Chapter 24 Tamsyn
TAMSYN
SYLVI OBLIGED AND LED THE WAY.
Her promise to lead us to Fell felt cavalier and too easy.
Nonetheless I was invigorated by the possibility, when before I had been without optimism and filled only with a sense of bleakness, of failure.
Freed from my exhaustion, my hope revived.
A dangerous thing that—hope. I’d let myself be gulled by it before.
Vetr had fed me hope, and I had lapped it up, blinded to what he truly was. I would not succumb so easily again.
I stayed behind Sylvi, remaining guarded, cautious, careful to keep space between us—just in case.
I’d seen enough by now to know not to fully trust her.
It wasn’t Kerstin and her unreasonable hatred of witches that made me wary …
It was my own experience. Trust was not something I would so easily give again.
The possibility that we would unearth him and all would be well was a teasing brush against my mind, a tempting whisper on my heart. Too good to be true. I would not permit myself to fall into the enticing relief of it.
Not yet.
We walked at a brisk pace. Sylvi said it wasn’t far. He was not far. We would reach the site within the day, and I was grateful for that. Whatever happened … it would happen soon. Finally. I was finally reaching a destination—an ending I had not known was even up for grabs.
A vague unease lingered, twisting beneath my skin as we made the trek. It would go away soon, though. Either Fell would be standing before me at the end of this day, or he would not.
But it would all come to an end. At last.
Finally, Sylvi stopped and pointed to a spot on the snow-draped ground.
“Are you sure?” The area looked utterly unremarkable. Barren, snowy landscape, broken occasionally by scrub and jutting rocks. Just like so much of the Crags.
I stared, took it all in. The fog rolled thicker here, soupy air reaching my hips, and I wondered if it was a sign. If it was him, even dormant, earthed far below.
The wind clawed at my face, tearing my eyes; salty moisture trailed down my cheeks in rivulets. My chest ached—for what he had endured, for what he was still enduring. This was where he had been for over a year. In this desolate little spot.
“Fell,” I whispered into the viscous air, hoping to feel a pulse, a reaction from him. To feel him.
Nothing.
“This is where they put him.” The wind whipped the edges of Sylvi’s hood. She looked tired, the bruised smudges under her eyes still present, and I felt a stab of guilt that I had not allowed her even a moment of rest, but that quickly vanished when I remembered Fell.
“How can you be sure?” Kerstin gestured around us with a careless flip of her hand, looking skeptical.
Sylvi pointed to the single tree in the distance. It was the only thing to mar the horizon.
“That?” I asked. “That’s the thing you remember?”
“I do. I remember everything about that day. I’ve seen them do horrible things, but that day …
” She shook her head a little, as though it was too horrible to put into words.
“I won’t ever forget.” She pointed to another nearby spot.
“I was standing right over there.” Sylvi held my gaze, her hand drifting to rub her wrists that still bore the angry red marks of her bindings.
“He fought hard. There were too many of them. He never had a chance, but he tried.”
A lump formed in my throat, blocking my airway as I envisioned that moment. I inhaled through my nose. Of course he’d fought. The Beast of the Borderlands would not have gone quietly into that hole.
I looked at Kerstin, clearly needing her. Unearthing Fell suited her talents entirely.
She understood. “I can try.”
I nodded tightly. If I had to use my own hands to dig him up, then that was what I would do, but Kerstin could make this happen with a fraction of the effort it would take me to dig him free.
Sylvi lifted those sharp shoulders of hers with a deep breath. “Well. I’ve done what I promised you.”
I stared at her, uncomprehending. “You did,” I acknowledged, wondering if she was seeking recognition. “Thank you.”
“You’re leaving,” Kerstin announced flatly.
Oh. I looked Sylvi up and down. Was that what she was saying? “You’re going?”
She nodded. “Call me paranoid, but I’m not entirely comfortable around dragons—especially one that has been buried alive for the last year.” Her lips twisted.
Fair. I couldn’t possibly know what she had endured during her captivity. Just in my brief observation, it had not been pleasant. “Will you be fine on your own?”
She pulled her cloak tighter around herself. “It can’t be any worse than when I was in the company of your kind.”
I winced. “Those are not my kind.”
She considered me with her shrewd eyes, and I wondered if she saw in me that I was different. Not only different from the skelm but different from all dragons.
“Perhaps,” she allowed. “You did free me, after all.” She sent a disdainful glance to Kerstin, clearly indicating she knew Kerstin had not been in support of that plan. She turned her smile back on me. “You saved my life. I won’t forget it.”
I shook my head and motioned to the ground. “Clearly, you’ve repaid your debt.”
Those eyes turned speculative, and there was something there, in her gaze, in the cant of her head, some uncertainty as she flicked a glance at the ground that held Fell. “I hope so.”
The vagueness of her reply unsettled me. Why should there be any doubt? If this was where she witnessed them put him to ground …
I narrowed my eyes on her. The air darkened faintly about her, her aura stirring like a drifting shadow.
“You don’t want to stay and make certain he is—”
“I think it best that I’m not here when you unearth him.”
Her expression was inscrutable, but I studied her, wondering if it was in my imagination or if there was an urgency about her to get away.
I reached inside my knapsack and pulled out my remaining food, extending the package of wrapped bread and dried venison to her. “Very well. Here. Take this for your journey.”
“We didn’t pack enough to share,” Kerstin complained in outrage.
“We can hunt for more food,” I replied, sending her a withering look.
Sylvi accepted the bag and slung it over her shoulder.
I returned my gaze to the ground. Now that I was here, and it was time … the final moment of revelation, a perplexing hesitancy came over me.
I felt Kerstin’s eyes on me as I inched forward and dropped to my knees.
Instantly, wetness soaked through the fabric of my trousers, but I didn’t care.
I tore my gloves from my hands and flung them aside.
Bending over, I sank my bare hands into the icy slush as though I could somehow reach him myself.
I went deep, past my wrists, my fingers clawing and curling through snow, the tiny particles of ice melting against my warmer skin and turning to water.
I frowned. I’d expected to know, to feel him this close, but my palm stayed dead. Silent.
“Kerstin?” I looked up, my stare landing on her.
She nodded, clearly reading the request in my eyes. Fresh determination firmed her lips. “I will try.”
When I glanced back to where Sylvi had once been, it was to see the speck of her retreating back, her strides quickly carrying her away over the rise. Another moment and she was gone, dipping out of sight.
I snapped my gaze back to Kerstin.
She exhaled, as though gathering strength with her breath, and helped me to my feet, positioning me away. “Just give me a moment.”
I nodded, fighting for patience. Waiting, I looked at her, the ground, then back to her again.
Kerstin held out her hands, palms down. Her eyes sparked, pupils shuddering, elongating, thinning to vertical slits. The ground shifted, snow sliding away as a jagged crack formed, deepening. She made a strangling sound, her skin flashing bronze, blurring to iridescent dragon skin.
I hastened back several steps, getting farther away from that widening crevice. “You’re doing it!”
Her face reddened with exertion beneath the bronze glimmer and fade of her dragon skin, but still she held her hands over the ground, moving them like she was pulling something apart, ripping something wide open—the seams of the earth itself.
Her nostrils flared, ridges rising and bunching along her nose, widening its slope, allowing her to breathe harder, faster, to take in more air. Her arms trembled, grappling with the great strain of her efforts.
I looked down, watching as that crack yawned and went deeper, deeper … deeper.
I squeezed my hands into fists, and they shook as though the cold was finally affecting me, but of course it was not. Anticipation buzzed through me like a charge of current.
Beads of perspiration dotted Kerstin’s face despite the glacial air. I peered down into the dark depths of that deepening chasm, hoping for the sight of—
“There!” I cried.
The clouds of ashy dirt and snow cleared, and the earth revealed a box. A crude coffin of dragon bone.
I didn’t know what to expect, but of course they would have put him in such a thing. Humans weren’t the only ones to weaponize and make tools out of a dragon’s anatomy. He would not have been able to break out of the coffin and claw his way to freedom.
Kerstin stopped, breathing hard, the sounds wrenched from her almost like sobs.
I clasped her shoulder, not breathing at all, excitement vibrating in my voice. “You did it!”
She nodded and swallowed, the cords of her throat working.
Together, we stood side by side at the edge of the crevasse she’d formed, staring down into the endless deep, waiting for something to happen.
“Fell!” I called down into the abyss.
Nothing.
Kerstin and I exchanged looks, not sure what to do next. The wind ruffled the fur of her mantle, rippling along her cloak. She shrugged. “I don’t suppose he’s going to open the lid himself if he’s still … dormant.”