Chapter Thirty Four
MILA
“Shite,” Einar muttered. “Look at that mountain.”
Mila, head tipped back, stared at the wet rocks without a word. Her tight lips and taut neck revealed everything she wouldn’t say.
Shite didn’t encompass the curling pit of fear in her gut.
They stood before no mere mountain, but a sheer cliff.
Mila forced herself to stare at it, and then look away.
Her sire studied the prodigious rock face with a bored affectation, as if scaling it wouldn’t be nigh unattainable.
It would be a miracle to even reach the rock face, considering the shoals that lurked under the water surrounding its base.
She had a feeling Draven acted nonchalant for her benefit, but it didn’t make her feel anymore powerful.
“We’ll do it,” she said with conviction, because she had little else to say.
Einar’s nose twitched, eyes zigging and zagging from one spot to another in sharp, fast assessment. If she had to scale that behemoth with a human, she’d choose Einar first. He had ability and raw determination in spades. Undoubtedly, he’d managed some near-impossible feats in his time as a soldat.
She wondered if this topped every one of them.
“But . . . how?” Mila asked. “We need to map out a route right now, before we approach the shoals.”
“Agreed,” Einar said.
Begin, Himmel promised in the wind, and the path shall be revealed.
Einar countered with a skeptical, “You’ve seen a path, Himmel? An actual path that our feet can walk?” and Mila was grateful they both heard Himmel.
A tiny wind devil twirled to life on the rock face, spiriting from the foamy waves at the bottom and up the side. Hints of a ledge existed along the wind devil’s path. If Himmel hadn’t drawn Mila’s gaze toward it, she never would have noticed.
Mila mentally braced herself. It would take more than brawn and sturdy ankles to scale this challenge.
“You can’t take us?” Einar asked.
You must approach and seek on your own. It is an arcane law.
“Let me guess,” he drawled. “We have to prove ourselves worthy to enter?”
Amusement lightened Himmel’s reply.
How did you know?
“A hunch.” Einar looped a rope over his shoulder and held out a hand to Mila. “I’m ready, are you?”
She nodded, filled with renewed determination.
“Ready.”
Draven advanced a step, setting a warm hand between Mila’s shoulder blades. He imparted warmth, comfort.
“With the sea arcane, I will guide your rowboat to the base, but my assistance ends at the wall. I can feel the arcane restriction from here. After that point, you’re on your own.
” His hand grew heavier on her back, and he said quietly, “Take care, dear Mila. You are immortal in the way of arcane beings, but your healing powers will still be immature. Pedr doesn’t have time for me to nurse you back to health after the painful experience of bashing against those rocks in the waves. ”
“I’ll take care.”
“And I will remain close to Pedr,” he promised in return.
With a nod, Mila set her hand in Einar’s.
“Let’s go.”
The rowboat wove a maniacal, slow, steady pattern around the shoals. Twice, the bottom scraped something. Mila put a hand to her bucking stomach and stared over the rowboat’s side, grimacing. Why was the water so dark?
What did it hide? She shivered, unable to imagine a place she’d want to go less than the ocean.
The moment the rowboat reached the rocks, their arcane support withered. After riding a wave all the way in, Einar grasped a slippery handhold jutting out as a wave swelled, and he held them to the wall with a grunt. Sprayed by cold water, Mila gasped. Her arms went rigid, eyes wide.
The sea.
The blasted sea.
Old fears resurrected. Stulla, commanding her to stay away. Mother, telling her of promised death. Stinna, relaying Onskar’s power in the water.
What if it took her now?
With a shake, she forced herself from the frozen panic. No, she had been splashed before. The danger wasn’t real. Or, she hoped not. At the same moment, a wave bucked them higher, and Einar struggled to maintain his hold. An oar pitched into the violent sea.
“Jump out!” he called.
Mila gripped the rowboat side and vaulted over.
Arcane prowess took her farther than a human could manage, and more gracefully.
The soles of her feet hit porous, rocky ground, and she gripped with her toes while seeking with her hands.
Finding a hold amongst the slick rocks, she danced higher, out of Einar’s way.
Halfway up a boulder, she paused and looked back. The wave that helped fling her out of the boat retreated, but Einar held true to the wall. He gritted his teeth, expression contorted, as he struggled to hold the rowboat with his feet, the wall with his hands.
He had strength.
The next rollicking wave elevated him higher up the wall right before it broke in a foamy spray.
Using this height to his advantage, Einar dragged in a deep breath, braced his feet, released the rock, and leaped.
He tossed himself with brute force instead of finesse.
One shoulder slammed the wall, scraping skin.
A following wave hit at the same moment, and his hands flailed for purchase.
Somehow finding near-immediate grips for his feet, he scrambled sideways like a crab, stumbled on a shorn rock, and dropped half into the water.
As quickly as he fell, he scrambled higher again, blood oozing from a gash on his hand.
“Are you all right?” she called.
Lips hard and set, he waved her on. Blood drained into the sea, but he ignored it.
Hair saturated, Mila whirled around and moved higher until she balanced on a rock platform. Einar prowled up the cliff, never ceasing his movements, until he stopped just below Mila. Grunting, he pulled himself up the last ascent to her platform and Mila moved sideways to make space.
Wordless, they scurried along the treacherous shelves, hopping from one place to another, until they finally elevated above the bashing water.
Panting, dripping wet, Einar swiped an arm over his face. Blood saturated his shirt.
“Nice work,” he said.
“You, too.”
As one, their focus canted overhead. Their current position led to a thin, nearly non-existent trail that wound slowly up and out of sight.
Mila studied it, grateful for a moment to breathe.
But the daunting requirement of the narrow path sent a cold chill into her blood, so she turned her face to the wind and looked out.
The rowboat returned to the Rosenvatten as delicately as before, seemingly oblivious to the wicked torrents that should have smashed it to pieces.
Within herself, she sought deep.
Deeper.
And found nothing. Certainly not arcane to assist them. Himmel said they couldn’t use the arcane, anyway.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yes.”
Even to her ears, her tone left something to be desired. It was no surprise when he asked, “Are you sure?”
Mila cast a ghost of a smile. One hand lingered over her sternum, toying with her neckline, as her disappointment sank a little deeper.
“Yes. I just thought . . . maybe here at the Seat of the Sky’s Power . . . I might feel something different. The arcane is concentrated here, and maybe it would . . . I don’t know . . . awaken my arcane abilities.”
“Has it?”
Lips pressed, she shook her head. “No. Granted, we aren’t at the top yet, but . . . anyway . . . ”
“I’m sorry.”
She shrugged, throat thickening. How she wished she had Einar’s emotional regulation, like controlled straps on the rising tide of feelings that ebbed and flowed. In this moment, she needed staunch power.
Well . . . she’d have it. She’d create it inside her, if she must. Wrenching herself together, Mila lifted her chin. The arcane didn’t run to help her, so she’d help herself.
“Let’s get this done,” she stated.
Einar nodded once. “I agree, and I think this is the spot Himmel showed us.” He turned his head to the side, whipping the hair out of his face. “Great navigation to here, by the way.”
She didn’t admit it had been happenstance, because maybe it hadn’t. After studying the way forward, he sent a sidelong glance over his shoulder.
“You can’t die, right?”
“Ah . . . not in the human sense, no. But I’m not fully immortal, meaning I don’t have access to all my arcane abilities.”
“If you fall?—”
“I wouldn’t die, but the recovery wouldn’t be fun and I would be forever altered by it.”
Einar took that in with a nod.
“I’ll go first. You follow.”
She opened her mouth to dispute him, but stopped when he sent her a hard stare.
Maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing to go second.
He had more weight, which would more effectively test the rocks.
Since she was lighter, if he dislodged something with his bulk, she’d be more likely to fall with him. They’d know the weaker areas better.
“That’s fine. I’ll follow.”
Einar ventured first, inching slowly. Mila splayed her spine against the rock and didn’t take her eyes off of the horizon as she followed.
They shuffled across brittle stones, stained from sea and salt.
The thin shale slipped under Einar’s feet when he seemed to least expect it.
At those moments, he became very still, and so did Mila.
The uneven, unexpected footing nearly sent him plummeting every other step.
They side-stepped, toes jutting from the wall on the razor-thin wedge. Mila’s stomach twisted every time she had to glance down to check her footing. They shuffled along a space not much wider than her palm. Her thoughts meandered as she sought anything to focus on that wasn’t this.
Like Pedr.
Their awaiting life together.
The sea.
A trickling rock, and a little gasp, returned her thoughts to the escarpment.
While thinking of Pedr, they had advanced around the rock face and lost sight of the Rosenvatten.
Einar stopped and glanced over. His legs held firm, but his fingers shook a little as they gripped the wall.
The wall angled to the side, removing her view of all but the next five to six shuffles.
“You okay?” he called over his shoulder.