Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Njkall crouched next to Tess’s pallet, one broad hand pressed flat against the furs where Tess had slept. The stone beneath still held a trace of warmth, faint but unmistakable. He knew the cold of these mountains the way he knew his own heartbeat, and this told him what he needed.
“How long has she been gone?” Polly asked anxiously.
“Not long,” he said. “A few hours, no more.”
She hovered in the entrance, arms wrapped tight around herself.
He didn’t need to see her face to know she was holding herself together with the careful stillness of someone bracing against panic.
He’d watched her fight that battle a hundred times, and he’d watched her win it more often than she gave herself credit for.
“She can’t have gone far,” she said. “Not in the dark. Not in this cold.”
“No.” He rose to his full height, ducking beneath the low stone arch. “Which is exactly what concerns me.”
Cera appeared from the deeper caves, her healer’s satchel already slung across one shoulder. She’d noticed the empty bed and sent for him just before Polly arrived. Her sharp eyes moved from the furs to his face.
“She took the warm-weather clothing,” Cera said. “The offworld things Polly bought her. Nothing suited for the mountains.”
He felt the words ripple through his chest. A human female, alone, in the deep cold, dressed for an ocean planet. She would last hours. Perhaps not even that.
“Rouse the warriors,” he said. “The ones who can track. Talvek, Osun—anyone who knows the eastern slopes. Full cold gear, thermal wraps, ration packs. And send word to Baralt. He needs to know she’s missing.”
Cera nodded and was gone, her footsteps quick and certain against the stone.
He turned back to Polly. She hadn’t moved from the entrance, but her grey eyes had taken on a focused quality he recognized. She was thinking. Beneath the fear, that quick mind was already working.
“Where would she go?” he asked. “You know her, little one. Better than anyone here. If she’s running, where would she run?”
She frowned. “Not Port Eyeja. Whatever she saw there terrified her. She wouldn’t go back towards it.” She shook her head slowly. “She’d go the other way. Away from the port. Away from people.”
“Into the mountains?”
Polly’s arms tightened around herself. “I think so. But where? There’s nothing out there. Just snow and rock and—”
She stopped, and he watched something shift in her expression.
“The rockslide,” she said.
“What rockslide?”
“The one that concealed the destroyed lab.” Her voice quickened. “Remember we tracked a ship to those coordinates. She thought there was something odd about it. She might even think there’s shelter there.”
His jaw tightened. He’d had a warrior check the slide after Polly mentioned the possibility of a ship setting down there.
The male had reported back that it was untouched, a treacherous stretch of shattered stone and hidden hollows.
Dangerous even for experienced Hothians.
For a lost, frightened human dressed in ocean silks, it would be a tomb.
“We’ll try that direction first,” he said.
Outside, he could already hear the low voices of warriors gathering, the clink of equipment, and the deep answering calls that carried through the caverns. His people moved fast when it mattered. They always had.
“Njkall.” She stepped closer, and her chin had already taken on the stubborn tilt that appeared whenever she’d made up her mind about something. “I’m coming with you.”
Every instinct he possessed rose in immediate protest.
The mountains in winter dark. The killing cold. The unstable rock. The thousand ways the mountains could take a life without warning or mercy. He’d spent a year building a world where she could feel safe, and now she stood before him asking to walk into the most dangerous terrain on Hothrest.
“No,” he growled.
“Njkall—”
“You don’t understand what those slopes are like. The cold alone could—”
“Then I’ll wear proper gear. Thermal wraps, everything.” She lifted her chin. “I’m not asking to lead the search. I’m just asking to be there.”
“It’s too dangerous.”
“It’s dangerous for Tess too. And she’s the one who matters right now.
” She took another step, close enough that he could see the fear in her eyes—and the resolve underneath it, harder and brighter than the fear.
“Think about it. She’s already terrified, and she still doesn’t trust Hothian males.
You know that. If your warriors find her first, what do you think she’ll do? ”
The question stopped him.
He knew the answer. He’d seen it the day they found her—the metal bar, the wild swinging, the animal panic. A female in that state would not come to them. She would run. She would fight. And in that terrain, running or fighting would kill her as surely as the cold.
“She might flee straight off a cliff,” Polly warned. “Or deeper into the rockslide. Away from the very people trying to save her.” She grabbed his arm. “But if she sees me or hears my voice—”
“She might stop.” The admission tasted like ash. “She might come to you.”
“Yes.”
He closed his eyes.
Every protective instinct in his body screamed against it. But she was right. And she had made her choice.
He opened his eyes.
“You’ll stay with me,” he said. “The entire time. You don’t leave my side, you don’t wander, you don’t approach her without warriors positioned to help.
If I say we turn back, we turn back—not because I’m deciding for you, but because I know these mountains and you trust my judgment on them. Agreed?”
Relief flooded her face. “Agreed.”
“Full cold gear. Cera will fit you herself. Thermal wraps, insulated boots, a heat-stone in your pocket.” He was already listing the precautions, his mind shifting into the cold logic of command.
“You eat before we leave. You drink. You tell me the moment you feel numbness in your fingers or toes. The cold lies to you out there—it makes you feel warm just before it kills you.”
“I understand.”
“And Polly.” He caught her chin, tilting her face up, needing her to hear this part above all the rest. “If it comes to a choice between Tess and you—there is no choice. Do you understand me? I will carry you out of those mountains myself and leave the search to my warriors before I let this place take you. That’s not me deciding for you.
That’s me telling you the one line I will not cross. ”
She held his gaze for a long moment, then nodded. “Okay,”
He released her, and something in his chest eased—not the fear, which would ride him the entire way, but the terrible tension between his need to protect her and his refusal to smother her. They would do this together. It was the only way.
“Cera!” he called. “Fit Polly for the slopes. Now.”
The healer reappeared, took one look at Polly, and nodded without argument. She’d clearly expected this.
As Cera drew Polly aside to begin layering the thermal gear, he strode into the supply chamber where his warriors had gathered.
Six of them, the best trackers in the clan, their pale fur bristling against the cold that seeped in from the passages.
To his surprise, Rjmar and Doren were there too.
Doren lounged against the wall, arms crossed, a sardonic tilt to his mouth.
“You’re bringing the offworlder?” Doren said, nodding towards where Cera was equipping Polly. “Bold choice.”
“She’s bringing herself,” he said. “And you two—what are you doing here?”
“Baralt sent me. You know I can track,” Rjmar said calmly, and he couldn’t argue with the older male.
He looked from Rjmar to Doren, but Doren only shrugged.
“Rjmar’s dragging me everywhere these days. Something about keeping me out of trouble.” His blue eyes glinted. “Besides. I know a thing or two about people who run. Sometimes it takes one to find one.”
He studied the young male for a moment—the insolence, the sharp edges, the flicker of something almost genuine beneath the sarcasm. Rjmar had seen something in this one. Perhaps he wasn’t wrong.
“Fine,” he said. “You’ll take the lower flank with Rjmar.
” He raised his voice to address them all.
“Listen well. We believe the female is lost on the eastern slopes, near last year’s rockslide.
She’s dressed for warm weather so she won’t survive long.
We move fast, but we move careful. That terrain has killed better trackers than any of you. ”
Grim nods all around.
“One more thing.” His voice dropped, hard as the stone beneath their feet. “This human is terrified of us. If you find her first, you do not approach. You do not corner her. You signal, you hold your position, and you send for Polly. Frightening her could drive her off a cliff. Am I understood?”
“Understood,” Rjmar rumbled, and the others echoed him.
He glanced back towards Polly. Cera had wrapped her in layers of thick thermal fabric, with a fur-lined hood framing her small face and insulated boots reaching nearly to her knees. She looked absurdly tiny beneath it all—and absolutely determined.
She caught his eye and gave him a small nod.
Ready.
He wasn’t. He didn’t think he’d ever be ready to walk her into that killing cold. But some things had to be done regardless of readiness, and some fears had to be carried rather than conquered. She’d taught him that, without ever meaning to.
“Move out,” he said.
The warriors filed towards the entrance, torches flaring against the darkness beyond. He crossed to Polly, tucking a final heat-stone into her pocket and checking the seal of her hood, giving himself these last small tasks to steady the tremor of dread beneath his calm.
“Stay close,” he murmured.
“I will,” she promised.
And together, they stepped out into the dark and the cold and the vast, indifferent mountains, hunting for a female who did not want to be found.