Chapter Nineteen
Calista
When I woke to the thin sunlight a measly two hours later, cold air pebbled my flesh.
I’d dreamt of warmth, of being wrapped in fur so thick and alive, it pulsed with life.
Now that heat was gone. The little fire was a quiet bed of ash, and the cave mouth was a dark tunnel full of wind.
I immediately reached for him, scanning the cave for my guard.
Everest stood where the stone met the world, watching the fields below like they belonged to him.
For a second, I’d thought he was gone and the fear hit low in a place I didn’t expect. Stop that. My inner voice sounded a lot like Aunt Mara. I couldn’t become too reliant on this male. His loyalty was to the king and the crown, after all.
“It’s time to move, little wolf.” Everest didn’t turn to look at me as he spoke, only kept his gaze on the wide gray. With a huff, I rose and reached for my crescent blades. Finally turning at my approach, he handed me a warmed strip of cloth for my neck, heat stolen from the ash.
“Thank you,” I muttered, tying it off around my throat.
He nodded toward a flat slate he had set on a knee-high rock. A crude map covered it, lines cut with the edge of a knife. The coast curled like a hooked finger. He had shaded marsh in pale smears, dotted rivers with quick cuts, and pressed an X where we hid.
I eyed the crude design, confused. “Why not use the map we have?”
“I enjoy sketching. There’s something about the simple task that I find grounding.
” He pointed at the drawing. “I marked where we began at the Razor Shoal. If we cross here” –-he tapped the chalked line of a river mouth— “we can angle to that ridge. Once we hit the spine of it, the fields shoulder north. Stormhallow placed old marker posts to the Lupherium that we can follow. They look like split trees. Two more days north and then the ground starts to rise toward Frostcrag.”
“Two days if nothing tries to eat us.” My thoughts flicked back in time to my father’s warnings about the beasts in the north.
Before I could voice my fears, Everest’s eyes lifted to mine. “We can always feed them your rope if they try.”
I snorted before I could stop myself. “Feed them one of my favorite weapons? Selraya, forbid.”
He chuckled. “Fine. To the ridge first.”
We left the cave just as the sky let the color in.
The fields wore frost like a thin veil, and dry grass hissed against our boots.
My cloak caught on seedheads and made small sounds that seemed too loud in the hush.
Everest walked half a pace behind and to my left, shadowing without smothering.
When the wind shifted, I caught his scent again.
Cedar and cold air. It was a quieter thing than Savage’s smoke and pine.
A part of me was surprised that I knew that.
We moved steadily for an hour with little conversation between us. When the ground turned toward the old riverbed, Everest raised a hand and crouched. A faint line of prints crossed the gravel.
“Vessa of Tidebreak,” he whispered. Then he pointed to the ground. “Note the sand left in the heel and the salt rub on the edge.”
I hadn’t noticed that at all. “You can smell all that?”
“No, I can see it.” He grinned. “But the scent helps too.”
Damned heightened Wolvryn senses.
I looked again and still saw only rocks. “Useful eyes for a guard.”
“And you have useful feet.” He pointed to my tracks, then to the way I had cut my steps to fit the stone. “You read the lay of the land like it’s written in ink.”
“Training with rope teaches balance.” I shrugged. “And hunger teaches the rest.”
He stood, and we continued the hike. He was quiet for about ten steps before turning to me. “Tell me a true thing.”
“What kind of a game is that?”
“A fair one. You give one and I give one.”
“I don’t know…”
“It’ll make the monotonous time pass more quickly.” He shrugged. “Up to you. If you prefer, we can walk in silence.”
I thought about it, about my life at home in Hollowcrest. My sister was the first face I saw.
So I gave him the smallest truth that still counted.
“When I was ten, I strung a rope from our roof to the dock post and used it to cross during a storm. My sister Suri cried until she lost her voice because she thought I would fall into the sea and die.”
“Did you? Fall not die, of course.”
“Almost.” I nearly smiled at the memory. “But I didn’t. And I caught the hare that had wandered out onto the docks in the chaos of the tempest. It made a hearty meal.”
He was quiet for a minute, as if he were truly taking in my words. “Then my turn,” he finally murmured. “I wanted to be an artisan when I was young. To draw, to work leather, to carve. It felt clean to make something that didn’t break another thing to be born.”
I looked at him for that. The armor. The blade. The size of him. “What changed?”
“The world,” he replied simply. “Now, your turn.”
If we were going to play this game, I would use it to get the answers I desperately needed.
“I found an injured wolf cub a little over a year ago. I nursed him back to health and then let a rogue hunter take him.” My fingers instinctively went to the little figurine beneath my tunic, then my thoughts turned to the departure from Frostcrag and the wolf I’d seen with the king.
Everest’s eyes narrowed, a flash of something unreadable behind that dark gaze. “Why did you give him up?”
“He didn’t belong to me, a wolfless outcast on a barren isle.
The Wolvryn promised to find his family and if he couldn’t, he vowed to keep him safe.
” I tried to shrug it off, but the old ache flared anyway, sharp as it had been the day I watched Frost leave with that stranger.
Or was it Savage all along? I wasn’t certain I was ready to accept the truth of that.
“That was very selfless of you.”
I grunted. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about a silver wolf in the king’s kennels, would you?” I had to try once more.
“As I said before, there are many wolves in that kennel.” Looking away for an instant, toward the distant lands across the sea, he murmured, “My turn again. Sometimes I wish I would have been born a Light Fae or a Spellbinder even.”
I hadn’t expected that. Though all the Fae races of Crescentia were blessed with gifts from the gods, the king’s guard seemed very content in his Wolvryn skin.
“Why not an Immortalis then?” I smirked.
His lips puckered. “I find the idea of living forever and drinking blood distasteful.”
“Fair enough.” I paused for a moment. “Spellbinder would be my choice. The goddess Elysira seems much more forgiving than Selraya. And the ability to wield magic? Much more useful than wielding a wild beast.”
A chuckle, trapped behind the forged iron.
“Do you enjoy wearing a mask?” The question bubbled free.
“Sometimes. When I don it, I am the Black Wolf. I’m the King’s phantom, his blade and his shadow, the second in command of his warriors. If I wasn’t, do you believe he would have chosen me to guard his most valued possession?”
I will choose my most trusted guard to protect my most valuable possession. Savage’s words echoed through my mind, his deep tambor a whisper of a memory. My fingers dove into my pocket, thumbing the smooth metal of the Wolvryn sigil clasp.
“Not a possession,” I snapped.
“My apologies.” He bowed his head. “I misspoke.” His scrutiny suddenly felt too heavy.
“Also, I hate needles, sewing ones,” I blurted as a distraction from that piercing gaze. “And I would rather fight a sea beast before I darn a sock.”
“Noted.” The corner of his mouth went soft. “No sewing for the future queen.” Then he lifted a broad shoulder. “I suppose I can mend your cloak if it tears.”
“You?” I choked on a laugh. Moons curses, was that my guard being charming? It was flirting and not flirting in the same breath. I let the warmth it lit in my chest drift away before I forced it to cool. The air had suddenly gone colder, and the light took on that dull weight the snow brings.
Slowly, the ridge lifted us above the flats.
We climbed until the wind wanted our bones.
Then suddenly when I was certain I couldn’t take another step, the view opened like a door.
Ahead, the fields were a silver sheet of frost, and beyond them a darker band of trees marked the next rise.
North, the sky wore a faint smear of white where snow lived year-round.
“You really know these lands,” I huffed out, breathing hard.
“Maps are a poor second to boots and an iron will.” Then he shrugged as he stared out into the wilderness. “It still helps to sketch though.”
“Do you draw more than maps?”
His mouth tilted. “Sometimes.” He let my question sit for a while. “You read people well.”
“I read what they try to hide.” I kept my eyes on the far trees. “It’s easier than reading what they say out loud.”
His expression turned unreadable. “What do I hide?”
“I’m not sure yet, but I plan to find out.”
The hint of a smile, but more of a challenge.
I defaulted into our game of truths once more because there was still so much I needed to learn. “When you’re not charged with keeping me breathing, are you responsible for the king’s safety?”
A sharp, throaty laugh rang out between us. “No one is responsible for the king’s safety but the king.”
“I suppose I could see that.” Savage certainly didn’t seem like the type who would need a champion. He was strong enough to fight his own battles, and from everything I’d seen and heard, win.
“Anything else you’ve observed about me?”
“You pretend not to notice when I am about to fall on my face.”
He huffed. “Oh, I notice.”
With a grin I couldn’t hide, I marched on, quickening my pace so that I moved a few paces in front of my guardian.
We crossed a ribbon of snow that had not quite melted, leaving the land slick.
I teetered a step and Everest reached out to steady my elbow without ever looking at my arm or me, then let go as soon as I had my feet.