Chapter 20
At midday, we stop long enough for the horses to rest, then head off again as soon as Ruben assesses them and says they’re good to go. None of us want to linger. More snow has begun to fall, and staying still for long, especially without a roaring fire, feels like a sure way to get hypothermia.
‘When did you learn so much about horses?’ I ask Ruben before I mount up with Caz again.
‘Used to muck out at the second ring stables as a kid,’ he says with a shrug, like it’s nothing worth mentioning.
I blink. ‘You did? I never knew that.’
‘And I never knew you were into narcissistic, controlling arseholes,’ he huffs, only half joking. ‘Would have changed my tactics if I had.’
I laugh despite myself, the sound slipping out before I can stop it. For a heartbeat, things feel easy. Familiar.
Then it hits me.
Kyor’s jealousy prickles across my skin like static, sharp and unmistakable. I turn instinctively, whipping round to glare at him. His expression is shuttered, jaw tight, eyes dark with a possessiveness he has no right to anymore.
He gets no say in my friendships.
Not now.
Not ever.
For the rest of the afternoon, Elska shadows me like a silent accusation, and I’d bet good money it’s because her rider can’t stand how close Ruben rides beside Caz and me.
Well, he’ll just have to get used to it.
After all, he seems to have forgotten that only a couple of nights ago he was waltzing around the High Hold ball with a pretty little courtier on his arm.
He’s a liar and a hypocrite, and that’s what I have to keep reminding myself of.
We’re riding at a fair pace when the wind shifts.
Elska’s ears snap forward, her whole body going taut, and a low, rumbling growl builds in her chest, so deep the earth seems to vibrate with it.
‘What is it?’ I ask, unnerved as Caz pulls tight on the reins of the horse, slowing it to a stop. They’ve been incredibly tolerant of having a wolf join their herd over the last day or so, and the last thing we need now is for the horses to bolt. The others halt too, following suit.
Kyor’s hand is on his sword, his expression sharpening as he assesses our surroundings.
‘Stay here,’ he whispers as he dismounts from Elska and moves to my right. Ruben hands his reins to Benny as he drops from his bay and draws his own sword before moving towards the tree line on my left.
They’re protecting me, the arseholes. As if I’m a damsel in distress. I’m about to rudely correct their assumptions when a faint warning prickles my scalp.
The forest has gone silent.
Too silent.
There are no birds. No rustling of branches. Not even the whisper of snow settling.
‘It can’t be Torailians, can it?’ Caz questions nervously. ‘Not this far into our lands.’
No one answers. I assume it’s because none of us know.
As far as I was aware, the battles for the Torailian territory all happened north of Galreck, and none have taken place for decades, if not longer.
But then, as far as I was aware, my mother was Morathkian and my brother was murdered as a child.
Deciphering the truth from the lies is becoming as hard as separating the clouds from the water they possess.
Elska steps even closer to me, her massive frame pressing into the side of our horse as if she intends to bodily shield me. The horses do not shy away. That alone sends fear skittering up my spine.
Whatever the hell is out there, our horses currently think that snuggling up to a huge fucking dire wolf is the safer option.
And why is she even staying so close? Elska doesn’t give a fuck about me.
‘Kyor?’ I whisper.
His jaw tightens. ‘Unbonded dire wolves.’
My blood chills. ‘Here?’
‘Here,’ he confirms grimly. ‘Stay behind me.’
A bush ahead shudders. Another rustles.
My heart is thundering, and I draw my own blade.
We’re safer on the ground, I realise. Considering what it is, it’s a miracle the horses haven’t bolted already, and if a wolf brings down one of our steeds while we’re on it … there’ll be no getting out of that alive.
‘Move slowly,’ I whisper to Caz as I guide her down to the ground before following her as quietly as I can. Benny, having seemingly thought the same, has already dismounted and is gesturing in the direction of the rustling.
Yellow eyes gleam out from the shadows – six pairs, maybe seven – glowing like embers in the half-light. As the canines emerge, there’s no doubt what we’re seeing. Dire wolves, but leaner than those I’ve seen before, ragged and wild in a way I struggle to believe Elska ever was.
Their lips curl, exposing terrifyingly long incisors. They must be desperate to have ranged so far from Afaven Forest.
One steps forward – massive, scarred, its fur patchy, its eyes unfocused. A creature unfettered. Dangerous. Unpredictable. Feral.
It fixes on me.
Of course it does.
My magic pulses unsteadily in a thrum under my skin, answering their snarls with a flicker of cold that blooms through my fingertips. Fear is making the ice stretch out, but if my magic flares in the wrong way, I might start a fight rather than end it.
‘Rose,’ Kyor warns softly.
‘I know,’ I whisper, but my anxiety spikes and ice continues to crack and grow across the ground anyway. I can’t stop it – don’t know how to.
Elska lets out the most terrifying, aggressive noise I’ve heard from her yet, and her stance is clear: Fuck. Off.
Yet rather than taking the warning, the lead wolf lunges.
Kyor intercepts it mid-air, steel flashing as Ruben lunges towards Caz and me, knocking us out of the way just as another wolf barrels towards us.
Elska slams into it with such force that it collides with a tree only a few feet away from where Caz and I are sprawled on the ground.
As it howls in agony, true chaos erupts.
Kyor moves like a storm given human form, precise and lethal. In the depths of the forest, he can’t risk calling down lightning. He’ll start a fire that could kill us all. Instead, Ruben fights beside him, messy and furious and somehow always exactly where he needs to be.
And I … I need to do something. I will not cower while the others fight.
I push myself back to my feet only to draw the attention of two of the other wolves. If their attention ever left me, that is. At the sound of their snarls, my magic surges, begging to be released, but I can’t. I can’t let it free when I don’t know what it’ll do. Not this magic anyway.
Hope flickers within me. There are plants around us. No vines, but maybe … I try to pull at the grass, to extend the blades the way I did with the herbs in Ruben’s kitchen. But while my magic works, the curling grasses do nothing to the animals. Nothing but aggravate them.
Their teeth snap at their ankles and they free themselves with nothing more than a shake of their paws, once more setting their sights on me.
‘Please,’ I whisper pleadingly, just as I once did in another forest to another wolf. ‘Just back away now. I don’t want to hurt any of you.’
They’re starving, desperate. I understand that all too well, and I don’t blame them in the slightest. I truly don’t want to harm any of them.
One of them falters, as if it might have actually understood me, but as its partner’s eyes narrow, I realise it was foolish to hope such a thing. It leans back on its hind legs in a motion that can only mean one thing. It’s going to lunge. It’s going to attack me. And not only me, but Caz.
Caz who didn’t need to come here with me, who’s still by my side even though I’m responsible for Llin’s death.
I won’t lose Caz too. I can’t.
A surge of magic tears through me, instinctive and wild and unfettered from any form of control. Ice and frost explode outward in a wave, coating branches, earth, wolves … Everything I can see is touched by my wild magic.
The two closest unbonded wolves skid, claws scrabbling and skittering on sudden ice, and as they struggle to right themselves, Benny hurls a dagger straight between the breastbone of the one closest to him.
Elska uses the opening to tear another away from Ruben, while Kyor slashes his sword through one struggling to regain its footing.
The remaining wolves howl in fear, but my magic continues to build within me.
Miraculously, the horses are still on their feet, though scrambling away from the ice.
But it’s spreading. I can’t control it. I can’t draw it back in.
I can’t stop the thrumming that is pounding behind my temples and in my hands and filling every part of me.
Kyor spins to face me, eyes blazing with alarm. ‘Rose, that’s enough!’
‘I … I can’t—’ My breath fogs in the air and the cold pours out of me as I attempt to reply. But it’s too much, too fast. Most of the surviving wolves have abandoned the fight entirely, fleeing into the trees with panicked howls calling a retreat.
But the last one, the scarred leader, staggers, snarling as frost creeps over its legs. Its fury isn’t solely aimed at me. I can feel it. Its anger is at its pack, too. Their retreat. But I’m the one he thinks he’s going to make pay.
Only my magic begs to differ.
This time, I deliberately reach for my power, but Kyor is faster. He barrels into the wolf, sending the two of them crashing into the snow in a thunderous tangle.
But my magic is stretching out now, with invisible tendrils I cannot see yet somehow can feel. It thunders through me, grasping towards the fallen wolf. The enemy.
I watch as Kyor’s sword pierces the animal’s chest just as my magic snaps shut like a trap, pulling the very breath from the wolf.
The animal lies prone. Its chest does not rise; its heart does not beat. It is dead, but whether the prince ended the beast or I did, I can’t be sure.
As I slump to the ground, Kyor withdraws his blade. The contrast of red on white is a sudden and stark reminder of Oke’s death.
Of the blood I’ve already spilt.
The howls of the other wolves grow distant as they continue to pound further away, but we, as a group, stand shocked and silent, staring at the bodies of the wolves who lost their lives at our hands.
Every bone in my body regrets these deaths. It was clear from the state of them that they attacked because they were hungry, desperate, and out of options.
In the stillness, our panting breaths rise in white clouds.
Elska gently nudges my shoulder, whining. I place my hand on her fur, grounding myself.
‘I’m fine,’ I say, though my voice trembles. I look at her, seeing her properly for perhaps the first time. She defended me. I don’t know whether it was her call or Kyor’s, but I appreciate it all the same.
‘Thank you,’ I whisper to the wolf.
She lifts her tail a little, brushing it against my face, and then she goes to one of the fallen dire wolves and starts chowing down.
‘Waste not want not,’ Benny quips.
‘Are you okay?’ I ask him before turning to the rest of them. ‘Is everyone all right?’
‘Peachy,’ Benny says while Caz gives me a shaky thumbs up. Ruben continues to stare at one of the dead wolves, as if he’s thinking the same thought I had only moments ago.
We are all animals when we’re pushed to it.
And this journey, I sense, will push us more than once.