I bite my lip and ask, “Do you have humor here in Frost?”
“We do not.”
But one corner of his mouth momentarily twitches upward, and the shadows lift from around him.
Then descend again. “You said your Oracle power is alive and well here. Which implies it wasn’t before.”
I shake my head. “It was sporadic in the Iron Kingdom. Strong at first and then…blocked somehow. But here, I feel…”
Oh, dare I say it?
“I feel stronger.”
Strands of gleaming, white hair fall across Stellen’s face, concealing parts of his smile as he inclines his head toward Nara. “Well, then…”
He rises to his feet, and I follow him.
At my nod, he scoops me up and places me on Nara’s back.
When he slides on behind me, I reach for his arms, guiding them forward, intending to pull them around me, but he sweeps the sides of my cloak toward my front instead, closing it over my arms.
“The wind chill will increase the faster Nara moves,” he says. “You need to keep your body heat locked in, even if you feel confined this way.”
He isn’t wrong about how awkward this feels. My legs are mostly free to move on either side of Nara’s back,but my torso is all trussed up, my arms pinned to my sides beneath the cloak’s outer layer.
Nara remains still, her ears pricked, no doubt waiting for Stellen’s signal to move.
I take a moment to wriggle my arms until I can fold them across my chest beneath my cloak.
Stellen takes my fidgeting in his stride, adjusting his hold so his arms rest above and below mine—although outside the cloak.
His right hand ends up pressed to my heart. “Better?”
“Better.”
He gives a low whistle, a calm sound, and Nara steps forward at a slow pace.
Lilis responds immediately, although I don’t miss the way she sways a little at sitting completely upright on her wolf’s back. Her smirk has vanished and now her forehead is pinched, her gaze wary.
At her whistle, her wolf moves ahead of us. Once they’re about twenty paces away, her wolf slows to match Nara’s stride, maintaining that distance. The whole maneuver is so seamless that I can imagine Lilis and her wolf have performed this formation a hundred times before.
I’m also certain that Nara’s pace is deliberately slow, since it’s clear Lilis needs a lot more time to heal.
Behind me, the Alak-Teah is ghostly white in the early morning sunlight. I’m sad to leave it, but I’m not sorry to see the back of the bloody field.
“There’s something I want you to do before we leave this field behind,” Stellen says, brushing his lips to my temple and drawing my attention back to him.
“What is it?” I ask.
“Take a look at the carnage.”
I stiffen. Stellen tightens his hold, his palm pressing to my chest.
“I know it’s horrifying,” he says, “but it’s important that you consider the details as unfeelingly as possible.”
My stomach churns as I force myself to glance at the bloody scene laid out on my right-hand side, trying to breathe through the awfulness of it.
“What do you see?” Stellen asks.
