42. Maren
42
Maren
O n the third day of our ascent into the Sylus Mountains, the cold air began to truly seep into my skin.
The mountains here were different from the ones in Leihani. Water lingered in the wind, unwilling to answer my call, the air too dry. When we dismounted for a bite to eat, I dug out my woolen blanket, tucking it around my front and under my legs. Then wound Kye's scarf around my neck, hauling my new fur cloak back over my shoulders.
Built into the side of the mountain, tiny cabin shelters hugged the trail. Rock had been torn away, Kye explained, by catapults fifty years ago when Calderians routed the pass and carved the resting points out of the mountainside. The open wounds lay visible in the scars and craters left behind. I marveled at how a catapult had been hauled to this height—and the higher rest stops as well. The Calderians must have aimed them almost vertically.
The fourth morning, I woke up to the mountain covered in ghostly mist.
The sun had risen but hadn’t yet come into view. Dawn was a long-awaited development in the high mountains. Wisps of light peered through the cracks of the trailside cabin we’d found. We’d been cautious at first, knowing the Rivean guards were behind us. But in the days that had passed, we hadn’t seen a soul. Perhaps they thought we’d fall into the army hands. Perhaps they thought the mountains would simply kill us.
Kye sat awake beside me, leaning on the wall, his legs still tucked into his bedroll. The mountain wind had whipped the skin of his cheeks raw and red, reminding me painfully of what he looked like when I’d first seen him on the beach of Neris Island.
Even with his skin abused by the cold, he was almost too beautiful to look at. I gestured to his face. “Should’ve waited to shave.”
He smiled, running a hand down one cheek where blunt grew. “Aalto knows I regret it. This porcelain skin wasn’t made for such abuse.”
“Baby,” I teased. “The skin of a pampered life.”
He winked at me. My heart skittered.
I leaned into him as he strung an arm around my shoulder. We listened to the wind outside for a moment, then he sighed. “We should get moving.”
“I know,” I said, though I didn’t want to. But it had been my demand that had brought us here. I could hardly complain about the cold. The wind. The damp, and somehow, insufferably, the dry .
Not that I enjoyed the cabins either. Wood, wood, and wood. At least the wind here roared differently than the jealous sea. There was something lonely about the voice of the Sylus Mountains. Haunting and sad. Like a woman torn from her fate, left to wander and cry without purpose or reason.
And something deep within me spoke to it, though I didn’t know why.
Kye pressed a kiss into my temple and stood, shaking his legs free of his wrappings, then crawled out of the cabin to start the fire outside. I wrapped my furs around myself, immediately lamenting his exit. Flint scraped, followed by soft, crackling whispers from beyond the door, and I marveled at how he’d been able to persuade flame into existence here, in the wet cold of the mountains.
When Kye thrust his head inside a few minutes later with a cup of piping hot tea, I gave him a look of profound gratitude.
“Horses are ready,” he said, taking a sip before handing our single cup to me. “Let’s go.”
The trail was wide enough for only one rider at a time, the edge barricaded by nothing but open air. One wrong step would be all it took to find the bottom.
I followed Kye slowly, gazing across the deep mountainside in heavy thought. The meadows at the base of the cliffs hid under the mist like dust under a rug, their size and shape visible only askance. From far above, I silently pressed the clouds away, shielding against the water droplets in the air as we forged ahead. At least the mist was wet enough to respond. Moisture bounced away under my command, affording us the thin ability to watch our footing under the sweep of rock ahead.
It was draining work. Leading Kolibri, scaling the gradient, and dispatching the fog left me dragging behind. We avoided speaking unless necessary, passing warnings of unstable ground or hidden patches of ice. Although I’d opened a pathway, the rocks and grasses remained slick with frost that I couldn’t swipe away as easily as water. And the snow grew deeper, crunching under the horses’ hooves.
I waited for the trail to disappear under the rumored avalanche. I knew we’d reach it soon. Breathless from riding up the mountainside and warding off the windchill, a sharp scent reached me.
“It's going to rain. Or snow,” I amended, unsure if the scent would be different.
Kye stopped, tilting his head back and holding his palms up, waiting for his own evidence. “The sky is blue through the fog.”
He was right. The sky was blue, deep and pure. I frowned and began climbing again.
Twenty minutes later, dark clouds crept in over our heads. Thirty minutes later, the first delicate flakes of ice kissed our heads and shoulders.
Thirty-five minutes later, we were lost in a flurry.
Darkness pressed over the sky. Snow blanketed the rock in a thin layer of white, growing by the minute. The mist became opaque, a mixture of wicked vapor and angry snow, swirling all around us.
I couldn’t see Kolibri’s ears. Wind howled, stealing all other sound. The water in the air had grown too cold and thick to answer my call.
Dismounting, I gathered Kolibri’s bridle by her chin strap, feeling my way up the path with the toe of my boots before I took a step.
A hand found mine, and I almost screamed and leapt back in surprise. But Kye’s fingers wrapped around my wrist, and he pulled me in, tucking my face into the crook of his arm. He leaned close, the brush of snow in his furs rough and cold on my cheek.
“Almost there!” he shouted next to my ear, muffled under the wail of the wind. He took Kolibri’s reins from me, guiding my body into the seam of the mountain trail while he took the side next to the ledge. “Keep going!”
Snow pounded against us in waves.
Slush plastered his hair to his head, the droplets running along the curve of his cheekbones and falling in streams off his chin. He blinked his lashes furiously to shield his eyes.
We galvanized ourselves, pushing up. Kolibri bent her neck low against the storm, angling her long face away. My woolen dress became drenched, twice as heavy as when I’d first put it on. I slipped on frozen slabs, losing my footing, and Kye caught me with a groan, one arm hauling me in close to him.
The fine hair at the back of my neck stood on end.
I glanced up as a white flame cracked across the sky, blurry under the sheath of stark drifts above. Bright enough to blind me, it forced my face into Kye’s chest. A moment later, a sound like a pounding drum vibrated under my skin and along my veins like static on a wire, ringing in my ears long after.
Blinking hard, I waited for my pupils to dilate again. "Was that lightning?"
“We're in a snow storm!” Kye yelled. "Keep going!"
I squinted, and thought I saw two small cabins side by side, the rooflines connecting them in the middle for a make-shift stable. They were dark and empty, but Mihauna -blessedly free of wind and snow. Kye yanked the door of the more sheltered one wide, handing me our bedrolls, then slipped back out to tend to Sero and Kolibri.
The cold had nibbled its way into my fingers. I raked my hands together, cursing the bitter air outside, though I was certain nothing would ever compare to the cold of the Brána Do Podsvetia I’d spent a week plunging in and out of while foraging for food.
Click, click, click.
I shuddered the sound away, unfurling our bedrolls side-by-side over the floor. The door opened and in blew Kye. He closed it with his back, leaning into it until it shut, though the eerie whistle continued outside.
“Aalto-fucking-burn us if we’re not snowed in by morning,” he grumbled to himself, crossing to the empty fireplace and throwing a log in. He bit into the fingertip of his glove, yanking it off with his teeth.
“Wimp,” I said, teeth chattering.
Kye raised a brow at me as he stroked flint into flame, the small fire rousing to life under the call of his fingers. “We can head back if you like, girl from the islands.”
“No thank you, boy from a castle.” I said, ripping open our packs for a frost-bitten apple.
“Good, because I think we’re about halfway.”
“We are?” Taking a chomp out of the fruit, I cut a look at him. “We’re not to the summit yet.”
He shucked off a leather glove, flexing warmth into his fingers. “We’ll go through the pass, not the summit.”
“You know what I mean.” I kicked a fur-bound foot at him, and he caught it with a grin. “We still have a climb. And the trail hasn’t run out yet. Where did the avalanche fall?”
“Ahead, I’m sure. The route down the mountain is steeper on the Calderian side. Shorter. And Winterlight will be closer than the little town in Rivea we stopped in at the base of the mountains. This outpost marks the half-way point. I can show you the sign outside if you don’t believe me.”
“Lout,” I muttered. “I believe you.”
“Good, because it’s written in Rivean and you couldn’t have read it anyway.” I bucked his hands off with the heel of my boot, but he held on, his mouth a mischievous slash of white. “But you would have looked very pretty trying to.”
“Moonlight curse you, let go,” I said, though I could feel my own smile growing, warping my face against my will. Hands wrapped around my foot, Kye sank into his pile of soft bedding. He unclasped the fur around his neck, shedding it with a shake of his arm, the ridge of his shoulder hard underneath. Then offered his complete attention to the leather strap that tied the otter pelt around my calves.
“I imagine the storm will hide the smoke from our chimney,” he mused, tugging the fur from my ankle. “But after today, until we reach the Calderian line, I think we should avoid using a fire. I know where we are. And I know the Rivean army is camped close by.” He motioned for my other foot, and I swung it rather ungracefully into his waiting palm.
Outside, thunder rumbled. We listened to the distant growl of the snowy sky, fire snapping softly beside us.
“How many more days until we reach the Calderian line?” I asked, forcing my jaws together to quiet my chattering.
Kye slid my second boot off, wrapping his fingers around my toes and kneading the cold soles of my feet, his brows creased in thought. “Maybe two. If we can avoid another storm and the trail doesn’t run out.”
Two.
Two days separated us from Calder.
Two days—and an entire army.
I licked the roof of my mouth, suddenly filled with the taste of sour fear.
The ends of his curls began to thaw, leaving his chocolate ringlets dripping. I pulled my feet from his lap, climbing over his legs to seat myself there instead, curling into his chest and neck. My hand snaked into his roots and I called the water off him, sweeping it one drop at a time from his hair and skin.
Golden eyes hovered just over mine. “I wondered why I was so wet compared to you.”
“I’m never wet unless I want to be.”
The corner of his mouth lifted.
“Insufferable pig.”
His smile widened. “I love when you insult me.”
I snorted. “I always wondered how Nahli could continue letting men burn in her volcano before they impregnated her. Now I understand.”
Kye’s eyes glittered in the dark. “Are you inviting me to your bed?”
"I already invited you, you stupid lout."
"I know. I want to hear that you'll do it again."
My heart ticked, but I rolled my eyes. “Hardly an invitation when we’ve shared the same sleeping space for weeks.”
“Seems I should have burned by now, then.”
I looked up at him, molten eyes churning, and my blood heated at the low octave of his voice.
I burned for you as we stood under that altar. And I’ve been burning for you since.
I wondered if he remembered his words the same moment I did. If that’s why the scent in the air dropped into something thick and intoxicating. Why the threaded pulse of his neck jumped quietly against my wrist. Why his arm tightened around my middle.
“In my mind, you’ve been incinerated a hundred times over,” I said, realizing suddenly how close his mouth was to mine.
He turned his cheek, lips brushing against mine as he spoke. “What a delicious thought for you.”
“And boiled.”
“Mmmm.”
“And drowned.”
Kye chuckled. “I’d let you drown me, Leihani, if it meant someday sharing your bed.”
“Someday.”
“Someday.”
“You idiot. As if I could drown you.”
He grinned, though as his slender thumb guided a wild lock of my hair behind my ear, his voice grew serious. “You could. The sea never had a thing to fear until the day you were born. You’re vast and deep and filled with every promise of darkness. You could drown oceans.”
Something deep pulsed within me. That he seemed so sure, his words so powerful. They left my lungs aching. I turned my cheek against his neck, watching the fire through glassy eyes.
“What will you do once we reach Winterlight?” I finally asked, when my voice felt strong enough it wouldn’t break.
Kye worked his chin free of my hair, laying it over the top of my head. “What do you mean?”
“You’re a commander. War’s been declared. Wouldn’t you need to stay there?”
From the way he took his time choosing his words, I knew he’d been thinking over the answer for the past few days. He nodded slowly. “I’ll rejoin my unit and send you back to Calder.”
“You won’t take me yourself?”
He swept his thumb over the corner of my jaw. “Do you want me to?”
In Mihauna’s name, the beautiful, intolerable man. Of course, he would pin me down with the request of his company.
“Yes,” I hissed, forcing myself to look at him. “Will you?”
He sighed, the back of his head leaning into the wall, and closed his eyes. “Alright.”
“All the way?”
“The entire way.”
“And up to your tower?”
Kye exhaled, his chest relaxing slowly against my shoulder blades. “Yes, Leihani. To our tower. If you ask it of me, I’ll walk you to Calder City, or wherever else you ask to go. To the palace, to the islands. To the end of fucking time. Until we are the last two people standing before the Gates of Perpetuum, with nothing save crossing the Sea of Stars ahead of us. And when you’re finally finished walking, I’ll hold the gate open for you and take your hand, so that you won’t need to step through alone.”
His tone was light and teasing, but I knew he meant every word. I stared at him, listening to the harsh wind. Until his smile dropped away and his heart slowed. He smoothed a thumbprint over the shell of my ear.
Then I nodded, as though his words were anything but serious. “Laurier Palace will do fine.”
Kye planted a small kiss in my hair. “Alright, then. To the City of Towers.”