Chapter 18
Ican’t process the girl I’m seeing. Helena is here. In the wood.
Alive.
We sit huddled together beneath a tree, sheltered from the snowfall by its widespread branches, every limb densely packed with soft green needles and snow.
I wrapped Hel in the gambeson to warm her bones.
She’s still wearing the golden dress she looked so beautiful in the night of the harvest supper.
The garment hangs in tatters and shreds, the filthy fabric incapable of shielding her skin from frostbite, though she snagged a pair of boots somewhere along the way.
She smells of some sort of stench, something likely picked up in the wood or maybe from the village.
And her cuts. There are so many. From thorns, I think.
I’ll heal them when she’s sleeping, or maybe I should just tell her the truth and be done with it.
As for her missing witch’s marks, neither of us has an explanation.
For the first time, glistening color paints my once-unmarked skin, and hers is smooth and blank as a new piece of parchment.
While the horses stand close by, at the farthest reach of the tree’s protection from the heavy snowfall, Alexus stalks the lakeshore and surrounding wood. I glance at him, thankful that he’s giving Hel and me privacy to speak.
I turn back to her, though I sense Alexus’s nervous energy on the fringes of my attention, feel it punctuated by his crunching footfalls in the snow. I’m on edge, too, my skin humming with anticipation and shock—neither of which I can shake.
Gods’ stars, he nearly killed Hel. I know he didn’t realize who she was, and in truth, she attacked him like a rabid animal, but I can’t stop thinking about what nearly happened.
I almost lost her. Twice.
“I was with Finn and Saira one minute,” she says, “and then they were gone, swallowed by fire and smoke. It was chaos, Raina. I searched and searched for them, and for Mother and the twins, but a gray-haired Eastlander, the one they call General Vexx, started a fight with me and—” She touches a deep cut above her brow, dried with old blood, and draws an unsteady breath.
“He hit me, and everything went dark. When I came to, I was draped over the back of another Eastlander’s horse.
A big man. Young, though, with hair like fire.
My hands were tied, and my witch’s marks were gone.
The army had just crossed into Frostwater Wood, and we rode here because there was no other way.
This magick”—she scrutinizes the construct—“is like nothing I’ve ever seen. ”
“It is Nephele,” I tell her. “And the witches at Winterhold. They have learned vast magick and are protecting themselves and the king. Alexus says their magick will know us, that we will remain safe.”
My words are meant to ease her, but my faith in such things still isn’t strong. If the magick knows us, why does snow build around us by the inch? Why is it so cold that we can hardly move? Why no shelter? No clear way through this wood?
Hel glances over her shoulder with a wary gleam in her eyes.
“I can see that now. The ice just…opened. One second, it was stable. The next, it started fracturing. The water below sucked most of the Eastlanders down, but not all. Many made it across the ice, including Vexx. The warrior I was with is a giant.”
I raise my brows. Hel is quite tall. This warrior must be huge for her to call him a giant.
“I was so scared that we might break through the ice,” she goes on.
“Incapable of doing anything but watching others fall in, the lake closing around them and refreezing.” She grits her teeth, her temple flexing with the movement.
It’s as though she’s clamping off an incoming memory.
“I hate them for what they did to the valley, but watching warriors pound against the ice, begging to get out…” She looks at me with those dark and haunted eyes. “I will never forget that.”
“No, but that was not your fault,” I sign. “You cannot bear the burden of the Eastlanders’ deaths.”
I take her shaking hands in mine and press my forehead against hers. I wish I could heed my own advice, but I bear the burden of our valley’s massacre—those innocent and guilty—too well.
A thought strikes me. “Wait. Was there a man with a wounded face?” I sign. “The prince?”
“No, not that I saw.”
Inexpressible relief sweeps through me. It isn’t a definite answer on whether the prince is dead or alive, but his absence is a good sign.
“There are mountains beyond here,” Hel continues.
A hard shiver rolls through her. “And a mostly overgrown path that diverges into two routes. To the left, mountains. It’s an awful ride.
There’s s-so much snow, and…white wolves.
Luckily, I got bucked off the Eastlander’s horse and ran.
He caught me, but I fought him like a-an unholy terror. ”
“You got away, though.” I’m thankful for all those tussles Hel and Finn had when we were growing up, and even more so for her love of the blade.
She nods, her brows pinching together. “Though I think the Eastlander let me. I can’t be sure.
He could’ve easily subdued me, yet he failed.
I ran until I saw the light of the lake, only stopping l-long enough to cut away my bindings on a jagged rock.
I ended up here again. I braved the lake, tried t-to g-go back home.
But there was a guard stationed t-there, and the wood allowed n-no exit. ”
A guard. So he was there on purpose.
“You saw him?” I ask. “And he let you live?”
Her eyes go distant, and she bites her lip. “I don’t remember what happened. I don’t remember a lot of the past few days.”
She exhales a long sigh, and the stench that clings to her wafts from her body and breath.
I noticed the odor the moment we embraced on the ice, but now, the longer I’m near her, the stronger it gets.
It reminds me of the old hunk of brimstone father kept in his trunk, found near a hot spring south of Hampstead Loch.
The amber rock—its surface rough with craggy amber stones—always smelled so acrid, even though the scent faded over the years.
She has been out here for days, likely with no means of cleaning up as I have been afforded.
“Do you recall what happened after you saw the Eastlander?” I sign.
“I came back here and hid in the wood”—she scrubs at her face like its presence bothers her—“and tried not to freeze to death while I thought about what to do. I slept for a while. Then I woke to the s-sound of a horse snorting. I saw what looked like two people and horses crossing the l-lake. I was so s-sure you were an illusion. That the cold had finally gotten to me. But you came closer, and I recognized you and him,” she tilts her head at Alexus, who’s heading toward the horses.
“And, I don’t know, something in my mind…
snapped.” Her eyes shimmer, and her chin trembles.
“Again, I don’t r-really even remember it. You’re sure I attacked him?”
Alexus scoffs and tugs at the blanket draped over his shoulders—his only protection against the wind and snow. He keeps staring out at the ice where his dagger sits, frozen to the lake.
Ignoring him, I nod and caress Hel’s cheek, scooting closer for warmth, hoping to soothe. She’s so jittery, her words and speech so broken.
And that scent…
“You are in such a state. It is no wonder you cannot remember.”
“I think I j-just couldn’t lose anyone else. Not again. I-I’m sorry.” She tosses those last two words over her shoulder at Alexus, and he grunts an acknowledging response.
“I understand.” I squeeze Hel’s hand. “But I am here, and Alexus is fine. We are all okay.”
The twisted part of this situation is that—though I’m so glad she did the right thing—at least the right thing in my eyes, I’m equally as happy that she didn’t kill Alexus.
When I watched them fighting on the ice, the fear that she might hurt him made me just as panicked as when I watched him tighten his arm around her neck.
Hel was so fierce, wilder, and more violent than I’ve ever seen her.
And still, Alexus hesitated.
Hel leans close and briefly shifts her eyes in his direction. “You call him by his name now? Last week, you were stabbing a scarecrow in his honor.” Though she lowers her voice, her question comes out wrapped in her usual husky tone that carries.
Alexus turns a glance in my direction, one brow raised, no doubt wondering how I might reply to this girl who doesn’t know what to think about the fact that I haven’t killed him yet.
Though I didn’t tell her of my plan, my anger toward the two most influential men in the Northlands has never been a secret.
There was certainly no hiding my animosity when she told me to pretend that scarecrow was him.
“He was the only other person who survived,” I sign. “Or so I believed. I needed him to bring me to Winterhold. To find Nephele.”
It dawns on me that Hel probably doesn’t know anything about what’s happening between the Eastland Territories and the Frost King, and I’ll explain, but not right now.
Right now, the weather is worsening. The wind picks up, whipping us with bitter lashes and sleet.
My hands tingle like phantom limbs, and my lips are so numb it’s like they’re no longer on my face.
Clutching the blanket with one hand, Alexus guides the horses nearer with the other. The animals tug against the reins, uneasy. My calming spell is fading.
“We can’t stay here any longer,” Alexus says. His face is slightly windburned, his lips a paler shade than their usual red. “We’ll start losing fingers and toes if we don’t find shelter.”
Hel snaps her head around. She drags a hand along her thigh as though reaching for a sword that isn’t there.
“There is no shelter,” she says, her voice deepening. “I’ve been beyond here.”
I look at Hel, incredulous. She isn’t totally innocent, but for the most part, she’s obedient.
The most defiant things she’s ever done have been her steady practice of sword-swinging in the thicket by the stream and sneaking off from occasional suppers to let Emmitt rattle her world in his father’s hayloft.
To speak to the Witch Collector in such a manner—a man considered the right hand of the continent’s immortal king—is not like her.
It’s like me, but not her.
Tuck blows a burst of air through her nose, and a twitch ripples down her back. Mannus shakes his head and steps ahead of the mare like a guardian.
Something isn’t right. There’s an odd tension in the air. Even the horses sense it.
Alexus’s nostrils flare as he steadies the gelding and mare. “Would you rather sit here and freeze?” he asks Hel. “Or move and live?”
Her gaze slides in my direction, and I detect a war brewing behind her eyes when there isn’t an occasion for such conflict. Her dark irises lighten, reflecting the falling snow.
“We should go,” I tell her.
An odd shadow passes over her face, and an irritated huff trips off her lips.
She stands abruptly, stiff, her shoulders squared hard, her chin lifted.
Even the simple act of being is different from her norm, lacking the elegant grace of a gifted swordswoman that accompanies Hel’s every waking minute.
She stabs her arms through the gambeson’s sleeves and fastens the toggles from neck to waist with the steadiest of hands. She acts like she’s not cold anymore. Not in the least.
Face hard, she snatches Tuck’s reins from Alexus and swings a long leg up and over the horse. “Raina rides with me.”
Another tremble quivers through Tuck from mane to tail, the whites of her eyes visible. Alexus’s gaze shifts, meeting mine in question.
His face seems to say, Is everything all right here?
I’m honestly unsure, but also convinced that Hel is just a young, sheltered woman experiencing trauma amid absolute calamity. I understand that far better than I want to, so I craft another calming spell for the horses and take my friend’s offered hand.
As we leave the lake, I think of Nephele and pray to Loria that she’s safe.
And that she’s watching over us.