Rayale and Karis were already gone, slipped back into the shadow that always protected them so well.
“How will you find me again?” Lilith asked as the pink-haired dragon woman turned to go.
Grin sliding across her rosebud lips, Ying said, “I know the song of your voice now; call to me and it shall ride the wind.”
Then with a wink and wave, the xiather jumped over the edge of the cliff.
Lilith peeked over the edge. “Do you think she’ll be okay?” she asked.
He gazed deep into the endless fall of navy-blue sky beside them. “I’m sure she will be, love. But we need to go now.”
Looking at him, she nodded. “The only chance we have of getting out of here safely is traveling as your shadow.”
She was right, but he knew she dreaded the idea.
“I will shift us the moment we are out of their range.”
“I know you will, knight.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and planted a quick kiss to the side of his lips. “I trust you.”
It was several hours before they were out of range of the dwarves’ homestead. By the time Giles found a spot he felt confident would be safe enough for the two of them, Lilith was practically comatose.
Her skin was unnaturally pale and she was cold as ice to the touch. She would be okay as long as he could get a flame going to heat her up.
They’d traveled through the morning and now it was late afternoon. A fire combined with the strength of the sun should hopefully snap her out of it soon.
But when he laid her down and went in search of wood, he could find none. Not only that, but the farther they’d traveled toward this corner of Kingdom, the more bitterly cold the day became.
Fyre Mountain had been a place of fire and brimstone once upon a time, but there’d been a shift in topography through the years that he’d not become aware of. The maps in Rumpel’s study had shown the mountain as having been more of a low-level range, not exceedingly high so far as mountains were concerned. Actually more of a crater-style volcano in that at its apex it caved inward, but whether through magic or tectonic shifting, there was no longer a crater but a sharp, dizzying peak that pushed through the highest clouds in the sky.
The arctic-blue mountain was peaked in thick layers of snow. Frost curled from his lips with every breath he took.
As a creature born of fire, anything cold was anathema to him. It wasn’t simply that he didn’t enjoy the cold, but that his body could barely tolerate it. He’d be forced to use his heat reserves, which could rapidly deplete his strength if he wasn’t careful.
But this was it. The end of their journey. If he could just push through this, discover where the chalice was kept, retrieve it, and return it to Rumpel, then all would be well.
This would be unpleasant, but he’d gone through worse in his life. And hopefully retrieving the chalice would be easy compared to what they’d already been through.
Growling at the iced-over landscape, he knew searching for any dry tinder would be pointless. Everything was rimmed in rime.
Not wanting to stay away from Lilith for too long, he jogged back to where he’d laid her down in the clearing of arctic spring fed grass. As cold as it was, already he could see the delicate bloom of vitality begin to stain her cheeks now that they no longer traveled at the speed of thought.
He gently cradled her body into his lap.
“Little wolf,” he murmured against her lolling head, “I’m going to warm your body with my own. You’ll be okay. I swear it.”
Calling forth his fire, he muted it to just the point that his body would heat up by several degrees but to where there would be no flame. As much as he wanted her to come awake immediately, he needed to remain conscious not to use all his reserves at once.
Giles fed his flame from the natural heat that seeped up from the ground and radiated from the sun. Out here there was so little heat to tap into.
Smoothing a hand down her hair, he whispered nonsense in her ear as he slowly thawed her.
It was several minutes later before she blinked her eyes open and looked at him. “Knight?” Her thin brows gathered into a tight vee. “Did I pass out?”
Her small fingers clutched at the fabric of his sweater. Even using glamour to clothe himself was tapping into his reserves, but the thin shirts he’d been wearing through most of their journey would never keep him as warm as he needed to remain.
Every bit of magic Giles possessed came from his manipulation of heat; without it he could deplete his system to dangerously low levels, leaving Lilith to fend for herself.
“I’m sorry.” He brushed a finger across her cheek. “Their dwarf mountain range was extensive, and I didn’t want to stop until I was sure we were well outside of it.”
“I understand.” She rubbed her forehead with the back of her hand as her gaze took in the landscape. “Are you sure we’re at Fyre Mountain? This can’t be right.”