The Winter Long

Running through an unfamiliar forest filled with thorns is half an exercise in masochism, and half an obstacle course from the deepest reaches of Hell. I kept one arm up to block my face, letting it take the brunt of anything sharp that dangled overhead, and kept the other arm out in front of me, fingers spread to find the trunks of surrounding trees before I ran straight into them. The smell of snow and roses urged me onward, ebbing and surging with the force of whatever spells she was casting, but always there, a thin ribbon of poisoned sweetness to urge me onward into the dark.

Unfortunately for me, no amount of positioning my hands to reduce my potential danger could level out the ground under my feet. I was running down what I had taken for a slight incline when everything dropped out from beneath me, and I was plummeting like a rock. I had time to squeak my surprise and wrap my arms around my face. Then I hit the tree line, and developed a whole new set of problems to worry about—like how to keep myself from getting hung up in the high branches, forcing me to fall even further after I recovered.

My right arm hit a tree trunk on the way down. There was a loud “crack” followed by shooting pain. I’d broken at least one bone, if not more than one. I made a sound that was halfway between a gasp and a scream, and then finally landed on the ground in an untidy heap. My broken arm was pinned beneath the rest of me, making sitting up more difficult than it should have been. Eventually, I managed to roll into a position where I could use my unbroken left arm to push myself to my feet.

“Shit,” I muttered, folding my right arm to my chest. I could feel the bones starting to knit back together. I just prayed that they were healing straight, and that I wasn’t going to need Jin to rebreak my arm when I made it back to Shadowed Hills. At least I wasn’t bleeding all over everything for a change. Something told me Evening would be able to pick up on blood that was shed in her presence the way that I could follow the scent of a person’s magic through dark forests that would have been better left abandoned. And I did not want to give her any more warning than I had to.

I hurt myself a lot, but I don’t tend to break many bones, and I didn’t know how long my arm would need to heal. I moved forward more slowly now, feeling out the ground with my toes before stepping into shadows. I would probably survive breaking my neck. I would probably even recover from it. But it would slow me down even more than my broken arm already had, and I didn’t have time for that.

The smell of snow and roses was stronger now, interlaced with the smell of cold wind blowing over an open sea. I could probably have followed it with my eyes closed. I was glad I didn’t have to—anything that would make this a little bit easier was good, especially given that I was injured and relatively unarmed. You need iron and silver to kill one of the Firstborn.

The signs really had been there from the beginning. I’d been a fool not to see them: a fool blinded by my own preconceptions of the world and my place in it. It was the same blindness that had prevented me from seeing that Tybalt loved me, or that I wasn’t what my mother had always told me I was. You’d think I’d know better by now.

Voices drifted through the wall of thorns ahead of me. I stopped where I was, barely daring to breathe, as I strained to hear what they were saying.

“—the only one who’s suffered? You’re very wrong about that, sister.” Evening’s words were punctuated by the sound of wood stiffening and breaking off with a crack. A gust of frozen roses washed over me. I fought the urge to sneeze.

“No one had to suffer at all,” countered the Luidaeg’s voice. “This has always been on you, Eira. You were the one who couldn’t be patient, who couldn’t see the value of waiting on the greater good.”

“I’ve killed you once since I came back,” spat Evening. “Don’t think you can stop me from doing it again.”