Chapter 53
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
CHAY
“The believers lifted up the Son, and before all his kindness spread. Prosperity and joy like nothing that had come before was experienced. Those who suffered had their pain lifted, if they repented.” ~ The Book of Bread and Salt
T he monotony of the task and the bite of the cold numbed my mind. It was the only thing I could think of to explain why I worked for so long, dragging branches and gathering armloads of twigs. My feet ached. My hips ached. My fingers ached.
I’d thought I’d checked in on her often enough. She kept pacing near that damned stone, her eyes on its surface or the ground around it. Sometimes, when I glanced at her, she was warming her hands, and I was glad of it. The color bled from the sky, and the temperature dipped. I’d thought I’d kept track of it.
I’d stopped watching, though. I’d stopped, and when I’d looked around, she was motionless in a pile beside the stone.
My heart froze in my chest. The distance between us was huge, my limbs too cold, too stiff, too ungainly. Leaves slipped beneath my boots and skidded beneath my knees. “Audrey,” I said, but the word came out as an explosion of sound as I grabbed her.
Her eyes opened. They were black—but open. “It isn’t working,” she said, the words full of defeat.
A laugh born of relief bubbled inside me. I locked it deep in my belly, helping her stand only for her legs to collapse.
The laugh burst in my chest. It made my eyes water. I caught her before she fell, picking her up to carry her to the horses. She protested, the words jumbled and slurred.
“Apologies, Embers,” I said, holding her in close and hating the necessity of that. “I’ll listen to you again as soon as you’re capable of standing.” There was really no excuse. I should’ve watched closer. I should’ve steered her homeward when we’d last spoken. The One, I may as well have been asleep.
At some point, she stopped fighting. I breathed deeply and held her close, willing any shred of warmth from my body into hers. I was damned if I was letting her die out here in the cold, alone. It just wasn’t happening. Everything in me refused to let it. I didn’t care why. It didn’t matter.
Her long legs fit ill beneath her cloak. Bliksem knelt for me as I adjusted the cloth to better cover those vulnerable calves. Layered like a solstice gift she might be, but the afternoon was long, and her illness hadn’t been brief.
Patiently, Bliksem waited as I climbed into the saddle, forgiving my own impatient movements as if he knew I was in a chokehold and only barely hanging on.
I just wanted her to complain. She didn’t, curling into me when she was jostled in a way I knew damned well would be painful. I wasn’t letting her go long enough to tie her to her saddle.
I wasn’t letting her go.
Storm willingly followed us down the incline and away from the stone. The beekeeper’s hut where Isolde had sheltered. It couldn’t be far. I’d spotted its smoke, that day we were set upon. There was none now, but the hut must still be there. I breathed through my teeth, my hands white-knuckled where I clutched the reins to her. The icy wind whistled through the trees, stinging my eyes.
It felt like an eon before she moved in my arms. “I’ve got you,” I said, alarmed that she might try to sit up and topple us both. “We’re on Bliksem.”
She didn’t respond, but her arm worked its way around me, and I felt her twist her fingers into my belt. My mouth a desert, I was grimly glad both at this sign of life and for the assistance as I tried to hold her securely and guide both horses on unfamiliar, uneven ground as fast as I could.
We passed a beehive, then a second. The ground leveled out, and I saw a break in the trees ahead, then the stone chimney. “Almost there,” I told her. She was still holding me, and I could barely breathe. “Just up here.” The little home appeared in the center of a clearing with a small garden. I guided the horses right to the door of the house.
“Stay here,” I told Audrey, disentangling myself with difficulty from her claw-like, icy hands. I didn’t stop to throw my cloak over her. She needed to be out of the wind.
I unhooked my shield from my saddle and threw it over my shoulder, then strode toward the solid but plain wooden door. Hammering a gloved fist against the wood, I shouted, “Hello?” only for the word to be tossed uselessly into the wind.
There was no response. I tried to pull the door open, but it was barred from within.
My first thought was to raise a leg and kick the damned thing in. Urgency beat at my breast like a drum. But a broken door was a poor windbreak. I ran around the small house and found what I was hoping for—a window on the far side. The shutters were locked, but I managed to force them with the sound of splintering wood. If they were broken, they’d be easier to block than the door.
Climbing in through the narrow gap meant throwing my shield into the darkness first, flicking my cloak back over my shoulders, and twisting my body in a way I knew damned well Audrey would’ve been able to do far more gracefully. The thought filled me with grim resolve.
The single room reeked of death.
By the thin light I made my way to the door, lifting the bar to let the wind and sun in, such as it was. The place was as cold as a grave anyway. At least the wind carried the scent of soil and salt. I looked back over my shoulder and found the source of the odor.
He’d probably been the beekeeper in his life. In his death, he curled protectively beside the fireplace, skin white, veins black, like roads to one of the old hells we weren’t supposed to talk about.
I didn’t waste words on him, just grabbed him beneath the arms, dragged him outside, and sat him beside the house. I’d deal with him tomorrow. If we lived that long.
Audrey was already sliding down out of the saddle. She collapsed to the ground with an indrawn breath and a partially muffled sound of pain that escaped from between her teeth. I grabbed the reins in time to stop her from being stepped on, quickly hobbling the horses.
We needed to get back. We wouldn’t, not without them. But right now, we both needed warmth.
She gripped my belt again as I put an arm around her to lift her up—she could walk, but it wouldn’t have mattered if she couldn’t. I would’ve gotten her in. Determination burned like molten steel through me. Right then, I could’ve lifted the entire house out of the ground if I’d had to.
Once out of the cold, I pushed her down on the opposite side of the small stone hearth to where I’d found the last resident and threw my cloak over her, reaching for the flint and tinder.
“You should leave,” she said, the words thin, reedy. “Before you catch it. Tell Isolde. Tell Thomas.”
I’d heard enough last words in my time, and words that the speaker thought were their last, to recognize that tone. Fury writhed in my guts.
She was mine, damn it. That’s what we’d both sworn on my blood, sealed by magic older than any of us knew. “Tell them yourself,” I demanded impatiently. “Because you swore yourself to me, Embers. Until my heart no longer beats, you swore. That’s a magically binding oath, woman. My heart. Not yours.” The tinder struck, and the flame caught. It wasn’t enough warmth. Not yet. “You don’t get free while I’m alive.”
Her lids flickered prettily, but there was no whiskey to be found in her gaze. I wanted to drink deep, but the well was dry.
“That’s not…how it works,” she murmured. “Not how…the stone works…either.”
“Obviously, you did it wrong,” I snapped at her, feeding the flame hurriedly. There wasn’t much wood, but there was some, and it had to be enough. “Tell me about how that knight used it against those locusts. I bet he has the key.”
She didn’t move. “I can’t, Chay. I’m so cold.”
Any other time, and I would’ve suggested some wonderful ways we could both warm up. And I hated that not even the thought of her in the firelight in this remote little space could shake the threat of death. The reek of it still lingered. “If you die,” I told her, without looking, “who’s going to stand up to the Butcher? I’ll follow you into your rebellion,” I told her, willing the flame to burn faster, hotter, higher. “I’ll teach you how to use a sword. I’ll teach you everything I know. The first thing lesson is now. Move. Fight it.”
Tears glittered on her lashes. “It hurts.”
“Hasn’t it hurt for hours?” I demanded, frustrated. “Days?”
“Weeks,” she whispered.
“Well, as your advisor, Embers, I advise you recall that fact and move despite it.” I tossed a log onto the fire and stood. “I have to get the horses secured, or we won’t make it back.”
“My bow,” she said, stretching her hands out to the flame, the words thick with pain. She was moving her toes in her boots.
I wanted to press a kiss to her head. I had no right to do that. I had no right to ask anything of her at all. But I had asked, and I’d damned well keep on asking. She needed someone to tell her no and walk beside her as she braved the lessons that followed.
I shut the window as best I could and strode back out into the wind. Promises made mattered. I settled the horses as fast as I could, then barred the door again. She was sitting up, rotating her head slowly on her neck. I built the fire higher and hoped no one saw the smoke, then went outside to find the wood pile.
With the clouds roiling above us, I put my mediocre woodcutting skills to use, furiously cutting through logs that were still green. He’d used everything.
He’d saved Isolde and then died himself.
Was she alive?
The thought of her retribution if I lost Audrey left me feeling cold. I’d take it.
I needed to get wood into the house. Was I better to ferry it in now, or stack it outside and retrieve it as needed?
I didn’t know, but each time I went in, Audrey was still moving. I kept an eye on the sky—the sun was lower than it should’ve been, the clouds heavier than they had been. We weren’t leaving for the keep today. And with that knowledge, I cut yet more wood, stacked it right beside the door, and drew up some buckets of water. The chores felt like they took years. The reverberations of the axe up my arms made them burn. Until my heart no longer beats. The words punctuated my thoughts in time with the splintering of wood and the thud of the axe. Until. My. Heart. No. Longer. Beats.
When I got back inside, there were still no coals in the fire, and it was still cold as ice. Audrey was lying on her side, wrapped tight in my cloak, but just as I went to curse, she said, “There’s honey. Food. East wall.”
I gave the place she mentioned a cursory glance. She’d opened cupboards. She’d been up. The relief that flooded through me was dammed up by the way she didn’t even shiver, now, before the fire, despite the fact that the edge was barely taken off the air. Or was I too sick to tell? I peeled back the wrist of my glove. The skin there was pale, the veins dark, but not the stark contrast of black and white that I knew I’d find if I looked at her skin. No, I wasn’t too far gone.
Moving to the far wall, I grabbed and dragged the beekeeper’s pallet closer to the fire, kicking a chair out of the way. “Up off the cold floor,” I told Audrey when she looked at me dully.
She moved agonizingly slowly, but move she did. I built the fire higher, hoping again that the cloud cover would be low enough to hide the smoke, that no marauders would venture here, then took out some of the cold meat and cheese from the bags. I sat close to her. She huddled in a little more. I felt every muscle in my body pull taut with the need to drag her into my lap and crush her to me. Rage, impotent and useless, coursed through me. We sat shoulder to shoulder and looked at the flames while we chewed in silence, broken only by the rain that began to lash against the side of the wall. My thoughts went to the horses—there was little I could do for them, though. They had what shelter I could find them.
“I’m sorry,” she said, with a few bites of meat still held between gloved fingers.
Without understanding why she felt the need to apologize, I just shrugged and finished my own cold, heavy meal. The wind whistled in the cracks beneath the walls and in the ceiling. I ignored it. There were fewer drafts in here than out there. “Usually, I’d offer straws to see who gets the bed,” I said flatly. “But we both need the warmth, so if you don’t mind.” She turned and looked at me, her expression dull. I waved a hand toward it, and she folded herself down like she was an old woman.
I adjusted the water before the fire. “Isolde said bathing helps,” I reminded her.
She didn’t open her eyes.
“Probably not when you’re wrapped like a solstice gift,” I acknowledged, refusing to consider any other alternative for her lack of response as I folded myself down against her back, layering the extra fabric of my cloak over her, then the horse blankets.
She held herself stiffly. I didn’t know if it was politeness or her preference, and I didn’t have the heart to ask. Exhaustion washed over me like a wave. I didn’t expect to sleep. I did, though, within moments, lulled by the sound of rain, wind, and the crackle of the fire.