Chapter 23
Iride between Alexus’s legs, nestled against him, the God Knife hidden in my boot. When Alexus left to gather the horses, I spotted the knife in the upturned earth near Hel’s cage. It’s so warm now, where it was bitterly cold for so long.
Though I sense that change in the weapon, and it feels more alive, I find myself far less sure if the God Knife is as powerful as Father always said or if Mother was the one who was right. Because I slid that blade into the face of the Prince of the East, and even still, he lives.
Not for long, though. Somehow, someway, I’m going to get out of this construct, and God Knife or no God Knife, I’m going to destroy him.
It’s been so long since we left Hel. Four days at least. Maybe more. My hands grew too cold to hold the reins shortly after we turned for the mountains, and my hands are my lifeline.
And so here I am, huddled against a man I thought I hated, letting him hold me tight, hour after frigid hour, easing me with the curve of his body, breathing his warmth into my neck.
Any discomfort at being so near him has vanished.
The God Knife hides a few feet from my hand, but I can’t imagine using it to harm Alexus now.
We aren’t anything like strangers anymore, and certainly nothing like enemies.
Compassionate like friends. Tender like lovers.
I’m learning the shape of his body. How he sleeps.
The sound of his breathing. And I’m thankful for all of it—the gentle way he runs his hands along my thighs to build heat inside me, the way he clasps my hands and holds them against his chest when they tremble, how he nuzzles his lips into the crook of my neck when he needs to warm them as we ride.
It doesn’t bother me. Instead, it feels oddly right, like we somehow fit together in every way.
And that confuses me to the point that I have to stop thinking about it.
The gambeson isn’t large enough to fold around both of us entirely and provides little comfort as we fight to remain awake. Poor Tuck follows behind, tied off and covered in the blanket from Littledenn.
Our lamp is broken, but the sky provides more light than before.
It’s an odd color now, reminding me of the soft pink shade of my mother’s roses, like a morning sunrise, if a sunrise sky never changed.
We can’t know how many Eastlanders might be waiting in the surrounding forest or what animals might be waiting to spring, so the light is a blessing.
Every so often, we stop to rest for a few hours, usually curled together against a tree while I try to summon fire threads and fail. Then we get back to the path and trudge onward.
We haven’t talked about what happened with Hel.
Whatever the wraith did to Alexus, it rattled him.
He rode in a daze for several hours after, his mind in another world.
But when my grief for my friend became too much, he shook off his own unease and held me, wiped my tears, and whispered kindness into my ears as another cresting wave arrived.
As we travel, Alexus fills the time by telling me stories about distant lands that I’m sure must be fiction, and he speaks to me in Elikesh, reciting what sounds like poems that are so beautiful they easily lull me to sleep.
Another few times, we pause our riding to move our legs and nibble on what we can from the pack.
The walnuts have been gone for days, and the cold has ruined the apples, though we still feed the mush and skins to the horses.
We’ve already drained the flask, leaving us longing for the drink’s warmth in the pits of our bellies.
We’re wearing down fast. We need real sustenance and sleep and fire, or this construct could become our final resting place.
When we set to riding again, I beg Nephele to send aid soon, to find some enchantment that will weave everything we need into this godsforsaken construct.
The snow and blistering winds have all but stopped, and Alexus swears the cold has relented, but we’re both still struggling.
My eyes keep closing of their own volition, an awful fate, because when my eyes are closed, I see all the things that led me to this moment, beginning with the God Knife being delivered to our cottage door.
After that, I see my scheming and thieving, my hidden preparations, and the little white lie I told my mother the morning of Collecting Day.
It only gets worse from there.
I’m also met with the devastating truth of our circumstances when I close my eyes. Three times since we left Hel in the wood, the Prince of the East has found me. He stares at me from my dreams like a figment, but I know he’s here, very much alive, and I know he’s watching.
I just don’t know how, and I don’t know why.
Two thoughts swirl in my mind. Keeper. Why had he called me that on the green?
The word repeats in the back of my brain, but it holds no meaning.
The other thought takes me back to the stream.
Alexus said a rumor reached Winterhold that the Prince of the East meant to break King Regner’s treaty and invade the Northlands, all because he wants the Frost King.
At the time, I couldn’t have cared less what he meant to do with the king, but now, I understand that the Prince of the East has a larger mission.
And I need to know exactly what it is.
We stop once more, and this time, huddled under a tree, I can’t sleep, even though Alexus holds me close, sharing his heat.
I warm my hands between our bodies until I can manage a few sentences.
It’s the same question I asked before I had to leave Hel, but one I’ve avoided ever since, for fear of conjuring the enemy. But I can’t avoid it anymore.
“Why is the prince doing this? What does he want with the king? A real answer this time.”
Alexus scrubs his frosted brows. “Those are two different questions. I truly can’t say that I know why he’s doing this.
I don’t know his ultimate goal, either, only that the wraith said Tiressia will pray to him.
I had ideas about how he might plan to succeed at that, but the longer I’m in this construct, the less certain I am about anything I thought I knew.
Like Hel. Whether he used her to slow us down or stop us altogether, I’m uncertain.
The wraith wanted to kill me, not you, and I’m not sure what to make of that.
Or what the prince intends to do with you once he has you.
” He switches to signing. “Unless he knows what you are.”
I swallow hard, and my pulse pounds.
“Do you think he knows?” Alexus signs. “Did he see your witch’s marks?”
I shake my head in earnest, but then I replay every second of our fight on the green.
I don’t recall the prince ever looking at my marks once they became visible.
My hands, neck, and chest markings were uncovered, but at least one hand—the one he focused on—was drenched in his blood.
As for my neck and chest, my hair is long and thick. Perhaps he simply didn’t see.
My mind reels. What if the prince does know? When I saw him while riding with Hel, he said Hello, Keeper. I see you. I’d felt a sense of being watched—being followed—but nothing had been there.
Or had it?
A dark crow flies from tree to tree along the road’s edge, and its eyes fix on me. I curl closer against Alexus and burrow deeper inside his dark cloak, thankful for the protection.
What if those are the eyes I’ve felt? What if his crows saw me healing Alexus? Hel? Maybe he sensed me healing Hel through his wraith.
Gods. What if I end up with the prince after all? His personal healer and seer?
While my thoughts melt into sheer panic, Alexus falls asleep, his body softening around mine. So much for my question about the king. I’m not sure I can cope with more information right now anyway.
Another crow flutters overhead, keeping its eyes on me—for its prince, I’m certain. I can’t prevent the little pricks from spying, but at least I know to look for them now.
This time, when my eyes close and the prince appears, there’s a feeling that he’s searching for something more than me.
“What in Thamaos’s name are you?” he whispers, reaching out across time and space to touch my face, watching me from gods’ know where, even as I rest in Alexus’s arms.
What am I? I send the message from my mind. What the fuck are you?
Opening my eyes, I shiver from the memory of his closeness. It felt like he was an inch from my face, the warmth of his fingertips lingering like a real touch. Did he ask what I am because he heard Alexus earlier?
The prince’s ability to project himself into my consciousness, and the fact that he can disappear on a whim, make me wonder if he’s inside this construct at all. I can’t imagine why he would stay here if he can vanish into nothingness, unlike we mere mortals who haven’t harnessed darkness itself.
Then again, if he’s so skilled in traveling through this world like the wind, why invade the vale at all?
Why not go straight to Winterhold for the man he wants and whisk him away on a red cloud of death?
Why come to me like this, like a ghost? Why can he not appear right here on this very path in all his shadow-infested glory?
Is it because he’s truly a coward? Is he scared that I might do more than wound him this time?
Coward. I think the word, my body temperature rising from the heat of irritation and low-boiling rage. Coward, I repeat, and push the slur as hard as I can into the ether, praying he hears and that I make him angry enough to meet me face-to-face.
The moment shatters as something across the path catches my eye: indigo light, a braided web of magick floating in the air in a thin clearing beyond the path’s edge, nearly hidden by trees.
I close my eyes, worried I’m imagining things. But when I open them, the magick is still there. I suck in an excited breath, smack Alexus’s chest, and point into the wood. He jolts awake, his arms tightening around me.
“What is it?” He reaches for his sword.
I point again, and this time, he sees it. Feels it, just like me.
Nephele.
We’re on our feet faster than we’ve moved in days, dusting off the snow, leading both horses toward the clearing—toward the magick. I’m so stiff, but I move with swift steps, too swift, too excited, especially for a woman with a knife that can supposedly kill anyone shoved inside her boot.
I can’t help it—my heart races with knowing. I can feel my sister, almost like she might be standing in that clearing waiting for me when I get there. Only she isn’t.
What is there still makes me smile.
Under the glimmering blue strands of inserted magick, there’s kindling.
Dry kindling. It sits in a pile in the middle of a grassy circle, like a spring meadow has been cut out of a tapestry and placed inside this snow-covered magickal world built by witches from miles and miles away.
There are two large logs for sitting and resting, and moonberry bushes grow all around.
Their pale blue fruit is ripe for picking, and the roots hold sweetwater we can gorge on. Better still, one of the prince’s crows—a massive thing—sits on a low-limbed tree, watching me steadily.
The sigh of relief that leaves Alexus is more like a groan of ecstasy, and I can’t help but look at him and grin. We’re going to rest, fill our bellies and warm our bones, and then I’m going to break my way out of this construct so I can find the Prince of the East and end this.
I walk toward Nephele’s skillful refuge and stop next to the crow. Boldly, I meet its gaze and wait until I feel its master rouse behind those beady eyes, curious as always.
When I grab the annoying little soulless scout, neither one of them expects it. Before I snap its neck—with my bare hands, just like I said I would—I push a message from my mind and send it straight to the shadow prince, wherever that bastard son of a demon may be.
Thanks for dinner, you maggot. I’m coming for you.
His voice reaches me on the edge of a laugh. Best of luck, Keeper. I’ll be waiting.