“Are you sayin’ I’m lyin’?” Skye says, getting that look in her eyes, the one I saw just before she leapt on Big’s back in the dungeons.
I ignore it, goad it even. “Just confused. Wooloo,” I say in a mocking tone.
She pushes me away with both hands. “Go to scorch,” she says.
I scowl at her, take a step forward.
She charges, grabbing at my arms, trying to get ahold of them, to pin them, but I twist away and grab back, clamping my fingers on her shoulder for a quick second before she slips away. Arms outstretched, she manages a firm grip on my arms, and I grab her back. We grapple, frantic-like, as it turns into a wrestling match, and she’s strong, so strong, stronger than most guys I’ve fought before.
I push and pull and try to get an edge, but she’s pushing and pulling and doing the same and then dropping suddenly, throwing off my center of balance and I’m falling, falling, slamming into the dirt, scrabbling at her as she holds me down, throwing her offa me, rolling, getting on top of her and then I realize I’m not angry, I’m not angry, I’m fighting her but I’m not angry—least not at her. My guard falls away and she takes advantage and throws me to the side, gains the upper hand. But I’m not seeing her, at least not the her that’s here, who’s fighting me, I’m seeing the Skye who’s arms were reaching out through the bars, grabbing mine, want in her eyes and on her lips, and I don’t want to fight anymore, not one second longer, and so—
—I’m holding her and I think she’s holding me back and—
—my hands draw up her slender neck, run along her jawline, cup her chin, and then—
—I’m kissing her and she’s kissing me and the world blinks away as I close my eyes and—
—it’s just Skye, all around me, but she’s brown skin and short, dark hair and not gray and cloud-covered like the other sky and I think she’s the real Sky and—
—it’s like for this moment, for this one moment, Wes isn’t dead anymore and everything’s okay and we might be able to rescue Jolie and I’m happy and—
“Feve has a family, you searin’ Icy fool!” she snaps abruptly, pulling back.
I look at her but her words aren’t angry and she’s almost laughing. “What?” I say, breathing heavy, unable to decipher the meaning of anything but her lips, which I desperately want to kiss again.
“Feve,” she says. “He’s a married man. He wants to help you, but if we go back to the castle like this he’ll die, and his family will be left without him. If it was just us to worry ’bout, we’d be with you in a heartbeat. All we wanna do is get more warriors so we’ll have a chance.”
“Oh,” I say, feeling my face go warm.
“Is everything all right?” Buff’s voice says. I turn my head and he’s pushed aside a leafy branch and is watching us, amusement splashed all over his face.
“Fine,” I say. “Skye was just teaching me a thing or two about fighting.”
Skye rolls her eyes, but I can tell she finds it funny.
“Sure,” Buff says. “If you say so. We’re heading out now, so unless you want to keep…practicing…up here all by yourselves, with no one within miles and miles, you’d better get moving.”
I look at Skye and she looks at me, and then she rolls offa me and we head toward Buff. He turns to fight his way back through the woods and Skye turns to me. “That was one scorch-of-a good first kiss, Icy Dazz,” she whispers through those lips of hers.
Although I’m still catching up on fire country lingo, I’m pretty sure it’s a compliment.
Chapter Twenny-Nine
Kissing Skye doesn’t make my emotions any less frayed. If anything, it forces them even closer to the surface.
I want things to be normal, for Goff to be a distant memory, to get Jolie back, to get to know Skye. To really get to know Skye.
But that’s not where I’m at. That’s a dreamland, so far away that I’ll have to grab a passing cloud to get there.
We keep on traipsing through the forest, down, always down, until we reach the borderlands. With the air warming, Siena returned my coat a mile or so back, but it’s too hot to wear it now so I’ve got it draped over my shoulder.
Skye and I haven’t said a word since her comment about the kiss, but I’m glad for it. Words can only screw things up right now.
Fire country stretches out like an endless blanket of sand, while ice country rises up behind us like a ghost. And the two are stitched together by us, as if we’re the only link between two worlds.
“We’ll be back as soon as we can,” Wilde says.
Buff looks like he wants to do something, maybe hug her, but he just rocks back and forth awkwardly.
“We’ll be waiting,” I say, a promise I have little control over. Skye’s eyes are all over mine and I can tell we’re sharing memories, clinging to them like the branches of a tree that’s about to be chopped down.
“Fight like the Killer hounds of scorch are at your heels,” Siena says and I smile at her way with words.
“That’s just what we’ll do,” I say.
Circ thrusts a hand out and I shake it. Feve offers a firm nod, but it’s clear he’s ready to move on, to get back to his family.
As Skye moves in close, the others look away, already moving off into fire country, while Buff pretends to be looking at a bird at the very top of one of the border trees.
She whispers in my ear. “Find yer sister,” she says. “Find her and we’ll find you.”
“And then we’ll find your sister,” I say. Her cheek slides back against my skin and then she brushes her lips against mine, lingering for a second, causing my blood to flow and my emotions to swirl.
I grab the back of her head and pull her in, kissing her exactly the same way I kissed her before. We both come up gasping and open-mouthed.
That’s when a swarm of black swamps the edge of our vision.
“Skye,” I say, but the others have seen it too, are already running back toward us.
For a moment Skye and I just stare as the horizon fills with black, an avalanche of darkness, a single roiling mass, close to the ground, sending up clouds of dust all around them.
Dark like the tapestries on the palace walls; the dark men on dark horses, burning, burning everything, slaughtering Icers and the strange water riders as easily as if they were pulling leaves off a tree.
My first thought is: are they coming for us? But I shake that one away as quickly as it comes, because the black mass shifts to the right, turning, dust billowing behind them, as if marking their trail. They’re heading for…They’re heading for…
They’re heading for ice country.
“Oh, Heart,” I say.
“Who are they?” Skye asks, looking at me—looking right at me—like she expects me to know. Like I should know.
But I don’t. I don’t have a Heart-icin’ clue.
The others surround us, watching—nay, gawking—as the black horses gallop across the border, into the forest, their dark riders urging them on by sticking their heels into the horses’ sides. It’s not a friendly advance, like the Glassies coming to pay a visit, wandering silently up the mountainside. As the last of the dark men plunge into the woods, the sun catches the steel in their hands, glinting like silver coins in the distance.
Swords. The men are all carrying swords.
Ice country is under attack.
~~~
There’s no discussion, barely a word other than Go! and Run! as we charge back the way we came, back under the cover of the trees, back up the slope that seems to want to do anything to slow us down, seeming steeper and thicker with undergrowth than when we came down it in the first place.
Just by coming with us, the people of the Tri-Tribes have proven their mettle. They’re willing to help the Icers even at the risk of their own lives.
Even though we’ve got another couple hours before we reach the village, everyone who’s got a weapon has it out, ready, as if the dark men and their horses might be lying in wait to ambush us.