He sets me down once we reach the packs and retrieves strips of cloth from one of them to wrap my arm. Later we’ll find clean water to rinse the injury. It might even need sewing. But neither of us can do that. That is more Iric’s territory. He has experience from all the leather work that goes along with weapon-making.
Not that I care.
What’s one more scar?
The god has scarred me. The hyggja has scarred me. A mountain cat. Now the otti. Each scar marks me as a survivor.
A warrior of the wild.
* * *
WE FIND OUR SHELTER from the previous night and decide to reuse it rather than make more progress down the mountain. We’re both exhausted from the day’s events anyway.
It’s not even close to sunset, so Soren builds a fire, just so he has something to do. We don’t have anything to cook over it. It’s not even that cold yet. There’s no practical reason for it.
I’m glad for it, though. The crackling of a fire is familiar and comforting. It reminds me of the hearth in my room. I remember nights when Irrenia would sneak out of bed and join me in mine. We’d talk for hours—about how our days went, about our struggles in our chosen professions, about the future and what we hoped for most.
I don’t know what my future holds. Or even if my life will be long or short. But the present is full of more hope than ever before.
Soren holds the sky-blue feather in his left hand, while his right fingers brush the smooth strands. His eyes are on the fire.
I sit opposite him on a flat rock, the fire between us. Soren has grown quiet. I’m desperate to know his thoughts, but I won’t ask unless he wants to offer them up.
“Iric was right,” he says at last. “It doesn’t feel any different. I’ve got the feather, but what does it prove? And the goddess—if her Paradise is now open to me again, shouldn’t I feel it?”
I watch the flames twist around each other. “I’ve suspected for a while now that the mattugrs are no punishment devised by the goddess. I think they are something born of the traditions of men.”
“I know I should be glad that I can finally return home, but I can’t help but think of all the people who lost their lives to their mattugrs. How many died because they were left out here alone by their own kind?”
I rise from my seat and walk around the fire to kneel in front of Soren. “We can’t change what happened, but I will make changes for the future. When I rule Seravin, I will try my best to make things right for my village. We can only hope to inspire change in the others as well.”
Soren returns the feather to his pack before tugging on my hands. My head comes to rest against his shoulder.
“Is there a place for me by your side?” he asks quietly, tentatively. “While you inspire change and rule a village, will there be any room for me in your life?”
I smile, knowing he can’t see it. “You’re free to go home now. You can have your pick of all the girls back in Restin. I’m not your only option anymore. You wouldn’t want to restrict your attention to just one woman, now, would you?”
His hands go to my shoulders; they tug me back gently so he can look at me. I can tell he’s about to sputter off a series of protests, but then he sees my face. “You’re messing with me.”
I nod.
He brings his lips to my ear. “You might not be my only option anymore, but you’re the one I choose. My fierce warrior woman.”
“My helpless warrior man.”
“You’re never going to let me live down that ziken horde, are you?”
“Never.”
I’m startled by the sudden pressure of his lips against my forehead. It’s not like when I felt his lips against mine. The way I felt his heat and desire for me. This is different. It’s loving. Makes me feel precious. As though gifting him with myself is the best thing I could ever do for him.
After his lips linger against my brow, he lowers, kissing each of my closed eyelids, my cheeks, the corners of my mouth.
I get my hands on either side of his face and move him to just where I want. His lips sweep across mine. So slow and smooth and perfect.
Our lips don’t part until sometime much later.
We’re both gasping for breath.
“We need to douse the fire.”
It takes me a moment to realize he’s talking about the literal fire behind me. No, in front of us.
When did I end up in his lap? How did we get turned around? And how is night already starting to creep up on us?
“Go douse it and come back, then,” I manage.
He shoots me a grin, and it takes away what little breath I’d been gaining back.
While he does that, I prepare the lean-to, arranging the blankets and packs just where we need them.
My heart is pounding when Soren joins me inside. I wonder desperately if he will kiss me again.
He does. One lingering kiss before settling himself beside me. His arms go around me, holding me close.
“It’s a good thing you’ve agreed to let me stay with you,” he says. “I don’t know if I could ever sleep without you in my arms.”
“Not used to sleeping on your own, are you?”
“I went a whole year on my own.”
“So there was a girl back in Restin,” I say.
Soren presses his lips to my forehead, just as he did before. “There weren’t any like you.”
* * *
MY NOSE WRINKLES BEFORE I even open my eyes the next morning. “What is that smell?” I groan and stretch my limbs. They’re sore from sleeping on the rock floor, from climbing this blasted mountain.
“I think that’s us.” Soren’s voice comes from just behind me. “We’ve been sweating our way up a mountain. I also think I might have gotten otti blood on my clothes.”
“Then we’d best find that stream today. Otherwise I don’t think I can share another lean-to with you.”
“You don’t exactly smell like flowers.”
I smack him playfully. “You’re not supposed to say that.”
“I’ve never lied to you,” he says. “And I’m not about to start. Even if it means I have to tell you, you smell.” His lips brush the back of my neck.
Oddly, it’s one of the most romantic things he’s ever said to me.
* * *
TRAVELING DOWN THE MOUNTAIN is so much quicker than the trip up. Unfortunately, it’s also much easier to stumble. We’ll be covered in bruises by the time we reach the bottom.
The otti feather is so long that it won’t fit in Soren’s pack all the way. The tip pokes out of the leather drawstring by at least five inches, following Soren down the mountain. His salvation.
Rocks skitter out of our way as we travel, some without us even kicking them. Curious, but I don’t think much of it as I put most of my focus into not falling down.
It doesn’t take long to find the stream (once we manage to navigate back around the invisible walls of the god’s power), and we start to follow it downhill, looking for a broader opening where we might fully bathe.
“Yesterday,” I say, “with the otti bird. I noticed you weren’t trying to kill it. You only injured it enough to make it flee.”
“That’s right.”
“I’m glad, even if it did take a swipe at me.” My hand ghosts over the bandaged wound.
“My mattugr was to steal a feather, not kill the bird. The otti wouldn’t have bothered us if we hadn’t come into her territory. She minds her own business. Only hunts when she needs to. Much less evil than the hyggja.”
I shudder. “That thing would eat anything that came close to its resting place, hungry or not. It was enough to make me wary of deep water.”
“And Peruxolo—he is evil incarnate,” Soren says. “He deserves to die for what he’s done to our people. You shouldn’t even hesitate to take his life when the time comes.”
“He may bear the face of a man,” I say, “but he is no man. He is something else, and I won’t hesitate to end him.”
�
�Good.” Soren’s gaze flicks past me. “We’re in luck. The stream’s opening up.”
The stream widens and deepens into a slow-moving pool. The water is clear—I can see down to the bottom where the rocks gather. They shimmer at the bottom as the sun filters through the water. They must be filled with metal fragments. This mountain has never been mined. It must be rich with ore and other deposits.
“Ladies first,” Soren says. “Let me know how cold it is.”
“It’s runoff from the mountain. It’s going to be freezing.”
“Would you rather be clean or warm?”
I take another sniff at my clothing. “Clean.”
“I’ll keep watch. I promise not to look.”
“So noble.”
He gives me a wicked grin before walking away, his back to me. I pull the armor sheets from out of my clothes and discard them by a tree. Then I shuck my boots and ax. I grab a bar of soap and clean set of clothes from my pack and walk to the pool’s edge. Once there, I take off my clothes and place them within reach of the water.
I dip a single toe into the stream. Freezing is too gentle of a term for what it is. I can’t fathom why there isn’t ice floating along the surface. There’s no easy way to do this. I take a deep breath and jump.
The cold is so intense it feels like needles are scraping my skin. I just stand there for a moment, waiting for my body to adjust.
“All good?” Soren shouts, his body facing firmly away.
“Th-the w-water is g-great. Just wait until i-it’s your turn.”
He laughs lightly. I pretend not to notice.
I soap down every inch of skin on my body twice. I lather the soap in my hair until bubbles stream down my arms. I take a deep breath and go down. A headache starts to form from the cold.
Once done, I heft myself out of the water and don my fresh set of clothing. I pull my hair out of my face, wrapping it into a braid. Then I let Soren know it’s safe to look, but he stays where he is, keeping guard while I’m still vulnerable without my armor.
I grab my dirty clothes and plunge them into the water. I only have the one extra set with me for this climb, so I’d better clean these now.
As I scrub and scrub with the bar of soap, one spot won’t come out. Blood from the cut on my arm, I think. I need something rougher to take to it.
About an arm’s length away, I find a good-sized rock with a rough surface. I reach for it. The top shimmers in the sunlight, a bright metal vein glinting along it. I take the rock to my garment and scrub roughly. It does the trick, the spot coming right out. With the water running downhill, the soap doesn’t build up; it washes downstream with everything else, so my clothes are free of soap in no time.
I climb from the pool, wring out my clothes, and find a nearby tree branch to drape them across to dry.
When that’s done, I take the rock I found with me. Soren will want it for his clothes, I’m sure.
I start for the tree where I deposited my pack and armor, the rock in hand, when a force bats it from my palm.
I look up, but Soren still has his back to me a ways off. My head spins in a circle, looking for some intruder. I find nothing.
“Did you see anything?” I shout.
“Rasmira, I promise I kept my back to you while you were bathing. I didn’t see anything.”
My cheeks blush. “No, I mean, did you see someone or something?”
“No, why?” He turns toward me.
I look down at the ground, thinking perhaps someone threw something at my hand, but there’s nothing but more rocks.
“I’m not sure yet,” I say. I have to take a step backward to retrieve the rock. Gripping it more firmly, I head for my pack once more.
But I can’t.
At first, I think it’s the god’s power that Soren and I keep running into along the mountain, but how could it be? I just walked this way fully clad in my armor. I would have felt it before.
Is there something different about this rock in my hand? Why can’t I take it with me? Is it important to Peruxolo? Does he want it to stay near the stream? And if so, why?
Maybe all I need is a running start.
I take a few steps back, dig in my heels, and bound toward the tree. There’s pressure against my hands—I almost lose the rock, but then something gives. I hear a crash in front of me, my head snapping up to see my armor no longer propped against the tree but on the ground.
“How did you do that?” Soren asks.
I take another step forward. Though there’s extra pressure, the rock moves with me. And my armor—
The sheets skid away from me, never letting me grow closer to them.
All I can do for some time is look back and forth between the rock in my hands and my armor. I step all the way up to my pack, my armor now ten feet away to the side.
“Do you recognize this metal?” I ask, holding up the rock for Soren to see.
“It’s brighter than iron,” he says.
“And it clearly has a negative reaction with iron.”
“Like a lodestone?” Soren asks.
“Yes, exactly like a lodestone, but different than the ones found in my village. This one is so much stronger.”
“It’s an interesting discovery, but why do you—” He cuts himself off, as he clearly comes to the same realization I’ve already had.
“This is why we haven’t been able to take certain paths up the mountain,” I say. “It’s coated in whatever makes up this new lodestone, and it won’t let our armor come anywhere near it. And Peruxolo’s lair? I’ll bet this metal rims the whole thing. It’s why I wasn’t able to enter. I could throw a rock inside because it must have not contained any iron within it. And Peruxolo’s armor? It must be made out of this lodestone, too. That’s why he was able to fling me around and why my ax couldn’t touch him. He’s bigger than me and must be wearing even more of the metal than the amount of iron I wear.
“He doesn’t have power over metal,” I say. “He’s only using a lodestone against our iron.”
CHAPTER
21
When Soren and I are less than a hundred feet from the mountain’s base, we have to duck behind the nearest tree.
Peruxolo is outside of his lair.
“Where is he headed?” Soren whispers.
“I don’t know. I’ve never seen him walk around the mountain’s base. Maybe hunting?”
We are as still as the tree trunk at our backs, waiting for the god to move on.
Soren is the first to move once Peruxolo is out of sight, gauging the distance to the ground. “We’d better take a different route home.”
“Wait.”
“What?”
“Peruxolo is away from his lair.”
“So?”
“I’m going in.” I practically race the last several paces to the ground, before heading for the seam in the mountain.
Soren hits the ground a few seconds after me. “Rasmira! You can’t! What happened to waiting for Iric’s armor?”
“It’s different now. I know it’s not a godly power that’s keeping me out, but a natural one! And we know Peruxolo isn’t home. We’re already here. This is too good of an opportunity to pass up.”
Soren fidgets with one of the straps on his pack. “What can I do to help?”
“Keep watch. Give me a warning if Peruxolo comes back?”
“You got it. I’ll hide over in the tree line. But, Rasmira—” He grabs the arm I’d been using to remove my armor. “Be careful. No risks. You’re there to look. Don’t touch anything. Just because the god is using a natural substance as a barrier, it doesn’t mean there aren’t magical defenses also in place.”
I hand Soren my ax and armor for safekeeping. “I’ll be careful. Now stop worrying.”
I turn away from Soren and head for that dark gap in the mountain. My pace is a quick walk. The sensation of being flung around by an unknown power is not one I can easily forget. It makes me cautious, even if I now know the source of that power
. I try to remember exactly where the barrier would halt me outside the seam in the mountain. Was it here? Or maybe a few steps forward?
But when my feet stop right outside the entrance, a proximity I know I never managed before, I know the truth for certain.
Peruxolo has been taking advantage of our isolated villages. No one else has access to this new lodestone, and he has been using it against us for centuries.
I stare down that dark crevice, wondering what I will find in the god’s home.
And I enter.
I cannot see a thing for the first few steps. I stop and blink, willing my eyes to adjust. Eventually, I can make out the walls, made entirely from the new metal that reacts negatively with my armor and ax.
I put one hand to the wall and traverse deeper. The farther I go, the less I can see. Just when I worry the darkness will envelop me completely, my foot bumps against something on the ground.
Bending down, I reach for the item.
A torch, and next to it—
Flint and pyrite.
So the god cannot see in the dark.
I light one of the torches, holding it high in my left hand. If anything or anyone else is in here, I’m doomed, for the torch will give me away immediately.
There’s nothing to be done for it now. I’m committed. Whatever secrets this opening holds, I will learn them.
After perhaps twenty more steps, I come to a gate. It’s a metal contraption pounded into the rock on either side. It can’t be to keep mortals out, for that is the lodestone’s job. Perhaps it is to keep the dangerous ziken away?
I find where the gate connects in the center. A length of rope ties the two halves together. I take careful note of the knot, so I can replicate it before I leave, before undoing it and forcing the gate outward.
It opens to a cavern full of comforts.
A massive mattress heaped with blankets and furs. Chairs topped with lavish cushions. Rugs made from animal skins cover the floor. Off to one side are the water barrels from the Payment. A cabinet is full to the brim with the pickled vegetables and preserved fruits from the Estavor village. On a table are leather pouches holding dried meat. Enough food and water to last a single person for several years.
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