bared and spittleflying as she stares up at me with a gaze so penetrating it’s as though she’s pouring herself inside me.
A dark, unsettling look crosses her face, but for the first time, I can see around more than my rattled head. She may be wearing boots, but she’s also wearing the remains of a dress.
Not bronze leathers.
She’s stunning—and young—a handful of years younger than Raina. When I look beyond the thorn wounds and that ferocious sneer, there’s something familiar there—but also something wholly wrong.
A sound snags my attention, and I look up, just as Raina skids across the ice. She rams into my side and knocks the wild girl from my hold. The hit flips me off my feet, and I land on my back again with a hardthud, sending the breath from my lungs in a rush.
