Across from me, my father’s expression is slowly changing.
The crease in his forehead smooths out, and he considers me with a solemnity that replaces my rage with a cold dread.
I wait for him to repeat his command, to insist that I return her to the hellish snow where I found her.
My deep light fades when the silence between us draws out.
Even the wolves have fallen quiet. Skirra’s face is turned up to mine. They’re all watching me.
Finally, my father speaks again and now his soft statement carries a weight I haven’t heard in his voice before.
“Your deep light must be drawn to her,” he says, exhaling heavily into the crisp air. “I cannot ignore this.Wecannot ignore this. I may have left my people behind, but not my beliefs. The gods give us each a destiny, but few of us have the courage to follow it.”
He inclines his head at the woman. “It’s your destiny to keep this woman alive.”
Then he casts a meaningful glance at Thoren and the wolves. “Just as it’s our destiny now to follow your path wherever it leads. Be it life or death.”
With that, he turns and scoops up a sack in which he will have loaded as many butterflies as can fit.
I’m frozen to the spot, trying to process the finality in my father’s words, the heaviness in his tone, and the resolve in his eyes before he turned away.
I want to speak, but I don’t know how to articulate the sudden turmoil I feel.
Father swings the sack over his shoulder. “We’ll take the rocky path home so we don’t leave tracks,” he says. “The wolves can finish off the rest of the game here. Thoren, I want you to watch our backs and brush off any tracks we leave. Erik will carry the woman. We’ll get her to the cabin and out of the cold. Then we’ll figure out what to do.”
Without another word, he sets off ahead of us, surveilling our surroundings as he goes. Thoren hurries to pick up a fallen branch, which he’ll use to sweep across our footprints when we need to walk in the deeper snow.
I keep my brother in my sights while he follows close behind me.
My father’s declaration has brought a weight to my heart.
For him to speak of destiny… and in a way that implies my path will now determine my family’s future…
It feels as if a great fist has closed around me.
A fist of my own making.
It will take us half an hour to reach the rocky path where our tracks will be concealed, then another hour and a half to head deep into the mountains to finally reach our cabin.
Skirra stays at my side while several of the wolves, including Kori, follow closely, their footfalls light and quick. The rest of the pack stays behind, but they’ll come to the cabin when they’re ready.
Along the way, Thoren walks mostly backward, swishing the branch across our path, working hardest where our feet sinkdeepest, ensuring that, as the snow falls, it will quickly fill the finer crevices left by the branch.
All the while, I worry that the woman’s breathing is too shallow, that her feet and hands are too cold, and that the rot could still set into her fingers and progress to her arm.
Every step takes too long.
Ahead of us, my father’s back remains tense. His surveillance of our surroundings constant. He glances back at us at regular intervals, checking on us too.
He took us away from his clan to keep us safe. He has done everything since then to ensure we survive.
Now, I’ve put us all in danger.
But even as doubts creep to the edges of my mind, all it takes is a glance at the woman’s face for my misgivings to vanish again.
She needs to live.
Every spark of my deep light tells me that.
