Chapter 31 Ban
We escape the Flowerborne, dragging the girls away from the masses before the Icebound can track us.
They all have the same gaping eyes and black teeth as Nyra and seem to be able to sense us, even though they can’t see much of anything this way.
There are more of them than I realized, and Kael is still walking when we shadow hop away from the meadow.
Nyra’s frozen body is still lying on the ground, but it keeps twitching beneath the ice. It’s as though these twisted Icebound can’t die.
Zarev follows me to the mountains on the other side of the valley.
From here, the castle is behind us, and the cliffs do not reach as close to the sky as they do further inland.
I know, from experience, that if we crest the mountains, we’ll be able to see the Butterfly Garden on the other side.
It’s a treacherous journey, one I rarely make when I can skirt around and check for spirits through Icicle Pass and the villages.
Now, we don’t seem to have any other options.
Going through the palace and back into the endless Frostlands will extend our journey by at least a week. That’s extra time for the madness that Davina dropped in the palace to spread and find us.
And it’s longer for Neve to second-guess her decision to leave. We’re fighting a losing battle right now, struggling to win as four against a blockade.
When we’re safely out of the thick of things, disappearing into the snowy banks and out of the line of sight of the docks, I slip out of the shadows, and Zarev follows.
I can already feel the pull of my magic from using it so much, especially with a tag-along rider.
We need to save our magic for the next part.
Zarev all but bounces up, glaring at me. “Tell me again why we are coming this way?”
Neve rests against my side, also glaring up at me. “This isn’t the way out. We have to go back past the palace–”
“It’s the safe way out for us,” I say, glancing toward Zarev. He’s looking at me like I’ve lost my mind. “We’ll shadow hop across the pass.”
“You mean the giant gorge that kills people,” Zarev clarifies, crossing his arms. Odette leans against the side of the mountain near him, eyes widening as we speak. “The chasm that killed you?”
“I fell off the pass,” I clarify. “This is different. I didn’t have shadow magic before.”
“Yeah, it lets us hop.” Zarev holds up his hand, shadows drifting from his fingertips. “From shadow to shadow. This might work at night, but it’s the middle of the day, and those clouds above us? They aren’t very dark. We’re going to fall down the cliffs.”
“I might be able to fly us partway,” Odette offers.
I shake my head. “Your wings will ice up here before we get far.” Looking toward Zarev, I can feel the fight building within him.
“The mountains on this side are at a higher elevation than the other side of the chasm. We’ll end up in the Red Woods and have to travel down to the Butterfly Garden to find Legs.
But it can be done. Gravity is on our side. ”
“Gravity will kill us,” he argues.
“Didn’t you go over the wall to get into Tressa?” I reason. “It’s the same idea.”
“Tressa had ground on both sides.” Zarev sweeps his hand toward the mountainside and the pass beyond. “This is a chasm between lands. There’s a frozen lake at the bottom, isn’t there? And probably skeletons.”
“The skeletons are usually closer to Icicle Pass,” I argue.
“The point is,” he hisses, “it’s a long way to go. What’s the distance across?”
I shrug. “Roughly a mile.”
“You want us to hop a mile through open air?” he asks, baffled. “We can’t float in the shadows for that long. We need solid ground. This is going to get us killed.”
“Maybe we could speed it along,” Neve offers, holding up her hands.
There’s a tired gleam in her eyes, and I feel it, too.
We need to save the rest of our magic until we absolutely have to use it.
“Sometimes I can create little bursts of wind, not like someone with air magic but it would push us forward. Can’t you do something similar, Ban? ”
I hesitate, and Zarev almost smirks. He knows exactly what I’m thinking. “You would need to travel over with Zarev, then.”
And I almost want to break his neck for it. When I crafted this idiotic plan, Neve stayed with me. I didn’t have to trust my Hell Brother to get her safely across the void.
“That’s fine,” Neve says, lifting her chin. “We’ve already traveled that way.”
“And if we stay here any longer, arguing, something's going to find us,” Odette points out. “If we’re going with the cliff diving plan, let’s make that happen now.”
The others nod, looking toward me again. I grit my teeth because the idea of using our ice magic to speed up the process is a good idea, even if I hate having to place my trust in Zarev when I desperately want to cling to Neve. “Okay. Let’s go.”
“We need to run up the rest of the mountain,” Zarev points out, and I nod. “Save our magic and all. Is there coverage at the top?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Of course there isn’t.” He sighs, and Odette takes off up the path. Neve follows closely, and despite the Swan Princess struggling with the elements she’s gotten much better the longer we are here. She doesn’t slide on the powder much as they run, the snow boots helping her, and I move to follow.
Zarev stops me, his grip tight on my shoulder. The two move ahead of us, and he waits a moment before speaking. “This is risky, Ban. Why are you playing with our lives?”
I shoot him a glare. “I’m not. If I didn’t believe we could manage it, we wouldn’t be going this route. Trying to get across the Frostlands to Icicle Pass could be treacherous if Davina left behind all these Flowerborne. I haven’t even seen one of the butterflies, so this was all done by her hand.”
“And you think crossing into the Red Woods and the Butterfly Garden uninvited is safer?”
“I think Odette can use her magic over there. And we’ll be off Davina’s radar at least for a little while until we can figure things out. Besides, the two of you weren’t supposed to be gone this long. It’s time you get back to Ray and Rapunzel.”
He narrows his eyes. “And you?”
My gaze follows Neve, who turns back curiously. “My path is wherever hers goes.”
~~
Getting to the top of the mountain doesn’t take long. These are more or less large hills with a low incline, and none of us has worked up much of a sweat when we crest the top. But Neve gazes back toward her kingdom with a strangled gasp.
It’s creepy how the Flowerborne look against the snow. The creatures already moved unnaturally on dirt, but the snow seems to fluff up every time they move on those vine feet, and even from this distance, we can see white puffs of snow forming everywhere.
The few Icebound that Ronnie had are impossible to see, and there doesn’t appear to be anyone following behind us.
Even if the creatures saw us, aside from the Icebound, most of them move rather slowly.
We should have enough time to get out of here now that we aren’t being attacked and fighting things from the shadows.
“This is a bad idea,” Zarev says again, crossing his arms. “That is not a mile. We can’t stay endlessly in the shadows, carrying a person. I was right. We’re going to die.”
“It’ll be fine,” Odette argues, peering at me. “We have the wind idea–”
“Icy wind,” Neve agrees, but she sounds less confident than before.
“Right,” she replies. “We have that and the shadows. Surely we can get over there.”
“Maybe we should make wings out of ice,” Neve says thoughtfully, going down the same weird thought path Odette is as she tries to measure the distance with her hands. “I’ve never tried that before.”
“The shadows will allow us to move faster,” I say, glaring at Z. “Just stay within them, and everything will be fine. Push him across the abyss as quickly as you can, Neve.”
Zarev groans before offering her his hand. “On my back, Neve. It’ll be easier if I also don’t need to worry about dropping you.”
Odette copies the movement, her winter clothes almost getting in the way. It’s a little restrictive, but better than losing my grip and having to chase her down the chasm. When I glance toward Zarev, he sighs and nods toward the pass.
Behind us, I can hear something approaching. It could be the Flowerborne, or anyone else from Wonderland or Camelot.
“Let’s get going.” Zarev sighs, his gaze meeting mine. “If all else fails, are we just going to throw them the rest of the way across?”
I shrug as Odette tightens her hands on my shoulders. “Kind of the idea. Don’t know if we’ll get that close if this doesn’t work out.”
“Splendid.”
“Now hold on–” Neve begins, and for once, Zarev is on the same page as me. We split into the shadows just as some of the Flowerborne appear, almost out of nowhere. Much to my dismay, Kael is with them.
Zarev follows my lead, and Odette holds on tightly when I jump off the side of the mountain. Theoretically, so long as I keep shifting in and out of the shadows, we can make it across. We’ll just be drained once we get there.
Slipping into the first shadow, I use the ice magic, as Neve suggested ,to propel us forward.
It works well enough, shooting me further along than the shadows alone could carry me.
I glance to the side to see Zarev and Neve moving along, but they seem to be silently fighting each other.
There wasn’t a chance to practice communicating before we jumped, and they are traveling lower than I am with Odette.
My chest tightens, looking into the distance. We’ll have to hop at least thirty times, shifting closer not nearly enough each time, to get across and scramble up the other side of the pass where Wonderland drops off.
Without a passenger, and when I’m on my own without a care in the world, this is so much easier.
Blue light carries past us when I hop again, and Kael glares at us from the cliffs. I’m assuming that, as an Icebound, he doesn’t have this type of power, but it’s all a guessing game.
Odette’s shadowy fingers dig in as we hop again, and already, this feels like a terrible idea. Zarev and Neve move ahead, their shared powers making travel a little more manageable. Each time I adjust between shadows and ice, the magic in my hands flickers and wanes.
Zarev was right. This is a lot of magic to use.
And the cliffs of Wonderland look so much further away than they did when I came up with this idea.
At least the more we hop away from the Frostlands, the more distant the Icebound are, and it quickly becomes apparent that no one else is as idiotic as we are. No one follows us across the chasm.
The closer we get to the cliff, the higher the hills look. Wonderland lacks the mountain terrain we left behind, but the cliff is still a high rise in the Red Woods. Zarev and Neve fly ahead of us, my energy disappearing faster than it should.
Bringing along another person while I split my magic between powers is too much, even if Odette is light. After dealing with the problems near the dock and everything else since we went back to the palace, my magic hasn’t caught up yet.
The edges of the Red Woods come into focus. Right now, it looks like a regular woodland cliff, but in the fall, the leaves turn red. It should be where the name came from, but everyone knows the woods got their name because of all the blood spilled here.
I can’t hop as far anymore; the distance between us and the trees seems to grow as Zarev takes Neve closer to the edge. I see them shifting ahead, and Odette starts slapping my shoulders. We’re sinking.
They crest over the edge of the hill, and Zarev all but throws Neve off his back. Then he’s in the shadows again, moving with renewed speed when he doesn’t have to bring someone else along, heading back to us.
I hop once more to the next shadowy spot before he’s in my face, orange eyes shining bright before he splits into the shadows with us. For one single moment, he lingers outside the shadows to speak to me. “Let me hop with you.”
He grips my arm, and two shadow hops later, we’re tumbling into the grass. The exhaustion slams over me like a wave, and I groan on the ground instead of getting up to check on Neve like I want to.
Sleep. I rarely have the urge to sleep as a Reaper, but right now, it’s pulling me under.
“Ban?”
Icy hands cup my cheeks, Neve’s voice rolling over me. But I’m already too far down, and for the first time in ages, sleep pulls me under.
.