Still shaking, I looked back at the crater’s wall.
“We’re not done,” I rose back. “Look for any surviving soldiers.”
A live human could talk–or be made to. Dax still had two or three vials of the truth serum.
But nothing moved as we surveyed the land, walking slowly toward the edge of the crater.
“An avalanche.” Dax whistled as we marched next to the graveyard the ice left behind.
ThatIhad beckoned.
He scooped up another handful of ice and pine needles from underneath his collar, shivering. “One that almost killed us, but I’m not complaining.”
“Aren’t you?” I took another gulp of the fortifying cider Mrs. Thornbrew had slipped between the furs of the sleds.
“Can’t blame me. Wewereburied under ice, after all” Dax said.
“Barely.”
Sylvester soared above the mound, head twisting every which way, but he didn’t give a sign he heard anything underneath the ice.
Our dwindled group advanced in the funeral stillness, the remaining warriors muttering prayers as we passed.
Our dead–and our rivals–could only be retrieved once the ice melted. A few months away. Or weeks, if the crater kept changing.
I leaned down and grabbed another fist of snow, rubbing it against my reddened face and neck. I was soaked to the bone from sweat and melting snow, but my skin still burned.
I’d been dangerously close to exhausting myself.
But as I looked at the spears and legs sticking out from the ice, never to move again, I knew there had been no other choice.
“They were prepared. An ambush doesn’t just happen.” I narrowed my eyes. “How did they know we were coming?”
“The ones still on the rim could have seen us coming and sounded the alarm,” Dax said, but watched me with that glint in his eyes that any Vegheara worth their powers knew too well.
Doubt.
I licked my teeth. “The trees and night mist covered us. We were careful on our journey here.”
I let the words echo around us, checking out of the corner of my eye if they spread wings through the warriors.
None fidgeted.
No shifty eyes, no reddening, no skipped steps.
None of them smelled guilty of treason.
But one of them–or the warriors back in the city–had missed the commotion on the rim.
Either through inexperience or betrayal, I didn’t know yet.
“Do you know which Clan these weapons belong to?” I asked Vylkor.
“Our former allies.” He clenched his jaw.
“Which ones?”
“All three of them.”
