Royo.
Mikail and I stare as he stands in the moonlight with his throwing arm out. A sword trails through the snow in his other hand.
Gods on High, I’m glad we made him come with us.
With the zaybear down, I scramble to grab my bow. The beast is injured, but she’s not dead. The mother is not like the juvenile, who is still distracted by the bolt stuck in his side. She could attack to her last gasp. And she will, to save her cubs.
I reload the bow and take aim. The bolt leaves my crossbow and goes exactly where I aim—through her muzzle and into her skull.
She stops struggling, her head falling and her tongue lolling.
She’s dead or close enough.
The last zaybear comes running toward us. I reload, ready to shoot, since he’s near Royo. But instead of attacking, he runs to his mother. He sniffs her face, her body, then sits and howls.
The sound is haunting. I didn’t know these animals could mourn.
Howling echoes around us, as the injured zaybear is still alive. I turn, aim again, and hit him between the ribs, this time killing him.
Then I focus on the last zaybear. I reload. For a second, I consider leaving it be, but the animal is a juvenile. Without his mother to teach him to kill, he will slowly starve to death. Or he could turn and decide to attack us. I can’t risk it. I aim and fire at his heart. He falls on top of his mother.
It’s silent now. Just the breathing of the three of us and the four dead zaybears bleeding crimson into the white ground.
My heart remembers to speed up, my skin prickling with the rush of the kill. Energy and a bit of euphoria flow through me from almost dying once again.
“I think we should go,” Royo says. He points down the path where there’s nothing but darkness in the distance.
The sleigh is gone, and Royo is right. We have to go. If we don’t catch up to the califers, we may still die. Not a quick death by zaybears, but by freezing to death or being attacked by another predator.
We all take off running in the direction of the sled.
“You came back for me,” Mikail says between puffs of breath. He sounds surprised as he glances at me.
Sure, now he wants to talk.
“Of course I did,” I say.
He gives me a quizzical look, which is no easy feat when we’re running as if our lives depend on it.
Mikail can out-sprint me—he’s always been able to—so I wonder why he’s not going faster. Then I realize he’s keeping pace with me, to guard my flank. Because he still protects me. He’d still give his life for me until the end.
He smiles. “Every time I think I have you figured out, I don’t.”
“You say that like it’s a good thing.”
Mikail shrugs.
It’s not normal, this love, but it’s ours. I could never love anyone else like this. I could never love anyone else at all.
But does Mikail love me, or is it just loyalty? That was the question we never answered in Tamneki. Will he still be loyal when I tell him my plan to give Joon the ring?
I turn and scan the forest, making sure we aren’t being followed by anything except Royo, who is slower than we are.
There’s nothing behind the three of us aside from snow and my bolts sprouting out of the dead zaybears. Soon, they’ll be covered by the storms as the monsoon continues, well buried until the next thaw. That would’ve been me if it weren’t for Royo and Mikail.
We saved each other just in time.
But how long will time be on our side?
