A sound splits the night, freezing me in the saddle. It’s a sound I know far too well—the slick slice of a dagger’s edge through thin flesh, followed by the gurgling of blood in a choking throat.
“Raina!” Her name tears from my lips, and a hand grabs my knee, making my pulse ratchet higher. I don’t know whether to attack or hold back. If it’s the Eastlander or Raina.
The blackness around me is all-encompassing, and my head swims, but I ready myself to strike a deadly blow.
A tender intake of breath is what stays my hand. Even in this short time I’ve been with her, I’ve learned the way Raina shudders out an exhale, memorized the sweet taste of her sighs. I recognize that breath. Feel it. Know it.
I reach out and find her arm, then slide my hand down to her trembling fingers. Relief floods through me, though I worry there might be more Eastlanders waiting in the briars.
I think to dismount, or maybe I should haul Raina up on Mannus with me and ride hard. But I don’t get the chance to do either one, because suddenly I’m tilting, head light as air, and tumble from my horse.
16
Raina
I don’t know much about Alexus Thibault, but I do know he’s as heavy as a fucking ox.
My blood is still alight from the fight with the Eastlander, and though I’m half Alexus’s weight, I manage to not only catch him before he slides from his horse, but I also have enough strength to shove him upright until he’s facedown against the animal’s neck.
The only death I smell is the earthy scent of the Eastlander, which means that Alexus is only wounded, but I don’t know where. His hand is tacky with blood, and I’m trying not to panic. He’s not dead yet, but if he dies—if I can’t keep him breathing—then I’m alone. The very thing I hoped to prevent by being with him in the first place.
Calm, Raina. Think.
I wipe the sweat from my forehead and feel for the pulse at his neck. It’s sluggish and weakening. I have to find and stop the bleeding, or I will smell his death.
But gods. The night is thick, an ocean of ink. Contours are all I see thanks to the few buds of light struggling to remain aglow at the road’s edge, and even those distort if I gaze at one spot too long.
I run my hands over Alexus’s cold body—his powerful thigh, his wide back, his muscled side, his corded arm, his baldric and sword hilt. I slide a hand along his chest too, from curve to curve, feeling his heartbeat, but there’s no sign of blood.
I go to his other side and am instantly met with that telltale metallic scent. It mingles with the smell of the Eastlander’s death still lingering in my nostrils.
My hands tremble harder. The rush from fighting turns into remorse over killing a man but dissipates into wicked realization. Alexus’s britches are wet, sticky, and torn. I flit my fingertips over the gash, assessing the open meat where blood pulses free. The stab wound is deep, maybe to the bone, and perhaps far too close to valuable vessels. He’ll bleed out soon if I leave him like this.
I sigh. How many times will I save the Witch Collector’s life?
The answer is a whisper across my mind: As many times as it takes to reach Nephele.
“Loria, Loria, una wil shonia, tu vannum vortra, tu nomweh ilia vo drenith wen grenah.”
I form the words, and with an image of my will—which is a whole Alexus—I begin weaving the glittering red strands of his injury back together to stop the bleeding.
But something catches my attention as I sing and weave. It’s so unusual that I almost stop, but I force myself to keep going. The strands of the flesh are different from the strands of life or even of a spell. They’re often easier to control, though in truth, I’ve only ever worked with minor injuries. I’ve closed my own wounds a time or two, healed a little cut on Tuck’s paw, a nasty forge blister on Finn’s arm while he slept, and stitched a parchment cut on Mother’s finger once when she wasn’t looking.
What’s odd is that the strands of Alexus’s flesh have frayed edges, something I’ve never seen before. Even more curious, I swear I see multiple threads, though the duplicates aren’t precisely the same as the originals. They’re more of a vestige, the residue of glimmering shadows.
His life strands were like this as well. So much has happened that my mind didn’t unearth the memory until now, when his life once again rests in my hands. I’m not seasoned in healing or saving people from death, and I have to wonder what it means.
When I finish, I rest my head on Alexus’s shoulder, fighting heavy eyelids and the pull of a darkened spirit. I saved his life, yes, but I also ended another. I’m not sure if this disaster I’m still walking in has revealed that I’m a merciful giver of life, as murderous as the Prince of the East, or that I’m something selfish in between—like the Frost King.
Wintry snow swirls, building on my lashes, making me think of him. For as long as I can remember, I’ve pictured Colden Moeshka as a burly man with a frozen crown sitting on an icy throne, a rime-coated white beard hanging to his waist. In my imagination, he’d blow a chilled wind through the wood, his breath freezing and falling to the ground in crystals and snowflakes. It sounds ridiculous, but I don’t know how else to envision him.
I see him now, on the backs of my eyelids, but his face is soon replaced by another—a crimson-shadowed adversary I never expected.
Lifting my head, I shake off the thought and touch the place on Alexus’s leg where the gash had been, only to feel smooth skin. I slide my hand back up his chest, trying to ignore how perfectly and powerfully built he feels, and rest my palm over his heart. His skin is chilled from the cold, but his pulse is stronger, thrumming against my fingertips.
He will live. And right now, that is everything.
I feel for Alexus’s pack in the darkness and free the flask I’d seen back at the stream. Whatever waits inside is so stout that one whiff burns my nostrils. I turn it up anyway. The liquid scorches my throat and settles in my aching chest like a warm fire, reviving and relaxing me.
My mind buzzes with questions about why the Eastlander was there, waiting, how he knew we would be there, or if he was perhaps only searching for a way out. I doubt I’ll ever know, but the fact that he was just there, at the perfect time, unsettles me.
After I’m done with the flask, I secure Alexus to Mannus using the rope from Littledenn. His sword keeps weighing him to one side, so I strap it to the saddle. Once I’ve covered him with the gambeson, I lead the animals onward.
The thought to bed down enters my mind, to huddle with Alexus until he wakes, maybe even until morning, but it’s best if we keep moving. It’s so cold here, and the wood seems impossible and terrifying to enter.