The sudden rush of joy is so powerful that my cells do their weird thing again, trying to contain the joy as though it is some kind of attack. But all that accomplishes is to spread the feeling around so my skin is happy, my toes are happy, my eyelashes are happy.
“How… how do you know?”
“Jack wrote to me. He wants me to go out there to live with them.”
I have never loved and hated Xander as much as I do at this moment. He’s going to get what I’ve been searching for this whole time. What I can never have now. But he’ll also be there for them. He can watch over them, take care of them. Xander can be flaky sometimes, but if he puts his mind to it, he’s a good soldier, a good hunter. And if…
“Are you taking Topher with you?”
“Of course.”
I let that sit there for a while.
“Keep him away from the battle, Xander,” I say when I work up the strength. “Keep him away from anything to do with the Nahx.”
Xander nods and picks up his cups of soup.
“You should find August,” he says.
“Why?”
He sighs, staring down at the mugs for a few seconds before answering.
“Do you remember that moment when August took his mask off? On the plateau above the base—you know, when we thought you were dying?”
“Yeah. I remember.”
He nods thoughtfully. “When you two looked at each other finally, face-to-face? I’ve never seen anything like that in my life.” He doesn’t elaborate. “I don’t want this to get cold,” he says, raising the mugs. “I’ll see you later, Raven.”
I wait for him to disappear back into the bedroom before venturing out of the kitchen. Following a golden glow outside the cabin, I find Mandy with a large group of Rogues gathered around a bonfire. Most of them are out of their armor, sitting cross-legged and staring into the flames. Nova and Aurora flank Ash, their arms around him. It seems to me that they are mourning in the silent way Nahx can mourn. Ash is not crying anymore, nor are any of the others, but there is a somber, introspective mood. I could join them, I suppose. Tucker is dead too—I have every right to grieve—but looking around the group, I can’t see August. He’s not an unfeeling person. His abject horror at Tucker’s death is evidence enough of that. He’s a loner, though. There are so many things still to learn about him, but I know he doesn’t like crowds.
Blue drifts away from me. I watch them settle on Mandy’s shoulder. It’s almost as though they know I need to do this alone.
Skirting the fire, and staying out of sight in case anyone thinks I should be drawn in, I follow the path up into the trees, the one I saw Sky and Ash use when they were coming and going from nursing August back to health.
Finding his tracks is easy enough: large, striding footprints in the fresh snow lead up through the dense trees. I follow them for a long time, settling into a rhythm of my own, letting the silence and darkness lull me. Walking alone at night in a Canadian forest is stupid at the best of times, more so in the winter. There might be wolves up here, even a bear that’s gotten bored or hungry in its winter den. And of course it’s dark. I could easily step off a cliff.
But I’m not human anymore. As I let my eyes adjust, I can see quite well even though the dark is profound. And I can smell the sleeping wildlife around me, mixed with the smell of the dormant pine trees. There are squirrels in that tree, and an owl, and burrowed under a log… something… maybe mice? A bear has been by recently but didn’t linger. The strongest smell is some kind of livestock or maybe deer, but it smells dead.
Even if there were a threat, I’m pretty sure I could defeat a bear, even a grizzly, as long as it didn’t literally bite my head off. The thought of it shimmers along my nerves, and I feel my cells adapt slightly, as though preparing for an extremely unlikely attack. A few paces later, with no threat appearing, I shake it off. This is the first time I’ve felt this strange effect outside of a situation of real danger, so I can analyze it a bit. But even with a built-in database, I can’t quite figure it out. I know it has something to do with the toxin, but I don’t know what. How is it working on me? What is it doing?
The trees begin to thin until the ones I pass are gnarled and misshapen and clinging to rocks, eking their existence out of the paltry soil. Then I leave the tree line and gaze up a wide, white expanse, marred only by one set of steady footprints disappearing up into the dark cliffs. Has August decided to climb the mountain tonight? Does he have a cave up there? All I can do is follow.
Distances are distorted by night. Time draws out. It seems that twilight was ages ago now, but nights this time of year are so long. Have I been walking for hours? Or only minutes? August’s tracks continue to draw me on, oblivious to my uncertainty. I plod slowly, placing my feet in his prints.
Eventually the chill wind dies down and something changes. The clouds covering the moon grow heavy, and I sense snow will fall soon. I taste it. I hear it. I feel it in the thin mountain air around me. Turning in a circle, I stretch my arms out and let the feeling permeate through my clothes and into my skin as though to nourish me. When I turn back to the path made by August’s footprints, I see I’m no longer alone up here. A dark shadow is trudging back toward me. Though the cold doesn’t affect me, a shiver crawls up my spine. I know it’s August and I know of course that he would never hurt me, but his presence is so impressive—like all the Nahx, he’s so tall and graceful and intimidating that it’s hard not to feel a tingle of fear when I see him, even after so much time.
He stops a few feet away, his head tilted to the side.
I heard you, he says. I came outside because it’s going to snow.
I think I’ve finally cracked the use of verb tense in Nahx language. It has to do with the direction the signs are aimed in.
He takes a tentative step toward me. Are you cold?
“I am, but it’s not going to hurt me. My ears are cold.”
Think warm, he says.
Maybe my hinting at wanting one of his warm hugs wasn’t obvious enough. I try his suggestion instead and consciously attempt to raise my temperature. It does bump upward a bit, with that familiar shimmer through my cells. I can see this skill being useful.
Yes? August says.
“It worked a little, I think.” If I look straight forward, I’m staring at the middle of his abdomen. “How hot can it get?”
He shrugs.
Very hot, he signs. Very cold.
“Could I make my body hot enough to melt away? Or cold enough to freeze into ice?” I didn’t mean to say this. It just came out, a small part of my emotional state put into words.
August waits a moment before answering, reaching forward to nudge my chin upward so I’m looking into his face.
I don’t think you would like it.
I feel stupid for saying it. Maybe this is what August tried to do, more or less: to freeze himself into ice; silent, motionless, unfeeling ice. I think I’m starting to understand why.
A single snowflake falls between us, and we both look up as the air fills with them, falling around us like the ashes of a ruined world. August lets his hand rest on my shoulder and we stay like that, watching the snow, not speaking, for a long time, until the mesmerizing effect of the snow wears off and the nagging awareness of the battle in my future starts to seep back into my consciousness. The chaos of the past few hours pushed it aside temporarily, but it returns, if anything, stronger than ever.
August must sense my change of mood.
Feel broken? he signs. Explain?
“I’m just so tired, August.”
I’ll carry you.
“Not that kind of tired.”
He steps back, tilting his head again.
I’ll carry you.
Everything is so simple for him. I could argue, but the truth is, I want him to pick me up and carry me, if for no other reason so I can shirk responsibility for a while longer. I smile despite my miserable mood, looking back down at our fading tracks in the s
now.
“All right, then.”
He steps forward and scoops me up, lifting me under the butt so I’m facing him, our faces level. Tilting his head until our foreheads touch, he turns, trudging back along the way he came, this time with me wrapped around him. After a few minutes we reach a steep, rocky path that, though covered in thick snow, seems to be carved into a staircase. I lay my head on August’s shoulder as he climbs it, and he moves one arm from under me to wrap around my back, pulling me close.
We reach another plateau, and there, set neatly into the middle like something out of a storybook, is a tiny cabin. Its windows glow orange and flicker, clearly from a fire inside. As we approach I take in details—stone walls, small sash windows, a heavy wooden door. This cabin is old, probably built nearly a hundred years ago, much older than the bigger one the Rogues have claimed. August sets me down on the stoop, stamping his feet, brushing snow from my shoulders.
You have snowflakes in your hair, he signs, flicking his head back, making some other signs that look a bit like his new sign name, but different.
“Winter Queen?” I laugh. “Is that what you said?”
Yes. Yes. Winter Queen.
I put my hand on the rough-hewn stones of the cabin, feeling their coldness.
“Is this our castle?”
Yes. He sighs, laying his hand on my shoulder again. His other hand pushes the wooden door open.
I feel something I haven’t felt in a long time, that kind of thrill of losing control, but in a good way. For so long everything has been chaotic and terrifying and catastrophic, and there has been almost nothing I could do about it. And that’s been so awful as to be sickening. But right now, this instant of uncertainty, this step into the unknown, is like an exhilarating leap off a cliff. I have no idea what August is doing up here or what he has in mind. And I don’t care.
AUGUST
Dandelion stops just inside the door, looking around the dim hut. I haven’t thought much of the furnishings while I’ve been here, but there are places for her to sit, a bed if she wants to sleep, a table, even food in the packs left by the humans. But both of us wait as the firelight flickers on the stone walls. I’m not sure what to do next.
Pitching all my strength into the effort, I finally unearth a memory of human manners and pull a chair out from the table.
Sit please, I sign.
Dandelion sits, arranging the tattered green dress around her, and unzips her jacket.
Are you hungry? Thirsty?
“I’m not sure I need to eat anymore.” Her eyes fall on the fireplace and widen slightly. “You can eat, though, if you want to.”
Of course. There is still a half-devoured sheep carcass there by the fire. I’m frozen for a moment, not sure of the… word.
Etiquette. It’s a pretty word, but not one I would often need.
What is the etiquette in this situation?
I grab what’s left of the sheep by its curved horn and drag it out the door.
When I come back in, Dandelion is smiling at me. The dead sheep has left a trail of blood on the floor. Her eyes flick toward the stain.
“It’s fine,” she says.
She must think I’m some kind of wild animal. This is already not going very well.
I want to take my armor off. Outside.
“Okay.”
Outside, in the near dark, I move far away from the cabin so Dandelion can’t hear the odd sounds removing my armor makes. The tentacles and tubes resist and pull at my insides as I tug them out of my nose and throat and the valves in my joints. I try not to gag too loudly, vomiting up the excess fluid from my stomach. I’m glad Dandelion agreed to stay inside. I wouldn’t want her to see this. The process of taking off my armor has always been painful, but I’ve never been embarrassed about it before. It suddenly seems so… I can’t think of the right word.
Washing my hands and face with fresh, fluffy snow soothes my discomfort somewhat. I scrub at my hair, trying to get some of the oily sludge out. It’s surprisingly long, my hair. I think more time has passed than I realized.
Carnal. Carnal is the word.
I have no sign for that either. It’s the opposite of etiquette, an ugly word that sounds like what it is, like raw wounded flesh.
The sensation of the gray fluid draining out of my mind makes me dizzy. I stop on the path back up to the hut and bend over, taking deep gulps of air and shoving handfuls of snow into my mouth. As the dizziness subsides, the events of the past day return to my thoughts.
What is Raven doing here? Why would she even want to talk to me after what I did? I could run off. These mountains go on forever. She would never find me. But when I look up, she is standing in the doorway, the pale orange firelight behind her.
I step up to the porch and let my armor clatter onto the stones there. We’re not supposed to let it out of our sight, but I don’t want to take it inside. I don’t want her to see the way the tentacles slither around, looking to reconnect to me. It’s gross.
“These are quite cool, the suits you wear under your armor,” she says as I close the door. “Kind of like motorcycle leathers.”
Taking a step toward me, Dandelion reaches out and touches my jacket just below my left shoulder, feeling the slightly raised star-shaped marks the twins left after shooting me with arrows.
“Are these scars? This suit is self-healing or something? Like your armor?”
Yes.
“That’s kind of… interesting.”
I don’t want her to take her hand off me, but she does, turning to sit at the table again. I remain standing at first, unsure what to do.
I will clean up the blood, I say, out of desperation more than anything else.
She sighs, giving me a little smile. “It’s fine, but okay.”
A T-shirt from one of the human packs works as a cleaning cloth. When I’m done, I toss it outside. I know that’s not quite right, but it will have to do. Being alone with Dandelion is making it hard to think. I unfasten the top of my suit because I’m getting hot.
She’s still so… indescribable. Her skin is shining and her eyes are sparkling and the melted snow in her hair is making tiny little curls escape from her braids like puffs of mist. I feel dizzy again, and unpleasant memories scratch at the edge of my vision, threatening to steal me away, to hurl me back in time like… I kneel so I don’t fall and close my eyes, breathing deeply until the dizziness passes.
“August? Are you okay?”
Good. Forever. Don’t worry.
She moves her chair around, her face level with mine. Her clothes smell of pine needles and campfire smoke and lake water. Under that, a bit like mine, there is a chemical smell like the oily sludge from my armor but more… refined, somehow, more pure. And under that she still smells human. Her color is better than mine too, more alive, more natural.
We were mistakes, the Nahx, as the humans call us, poorly designed, flawed and weak in so many ways. But she is perfect and immutable and immortal. Like a girl turned into a goddess. I wish they had done this to me—made me like her instead of what I am.
But I didn’t exist before. The few memories I have of being human aren’t really mine. I know that now. We were only tools, a step in the process that ended with Dandelion and the others, perfected.
She was always perfect, to me, even as a fragile, wounded little human. An angry, wounded little human. I can’t help but smile as I remember.
“How did you get this scar on your face?” She reaches forward and traces down from my temple to my top lip.
Hit with a…
I still can’t think of the word. An exploding thing. Like the one that killed… Tucker.
Suddenly I can’t look at her. I can’t look at anything. I hang my head and squeeze my eyes shut and try to think cold thoughts to put out the fire in my mind and keep Sixth from dragging me back in time again. She’s dead.
She’s dead. I know she’s dead.
Please forgive me.
“There�
�s nothing to forgive. It—”
Dandelion’s voice anchors me. Tucker—
“That wasn’t your fault. Open your eyes, August. Please.”
Her face is inches from mine, her eyes bright and serious.
“That wasn’t your fault.”
I’m sorry for so many things.
“Me too, but it doesn’t matter anymore.”
I’m sorry I pulled your hair.
“I’m sorry I smashed a vase over your head.” Her lips curve up. “I don’t think we have time to go through everything we did, so maybe we should just let it go.” She touches my face again. “How long can you keep your armor off?”
I shrug. Sunrise, maybe Until it becomes hard to breathe.
Watching her think is like watching the stars moving in the sky as they spell out the mysteries that are so perplexing to us but so easy for them. I look into her eyes and can almost read the constant flow of information behind them. Whatever the dart did to her mind, it’s so powerful, I can see it.
“It was Blue… creatures like Blue who made you, right? We saw a kind of cloning lab on the ship. That’s how you were made?”
Yes. I think so. I don’t remember.
“So the Firefly creatures, they came from another planet and used cloned humans to make an army?”
I don’t know.
“You haven’t been to their planet?”
No.
“But you’ve been on their ship? Those huge round ships?”
Yes. I don’t remember very much.
Without even realizing it, I have lifted my left arm up to put my hand on her shoulder.
“We should have talked about this a long time ago, when we were together in Calgary.”
Yes.
“I was too scared of you, I think. Too scared to have a proper conversation.”
I would never hurt you.
“I know. I’m not scared of you anymore.”
Unexpectedly, that fills me with warmth—not the uncomfortable heat of shame or embarrassment but the opposite, like the warmth of a campfire or sunlight or other things that have never actually happened to me but I remember anyway. Warm drinks, being held by someone, a bed with blankets.
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