Chapter 12 #2
As for the gambeson—it looks made for a giant. It would swallow the Witch Collector, let alone me. Still, the softer armor will provide modest protection from a blade and arrows if it comes to that. But I can’t ride in such garb.
The Witch Collector seems to understand my thoughts.
His cheeks flush, and a strange kind of tender innocence fills his eyes.
“Oh. Right.” He drops the tunic, sits back on his haunches, and studies my gown.
After a moment, he snatches a pair of leathers from the pile—much like his own, though smaller and less worn—likely belonging to a boy who hoped to one day break them in.
Another thought that makes my heart hurt yet also stokes my fury.
With a toss, he says, “Slip these on and come here. I have an idea.”
He looks away, and I hurry into the bottoms. I wear breeches often, especially when working in the fields and orchards or when training with Hel. This pair is snug and a little long but otherwise perfect.
With my dress covering the leathers, I approach him, feeling awkward as he faces me and looks up, still on his widespread knees.
All I can think of as I stare down at him is what I wouldn’t have given two days ago to be in this position.
To be looming over him as he kneels before me, preferably with a weapon in my hand, a knife with a white marble hilt and bone blade.
Now, I have to hope he lives, at least long enough to get me through Frostwater Wood.
As thoughts of murder dissipate, he pulls a blade from the sheath fashioned inside his boot and begins cutting a line up the middle of my skirts. It’s tedious work. The layers of wool and linen are thick and still partially waterlogged, despite my earlier efforts.
My mind tumbles back to thoughts of the God Knife. The Prince of the East vanished while it was in my hand, and when I got up to go to Mother, no one was around us, save for the Witch Collector, and he was dying. Had I even carried it with me then?
Gods, I need my memory to clear.
I study the Witch Collector’s body. His wide, wing-like back stretches the fabric of his tunic, tapering to a narrow waist. The material clings to him, not only because he fills the garment so completely, but also because a cool breeze plasters the linen to his skin.
His long legs are folded under him, his leathers hugging every muscle and curve like a second skin.
I don’t see anywhere he could hide another knife, perhaps save for his other boot.
There’s certainly no hidden belt beneath that shirt.
Did I have the God Knife around him? My mind’s last image of the weapon is the blade clenched in my hand, the bone dripping with the prince’s blood as he promised to one day kill me.
The Witch Collector sets his knife aside in the grass and stares at me, resting his hands on his knees. He’s made it halfway up my skirts.
“I’m trying to be gentle-mannered,” he says, “but sometimes a rough hand is best.”
I take a deep breath and glance at his work.
Tears instantly sting the backs of my eyes, and I swallow the tightness forming in my throat.
My mother made this dress for the harvest supper.
She worked so hard harvesting the woad and extracting the dye.
Other than her wooden dish, it’s all I have left of her.
“Do what you must, Witch Collector,” I sign, trying to keep my chin from quivering.
After a long moment, he nods once, then takes hold of the fabric on each side of the cut, and with a grunt, rips the layers clean to the bottom of the bodice. Stumbling under his strength, I grab his shoulders to steady myself, and he grips the backs of my thighs to keep me from falling.
Our eyes meet, and once again, I find myself too aware of him, of the taut muscles rounding his shoulders beneath my palms, the firm feel of his fingers clutching my legs, of how comforting it is to be close to another person right now.
Even him.
At the same time, we release one another as if we’d touched something scalding, pulling back as much as possible. The Witch Collector clears his throat, takes up his knife again, and begins separating my skirts from the bodice.
“Turn around?” he asks, and I obey.
My traitorous heart skips a beat, and my spine goes rigid when he slides his fingertips along the bare skin above my breeches. It’s such brief contact, but no man has ever touched me there. Except for Finn.
When the Witch Collector finishes, I’m fashioned in a way I think can’t be improved, but then he rises, picks up a pair of boots and hosen which he drops at my bare feet, and moves to stand behind me.
Still a little on edge around him, I glance back as he pushes my hair over my shoulder. His calloused fingertips brush my collarbone, sending a brutal chill along my arms as he begins loosening my laces.
“So you can breathe better,” he says, and I have to look away.
My breasts fall, and my lungs and ribs expand on a blissful inhale. At my back, however, he leans close. When he speaks, his warm breath grazes the curve of my neck, and it’s all I can do not to shiver.
“My name is Alexus. Alexus Thibault. Not Witch Collector.” He comes to face me and says it again, this time with his hands.
Cheeks burning, I sign his name, too. The feel of it is as odd on my fingertips as it would be on my tongue.
After giving me the tiniest appreciative smile, he turns, leaving me standing there, drenched in foreign and conflicting sensations I need to ignore.
Because moons and stars, I don’t trust him.
Not in the least. But some ridiculous part of me is beginning to think that maybe—just maybe—I should, and that’s the most unfathomable notion I’ve ever imagined.
While he gathers our things, separates our provisions between his pack and the leather satchel, then loads them on our horses, I slip on the hosen and the too-small boots, then strap the gambeson on the mare.
I hand the Witch—no, Alexus—his cloak, which he accepts, but he whips the garment around my shoulders instead of his own.
“It suits you,” he says. “As does this.” He retrieves Finn’s dagger belt and produces a fire-singed dagger he must’ve taken from Littledenn. “You’re good with a scythe. Hopefully, you’re good with a small blade, too.”
Good enough to slice open the Prince of the East’s face—an act I suppose Alexus couldn’t have seen from his vantage point during the attack.
“Why do they want the king?” The thought blurts from my hands before I accept the belt and weapon and begin strapping them to my thigh.
He stares down at me, black hair catching in the wind before he begins tying it back. “Long story. Just know that the Eastlanders need him, so if they manage to get their hands on him, they won’t take his life. Not yet. But there’s an excellent chance we’ll regret letting them succeed.”
I want to tell him that my last concern is the Frost King. That he could melt into a puddle, and I would feel nothing but satisfaction. I’m only curious why the Eastlanders want the king now when all has been silent here for so long.
“We could always use your gift with the waters before we go.” He hangs the oil lamp from the saddle, then snatches my mother’s bowl, which he extends between us. “To determine where the king is.”
I take a deep breath, dreading my next words. Another glimmer of hope shines in Alexus’s eyes, and I’m about to dash it to pieces.
“I fear I cannot help,” I sign. “Not in that way.”
His brow twists. “Explain.”
I shake out my fingers and begin. “I cannot see whatever I choose. I must form an image in my mind, and I only see things as they are happening. Like with Nephele. I did not become skilled at scrying until a year after she was taken. I mastered the art, but the image of her no longer matched the woman she had become. I could not see her.”
He flinches at that, and in truth, so do I. It all makes sense now that I’ve said it. Nephele really has changed, beyond just the physical, and it happened soon after leaving Silver Hollow.
It makes me despise the Frost King even more.
“I have never laid eyes on that cold bastard you call a king,” I add. “I do not know what to look for when it comes to him. The most I can do is watch for Eastlanders and hope I see the right group.” I’m rambling, and my words have clearly shaken his faith, so I lower my hands.
Alexus scrubs his face, half-smothering a groan. “All right. Let’s do that, then. One last look before we go.”
I take the dish and refill it at the stream’s edge. This time, I use my new dagger to pierce my finger.
My blood runs into the water and, once again, the forest at night appears. The faint glow from a snowy wood outlines the silhouettes of tree limbs and horses and men. I can sense the Eastlanders’ distress, feel their racing hearts.
Alexus stands over my shoulder, clearly curious.
“I cannot see their faces, but at least one band of warriors is still in the wood,” I tell him. “They’re cold and worried about never getting out.”
He frowns. “Wait. You can tell what they’re feeling?”
“Sometimes.” I shrug, empty the dish, and stand.
He suddenly looks slightly uncomfortable. “Is that…normal for you? Reading people’s emotions?”
I raise a brow. “Why? Worried?”
Alexus opens his mouth but shakes his head instead, as though thinking better of speaking whatever words tempted his tongue. Instead, he motions me closer and bends to help me mount the mare.
I do my damnedest to ignore the way he looks up at me once I swing onto the mare, not to mention the way his fingertips brush mine when he hands me the reins.
He’s the Witch Collector, Raina. Don’t fucking forget that.
After he climbs astride his horse, we sit quietly, facing Frostwater Wood in the distance. I look over at him, still stunned that we’re here, together. The weight of all the things neither of us can seem to say hums between us.
“To the forest, then,” I sign.
He nods once, eyes gleaming with new and eye-opening clarity. “Yes. To the forest.”