Gods’ balls, I’ve had enough of this.
I jerk up, primed to react, only to find Raina and the hellion who tried to kill me embracing on the ice. The girl glances my way and startles like she’s only now seeing me, her eyes dark as night.
She blinks, bewildered. It’s as though she was in a trance before and is now awake.
Raina releases the girl and signs so fast that I can’t understand her words. When she finishes, they admire one another’s hands—Raina’s witch’s marks are bright, but the girl’s hands bear no sign of her craft. Raina smooths the girl’s tangled black hair, her cheeks glistening with happy tears. They bump forearms and press their foreheads together. The girl whispers something I can’t hear, and Raina presses a sign to the girl’s chest.
Raina smiles.Reallysmiles. The kind of smile that brightens her whole face. It’s a rare thing, and the sight makes my heart squeeze, almost painfully.
Gods. She is so beautiful.
She faces me, brows raised in a sweet, innocent expression, clinging to the other girl’s strong shoulders like she’s showing me a prize. The relief and joy emanating from both of them is undeniable.
It dawns on me who the wild girl is—now that I’m not on the defensive. Her witch’s marks are gone, though they used to shine silverwith rust-colored edges. There’s something else wrong that I can’t quite place, something darker than this girl has any right to possess.
She’s a fighter, but she’s no Eastlander. She’s from Silver Hollow.
The blacksmith’s daughter.
Ican’t process the girl I’m seeing. Helena is here. In the wood.
Alive.
We sit huddled together beneath a tree, sheltered from the snowfall by its widespread branches, every limb densely packed with soft green needles and snow. I wrapped Hel in the gambeson to warm her bones. She’s still wearing the golden dress she looked so beautiful in the night of the harvest supper. The garment hangs in tatters and shreds, the filthy fabric incapable of shielding her skin from frostbite, though she snagged a pair of boots somewhere along the way. She smells of some sort of stench, something likely picked up in the wood or maybe from the village.
And her cuts. There are so many. From thorns, I think. I’ll heal them when she’s sleeping, or maybe I should just tell her the truth and be done with it. As for her missing witch’s marks, neither of us has an explanation. For the first time, glistening color paints my once-unmarked skin, and hers is smooth and blank as a new piece of parchment.
While the horses stand close by, at the farthest reach of the tree’sprotection from the heavy snowfall, Alexus stalks the lakeshore and surrounding wood. I glance at him, thankful that he’s giving Hel and me privacy to speak.
I turn back to her, though I sense Alexus’s nervous energy on the fringes of my attention, feel it punctuated by his crunching footfalls in the snow. I’m on edge, too, my skin humming with anticipation and shock—neither of which I can shake.
Gods’ stars, he nearly killed Hel. I know he didn’t realize who she was, and in truth, she attacked him like a rabid animal, but I can’t stop thinking about what nearly happened.
I almost lost her. Twice.
“I was with Finn and Saira one minute,” she says, “and then they weregone, swallowed by fire and smoke. It was chaos, Raina. I searched and searched for them, and for Mother and the twins, but a gray-haired Eastlander, the one they call General Vexx, started a fight with me and—” She touches a deep cut above her brow, dried with old blood, and draws an unsteady breath. “He hit me, and everything went dark. When I came to, I was draped over the back of another Eastlander’s horse. A big man. Young, though, with hair like fire. My hands were tied, and my witch’s marks were gone. The army had just crossed into Frostwater Wood, and we rode here because there was no other way. This magick”—she scrutinizes the construct—“is like nothing I’ve ever seen.”
“It is Nephele,”I tell her.“And the witches at Winterhold. They have learned vast magick and are protecting themselves and the king. Alexus says their magick will know us, that we will remain safe.”
My words are meant to ease her, but my faith in such things still isn’t strong. If the magick knows us, why does snow build around us by the inch? Why is it so cold that we can hardly move? Why no shelter? No clear way through this wood?
Hel glances over her shoulder with a wary gleam in her eyes. “I can see that now. The ice just…opened. One second, it was stable. The next, it started fracturing. The water below sucked most of the Eastlanders down, but not all. Many made it across the ice, including Vexx. The warrior I was with is a giant.”
I raise my brows. Hel is quite tall. This warrior must be huge for her to call him a giant.
“I was so scared that we might break through the ice,” she goes on. “Incapable of doing anything but watching others fall in, the lake closing around them and refreezing.” She grits her teeth, her temple flexing with the movement. It’s as though she’s clamping off an incoming memory. “I hate them for what they did to the valley, but watching warriors pound against the ice, begging to get out…” She looks at me with those dark and haunted eyes. “I willneverforget that.”
“No, but that was not your fault,”I sign.“You cannot bear the burden of the Eastlanders’ deaths.”
I take her shaking hands in mine and press my forehead against hers. I wish I could heed my own advice, but I bear the burden of our valley’s massacre—those innocentandguilty—too well.
A thought strikes me.“Wait. Was there a man with a wounded face?”I sign.“The prince?”
“No, not that I saw.”
Inexpressible relief sweeps through me. It isn’t a definite answer on whether the prince is dead or alive, but his absence is a good sign.
“There are mountains beyond here,” Hel continues. A hard shiver rolls through her. “And a mostly overgrown path that diverges into two routes. To the left, mountains. It’s an awful ride. There’s s-so much snow, and…white wolves. Luckily, I got bucked off the Eastlander’s horse and ran. He caught me, but I fought him like a-an unholy terror.”
