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Julianafellasleepbesidehim, but woke on her own in the cold, translucent air, shuddering at the stiff breeze that had fastened around her in the night. She hugged her cloak tightly around her, ate a little breakfast, and rubbed her hands by the remains of the fire.
“Are you still here?” she whispered, receiving nothing in reply. “You can stay for breakfast too, if you like. But please don’t follow me on the journey.”
A shaft of wind blew through the cave. No way of knowing if it was him, but she chose to believe it was.
She set off.
She regretted telling him he couldn’t follow less than an hour later, when the loneliness set in. She’d been annoyed at the invasion of privacy, but truth be told, even voiceless company would be better than none. Plus, there were so many threats and insults she could hurl his way, and he’d be powerless to defend himself.
Although, the lack of reaction would make it all rather boring. She enjoyed sparring with him—there was no victory otherwise.
She touched her pendant, but it was ice cold.
Everythingwas ice cold, come to think of it. Frost was thickening on the ground, her breath eeked out in icy spurts, and icicles had started to form on the trees.
Damn.
Unless it was the work of frost spirits, it seemed likely she’d lost her bearings and was halfway to Winter.
Never mind. If she followed this path, it should eventually lead her back to the Autumn Gate.
The one Hawthorn said was heavily guarded.
They hadn’t yet come up with a plan for getting her through. All three gates were taken, according to him.
There’s a way around everything,her father had told her once.If you stay alive long enough to figure it out.
Juliana paused.A way around.
Because there was one way into Acanthia that wouldn’t be guarded. The way through Winter.
Juliana sat down for a moment to consider the geography, drawing a crude map on the floor. It was true the terrain was rough, but so was taking on an entire army by herself. What was the safest route?
Sure, many people never returned from the depths of Winter, but she wasn’t going to thedeep.She’d tread the border the entire way. Maybe Hawthorn could chart a path for her while she slept…
Actually, he’d love that. Something to do that was useful, that he could boast about later, lording over her head that she couldn’t have done it without him.
She thought about making camp, trying to sleep, talking it over with him. But there was still a lot of daylight left and she wasn’t tired enough to sleep whilst battling the brittle cold. She didn’t want to waste hours.
She’d risk it. Snow could hardly be worse than what she’d faced already, after all.
She set off into the cold. The trees began to thin, bushes of holly springing up in their place, the leaves as black and shiny as patent leather. Frost turned to snow, soft and powdery at first, then hard as iron. The chill gnawed at her chest.
She should have taken more from the hamlet than the fur and gloves, but there was nothing for it now.
Stopping to rest briefly beneath the flimsy shelter of a tree, she stared back at the white, endless plain behind her, undisrupted aside from her tracks, each footprint a giant hole.
She frowned, staring down at them. Some of the footprints further down the mountain seemed bigger than the ones closer to her, and, unless her eyes were deceiving her, seemed to split around a cluster of rocks, like someone or something had purposefully used it to disguise their ascent.
She was being followed.
She drew her sword, sliding down the slope, maintaining the higher ground. “Reveal yourself,” she commanded.
When nothing happened, she dug into the snow and hurled a fistful in the direction of the rocks, hurling projectile after projectile as if she hoped to bury them if they didn’t come out.
“Hold!” barked a voice. “I yield.”
Juliana recognised the voice before the figure slunk into view, his white cloak and uniform now muddied and grey, the gold thorns sucked of colour.
