“Are you okay? You haven’t breathed in about a minute.” Lucia asks between puffs.
“Sorry. I forgot to.” I inhale and sigh.
She squints at my mouth. “Are your lungs hypothermic? How’s your breath so clear?”
“Hm?”
“This district is refrigerated enough to keep corpses fresh. How are you so—“ She reaches to touch my skin before reeling back her hand. “Do you need to go inside?” she snaps in concern nearly genuine enough for me to consider it.
“No, I feel fine. Am I really…” I grab my skull. Headache. “Sorry. I was distracted. What are we talking about?”
For a moment, my heart jumps at the fog falling from my mouth, mistaking it for a painful smoke in my lungs. It wisps and weaves like smoke, but that’s its onlytrivialsimilarity.
She hazardously places her hand back on my arm. “Maybe I imagined it—Now, look at that slut walking up to us.”
“I prefer whore, really.” Hanna confidently strides past us onto the train.
“You don’t get to run past us! I waited out here so fucking long!” Lucia runs after her new mark.
It feels warm out today.
Chapter 15
Twelfth Hunting Regiment of the Lich Queen
Cute. Adorable. A wonderfulcouple.
Just about everything that comes to mind as I listen to Lucia and Hanna flirt over this two hour ride. Two nearly straight women? Who could be more perfect for each other.
Nearly straight is unfair to say. I know Lucia just has an easier time finding submissive men than women, and Hanna hasn’t even explicitly confirmed that she has any attraction for men. But it’s not unfair to think. I can be wrong. I can stare at the happiness between two people and feel empty.
This was my date with each of them. Where’s my confidence to flirt too?
Withering like the snow, turning into softer and softer winter winds of a place further and further away from the Lich Queen’s cold grip. Withering like the tracks, switching from the main rail lines to the old military ones as we approach the former border between Lawrin and Roversella.
Withering like me. I’m trying to remember if I ate yesterday. I’m trying to find room to be hungry as I turn down free biscottini.
Maybe to wither is good?
“Do you want an almond?” Hanna giggles, tapping my hand.
I lift my eyes and study the two singing lovebirds in my row. There’s a joke I’m not in on. “Why?”
Lucia snickers from theaisle seat.
“These are iron enriched! Good foryou,“ Hanna says, mouth quivering like she’s holding back laughter.
I grab it and hold it between my teeth. “O-okay?”
They sneer and laugh their way back into a conversation I can’t focus enough on to join.
I lean back into the chair and pass the almond between my molars until the train stops in the middle of nowhere, leaving me to spit my thoroughly gnawed drupe into a napkin.
The ground outside is nondescript and definitely not a platform. Only the sole entrance to a communication trench breaks the plain deciduous forest.
A separate car opens, soldiers exiting. The oldest, most veteran one with eyes glowing a dull silver stands in front of us. “Everyone split in fours!” her voice, tattered by smoker’s lung, shrieks.
“You two, me.” Lucia wraps her arms between me and Hanna. “Hope the boys can have fun with each other.”
