Page 94 of The Stolen Throne
41
Across the Ice
We’ve been going for three days, and there’s been no sight of Bene. No one has voiced their worry, but it’s longer than he told us it should take. I’m not the only one checking the skies frequently.
I am putting one foot in front of the other, hunched over, numb not only in my body but my soul. At least the wind has stopped blowing for a second, leaving a pristine but blinding landscape of rolling snow- and ice-covered hills that reflect the sunlight. Reven and Vos assure us that Little Tyndra is easy terrain to navigate, that the mainland with mountains and crevasses and sheer drops would be much harder, so at least we’re not there.
I’m not sure I’m in a position to appreciate the difference. Why couldn’t we have gotten ourselves stuck walking through, I don’t know, any other dominion but this one?
My cheeks are chapped, my lips cracked, and every part of me is so cold, I’m a royal block of ice. I don’t think I’ve stopped full-body shivering once, despite the brutal pace we’ve been keeping.
Vos calls a halt. “Let’s stop here.”
I grunt with relief, because I’m not sure I can force my stump feet—which is what they feel like even encased in furred boots—to take another step. Immediately, we all drop our packs. While lugging them around has been awful, thank the goddesses that we brought all our gear with us. It has come in handier than expected, way sooner than expected.
Exhaustion drags at us all as we start the now familiar process of setting up our small camp. Pella and Tziah tend to Cain, who has woken only once or twice for short periods and is still strapped to the pallet we trussed up for him. With every plodding step, each of us has been swapping out who is doing the dragging.
The rest of us get started on making camp. Reven continues doing what he’s been doing for weeks now—pretending like I don’t exist. Except now there’s something else. I’ve caught a confused glance or two directed my way. I get the sense that he’s studying me…or maybe waiting. For what, I’m not sure.
Ignoring him right back—I am so not in the headspace to deal with my dying romance—I get busy with helping make camp. Vos is the busiest, using his power to create a small structure made of ice. The orange of his Hylorae light is darker than my soft yellowy-amber and makes me feel like it should be warm to stand beside, like a fire. It’s not. He forms our shelter brick by slow brick. We all pack into it at night, rotating who is sleeping on the outskirts of the group so we can each have time in the middle with body heat to thaw enough and get halfway decent sleep.
I grab the small trowel and leather satchel we use to carry water and move away from where we’ve been walking to scrape clean snow into the satchel. Only the darn thing isn’t penetrating and keeps bouncing and slipping off the solid ice.
I glare at it. “Just once,” I mutter at the ground. “Just once can you work with me?”
I hate this blasted trowel and the blasted ice.
“Here.”
Vos shows up beside me, holds his thickly gloved hand over the ground, and the ice I’m chipping at turns to softer snow. He can’t get much deeper than that. We tried the first time we stopped, hoping he could thaw enough frozen ground underneath the ice so I could pull up sand. It didn’t work.
I blow out a breath. “Thanks.”
With a nod, he moves off to finish our shelter.
As soon as I have enough, I put it to melt by the fire Hakan is already building—lightning, it turns out, is very handy to light fires.
I grab a second satchel, return to the same spot, drop to my knees, and start scraping more. It’s already freezing up again.
I barely notice when Horus drops to his knees beside me to do the same. “Everything okay?” He glances over one shoulder as he asks.
He’s been checking in with me every day. With Cain and Pella, too, I’ve noticed. The Arydians of our group are struggling the hardest here, but Horus, as one of the Vanished, spent more time in Tyndra than we did. “I really hate ice,” I grumble.
Hopefully, Bene shows up soon and this will all be a bad memory.
“Yeah,” he agrees.
“Horus…” Maybe I shouldn’t say this out loud.
He glances over his shoulder again. So do I. None of the others are near us. He lifts his thinning brows at me in question.
“Are we doing the right thing, going after the amulets?”
I trust the others to tell me the truth. Hells, if I want it unvarnished, I’d ask Pella. But Horus is the oldest of our group. He’s lived a longer life, had experiences I couldn’t even begin to guess at, and he’s a Wanderer. I value his advice. He searches my face for a second, then goes back to scraping. “Looking back, the biggest mistake I made when I tried to defend my sister was not acting sooner.”
I quietly study the side of his face. He doesn’t talk about this, except the one time he mentioned it to me when we met. “Sooner?”
“I should have taken her and run the second I knew what was happening.”
