I leaned on the wall by the door. The button to open it was next to me, glowing soft yellow. All I had to do was raise my arm and push it and walk out.
I had no idea what was out there. Were the wolves still waiting? Was it still snowing? Was it day or night? I hadn't been able to find a way to see outside. The equipment had been stripped from the ship. I did know if I stayed in the ship any longer, I would die. I was starving and weak. The water was almost gone. What was left was brown and tasted bad and made me sick. It was now or never. Either I opened the door and left or I stayed here and died.
I closed my eyes. I could almost feel Tayvis with me. What had he said on the mountain? Things might not be what they seemed. Trust him. Only it was my mind conjuring him up. Could he be alive somewhere, looking for me? Could I dare hope? It hurt too much.
Staying on the ship meant a slow painful death. At least freezing to death wouldn't hurt much. I didn't want to think about being eaten by wolves. Maybe they would kill me first. Did any of it matter?
I pushed the button. The door slid obediently to one side. A drift of snow spilled into the ship. The air was frozen, still and cold and barely lit by a rising sun. The cold burned my lungs. I shivered and pulled the ragged blanket tighter around my shoulders.
The snow crunched under my boots as I stepped out. The snow around the ship was deep and unmarked, except by a single line of bird tracks. The door behind me slid shut.
I looked up at a sky just fading to blue. Sunrise painted long streaks of pale pink and gold over the top of the mountains. There were no clouds. The air was still. My breath came out in great clouds of white.
Down or up? The clearing I was in was fairly flat, level, and ringed by dark trees. A faint trail led through the trees, a dimple in the snow. It was better than nothing. I waded through snow up to my knees.
It was less deep under the trees. The going was still slow and painful, shoving my way through crusted drifts, but easier than trying to push my way through the deeper drifts on each side.
The only sound I heard was the crunching of my feet in the snow. Not even the wind stirred as the sun climbed the sky. The path twisted through the trees, climbing slowly. So it was up, I thought. I gave a mental shrug and kept going.
I fell into a waking trance, focused on just putting one foot in front of another. I lost the trail at one point, in a wide clearing, and stopped, looking around for any sign of it.
I stopped, freezing in place like a hunted animal, when I caught sight of the wolf in front of me. It was the leader, a huge gray female. She stared at me with pale blue eyes the color of the winter sky overhead. She gave a sharp yip and turned, bounding up the trail ahead of me. She stopped at a curve and looked back.
I whirled around. I wasn't going to go near that wolf. I'd watched the pack kill Jhon and eat him. I found I didn't want to face the same fate. I didn't want to die, even if living meant pain.
There was no going back. The rest of the pack was behind me, heads lowered and teeth bared as they crept towards me. I backed away, fear closing my throat. One wolf darted at me, snapping its teeth just short of my blanket. I turned and ran, finding a surge of energy in fear.
The leader, the big female, sat in the snow on the trail. She looked at me for a long moment before turning and trotting farther up the trail. I could have sworn I saw intelligence in her eyes. The wolves behind me relaxed, dropping back a few steps. They were still there, I heard them padding across the snow. I knew that I would have heard nothing if they hadn't wanted me to hear, to know they dogged my footprints.
My burst of speed didn't last long. I was too worn, too hungry, too thirsty and sick from drinking bad water on the ship. I slowed to a staggering walk. The wolf ahead of me kept just in sight, the others keeping pace behind me. They were herding me, again. I stopped short, staring at the wolf leader. Did I want to go where they were leading me? Did I have a choice? I glanced back at the wolves behind me. They sat in the snow, watching me with eyes full of more intelligence than any animal should possess.
I didn't have the energy to fight them. I trudged up the path, after their leader.
The sun played tag with clouds overhead, casting brilliant shafts of light to sparkle on snow and blind me, followed by shadows so dark I stumbled on unseen obstacles. A teasing wind stole my breath and froze my face. The wolves kept pushing me, threatening me with their growls behind and their leader encouraging me in front.
Day crept slowly past. I stumbled more often. My mouth was dry, my stomach so far beyond hungry it hurt. I was dizzy and staggering more and more.
I heard voices, people I knew who couldn't possibly be there, talking to me on the wind. The lead wolf walked next to a shadowy human figure. If I squinted and blinked away the blinding reflection of sun on snow, I could sometimes see Jasyn or Clark.
I tripped over something and went sprawling on the icy crust of snow. My cheek stung as it scraped over the snow. The cold froze the pain almost as soon as I felt it. I closed my eyes, wanting to just lie there. I couldn't do it anymore.
"Dace, you have to get up," Tayvis said next to me.
"I can't," I whispered, too weak to even look. He wasn't there, I knew it was all illusion. And that hurt almost more than knowing he would never be there again.
"There you go again. thinking I'm dead. Trust yourself, trust what you know. And what you feel."
I pried open one eye, wanting to see him. I saw only sun and shadow and sparkles of ice. A sob caught in my throat. A shadow blocked the sun. I squinted up and saw the lead wolf standing over me. She yipped once then nudged me with her huge, furry head.
I cringed away, expecting to feel her teeth in me. Something wet and rough slid over my face instead. She yipped again. I rolled onto my back, staring at the wolf. She licked my face, my skinned cheek. I couldn't make sense of it, any of it.
She yipped again and nosed snow at me. I stared blankly at her. She bit a mouthful of snow loose and crunched on it, swallowing noisily. She nudged the snow again, pushing a pile near my face.
I could almost see the frustration in her eyes at my incomprehension. She ate another bite of snow. I finally got the idea. I scooped a handful into my mouth. It melted, easing thirst.
The wolf yipped impatiently and nudged me again with her head. Time to move, I could almost hear her thoughts. I pushed myself to my hands and knees. I couldn't go farther. I hung my head, dizzy and sick and weak.
The wolf crowded next to me, tucking her massive body under my arm. She stood, dragging me up with her. I staggered to my feet. She pressed against me, her face almost to my shoulder. I buried my hand in her fur and let her support me.
I felt no more fear of the wolves. The rest of the pack moved in behind me, occasionally pressing against my legs. I scooped snow when I could, feeling it melt in my mouth. It was cold, burningly so, but it helped.
I blinked away double vision, strange colorations and angles on objects in front of me. I could almost smell the sharp odor of a mouse hiding under the needles of a tree. I saw tracks in the snow and knew the smell of rabbit and the remembered taste of warm flesh on my tongue. The wolf growled and jumped away from me, breaking the contact. I staggered to a stop, holding myself up by clinging to a tree. Late afternoon light speared through the ragged growth.
I panted heavily, my breath coming in clouds of white. We'd climbed steadily. I turned to look behind me. The slopes of the mountain fell away in a wrinkled carpet. The trees here were short, stunted by altitude. The snow was deeper. The wolves had been breaking a trail for me. A trail to where? I didn't know. I leaned on the tree, standing by sheer force of habit.
A head with a thick ruff of fur pushed under my arm. The female wolf looked up at me, her blue eyes troubled. She barked urgently and pushed at me.
"What do you want from me?" I asked, my voice a hoarse croak.
"Trust her," Tayvis said. I looked up the hill behind me. He stood there, a shadow of memory. His voice trailed into the sound of the wind blowing through rocks. He faded and was gone, the shadow of a bush playing tricks with the sun and wind.
I closed my eyes, squeezing back pain and tears. Why was I tormenting myself this way? Let him go, he was dead. It didn't help.
The wolf nudged me again. I didn't resist. I let her lead me away from the tree and across the rocky slope of the mountain. I buried my hand in her ruff and let her take me where she would. I didn't try to fight the contact, either. I saw through her eyes, smelled through her nose, let my mind become part of the wolf. I felt the vast emptiness and cold of the winter mountain inside me. I let it numb me, become part of who I was. The warmth of the wolf's fur under my hand was my only tie to reality. I felt as if I could fade into the wind and blow away. I'd be a ghost that haunted the mountain. I was delusional and not thinking straight. And it didn't matter.
It was dark before the wolf stopped. I took another step, out of habit, before I stopped. The wolf pushed me with her head, urging me forward. It was too dark, I felt as if I were falling. I threw out a hand and felt stone under my hand. It was smooth, cold and slick with polishing.
The wolf growled, low and deep, as she faded into the night of the mountain. I wanted to turn to watch her go, but I couldn't find the strength. I leaned on the carved rock of the mountain and waited for whatever was going to happen.
I heard voices, carried on the night, accented strangely. Bobbing lights twined through dark rocks, cool blue white that spoke of artificial lights, not fire. I stayed leaning on the stone, unable to move, unable to feel fear. The lights and voices came nearer. I was dimly aware of the wolves backing away, leaving me to follow their own pursuits.
The lights stopped at the bottom of a short slope. I stood at the top, looking down. The people there were odd, shimmering in the lights they carried. It might have been my eyes that shimmered, though. They waited for me to do something. I pushed away from the stone and walked down the short slope. They were people, and people meant a chance of food or shelter. I couldn't bring myself to hope they might help me.
Halfway down the slope I felt a tingling, a resistance to the air itself. Impatient, I shoved it away. Blue sparks fizzed along my arms and legs and then I was through. The people with their weird lights shifted and murmured. I managed to stop in front of them without falling on my face. They lifted the lights higher, shining them in my face. I raised my hand to shield my eyes.
"Who are you?" The voice came from everywhere and nowhere, echoing in my head and my ears.
I couldn't answer. My head was suddenly full of snow and ice and wind and the taste of rabbit. I felt a probing at my head, feathery touches that itched inside my skull. I shoved it all out of my head and slammed down barriers.
One of the people stepped forward, light held high. "Who are you?" she asked in a breathy voice.
"I—" The world suddenly spun. I found myself lying on the snow, staring up at the lights hovering over me.
"She needs help." A male voice, still light and lilting, though.
"We cannot. You know the rules." A stuffy female voice.
"The wolves brought her."
"She passed the veil."
I rolled to my side and coughed. They shuffled back, all except the man with the lilting accent to his words. He touched my shoulder.
"Come," he said, though his mouth didn't move. "You need to see a healer."
I didn't resist as he helped me to my feet. He had to hold me upright, I couldn't have walked or even crawled anywhere by myself. The others shuffled back, out of the way. He helped me limp past them and into a hidden pocket of a valley.
My eyes blurred, all I saw was shadow and pools of bluish light. There was a door and more light and warmth and the smell of food. He pulled me to a stop.
They argued wordlessly in my head.
"Stop it!" I shouted, clutching my ears against the pain they caused. The shout came not just from my mouth, it washed away from me, a wave of silence drowning the quarreling not-voices in my head.
They stepped away from me, even the man who had helped me here. I stood alone. My vision cleared abruptly. I was in a rough cabin, cut from logs and caulked with mud. A pot bubbled over a fire, giving off good smells. I took one fumbling step towards the food before my legs gave out. I caught myself on the back of a chair.
They broke their stillness. I was the center of a flurry of activity. I was seated and a steaming bowl placed in front of me. Someone else took my ragged blanket and replaced it with a warm one that had hung near the fire. Hands urged me to eat while others prepared a tub of steaming water. I didn't need another invitation. I spooned down the hot broth and vegetables as fast as I could without scorching my mouth. One bowl was enough, I felt uncomfortably full and queasy when I finished.
The whispering people left while I ate. I was alone with one young woman. She watched me with green eyes. Her hair was a mass of dark black shot through with silver. She never spoke a word, but I felt her in my mind.
She indicated the tub, a wordless inquiry if I needed help. I shook my head. She draped clean clothing over a chair then left. I was alone in the tiny cabin.
I was very aware how bad I smelled. I still wore the same dress. It was much worse for wear. I stripped it off, and the underclothes, then sat hunched in the small tub. The water was warm and fragrant with dried herbs. I scrubbed off what I could, stifling yawns that grew more frequent and wider.
The water was gray and I felt much cleaner when I finally lurched out of the tub. I pulled on the clothes without looking, loose fitting pants and a long tunic. I collapsed onto the one bed in the small cabin, asleep almost before I pulled the blankets over me.