*COMPLETE* "People don't believe in us anymore. They don't believe that in the end we will do what is right. We can't let them down. We can't let Ben win."
Decisions made on top of the lonely, wind-swept cliff of Lethinor reverberate around the five...
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They are still alive.
There's something to that at least. They are still alive.
Caj's left arm lies useless in the sling looped around his neck, hanging like a dead thing as they trudge through the thick snow, toes numbing in the persistent cold that creeps through their boots. He has his good hand out, fire melting a path before them, but the spread of flames is narrow and snow clings to their pants, clumping onto their boots.
He can hear Fae trudging along behind him, and he can almost see her, her slender frame hunched over, arms crossed around her chest to stave off the icy grasp of the cold. They are going to have to halt for the night so she can huddle up next to him and hold her shaking fingers over the fire.
"We'll stop soon," he says, his breath a rush of white mist. "Just over the ledge there, we can use it to block the northern winds."
She murmurs something, a wordless noise of agreement and huffy surprise. Surprise, Caj supposes, that she is here, in this horrible thing that Hiran, if he was here, would aptly call "deep shit."
He might be dead, Caj thinks, but he shoves the thought aside. They might be dead, if their luck runs out. This is no time to ruminate on who lives and who dies, no time for the slow breaking of final words and regrets. This is the time to survive.
They make it around the ledge and Caj goes to work clearing the ground of snow. Fae has the much more unpleasant task of trying to build the snow up at the sides, packing it with blue, trembling fingers, moving as quickly as possible so it can be over as quickly as possible.
He hates that he can't help her, hates that his arm just dumbly hangs in the sling. If they only had a Nature-caller—Hiran, or Allayria, or Lei—they could craft a hut of snow in no time, using the packed frost and ice to insulate the heat of their bodies and the fire, making them truly warm, not just partially. But it is just Caj and Fae, and feeble, knee-high walls are the best that they can expect. At least it cuts down on the wind.
She's building the other side up when he plops down and concentrates on growing the flames in his palm as large as possible. They had tried kindling and pine branches the first night but the materials were so wet from the frost and drifting snow. If they had had a Nature-caller...
A few minutes later, Fae collapses next to him, leaning in and pressing her shaking fingers around the yellow blaze. He never gets used to it, the jolting sensation of her shoulder pressed against his, her knees tucked along his own. It's for warmth, it's for survival—Caj isn't an idiot—but it unnerves him all the same. His gaze is anywhere else, but the rest of him, all of his instinctual senses, is fixed to the long line of clothed limb touching clothed limb.
It's annoying.
He's half-vexed, half-disarmed by it, stubbornly wanting to just banish the feeling away, but slowly yielding to it. He wants to give into this one thing, to let himself take the easy path for once in his life.
