Chapter 44
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
I’m snowed in.
Godsdamn snowed in.
Buried alive, more like. The second the realization hits, something sharp spikes in my chest. I slam my boot into the narrow cave entrance, now a solid wall of packed snow and ice. It doesn’t budge, but pain ricochets up my leg. I curse through gritted teeth.
Fine .
I whirl back toward my things, throw my pack over my shoulder, snatch my scythe from its holster, and march straight to the blockade like it personally offended me. You know what? It has.
I swing. The blade bites into the ice with a satisfying crack.
Again. I will reach the summit. I will climb this gods-cursed peak even if I have to carve a staircase with my bare hands. Because I’m not fucking finished .
Again. A shard of ice fractures away.
Again. A sliver of daylight appears, barely bigger than a coin.
Again. The hole grows wider. My hands are numb, breath heavy, muscles screaming—but I don’t stop.
Again. Cracks bloom like veins across the ice.
I throw my body against it, shoulder-first, and the wall shatters. Snow and ice burst outward as I tumble through the opening. I inhale a lungful of frigid air—triumphant—only for something to slap me across the face with a gust of snow.
It smacks into my eyes, nose, mouth. I choke, cough, spit. My vision blurs.
Still half-blind, I swing my scythe in a wide, defensive arc, hook down. Just in case. Maybe it’s a startled bird. Or a snow hare. Or some skittish mountain goat bolting from the noise.
But as I blink the snow from my lashes, my grip tightens—and then slackens completely, until I drop my scythe to the ground. It clatters on the ice.
It’s not a goat.
There’s a faravar shaking off the snow I dumped on her, prancing light-footed across the frozen river stretched beneath our feet.
The world tilts.
My heart slams against my ribs. The edges of my vision blur. A sound rushes into my ears—not words, but something older. Deeper. Truer. I take an unthinking step toward her, drawn by an invisible tether.
She tilts her head, eyes like polished obsidian catching the light. And in those bottomless depths—I see myself. A current of recognition sweeps through me, and a thread—invisible until this moment—pulls taught, binding us.
Her coat shimmers. It’s an otherworldly white, even more pristine than the freshly fallen snow that covers the canyon floor.
She spreads her wings and flutters them, sending a flurry of snow arcing through the air, and it cascades over me, covering my hair and my newly dried coat in a smattering of snow.
She whinnies, and the sound is musical and light.
She’s laughing, I realize with a start, her light amusement filling the hard, bitter spaces in my heart.
I smile, the weight of the world falling away.
The stars could shatter above us, the earth could crumble below, and I’m not sure I would even notice.
I bend down and pick up a fistful of snow, packing it together in a perfect snowball, and lob it right for her.
She prances easily away and the snowball misses, smashing against the canyon wall behind her.
But she’s still laughing as she dances around with playful grace, and her hooves barely touch the ground as she moves.
Her wings flutter lightly, catching the morning sunlight and reflecting a subtle opalescence, like a pearl.
Her mane and tail are like silver thread, and wave wildly in the wind as she moves.
Her eyes spark with intelligence and mischief.
“Hello, gorgeous.” I step forward, still in complete awe.
She throws her mane back and prances forward, as excited about this meeting as I am.
I reach for her as she nudges her nose against my hand.
One more step from each of us and we’re touching, bodies pressed together.
Every other sound fades away, replaced by the shared rhythm of our heartbeats.
I press my lips to her smooth, soft coat and am overwhelmed with something ethereal and sweet.
She presses her nostrils into my hair, and runs her long muzzle up and down, rubbing her cheek against mine.
I glide my hands up and down her neck, patting and petting her.
Despite her stunning beauty, she’s very clearly a beast of war like the other faravars I’ve encountered.
Every inch of her body radiates power. She has strong, sinewy legs and a proud, arched neck.
Her wings span the full width of the chasm.
Each movement radiates a fierce elegance—hooves striking the ice with a clang like a blacksmith's hammer, wings stirring the air with the whispered promise of a storm to come.
At first glance, she looks almost delicate with her silken coat.
But beneath that sleek surface lies a strength that does not bend.
She’s smaller than the male faravars I’ve seen, but she’s no less intimidating for it. In fact, there are some subtle differences that might make her more menacing. I slide my fingers down the front edge of one wing, and a trickle of blood blossoms like I ran them down a freshly honed sword.
“Magnificent.”
She tosses her voluminous mane, knowing exactly how splendid she is and making sure I do, too. Pride rolls off her in waves, and I can’t help but grin.
I keep walking around her, admiring her, reverently sliding my hands down her body as I go. The feathers on the backside of her wing are no less deadly—they’re sharp, too, their ends pointed like daggers. I whistle through my teeth, low and impressed.
“Ah. Beautiful and lethal.”
She preens. The same white feathers are interspersed through her tail, too, though these look less sharp. Soft, even. Almost like they’re there for decoration. She flicks her tail, and I run my fingers through the silvery strands.
“Aren’t you gorgeous, mmm?”
There’s no doubt—she’s a she. And though I’ve never heard of a female faravar before, it feels right. There’s never been a female Altor, either.
“Looks like it’s up to us to keep things interesting, huh?" I say, and she lets out a snort, tosses her head, and whinnies, like she’s telling me she’s already planned out our dramatic entrance.
Her emotions rush into me—bright and undeniable. A flicker of joy. A flash of playfulness. But underneath that … something steadier. Something earned . Courage. She stares at me with eyes that are ancient and bright. There’s so much there. She knows things, feels things I might never comprehend.
I push at the edges of my mind, searching for her. Inviting her in. I try to imagine her voice, to shape it out of memory and magic and bond. I focus. I will her in.
But there’s nothing.
No answering voice. No echo of thought.
I don’t even know her name.
For now, all I have are the things she feels. And though they’re rich and real and glorious—they’re not enough.
“I’m Leina Hav—” I stop. “I’m Leina of Stormriven.”
She spreads her wings out, and the wind whistling through the canyon picks her up, her hooves coming up off the ground. She whinnies again, her excitement a catching thing. She wants to fly.
Her excitement becomes my own, and adrenaline shoots through my veins.
Still, wariness creeps in. I have no idea what I’m doing.
With a flourish, she extends her wing again, and light catches on her feathers, scattering brilliant colors across the snow and ice. Her emotions pulse into me—eager, insistent. Let’s go.
“Alright,” I mutter.
I cinch my scythe tightly to my back and secure my pack. My hands won’t stop trembling. I pretend it’s from the cold.
I take a breath and step toward her, slower this time. Stalling.
She’s smaller than Einarr, but she’s still huge.
She’s more than twice my height from her hooves to head.
I try to spread my hands out on her back, bracing against her as I pull myself up, but I can’t quite get the leverage to jump.
Instead, I wrap a hand in her mane and give a testing little tug, making sure I’m not hurting her.
She blows air through her nostrils, and I swear she rolls her eyes at me. I fist my hand in her mane and use it to swing myself up, landing on her back with far less grace than I would like, pitching forward so hard I slam my head into her neck and knock the wind from my lungs.
But she doesn’t notice, because she’s already sprinting through the little canyon, rushing into the wind.
I wrap my arms around her neck with a little shriek and dig my knees into her body to stay upright, and then we’re gliding up and over Elandors Veil.
The temple at the base of the mountain looks puny and insignificant from here.
Just yesterday, I’d never seen anything more impressive.
But this … Nothing is more perfect than this.
Her powerful body is rippling beneath mine. Her feathers rustle with the sound of a thousand winds, and each beat of her wings sends a vibration through my body. I’m sitting on top of a living storm. As we glide through the air, my fear turns to awe and then settles into something like coming home.
This must be how it feels to be a god.
I let her set our course, trusting her instincts far more than my own.
The horizon stretches out endlessly. We bank hard.
The horizon spins. My arms are shaking, fingers dug deep into her mane as she carves through the air like a blade.
I can feel her reading the currents, adjusting pitch and angle with fluid, instinctive grace.
We’re flying higher and higher still, but we’re not headed in the direction of the Synod. I lean closer to her ears, shouting to be heard over the wind and the furious beat of her wings.
“We need to go that way,” I say, pointing my finger toward the northwest. She ignores me, and continues along her distinctly northeast heading.
I think about pushing, about nudging her in the right direction.
But today is for her. Tomorrow, we’ll fly back to the Synod. To politics and subterfuge; to training and war; to expectations and others.
But not today.