Chapter 71
The heavy mist churns with the howling wind that bites to the bone, dousing the cold world in ominous tones as I stumble through knee-deep snow, using my arm to shield my eyes.
Every indent I leave is smudged with blood from my torn-up feet, my hollow gut growling so loud I’m certain the chattering beasts in the distance will hear it. Will chase.
Just like everything else that’s probably chasing.
I try not to think about that. Tighten my trembling fist around the key I killed for, the guard’s blood still on my ripped tunic and wedged beneath my jagged fingernails. Still streaked through my frosty hair—stiff like the straw that filled mine and Fallon’s pallet.
A lump clogs my throat. Makes it hard to breathe.
I work to swallow it down. Come to a semi-steep incline I peer up. “This way feels right …”
The sharp rocks cut deep into the soles of my feet as I climb—thighs burning. Lungs aching.
Heart … cold.
The terrain flattens, shielded by a wall of gray rock sheltering a dense pocket of gathered snow. Perfect protection if I dig into it. Create a hole that’ll shield from the wind and anything else that might be sniffing around, hunting.
“I think we’re safe up here …”
I wait for Fallon’s response. When her words don’t come, I spin, searching the mist.
The rocky cliff I just scaled.
“FALLON!” My voice blasts, but it’s nothing compared to the heaving thump of my heart, pounding so hard I think it might burst.
“I’m right here, silly.”
A slight shadow emerges from the pale gloom, scaling the incline in slow but steady motions.
My legs give way.
I fall to my knees, gulping breath as Fallon clambers toward me, pushing back the hood of her cloak once she finally reaches the top. Revealing all that beautiful golden hair, like a tousled shroud around her shoulders.
Her green eyes shine in the low light despite the obvious exhaustion on her sickly face. In the darkness beneath her eyes, and in her knobby legs peeking out past the heavy black cloak I draped her in, stolen from the guard whose blood I’m mostly dressed with.
“Are you okay?” she asks, speaking past cracked, pallid lips. She lifts her hand and cups my cheek, and I almost buckle beneath her touch—much colder than I remember it being.
“I thought I’d lost you …”
She drops to my height, brings her other hand to my face, and brushes a stray tear from my cheek. “Never.”
My lips pinch together. All I can do to stop the terrible tremble rattling my jaw as I scan her smooth, dainty features. Her eyes—big and pretty like the jewels in Arkyn’s trove.
More treasure he’s gathered and stashed in the feasting darkness.
I bring Fallon to my chest and bind her in my arms, hugging her so tight I feel some of the pain beneath my ribs release. Frown when I realize she’s shivering, like she’s breaking apart from within.
“Come.” I lean back and pull the hood over her head, protecting her from a fierce blow that rips straight through my rags. “I’ve got an idea to shelter us from the hurting wind.”
It eases a little, like Clode is listening to me. Something I find strange since she screamed at me not long ago.
I spin, locating a shard of bright-blue ice that must’ve fallen from farther up the mountain. A perfect weapon for me to cut into the snow. “I’ll dig us a—” I pause. “What’s the word? Snow … something.”
Fallon moves around into my line of sight and crouches, smiling. A smile that could mend the world if enough folk saw it. “You know the word.”
Do I?
I squeeze my eyes shut, thinking …
“Hut,” I say. “Snow hut.”
She nods, her smile growing before she takes the piece of ice from my hands. When she pulls it away, I see it’s cut into my palms, leaving deep gouges that are dripping on the snow. “Rest with me for a moment first? You’re exhausted, and you’re bleeding.”
“My hands aren’t too bad …”
“Not your hands.”
She points, and I frown down at the fresh wet bloom of blood just beneath my left breast.
Oh …
“Caught an arrow,” I murmur, letting her ease me down.
“I know. We just need to get something tight around it.”
Good idea.
I press the key between my bare knees, then bite into the hem of my raggy shift, ripping off a long strip I use to bind around my wound beneath Fallon’s watchful gaze. Once I’m done, she lays beside me in the snow, our arms and legs tangled.
Together, we watch the shifting mist like we’re looking at the moons Fallon drew all over the ceiling in our cell …
“These aren’t the clouds you spoke of, are they? The colorful ones?”
“No,” she whispers, hugging me tighter. “It’s a long walk to see them, but they’re exquisite, Raeve. It’ll be worth the journey. I promise.” I’m about to respond when she lifts my crushed fist. “What’s in here?”
I open my fingers, showing her the dull metal key. So complex and jagged. A tool that’s been used many times to take me out of our cell and into Arkyn’s lair to be trained by his fire. To the fighting pits to rip other living beings apart, earning the bloodstone that kept Fallon healthy.
Alive.
“It’s the key that got—” My next words nearly choke me before they finally make it out. “That got us free.” I squeeze my fingers around it again. “When it’s not against my skin, everything’s loud.” Too loud. “You never warned me …”
“It’s not like that for everyone.” She reaches up, touching the blood that leaked from my ears earlier. When I accidentally dropped the key and got screamed at by the wind.
The snow.
Even the ground had something to say, not that I understood any of it.
I frown, threading my thumb through the loop that was connected to the chain of others I took it from.
“Perhaps you should have it made into something to put around your finger,” Fallon suggests, and my frown deepens as I consider.
I like that idea …
“Look, Raeve.”
At the excitement in Fallon’s voice—the argent light now illuminating her beautiful face—I turn my attention to where she’s pointing.
A cleft tears through the clouds, like they’re soft fabric that just got ripped wide, revealing the dark beyond and the distant hint of a small silver dragon bundled high in the sky.
Shielding its face and chest with a wing that looks a bit little for its size, just like Fallon drew.
My eyes sting as I take it in, cheeks filling with a smile so big it hurts. “It’s just as beautiful as you said.”
“Yes …”
I tighten my grip on her hand, squeezing. “I’m sorry it’s not the colorful ones. I know they’re your favorite.”
“Don’t be. That one is … special.” I feel the swell of her cheek against mine, her words soft, but thick, like she’s speaking past something sitting on the back of her tongue. “You should make a wish, Raeve.”
My face scrunches as my eyes squeeze shut, releasing tears that ice against my cheeks. “There’s only one thing I want.”
The words wobble. Broken, shattered things trying to hold themselves together.
I turn, bring my hand up to cup Fallon’s cheek, and tip her head to face me. “I thought I lost you …”
She frowns, searching my eyes as the cold swaddles us. As I run my burnt and blistered fingers through her hair, easing it back behind her ear with the nick in it. A small, rounded notch I’m going to cut into my own just as soon as I find something sharp enough.
“Fallon …”
“Yeah, Raeve?”
My face threatens to crumble again, exhaustion eating my bones.
Deeper.
The very stuff that makes me … me.
“I don’t know if I can do this anymore.”
I just want to close my eyes and not open them again. To let the cold embrace me all the way until I feel nothing else.
“I’m so tired.”
Fallon pulls me close, planting a kiss between my brows, her next words like icy puffs murmured against my skin. “Remember what I taught you about the things that hurt?”
Push them down.
Do what you must to survive. To keep moving forward.
“Yes.”
“This world is big and beautiful.” She eases back enough to meet my stare, hers harder than ever. “But it’s also ugly and cruel and unjust. There’s only so much a heart can handle before it gives out. If you carry everything with you, all at once, you’ll break.”
I think I’m already broken.
Her gaze softens, making me wonder if I spoke the words aloud.
“It’s okay to push the hurt away for another dae. If that’s what it takes to keep moving forward, let it go until you’re ready to bear the weight.”
I don’t have it in me to say I don’t think I’ll ever be ready. That my heart is so hard and cold I’m surprised it’s still beating.
“I need you to promise me something.” Fallon’s words blast much fiercer than she looks—so fragile tucked amongst the frosty folds of the thick black cloak, her skin pale like the snow clinging to the tips of her dark lashes.
“Anything, Fallon.”
Anything for you.
“You must do whatever it takes to make it safely across the plains. Do you understand? Whatever. It. Takes.”
A heaviness sits on my chest, my next breath a battle. “Why are you saying this?”
“Because there’s so much more for you out there. Things to learn and understand and look forward to.”
Something silver glints in her right eye. A distant speck of light that part of me wants to reach for.
Fall into.
“Promise me you’ll live, Raeve. That you’ll keep breathing. That you’ll keep fighting to find the happiness we’ve spoken about. The color. The love.”
Why does this feel like goodbye?
I push the thought away, just like Fallon suggested. Bundle it up and take it down to the frosty lake within myself, tether it to a stone, and toss it beneath the already shattered surface.
And I allow myself to smile as I tighten my arms and pull Fallon closer. Breathe through her coiled tresses pressed against my cheek, smelling sweet and fresh despite the grime we’ve lived in for as long as I remember. Smelling like all the very best parts of my existence.
My everything.
But it’s a teeth-gritted fight against the urge to tell her I’ll never plant a wish upon a moon. That all the magic she spoke of has already left the world.
That I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to love again.
“I promise, Fallon.” I blink the last of the ache from my eyes, feel its wet residue crystalize against my cheeks as I swallow the lump in my throat. Push it down.
Gone.
“I will live.”
Even if it takes me forever to work out how—
I ease from the dream like stepping from a pool of water—slowly. A little reluctant, and to the gentle motions of Kaan’s thumb swiping something from my cheek. The stingy ache in my eyes tells me exactly what that something is.
Tears.
I sit up, pulling a shuddered breath as I swat my hands across my wet cheeks and clear the plug from my throat, passing a swift scan across the stone hut Kaan shaped for us after Ahvi fell asleep on his back.
Hidden, just off an abandoned mineshaft—the walls thick enough we’ve been able to talk openly without fear of being heard.
A spot to rest and eat before we continue the tiring journey through the dark and dangerous depths of the Undercity’s outer roots.
The Book of Voyd is still open by the far wall, shedding its crisp light in place of a campfire, the jagged cleft above letting the odd snowflake sprinkle down.
Ahvi’s exactly where we placed him, bundled on my folded cloak with Kaan’s draped over him like a shadow—lined with warming runes.
Protection from the cold that’s gotten progressively worse with each step south through the labyrinth mine.
Pretty sure Ahvi’s own cloak is lined with them, too … but we were being thorough.
Fussing about, trying to make him comfortable.
“Sorry,” I murmur, looking over my shoulder at Kaan still on his side, using his long pack as a pillow—dented where my head was a moment ago.
A frown shadows his eyes. “Don’t be. You—”
“Ahvi … Has he …”
“He’s continued breathing well since you slipped off. He’s perfectly fine.”
Relief floods me.
I look at the kid again—at the few tangles of silver hair barely peeking out past the hood of Kaan’s cloak—beyond thankful that it seems his shield works against the dusty atmosphere in the mines.
If it didn’t, I don’t know what—
“Raeve, you both need more sleep before I’m comfortable continuing.”
I nod, working my hands through my hair before I lean back and rest my head against his chest, listening to his heart thump hard and heavy.
Strong.
The silence between us feels hungry. Rather than wait for Kaan to feed it, I do, with a question that’s been weighing me down since I first met Ahvi’s rattling silver stare.
“Do you think Ahvi’s parents are still alive?”
The words are passed quietly, gentle as fluttering sowmoth wings.
There’s a brief reprieve before Kaan pulls a large breath. Like he’s shoring himself. “I … think he’d have spoken of them if that were the case.”
I hate how right he is. Hate the heavy likelihood that Ahvi has experienced loss of his own at such a tender age.
I tuck deeper against Kaan, his heart powering through so many strong, perfect beats before he speaks again.
“Was it a slumber-terror, Raeve?”
I rub my thumb across the smooth surface of my replacement iron ring. “Something like that.”
Kaan pulls some loose tendrils back and tucks them behind the ear I cut into. “Do you want to talk about it?”
I think on his question, watching snowflakes sprinkle through the jagged cleft. Imagine the solemn song Rayne’s currently singing—a soft weep that somehow digs deeper than a drenching deluge.
She sees so much.
Perhaps she cries because she’s got nothing else to do with all that hurt?
“Another time. Just—” I let my eyes squeeze shut, my next words a grated whisper. “Hold me tight. Convince me it’s real.”
He’s quiet for a beat before he binds me in his arms, using his fierce strength to give me what I need right now; so close to where I emerged from a lonely trek across the plains. The place where I first broke my promise to Fallon and opened my arms to death, begging it to take me.
A love so crushing I can almost convince myself it’s not going to slip away the moment I fall asleep.