He growled at the soreness of his chest as he staggered upright.
We both stared at Sero, half covered in snow.
Kye stepped in close to the gray horse’s stomach and knelt to his saddlebags, tugging his dagger free. The snow shifted under his weight, falling away from Sero’s front legs, both of them broken.
A noise broke from my throat at the sight. I dropped my head over my chest, coaxing a raw lump from the back of my mouth.
Kye groaned softly as he straightened, a fist over his heart, his lips curled.
“Do you need a minute?” I asked shakily, eyeing the stiff way his legs moved.
He shook his head. “I'm fine,” he sighed, pausing to run a hand along the ridge of my jaw, stopping as his fingers laced under my hair. He smoothed a thumb under my lower lip, smeared with blood. By reflex, I licked it away, the split already closed.
“Are you alright?” he rasped.
“Yes.”
“Good. Let’s go.”
We weren’t out of danger as we scaled the pass and crossed into our own territory.
But the air smelled sweet with the release of a weight I hadn’t realized I’d grown so accustomed to bearing. The sun shinedthick and bright down the Calderian side of the mountain, and though the climb down was difficult, it proved much easier than the climb up.
The trail gradient evened, and when I ordered Kye onto Kolibri’s back with me, he listened for once without question.
We shed our furs as we shared Kolibri, my body wedged tight between Kye’s legs. He wrapped an arm around my waist, clearing his throat every few minutes, leaning on me as much as I leaned against him. The mare shuffled across the ice, so nimble I was convinced she’d jumped out the oncoming avalanche entirely, the only one of us to avoid falling victim to the wild wolves of snow.
Ice around us thinned as we descended into Calder, turning to mud. The ash trees that had deserted the peaks of the other side of the mountain returned, painted scarlet and gold by the sun. Their leaves danced and rustled in the alpine wind, every bit as mesmerizing as the flames of a campfire.
Dusk found us still on the mountainside without a cabin.
I’d hoped we’d locate the old trail by now, but we hadn’t. We’d connected with the new one carved by Rivean soldiers, but it wrapped around the rocky face without any sort of structure in sight.
I supposed it made sense. Ten thousand soldiers wouldn’t need one tiny cabin. They had their own tents and gear.
But it was a disappointment, nonetheless.
Finding a rocky outcrop, I dug into the snow, building solid walls around us and over our heads.
It was tiny. But tiny was all we needed.
I left a hole in the roof for a fire, waiting until after dark to start it. Then we curled up next to Kolibri, exhausted.
I felt myself nodding off within minutes and jerked myself awake.
“I’ll take first watch,” Kye said.
I sat up to argue and he stopped me with a hand on my thigh.
“I’m fine, Maren. My ribs are just sore. You’ve earned some sleep.”
I stared at him, defeated. Angry.
I hadn’tearnedanything. I’d killed Sero. And almost killed Kye. The entire Rivean army knew thatsomeonewas on the mountainside, alerted by the avalancheI’dcaused. Somewhere at the bottom of Rivea lay a soldier’s body, his only crime being that he’d stumbled upon us.
All because I hadn’t wanted to take a ship.
The nearby memory of Kye blue and lifeless, his nose and mouth packed with snow, twisted around in my head. Now that we were bedded down and concealed by snow and darkness, I realized how much it made me want to vomit.
