Buff, breathing heavy beside me, says, “What do they want?”
I don’t know, but if the tapestry was any indication of reality, there’s only one thing: “Blood,” I say.
Buff doesn’t ask any more questions after that. In fact, no one says much, just keep running, getting slower as we tire. I’ve got half a dozen cramps, from a dull ache in my calves and shoulders, to a sharper pang in my side. I fear by the time we reach the top we’ll be too exhausted to do much to help anyone.
I bite away the pain and try to focus on the situation at hand. If these men are here to attack ice country—and what else could they possibly be here to do?—then they’ll go for the palace first. It’s the only real threat to stopping them, what with the well-armed and trained guards, the thick, stone walls, and the head of the dragon, King Goff, hiding behind it all. Which means that—
That—
I can’t say her name, can’t even think it, but I know it’s the truth.
She’s in grave danger. More than she is with Goff.
“We’ll save her. We’ll save Jolie,” Skye says, on my other side.
I say nothing, just keep running.
The day is dark as the clouds seem to thicken for war. At some point snow starts falling, but I barely notice it. Then it starts falling harder, thicker, and I look up at the sky, feeling cold and wet all over my face.
Autumn has arrived.
I put my head down and keep running.
~~~
Before we reach the town we can smell it. Burning. Fire. Destruction. Violence.
It hangs in the air like a haze, coating everything; every breath, every movement, blackening our skin and our hearts. Smoke rushes in living columns above the trees, far thicker and heavier than the exhaust created by fireplaces, a stark contrast to the whiteness of the falling snow. Smoke caused by fire that’s eating bigger things than a few logs of firewood.
I throw the weariness and fatigue off me the same way I discard my coat, which has become too hot and heavy, as stifling as the dense forest.
Quickly and completely.
I half-notice Siena picking it up and pulling it tightly around her shoulders.
Exhaustion is nothing. Pain is nothing.
My sister is everything.
Jolie is everything.
Saying her name in my head stings me like the nettles on a pine branch, and I wince, but I don’t stop. Will never stop until she’s back in my arms.
Finally—freezin’ finally—we break through the trees and see the village standing before us, spotted with snow. The Brown and Red Districts sit heavy and low at the base of the slope, with their rows of small, densely clustered houses, while the houses of the Blue and White Districts rise above, with their tall columns and pointed roofs, generous gaps between each residence. All burning, swept with orange and red and the darkness of the black riders, ripping holes and tears in the blanket of snow covering everything.
And above them all…
Above them all, the palace, an impenetrable barrier protecting the king and his men.
Smoke pours from beyond the gates.
“Hurry,” Skye says, grabbing my arm with one hand, a blade gripped tightly in the other.
I lead the way into the Brown District, where most houses are burning, spitting mountains of black clouds. A dark rider and his horse run off a ways, and we watch as he closes in on a group of Brown District Icers, who have organized themselves and are brandishing planks and clubs. The rider sweeps past them, slashing with his sword, cutting them down one by one. They don’t get one good shot in before they fall. I scream something indecipherable and I think Buff does too.
The enemy rides on, seeking out his next target. A cluster of children run from a burning house, shepherded by a slightly older, but still young, girl. Her mannerisms are so familiar, surprisingly mother-like despite her young age. A wad forms in my throat when I realize I know her.
“Darce!” Buff shouts, warning his sister of the rider that’s now only a few gallops away.
But she doesn’t hear, not amongst the children’s cries and the crackle of flames and the pound of horse’s hoofs—and the screams of the men not five houses down.
Buff takes off and the rest of us do too, because we’re not separate people now, not anymore, we’re like a single living, breathing creature, with lots of arms and legs and more hearts than anyone could ever break.
But we’re also too slow and too far away and too late. Far too late.
The rider closes in, his sword out, level with Darce’s neck. Buff screams and screams and screams—
And I think I’m screaming too, my throat hoarse and dry—
And the rider raises his sword—
And my body’s all tensed up, preparing itself for the slash, slash, slash and more slashes that’ll destroy Buff’s life far worse than mine’s been destroyed, that’ll change him forever—
But it never comes.
It never comes.
The rider gallops on, a shadow passing down the road, cutting up the slope toward the upper lofts of the Brown District.
Toward where I live. Where my mother, even now, is likely in a drug-induced stupor and oblivious to the world falling down around her.
Chapter Thirty
We leave Buff to take care of his family, his brothers and sisters. His father, who was in the group of men defending themselves, is lying in the snow bleeding, being worked on by a group of healers.
There’s nothing more we can do to help them.
But we can still help my mother.
Can still save my sister.
(Can’t we?)
Buff thinks so and he pounds my back before we leave. I think he’s trying to boost his own morale, because of his father bleeding in the snow. I say, “I can stay, Buff,” even though I know I can’t.
“Nay,” he says. “Fight.”
I try to smile, but it comes out all crooked. “Even now, I fight with you,” I say.
And he says, “Cut the cosmic shiver. Just get it done.”
Up the hill we go, stepping in the snowy horse prints, seeing spots of red where blood’s dripped off the rider’s sword. Buff’s father’s blood, so fresh the rapidly falling snow hasn’t had time to cover it.
I’ll kill that rider. I swear to the Mountain Heart I will.
We reach Clint and Looza’s place, which isn’t burning, which, if you look just at their house, appears to be separate from the battle that ravages everything else. Untouched. Pristine. Just another house in a snow-covered village.
I burst through the door, nearly snapping it off its hinges.
Clint and Looza, who are sitting in the dark, look up sharply, their eyes wide and white. “Dazz?” Clint says. His eyes flick to the posse of brown-skinned people behind me.
“My mother,” is all I say, my eyes darting everywhere and seeing no one else.
“She’s here,” Looza says, pointing to a pile of blankets on the floor. “She passed out and we couldn’t bear to wake her.”
“There are riders,” I say.
“They came here,” Clint says.
“What?” I say. And then again, “What?”
“One of them barged in just like you did. We just sat here looking at him, not moving, not doing nothing at all, and he left, like he couldn’t see us. He left.”
“Oh, he saw us all right,” Looza says. “He looked me right in the eyes and I could see him deciding, like he was working out whether we were any kind of a threat, which of course we aren’t. I guess he decided the same, because he left us alone.”
“Thank the Heart,” I say. I bend down, pull the blanket away from my mother, touch her cheek with my knuckles, kiss her once on the forehead. “Wes is dead,” I say, and both of their mouths open, as if they might say something, but then they don’t. They just nod. “Don’t tell her. I have to tell her.”
They nod again and I leave, out into the autumn snowstorm.