Chapter 17
When I was a boy, my father brought me to a small mountain village outside what is now called Hampstead Loch.
We met a fur trader there, a man who also dealt in sealskin.
He guided us to a camp many miles away, and later we made the journey to the furthest reaches of the Northland Break, where a wooded forest gave way to the Iceland Plains.
The first thing that stands out in my mind about that trip is walking along the coastline, watching the dark sea with its white crests roiling toward the shore. The second is when my foot broke through a weak place in the ice, and utter terror swallowed me whole.
I was lucky. My diligent father had hold of my hand and yanked me to safety, but not before the water reached my waist. He carried me for miles, and I remember thinking that I might lose my legs from the cold.
I didn’t, and though I live in the Northlands now and have visited the villages along the plains hundreds of times since, I always avoid the outermost reaches. I imagine Fate is smiling in the shadows now, because it has given me yet another chance to brave the ice.
I wipe my hand across my forehead, trying very hard to believe my own words—that the magick will not harm us. But faith is an arduous effort at the moment. I’m still weak, and I clutch Mannus’s reins with frigid hands. He follows behind me, wary but steady.
Perhaps it was I who needed the calming spell, because every clop of the horses’ hooves sends a cringe of anxiety through me, especially as we near the center of the lake.
We just need to reach the other side.
“Step lightly,” I remind Raina. “Watch for cracks and thin surface.” Though I know she already is. She walks ahead, leading her mare, a dark, hooded figure floating through the blue-tinted night. I can reach her more easily this way if the ice gives.
Unless it takes our horses and me down, too.
That thought is more sobering than the cold wind, and I silently scold myself for thinking it at all. Nephele and the others must sense me. They won’t let the ice give.
And yet the ice cracks, a line zigzagging between Raina and me, accompanied by a splintering noise that makes my stomach drop.
We freeze, and the cracking stops. For a long moment, there is only deafening silence across the lake, until our panting breaths and a roaring heartbeat fill my ears. Raina turns a slow glance over her shoulder, blue eyes wide.
I nod in her direction. “Keep going.”
Each step forward is excruciatingly slow and careful, apprehension tightening every muscle and every move. I’m mentally measuring our distance to the other side—only another hundred strides or so—when Raina comes to another abrupt standstill. I stop, my heart thundering.
“What’s wrong?” We don’t have far to go, but in my worry, I’ve gotten too close to her. She inches around and points at the ice. “Is it cracking?” I ask. “Be still.”
My mind is a whirl of panic. I’m reaching for the rope looped at my side before I realize that Raina is shaking her head, still pointing.
I look down. Take a judicious half-step closer.
A warrior’s face stares at us from beneath the ice. I glance around, only to see more faces and horses, too.
Eastlanders lurk beneath the surface, their last moments of fear forever frozen on their icebound faces. I pray to the Ancient Ones that this part of the construct swallowed the entirety of the prince’s army—him included.
“Get off this patch of ice,” I tell Raina. “It’s too thin.”
Cautiously, she skirts her mare around the icy burial ground.
I follow, guiding Mannus, trying not to look at the faces anymore.
They’re the faces of the enemy, but there was a time when those of the East were good.
A time before the love of their god and his old greed corrupted them and their kings.
Something in me still foolishly hopes for a return to peace.
Real peace.
It’s a long trek, but after a time, we finally clear the warriors’ icy tomb, and we’re within strides of the opposite lakeshore. I’m confident that Nephele must sense us now because if she hadn’t, would the ice have held?
Raina steps to surer land, tugging the mare with her. I’m right behind, leading Mannus, thankful when rocks and snow crunch underfoot.
My faith is restored until a woman hurtles out of the darkness near the trees—screaming a war cry—and launches herself right at me.
Before I can dodge her attack or even think to grab my sword from the saddle, she’s on me like a starving dog. I hit the ice and slide across the lake on my back.
The woman sits astride me, teeth bared and eyes wild. Her brown skin, covered with small nicks and cuts, gleams with a sheen of sweat as she points a knife at my face.
My knife—that I never felt her take.
I grab her wrist to keep her from pushing the blade into my skull, and she bears down. She’s strong. Powerful enough to make this difficult.
Control is critical, so I wrap a leg around her waist and flip her over, pinning her arms against the frozen water beneath us. Her hand fists tighter on my blade, and she pushes against my hold.
I slam her wrist to the ice repeatedly until she relents, noting the sound of my weapon skating and scraping across the lake.
She bucks her hips, once again stronger than she looks, and I’m weaker than I believed. My hands are so numb that my grip loosens, and my left hand slips on the slick ice.
On the edge of my vision, I catch movement, but not before she lands a blow. Her fist connects with my temple, a hit so unnaturally hard it sends me sprawling backward into Mannus’s legs. Startled, he whickers and bolts for land, taking my sword with him.
As I move to stand, I lock eyes with a drowned warrior beneath the ice. There’s even an outline of the red and gold Eastlander flag, that haunting, ever-watchful eye in the center.
The lake didn’t take them all, though. At least two survived—the bastard who drove his knife into my thigh and this beast of a woman.
When I meet her glaring eyes, she stomps the fragile ice layer with a heavy, booted foot, over and over, in a voice that makes my skin tighten.
“Your journey ends here, Witch Collector.”
I rise into a crouching stance, ice cracking beneath our weight. Deep inside, my darkness awakens, aching for freedom, singing promises of aid. I shut it down and focus, releasing my fear, then lower my head and charge.
If I’m going down, this bitch is coming with me.
We collide, and the impact sends us sliding again, this time toward the shoreline.
Toward Raina.
She stands a handful of strides away, unmoving on the bank in the gambeson, chest heaving. Her hood is thrown back, dagger frozen in her hand. Her eyes are bright with alarm, sparkling like she holds fire within. Ever the virago.
I open my mouth to forbid her from coming out on the ice, but the Eastlander woman rams the heel of her hand into my chin. Seeing stars, I struggle to my feet, grabbing a fistful of her long, dark hair on the way.
I haul her to her knees and set her head inside my arm just right, choking off her air. I might be out of practice, but I will never forget this part of my past, my body operating from muscle memory, so naturally a killer. A quick twist is all it will take.
But as my vision clears, I hesitate.
The woman claws at my forearm, teeth bared and spittle flying as she stares up at me with a gaze so penetrating it’s as though she’s pouring herself inside me.
A dark, unsettling look crosses her face, but for the first time, I can see around more than my rattled head. She may be wearing boots, but she’s also wearing the remains of a dress.
Not bronze leathers.
She’s stunning—and young—a handful of years younger than Raina. When I look beyond the thorn wounds and that ferocious sneer, there’s something familiar there—but also something wholly wrong.
A sound snags my attention, and I look up, just as Raina skids across the ice. She rams into my side and knocks the wild girl from my hold. The hit flips me off my feet, and I land on my back again with a hard thud, sending the breath from my lungs in a rush.
Gods’ balls, I’ve had enough of this.
I jerk up, primed to react, only to find Raina and the hellion who tried to kill me embracing on the ice. The girl glances my way and startles like she’s only now seeing me, her eyes dark as night.
She blinks, bewildered. It’s as though she was in a trance before and is now awake.
Raina releases the girl and signs so fast that I can’t understand her words.
When she finishes, they admire one another’s hands—Raina’s witch’s marks are bright, but the girl’s hands bear no sign of her craft.
Raina smooths the girl’s tangled black hair, her cheeks glistening with happy tears.
They bump forearms and press their foreheads together.
The girl whispers something I can’t hear, and Raina presses a sign to the girl’s chest.
Raina smiles. Really smiles. The kind of smile that brightens her whole face. It’s a rare thing, and the sight makes my heart squeeze, almost painfully.
Gods. She is so beautiful.
She faces me, brows raised in a sweet, innocent expression, clinging to the other girl’s strong shoulders like she’s showing me a prize. The relief and joy emanating from both of them is undeniable.
It dawns on me who the wild girl is—now that I’m not on the defensive. Her witch’s marks are gone, though they used to shine silver with rust-colored edges. There’s something else wrong that I can’t quite place, something darker than this girl has any right to possess.
She’s a fighter, but she’s no Eastlander. She’s from Silver Hollow.
The blacksmith’s daughter.