Chapter 37
Rhonin saws a knife through the ropes between my ankles so I can walk with longer strides. He leaves my hands tied and linked to the short rope leading to my feet. He reminds me of someone.
Maybe Mena? It’s the hair.
When he finishes, he grabs a woolen blanket from a pile, hangs it over my shoulders, and leads me up a small embankment to Winter Road.
As we walk, snow crunching beneath our boots, I take in the encampment.
To my right, the Prince of the East and his general stroll to a larger tent pitched beneath two tall trees, its canvas glowing in the falling dusk.
Obscured figures wait inside, backlit by lamp light.
Unwounded warriors, at least fifty, sit around a few scattered fires, roasting various small animals for a meal.
They’re guarding three wagons nested in a clearing and a few dozen tied horses. Far fewer than they need.
I think of Mannus and Tuck. They have to be here.
Above, heralding the coming night, the prince’s spies roost, a thousand beady eyes staring down. How I’d like to Fulmanesh every single one of the little pricks.
From the corner of my vision, Nephele’s long, pale curls catch my eye. An Eastlander leads her along the road’s edge, then across the wood to one of the wagons. A woman unlocks the doors, and the man throws my sister inside.
Not wagons. Transportable prisons.
Is Colden Moeshka in there, too?
To my left, along a snowy path, sounds of pain float through the forest. Rhonin guides me toward those sounds and the injured, and also toward another tent set back in the wood.
“I hope you’re not weak-stomached,” he says. “It’s like a battlefield out here.”
I shake my head, but the truth is that I’ve seen more death and wounds since becoming trapped inside Frostwater Wood than I’ve seen in my whole life.
I haven’t had time to be sick. I’ve been functioning in a state of survival.
But I have enough years in me to know that all of this horror is going to crash down on me at some point.
Those cresting waves.
Torches have been staked into the ground every ten feet or so, creating a path, and to each side, more fires burn.
In the pools of firelight, on woolen blankets and against trees, dozens of warriors lie wounded, with no relief save for the wine that a few attendants ladle from a wooden bucket.
Stolen from Winterhold, I’m sure. I can smell the bitterness.
Wine won’t do much to stave off the pain, though. These warriors have broken limbs, disjointed bones, blade wounds, burns, and pieces of iron and steel wedged into muscle.
And frostbite.
No. It’s more than frostbite. Some have blackened hands and arms that might need amputation if I cannot weave them back to health.
Damn Rhonin. The sight does make my stomach queasy.
Between Nephele’s construct and Colden’s power over frost, these men had a difficult time.
Rhonin and I reach the tent. He flips back the flap and leads me inside. I can’t help but notice how quickly he seals us up, away from the rest of the world.
When he faces me, straightening to his full and towering height, I take a nervous step back. Another. There’s a tree stump in this tent and a scorched worktable behind me. Another find from Winterhold, no doubt. Two oil lamps burn instead of one, and a pouch of mender’s tools sits on the table.
I am not this kind of healer, I want to tell him, but even if he could read my hands, I wouldn’t have had the chance to form the words.
He takes me by the shoulders, oddly careful to avoid my wound, and puts his face close to mine. Too close. It’s such a sudden action that I stiffen at first, tucking my chin back to create distance. Then I think to headbutt him, but he speaks in the softest whisper before I do.
“Listen very carefully. I’m a spy for the king, stationed in Quezira.
I did not harm your friend in that cave.
I refused. I couldn’t. She harmed herself with a rock so that we might survive Vexx.
And when he sent me to kill her, I did not.
” He forces the sleeve of his jacket up enough to reveal the end of an angry-looking gash.
“I bled into the snow and on my dagger to make it appear as if I killed her, but she was alive when I left her in the ravine. I told her to avoid this road and get to Winterhold. I swear my life to the Ancient Ones if I’m not telling the truth.
” He glances at the tent flap. “I only pray she listens and travels around us instead of crossing our path.”
I shake my head in stunned disbelief, even after he’s finished talking. I keep waiting to hear a lie in his voice or to see one in his gaze, and yet it never comes.
My heart stutters, and relief I struggle to process rushes through me. Hel is alive? And the king has spies in the East? Of course, he does.
The flinty eyes of this giant of a man soften to the point of gentleness. “I wanted to save the Collector, too, but I couldn’t be in two places at the same time. I didn’t know that part of Vexx’s plan. I’m sorry.”
The cavern inside me burns, his words salt to a raw wound.
I’m sorry, too. Sorry that I couldn’t stop Vexx. That I couldn’t do anything but watch.
Rhonin takes my elbow and leads me to the mender’s pouch.
He kneels beside the cot and folds the leather open, withdrawing a small, simple dagger.
A metal sheath covers the blade, and the hilt is slim and short.
The whole of it is barely the span of my hand, fingertips to wrist. Perfect for jabbing at close range—or maybe throwing—but little else.
“Here’s the plan,” he whispers. “The prince is meeting with Vexx and Killian, his second general, but he wants to be your first healing. Afterward, he’s sending Killian south with convoy one.
She and other soldiers will escort the first wagon, which contains a handful of Witch Walkers, though your sister won’t be included.
She’s to stay with the prince, as is the king. ”
I squeeze my eyes shut. Damn it. Colden Moeshka is here.
“I know,” Rhonin mutters, as though understanding my disappointment.
“Word is that the prince unleashed enough fire on Winterhold that the king’s ice was of no matter.
The Frost King surrendered to save his people.
After maintaining the construct, his Witch Walkers were too weak to withstand the prince.
The good news is that the prince is weaker now, too. ”
That makes me feel better. Weaker is good.
“Once your healing work is complete,” Rhonin continues, “the prince and Vexx and everyone else will head south. They’re meeting important men at Malgros, the same men who got them through the ports in the first place, to get them across the Malorian Sea to Itunnan.”
Father used to talk about Itunnan, a port city in the Summerlands.
By important men, I assume Rhonin means traitors in the Northland Watch.
I don’t know how else so many Eastlanders could’ve made it through the port, but the prince clearly thought of a better plan than facing an entire coast of guard witches. Somehow, he bought their loyalty.
Gods. This can’t be happening already.
“The prince plans to let me take you to your sister after you heal him, only for a few minutes, then your duty on this side of the camp begins. He knows your hands must be free for your magick, but don’t think he won’t have Vexx hovering with a blade at all times, or possibly something worse.
They’re curious about your abilities, but they’d rather see you dead as dust than acting as interference. Do you understand?”
Yes, I understand what he’s saying. No, I don’t understand what he thinks I’m supposed to do with this information. I nod anyway.
“Later, I’ll come for you and your sister. You’ll use this little dagger to get free of your binds, wound me, and then run.” He leans in. “Don’t be nice about stabbing me either. It has to look real.”
I gawk at him. This is the plan?
He eyes my face. “Look, I’m giving you your freedom. It’s all I can do. Take it.”
His words fall over me like a rush of chilly air.
Freedom.
Rhonin stands and stares down at me, making an innocent face, and shrugs. “The blade might be uncomfortable, but it’s incredibly sharp. You’ll need it. Later.”
From behind a fallen strand of flaming hair, he winks, again reminding me of Mena. Her daughter was chosen for Winterhold many years before my birth.
Surely Rhonin isn’t…
I grimace, sucking in a breath between my clenched teeth as Rhonin carefully slides the sheathed dagger into my bodice, until it’s nestled between my breasts.
He holds my ribcage, shifting my bodice and breasts to hide the small hilt, and presumes to tighten the laces at my back. “To prevent the dagger from falling,” he says.
Sadness swims through me as I recall a similar moment. This one is just as awkward—the touching—but it isn’t intimate in the way it was with Alexus by the stream. I wish I could go back to that moment with the knowledge I have now.
Still, I welcome the contact. If this man wants to give me a weapon, I’m certainly going to let him.
The second I get the chance, I’ll drive that little blade into the prince’s temple, or maybe into that tender spot beneath the chin Hel always talks about.
There’s no way I can let him be close enough to heal and not kill him if the opportunity presents itself.
That thought makes me wonder something. Rhonin is a Northland spy. He’s become very trusted by the Eastland prince. Why has he not killed him?
When I glance up, my eyes snag on his face, blushing seven shades of red. He’s as rugged as the Mondulak Range, but the closer I look, the more naivety and innocence I see, two things so incongruent with the rest of him. It provides no answer to my question, but I have no way to ask.
I try, forcing the question into my eyes and onto my face. I glance down where the dagger hides, and then at the tent flap where I assume the prince will soon appear, and back to Rhonin, shaking my head.
Eyes and faces can say so much more than people believe.
He exhales a breath, reading me well. “Yes, I’ve often thought about sacrificing all to stop him, but I never expected any of this.
I was called up the ranks for this mission two months ago.
I didn’t have time for preparations before we left, and the prince has my family within his grasp.
My mother, brother, and sister as well. My mother especially.
She sees something in him the rest of us don’t.
” Rhonin points to the sky, keeping his voice low.
“Also, eyes are always watching. I could kill every last Eastlander in this forest, including the prince, and blame it on a Witch Walker attack, but unless I kill every one of his damn crows, too, his council will know what I’ve done before I can so much as leave this continent.
” He sighs, his eyes searching mine, seeking understanding.
“The prince holds a great fondness for my mother, but I don’t believe for a second that my family will be spared if he learns of my betrayal.
I need to get home and secure my loved ones away from the prince’s palace.
Then, afterward, I can do what must be done. If someone doesn’t beat me to it.”
Things just somehow keep getting worse, but I realize there’s a saving grace. The prince has no hold on me anymore. Save for Nephele and Hel, I have no one else to lose, and my sisters are in this wood with me.
If I kill the prince like I’ve envisioned, if I destroy the Eastlanders, if I free the Witch Walkers and the Frost King, these crows can tattle all they want to the Eastern council.
Rhonin’s family will be spared, the plan to torment Fia Drumera with Colden’s demise will be thwarted, the Prince of the East will no longer live, and no gods will rise.
The God Knife will still exist, but if I can pilfer it from the prince or this camp, it will remain safe in my Keeper’s hand.
The snake of the East will lose its head, and I can make it to the Iceland Plains with Nephele and Hel and find passage out of Tiressia before the council becomes a problem.
All that stands in my way is the prince and what’s left of his army.
Voices sound from outside the tent—the prince and Vexx. Rhonin places the mender’s pouch back where it was and shoves me toward the tree stump near the worktable. He stands at my side, hands clasped before him like a good guard while my heart thuds against the icy dagger.
“Just a little while longer,” he whispers. “Then you’ll be free, Raina Bloodgood. No victory without sacrifice.”
It’s impossible not to look up at him, and when I do, I see my old friend in the lines of his face, in the fire of his hair. He has to be a Shawcross.
Oh, Mena. No victory without sacrifice.
I face forward, my blood stirring anew. I’m ready. Just like my old friend had been ready as we crouched inside her cottage.
Let the sacrifice come.