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Rostfar spent the storm crouched in a small hollow between boulders, rocking and shivering as her anger rampaged like the winds outside. Only once both storms – the one inside and the one without – had abated did she pick herself up and walk back to camp.
The snow inside camp was churned into muddy sludge, frenzied with the marks of running feet. Rostfar’s step slowed. Her breath caught in her throat. A child’s ragdoll lay on the snow; its head dangled by a few threads as if it had been wrenched from someone’s hands, and a boot mark marred its pretty red dress. Rostfar hadn’t thought there was anything left inside of her to feel, yet a keen blade of guilt and horror slid into her spine.
She walked further. A crowd of people emerged from the mizzling rain.
“What’s going on?” Rostfar forced herself to ask. The crowd parted for her without a word.
Isha and Mati sat at the front. Faren was there too, his hand on Isha’s shoulder as if letting go of his brother would spell doom for them all.
No Arketh.
Rostfar couldn’t make herself move another step.
“How?” she asked, her voice too shrill. Isha flinched. Mati looked down. It was Faren who spoke, his mouth twisted in a sneer.
“She went looking for you,” he spat the words at her feet like a curse and his grip on Isha’s shoulder tightened.
“We don’t know that,” Mati cut in, but he sounded unconvinced.
“Maybe Eyrik was right,” Faren muttered. Rostfar blinked at him and drew a shallow breath.
“No.” Her hands were up before she gave herself time to think, shoving Faren away. He caught her by the wrist. Rostfar twisted his hand around, bending and trapping it between them. The lack of space was sudden and violent.
Faren’s mouth was open as if there was something he could say to take those words back, as if he had any right to speak about family. Her family. Rostfar felt the crowd shifting around her, but she refused to back down.
It was this or accept the reality of what had happened.
Someone behind her said something, a warning, but she ignored it. Everything fell into place.
Arketh was gone. The wilderness and the wolves had taken her.
“You weren’t here, you—” Faren began, and Rostfar punched him.
Or, she would have punched him.
Nat got to Rostfar before she could do any damage.
“He’s a slimy little salamander,” Nat hissed. Her fingers curled into the back of Rostfar’s cloak. “But don’t do this here. Come on.”
Rostfar looked around at the crowd’s wide, shocked eyes. She shoved Faren backwards with all her strength, so that Mati had to catch him, and allowed Nat to lead her away.
Nat took Rostfar back to her place, where she gave Rostfar blankets and a steaming bowl of tea.
Nat’s cabin, half underground with two of the original stone walls still intact, had been at Whiterift long before anything else. By some unspoken agreement, each Dannhren passed it down to the next along with the title, but nobody had held their place in it longer than Nat. There were chips in the doorframe recording Kristan’s growth and colourful rugs on the floor. Rostfar’s heart ached.
“Hungry?” Nat’s voice at Rostfar’s ear made her jump. Tea splashed out of the drinking-bowl onto the wooden table and Rostfar tried to wipe it up with the sleeve of her undershirt. Nat stopped her. “You don’t need to do that.”
“Yes, I do.” Rostfar pulled herself free and soaked up the rest. Then she sat there staring at her sodden sleeve and wondering why she had thought that would be a good idea. The liquid was cold and unbearable against her skin.
Nat got Rostfar a fresh shirt without either needing to say anything. By the time Rostfar had gotten changed in the small, divided-off corner, Nat had served up two bowls of stew. Rostfar sat with her knees tucked up to her chest and stared at it.
It was usually her sitting in Nat’s position. She had only had to deliver the awful news to parents twice before – once when a child fell through the ice at Whiterift, and again when a young woman died of exposure after getting separated on a hunt. Rostfar remembered finding that last body, frozen stiff and torn into by foxes. The patterns in the ice that coated the girl’s exposed sinew had been sickeningly beautiful.
Rostfar swallowed down the bile in her throat with a scalding mouthful of stew.
“It was a wolf, wasn’t it?” Rostfar finally asked.
Nat pressed her lips together. “Do you really want to hear this?”
“Tell me,” Rostfar said, because that was better than lying. She didn’t want the details, but she had to understand.
“Mati says it was a whole pack, they just appeared out of the mist and vanished again without a trace. Others claim they saw one or two, some say there was no wolf at all. Whatever it was, it caused chaos.” Nat ran a hand down her face. “All anyone can agree on is those bastards sounded just like humans.”
“And Arketh?”
Nat lowered her voice, possibly to hide the faint tremor building in her tone. “Mati lost her in the confusion. Everyone scattered and we think . . . Arketh might’ve followed the voices. They couldn’t find her.”
“Okay,” Rostfar said, because she didn’t know what else to say. An unhinged sort of noise bubbled up in Rostfar’s throat. “Fuck, no, it’s not. It’s – what do we do? What do I do?”
“You do nothing,” Nat said firmly. “You need time, for the shock, and you’re half blue with cold.”
“I’m not in shock. I need to find my daughter.”
“Rost, you’ve got to look after yourself.” Nat reached out for Rostfar’s hand as she would have done for any other upset townsperson but remembered herself at the last moment and pulled back. “Do you want a hug?”
“No.” Rostfar turned away. The memory of Faren so close to her personal space still burned her skin, the way he looked at her as if he knew exactly how it was her fault. Rostfar wondered if Isha had told his brother her secret. She wondered if she could ever trust Isha again. Or if he’ll trust me.
Nat was still talking, outlining plans for a search group. But Rostfar had lost the ability to listen anymore. She got up, went to one of the beds, and curled up with her head under the covers until the rest of the world just went away.
