Chapter 21
When I wake, it’s only because I hear a rat in the root cellar.
After opening my eyes, it takes a moment to gather my bearings. I’m not in the cottage, and that sound is no rat. There’s no root cellar anymore, either. I’m in a dark, snowy world where time is nothing and survival is everything.
I’m also not in my bed with Mother. I’m on the chilly ground, folded up inside the Witch Collector’s strong arms, covered by his blanket.
My head is nestled firmly against his muscled chest, my arms tight around his waist. Even our legs found their way to one another in the night, weaved like we’ve slept together for years.
I was already still—half asleep—but I become even more motionless, locking down every muscle, even stilling my breath, like I can shrink from this moment without him noticing.
“Good morning, Bloodgood.” That deep voice crawls over me, through me, and something big and firm presses against my stomach.
Oh, my gods. I slam my eyes shut and squeeze my eyelids tight. One of Alexus’s laughs—the low, deep kind that rumbles—radiates into me, sending a strange sensation straight to my stomach, making it flip.
“Breathe, Raina. It’s all right. The world isn’t going to crumble because you touched me.
A lot, I might add, but still.” Unexpectedly, he dips his head, his beard and lips tickling my ear.
“Also, you’re very warm, and I rather enjoyed your company if that’s not obvious, but now that you’re awake, could you please disentangle your legs from mine?
If I don’t piss, we’re both going to be in trouble. ”
My face has never burned as severely as it burns right now.
Mortified, I pull away and sit up, scrubbing my cheeks, only to meet Hel’s icy stare from across our shelter. She pokes at the ashes with a stick, jostling what’s left of the kindling. The sweet smell of woodsmoke lingers in the air, but it doesn’t mask the sulfuric aroma wafting off her.
Bent over to protect his head from the overhang, Alexus wraps the blanket around my shoulders, giving me the last remnants of our heat.
“What?” I sign to Hel once his back is turned and he’s stalking into the snow toward the forest. “You abandoned me.”
She raises a brow, not unlike Hel, but her lack of words is startling. She’s usually filled with witty comebacks or snide remarks, yet there’s nothing but silence between us.
Alexus can’t go far—to the edge of the dying firelight is all. The snow is deep beyond our shelter, and though it’s lighter than when we fell asleep, it’s still dark, like late dusk.
Scrubbing my neck, I look his way, noticing the loosening of his trousers from behind.
“He is your enemy.”
I snap my head around, caught in my voyeurism, but also surprised by Hel’s words and the sound of her voice.
“I am fully aware who he is,” I reply.
Her dark eyebrow arches higher, and her nostrils flare. “Are you?”
Alexus returns and checks the oil lamp. “I’m not sure how long we slept,” he says. “Feels like forever. We should get back on the path while it’s not pitch dark out. Take advantage of the light and cover some ground.”
He creeps to the rear of the overhang where rock meets rock.
Clusters of grass have broken through the stones there, brown and dead.
He jerks them free of their roots and heads to feed the horses.
When he returns, he has the flask, an apple, some walnuts, and half the loaf of stale bread.
Carefully, he nestles the bread and apple on a rock in the embers to warm.
“The apples are mush, and the skins of water are frozen solid, but this”—he shakes the flask—“should be fine.”
In a short time, we’re enjoying our first food in days. Toasted bread with warmed apple mush and roasted walnuts. It isn’t a lot, but it’s enough to ease the pain cramping my stomach.
I don’t want to leave the heat. In truth, I’d like nothing more than to tend the fire until it’s roaring, forget about Hel’s odd behavior, and curl back up against Alexus.
I cannot believe I’m thinking such a thing, but I’m cold and hungry, tired of not having a roof over my head or stew in my belly or a bed under my back.
I miss everything about the cottage and the vale.
Everything.
I say nothing, and soon we’re struggling through deep snow, the horses making every effort to travel back the way we came. I ride with Hel, and Alexus leads the way.
Not far from camp, it becomes evident what stamped down the snow enough to reveal the path.
It wasn’t Nephele.
Alexus stops and dismounts. About a dozen Eastlanders and their horses lie half-buried in the snow, scattered beneath the trees.
We couldn’t see them before, but now, with more light, they’re impossible to miss.
They must’ve gotten lost, or maybe they were wet from the lake and froze to death here.
They look like statues, all shades of black, gray, and white, leaving yet another image of death in my mind.
They could be us. Might still be us, eventually.
Alexus digs around in the snow, searching for weapons. My stomach turns as stains of blood and torn flesh become visible.
He glances up. “Look away. White wolves have been here.”
I bury my face in the hood of his cloak and stare at the ground while he continues digging, until he comes within sight. He’s freed a curved knife and stuffs it in his boot, replacing the dagger he lost on the lake.
We leave then, making it to the path faster than I expect. Again, we travel the way Hel says, avoiding the mountains, but after several hours, the snowfall blurs the world once more, and the miserable cold in my bones returns.
We keep going, struggling to see through the blizzard swirling around us.
Alexus stops and tries to light the lamp using flint, steel, and tinder, but he can’t get a spark to catch with such strong wind.
Eventually, using the blanket to shield the wind and snow, the lamp lights, giving off soft illumination.
We ride on, but we won’t have that light for long. The lamp has little oil.
Like before, I call out to Nephele from my mind. Tuetha tah, if you can hear me, help us. Bring us through this wood, bring us to Winterhold. Please do not let me die here. I try again, in Old Elikesh, every single word.
Nothing happens, and I find myself fighting back tears.
But my attention snags on a bough hanging over the path. The tree it belongs to is massive and crooked, bent hard to the right, with knotty bark that looks like a face peeking through the snow. I noticed it earlier. It’s the same tree.
I’m not the only one who notices.
“We’re going in circles.” Alexus draws back on Mannus’s reins. “We need to turn around. Head for the fork in the path and take the route toward the mountains. You’ve walked that ground, Hel. Can you lead the way?”
“Why don’t you confer with your witches?” She stops the mare, jerking on the reins too hard, her voice cutting with a razor’s edge. “I can’t know how they manipulate this construct.”
I watch Alexus from beneath my hood as he lifts the lamp to better see Hel. His chilly stare lingers on her, but he slides his eyes my way and speaks to me alone.
“We aren’t continuing like this.” He raises his voice over the whistling wind. “I’ve been more than patient with our guide, but this stops now. Are you with me or not?”
Alexus Thibault is still such a stranger, but I know beyond doubt that what he didn’t say is that if I’m not with him, I’m on my own. He’s already proven that wrong once, much as he probably despises it, because I’m sure I’m still slowing him down. But the ultimatum has been delivered regardless.
Before I can take my hands from Hel’s waist to reply, she answers for me.
“Of course, she’s not with you. She’s with me. And we’re not going into those mountains, Witch Collector.”
I can’t pinpoint what it is that strikes me so wrong—her words, obviously, and her tone. But there are so many other warning bells ringing when I consider the last several hours with Hel as a whole.
I finally let go of my friend and swing down from the horse. My boots sink into the snow. An expression of irritated surprise takes over Hel’s face. Her lip curls back on one side, her nostrils go wide, and the skin around her eyes draws tight.
“Get back on this horse, girl.” Her words strain around clenched teeth, words that Hel would never speak to me.
Tuck snorts and jerks her head, stamping in the thick snow. But that isn’t what roots my feet on that horrible, wintry path. It isn’t even Hel’s eyes, clouded by a white haze that moves and slithers, swallowing her pupils.
It’s the scarlet-tinted shadows that leak from her body.
Whorls of foul darkness suddenly seep from her mouth and nose and radiate from her skin. Save for the stench, it reminds me of the Prince of the East.
I take a step away, and another, stopping only when something metal crashes behind me, followed by the thud of boots striking snow.
A nervous glance reveals the still-burning oil lamp on the ground and Alexus standing steady behind me.
He slips his hand across my hips to my waist and draws me close while the ring of his sword hisses through the night. “Leave the girl’s body now, and return to the Shadow World you came from, wraith.”
My heart stutters. It can’t be. Wraiths are just scary stories passed around bonfires in the summertime. There are no gods left to walk the Shadow World to free such an abomination.
Except…maybe a god wasn’t needed this time. Maybe the guilty party is the one man made of shadow himself.
The thing inside Hel tosses her head back and laughs, the sound an ear-splitting shriek. “My prince wouldn’t be very pleased to find that I disobeyed him.”
No. I shake my head. It can’t be.
The shadow wraith dismounts Hel’s body in that same awkward, stiff manner.
It comes ever closer, smiling, but then stops and removes the gambeson, tossing it aside.
Like before, it slides Hel’s hand along her thigh, but this time, it drags Hel’s destroyed dress up a sleek, dark leg until the buckle of one of Finn’s dagger belts comes into view.
Fast as a heartbeat, the wraith unsheathes a weapon.
A long moment passes as I grasp what I’m seeing, all wrapped up in shadows, the reason the waters showed me so little back at the stream.
The pit of my stomach bottoms out because, according to this demon, the Prince of the East is indeed not dead.
And his shadow wraith holds my father’s knife.