Then his fist comes down like a hammer, and my world goes black.
The Eastlander whirls, catching my wrist with a firm hand before I can land my mark. I draw a deep breath and push harder, but from beneath the cloak, a familiar face stares back at me.
Notan Eastlander.
Hel.
Fear rips through me like a blazing fire, my body locked in indecision.Shadow wraith.That’s all I can think as her eyes search mine.
“It’s me, Raina. Just me.” Her voice is her own, and her eyes are vivid and aware, her wild spirit returned. There’s no rotten smell wafting from her, no unnatural quality to her movements, and her skin is just as cold as mine.
The tension in my muscles ebbs, disbelief clinging to me like a bad dream.
Her brows knit together, tears welling in her eyes. “Can you just hug me now?” She presses her forehead to mine, and I catch a glimpse of her ochre-tinted witch’s marks, flowering up from behind her collar. “Tuetha tah,” she whispers, releasing my wrist.
I drop my blade and fold my arms around her shoulders, squeezing her so tightly that she laughs around her tears.
“You’re going to break me,” she says, and I let her go, smiling so hard my cheeks ache.
Grabbing her hands, I check for frostbite. There’s some, but it’s not severe.
I clasp her face. She looks exhausted, and her skin is chapped and reddened from the cold, but otherwise, she looks…whole. Healthy. And though a hint of sadness shadows her eyes, she’ssmiling.
I’d worried that there would be nothing left of her by the time we returned, that the wraith would’ve turned her mind enough that she no longer remembered who she was. The relief inside me is overwhelming, enough that I can’t help but draw her to me and cry.
Once we’ve both shed a host of tears, I pull back.
“How?”I sign.“How are you here?”
She shrugs and wipes at my face, then sniffles and scrubs at her own. “I don’t know. Whatever that thing was, it left a day or so after you. Time is impossible to follow here. I felt it leave me like a sucking wind, and off it went, screeching into the wood. After it was gone, every part of the cage that held me captive withdrew, and a heavy cloak appeared, hanging from a tree limb.” Her eyes go wide with wonder. “Was that Nephele, too? Like the lake?”
Raising my brows, I nod, understanding her dismay, though I fear I’m about to slay her with all the new information she needs to know. She’s about to learn my secrets and Alexus’s, too, and stories of the Frost King and Fia Drumera and the gods and the God Knife and—the possible end of life as we know it. We could soon live in an age of gods. At least an age ofagod.
But we won’t let that happen. Wewon’t.
As long as Alexus can keep Neri contained, that is.
“How did you find me?”I sign, stunned by this girl’s fortitude and stalwartness, though I shouldn’t be. She’s young and naive at times, but a fire lives inside her that few possess. She truly could be a warrior for the North. She just needs the freedom to let that fire inside her burn.
I suppose she has that freedom now.
“I headed toward the mountains,” she answers, “and came upon agroup of dead Eastlanders. It wasn’t fun, and it wasn’t pretty, but I removed one’s clothes.” She tugs at the leather jacket covering her torso. “I had to, or I was going to freeze to death with them. The cloak was wonderful, but not enough.” She rubs the smooth place above her brow where a gash had been before I healed it days ago. “I’d hoped that General Vexx would be among the dead, but that wasn’t the case, best I could tell anyway.” She holds up her hatchet. “At least I filched this.”
The Eastlanders we found beneath the trees. I almost killed Hel with one of their blades.
“I came across a campsite under a rocky overhang,” she goes on. “Too fresh to belong to the Eastlanders, who’d already been dead for days. After that, I picked up your trail like Father taught me while tracking deer. There were only two sets of hoof prints where the snow hadn’t covered them. I held out hope that it was you. At one point, the tracks led forward, but a quake rumbled through the ground, and the tracks vanished. I kept going until I came to a hole blown into the earth. There was only one way to pass, so I followed. Not long after, I entered the ravine. I saw smoke rising from this cave. It could’ve been anyone, but I had to know if it was you.”
Amazed by her, I tug my hair over one shoulder, thinking about what it would’ve been like to have endured the wood alone, but Hel’s blinking eyes catch my attention. She touches the backs of my hands, my neck, my chest, her eyes wide, like she’s only now noticing my witch’s marks. And I suppose she is.
“What in gods’ stars, Raina?”
I gesture toward the smoldering fire. “Come. Sit. We need to talk.”
I tell her everything, beginning with my abilities. I show her my new skills in fire magick and healing, drawing out her frostbite and giving her fingers, toes, cuts, and bruises new life, as well as mending the wound on my side. When that’s done, I tell her what happened during the attack and everything after. Even how difficult it was to watch that wraith take her away from me. When I tell her about the God Knife and that Alexus istheUn Drallag from eastern lore, she stops me, an unsettled look taking over her face as though she’s piecing things together that I can’t see.
“Raina, the prince’s men had that knife because of me.”
I tilt my head and frown.“Explain,”I sign.
