Chapter Nineteen
Vonetta
Thin crystals of ice form in my sight, both burning and melting in my eyes with each blink.
I switch between holding them tightly closed and squinting them so I can see the snowy and icy path before me. I do not have any bearing on how much time has passed since we made our start up the mountain this morning. Only that our time here, the frigid trek upward, feels eternal.
Chiron is in front of me, leading us up the winding path of the peaks of Caelestis. I am frozen stiff. Every step feels arduous and leaden to my frostbitten limbs.
Wren is at my back, slowly making his way through the snowy and slick terrain. His footfalls are not nearly as adept here as they were in the forest. We all struggle against the gusting winds as we slowly forge a way through the harsh reality of the mountain.
I hear Wren slip behind me, yelling out as he catches himself against the icy wall of stone to our left. Chiron and I both turn, the wind pushing me into the same wall as Wren.
Thank the Gods for my woolen breaches and cloak. The thick furs keep as much of the fierce cold from making contact with my body as they can. But they can only block so much of the cold as my back is pressed into the wall of ice.
The air is knocked from my lungs with the impact. I slide down the wall slowly, letting my legs splay out in front of me. Chiron reaches out a hand to me.
“Netta,” he starts, the fierce wind carrying his voice from us. “We can’t stop here, it’s too cold.” He shouts.
He’s right, I know that. Chiron blocks the wind from my face as I fight to control my breathing. Wren has his face buried. His arms and knees are pulled up, holding onto them for warmth. Chiron rests a gloved hand on Wren’s hunched shoulder.
“Hey. Hey, we need to find a place to get out of the wind. Can you get up?” He asks Wren. Lifting his face slightly, Wren peers up at Chiron. His eyes are squinted, barely open.
“Yeah, I need a minute. This is…” Wren trails off.
This is torture.
In the south of Elemyr, we never experience conditions like this. Cold rain, the occasional snowfall? Surely. But the mountain storm is an eternal winter, unlike anything I can recall. While the path we walk is worn into the massive peaks, it is dangerously slick, eroded by both time and weather.
Chiron’s features are tensed in frustration.
Though the bottom half is obscured by his scarf, I can see the pinch of his brows as he weighs our options.
I reach out my hand for him, and he raises himself back up.
Widening his gait, he clasps my hand and uses his other arm on my elbow to brace me.
When I rise, the wind immediately threatens to push me back down.
His large stature is a boon to him up here, and to me as well.
He holds me steady as I match his stance and brace myself for the next gust. When I am confident that I can remain upright, Chiron squeezes my hand before moving to help Wren up as well.
I cannot feel it through the thick material of our gloves, but I imagine how amazing his warm hand would feel in my own frigid one.
When Wren is ready, we continue our fight against the pass. The air feels thin as we wind our way upward, and I work to keep my breathing steady.
I allow my mind to go blank, focusing only on each step. Each breath.
As we wind our way up the pass, the wind pushes at our backs, occasionally sending me stumbling forward with the force.
Thankfully for Chiron, he does not budge as my weight falls onto his back. Unfortunately, I am not as steady under the same pressure. Wren is pushed forward by a strong gust, and I go sprawling out in front of me, my face hitting the solid ground with a thud that echoes around us.
I am senseless, the sounds and bright reflections around me gone. There is only darkness.
…
I am on my back when the blinding white peeks through the space between the men hovering above me. My head is pounding, a steady drum beat reverberating through me. Wren and Chiron are kneeling on either side of me, their faces close and their features drained of color.
I try to lift my head, but I am sluggish, my vision going fuzzy and dark again with the movement.
“Don’t move, Netta. Your head…you took an injury. Stay still,” Chiron says. His voice is low and soothing, but worry is etched into every foggy line of his face.
I reach my gloved hand up slowly to feel the right side of my face. Under the scarf I wrapped around my head, there is a pulsing lump at my temple. The pain of just this light prodding is enough to send nausea roiling through my belly. I heave, fighting my own instincts to keep my rations down.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Vonetta.” Wren’s words are a plea of shame and embarrassment.
Sucking in a slow and even breath, I wait for the sickness to subside.
“It’s okay. I’m okay,” I say to them both. I close my eyes; even with the two of them blocking the wind, the cold is still enough to freeze the moisture there.
“You’re not okay. That’s a dangerous fall you took. We need to find some shelter…but we can’t move you yet.” Chiron’s voice bleeds frustration and concern.
Aside from the queasy feeling and the pain of contact, I feel coherent, if not entirely steady. I listen to the howls of the storm and count my heartbeats. One, two. One, two…
My stomach settles, the waves of queasiness settling into faint ripples.
The frigid air in my lungs is harsh still, but I believe it keeps me from falling back into unconsciousness.
Once, when I was a child, I fell from an apple tree while playing in the grove. The Lady kept me in her rooms until the swelling subsided, placing wrapped ice from our underground stores over the contusion and compresses of knit bone and ground apple to speed the healing.
My mind is clear enough to know we do not have the luxury to linger here. I instruct Wren to bring me a small chunk of ice and wrap it in the folds of my scarf. The near direct touch of it is scalding at first, but the numbness that follows is blissful.
“You can’t sleep, Netta. Open your eyes. Just for a moment.” Chiron’s gloved fingers lift my chin slightly. I open them a small way, enough to see his worried face is closer now.
I manage a small smile, I hope it appears reassuring and not the grimace it feels like, stretching the cold skin of my face.
“We have to keep going, I will be well. Help me sit up, please?”
Chiron wedges a hand behind my back and helps me rise to a sitting position. The unease in my belly returns, but not as powerfully as it had the first time.
Now that I’m upright, the pulsing in my head begins to lessen slightly. I take this as a sign that I will be able to manage the rest of our journey to the beacon.
“This is entirely my fault. I shouldn’t have been behind you, Netta. I could have knocked you off the mountain. You could have died.” Wren’s words are a mixture of sadness and anger. “I shouldn’t be here. After everything that has occurred…I’ve hurt you again.”
His voice is carried away by the wind, but it lands in my chest all the same.
Wren has hurt Chiron and me with his resistance to our vows. But this? This was an accident. He would never intentionally put me in physical danger. Neither of them would.
Chiron speaks before I can collect my thoughts into words.
“Wren, you have to decide. Right now. You didn’t do this on purpose. Put that from your mind.” Chiron takes a deep inhale, righting himself before continuing.
“This trial? This trial is fucked. Climbing a damn mountain? None of my training could have prepared me; you and Netta have no training at all for this. But you’re only at fault for this if you don’t decide to stay with us now.”
Wren lowers his face. His eyes are closed, and his expression is one of battle weariness.
The mountain has zapped all of our strength and resolve. Nothing could have prepared us for the way this storm has stripped us of all comfort and certainty.
“We are a triad because duty called us to be so. The Gods called us to be so. But whether we are the Trinity? That is a choice that we make.” I reach for Wren’s own gloved hand and grip it as tightly as I can muster. “I choose you. Both of you. Will you choose us?”
Wren does not open his eyes for long moments.
Panic begins to coil in my chest, like a snake wrapping its way around its prey.
If Wren decides to leave, what will we do? Chiron and I cannot fulfill our vows or light the beacon without him. But it is what is right, I think. It’s only fair that Wren be given the choices his parents took from him; to be given back the choices the Gods took from him.
“You do not know how much I long for you both.” Wren’s voice is a hushed whisper, one forced from his lips by sheer force of will.
“Whether it is the bond we forged during the Rite, or the one we forged across the land to get here? I do not know. But I have been conflicted for so long. How can I fulfill my oaths to my brother and fulfill my bonds to the two of you? I think I cannot…and it is eating me alive.” Wren lifts his eyes to us both now, bidding us to understand his anguished indecision.
Perhaps before I knew the breadth of his wounds, I would not have understood.
I considered the call of Naedra to be something I could not, and would not turn from.
But I have found something in them both that I never knew I wanted.
Devotion, passion…love. Love has grown in me for them both.
They are so dear to me now. If Wren has not found the same, I cannot fault him for this.
“The choice is your own, Wren. I won’t tell you what to do.
But I can tell you one thing. My father was not born an heir.
He was a man of Caelestis, just like you.
He found a way to honor both his scholarship and his Kingdom.
I believe that you can too, if that is what you wish. ” Chiron says, eyes on Wren alone.