Chapter 47
Allie
The dregs of the avalanche caught us.
It hit my spine with hate, the tear in my ribs stinging.
My lungs wheezed as the snow and ice swept us off our feet. It pressed against us as if it wanted to squeeze every drop of life. I held on tighter to Dax’s hand as the world around me turned white, then completely dark.
That same strange energy cocooned me, bathing me in a serenity that felt nothing but foreign. I clung to that strange thread and evened my breaths, just like I had when I’d woken up in the coffin.
The ice burrowing us cooled my blazing body.
My fingers twitched. No hand shook back against them.
I’d lost Dax in the chaos.
“Dax?” I asked desperately through the cold darkness.
“We’re not dying here,” Dax announced.
A relieved shudder coursed through me. He was so close, his erratic breaths heated the small layer of snow separating us–they also drained the scraps of air the icy tomb had allowed us.
“We will die if you don’t calm down,” I whispered, numb hands already scratching at the heavy snow above me.
How deep were we buried?
No shred of light passed through.
Would the cold kill us or would we suffocate with our own panic?
I scratched harder.
Through the ice, I heard Sylvester’s screech.
“Over here!” I bellowed.
I expected my ribs to scream at the effort, but I must have catastrophized the injury. Only a sharp sting pricked at them.
Heavy steps thundered toward us.
“Here!” Dax screamed, louder than I could, voice cracking.
The ice shuffled above us, a hurried voice barking commands.
I relaxed back into the snow.
Vylkor had found us–and I might have been hallucinating, but he actually sighed in relief as he wiped the last of the snow away and saw me blink against the sudden light.
“Thank the gods,” he muttered.
Dax gulped up air as if it were gold as he helped me shuffle out. “I knew you liked us, at least a little bit.”
“Survivors?” I asked, shaking the snow off my hair.
My body still burned, but it could move without kneeling me again.
“We lost seventeen souls before the avalanche.” Vylkor’s eyes narrowed on the forest. If any Northern soldier had survived, they would face his wrath. “None after.”
The warriors yelled in triumph as we emerged from the ice, shaky on our feet and greedily inhaling precious, precious air. Sylvester settled himself on my shoulder, almost unbalancing me.
He must have sensed my weakness, because he caressed my cheek with his head once and cawed right in my ear before launching back into the air.
Dax and I barely had time to exchange a shocked laugh at surviving the unsurvivable before we snapped back into action.
As we quickly helped our wounded into the sleds and sent them to the city, the strange energy vanished from me so suddenly, I swayed on my feet.
I bowed forward, hands on my knees, veins blazing harder.
But I could stand.
I didn’t know if it had been another one of the crater’s mercies or my own power trying to save me, but I was alive.
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.
That I had 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. We were buried 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.”
Glorious.
So all three Northern Clans decided to invade Solkar’s Reach while Ryker and most of our warriors were off to war and couldn’t be called back.
If they hadn’t known I was here, they definitely knew now.
And if they had been informed and thought they could invade on my watch, well, that just angered me. The kind of anger that made me want to draw blood.
But I had more pressing issues than revenge.
The crater had allowed them to breach the rim.
The breath rushed out of me.
We’d managed to fend them off today, but what about tomorrow? The day after that? We’d already lost seventeen warriors and won through the grace of a desperate idea and the magic of Solkar’s Reach finally taking pity on us.
“Why would they risk it?” I asked.
“They’ve been envious of Solkar’s Reach for generations,” Vylkor said.
He still avoided looking my way, but the weariness hadn’t completely vanished from his voice.
If my powers frightened him, this display hadn’t helped.
“It seems it is our turn to protect the crater like it has protected us until now.”
I wished I had his unshakable faith.
Ryker had said the Northern Clans sucked power from Solkar’s Reach and wanted more. Taking control of the crater would get rid of that pesky problem.
“How come you don’t use these piratey weapons?” Dax kicked one of the barbed spears which had almost ended his life.
Vylkor grimaced at the ice. “Our ancestors adapted to their surroundings. They didn’t cling to shameful history, like the others.”
“Thanks for saving me,” Dax said suddenly. It sounded casual–too much so–but I heard the respect cracking at the nonchalance.
Vylkor turned his mighty eye on him. “It’s my duty, outsider.”
“You can call me Dax, you know.”
Vylkor only hummed in reply.
I didn’t blame him.
My heart ached for the souls we’d lost, but Vylkor had known them.
Probably watched them grow up.
Trained them.
He carried a heavier pain, even as guilt scratched at my mind.
I’d commanded our charge.
Those lives would forever mark my soul.
They’d been so young.
Now they had to lay among their enemies in an icy tomb until their bodies could be saved and brought to the Memory Hall, to rest among their ancestors.
The broken ice had left a gaping wound in the wall, exposing its dark, granite bowels. Deep grooves had sunken into it along the eons, like the snow had dragged its claws over it.
The ropes still dangled from the side of the crater. Forgotten–just like the soldiers they hadn’t tried to warn.
Or maybe not.
Above, Sylvester screeched.
Vylkor growled, raising his broadsword. “They’re still skulking up there.”
I tensed, hand reaching for my empty quiver. No more arrows to send a message.
But one needed to be sent.
Gods knew how many of them waited up there. Three Clans wouldn’t have sent only two hundred soldiers for a full attack.
We didn’t have the arms and weapons to fend off another wave and I couldn’t expect another miracle to come to our aid.
Some miracles could be created, though.
Heart pounding in my overheated chest, I jutted out my chin at Dax. “I need your help.”
He raised his brows, but huddled closer to me just the same.
“I need you to put on a show,” I whispered.
Dax grinned. “My specialty.”
“With your power.”
The smile faded from his face, which turned to weary stone.
Despite having all the powers Dria Vegheara had gifted us, Dax avoided them like poison. He hadn’t even busted out his tendrils when he’d been caught in the net.
I didn’t want to pick at that particular wound of his, but this was an emergency.
“I’ll chant, you channel,” I said. “I’m depleted. At best, I’ll faint right in the middle of it.”
At worst, my power would burn me from the inside out.
This was not the moment for weakness.
Dax nodded, lips tight. “What did you have in mind?”
“Remember what you said about tactics?”
“We’re finally killing them?”
“No, better.” I righted myself, staring at the rim with a grim satisfaction. “We’re going to scare them.”