Winterskin (Book One of Wrath & Winter)

The Hunt: Part One

They didn't do so well in the sun. Even if it was just dying light.

I guided them back to Montbereau, letting each one take turns leaning on me. Using my strength.

I should kill her for what she's done to them. But they are what matters, I have to remind myself.

Once we meet the village center, there's a certifiable crowd following. People crying out to the Mother, singing all sorts of hymns and a few, lucky enough to afford them, strumming lyres behind us. Noel, Ceadda, and the others are fragile. Shrinking against the softest noises. Unable to set their gazes on the crowd, on their own loved ones as they step out and call to them. The best healer in the village is, of course, the court wizard. So, I drag them to the longhouse. And with the horde of people tailing us, it's no wonder the housecarl and her own trio of guards come out with weapons brandished. It looked like we were about to initiate a coup.

"I found them." I told her, breathless. "In the woods."

"Alive?" she spat, disbelief making her pale features even paler.

I nod, unable to form words. Too damned exhausted. Everything hitting me all at once—the fight. Them.

Her. With her familiar face and voice. Her. Putting on my mother's mask. Taunting me with it. Reminding me of her deathbed promise.

That I broke.

Weapons are dropped. Songs are sung and I'm clapped on the back by the housecarl. The four are led inside and I urge myself to follow. To make sure they're being treated well.

But, "Your work is done here," the housecarl tells me, "Rest, now, shieldmaiden. You've done well."

Those words alone.

Those words alone set me free.

But I can't leave them until I'm sure that they are no longer afraid. That they know that they're safe now. Home.

Unused chambers are repurposed into a massive sickbay. All four of them have beds of their own stuffed with cottony goose down. Ceadda and the others have found the space to rest, but Noel still looked around frantically. Then, when he saw me, his eyes set.

I came over to him.

"I shouldn't be here." He hissed at me, "I saw...I saw...," a sudden clarity cleared those eyes. Made them over-bright.

"What did you see?" I pressed.

"The Night." He said, eyebrows upending, "I died. And I saw the Night. With Him sitting in a big throne of glass. Katell," his voice wavered and died. It came back tiny: "What does that mean?"

I shut my lips. What does it?

I squeezed his shoulder and left him. Prepared to pepper Gram with questions, but first...

Home.

Maddy and Eva danced through the cabin. Hugged me tightly as I entered. Then, their feverish voices followed me up to my bedroll.

I didn't know how hard the darkness would hit. The warm arms of sleep.

A hard knock at the cabin door woke me. I threw my gaze around the cabin. I had slept through yesterday and half of the next. Grinding my jaw, I tore my aching body from the bed and threw open the door.

"Eli."

His smile was so wide that it was close to breaking.

"Eli!" I fell into his arms. Laughed and refused to acknowledge that tears sprang up. Tears of joy.

But there is only so much happiness one can hold onto.

Gram was coming up the road with a wicker basket. I invited Eli inside and held the door open for Gram.

She wouldn't meet my eyes when she entered. She greeted Eli and went to distributing her herbs around the house.

"Gram," I said, "there's something I need to ask you."

"Funny that," she hummed, kneeling near her new collection of herb jars opposite the dead hearth, "there is something I must tell you. And ask. Who shall go first?"

Her tone was ice. Had I done something already?

Silence told her she had the floor. Still tinkering away at her jars and herbs, she tilted her head and spoke: "She says she gave you a gift," Gram said, putting away a Hyacinthe flower in a conical jar, "a very big one, mind you. I must assume that it's...them."

My eyebrows quirked. "What?"

"Your shieldsiblings you foolish thing." She snapped, whipping her head around, "Don't pretend that you didn't see them die. I felt their blood feed the earth and now, blood has been tainted. Sucked up into these bags of flesh that should not be walking around Montbereau. Freely." She licked her lips. Took a stabilizing breath, "She said that she did it for you."

No. No. No.

That thing. In the forest.

No. No. No.

"Now, a question: what have you given her in return?"

Silence. Confused fucking silence.

"I thought so." She nodded to herself. "By the gods, Katell Maeva, have you made an awful mistake!"

"One them said," I cleared my throat. It tightened, "one of them said that he saw the Night. That he saw Him on his glass throne."

A cylindrical vial slid from her hand and collided with the floor. Smashing into a million tiny shards.

Elisedd, wholly forgotten, came to her and checked her hands for injury. She fanned him away. "No." She said, a storm coming over her face. "No, Katell Maeva. No."

"What?"

"I will not do this." She said, standing to her full height. "You chose to break her promise. You chose to accept her gift. Your consequences are not mine to bear. I commune with her—I fulfill her rights. I will have no stake in this—whatever will come of it."

"Gram—"

"No." She crossed the room. Lingered at the threshold. "Even if I wanted to," she said, staring out at the sun. Shaking her head, "there is little, very little, that I could do."

The door slamming felt like the hood of a casket.

If I had known, I wouldn't have dug such a deep hole for myself.