35. Grier
Grier
Iforce my eyes open, and all I see is white. There’s snow falling from a gray sky, blanketing the ground around us. There’s no debris, no rubble, just snow, like we were placed here, not thrown. It’s wrong, all of it is wrong.
My brain catches up in pieces. The ground splitting open and swallowing us whole.
Then the pressure, the weight of a thousand tons of soil crushing in from every side.
Darkness followed, so thick I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t even make a sound.
Then the cold, biting and vicious, seeping into my bones like a blade.
The ground spitting us out somewhere it shouldn’t be able to reach.
I know what magic looks like, and that wasn’t it.
My heart slams back to life. Where’s Gemma?
I push myself up, and my body screams in protest. But my eyes are already scanning. There—
Rye is on his knees a few feet away with Gemma clutched to his chest.
She’s not moving.
No. No, no, no—
The fear hits me hard, cold enough to lock my lungs.
I shove the feeling down with everything I have. There’s no room for panic, not now. Rye is in shock, and if I break too, she’s dead. I force my legs to work and cross the snow toward them.
“Gemma, please. Gemma, I need you—” Rye’s voice is ragged.
“Rye—”
His breathing is too fast, too shallow; he’s spiraling.
I drop to my knees beside them. My fingers find her neck.
Please. Please be there. Please—
A pulse threads under my fingertips, faint but there. The relief hits so hard my vision blurs, and I have to close my eyes and swallow everything down before it swallows me. She’s alive, stay sharp.
“She’s alive,” I say, keeping my voice as steady as I can. “Rye. She’s alive.”
I grab his face, holding him by the back of the neck, pulling his gaze to me. “You hear me. She’s alive.”
His eyes find mine, red-rimmed and terrified.
“But I need you with me. Can you breathe?”
I pull his head to mine, slowing my breathing. He tries, it shudders, catches, another breath, then another. The worst of it eases.
“Good.” I release him. “Good.”
Rye looks down at Gemma. I watch him fight for control, his jaw working, hands fisting and releasing. He shoves the panic down by force. When he speaks, his voice is rough but steady.
“We need to stop the bleeding.”
My whole body exhales. The Rye I need is back, I can hear it in his voice.
“Ribs too,” I add, stripping off my jacket, the cold cuts in sharp. “From the way she was breathing earlier.”
Rye nods. He’s already pulling off his own jacket, laying it across the snow to keep her off the frozen ground.
He shifts Gemma carefully. His movements are gentle and deliberate. Like she’s the most precious thing he’s ever held.
He tears a strip from his shirt before I can. We work together with no words needed. He lifts her just enough while I slide the fabric beneath her. I fold a thick pad over her side and press it against the wound.
Gemma cries out. The sound that tears from her throat is broken and agonizing.
“Rye—” Her voice is raw.
He’s already there, cupping her face, pressing his forehead to hers.
“I’m here, sweetheart. I’ve got you.”
He looks at me over her head. “Do it. I’ve got her.”
I bind the wound tight. Rye holds her through it, murmuring to her, grounding her. His hands don’t shake, but his jaw does.
When it’s done, she goes slack, unconscious again.
Rye checks her pulse himself this time. Nods once, and the sound that breaks loose from his chest is gutting.
He’s already wrapping both jackets around her, bundling her tight against the cold. “Where are we going?”
My eyes sweep the horizon and land on smoke, faint but visible through the falling snow.
“There…a chimney a few miles off.”
He follows my gaze, then lifts her into his arms in one smooth motion. Rye’s eyes lift past me and scan the snow like his mind won’t catch up to what he’s seeing, like he’s just now taking in our surroundings.
“Where are we?”
“I don’t know, but we need to move.” He holds my eyes for a beat, and I see him put the question down because she matters more than answers right now.
The snow is brutal, knee-deep in places, higher in others, and every step is a fight.
We don’t speak; we just push forward through the drifts.
Rye doesn’t falter, just trudges on with Gemma cradled against his chest. His arms tighten every time she stirs, and he dips his head to murmur things I can’t hear, things meant only for her.
I recognize it, the refusal to let go. And now I’m watching another man carry her through a blizzard like letting go would kill him.
She chose him, or maybe the world chose for all of us.
The miles stretch on, and my mind won’t stop turning over what happened.
I’ve seen earth magic. I’ve seen it split stone and pull trees from the ground.
I’ve never seen it swallow people and spit them out a hundred miles away in a blizzard.
Whatever happened at Willowmere wasn’t the earth answering someone’s call.
It was the earth deciding something for itself.
I don’t know what that means, and the not knowing sits heavy in my chest the whole way through the drifts.
I don’t know how long it’s been when I notice that Rye is slowing. He probably doesn’t even realize it, each step coming a fraction later than the last, his boots dragging deeper through the snow. His arms are shaking, not from the cold, but from the strain of carrying her this far through drifts.
I know he won’t stop or ask for help. He’d carry her until his legs gave out, until his heart gave out. I know because I’d do the same.
“Rye.” I move beside him. “Let me take her.”
He doesn’t answer, just pulls her closer.
“Just for a bit. You can take her back.”
He looks down at her, pale and still, snowflakes clinging to her lashes, and I can see the war playing out behind his eyes. The need to protect her against the fear of letting her go, even for a moment.
Then he nods, more to himself, and the way he lets her go tells me it costs him everything. His hands flex at his sides, like they don’t know what to do without her in them.
“I’ve got her,” I say quietly.
We keep pushing, passing her between us when we have to. Somewhere in the endless white, the tension between us thins. There’s no room for rivalry when her life hangs in the balance.
The cabin appears as a dark smudge on the horizon, smoke curling from a crooked chimney.
Rye took her back half a mile ago and hasn’t let go since. He reaches the door first. His arms have to be done, but he’d never admit it.
He knocks, hard and urgent.
The door swings open, and an old woman stands in the frame. She has white hair and a face weathered by decades of winter. She takes one look at Gemma, and her eyes go wide.
“Please,” Rye says, his voice breaking. “She’s hurt.”
The woman doesn’t hesitate.
“Olin!” she calls. “Fire, now.” She steps back, waving us inside. “Bring her in.”
Warmth hits me like a wall, almost painful after the cold. The cabin is barely more than one room, a fire, a bed, and an old man feeding logs to the hearth.
“Here,” the woman says. “Set her down.”
But Rye doesn’t. He lowers himself instead, keeping Gemma cradled against his chest with her back against him. He faces her toward the fire and pulls a blanket around her.
The woman kneels beside them and pulls back the blood-soaked bandages with sure hands.
“It’s deep, but clean. You bound it well.” Her hands move to her ribs. “Two broken, maybe three.” Her eyes find Rye. “She needs to stay upright and take deep breaths, even when it hurts. Don’t let her lie flat.”
The woman gathers her supplies, while Olin mixes the poultice by the fire. She kneels beside them again and cleans the wound.
“This next part is going to hurt; you’ll need to keep her still.” She looks to Rye. “Ready?”
Rye nods. The needle pierces her skin, and the scream that follows turns my blood to ice. Rye absorbs it like a blow, jaw clenched, eyes shut for a single breath before he forces himself steady. She’s shaking and delirious. Her eyes fly open.
“Run—” She cries out. “Run, please—”
“Shh.” Rye pulls her closer. “We’re safe, sweetheart. You don’t need to run.”
But she’s not listening, not seeing him. Her eyes are somewhere far away, fixed on something none of us can see.
“Run—” Her voice breaks. “I need you—”
Rye looks at me over her head, confusion flickering across his face.
I don’t have answers for him. I don’t understand it either.
“You’re safe,” he murmurs. “I’ve got you.”
The woman works faster now, stitch after stitch. Gemma writhes, sobs and calls out for something we can’t give her.
Not run, not quite. It’s softer at the end. Ren?
I tell him it’s delirium, blood loss, shock.
It’s the only truth I can give him without breaking him, but as she fades again, that word lingers.
Whatever she’s running from didn’t start tonight; I’ve always known that.
She’s been carrying something the whole time I’ve known her, something she’s never let me close enough to see in all these years.
It hurts more than I let her know, but if it keeps her safe, it’s a cost I’ll pay every time.
When it’s done, Rye wraps her in a thick blanket and settles in behind her with his arms around her, keeping her upright.
I don’t bother telling him to sleep. I can see it in the set of his jaw, the way his eyes keep dropping to her face, tracking every breath, every movement, that he won’t listen even if I do.
I sink into the worn chair beside the fire. Exhaustion presses down on me, the miles, the cold, the fear, all of it landing at once like a physical weight.