‘We all saw it,’ Hilde said quietly. ‘He died in an avalanche while escorting us from the town.’
‘His death was an accident,’ Jane agreed firmly.
‘If only I could be sure he’d believe you,’ Gwen muttered. ‘We all know what Whimsitt is like when a group of women try to tell him an unpleasant truth.’
‘I saw it, too.’ Orson’s voice was very quiet, but it brought every single head whipping around. Jane and Hilde both bent to inspect him so suddenly that their heads clashed together, and Jane muttered a particularly unsavoury oath.
Orson let out a groan, and shifted experimentally, testing how bad the pain might be if he sat up. ‘It shouldn’t be so, but he’ll believe me if he doesn’t believe you. Go.You’ve enough time to get back to town before dark, and we’ve got to move if we’re to make it out of the pass.’ When Isobelle glanced at Gwen, hesitating, Orson’s voice strengthened. ‘Go, I’ll take care of them.’
He tried to finish sitting up, swore, and fell back over.
Sylvie snorted, put her hand over Orson’s mouth, and looked from Gwen to Isobelle. ‘I’ve got him. Go. He’ll be fine, and so will we.’
And so, as they all stood and brushed the snow from their garments, Isobelle found herself crushed in a tangle of arms. Hilde’s curls in her face, Jane muttering something fierce and fond in her ear, Sylvie squeezing her so tightly it nearly lifted her from the ground. For an instant she was back in her suite in Darkhaven, crowded together around a pot of tea, whispering secrets, holding space for one another. She shut her eyes and breathed them in, and tried to fix it all in her memory.
When at last they pulled apart, there were no more words to say. Hilde and Jane held Orson up between them, helping him back towards the carriage on the other side of the debris field as Sylvie limped alongside them.
Gwen swung back into Achilles’s saddle, waiting. Isobelle lingered, watching until their friends reached the carriage. Then she turned, gathered Princess Buttercup’s reins, and mounted. Together she and Gwen rode their horses back towards Galanty-Uponne-the-Sea, leavingthe others behind in the snow, the silence of the pass pressing close around them.
She and Gwen were on their own.
27
You can’t ask me to watch you die
Night had fallen by the time they’d returned, seen to the horses and dragged themselves up the stairs to their rooms. The inn was dark and cold; Isobelle had to lay a fire in Gwen’s suite by candlelight while Gwen stripped off her chainmail and her sword belt.
She’d learned how to do it on the road with Gwen, with some difficulty. It required patience and focus, neither of which were qualities Isobelle possessed in abundance. This time, exhaustion played a far greater role – her hands kept trying to shake as she fed the fragile flame nestled in the wool and wood shavings.
When finally the flame stretched higher, and she was able to give it larger sticks that would hold it beyond a few seconds, Isobelle glanced over her shoulder at Gwen.
The room was still crowded with shadows, but she could see Gwen pulling off her jerkin, sodden from thesnow. As she did, the undershirt she wore was tugged up as well, and clung wetly to her shoulders.
Her back was a mass of contusions and scrapes. She looked like someone who had just been rescued from a torturer’s dungeon after weeks of suffering. Her skin bore a history written in bruises, from the ugly brown discolourations of those nearly healed, through the bright purple-blue of those beginning to blossom. And there, in an ugly red band below her ribs, the welts rising from the force of the rope she’d tied around her waist to keep herself from being swept off the cliff in the avalanche.
She had only let Isobelle at her with healing ointment now in a piecemeal fashion – rolling up a sleeve here or lifting part of her shirt there. To see the entire canvas of the last few weeks writ so large over the sleek muscle and soft skin of Gwen’s back … to know that the rest of her was likely just as battered …
Isobelle tossed a handful of sticks at the fire and lurched to her feet with a wordless protest. Gwen glanced at her, flushed, and tugged her shirt down.
‘Don’t fret,’ Gwen said quickly, forestalling her. ‘I bruise easily, you know that.’
Isobelle ignored her and caught the hem of Gwen’s shirt, tugging it upward before she could resist. The fabric bunched in her fists, and there it was – the angry welt that circled Gwen’s waist like a brand. Isobelle’s breath caught. She lifted one hand, fingertips grazing the unmarked skinbelow the band of red, and felt the muscles of Gwen’s abdomen tighten beneath her touch.
Isobelle drew her hand back, glancing up. ‘Did that hurt?’
Gwen’s eyes were unreadable in the darkness, though the fire was brightening the room bit by tiny bit. ‘No.’ She reached out to take Isobelle’s hand in hers.
Isobelle marshalled her thoughts with an effort. ‘You scared me today,’ she whispered. ‘You’ve been scaring me in general, for more than just today.’
‘The sea monster—’ Gwen began, but Isobelle cut her off.
‘I’m not talking about that.’ Isobelle hesitated. ‘Or rather, not just that. You saved Orson’s life today, and I – I’m glad about that. I’msoglad. But you dived into an avalanche with nothing but a rope around your waist, Gwen. You could have died. Most people would have.’
Gwen released Isobelle’s hand and turned away, leaving her fingers tingling in the sudden absence of touch.
‘But I didn’t,’ Gwen replied shortly, and went to hang her jerkin up to dry before the fire.
The bleakness in her voice froze Isobelle far more deeply than the cold that day had. She’d sounded almost …disappointed.
