Stronger this time and closer.
And for the first time since we entered the town, I was certain. We weren’t just moving through Skallfen undetected.
Something in it… was moving with us.
Chapter 12
The storehouse smelledof salted meat and frost-rotted wood.
I stood just inside the door as the soldiers moved past me, their boots pounding loudly on the stone floor. So loud that I flinched with every step. Every sound in Skallfen felt off, amplified in a way that made my teeth ache.
The hollow pull in my chest had shifted. Closer now, lower, pressing up through the ground beneath my feet rather than moving through the air. I breathed through it slowly and said nothing.
“Here.” Baxley had already found the dry stores. He tossed a sack to Larana without looking. “Mostly grain. That’s some dried fish.”
“How much?” Nicco asked from the doorway. He hadn't come fully inside. He was watching the street, his back to us, one hand resting loose at his side near his blade.
“Enough.”
“Take it.”
The soldiers moved efficiently. I'd give them that. Whatever else Captain Marson's men were, they'd done this before. The quick, practiced stripping of supplies, without ceremony orwaste. I watched them work and kept my breathing even and my attention on the feeling beneath my feet.
It was patient. Whatever it was, it was very, very patient. I tried to remember what I knew about the Frosttaken.
The name seemed simple at first, as if the person who gave it lacked imagination. Taken by frost, frost taken, meaning claimed, stolen, hollowed out. That was exactly what that man had looked like. Like the heat drained from their victims, the monster moved slowly, something that was once alive but wasn't anymore in any normal sense.
They weren’t predators. They wereabsencewearing a body.
It made sense why Skallfen was the way it was, and the town wasn't dead. It had beenstilled. The Frosttaken weren't killing people. They were draining them into a suspended, almost death-like state.
Which was so much worse.
I wanted to send my magic out, test it, and see what would come back. But the risk… the risk was so high. What if magic attracted the Frosttaken?
Or worse, revealed my secret to the humans around me. Their reactions could be the end of me.
My decision was made.Don't use your magic. Don't try to reach.
I pressed my nails into my palm instead and focused on what I could see, hear, and smell. Salted meat. Frost. The distant sound of nothing.
“Amarya.”
I looked up. Nicco hadn't turned around. “Stop thinking so loudly,” he said, his voice gruff.
I didn't ask how he knew. “We need to move soon.”
“I know.”
“I mean, soon, Nicco.” I glanced at the horses behind us. “The longer we linger, the worse it will be.” I looked at the deadsoldier. “We need to leave him.” My gaze flicked to the horses. “They were supposed to stay, too.”
He turned then, just slightly, enough to look at me over his shoulder. That dark, assessing gaze never quite felt like anything as simple as a look. “Iknow. So stop talking and help them carry.”
I bit my tongue to keep from telling him I didn’t take orders from him. With a huff, I walked farther into the storehouse, and then my frustration was with the soldiers more than with the delay.
“We can’t carry all of this,” I said to no one and everyone. There were eight soldiers still healthy, if you wanted to term any of us as healthy at this point. Two were still carrying bumps and scrapes from the Hulgrim. One looked like he was barely hanging on, but he was still hanging on. “The horses won’t make it much further, so only take what you can carry.”
Captain Marson looked back at me and the food collected. “We’ll manage.”
