“Are you always this disobedient?” he asks.
I just smile, and for a few minutes, as we walk, I let myself live in the strange sense of normalcy that settles over us, just Alexus and me, shoulder to shoulder. No thoughts of magick or the prince or the king or dead Eastlanders at our back. No whispers across my mind reminding me who he is and that there’s a very good chance that he’s more than I ever dreamed. It’s just us and the snow, and the need for the ordinary, that mundane existence that Mena said I struggle with.
Yet right now, I ache for the mundane, for the dream I’d had on Collecting Day. I imagine being somewhere else, far away from all of this horror. Me and my family and friends, and maybe even Alexus.
I don’t want to fight. I don’t want to be at oddswith a magickal, mythical prince who might end me. I just want simple and easy. Long walks and stargazing in a world that doesn’t feel like it might crumble any moment.
I look at Alexus again. His face is serious and, when he stops and pulls me to him, kissing me, his body hard and thrumming with magick and the rush of a one-sided battle, I taste what remains of his power. The potent flavor is as sweet as fresh honey on my tongue.
Dark. Promising. Consuming.
And I know, beyond any doubt, that I’ve tumbled headfirst into the worst kind of trouble.
And that everything—everything—is about to change.
The trek to the caves is dangerous, taking us down a steep hill and into a dry gorge northeast of Hampstead Loch. We ride together on Mannus’s reliable back once again, pulling Tuck behind. Both animals are so tired that the short journey is even more of a battle. As for me, my side hurts from where I snagged it on the rocks, and I think I might be bleeding a little, but performing a healing on such treacherous terrain is impossible.
The ground flattens once we reach the ravine, making the ride more manageable, though the barren riverbed is rocky and littered with boulders. Overhead, the sky looks like it’s painted with blood and speckled with snow.
A wind whips and whistles through the bluffs and nearly rips away the gambeson I cling to for dear life. I tug it tight and tuck my chin to my chest against the gust, causing me to miss the veins of electricity that arc above. I still feel the power and see the flicker of light.
I’ve never witnessed lightning amidst snowfall, much less silent lightning, but every so often, a white flash bolts across the red sky. It’s enough to make me cringe with every streak, but eventually it fades, thewind stills, and I drift. True sleep has eluded me for too many days, and my body finally gives in.
When I wake, I’m slow at coming back to life. The first thing I grasp is that I think I hear a wolf howling. Secondly, I’m in a cavern, lying on the gambeson. A dying fire and my mother’s dish—filled with melted snow for scrying—wait a few feet away.
Alexus’s arms are around me, one slung over my waist, holding me tight against him while the other rests beneath my head for comfort, our fingers entwined. The old blanket covers us, and his warm, steady breath stirs my hair. His beard has grown quite a bit since Collecting Day, and it tickles my ear. So little has given me reason to smile in the last several days, but this closeness is so calming that I let a satisfied grin unfurl.
The fire Alexus must’ve built after bringing me inside the cave has burned to embers, so I think we’ve slept for a long while now. I’m not completely rested, but I no longer feel like I might die from the lack of sleep either.
The cave isn’t what I imagined. There’s light—and not only from our fire. The faint glow from the crimson sky shines through a small space between two fingerlike formations protruding from the ceiling. The cavern’s innards are deep and tall enough that Alexus was able to bring the horses inside. They rest at the rear of the cave, lying down, exhausted.
Lastly, it strikes me that the Prince of the East didn’t come to me while I slept. Perhaps he really is gone, though I’m not sure he would’ve left without the God Knife. He thought he had it, but Alexus was right. I destroyed his moment of gloating.
He won’t let that stand if he can help it.
I sigh. I can’t think about the prince right now. Don’twantto think about him. I just want to lie here, absorbing Alexus’s body heat while he rests, thinking about the way his heart beats against my back, the rhythm in time with my own.
“You should be sleeping.” His voice sends a delicious shiver through me.
I squeeze his hand, not wanting to let go to sign.
He leans down and presses a tender kiss to my neck, making every inch of my skin come alive.
“I need to add kindling to the fire,” he says against my ear. “Or it will get very cold very quickly.” Yet he relaxes and then doesn’t move. I suppose neither of us wants to lose this peaceful moment.
My father made a snow globe once, for my mother. He used stardrop petals and water from the stream, poured inside a blown glass orb he fired in the kiln. I remember shaking it and watching the stardrops fall like snowflakes, wishing that all the snow in the world could be captured inside that little vessel. Eventually, the petals turned brown, and dark film coated the inside of the glass. This sliver of solitude is like one of those stardrop petals, trapped inside a snow globe with a million other moments that have been overshadowed by death, fear, loss, and even interrupted desire.
I don’t want interruptions right now, so we stay like that, curled against one another.
“Your father was a Keeper,” Alexus eventually whispers. I turn over, facing him.“What?”
He keeps his voice low. “There’s magick layered on the God Knife. It’s old and weak but still at work doing what it was meant to do, which was bind the blade to your father so he could keep it safe and out of the hands of the wrong people.”
I have no words. I can only stare and blink, stunned. I don’t even know what a Keeper is, not really, but this is still an unexpected revelation.
“When he told you that he kept the knife because he must,” Alexus continues, “he wasn’t lying. I don’t know if he asked for it or was unaware, but someone bound the blade to your father, and now that spell clings even to you.”
I press a hand to my chest. That doesn’t sound good at all. I don’t want to be bound to anything that has to do with the gods.
