21

An Exercise in Trust

I dive toward the snow-covered beach with the half-formed idea of using the sand at the bottom of the channel to drag Reven’s pulverized body from the very mouth of the Hollow, but a strong hand snags me by the waist and spins me around.

Reven.

Relief threatens to take my legs out from under me.

“Where do you think you’re going?” he demands. He’s as pale as the salt flats in Aryd, his shirt soaked in sweat or ocean water or maybe both, chest heaving as he sucks air in sharp bursts.

“To go rescue your bloody ass from a Devourer.” I fling a hand in that direction.

He chokes. “I’m fairly certain princesses don’t say ‘ass.’”

“How would you know? And how did you get away—?” I search his body for any sign of injury.

His lips crook. “Were you worried about me, princess?”

My mouth slams shut. I should have left him in the water to be sucked dry. “You must think I’m a total bitch to want anyone to die that way.”

His humor dies slowly. “You have no clue what I think about you.”

And I have no clue how to respond to that. I glare back at him, both of us breathing hard. The man is visibly ready to drop.

“I was worried that the only person who could get me home just drowned and I had no other way to get back, okay?” A lie, but I fling an arm at where the ladder used to be anyway.

Not that I’m ever, ever planning to touch that thing again. I bet if I look hard enough, I can see the other half dangling from the underside of Wildernyss across the channel. The only way home now is through the one glass portal in Tyndra.

I’ll figure that out later. Tomorrow, hopefully.

“We’re almost there,” he says.

“About time,” I mutter. “I need a shower, and new clothes, and food, and a proper bed, and—”

Stop talking. I’m starting to sound like my domineering grandmother.

I cut myself off with a snap of my teeth, knowing full well that the residual emotion of what we just went through is what’s spewing these words from my mouth. And that realization makes me frown. Did Grandmother lash out because she was afraid? I mentally laugh off the idea. No way was that woman afraid of anything except Eidolon. Even then, there’s probably a reason the king never came for her.

Luckily, Reven seems to shake himself out of whatever his thoughts were, and his hands leave my waist, cold seeping into my skin in their place. “From here until I say, you’ll need to be blindfolded.”

“What? That’s not—”

Immediately, the shadows steal my sight, plunging me into a darkness so intense, I’m staring into nothing. A void of forever. Not a whisper of brightness anywhere.

Needing to balance, I reach for him, my hands connecting with his solid chest. The immediate steadying of my world only irritates me more, and I shoot a hard look in what I think is the general direction of his face. “If you need my help, you’re going to have to start trusting me eventually,” I point out.

Firm hands wrap around my wrists, pulling my touch away. “Everyone who comes where I’m taking you is blindfolded until we get there. There is only one path, and it’s hidden. That way no one can find their way back and be tortured into revealing the location to others.”

I might hear his deep, perfect voice in the shadows for the rest of my life after this is over.

Honestly, though, so long as a shower, fresh clothes, food, and bed—ooh! And a fire because it’s bloody freezing—are involved, at this point, I don’t care anymore.

He turns me around, and then a gentle hand lands on the back of my neck—not warm but icy. “This way.”

“Are you going to make it there yourself?” I ask. Quietly now, though, not accusing. I’m pretty sure he’s barely staying upright after everything he did back there.

“I’ll be fine.”

Stubborn man.

The going takes ages, but we are at least moving. His touch, which gradually warms against my skin, moves me back and forth and urges me forward as needed. The third time I stumble over a root or a rock or something, though, I dig in my heels. “Tell me if I need to step over stuff.”

“Yes, your highness.”

Jackass. “You want me to arrive in one piece, right?”

A deep sigh sounds near my ear, ruffling my hair, and I have to clench my hands to control my shiver so he won’t feel it. Then he pushes me forward but with less force.

I focus only on not falling.

I’m not even sure what direction we’re headed at this point. We had been on ice fields, but now the ground has changed under my feet. Not snow, though—more solid than that, spongier and also crunchier, and I suspect we’re in trees. I listen hard, trying to catch any other hints. Are there others with us, or are those rustles animals in the underbrush?

At some point, the air against my skin changes from the bite of winter to almost balmy. Like I’m standing in a ray of pure sunshine. Are we inside? No, the ground is still uneven beneath my feet, and the sounds around me are those of nature.

Still the journey continues on and on.

“Step up,” he says. That’s new.

I do, and then he says it again, and now we are going up some kind of spiral stairway, because he has to turn me slightly with each step as we go along. Finally, the footing evens out, even though the ground under the leather soles of my boots is hard and slightly uneven. Wood planks, maybe? There’s a creak behind me that sounds just like the front door of my crappy little hovel in Enora.

Then the darkness disintegrates, and I can finally see again. I have to blink in the light until my eyes adjust, then get a decent look at my surroundings and blink again.

This is not what I was expecting. At all.

I’m in a house. A freaking house.

Not a tent or ragtag camp in the woods. Not an icy castle. Not even a cave in the mountains. A house with a fire crackling happily away in a cozy stone fireplace, turning the air toasty around me. I open my mouth but stop as I take it all in. Reven stands by the door, feet apart, arms crossed. Maybe he’s waiting for me to spout off some complaint or other?

Ignoring him, I take my time looking around.

This is like no house I’ve seen before. Sure, there’s a feather mattress on the floor and clothing laid across it. There’s also a chair in the corner, even a basic rack with more hanging clothes in various muted colors—browns and greens and blues—set against one wall. What makes it unusual is the view. I can’t quite figure it out. There is a large, glassless window to my right covered with a white-furred animal skin, which is currently pulled back to show the outside. Are we floating high up in massive trees?

No, not floating. I can see that by the way my own room is constructed. The wall to my right isn’t wood planks but the huge trunk of a tree, curved and covered in rust-red bark. This structure is built into the tree itself. Those winding stairs must’ve circled the trunk to get us up here.

I look out the window again at the forest beyond. The trees look similar to the pines in Wildernyss but so much more. Massively bigger. And the smell is different, still piney but sweeter, milder. Refreshing. This is not the land of death and decay I was semi-expecting Reven to take me to. Different from Wildernyss, these trees have leaves. Flat and green. Green. In Tyndra—the dominion of ice and snow in the middle of an endless winter, green-leafed trees are thriving.

How is any of this even possible?

But I have my answer in the slightly dimmer lighting here, more than just from the trees. A veil of shadow blankets everything, or maybe it’s more like a bubble over everything. The shadows have to be why this place thrives this way. Insulating the forest. His shadows. He rules this place.

And I came here willingly. A lamb to the slaughter? Or something else?