I don’t know what I expected, but it isn’t this. Perhaps monstrous trees that come to life or shadows that can swallow a person whole. Beauty, quiet stillness, and archaic mystery aren’t descriptors I imagined.
Alexus drops to one knee and grabs a stick. “We’re a day and a half behind the Eastlanders, a week from Winterhold without the enchantment ahead to endure.” He clears a swath of moss to reveal the soil beneath and begins drawing a crude map that means absolutely nothing to me. “Nephele and the others will do their best to keep the Eastlanders far from Winter Road.” He draws a double line for the road, sharp slashes in the dirt. “That’s where you and I need to go if we plan to journey north with any sense of direction. We just need to avoid the ravine.”
Winter Road. Another part of my world that feels more like a myth than reality. It’s supposedly the only clear route between the valley and the king.
“What if we cross paths with the Eastlanders before we reach Winter Road?” I ask.
The Witch Walkers’ magick might not harm us, but the enemy is another story.
“It’s a possibility,” Alexus replies, drawing another odd line and an X to mark some random spot in this never-ending wood. “Which means we need better weapons than what we have.” He pauses, scrubs his brow. “But I can’t remedy that until we get to Winter Road. We have to hope for the best between now and then.”
Hope for the best? All the sexy dimples in the world wouldn’t still my hands at that remark.
“Wonderful. Sounds like a great plan.” This time, I do roll my eyes.
He arches a brow at my cynical remark. “I’m not sure what you want from me, Raina. This is a game of chance we’re walking into. I’m trying to give you some idea of where we’re going should we become separated.” He carves out a tower and stabs the stick in the ground before sitting back on his haunches. “We may already be too late to stop the Prince of the East and his men from reaching the castle. There’s no way to know. We have no idea if your vision is showing us the only band of Eastlanders or if there are more. More than one group rode into the wood last night. And this wall? This wall and the fire magick we saw in the vale could be the simplest of their power. The prince is all but infected with the Shadow World. We can’t know what we face.”
Words blurt from my fingers before I have time to think them through. “I thought you held no doubt for your Witch Walkers’ skill.”
“I don’t,” he snaps. “Between them and our king, the Eastlanders are in trouble. But I’ve seen things in the last day and a half that I never imagined. The Eastlanders don’t know this type of magick, or at least they haven’t before now, and the Prince of the East is…” He sighs. “I don’t know what he fucking is anymore, but I can’t help worrying that we’ve highly underestimated him.”
Another we. This time it means him and the Frost King, I’m sure.
And maybe Nephele.
“If the Eastlanders make it to the castle and take the king,” he says, “then there’s a chance we can intercept them on their trip back through.”
I frown, questioning this man’s strategy and mapmaking skills, but also our logic.
“There is more than one way out of the Northlands,” I remind him. “The Mondulak Range. The Western Mountains. The Iceland Plains.”
The second the words leave my fingertips, I realize that if there are other ways out, there are other ways in. Maybe we should’ve tried another route.
“If they conquer the Witch Walkers’ magick and take Winterhold,” he replies, taking his stick and forming rugged ranges, “they will avoid both stretches of mountains when they leave. As will we. There are too many fatal passages on either side this time of year. As for the plains, they would never survive the trek to the northernmost villages. I’m sure they realize that. Frostwater Wood is the only possible way in or out.” He pauses and glances toward the sky before meeting my eyes. “So the plan is simple. We get to Winter Road and save our king, one way or another.”
He stands and turns to help me mount the mare again, bending with cupped hands. When I make no move, he straightens to his full height, and with those big, strong hands planted on his hips, narrows his eyes like he senses something wrong.
Something is wrong.
The Witch Collector and I have indeed found ourselves on the same side, but now that my mind isn’t so clouded, I fear we have very different objectives.
“What is it?” he asks. “Say what you mean to say. Your face hides nothing, Raina.”
As though I’m unaware.
“Your king is not my king,” I reply. “He never has been. He can rot in an Eastlander pit for all I care. I do not want to intercept anyone, certainly not someone who might have taken your pathetic, helpless king. I want to go to Winterhold to get my sister before they attack the castle and kill her like they killed my mother. There has to be a way to bypass the army. I aim to find it.”
Something like anger flashes across Alexus’s face, and he dips his head low, ensnaring my gaze. “You shouldn’t be so quick to doom a man you’ve never met. You know little about him.”
His words aren’t as sharp as mine but edged all the same.
“I know he brought the Eastlanders to our door. I know I would not have spent the last eight years without my sister if not for him. My mother would still be alive. I would still have a home. If the Ancient Ones listen at all, I hope they let the Eastlanders have their way with him.”
Alexus steps forward, closing the remaining distance between us until his nose is less than a finger’s length away from mine. “You have no idea what you’re saying.”
“I know I am going to find my sister,” I continue, undeterred, “and that I am not running to the king’s rescue. You will find me kissing the Prince of the East right on his disgusting mouth before that happens.” I pause, stretch my fingers, and shake away the fact that I just brought that murderous bastard back to life in my mind. “I thank you for your help,” I add, “but consider your debt to me cleared. I will go my own way from here.”
He assesses me, disbelief clouding his expression. “You are foolish. You will never find Winter Road without me. And know this. That is the only way you hold any chance of ever reaching Winterhold. Second…” He shakes his head on a laugh, peering at me from beneath the hood of those dark, feathery lashes. “If the Eastlanders take the king, who is about as pathetic and helpless as you, my dear, understand there’s a great chance that your Nephele, the Frost King’s high servant and paramour, will be found ever at his side. Lovers are often protective like that.”
A wave of nausea threatens. Lovers? That word ricochets through my brain, and black dots swim across my vision. I ball my hands into fists, the prickle of angry tears stinging my eyes.
“You lie. She would never.”