Chapter 71 #2
I am already moving, pushing through the snow toward the edge of the path where the ground drops and the shadows gather between the rocks, calling their names even though I know it accomplishes nothing.
I do it anyway.
"Saurin would not have left them," I say, and my voice breaks on the last word in a way I cannot stop.
"No," Colsar says. "She would not."
"Something came for them while we were fighting. They knew. Someone told them about the children, Colsar, someone knew exactly what was in that transport and waited until we were occupied and they—"
"Asharin."
Colsar's voice. Different from a moment ago. Not entirely calm, but moving toward it.
I turn. He is standing very still at the back of the transport, his attention fixed on something I cannot see from where I am, and his expression has shifted by just a fraction, just enough.
I cross the distance through the snow. Then I hear her. Small. Furious. Entirely and completely herself.
Kiss.
I round the back of the transport and Kentan is standing there as though he has always been there, one child in each arm, both wrapped tightly, Cambra on one side and Saurin on the other with an expression that tells me the last several minutes have taken something from her she will not be getting back quickly.
Kiss is making quite a lot of noise. Ari is asleep, unsurprisingly.
I take them before Kentan can prepare, pulling one and then the other against me, and the sound that leaves me is not dignified and I could not care less. I press my face into the warmth between them and breathe, and I stay there until my hands stop shaking. Then I stay a little longer.
When I finally look up my eyes are wet and I make no effort to address it.
Colsar reaches through my arms and finds them both at once, his hands moving over them the same way mine just did, and for a long moment the four of us are simply together in the snow while the mountain holds its cold indifferent silence around us.
I look at Kentan. “Where did you go?” I ask.
"Below the surface," he says simply. "There were too many creatures here, it was not safe.”
Colsar closes his eyes. When he opens them the roughness in his voice is audible even when he says nothing. He says something then, quiet and certain. "Thank you."
Kentan beams, which is not what I expected from a man who just vanished beneath a mountain with my children during a battle.
"I was made for this," he says. "Just allow it."
Colsar exhales once, long and slow. Then he looks at me, then back at Kentan. “You may discuss it with her. If she says yes, I will allow it.”
I look back at him over the children's heads and do not argue, because whatever Kentan has asked for, I will probably say yes.
He had kept them safe.
The snow continues to fall around us, quiet and indifferent. I hold my children and I breathe, and it takes a very long time before I am ready to move again.
The word reaches us before Enovar does. One of the Avanki scouts returns first, saying only that he is coming and that he is injured. Colsar's expression does not change but I feel something move in him and I am already turning when Enovar rides back into the line.
His cloak is gone. His arm hangs at an angle that arms do not hang at. "Those birds," he says, bringing his horse alongside mine, his voice carrying its usual ease in a way that costs him something now, "are quite convenient."
"Your arm," I say.
"Yes." He looks at it with mild interest. “They do not hold back.”
He smiles weakly. “But the path is clear, not a single one of them will touch my little cousins.”
The cold drops further. "Enovar—"
"Do not." He says it gently. “Even deathmages cannot kill what is already dead.
The arm will return to what it was." A pause.
"But I am weaker than I was before. Weak enough that Syle is already pulling at me and I will likely end up back in Alarna whether I wish it or not.
" He looks at me with those too-young eyes that carry too much in them.
"The bite together with Syle reaching for you from so far has taken something from us. We need to be back together."
"How do you do that?" I ask. "Simply return?"
He smiles. "I will myself back to where I belong."
"Enovar." I reach for him. "Let me find a healer—"
"Stop." He says it warmly. "That is a waste. Once I return to Syle I will be as I was." He holds my eyes for a moment. "Truly."
Then something quieter moves through his expression.
"In truth, dear cousin," he says, "you do not need me. The Avanki are loyal to you. Kentan can be trusted." His eyes move briefly to Colsar. "And your husband is a killer of fun, but he will keep you safe." He looks back at me. "Not that you need it. I felt your power from miles away."
He is breathing harder now, the effort of it showing in the lines of him.
"What can I do?" I ask. "What do you need?"
He tilts his head. "A kiss on the cheek," he says, "and tell me I am considerably more handsome than Syle."
"Absolutely not," I say.
He laughs, and it is real, and then he reaches out and ruffles my hair with the hand that still works, and says, "Be well, cousin. We will meet again soon."
He winks.
And then he is simply gone, only cold air where he was, the faint impression of warmth already fading.
The mountain is quiet. The snow continues to fall, indifferent as it has been all day. I hold my children and look at Colsar and he looks back at me, and neither of us speaks, because there is nothing that needs saying yet. We are alive. They are alive. The path to Veynar is still ahead of us.
That is enough. For now, that is enough.