Chapter 32
VALANCE
Two weeks passed. A long fourteen days and nights on the road, taking many diversions, hiding from bandits and Fomorian patrols.
They were everywhere, looking for us. Wanted posters were nailed to trees, and there had been many close calls.
We’d sent the horses back three days ago, unable to hide them anymore.
There was so much tension between us, so much left unsaid after the revelations at Róisín’s home.
We didn’t discuss them, didn’t discuss much of anything.
Only food and if the other felt okay. No more sex, no more kissing.
A cold, miserable journey with so much rain, so much emptiness.
Our wheels spinning, existing through survival.
All the while longing for him to fuck me again.
Even hold me. To make me feel something.
But we resisted, both of us weary of this journey. We’d given all we could, emotionally drained. It had taken eight days for my magic to return after the discovery of Daire’s final brutal act.
I tried not to think of him. I had no more room in my heart for my brother.
I expressed a thousand apologies to Kormac for the loss of his friend, for what he’d had to witness on that dreadful day.
They would never be enough, and they would never ease his pain.
Especially coming from me, the blood relative of that monster, but I had to offer them, no matter how useless.
Because I wanted to at least try to ease his sorrow.
Burn, brother…
On the morning of the fifteenth day, we reached the Winter Steppes—the mountains between Autumn and Winter.
Monoliths stretching east and west, the tallest mountains in Faerie.
At the snow-capped peaks, the sky changed.
The Autumn blue fringed with purple tones, gray clouds choking most of it from view.
Snow clouds.
I pulled my gray cloak around me, thankful for the gift of proper clothing from Róisín. It stank from our time on the road, but I was used to smelling bad now.
Three trenches sat at the bottom of the mountain range. I would guess a mile wide between the three of them, impossible to cross with no bridges, no anything to aid a crossing.
I approached the edge of the first trench, resting my boot on a rock. Taking in the scene, a freezing wind lifting my hair.
Kormac stood beside me. A flock of birds flew across the mountains, swirling in a brown mass.
“Valance? Can I say something?”
I looked to his hair rippling in the wind. His radiant blue eyes scanned the land before us, the beastly wall of mountains with nightmares awaiting beyond.
“Please do,” I said.
“Before we go in there, I want to say that maybe I can forgive you. I… I think it might happen, thought it might not. I just…” He blew an exasperated breath. “I just felt like I had to say it. No soul bond. At least, I don’t think so.”
He faced me. Smiled.
“We do not owe each other forgiveness, Kormac. However, I agree. One day I may offer you mine. We have hurt each other, yet we have healed each other. Literally in your case.” I looked away, his eyes too lovely to keep me standing.
“I won’t deny my attraction to you. There has always been one.
And regardless of this bond, and regardless of the short period of time we have been stuck with one another, I… I have come to grow fond of you.”
“I—”
I stopped him from responding. “I have to figure out what these feelings mean.”
“I feel the same.” He placed a hand on my shoulder. “I think.”
“Róisín was right. This is pure insanity.”
“But we didn’t need telling that.”
I chuckled. “We did not.” I reached up and touched his arm, our gazes melding together for half a minute. A nice thirty seconds away from the mountains. Away from the world.
“I hope she’s okay,” he said. “Róisín.”
“Me too.”
“Really?”
“She helped us get here. If it wasn’t for her, we’d be dead.”
“Thanks.”
“What for?”
“For appreciating my friends.”
“I’ll try not to make a habit of it.”
I enjoyed his laughter.
Where would our relationship be at the end of this?
Let time reveal it.
“Okay,” I said, “on to the task ahead.”
He dropped his hand. “Crossing the trenches.”
“This will not be a fun exercise.”
“Have you ever heard of a crossing at any point?” he asked.
“No. Have you, being a man of these lands?”
“Never. And I wouldn’t come up here if I didn’t have to.”
“Neither would I.”
All that stood between us were mountains and trenches. Barriers between us and the truth.
“How to cross…” I muttered.
A rumble in the distance behind us. Hoofbeats. Many of them. An army. I turned to face the meadow we’d crossed, the horizon dotted with a line of figures. Many, many figures.
Definitely an army.
“Gods! It’s her!” Kormac declared.
Lasair. Who else would it be with an army like that?
So close, yet so far.
I returned my attention to the trenches, knowing this couldn’t be the end of the line when we’d finally reached the border…
…to find I wasn’t wrong.
A bridge stood where one didn’t stand before. Gray stone, almost silver, hovering above the trenches to the other side. Whispers in the air, tickling my neck hairs, offering no words.
“Do you think it’s her?” Kormac asked, having also seen it. “The old woman?”
“I think so. Do you hear them?”
“Hear what?”
“The whispers?”
“I don’t hear anything.”
“Fine.”
“You do?”
“Yes.”
“What are they saying?” he asked.
“Nothing. They’re only whispers. For now.”
Whispers of my becoming…
“Let’s cross,” he said. “We don’t have another choice.”
We hurried to the bridge, taking tentative first steps. Solid. Safe. We crossed, not looking down, wind howling in the dark below. Lashing at our bodies, yet not strong enough to cast us off the bridge.
How deep did the trenches go?
I didn’t want to know.
As soon as our feet touched the frosted grass on the other side, the bridge collapsed with a terrifying boom. Stone tumbled into the trenches, the world trembling under its fierceness.
The air was much colder on this side of the trenches. Condensation curled on my breath as I watched the last of the bridge collapse.
The army rumbled on, growing closer and closer.
Come…
Step into Winter…
The whispers. Clear now. Inviting. Within the mountains.
Come to the lands of snow…
An opening. A cave. A path. I felt it. I saw it. I knew it. I walked, boots crunching on frost, heading for the dark void that wasn’t there before. The edges were tinged with silver light. Magic. The silver magic of the old woman.
“Valance?” Kormac hurried to join my side. “Where—”
“This is the way. This is where we must go.” I sounded different, calmer.
“What’s wrong?”
Come, Prince Valance. Come…
“The whispers… They call me.”
“Then… Then let’s go,” he said. “This is it. This is really it.”
I looked at him. “Take my hand.”
“What?”
“Take my hand. I don’t want to lose you in there.”
He took my hand, our cold flesh joining, fingers interlocking.
“Are you ready?” I asked him.
He nodded.
We walked, stepping into the dark. Silver beads of light ignited within the black stone ground, guiding our way through pitch darkness. It was cold, narrow with just enough room for two men.
“We’re here,” I said. “We’re really here.”
“Not quite,” Kormac responded. “We’ve got to get to the heart first.”
“Yes. But we’re here.”
Come to Winter, Prince Valance…