Page 21 of The Withering Wood

But she didn’t care enough to ask. She could only rely on her own capabilities, and she wouldn’t risk the prince’s charm fooling her into thinking she could trust his fighting skills. When it came down to facing Vraethik, she’d protect her own skin first, to make sure she’d get back to Eirwen.

Eirwen approached them at the boundary, the chickens traipsing behind her with horrified squawks at the bitter chill they usually didn’t experience. She held out the absorber, emptied of the cold.

“Please be careful,” she said, holding Cerise’s gaze with her striking, frosty blue eyes. “I don’t want to live in this world without you.”

“You won’t have to,” Cerise responded. Despite the compression in her chest at the thought of touch, she opened her arms.

Eirwen’s eyes widened with surprise and delight, folding into her rare embrace. Eirwen’s winter-blessed body pressed cold into Cerise, and she tensed. She closed her eyes, trying to brace herself through it, but it felt too much like being buried beneath the frigid undead. So she kept her eyes open, resisting the urge to break the hug, knowing what the brief gesture meant to her sister.

Breaking apart, Eirwen switched her gaze to the prince. “Safe travels, Your Highness.”

“With your sister at my side, I’m positive they will be.”

Cerise scoffed at the blatant flattery, but Eirwen beamed.

“If anyone comes near you or the house, freeze them,” Cerise commanded, then turned before the farewell hurt too much, leaving behind the safety of Zyrdriel’s Boundary, the comfort of her home, and the love of her sister.

She swallowed the sudden lump in her throat and cleared it, orienting to the direction the prince thought they needed to walk. As they hiked, their snowshoes made a quiet wicking thump against the crystalline snow. The sun fully breached the horizon, a violet hue overtaking the cloud-spattered sky, accentuating the necromantic green that emanated from Azkanix’s broken bones. Dead and peeling trees creaked in the light breeze, wind tinkling against the icicles dangling from blackened branches.

They strode by a few of her traps, now buried in snow. But she knew this part of the forest like the back of her scarred hand, and she shoveled away the snow over the trap locations. Creatures must’ve hidden from the storm, since most snares were empty. Yet one had an emaciated, frozen fox. Better than nothing.

With the fox dangling from her pack, they resumed their hike, and Cerise kept her eyes open for glowing runes. Finding one carved into a tree that they’d missed when he was a bear, she shoved Beloved upright in the ground, slipped the woodcutting axes into her palms, and hacked into the tree.

“We cannot stop at each rune,” the prince said, once Cerise finished chopping.

She went rigid, clenching her jaw. “We must.”

“We can’t. There’s no possibility of us catching up to Vraethik if we pause at each one. Our best chance is to find him and stop him, hope that negates whatever this magic is that he’s summoned. And if it doesn’t, then we can scour the woods for them after he’s defeated and we know the number of runes is finite.”

Cerise rolled her tongue in her mouth, hating both the logic and ease with which he told her what to do. “Think about what happens if we fail. If we don’t kill Vraethik and leave the runes. Then we’ve reduced the time that Eirwen, and anyone in your precious capital, have to find a remedy before it kills everything. We cannot simply leave them.”

Cerise folded her arms and stared at the prince, chin raised. He returned her gaze, unflinching. Unusual, considering few had been able to hold her sharp gaze once she got the scar that sliced through her face, yet he didn’t seem to notice it.

“How about this—we only carve off the runes etched in bone. Those must be the most potent since they are directly tied to Azkanix, right? The trees are already dead, letting them die faster won’t make much difference.”

“It will to me and Eirwen who depend on them for fuel.”

“When this is over, I will personally see to it that you never want for firewood again.”

“If that promise turns out to be empty, I will take your head.”

“You’ve already promised to take my balls and skin. As far as I’m concerned, you might as well have the head, too.”

Cerise huffed, stepping away from the cursed tree. “Fine. We only slice the bones.”

Despite the scarf covering his face, the prince’s eyes crinkled with a hidden smirk.

After many minutes of silence, he asked, “So, tell me, you and Eirwen are sisters, right? Yet you look nothing alike. How did that come to be?”

“None of your business, prince.”

He didn’t respond, the silence pressing an unusual discomfort into Cerise. She glanced at him through her peripheral vision. The downcast slant of his eyes suggested hurt, and a sour mingle of guilt and irritation fluttered in Cerise’s breast. It wasn’t her fault the prince was not used to rejection. She didn’t need to coddle his desires.

Yet the longer they walked in silence, the worse she felt. Her muscles tensed and stomach grew acidic, as if swallowing her words was poison.

“We were raised in Vhypael’s Temple,” Cerise finally said.

“You’re Lost Children?”