Chapter Eighteen
Eighteen
Found
Shadach needed rest. Food. Hope. He had been searching for hours.
The forest, the temple, the base of the mountain to the east. The priestesses kept searching, half-heartedly.
It was out of respect for their Emperor that they stayed out here with him, tired and hungry.
Or, perhaps, it was out of pity for a man too stubborn to see the truth.
Raking his hand through his sweat-stained hair, Shadach looked to the snow-capped mountain range.
It was the only place he hadn’t searched.
It was the only place she surely could not be.
Shadach glanced back, the priestesses moving through the trees, calling Aoife’s name with hoarse, tired voices.
There was no place left. If she wasn’t in the mountains, she was nowhere close enough to find. It was as Tara had said.
“Emperor, please don’t,” a priestess called as Shadach stepped to the mountains.
“It’s the last place,” he said.
“You aren’t dressed for the cold, you’ll die.”
Shadach studied the icy mountains. He doubted the temple even had enough clothes to keep him warm. Maybe it was the exhaustion that was turning his thoughts askew. Maybe it was stupidity.
Maybe it was hope.
Either way, Shadach said, “Quite certain I’m dead regardless.”
He ventured up the nearest mountain. It took about ten minutes of the ice-wind lashing his face for him to realise how ridiculous this was. Even if Aoife was here, how was he going to find her in a mountain range? The God hadn’t sent him a cat to be his magical compass this time.
Still. He would never know if he didn’t try.
Shadach trekked along the mountain path, deviating every chance he got to search under piles of snow, inside caves, behind snow-laced trees.
He shouted Aoife’s name, but the wind whisked it away each time.
After hours he had long lost track of, his face burned from the cold and his body was ready to fold from weariness. He kept going.
What if you don’t find her?
He had to.
What if she’s really gone?
She couldn’t be.
What will you say if you do find her?
He didn’t know.
Shadach could see the icy peak of the mountain. Had he really travelled so far? Surely, she was not here, not this far up. He should head back down, find more places to look before the frostbite got to him.
Then again … maybe Tafana had been right. Shadach slowed, the cold settling into his bones, slowing his thoughts and perhaps his heart. Maybe this had all been folly. Aoife was safe, wasn’t she? Wherever the Gates had taken her. Maybe that was best for her, leaving this place.
Leaving him.
But why hadn’t she said anything before? If she’d had a way out of the danger why hadn’t she told him? Why lie about the Gates? And such an obvious lie at that?
Shadach sighed. Or shivered. Or both. It didn’t really matter, did it? He would never know the answer. She was gone. He should be happy, like Tafana had said. He didn’t have to be Emperor now. He didn’t have to—
Shadach stopped. He saw … something. He blinked, struggling to see through the snow.
He may have been hallucinating. He was cold enough to be hallucinating.
But it was not nothing. Was it? Whatever it was, it was peeking out from behind a boulder.
Was that a hand? Shadach tried to rub the ice from his eyelashes to help him see clearer.
It was a human hand. Wasn’t it? Trekking to the boulder, Shadach summoned the last of his strength, fiery hope blooming in his icy chest. His heart battered his lungs as he held his breath, waiting to see what he would find.
He rounded the boulder. The frozen air went out of him.
There she was. Aoife. Back hunched. Head buried in her knees.
One hand hugged herself while the other hand steadied herself on the ground.
Shaking. Shadach’s throat caught at the sight of her barely alive.
It was then he knew he’d never wanted Tafana to be right.
His fears of becoming Emperor be damned.
“Aoife,” he said, but the wind stole his voice.
He put a hand on her shivering shoulder.
It took her a moment to notice him, as if his touch needed to worm its way through a block of ice to get to her.
She looked at him. Her eyes, exhausted. Afraid.
Her lips, blue from cold. Still, she smiled.
Her lips cracked and bled at the motion, but she didn’t seem to notice.
“You’re still here.” Her voice was hoarse.
“We shouldn’t be.” He raised her to her feet, her body rigid, his own begging to collapse. “We have to get down the mountain.”
She swayed, coughing. “I can’t.”
“You told a man who was about to kill you to go fuck himself. I think you can.”
She stared at him, her eyes sitting between laughing and crying. She opened her mouth to speak, but nodded instead, licking her lips to clear away the blood. It did little good.
Shadach put his arm around her waist and held her close, her body pressing into him, using him for every ounce of strength she didn’t have. He didn’t have much either. But he would find enough. Somehow.
His chest ached from the cold air, his legs burning from exhaustion, his arms losing feeling as he held her up. Still, he kept on. Step after step, breath after breath. Just one more hour. Just one more minute. Just one more second.
Keep going. Find strength. Don’t stop.
When they reached the bottom of the mountain, Shadach nearly laughed with delirious joy. They had made it. They were alive and they had made—
“Where are the priestesses?” Aoife whispered through chattering teeth.
Shadach hadn’t expected them to wait for him and he certainly hadn’t expected them to think he’d survive, but Tafana would have insisted they wait.
At least for a while. Yet, all Shadach saw was dark forest. No torches, no friendly faces.
With bleary eyes, Shadach looked to the temple in the distance.
There were torches aplenty in the temple.
There shouldn’t have been. It was the middle of the night.
Unease settled in Shadach’s chest more deadly than the hypothermia settling in his lungs. That’s when he heard them. The voices. Men speaking with a familiar military cadence.
You’ve got to be kidding me, Shadach thought. And one look at Aoife’s face told him she was thinking the same.
“Emperor.”
Shadach jumped at the voice, pulling Aoife behind him. Or, at least, he tried. His body was too frozen to move properly. Thankfully, the person who had spoken was Tafana. If it had been a soldier, he’d have been dead by now.
“You must run.” Tafana’s voice was a fierce whisper.
“We can barely stand,” Aoife said, teeth chattering, cheeks as white as the grave.
“Which is precisely why you must run.” Tafana pulled them behind the cover of a large Evernight tree. “Aristen is in the temple.”
“What?” Shadach and Aoife both said, their voices slurring together in a jittering, shivering mess. Then, Shadach said, “Tara.”
Tafana shook her head. “No. A Selat emperor is no better than a Halcin to her. Only a Xana will do.” Tafana hesitated, her eyes aggrieved. “But you may have been right, Emperor. There may be others who would prefer a Selat to a Halcin.”
Yet again, Shadach found himself loathe to be right.
“Here.” For the first time, Shadach noticed a heap of material stuffed under Tafana’s right arm. “Take these.”
The material was massive, weighty cloaks made from the black fur of the Donnager wolf.
“And these.” Tafana handed Aoife and Shadach a pouch each.
One touch of it told Shadach it was filled with smouldering coals, the pouch itself lacquered to prevent burns and the material from being set on fire.
“Put them to your chests.” She helped them to settle the cloaks on their bodies.
The pouch was fire to Shadach’s icy skin, making him feel he was being burned alive. The alternative was worse.
“Get to the Emperor’s City,” Tafana said. “Find the priestess Deydra, she will help you.” Tafana stepped back, looking at them.
They were shivering. Barely alive. And yet, they had no choice.
“Run,” she said.