I crawl my way to the flowers, biting my lip to resist the cutting cold. I don’t know how strong this precipice is…. If I remember from the times the lake behind the castle froze over, I should balance my weight, move slowly and steadily. My clothes are a water-logged burden, but I manage it. Splayed out on my front, I grasp the bottom of the Odyssa stems. And they smile. For a brief moment, I get the barest waft of warmth, the faintest memory of a deep navy sky and deathly silence as the sun sleeps under the horizon. Just as I read in the book the queen gave me, this flower lives in the seam between day and night like the stitches separating light and dark. It’s volatile and elusive, hiding out here in the mountains, in the quiet, in the snow, not bright like the sun, or beautiful like the moon, but a vivid, fleeting moment in between. And Ifound it.
I wiggle my basket off my back and use the tip of my trowel to make minuscule jabs at the icy dirt, slowly, carefully digging out the two Odyssa with at least some of their roots intact so I can pot them later. After a quick enchantment to give them sustenance for the journey home, I delicately place them inside my basket where they’re cushioned and safe. Next, to find some safety for myself. The windbashes the air, almost angry to see its flower friends gone, but I’m able to roll onto my shoulder and tug my basket securely on.
The mountain behind me groans.
There’s a crack.
A creak.
“Oh, g—”
Where there once was rock beneath me, a torrent of snow slides like a waterfall, sweeping me in its current and pulling me down over the edge of the cliff and into the emptiness beyond.
My scream is a splinter in my throat as I fall, tumbling through the shower of snow with nothing to grasp, nothing to keep my stomach from convulsing. I crash into a sloping pile of snow, pain spiking in my shoulder, and barrel down farther, rolling with thunder in my ears. My descent slows, and I have barely a second to register my surroundings and fling my arms to my face. A rock juts out of the ground just ahead and I’m hurtling toward it, fast. I tuck my knees up just as my right ankle collides with the raw edge of stone and forces out another shriek.
Finally at a halt, I curl inward on the snow, gripping my hands around my ankle and shuddering for breath.Gods. Fuck. Ouch.The throbbing in my ankle tells me it’s probably broken, and there’s an awful twinge in my left shoulder. I’m so stupid. Why didn’t I ask anyone for help? Why didn’t I make Card come with me?
I know why. Because I would’ve felt guilty about taking up so much of his time. He’s got his wedding planning, language learning,importantmatters. Anyone who I’d have brought here would have told me I’m mad. They’d have called it a heedless quest. They…they just wouldn’t have understood. They don’t have to walk through life constantly proving themselves like I do.
With a sniff, I shuffle up to sitting and press my fingers against my left shoulder. Under the wet cloak, the muscles are tender and aching, but I can rotate it. Slightly. Just a little. So it’s not dislocated. But my ankle…
Taking stock, I flip open my basket lid to check if the flowerssurvived the fall—thank the gods they look unharmed—then cast my eyes around to find myself on a slope that stretches toward a grove of pine that cascades down the mountainside. With the cliff at my back and frozen clothes, I’m stuck. Stranded. Panic creeps in like the chill. What can I do? Could I crawl my way to the pine? Would there be any healing flowers in the cluster of trees? Or any birds? Could I somehow get a message back home or—?
Gods, I don’t know. I can’t think. My ankle spasms and I can’t breathe and there’s no relief or comfort or savior or warmth or miracle, there’s no one coming, no one—
“Hello?” a voice calls from within the pine.
Iweep.
It comes again. “Is someone there?”
“Hello! Over here!” I cry, and hastily wipe my face to see clearer.
A girl jogs out from the line of trees, her brown hair in a long braid down her back, bow in hand and countless satchels and pouches attached to her thick outdoor clothing—much more suitable than what I’m wearing. She spots me and sprints over the snow with ease, tossing her bow aside as she kneels next to me.
“What on earth are you doing out here?” she asks me, rooting in her leather side satchel.
I’m so stunned by her arrival that I can’t answer. The girl raises her caramel-colored eyes to mine and presses a glass vial of amber liquid into my numb hands.
“Drink this,” she orders. “You’re frozen stiff.”
Fighting the rattle in my bones, I lift the drink to my dry lips and tip it down my throat. Like the clouds parting, warmth seeps into my veins and the shivers retreat. I swallow every last drop desperately, and when the remedy has reached the tips of my toes, I exhale and find my words.
“T-Thank you,” I stutter, then lick my lips to get my mouth working again. “Gods, thank you. I thought—I— Thank you.”
The girl sits back in the snow with one knee raised, as comfortable in these conditions as a deer. She doesn’t look too much olderthan me, but there’s an edge to her posture like she’s ready to flee at any second, and from the dagger at her hip and the arrows strapped to her back, she doesn’t look like anyone I know from the citadel. She’s familiar with these mountains.Thank the gods.
“What are you doing out here?” she asks again as I pass back the empty vial.
“I was looking for a flower on the mountainside and I fell.”
“Inthoseclothes?Are you crazy?”
I expect more of a scolding, but she lets out a laugh that dances on the breeze and leans back to take me in—the basket on my back, my damp dress and cloak, my outstandingly obvious lack of preparation.
“I, um, I didn’t know what to expect. I don’t usually come out here….”
“Clearly!No one’sgoing to believe me back at camp. When I think I’ve seen everything!”
