Chapter 24
Twenty-Four
RAELLE
Ican’t keep my hands off Kyron. He lays unconscious beside me, sweat beading on his brow and breaths erratic.
I brush the hair from his forehead, his skin burning beneath my fingers.
The flames from the fire dance over his pale lips and don’t reach the dark, sunken-in circles under his eyes.
The healing balm the Sara queens gave me has fused his wounds closed, but it hasn’t done much to treat the infection.
He groans and his eyelids flutter open. I can hardly make out his black irises through the slight openings of his swollen eyes.
He licks his cracked lips and shifts to his side, putting us nose to nose.
This isn’t the first time he has appeared awake.
Throughout the night, he’s vocalized his pain with nonsensical ramblings.
I slide my hand from his hair to his cheek, hoping to ease him back to sleep.
He grips my wrist in a weak hold and says, “You need these.”
I furrow my brows, searching his face for true consciousness. “What do I need, Ky?” I ask.
He brings his other hand to mine and places something cold in the middle of my palm. I catch a glimpse of the two stones as he curls my fingers around them. “You need these.”
“They’re useless to—”
“You need them. Please take them.”
“All right,” I say, placing the Sacred Gifts in my pocket.
I can’t argue with him, not when he isn’t aware of what he’s doing. Pain has plagued him for hours, scrambling his thought process. If holding the Eporri and Posseda gives him peace, I’ll do it.
He places my hand back on his face and closes his eyes again. “I love you, Raelle,” he mumbles.
“I love you.”
I hate seeing him like this. We should have found cover sooner. I should have tended to his wounds right after the battle. I should have never given into his stubbornness. Every second he went uncared for cost him dearly.
Gravel grinds beneath boots behind me, and I roll to my back to find Greer folding her blanket. “How’s he doing?” she asks, keeping her voice low.
I look past her to the eastern sky where a thin line of violet sits on the horizon. “He still has a fever and can’t stay awake. He won’t be able to travel.”
She crouches on Kyron’s other side and lifts the bandage on his arm. The angry, red puncture wounds sit in the center of black and blue skin. “Idiot,” she hisses, placing his arm back at his side.
The concern she has for him is written in the crease between her brows and the downturn of her lips. She may curse him for his stupidity, but it’s overshadowed by her worry.
“How long do you think it’s going to take him to get on his feet again?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “Longer than we have.”
“What do we do?”
“Go without him.”
I spring up, my mouth agape and eyes wide. “We can’t—”
She holds up her hand to stop me. “We leave Ulric and Terro with him, and you and I go alone.”
Ashavee lifts her head from her paws, and her glowing eyes dart between Greer and me.
I trust Greer with my life. She would never let anything bad happen to any of us.
But the knowledge doesn’t stop terror from settling deep in my stomach.
Kyron was supposed to be by my side for this mission.
His presence alone was going to steady me when I felt I couldn’t do what needed to be done.
Leaving him behind is like losing a source of my strength, even if he isn’t at his best..
I run my thumb over his knuckles and search his peaceful face. He needs to rest and heal so he can be the leader our people need. I’ll have to fuel myself and finish what we set out to do.
“He is going to be so angry at me for going without him,” I whisper, stifling the mounting worry within me.
“Yes. He will be, but you won’t be the only one he’s pissed at. We can endure his wrath together.” Greer places her hand over mine and Kyron’s intertwined fingers. “I promise, this is the right thing to do, Raelle.”
I meet her dark green gaze and quirk one side of my mouth. “We’ll leave at sunrise.”
Ashavee presses into my side, and the look on her face says it all. She will not let Greer and me set out alone. The three of us will protect each other and return with the Imperium.
The day is clear with the sun brightly shining on the frigid landscape.
Or at least it would be if the wind wasn’t so brutal.
It whips the snow up like fluffy clouds, whiting out everything mere feet in front of us.
The horses bristle against the cold, blindly pushing forward and dragging their hooves through the thick icy powder.
It makes me question if we made the right choice leaving without the others.
Terro and Ulric clearly thought it was a terrible idea.
They each fell into an adult-sized tantrum, with raised arms and stomping feet.
Greer and I were hit with an onslaught of what-ifs from them.
The argument got so bad that Ashavee shifted into her human form to help us combat the questions.
I had to hand it to her, she kept a level head and hit back with her own arsenal of what-ifs.
In the end, she gave the stronger argument, and the men had no choice but to help us ready our horses.
I hated seeing Terro and Ulric wear their concern for us like a second skin.
Every look they shared, and every clipped word was laced with conflict.
They knew just as well as I did that Kyron would have insisted that they went with us and left him to die.
It would have been an asinine demand. Our plan was the better option, but he would never see it that way.
Not that he thinks Greer, Ashavee, and I are incapable of handling whatever danger lies ahead, but there is power in numbers.
And with half our party left behind, we’ve stacked the odds against us.
“Whoa. Whoa. Whoa,” Greer shouts, pulling hard on her horse’s reins.
As a knee-jerk reaction, I do the same. My heart races as Nortus skids to a stop. “What is it?” I shriek.
“Ice.”
Ice? This entire mountain is nothing more than a frozen rock. I’d be more surprised if she found a blade of grass in this frozen wasteland.
Greer dismounts and drops to her knees. Her fingertips drip with water like a spigot with a leak.
She sweeps her wet hand over the ground, brushing away a light coating of snow.
Beneath lies a solid block of ice. “I don’t normally feel the water this intensely unless it’s a large body.
By the way my gift is reacting, I’d say this is a sizable lake. ”
The wind hasn’t let up and all I can make out is swirling flakes of snow. “What is a sizable lake? How long do you think it will take us to get around it?”
“A day. A day and a half.”
“Shit,” I say, pushing the loose strands of hair from my eyes.
Ashavee sits next to where Greer squats, her ears perked and tail swaying behind her. We stare into the distance as despair settles in. I’m so tired of everything working against us—the Allaji, the weather, time. Just this once, I want to outsmart it all.
“How thick do you think the ice is?” I ask.
Greer taps a knuckle to the frozen surface, and Ashavee steps forward until her front paws are on it. It doesn’t crack or even groan under the weight.
“It’s solid,” Greer says.
“Do you think it can handle the horses?”
She tips her head side to side, and I can practically see her listing the pros and cons in her head. “If we walk them across and spread out, it should be all right.”
I jump off Nortus and guide him onto the ice. We take several careful steps before I look back at the others and wave for them to follow. They caught up with me and we spread into a line across the lake.
Our journey to the other side is painfully slow and slippery.
My legs burn from trying to keep upright and my ass aches from falling on it hard.
I can’t help but wonder if riding around the lake would have gotten us to the other side sooner.
I don’t have time to contemplate it for long.
My feet slide out from beneath me for a second time and I hit the ice with a thud.
The air rushes from my lungs, leaving me gasping for my next breath.
I lie on my back looking up at the sky. I silently curse the Statera.
Why me? Why was this the only way I could redeem myself?
Nortus nudges me with his nose, and I inhale the cold air, taking several deep breaths before glaring at him from the corner of my eye. I’m too tired to keep going. Every bone aches and each muscle burns. I’ve never wanted to take a nap on a hard, cold surface as much as I do now.
“You can’t force me to keep going. If I want to lie here until the ice melts and I sink to the bottom of this lake, that’s what I’m going to do,” I tell Nortus.
He snorts and rams his head into my shoulder.
“Ouch! I thought you were different from all the other men in my life. You’re just as annoying, pushing me to keep going when I want to give up.”
He nods like a proud steed who has done the evil bidding of his master.
But I know it’s not true. The damn horse has been with me through all my adventures.
He made sure I got to where I needed to go, never wanting to turn around and head home.
He has been a good companion on some of my loneliest nights. He won’t let me down now.
“All right. You win,” I say with a grunt, getting to my feet.
No sooner do I take a step and a scream fills the quiet.
I search my right and find Ashavee frozen in place with her gaze locked on me.
I snap my head the other way and my heart stops.
Through the haze, Greer’s horse stands alone.
Its reins swaying in the wind, and at its feet is a hole in the ice where his rider once stood.