by Ellie Cypher
Packs of crates, stacked goods, it were all arranged about the space. Just as I’d remembered.
I took a deep swallow of the hot bile rising in my throat. I let out a little cough, my grip on Bren’s waist loosening.
“Look for anything we can use. Food, tents, furs, flasks. Anything you think we need to get back home. If you can carry it, you grab it.”
“Got it.”
We set her down, leaning her back against the least splintery of a set of tall pine crates. She gave a little puff of an exhale. She was starting to show some signs of coming around, bearing some weight on her legs and fluttering her eyes. When we sat her up, she stayed that way without our help. It should have made me happy.
I pulled my hair back out of my eyes and started looking. We weren’t out of trouble yet, not by a long shot.
We still needed a way out of here, but if we didn’t grab supplies, we might as well just give up and starve now. A massive bang rocked the air, sending ripples over the goods around us. The screams weren’t far behind. Neither was the increasing chemical smell of smoke.
I picked up a sturdy-looking canvas bag and hurried over to a promising pile of boxes. The first were empty. And the second. I moved to the next set of supplies. A sense of dread rising. Maybe this were where they kept all the things they rejected. The spoiled bits.
“Jorie!” Cody called. “Look here.” In his hands he held something eerie familiar. My ma’s sealskin pack. He tossed to it me.
I opened the ties. Inside were my possessions. Some of what we’d scavenged after the ox attack. I pushed aside a black sulfur orb—which were mercifully still warm—and my chest gave a little flutter. Cause there, sitting right there in the bottom of the pack, were two of my pouches. The black one and the white one. The one with the iron ore and the one with quicklime. I smiled.
Beyond the orbs and the powders, some bullets, furs, and a water flask were inside. It were a start. I rifled through the supply tent, filling the sealskin pack with everything useful I could find. A particularly fine-looking saw-toothed blade caught my eye. I picked up the knife. A sharp serrated edge sat perfectly balanced on a walrus tusk handle. It felt smooth and right in my hand. I tucked it away at the small of my back.
Pack full, I walked over and helped Cody load up his. When they were both filled—with a jumble of supplies I hoped would be enough—I slung my pack up onto my back. The muscles of my shoulders sank a little under the weight of it.
With an effort, we strung Bren up between us. A little wind-up marionette. My heart lurched as a groan, quiet but sure, escaped her lips. Time, I think, to find us some dogs. Covering my head, I pulled up the thick cocoon of my hood.
“I hear barking!” And I did. I turned us in the direction, hoping it weren’t just dogs on the loose, but those still in their dens.
“Me too.”
“This way.” We turned the corner and ran straight into a set of working animals. One lonely pack. My smile spread from ear to ear.
“Fen!” It were too good to be true, but the second I called her name the dog bolted to her feet. She ran right at me. “You’re okay!” The dog began nuzzling at my sides, hitting my hand, impatient like. I gave a little chuckle. She licked and nipped at my arm. Gods, small mercies. I were thankful for small mercies.
They were all there. So too was a sled. We stumbled over and set Bren in the litter, both Cody and I going about getting the dogs harnessed.
“Shh! Fen, settle down, girl. I know, I know, I missed you too.” Fen was nudging along in my footprints, half inspectin my work, half bossin me around. I reached over and tussled her ears. Her tongue lolled. Good girl. She were a welcome relief I didn’t even know I needed. Somehow everything just felt less… heavy.
When we finally had all the dogs harnessed, we was ready to move. We maybe might just make it out onto the Flats and then maybe, if we were lucky, home. So if we could just get out of camp before—
“Don’t move.”
I froze, the click of a barrel snapping against the back of my head.
CHAPTER 46 Dead Men’s Burdens
Even through the thick fur of my hood the muzzle was cold.
“Lower your hood. And turn around. Slow like. Hands where I can see ’em.”
I complied, anger deep and raw rushing in. I didn’t have time for this. We didn’t have time for this. A heavy wind whipped at my face as I turned around, gray ash-covered snow crunching cold under my heels. A man stood there, his blood-covered arm leaking slow waxy red drops into the snow, gun raised.
“Stars above, Jorie.” The gun fell from me. “You’re alive.”
“Dev.” I breathed it out.
We blinked at each other for a long time. He were shaking. A slow drip of red pooling into the snow at his feet. I didn’t right know to be worried or mad.
“And you’re hurt.”
Dev gripped his arm. “This? Nothing to worry about. Just grazed. Here, let me help you.” His voice unsteady, his movements stiff. That little pool of red growing bigger at his feet.
I frowned, worried. “You sure don’t look fine. Let me look at that.” I took a step toward him, but Dev took a step back shaking his head.
“Forget about it. I deserve it.” Dev shook his head real slow, his face a grim mask. It weren’t a look I right liked. “You need to get as far away from here as you can.”
“Trying, Dev.” I tried to say it light, only it came out flat.
Dev glanced over his shoulder. At where Bren lay. Frown deepening. “Jorie, I didn’t know before how to tell you. About your Ma, about everything.”
“Then tell me now.” The answer urgent in a way it never had been before, that knowing.
“Don’t matter anymore.” Dev doubled over, pain on his face. Hand on his side. Blood leaked between his fingers. “Centuries of waiting and now it’s too late.” Dev laughed bitter. “This world of ice and pain and death, what is it all even for?”
“Uh, guys, I am pretty sure we need to move. Right now,” Cody said.
Morning light sputtered over the horizon. So too did the big black billows of smoke. “The Witch is changing more than just the snows to suit her needs. I see that now. And I’ve failed you. Jorie, I’ve failed all of us.”
“Dev, you haven’t. I don’t know what—”
“You saw the way she broke those chains?”
I had. That I understood well enough.
“We though we were ready. But she’s too strong. I don’t know how to stop her. Not anymore. Not when Bass’s silver don’t even pierce her. So just get out of here, Jorie, and live. All of you. Just live. It’s all I can do for you now.” Dev were rambling. The red pool growing slick at his feet. Muttering incomprehensible, he stumbled and, grimace on his face, started helping us load up the sled.
When we were done, Dev paused at the front of the dogs. Bending down on one knee, he tucked his gun into the holster at his side and pressed his face into Fen. A little tear at the corner of his eye. He wiped it away with shaky fingers. Fen wagged her tail real slow, sending a dusting of snow swirling into the cold breeze.
“You take good care of them, Fen, you hear. Get them home.… I am so sorry.…”
Fen gave a little rumble and licked at Dev’s tears.
I turned away. This were clear not meant for me. I busied myself helping Cody settle Bren into the litter as explosions rattled the air around us.
I glanced down at her eye. The mote, no longer flush, looked like a blister. She said I could take it out. Bass said I could take it out.
I took off my glove, fingers hovering just above it. With slow care, I began to pull. Slow at first, and then quick, the little red dot began to slip out. I suppressed a wave of nausea and kept pulling. Clean-sided and clear, it were just like Bass said. A sliver of ice.
It was first cold, then hot in my hand. I tossed it away. Wiping my fingers, which felt sudden as if I had plunged them into a fire.
When I looked back at my sister, she began to move he
r lips. My heart jumped. I lowered my ear to her mouth. Nothing but the warm motion of her breathing met me. I cupped a hand around her cheek and she let out a little sigh. I bent and kissed her forehead, her face for the first time restful.
Clearing my throat, I stood up. I slipped a long leather strap over Brenna’s waist to secure her down to the sled. It weren’t a lot, but it should keep her tight. I nestled a few of the black sulfur orbs in at her sides, covering her with a thick blanket.
When I looked up, Dev was looking down at Bren, her calm face the only visible bit above the furs, and smiled.
“You found her right enough, Jorie, just like you said.”
“I did.”
We stood there, looking at Bren and not each other.
“Jorie… she won’t give up, you know. Not till she gets her back.”
My hand tightened on the blade at my side. There was no need to tell me who that she was. Vela. Good thing I weren’t gonna let her touch my sister. Not ever again. The smell of burning ripped by on the wind. The fire growing closer. I twisted my head around. A deep white light, the lick of an impossible flame, poured into the sky. It were coming straight toward us. Vela was coming. Dev saw it too.
“You aren’t coming home with us.” It wasn’t a question. He had clear made up his mind. And no matter what I argued, I weren’t gonna be able to change it.
Dev gave a sad little smile. The answer plain in his eyes. “I will slow her down.” He patted the gun at his side. After a second, he reached into his pocket and held his hand out.
Slow, I reached out and took it.
“Thought you might want it back.”
Ma’s necklace. I closed the space between us. And hugged him. Hard. We parted, Dev clearing his throat. “Now you promise me that you won’t stop for nothing, you hear me? Nothing.”
I nodded, fighting back the well of hot tears. And without another word, Dev turned to face the camp. Gun drawn. His silhouette a flickering shadow against the flames.
The expanse of ice and frost gaped wide and fearsome before us. Unwelcoming as it were deadly. But somehow, after the chaos of the camp, the shimmering silence of the Flats were a familiar relief. That weren’t something I’d ever thought I’d feel a fondness for.
We made it maybe half a day out of the camp before she caught us.
CHAPTER 47 Of Hail and Fire
The sudden stillness was our only warning. Bitter wind rushing into my face, I glanced behind. What had been the open ice were now nothing so much as an all-smothering wave of white. And it were getting closer. This squall was built of snow and ice and wind. Six stories high, it darkened the light of the sky.
I pushed the dogs harder. They picked up their speed, feet and fur churning ahead. They too could feel it. In the distance, a long line of black stilts came into existence.
The Petrified Forests.
Ice crystals like shards of glass, sharp needles hangin from their naked branches, freezing in the darkness. Storms died in there. And maybe, just maybe, if we made it there, we might have some semblance of cover. Small and desperate as that hope were. I harried the reins. Lightning and thunder rutted the darkening sky as heavy clouds, bellies thick with snow, swelled everywhere around us. My teeth rattled wicked in my skull.
The dogs pulled harder, their hackles raised, teeth bared. We raced so fast it were near enough to flying. I forgot for a moment it weren’t.
The wind whipped at my face, blurring my vision at the edges where tears were torn from my eyes, cold air forced pore by pore into my body. Behind us, the press of the storm circled closer. A blizzard’s eye.
We ran and we ran, the lines of individual tress becoming clearer and clearer at our approach. Only a few hundred yards away, I could just make each one out. But it weren’t gonna be enough. We just weren’t gonna be fast enough.
Sure enough, another three breaths and the forest paled from view. Ice and hail overtook our sled, sending everything around us into a swirling, roaring obscurity. The storm’s embrace throwing us like rag dolls up and out from the safety of the sled. For a long moment I were weightless, floating in the frosted air, and then I weren’t.
My already-aching body hit the ground hard, limbs and bones bouncing off then grinding against the ice pack below me. My body skidding to a stop. Dazed, I scrambled to my knees, feet slipping. Beads of hail the size of bullets scattered across the ice, making footing slick at best and painful bruises across our skin at worst. Sleet, sharp and sticky, beat against my brow. I pulled up the hood of my coat. And then, as violent as it had arrived, there were a sudden hush. Like the breathing of the ocean, it engulfed me.
I unbowed my head. All around me the storm raged. Just not where I was standing. The heart of the storm were as still as water trapped in ice. Outside of it, the world spun with the viciousness of the clashing snowstorm. But not here. Not in the center of it all. Here it was silent.
Maybe a hundred yards away, direct in front of me, the slim figures of the rock trees pierced the silent air. To my left lay the eviscerated remains of the sled. I drug my body over to it, forcing heaving muscles to move, burning lungs to move air.
Our possessions were scattered against the earth, cracked and broken. The harnesses at the front flapped empty in the fading remains of the wind. And the litter. It was empty. Brenna was gone. The world spun, and this time it had nothing to do with the wind.
“Jorie! Over here!” Cody’s voice cut across the thunder.
I didn’t move toward the call, but stood concussed, staring at the shattered sled. From somewhere outside the eye of the storm, the braying of dogs echoed about on the wind. And then from that nothing there were something.
A thick-gloved hand. It grabbed my shoulder, dragging me backward.
I went stumbling, the world falling. With both speed and care, Cody shunted me behind the skeleton of one of the petrified trees.
“There!” Cody pointed, shoulders hunched, muscles coiled tight.
I squinted into the haze. It took me a second of searching, but I soon enough saw it. And it weren’t nothing to put my mind at ease. Cause out in the breath of the blizzard, she stood untouched by the winds and snow. Unmoving.
Vela.
And she wasn’t alone.
Bren was next to her, my sister’s body swaying on her feet. A fish on a line, her movements were unnerving smooth. And just like Vela, Bren was indifferent to the winds whipping around her. A shiver ran down my spine, sharp as glass. Vela’s mouth moved, words I could not hear. Bren slid to her knees. Her head bowed.
Vela placed her hand on Bren’s cheek. Slick as a flame, something passed between them. Dark and jagged, like the lines that had crawled up Vela’s skin in the tent. When she were executing everyone. I jumped to my feet. Cody jerked me back down again. “You can’t go running out there, she’ll kill you,” he hissed. “You can’t help Brenna if you are dead.” Cody’s eyes latched on to mine, searching. His fingers intertwined with mine. He were beggin. For me. I took a deep breath. Cause he was right. I couldn’t do nothing to save her if I were dead. There had to be another way. Another way I ain’t thought of. Yet.
“Silver!” The answer hit me sudden. “It’s what Bass used to control her. We saw it work back in that tent.”
“Jorie, we saw it work—a little. Maybe. But even all those chains that Bass had, they did not hold her all that well.” Cody shivered. “Besides, we don’t have anything of the like. Let alone more.”
Across the way, Bren’s body started to go dark. Her hair curled about her face, like tentacles of some giant squid. A darkness scuttled under her skin, everywhere except one little place. A deep red pulse at her center. The place where that coin had settled in her guts.
But it weren’t enough. Whatever had left Vela were leeching rotten inside Bren, dimming that light. As Bren grew darker, bright as the sun Vela began to glow. Dev’s words floated to me. They don’t even pierce her. But Vela could bleed. I’d seen it. She could be hurt. I had to find a way.
“But it worked. That’s the part I care ’bout. It did. You saw them cut her, saw her bleed and break. What if the silver weren’t on her”—I glanced uncomfortable at Bren—“but inside her? You saw how that it expelled the Witch mark. What would it do to the Witch?”
Cody blinked at me, running a hand through the wind wild of his hair. “Except we don’t have any silver.” His face fell for a second. “Maybe, just give me one shot… it might be enough to distract her. You grab Bren. And then you run, Jorie. You run. And you don’t turn back. I don’t know how long I can keep you covered, but I can sure as stars try.” His face a mess of emotions. I reached out careful like. His cheek smooth under my fingertips.
Slow, Cody lowered my hand, bringing his face close, his breath floating near mine. With care, he pressed his lips light and warm against my skin, kissing my palm. A thrum of sensation rippled through me. Cody smiled sad.
Dropping my hand, he gripped his gun. His eyes resigned and angry all at the same time. He was going to let Vela kill him. For me. For Bren. I weren’t gonna let that monster take one more person I loved. Not one more.
I shook my head. “No deal. I won’t be leaving you to die. So you can just put that stupid heroic idea right of your foolish stubborn Southerner’s head, Cody Colburn, cause I ain’t got plans to let any of us die. Not today.”
A small smile shifted at the edge of his lips before I reached up and brushed it away.
“So where do we get this silver then?” He began searching his pockets.
Out across the ice, Brenna began to moan, her body pulling back, away from Vela. She were fighting just the same as us. That soft glow, the coin in her belly, began beating against the shadow around her. I stared. The silver was—pulsing. Like a tiny heartbeat.
I ripped the broken necklace out from my pocket. And looked at it. At the broken setting. At the silver that had held the stone. A piece of a heart. Vela’s heart. Held it and kept it. Silver-blue, the setting buzzed weakly in my palm. Just like the coin had. And the coin had worked. This silver, the look of realization on Bass’s face as she had said it. Understanding slammed into me. This wasn’t any silver. The silver of this necklace weren’t just silver. It was pieces of the Witch’s prison. It had contained a piece of her heart. And it would sure as stars stop it now.
