“You’re bringing the offworlder?” Doren said, nodding towards where Cera was equipping Polly. “Bold choice.”
“She’s bringing herself,” he said. “And you two—what are you doing here?”
“Baralt sent me. You know I can track,” Rjmar said calmly, and he couldn’t argue with the older male.
He looked from Rjmar to Doren, but Doren only shrugged.
“Rjmar’s dragging me everywhere these days. Something about keeping me out of trouble.” His blue eyes glinted. “Besides. I know a thing or two about people who run. Sometimes it takes one to find one.”
He studied the young male for a moment—the insolence, the sharp edges, the flicker of something almost genuine beneath the sarcasm. Rjmar had seen something in this one. Perhaps he wasn’t wrong.
“Fine,” he said. “You’ll take the lower flank with Rjmar.” He raised his voice to address them all. “Listen well. We believe the female is lost on the eastern slopes, near last year’s rockslide. She’s dressed for warm weather so she won’t survive long. We move fast, but we move careful. That terrain has killed better trackers than any of you.”
Grim nods all around.
“One more thing.” His voice dropped, hard as the stone beneath their feet. “This human is terrified of us. If you find her first, you do not approach. You do not corner her. You signal, you hold your position, and you send for Polly. Frightening her could drive her off a cliff. Am I understood?”
“Understood,” Rjmar rumbled, and the others echoed him.
He glanced back towards Polly. Cera had wrapped her in layers of thick thermal fabric, with a fur-lined hood framing her small face and insulated boots reaching nearly to her knees. She looked absurdly tiny beneath it all—and absolutely determined.
She caught his eye and gave him a small nod.
Ready.
He wasn’t. He didn’t think he’d ever be ready to walk her into that killing cold. But some things had to be done regardless of readiness, and some fears had to be carried rather than conquered. She’d taught him that, without ever meaning to.
“Move out,” he said.
The warriors filed towards the entrance, torches flaring against the darkness beyond. He crossed to Polly, tucking a final heat-stone into her pocket and checking the seal of her hood, givinghimself these last small tasks to steady the tremor of dread beneath his calm.
“Stay close,” he murmured.
“I will,” she promised.
And together, they stepped out into the dark and the cold and the vast, indifferent mountains, hunting for a female who did not want to be found.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“Njkall. Stop.” Polly grabbed the edge of his cold-weather cloak. “She won’t have gone that way.”
He halted at once, and the warriors behind him stilled like a single breathing thing. The torchlight threw jagged shadows across the snow, and beyond the small circle of orange glow, the mountains pressed in, vast and dark and endless. Her heart hammered against her ribs, but her voice came out steady. Steadier than she felt.
“How do you know?” he asked. No challenge in it. Just the question.
“Because there’s a high ridge that way.” She pointed. Her mittened hand shook from the effort of thinking past the terror clawing at the edges of her mind. “Tess hates heights. She won’t climb towards open air if she can help it. She’d tuck herself in somewhere enclosed. Somewhere where she can’t be seen.”
He studied her for a heartbeat. Then he nodded and turned to Rjmar.
“We go east. Towards the slide.”
The warriors adjusted without a word, and she felt an odd surge of warmth despite the killing cold.They listened to me. They believed me.She wasn’t a burden being dragged along. She was here for a reason, and the reason mattered.
She kept close to Njkall’s side, exactly as she’d promised. Her boots crunched through the crust of frozen snow, and each breath scraped raw against her throat. The heat-stone in her pocket pulsed a small, steady warmth against her hip, and she pressed her hand over it like a talisman. Fingers—can I feel my fingers? She flexed them.Yes. Still there. Still working.
“Talk to me,” he murmured, low enough that only she could hear. “How are your hands?”
“Fine. Cold, but fine. I can feel them.”
