I wince, watching Zane take another oblivious bite. “Are you … going to do anything about it?”
Smoke billows out of Gun’s mouth as he watches his nephew enjoy his no-doubt stolen sweet. Probably nicked off somebody’s windowsill.
Gun reclines against the wall and draws another long puff, making the contents of his pipe fizzle red. “Figure I’m off duty,” he says, releasing a plume of white.
This time, my smile breaks free.
The door beside me swings open, and a petite woman pours out wearing a spill of blue fabric. She peers left and right, gaze touching me before she looks at Gun and says, “Where’s the Mistress? I’ve been sent out to escort her to the maiden suite.”
His brow bumps up, and he jerks his thumb in my direction.
Her attention flicks to me at the base of the wall, and her cheeks redden, offsetting bright blue eyes and all that golden hair piled on the top of her head.
She bobs a swift curtsey that makes her skirt puff full of air. “Mistress, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize—”
“No, it’s fine, honestly.”It’s more a compliment than anything.“Have you seen my sack? The High Master carried it inside. Did he set it down anywhere?”
She blinks, paling as she closes the door behind her and looks to Gun like she’s a little afraid for her wellbeing. “I—ah—I’m just one of the barmaids ...”
“Don’t harass the messenger, Orlaith. She’s just trying to take you to your room.”
I fill my cheeks, blow them out, and shove to a stand, then follow her past Gun and down a path cleaved between the buildings. Slowing before an inconspicuous door pressed into the stone, she pulls a key from her skirt pocket and battles the stubborn lock while I lean against the opposite wall and wait.
The hair on my left arm prickles, and I frown, breath snatching as a warm blow of air batters my side, teasing a raw, musky smell past my nose that pulls straight from my nightmares.
That deep-down voice screams for me torun.
Instead, I turn my head slower than a setting sun and stare along the tight alley that feeds into the unlit jungle beyond …
There’s something there.
My lungs compress, every hair on the back of my neck standing on end. My entire world—my entirebeing—seems to tunnel down to that slab of darkness at the end of the alley. Like I’m bobbing atop an inky ocean, feeling something brush against my wading feet.
Waiting to see if it’ll strike.
Suddenly, I can’t blink. Can’t swallow. Can’t so much as breathe. Crushed against the wall by the formidable form of this unseen force.
“Mistress?”
My plummet back to reality knocks my lungs into action, and I turn to the woman standing inside the open doorway that leads to a lit stairwell.
Clearing my throat, I shut myself off from the seeing shadows, and step over the threshold, a shiver scuttling up my spine as the door slams shut behind me.
The Reidlyn Alps rise before me like wicked waves, crusted with pockets of permafrost that glaze bits of them in an eerie shine. The peaks are hidden by dollops of white clouds that stand out against the bruised evening sky.
I turn my lantern’s dial, inhaling the smell of scorched flint as it flares to life, holding it before me, scanning the imposing shadow of the Alps.
Heart in my throat, I nudge Ale into the swallow of darkness, snow crunching underfoot, the lantern casting us in a protective, flaming aura. The temperature drops so fast my lungs cease for a beat—like leaping into an icy lake.
No wonder the sprites refuse to come out here anymore. The ones that risk it probably freeze up and drop dead the moment they flutter past this very line.
It’s rare for even regular folk to step into the shadow of the Alps these days—the temperature too extreme, the risk of crossing a Vruk increasing by the year. A lot of the villages nearby have been decimated by them. Even the cashmere goat herders that dominated this terrain for centuries have been forced to shift their dwindling flocks to warmer, safer pastures.
Ale’s ivory coat is stark against the black, matching the naked trees that reach from the ground like bleached claws. Ears straining, I listen for anything other than the sluggish crush of every hooved footfall and the hollow wails of the wind.
Ale pauses, tossing his head, flared nostrils steaming as he snorts his protest before attempting to prance backward.
“Come on, boy. Stop drawing attention to yourself.” I nudge his sides, and he bucks, almost tossing me off the saddle. Tightening my legs and my one-handed hold on the reins, I growl, steadying the horse and nudging him deeper into the chill, past lines and lines of huge, sharpened rib bones staked in the snow.
