Her green eyes shine in the low light despite the obvious exhaustion on her sickly face. In the darkness beneath her eyes, and in her knobby legs peeking out past the heavy black cloak I draped her in, stolen from the guard whose blood I’m mostly dressed with.
“Are you okay?” she asks, speaking past cracked, pallid lips. She lifts her hand and cups my cheek, and I almost buckle beneath her touch—much colder than I remember it being.
“I thought I’d lost you …”
She drops to my height, brings her other hand to my face, and brushes a stray tear from my cheek. “Never.”
My lips pinch together. All I can do to stop the terrible tremble rattling my jaw as I scan her smooth, dainty features. Her eyes—big and pretty like the jewels in Arkyn’s trove.
More treasure he’s gathered and stashed in the feasting darkness.
I bring Fallon to my chest and bind her in my arms, hugging her so tight I feel some of the pain beneath my ribs release. Frown when I realize she’s shivering, like she’s breaking apart from within.
“Come.” I lean back and pull the hood over her head, protecting her from a fierce blow that rips straight through my rags. “I’ve got an idea to shelter us from the hurting wind.”
It eases a little, like Clode is listening to me. Something I find strange since she screamed at me not long ago.
I spin, locating a shard of bright-blue ice that must’ve fallen from farther up the mountain. A perfect weapon for me to cut into the snow. “I’ll dig us a—” I pause. “What’s the word? Snow …something.”
Fallon moves around into my line of sight and crouches, smiling. A smile that could mend the world if enough folk saw it. “You know the word.”
Do I?
I squeeze my eyes shut, thinking …
“Hut,” I say. “Snowhut.”
She nods, her smile growing before she takes the piece of ice from my hands. When she pulls it away, I see it’s cut into my palms, leaving deep gouges that are dripping on the snow. “Rest with me for a moment first? You’re exhausted, and you’re bleeding.”
“My hands aren’t too bad …”
“Not your hands.”
She points, and I frown down at the fresh wet bloom of blood just beneath my left breast.
Oh …
“Caught an arrow,” I murmur, letting her ease me down.
“I know. We just need to get something tight around it.”
Good idea.
I press the key between my bare knees, then bite into the hemof my raggy shift, ripping off a long strip I use to bind around my wound beneath Fallon’s watchful gaze. Once I’m done, she lays beside me in the snow, our arms and legs tangled.
Together, we watch the shifting mist like we’re looking at the moons Fallon drew all over the ceiling in our cell …
“These aren’t the clouds you spoke of, are they? The colorful ones?”
“No,” she whispers, hugging me tighter. “It’s a long walk to see them, but they’re exquisite, Raeve. It’ll be worth the journey. I promise.” I’m about to respond when she lifts my crushed fist. “What’s in here?”
I open my fingers, showing her the dull metal key. So complex and jagged. A tool that’s been used many times to take me out of our cell and into Arkyn’s lair to be trained by his fire. To the fighting pits to rip other living beings apart, earning the bloodstone that kept Fallon healthy.
Alive.
“It’s the key that got—” My next words nearly choke me before they finally make it out. “That got us free.” I squeeze my fingers around it again. “When it’s not against my skin, everything’s loud.”Too loud.“You never warned me …”
“It’s not like that for everyone.” She reaches up, touching the blood that leaked from my ears earlier. When I accidentally dropped the key and got screamed at by the wind.
