The steam rising off his skin was growing less and less and he’d stopped shivering, which she knew to be a very bad sign. Going hypothermic was bad enough for anyone, but for someone who derived his vitality from heat she knew it would be catastrophic.
They encountered no enemies along the way. Nothing to have to battle, but that would have been preferable to the unrelenting and brutal cold and just when she thought that maybe they were drawing closer because they’d step through into a massive antechamber, her heart would plummet to her stomach when she realized the trail continued on.
Glancing over her shoulder at Giles, who was panting heavily now, she shifted. Wishing she could force the light to last longer than the brief second it took for her to change.
The moment she did she wanted to screech as the cold bit through her skin. She wrapped her arms around Giles’s waist. “We can’t do this, Giles. We have to go back.”
“No,” he said it adamantly. “I will not…let that…boy die…because of this. We’re so…so close.”
It was painful just to hear him speak. Lilith felt so helpless. She wanted to force him back outside, but they’d come so far and at this point there was no telling if he’d even make the walk back.
His eyes were no longer pink; they were white and glassy with just a sliver of color at the very center of his irises. Fear pounding through her veins for him she knew if they didn’t get to the chalice soon he wouldn’t make it.
She grabbed her pendant.
“Lil…lith, no.”
He didn’t say more, but she knew what he was telling her. “But Giles, you’re going to die. I can’t let that happen.”
Squeezing his eyes shut, he jerked his head from side to side. “My life…nothing—”
“Stop it. Your life means everything,” she snapped, the anger helping her to keep warm as she too felt the overwhelming effects of the sub-zero temperatures. Her toes were completely numb, and she could hardly feel her fingers. She’d need to shift soon or risk being in the same shape as Giles.
But it was breaking her heart in half to know that she could warm up, but he couldn’t.
“Oh Gods,” she mumbled, “please let it be close. Please.”
She wasn’t sure whether she was praying, or just on the verge of delirium, but she knew that without a doubt this was the toughest challenge she and Giles had had to face yet.
“Giles, look at me.”
Opening his eyes, body twitching spasmodically, he didn’t speak, and she could read the anguish inside them.
“I’m going to get you out of this. You hang on tight and you don’t let go of me. I’m going to be running as fast as I think you’re able to keep up with me. I think we’re close”—she really didn’t, but if it would help him to hang on she’d say whatever she needed to say to make him think so—“so you just hang in there, got it?”
His nostrils flared and he nodded sharply once.
Calling her shift, she kept herself pressed as tight to him as she possibly could. Even though the light lasted hardly any time, she hoped it would be enough to warm him up for one final push.
The second his fingers curled into her fur, she took off. He slipped and slid along behind her, once nearly buckling to his knees and taking her with him. But she was able to regain her footing and press on.
She was not going to let him die. The stupid man refused to go back to the surface where at least he could draw from a little heat, but she loved her stupid man and even while she cursed his need to always feel the protector, she would do anything in her power to be his this time around.
She wasn’t sure how long she ran, it could have been miles or it could have been yards, but finally she saw something that made her heart leap with joy.
Enshrined within a tube of crystal-clear ice floated a golden chalice.
Howling with relief, she called her light and though she immediately felt the blow of the cold slam against her, her relief was so great that she ignored it.
“Hang in there, Giles. Hang in there, knight. We’re here. It’s right here.”
He didn’t even mumble a word, his eyes were closed and his fingers were barely grasping onto her shoulder. But as long as there was life, there was hope.
Mostly dragging him along at this point, she walked up to the column of ice, wondering the whole time that apart from the fact it’d been horrifically cold, it’d been relatively easy.
Such treasures of Kingdom she would have imagined should have been guarded better than this. If she’d been alone as a wolf she would have been fine. Only her constant worry for Giles had forced her to shapeshift so often.
The chalice wasn’t much to look at it. It was gold and looked like it had been pounded by hand. It was not ornate, and, unless one knew what they were looking at, it would probably not entice the most depraved of thieves to endure what they had to get here.
Maybe that was its safeguard, its utter dullness. But that would be a first.