Lake Cerome, Khitan
I’m about to freeze time when Royo cries out and jumps on Euyn, tackling him into the snow. The crossbow goes off. A bolt flies in the air, then lands on the ground a yard from Sora’s feet. She throws her arm up in surprise, but she doesn’t make a sound.
The five of us all stop and stare at the bolt sticking out of the snow.
“Well, hello to you, too,” I say. I exhale the tension and release the neckline of my dress.
Once the shock has passed, we all look at one another. They stare at us like we’re mad, and maybe we are. Sora and I are still in our capes and ball gowns. We didn’t have time to change, since we galloped all the way here. Turns out, ball gowns aren’t the most comfortable choice for riding a full day through the snow. But we didn’t have time to visit the shops.
It looks like they did, though.
We were going to stop overnight, but then we came across the corpses of dead zaybears. Well, first I spotted bolts sprouting out of lumps in the snow. I stopped to check what it was, praying on tiptoes that it wasn’t Euyn, Mikail, or Royo. I was so nervous; it was hard to even breathe as I brushed off the snow. Then I uncovered the jaw of a zaybear. I fell back, scared to death. But the more frightening thing was thinking Royo might be under the snow, too. I couldn’t stop until we found out. Found him.
So, we rode through the night, only stopping when we absolutely had to. I did pass out for a little while. Somehow, I stayed in my saddle. Sora kept us going in the right direction, and I woke up from a short nap, drooling on my horse.
Sora didn’t complain once, but she barely reacted to the dead zaybear, or anything else for that matter. Whatever energy she summoned to run with me in Quu is long gone.
“Stars, where did the two of you come from?” Mikail asks, rubbing his forehead.
“The Banquet of the Sky King,” I say. I look over at Sora. Her eyes are still vacant. “Count Seok sends his best.”
The three men exchange glances.
“Seok?” Royo blurts out. “The guy who owns Sora and her sister?”
I nod. “The very one.”
Secretly, I’m thrilled Royo is standing here, unharmed and breathing. My heart patters in my chest. It’s a bonus that he’s talking to me. That he seems happy to see me.
Okay, fine, he’s nothappyto see me because he’s almost never happy. Still, he looks relieved to see me, too, and that’s a big improvement from when he left Quu without a word.
Also, he just saved my life. But he’s done that a few times now.
I move a step closer, facing him like a winter plant desperate to soak in the sun. Snowflakes land on his dark lashes and dust the hood of his coat. I hold his gaze, but then he looks away.
I swallow the hurt.
“Are you all right?” Mikail asks Sora.
She shakes her head no.
Mikail inhales. “Well, you did the right thing tracking us. But stars, your feet. You rode all the way here in those?”
“I can’t really feel them,” Sora says with a shrug.
Mikail studies her, his teal eyes bright against the gray sky.
“We need to get you both warm, now,” he says. “Frostbite can set in fast when you’re not properly dressed. And you look far too cold.”
“There’s a warming hut down there, close to the shore,” Euyn says.
We all follow him. Once we make it to the top of the hill, I can finally see Lake Cerome. The lake is much smaller than Garda in Yusan, but it’s still enormous and, importantly, frozen. The wind makes snow drift across the ice, and it picks up, swirling in small twists. It’s really pretty, and I bet it’s even better in warm weather. I see a few huts made of wood at the shores of the lake.
But I don’t see a temple.
Mikail said the Temple of Knowledge isunderthe frozen surface, but I expected to see a dome sticking out or something. Somehow, this is worse.
Euyn goes first down the hillside. He gestures for all of us to follow as he puts his bow to his shoulder. The footing is tough. It’s not a mountain, but it’s hard to scale in dress boots, with fresh, deep snow.
