I just don’t know how, and I don’t know why.
Two thoughts swirl in my mind.Keeper. Why had he called me that on the green? The word repeats in the back of my brain, but it holds no meaning. The other thought takes me back to the stream. Alexus said a rumor reached Winterhold that the Prince of the East meant to break King Regner’s treaty and invade the Northlands, all because he wants the Frost King. At the time, I couldn’t have cared less what he meant to do with the king, but now, I understand that the Prince of the East has a larger mission.
And I need to know exactly what it is.
We stop once more, and this time, huddled under a tree, I can’t sleep, even though Alexus holds me close, sharing his heat. I warm my hands between our bodies until I can manage a few sentences. It’s the same question I asked before I had to leave Hel, but one I’ve avoided ever since, for fear of conjuring the enemy. But I can’t avoid it anymore.
“Why is the prince doing this? What does he want with the king? A real answer this time.”
Alexus scrubs his frosted brows. “Those are twodifferent questions. I truly can’t say that I knowwhyhe’s doing this. I don’t know his ultimate goal, either, only that the wraith said Tiressia will pray to him. I had ideas about how he might plan to succeed at that, but the longer I’m in this construct, the less certain I am about anything I thought I knew. Like Hel. Whether he used her to slow us down or stop us altogether, I’m uncertain. The wraith wanted to kill me, not you, and I’m not sure what to make of that. Or what the prince intends to do with you once he has you.” He switches to signing.“Unless he knows what you are.”
I swallow hard, and my pulse pounds.
“Do you think he knows?”Alexus signs.“Did he see your witch’s marks?”
I shake my head in earnest, but then I replay every second of our fight on the green. I don’t recall the prince ever looking at my marks once they became visible. My hands, neck, and chest markings were uncovered, but at least one hand—the one he focused on—was drenched in his blood. As for my neck and chest, my hair is long and thick. Perhaps he simply didn’t see.
My mind reels. What if the princedoesknow? When I saw him while riding with Hel, he saidHello, Keeper. I see you. I’d felt a sense of being watched—being followed—but nothing had been there.
Or had it?
A dark crow flies from tree to tree along the road’s edge, and its eyes fix on me. I curl closer against Alexus and burrow deeper inside his dark cloak, thankful for the protection.
What ifthoseare the eyes I’ve felt? What if his crows saw me healing Alexus? Hel? Maybe he sensed me healing Hel through his wraith.
Gods. What if I end up with the prince after all? His personal healer and seer?
While my thoughts melt into sheer panic, Alexus falls asleep, his body softening around mine. So much for my question about the king. I’m not sure I can cope with more information right now anyway.
Another crow flutters overhead, keeping its eyes on me—for its prince, I’m certain. I can’t prevent the little pricks from spying, but at least I know to look for them now.
This time, when my eyes close and the prince appears, there’s a feeling that he’s searching for something more than me.
“What in Thamaos’s nameareyou?” he whispers, reaching out across time and space to touch my face, watching me from gods’ know where, even as I rest in Alexus’s arms.
What am I?I send the message from my mind.What the fuck are you?
Opening my eyes, I shiver from the memory of his closeness. It felt like he was an inch from my face, the warmth of his fingertips lingering like a real touch. Did he ask what I am because he heard Alexus earlier?
The prince’s ability to project himself into my consciousness, and the fact that he can disappear on a whim, make me wonder if he’s inside this construct at all. I can’t imagine why he would stay here if he can vanish into nothingness, unlike we mere mortals who haven’t harnessed darkness itself.
Then again, if he’s so skilled in traveling through this world like the wind, why invade the vale at all? Why not go straight to Winterhold for the man he wants and whisk him away on a red cloud of death? Why come to me like this, like a ghost? Why can he not appear right here on this very path in all his shadow-infested glory? Is it because he’s truly a coward? Is he scared that I might do more than wound him this time?
Coward.I think the word, my body temperature rising from the heat of irritation and low-boiling rage.Coward,I repeat, and push the slur as hard as I can into the ether, praying he hears and that I make him angry enough to meet me face-to-face.
The moment shatters as something across the path catches my eye: indigo light, a braided web of magick floating in the air in a thin clearing beyond the path’s edge, nearly hidden by trees.
I close my eyes, worried I’m imagining things. But when I open them, the magick is still there. I suck in an excited breath, smack Alexus’s chest, and point into the wood. He jolts awake, his arms tightening around me.
“What is it?” He reaches for his sword.
I point again, and this time, he sees it. Feels it, just like me.
Nephele.
We’re on our feet faster than we’ve moved in days,dusting off the snow, leading both horses toward the clearing—toward the magick. I’m so stiff, but I move with swift steps, too swift, too excited, especially for a woman with a knife that can supposedly kill anyone shoved inside her boot.
I can’t help it—my heart races with knowing. I canfeelmy sister, almost like she might be standing in that clearing waiting for me when I get there. Only she isn’t.
