Her gasping slows, and the snow stops falling around us. I swear the wood feels warmer too.
Moments later, I muster my calmest, softest voice. “If there were any other way to protect us, Nephele would take it. She would spare your friend this torture. You know she would. This cage has to be all she can manage. You must believe it’s for the best. That wraith won’t let Helena die. It needs her alive if it plans to remain in this world. Nephele will also do anything she can to ease the conditions, though having a wraith inside her makes Helena far more tolerant to extremes. We, however, do not have that advantage. We cannot stay here, and we cannot free your friend of this wraith in a way that won’t harm her.” I pull back and wipe away the tear tracks from Raina’s face with my thumbs, memorizing the feel of her skin, the curves of her face. “But we will find a way,” I tell her. “And we will return. I swear that to you. I need you to trust me. Please.”
She stares at me like she’s seeing me for the first time. I understand that she knows little about the wisdom and talents of the witches at Winterhold, and I know that I’m the last man she ever thought she would have to depend on, but I need her to know that I can be the kind of man who’s worthy of her trust. That I already am.
After a heartbeat, she nods and slips from my grasp.
“Why is he doing this?” she asks.
I let out a long breath and drag my hand through my hair. Her question is vague, and I let it remain that way. This could refer to many things, things we can’t get into right now. So I give her a vague truth. It’s all I can do.
“I don’t know. I don’t even know how he’s doing it, but he is.”
He shouldn’t have this power. Wielding wraiths was an old practice of the Summerland magi. A few Eastland sorcerers managed the skill, but that was centuries ago, before Urdin sealed the Shadow World.
“I want to say goodbye,” she signs.
I can’t help but eye her warily. I’m the one who needs to trust, I suppose.
“Just be careful. That wraith isn’t commanded to harm you but keep your distance regardless.” I flex my hand, the skin still tingling from touching Raina so intimately. “I’ll gather the horses.”
Minutes later, I return with Mannus, the mare, our broken lamp, and my sword, too worried to do anything but make haste. Raina sits on her knees in the snow next to the rootbound cage.
“I will come back for you,” Raina tells the girl. “I will come back, and we will take our revenge. Together. The Prince of the East will pay for this. For everything. On my honor.”
A cringe comes over me when she slips her arm through a gap in the roots. The wraith is still buried, though, and Helena only leans closer, allowing Raina to press the same sign they shared at the lake into her chest. Except this time, I realize that it’s not one but two signs, for ancient Elikesh words.
Tuetha tah.
My sister.
Helena’s brow furrows, and a choked-off sob resounds from her throat. The same desperation that lives inside Raina radiates from her friend, yet she still gives Raina the slightest nod of understanding—one that says she believes in Raina and her promises of salvation and retribution.
Raina forces herself away from the cage and stands, wiping her cheeks. When she faces me, seething, I believe her too.
As we mount the horses, the wraith returns.
“You will never escape him!” That eerie voice is a scream, a sound that makes the skin on the back of my neck prickle.
Raina and I face the wooden cage as the wraith presses Helena’s face between two branches. The vine that covered her mouth and wrists moments before now struggles to crawl back up Helena’s body, as if something is fighting it.
“Call to your witches all you want, Collector.” The wraith wears a wicked grin. “Beg your ancient gods for help. But it’s the Prince of the East to whom Tiressia will eventually pray. He sees. He knows. Even your secrets are not safe.”
With a glance toward the sky, sinking dread fills me. It is you, the wraith said when it tasted my blood.
I close my eyes. If the wraith knows who I am, perhaps the prince knows too. I’m not sure what that means for Tiressia or me, but it can’t be good. The Prince of the East means to rule this empire, and he’s executing his plan—one I have yet to fully comprehend.
And I have no idea how to stop him.
22
Raina
I ride between Alexus’s legs, nestled against him, the God Knife hidden in my boot. When Alexus left to gather the horses, I spotted the knife in the upturned earth near Helena’s cage. It’s so warm now, where it was bitterly cold for so long. Though I sense that change in the weapon, and it feels more alive, I find myself far less sure if the God Knife is as powerful as Father always said or if Mother was the one who was right. Because I slid that blade into the face of the Prince of the East, and even still, he lives.
Not for long, though. Somehow, someway, I’m going to get out of this construct, and God Knife or no God Knife, I’m going to destroy him.
It’s been so long since we left Helena. Three days at least. Maybe more. My hands grew too cold to man the reins shortly after we turned for the mountains, and my hands are my lifeline. And so here I am, huddled against a man I thought I hated, letting him hold me tight, hour after frigid hour, easing me with the curve of his body, breathing his warmth into my neck. Any discomfort at being so near him has vanished. The God Knife hides a few feet from my hand, but I can’t imagine using it to harm Alexus now. We aren’t anything like strangers anymore, and certainly nothing like enemies.
Compassionate like friends. Tender like lovers.
I’m learning the shape of his body. How he sleeps. The sound of his breathing. And I’m thankful for all of it—the gentle way he runs his hands along my thighs to build heat inside me, the way he clasps my hands and holds them against his chest when they tremble, how he nuzzles his lips into the crook of my neck when he needs to warm them. It doesn’t bother me. Instead, it feels oddly right, like we fit together in every way.
And that confuses me to the point that I have to stop thinking about it.
The gambeson isn’t large enough to fold around both of us entirely and provides little comfort as we fight to remain awake. Poor Tuck follows behind, tied off and covered in the blanket from Littledenn.
Our lamp is broken, but the sky provides more light than before. It's an odd color now, reminding me of the soft pink shade of my mother’s roses, like a morning sunrise, if a sunrise-sky never changed. We can’t know how many Eastlanders might be waiting in the surrounding forest or what animals might be waiting to spring, so the light is a blessing.