My lashes flutter as he tosses the tether down to the earth and stalks off.
I look between the tether, limp on the earth, discarded like the sketchbook, and the light that glimmers off the chain armour draped over Samick’s shoulders.
He marches through the camp.
Arwyn doesn’t follow.
But he has that same tension bolted through his body, from the stiffness of his shoulders, down to the firm planting of his boots on the grass.
He’s standing now.
Alert.
They sensed something out there, deep in the dark. Something that the other fae sleep through, and the ones who are awake don’t notice.
Faces turn our way from all over the camp. Curious glances from the dozen or so fae still awake. But none of them wear that same hardened concern that the cold ones do.
The more I twist around to look over the grey boulder, the more my spine protests with aches.
But my gaze pins to Samick, standing by the empty throne.
Heartbeats pass before the general emerges from her tent. Her eyes are reddish and swollen, like she’s been yanked out of a deep sleep, but she is dressed in her leathers.
Samick doesn’t wait for her to sit before his mouth moves around words I can’t hear.
The more he speaks, the more alert the general looks. The puffiness of her eyes lessens right in front of me, and something severe settles over her.
I throw a look at Arwyn, standing at Mika’s boots, staring out at the darkness.
Goosepimples are still smeared along his arms, crawling over his shoulders, exposed by the sleeveless leather vest that’s tightening around his tensing muscles.
“What’s going on?”
That throws his stare to me.
The weight of it strikes me like a fallen rock on my chest.
I steel against the assault of it, eyes wide. But the fear is momentary, passing, as he turns a frown up at the general and Samick.
His muttered answer is rough, “Storm.” The harsh crimson glare of the fire burns his milky-toned cheek. “Ice from sky.”
Ice from sky…
It takes my tired brain a moment too long, but the answer locks in, and once it does, I stiffen against the boulder and glare at the darkness.
Hail.
An incoming hailstorm.
Well that’s just fucking great.
That’s just perfect. Exactly what we need right now after being battered by winds and rain, and enduring this period from hell that’s taking way too long to wrap it up and fuck off.
But I now understand the urgency thrumming through Samick and Arwyn.
A hailstorm.
We’ll be thrashed out here, out in the open—in a field with no shelter in sight.
