Chapter 33 Lia
Lia
Uh, where’s my guard? She eased the cave flap aside and scanned the ledge.
Tonight everyone had gone to the feast. Well, everyone except her and the lone sentry assigned to Arctos’s den. She’d even rehearsed a casual greeting about the weather to try to get him to talk.
The ledge was empty. He must be using the facilities.
Laughter drifted up from the court, bright and communal, so unlike the cruel humor the vampires loved: the barbs that always claimed a victim.
Was Arctos’s laugh woven in? She ached with the realization that she would never be one of them.
At least I’m consistent.
Tonight the clan welcomed the migratory arrival of the water nymphs, females who could morph with any body of water. Arctos would rendezvous with one of them in particular, Undara.
The winds had grown unusually still. The moon—full just yesterday—blazed in the cloudless sky. Warmer days had melted away all the snow, but Arctos had told her it would soon come in buckets, cocooning them in like hibernating bears until the spring melt.
Wait. Was that her guard on the other side of the ravine? He’d wandered from his post to meet with a female!
Lia gave a bitter laugh. I’m the only one alone tonight. Even the sentry had plans.
Moonlight sketched the kissing couple—his hand sliding into the woman’s trousers, her hips undulating for more. He was only too happy to comply, cupping between her thighs and rocking her on his hand.
Would Arctos kiss his nymph like that and fondle her sex?
Lia’s chest twisted. Not jealousy, exactly. Just comprehension: the shieldchief’s public affair would confirm to everyone that she didn’t matter here.
Earlier today, she and Arctos had stood on the peak as they often did, the Skein unfolding beneath them. In just a few short weeks, she’d become a different person from the first time she’d surveyed the territory.
Food tasted better. Now that her sense of smell had returned, she didn’t need as much seasoning. Delicious meals shared with Arctos fortified her. Muscles took shape. Her sword no longer felt like an absurdity.
And still he’d left her to meet another.
She told herself she’d imagined his pause at the door, the searching intensity in his gaze as he’d glanced back.
She must have. Because when the time came, he’d turned without a word and departed.
Stung, she’d stared after him for what felt like hours as her thoughts raced. She must’ve imagined other things as well…the new respect in his eyes during training…the moments at meals when tension slipped from his shoulders…
I’m no better than Co?tin, lying to myself about what someone feels.
Umber called to her: land of outcasts, where a gentle scholar might collect words instead of weapons and kiss her sweetly, where vampires might favor bread over blood.
I’m an outcast; I belong in the land of them.
Besides, if she stayed here, Co?tin would eventually come for her. He’d steal her back and kill her “husband.” By freeing herself from Ravinelun, Lia would free Arctos.
Everyone wins, she told herself. Or at least survives.
The wind was still tonight; she already scented the river, could follow that thread through the maze, finding her way. The sentry remained entangled.
Now is the time.
Lia packed in haste—clothes, food, a loaf of bread—and drew on her coat. Sword at her hip, she slipped from the cave.
The lovers’ crescendo spurred her on. She hadn’t been born just to be alone. Surely not?
Creepy wrong ones, her mind whispered in answer.
Shaking away that thought, she cut into the ravines and chose a channel she half recognized from training. If she could just reach the river, its course would take her through Craigdúr and the Witchwood, then directly into Umber.
The canyon meandered and split, so she followed her nose toward the scent of water, pushing herself.
Weak? No more. Her body felt powerful. And the stronger she’d grown, the more she had felt Ravinelun’s rugged call. But it wasn’t to be.
Right. Left. Right.
Any moment now the ravine would open up—
Dead end. Of course it was.
She backtracked, picked another corridor, pursuing it as the moon trailed her.
Dead end.
Wind picked up through the corridors, smearing scents until the river seemed to be everywhere and nowhere. Arctos’s voice surfaced in her memory: The ravines eat strangers.
Lia was still a stranger.
The rock path left no sign of her footsteps, so she couldn’t even follow them back to the village in defeat. She tried to etch the stone with her sword. Sparks. A dulled edge. No mark.
Keep calm. Try the maze again.
Left. Right. Left. Dead end. Like that day Co?tin chased her—only this time she had no ray of sun to flee into. The air closed in, tight with old cold. Panic rose, slipping a hand around her throat. But she kept moving, turned again and again.
Miles. Backtrack. Turn. Wrong. Backtrack. Wrong.
All the corridors looked horrifically the same, and she suspected she was about to lose her mind. At last she sagged to the ground, surrender bursting out as sobs. Through pink-filmed vision, she glared at the stone. You win. You win! Congratulations.
If the Berserkers caught her, Yrsa might demand Lia’s life. If they didn’t, the maze could. She wasn’t fully immortal yet, could die of exposure.
Then she frowned. The ravines couldn’t be identical. Berserkers learned them. What do they see that I can’t?
She stood and pressed her palm to the rock: tiny pits like constellations, hairline grooves angling upward, a subtle lean. At the next turn, the striations shifted, climbing higher. She moved faster, fingers skimming stone, cataloging differences.
No wonder Berserkers didn’t gild the walls of their caves. The stone was already exquisite—and distinct!
A shallow gully appeared at the base of one wall, nearly hidden. Spring melt would ride this down. She followed, the channel deepening, the walls edging wider.
Noise to her right—maybe only wind—no, a low rush of water. Please be real!
Heart thudding, she raced around the next bend. The river flashed ahead, a braid of churning silver and black. Relief hit so hard, she laughed, breath fogging.
So that’s what victory feels like. Brief.
She ran beside the iced shore, hopping rocks, weaving trees. If she kept pace, she could cross Craigdúr’s border by dawn.
Each step took her away from Ravinelun, away from a male she’d never been able to befriend. She paused for a final look over her shoulder, and a memory of last night’s full moon arose.
Her, sharpening their swords. Arctos, polishing a shield for her. A fire before them. She’d heard the ghostly howls of Lykae and grinned over at him. His stoic mask had dropped, not into a grin, but his grimness had eased…
Not to be. She turned back to her escape—
Brown rose like a wall. Fangs. Breath. Hot, rank musk.
A bear reared up on two legs, towering.
Arctos had never warned her about actual bears. She drew her sword, predicting reach and angles. Twice her height. Claws the size of a dagger. Berserkers revered these beasts; if she managed to harm it, would they hunt her?
The bear snarled at the weapon.
Lia dropped her pack, yanked the loaf free, and flung both aside, hoping to distract the creature so she could speed past.
It charged. For her. No time to think. She jogged backward toward the frozen shore, darting out onto a shelf of ice. “Back!” She raised her sword. “Go away!”
But the bear stalked toward her and stepped onto the shelf. A fracture shot toward her like lightning.
“Leave me alone!” How many times had she screamed this at Co?tin? Boots skidding across the ice, she swung. Missed by inches. It reared again in a rage.
When it drops, the ice goes.
She’d waited too long to strike. Should’ve fought on land. Should’ve fought Co?tin.
If I get through this, I’ll never not fight again—
The bear came down. The ice split open with a deafening crack. The shelf lurched beneath her feet, and she pinwheeled her arms.
She fell.
Frigid water stole her breath and crushed her chest, the current spinning her. The sword tore from her hand. She surfaced in a froth of white, the current shooting her like an arrow down rapids.
Spray dimmed her vision. I’m going to drown! Underwater again. Can’t see! The river spat her up one more time. She burned her breath on a single word, raw and instinctive:
“Arctos!”