Isik.” I hobbled back to the man-shaped mound on the floor of the cellar, nestled and unmoving in the straw. I leaned heavily on my staff, dragged down both by pain and my conversation with the riverman. I needed to speak to my friend. I needed his reassurance. I needed him healed, well and capable so we could leave this horrific village behind.
Isik lay in a more comfortable position than when I’d left, more at ease. Consoled, I touched the horn at my belt, half hoping to find a chip or edge I could cut myself on, but there was nothing. I reached for the shelves next, searching for a rough patch of wood. I pawed and staggered for a moment, feet rustling in the straw and breaths thin with pain.
The figure that should have been Isik sat up, languid and slow, a wolf stretching after a nap in the sun. There was no discomfort to his movements, no hesitation or fatigue. In the vague starlight from the grating, the figure’s hair was white, his skin pale, and the outline of him leaner, too graceful.
This was not my friend.
“I was beginning to think he had realized you’re a fraud and fed you to the Revenants,” the stranger said, rising to his feet. Like the riverman, his voice rang with the distinct power of the Divine Tongue.
The air grew markedly colder, rife with the clean, brisk scent of winter. Dread prickled up my spine and I glanced to the grating, then back to the intruder.
“Who are you? Where’s Isik?”
“Isik is safe.” He flapped a dismissive hand. “Consider that my gift to you.”
“You rescued him?” I pressed, though I wasn’t sure “rescued” was the right word to use. I’d no idea who this stranger was, though if the cold and his white hair were any indication… But no. What would a Winterborn be doing here, in the east?
“He rescued himself when I told him you’d already escaped into the forest. Handy, turning to wind like that; very convenient if you don’t have a mortal holding you back,” the stranger replied. “He won’t get far in his condition though, so you’d best go after him. Use those healing hands of yours before the Revenants catch his scent.”
I grasped the shelf and put my staff between us, ignoring the sting of splinters in my other hand. My leg quivered, sore and beyond spent. I prayed the dark would hide it.
“What do you want from me?” I asked. “Obviously there’s something.”
“I want a favor, when the time comes.” He stepped closer, and I sensed that the darkness was no barrier to him—he could see me clearly, while I was left straining. “Heal yourself.”
I grasped the shelf tighter. I could feel my skin threatening to break on the splinters now, blood surging to the surface, ready to well.
“Why?”
“My people said they saw you heal one of your companions in the canyons,” the stranger answered. “If it’s true, I have a use for you. If it’s not, I’ll leave you here. Watching you try to open a door to the High Halls for Logur would be entertaining.”
“That’s the riverman’s name? Logur?”
The Winterborn nodded. “Go on, heal yourself. You should obey me more willingly, Eangen. Your people killed my siblings, and my patience with you will not last.”
“You are Winterborn,” I breathed. The truth came with another knife to my throat. My mother had overseen the slaughter of multiple Winterborn during the invasion when I was a child. My own cousin, Thray, had betrayed them.
My kin and connections might damn me in this Winterborn’s eyes, whatever my potential uses.
“Of course I am,” the stranger laughed, a soft, low sound, so pleasant that it turned my stomach. “But I am also your only ally—or potential one. Or do you not understand what’s happening here? Logur will toy with you for a while before it becomes obvious you can’t help him. Then he’ll open a door the traditional way.”
I didn’t know what that way was, but I didn’t want to admit my ignorance either.
“I can do it,” I returned coolly.
“No, you can’t,” he crowded closer, backing me into the shelves. I nearly dropped the staff, but managed to keep it between us, my knuckles to his chest, holding him inches away. “Your companions already told me of you, Eangen. No one and nothing. No family— other than a brother fleeing, right now, for the eastern lake. Leaving you behind. No connections, except the pity of a fallen goddess. Aita blessed you with power, yes—that much is obvious—but you’re no Miri. Your blood might have enough magic to break, but it cannot forge.”
Multiple revelations hit me, one after the other. Berin was still free? The rest of my companions—the Winterborn must know where they were. And they had been wise enough not to reveal who I was, which I was immeasurably grateful for.
But the Winterborn’s last revelation shoved to the forefront, ominous and deadly. “What do you mean, my blood can break?”
“It can break the barrier between worlds. Miri usually open doors to the High Halls with the heart blood, the last life blood, of other Miri,” the Winterborn said, his voice losing its humor. He was grim now, grim and cold like the winter nights soon to blanket this forest. “Which is why I ensured your friend’s escape. His blood would certainly do the trick, so it’s in everyone’s best interest to keep him from Logur. Your blood… is more questionable. Mine he’s already tried, and that did not go well, as I cannot die.”
What little strength I had left fled my body. I felt my leg give way and I wavered, barely keeping grip on the staff and shelf. I gripped the latter so tightly that splinters punctured my skin, and blood began to trickle down my wrist.
I squeezed tighter.
The Winterborn took my arms in a mockery of a supportive embrace. “Heal yourself. Prove you’ve value, and I’ll help you escape tonight. You can find your Miri friend, and I’ll ensure your tracks are covered.”
I closed my eyes for an instant, trying to quell a roaring in my head. Too much had happened; there were too many parties at play and too much to consider. I needed sleep, food, safety—I needed time to process and make the right decisions.
But Winterborn were from my world, from the west. This man was a threat I understood, while the riverman was new and surrounded by horrific living dead.
I slowly lifted my bloody hand, ready to sketch the first healing rune in the air. Gathering myself, I asked dully, “What are you called?”
“Arune,” he said.
The name meant nothing to me, but I nodded and forged my second deal of the evening—albeit the only one I intended to keep.
“I hope you keep your promises, Arune,” I said and began to sketch.
* * *
The door of the cellar creaked in the quiet, cold night. My breath billowed in the air as I slipped out on steady, newly healed legs. Arune was already out in the village, having vanished through the wooden grating as a breath of wind—a skill many of his siblings possessed, though my cousin Thray had not.
She lingered in my mind, vague and edged with sadness, as I surveyed the village. The wood of my new staff was warm in my hand, my horn heavy at my belt and determination hot in my belly. I waited. Watching. Sensing.
As Arune had promised, no one was in sight. Premature snowflakes gathered on my bare head, gradually melting into cold trickles across my scalp. A dog barked on the other side of the settlement, reminding me of Nui. Someone shouted at it and the hound quietened, leaving me with only the wind in the dry leaves and the soundless fall of snow.
Satisfied, I crept around the cellar, between two houses, and behind a third. I found an axe in a chopping block and took it with a soft crack. My head remained clear, the last of the inebriating drug burned off by Aita’s magic.
I didn’t breathe freely until I’d passed through the concealing wall of evergreens outside the village. I sagged for an instant, glancing back toward the huts, then retightened my grip on my staff and axe.
“Isik is this way,” a tendril of winter wind whispered, tugging me right. “Stay alive, and I will find you soon.”
I hastened away, relishing each painless step and the flame of hope that came with them. A dozen paces. Two dozen. The forest closed in and the scents of the village—smoke, animals, mud and rot—faded away.
I found Isik sitting against a tree. He rose when I came into sight, steadying himself on the trunk. His face was still crusted with blood, and slack with pain and relief.
“Yske,” he breathed. I saw the questions in his eyes, multiplying as I stopped just out of his reach and set my staff aside, hefting the woodcutter’s axe high on the shaft.
I didn’t speak. My relief at seeing him made my throat thick and my heart ache, but every word risked giving us away. Besides, I didn’t know what to say, and I didn’t want to risk him talking me out of what I would do next.
I laid one palm over the blade of the axe and squeezed until blood welled. A muffled cry hit the back of my clenched teeth. Isik flinched forward, hissing a startled rebuke, but stopped short of grabbing me. His fingers spread wide instead, warding me off as I turned my gaze back up to him.
“This is the cost of Aita’s gift,” I explained compulsively, hating the horror in his eyes. “Do not try and stop me.”