Vexx watches his warrior carefully, suspicion leaking from his every pore.
Rhonin snatches Helena’s wrist and drags her toward the caves, stalking up the snowy hillside where other warriors remove the bodies of the Eastlanders I killed. Helena fights, like I knew she would, but Rhonin throws her over his shoulder, and the pair vanish into a cave.
With my heart in my throat and rage boiling my blood, I stomp the foot of the man holding me and lunge toward my friend. It’s Vexx who claims me, latching onto my hair again, yanking me back so hard that a zing of pain rips through my neck.
He pushes me forward, driving me up the hill in Helena’s footsteps until we’re back where we started. “Just for that,” he says, “we’re going to stand right here and let you see her when she comes out. Even if it’s for her burial.”
If I could free my hands, I would send fire raging across this ravine and end this, but Vexx holds me so tightly, one hand in my hair, the other clenching my wrists, aiming me at the cliff.
Alexus roars as if in protest, but an agonizing sound leaves him, and he goes silent.
The earth rumbles, boulders tremble, and I lose my footing.
Vexx steadies me. Steadies himself.
I can’t see Alexus, but I know he somehow did that.
“It’s nothing,” Vexx calls out to his men, laughing at their fear. “Happens in these mountains all the time.” He tries to sound so sure, though I hear unsettled nervousness in him, the way his laughter fades and dies.
Vexx hands me off, like I’m too much to deal with, an interruption to the spectacle involving Helena. I try to see Alexus, but my line of sight is swiftly corrected with a jerk to my head by different hands.
Every Eastlander on the slope by the caves stands in waiting, like salivating monsters, especially Vexx. From the look on his face and the way he stares at the cave’s mouth, I can tell that this is a test for the Eastland warrior named Rhonin.
Something comes alive in the air, and there’s another moment of pause across the ravine. I don’t know what it is, but it resonates in my marrow. It’s something I’ve never felt, a sweeping presence that smells like cold if cold had a scent. It’s everywhere at once, stilling even the wind.
A white wolf howls in the distance. Another and another. The Eastlanders shift and cast wary glances from one to the other.
After too many torturous, silent minutes, Helena’s scream rings through the ravine, echoing like a death knell. I want to drop to my knees, but I’m held fast, trying to breathe as she wails.
I will kill him and cut out his heart. I will hang his scalp and all its red braids from my belt. I will curse his name so wholly that his every waking moment will become a prayer that he is not found by the likes of me. The Prince of the East and his army will regret that the silent Witch Walker from Silver Hollow lived.
Vexx meets my gaze, a satisfied smile spreading over his face, and Helena’s cries fall quiet. After a time, Rhonin stalks out of the cave, dragging a stumbling, sobbing Helena behind him. He glances at the sky with unease, like he notices this new presence moving through the ravine.
The hairs on the back of my neck rise.
Rhonin stands before Vexx, still clinging to Helena who has yet to meet my eyes. Her square shoulders have fallen, and her hair hangs in a black curtain over her face.
“It’s over,” Rhonin says, his face red and blotchy. “We should go now.”
The Eastlander at my back relents his hold, enough that the pain in my neck subsides. It seems he’s tired of this too.
Vexx eyes Rhonin, and even I feel the tension vibrating between the two men.
The general turns his attention to Helena. Rhonin lets go of her wrist, and she stands there, inches behind him, cowering like a beaten puppy.
“You’d make a good soldier, girl,” Vexx says. “If we can break you.” He takes her chin and lifts her face from behind her hair. “Perhaps now you’ll know better than to steal from me.”
Her eyes slide sideways, finding me. She has a split lip, and her right eye is bruising. If Rhonin…
Gods. Everything inside me vibrates. I could explode with hatred. Helena has endured so much. She can’t endure more. I vow that I won’t let her endure more, that I’ll get us out of this mess and get her far from such peril.
But in the next second, she throws a punch, landing her fist across the general’s face. His head snaps, and when he turns his eyes back to Helena, they’re filled with rage. In a swift move, he jerks her forward and plants his booted foot into the small of her back, kicking her down the hillside.
Gasping, I lunge for her. This time, I shake loose from my captor’s hold, but it’s too late. I can only watch in cold horror as Helena tumbles down the rugged, snow-covered slope and collides with a boulder. Her spine bows from the impact, and she falls still and lifeless.
The scent of her coming death reaches me. I inhale deep, absorbing the aroma of a forge fire, sweet wine, and meadow grass in the spring.
I dart toward her before anyone can stop me, imagining her fighting, swinging her sword, living her life somewhere far from the Northlands. I see her bright smile, the heat that lives in her eyes, the flush of sparring and youth in her cheeks.
The moment I’m at her side, I close my eyes, searching for her strands of life. They’re there, faint and still golden but fading.
“Loria, Loria, anim alsh tu brethah, vanya tu limm volz, sumayah, anim omio dena wil rheisah,” I sign.
I work fast, weaving her beautiful strands in my mind, pouring every bit of myself into the healing until her dimming threads begin to reform. My love, anger, sadness, fear… They all flood my magick.
“Loria, Loria, anim alsh tu brethah, vanya tu limm volz, sumayah, anim omio dena wil rheisah. Loria, Loria, anim alsh tu brethah, vanya tu limm volz, sumayah, anim omio dena wil rheisah.”
An arm tightens around my waist. Suddenly, I’m torn from my thoughts, the strands of Helena’s existence slipping like threads of silk through my fingers as I’m tossed aside in the snow.
Half-dazed and head swimming, I rise on my elbows, wondering if I did enough.
Vexx and Rhonin hover over Helena.
She’s coughing. Breathing. Moving.
Living.
Another tiny death flutters in my chest, an unwanted ending conquered.
Weakly, Helena looks at me with those impossibly dark, brilliant eyes. The wounds on her face—the open and bleeding lip, the bruising eye—are gone.
The general jerks his head around, spearing me with a glare that stabs straight to my core. “You’re a Healer?” He moves toward me, hands clenched at his sides, once again delivering the sensation of an approaching storm. “That’s why she bore no mark from my fist and why Un Drallag lived, without wounds, after what the prince did to him in the vale.” Looking down at me, his eyes narrow. “Did you bring him back from the dead?”