PROMISE

CHAPTER 12

The air was cold despite the bright sun hovering over the craggy eastern horizon when he awoke. Dew flicked from Hain's eyelashes, sprinkling his cheeks like cold needle pricks as he opened his eyes. Lilith lay an arm's length from him, curled on her side, the toe of one boot poking from the wool blanket bound about her. He watched her breathe, chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm, and cursed his friend for being able to sleep so easily in the cold.

Not just cold. Frigid. His skin felt tight and hard and his blood was icy slurry in his veins. They'd trudged toward the Godless over scrubland through the night and most of the next day, resting by a clump of pines only when violet twilight fogged the sky. They hadn't risked a fire–not when pursuers might spot the smoke and chase them down–so they'd opted for tight blankets and close bodies to keep them warm. But blankets didn't do the job. Not for Hain.

It was the Cat in her, Hain decided. Had to be. The Clan existed in the exposed elements of the Godless, and living with them had shaped her into something fundamentally different than any human he'd ever met. He'd never say it out loud, but there were things that he would never–could never–understand about his closest friend. Her unnatural speed. Her ability to sense danger.

There were other things as well, unexplainable and unsettling as magic. How she'd escaped from the Below. And, Hain remembered with a shudder, how she'd got them out of the haven.

Lilith had taken point from where they'd met in the underhaven, snaking left and right so many times that Hain began to suspect she was lost. Sewer runoff sloshed about their feet, and sometimes their hands when the ceiling dropped low enough that they had to crawl.

Eventually they'd emerged into a low-ceilinged chamber. The air was moist, and thin mist rose about their feet. Night had come since their escape, and moonlight pressed against the shadows from where it drifted down a smooth sided shaft cut into the stone overhead.

"This is it," she'd said, stopping in front of him.

"This is what?"

"Where we get out of the haven."

"I realize this might come as a shock," he'd said, staring up the shaft, "but this is as good a time as any to tell you that I can't fly."

"We're not going up," she'd said, and even the thin light hadn't been enough to hide her eye roll. "We're going out."

Hain's eyes had flitted about them, scouring through the darkness for something like a door.

"You know the funny thing about stone?" he'd said. "It's no good for walking through."

She'd held out her hand to him. "Give me your hand."

"Why?"

"Because I'm going to use your body to break down the wall," she'd said. "That way I can be rid of two annoying things at once."

Hain had thrown her a dubious look, but held out his hand. She'd led him forward, their boots splashing in the syrupy shallows.

"Now hold your breath, don't let it out, and close your eyes."

"That's likely the strangest thing you've ever said to me," he'd said, then added, "at least while we've been in a sewer, I mean."

"You can do it, or we can go back," she'd said. "You decide."

And so he'd done it, feeling a blind fool with his cheeks puffed out as she'd led him forward.

"Now hum, and rub your belly with your free hand."

Hain had almost protested until Lilith had barked a laugh and jerked him forward.

Sudden, shocking cold had bound itself about him, and Hain had imagined falling through the crusted skin of ice over a frozen pond.