Whatisthere still makes me smile.
Under the glimmering blue strands of inserted magick, there’s kindling.Drykindling. It sits in a pile in the middle of a grassy circle, like a spring meadow has been cut out of a tapestry and placed inside this snow-covered magickal world built by witches from miles and miles away. There are two large logs for sitting and resting, and moonberry bushes grow all around.
Their pale blue fruit is ripe for picking, and the roots hold sweetwater we can gorge on. Better still, one of the prince’s crows—a massive thing—sits on a low-limbed tree, watching me steadily.
The sigh of relief that leaves Alexus is more like a groan of ecstasy, and I can’t help but look at him and grin. We’re going to rest, fill our bellies and warm our bones, and then I’m going to break my way out of this construct so I can find the Prince of the East and end this.
I walk toward Nephele’s skillful refuge and stop next to the crow. Boldly, I meet its gaze and wait until I feel its master rouse behind those beady eyes, curious as always.
When I grab the annoying little soulless scout, neither one of them expects it. Before I snap its neck—with my bare hands, just like I said I would—I push a message from my mind and send it straight to the shadow prince, wherever that bastard son of a demon may be.
Thanks for dinner, you maggot. I’m coming for you.
His voice reaches me on the edge of a laugh.Best of luck, Keeper. I’ll be waiting.
“Gods’ death, Raina. I could kiss you right now.” Alexus sits on the other side of the fire, half-hidden by soft swirls of gray smoke as he gnaws on a roasted crow’s wing. Even from here, I can see those full lips, shiny from the fat of dark meat. He drinks from a moonberry root and looks at me over the dancing embers. “For killing the bird,” he adds.
“Of course,”I sign.“For killing the bird.”
My cheeks warm—and not from the flames flickering between us. I know full well he’s only relieved to have a bite to eat, a blazing fire, and a place to rest our weary bones. I’m not sure why part of me wishes it was something more.
Curled up inside his cloak, I tip back a moonberry root and empty it before placing its husk in a pile with the others I’ve drained. I’m thankful for the nourishing liquid that quenches my thirst, but also for the roots, fleshy with thick skin. If we clean out the pulp, they’ll make excellent storage for the berries, providing protection against the cold. Maybe, along with the berries, they’ll keep us from starving, which I’m sure was Nephele’s intent.
I lean against the log at my back and let out the longest, deepest sigh. The God Knife lies buried under a tuft of moss beside me, and Mother’s bowl sits on a rock near the fire, handfuls of snow melting inside. They’re the two things that symbolize what’s been digging at me ever since we sat down to eat. I want to check on the Eastlanders and the Prince, and on Hel, too. But now I even feel brave enough to look for Finn. I need the closure of knowing what happened to him, especially after everything I went through with Hel.
As for the God Knife, I can’t let go of the niggle in my mind that perhaps I should tell Alexus about it. That level of honesty with him should feel so foreign to me, but I can’t say it does anymore. Instead, I’m left wondering if maybe he knows something about such things. Maybe he can provide insight.
Or maybe telling him will complicate things further.
Gods, I don’t know. What I do know is that I’m so tired—too tired to get into that tonight. It’s a kind of tiredness my body has never experienced but that I have no right to complain about.
Before we got the fire going, I healed the frostbite on our fingers, and after Alexus prepared the crow and set it to roasting, we washed our hands and faces and even took turns stripping and cleaning up more intimately behind a tree. When that was done, he minded the bird while I healed my feet and the horses’ minor cuts and ice-shod hooves. Even those small acts of healing made me tired.
Though I’m rejuvenated now, it’s hard to feel at ease. Here I lie with food in my stomach, stretched out on warm grass that has no right to exist inside this frozen forest, while a band of Witch Walkers works tirelessly to keep this construct intact, lest the remaining Eastlanders invade their home like they did my village.
Then there’s Hel, trapped like an animal and suffering the terrors of a demon alone in the cold. Alexus said the heat in her body had to have come from the wraith, so she’s most likely safe from freezing, but I still worry.
I can’t help Hel or Winterhold’s witches unless I’m whole, however, so I try my hardest to shut out the guilt I feel for these hours of reprieve. Dropping my head back, I close my eyes and focus on the wonderfulheat from the fire, the way it’s chased away the numbness and replaced it with life. Fire can destroy, but it can also renew.
A wolf howls, and I sit up immediately, the muscles along the back of my neck tight.
“Hel is out in the open,”I sign when Alexus looks up at me from cleaning his hands.“There are wolves.”
“She’s fine, I swear.” His eyes are ever the anchor, his voice so inexplicably certain. His confidence calms the flutter of worry inside my chest. “Her scent alone is enough to send a pack of wolves in the other direction,” he adds, “but also, my scent is all over her. It’s the only reason the wolves haven’t bothered us. They know to keep their distance from me and mine. She’ll be safe. And we’re safe.” I want to inquire what exactly he means by all of that, but he stands and gestures to the ground beside me. “May I?”
I nod, and he sits with his back against the log, long legs bent at the knee.
“You should sleep. You barely slept while we were traveling.” He motions toward the fire where the gambeson hangs on two sticks. “It’ll be dry now and so warm. It makes a right bed, if you remember.”
There’s so much to think about, and yet he’s worried about me sleeping and havinga right bed.
“I remember,”I sign, incapable of preventing a small smile from forming on my lips.
It would be impossible to forget. Before, I wondered how Nephele could be friends with Alexus, but now it isn’t hard to imagine at all. I can’t say I understand it—why he takes people from the vale and why they don’t hate him for it—but I can’t seem to hate him either, much as I wanted to before all of this happened.
I reach across the small space between us and take his hand in mine. There’s a bone-deep knowing when it comes to him, and so I’m not surprised when the lines crossing his palm call to me. I’m sure they’re not calling to me the way palms called to Mena, but the need to see them closer is real.
I trace Alexus’s lines into memory, reveling when he shivers at my touch. I’ve no idea what they mean, but I wonder.
