by R. K. Hart
‘Oh, Alys,’ Lida said, aghast, her face flushing with shame.
‘Save it,’ Alys snapped. ‘I don’t want to hear it. We have felt you rage and keen over something you didn’t even understand for three nights and two entire days. Either listen, or push it back down so we can’t sense it. You are leaking emotion like a tap, and we all need to sleep.’ She pointed at the fire. ‘As for that,’ she continued, her hand and her voice shaking with anger, ‘you should remember that you are in the north now, and your ways are not our ways. You have thrown away a gift that others yearn for. At the moment, it is difficult to see why he thought you worthy of it.’
Lida spun away and stormed from the camp, but there was nowhere she could go. She might have expected that anger from Dylan, but not from Alys, and her words filled Lida with sorrow and shame and hurt. Her knees gave way and she sank down into the grass, staring at the mud.
The northerners left her to cry for some time. It was Katrin who came for her in the end, wrapping her arms around Lida and letting her sob into the fur collar of her tunic. Katrin didn’t say anything at first; she just sat in the mud and stroked Lida’s hair as she had the night Lida had fought the nightmare fae.
‘Why did you do it, Katrin?’
There was no answer for a long time. Eventually, Lida pulled back to see Katrin’s cheeks wet with tears.
‘I am not infallible,’ the Brinnican woman said. ‘Perhaps I should have sent them south to Rikard. Perhaps I should have left them to Triste’s justice and absolved myself of responsibility. But the healer they took …’ She swallowed. ‘I saw his face in the landlord’s mind. The healer they took was one of mine.’ She tipped her chin back to stare at the sky. ‘His name is Lan. I trained him myself. He is the same age as Jakob, though he came much later into his gift. He grew up in Kingstown, too.’ She coughed and forced a crooked smile. ‘His mother was a priestess to Eianna, like Brigid. He worshipped the goddess almost as much as he worshipped Ava.’ She sniffed and wiped her cheeks on her woollen sleeve. ‘I was so angry, when I saw his face in that man’s mind. So angry, that they’d taken someone as gentle and kind as Lan. I was so angry, that I’d taught him how to heal, but not to fight. They do not know,’ she went on, gesturing with her chin back to the camp. ‘They do not know about Lan, and they do not know what slaves face across the sea. Please do not tell them. I cannot bear that they would know their friend’s fate. I cannot bear to think of him still alive, beaten or worse, enslaved and broken. Better he be given the gift of a clean death.’
Lida cried afresh, hearing Katrin’s voice crack with pain. Katrin held her until the anger broke and Lida was tired and empty. When she was finally done, Katrin helped her to her feet and brushed her hair back from her face.
‘I will not ask you to forgive, Lida, but I will ask you for understanding. I am charged with your protection, and it is a charge I take seriously.’
Lida coughed. ‘Lorcan was not.’
‘Are you so sure?’
Lida stared at her until she remembered Jakob’s promise to Cathan. She shook her head. ‘Those are just words.’
Katrin gave a wavering half-smile; one hand slid down to rest on her stomach. ‘Perhaps in the south,’ she said.
***
A full week passed before Alys would speak to Lida again. The mountains seemed to grow larger with every step, and the cold had settled so deeply into Lida’s bones that she thought she had forgotten what warmth felt like. Ella had graciously picked up where Alys had left off, continuing to teach Lida Brinnican and work on her mindshield. Lida could - more or less - control it now, and was able to let Ella beneath it more often than not, though only for a few moments at a time. She still could not push anything out, which barred her from doing anything much at all. Lida spent most of their lessons furious and frustrated with herself for her inability to do anything other than strengthen or weaken her mindshield, reflecting angrily that she must have been the most useless Illara in Eilan’s history.
Ella and Alys had finally realised that Katrin was pregnant - she hadn’t told them, but rather Alys had noticed that Katrin’s abdomen was giving off its own golden glow - and for a while, it was all they spoke of. Lida tried to be involved, but talking about it made her chest ache and she had to thrust the memory of sitting underneath the oak tree in the growing dark and listening to the story of the fae queen aside. It was better when Alys spoke quietly about Katrin’s brother, Aaron, who was supposedly very handsome; Lida had no investment in the conversation and encouraged Alys to speak at length, which she did.
Katrin became more and more expansive the closer they got to the Brinnican border. The queenly woman Lida had met at her testing was almost gone; under the low northern sky, Katrin chatted openly and often when they stopped for breaks. On occasion, Lida would notice her smiling at nothing, absently stroking the tiny swell of her belly. Lida wondered if Siva had been that way when her stomach was full with Maya; she wondered what Siva had been like with her, knowing that her own death was growing inside her.
In contrast, Dylan became more and more sullen, cross and snapping and unable to sit still. Alys eventually told Lida why: Dylan was the only son of the leader of the Hunting Cat tribe, and his mother expected him to marry. He was worried that a match might already be arranged for him, or that he would be expected to present his future wife before the tribe when he arrived. Alys relayed this to Lida with a breathy excitement - to be a tribe leader is like being a lord in Eilan, she said, everyone wants to be an heir or marry one - but Lida remembered what Lorcan had said about Jed. She didn’t want either Alys or Ella to get hurt - neither hid their interest in Dylan, moody as he was - but Lida held her tongue.
The southern edge of the Glass Mountain range marked the end of what had historically been contested land, the bleak site of countless bloody battles, and the beginning of what was very definitely Brinnica. The mountain summits jutted into cloud, their faces covered with new snow. As they walked further north each day, Lida began to fully comprehend how immense they were; the mountains swallowed up the sky, larger than anything she had ever seen. They dominated her waking hours and started to invade her dreams. They loomed over her as she slept, threatening to crush her.
‘How do we get over them?’ she asked Ella, aghast, when they reached the start of the range.
‘We don’t,’ Ella answered. ‘We would die. There are paths through them, if you know where to look. That is the way for us.’
It snowed properly for the first time that night. The air was white and Lida could barely see a few paces before her. It was so cold that she wrapped herself in her coat before climbing into her sleeping bag, nestling between Ella and Alys for warmth. Even then she barely slept, meeting the next day with glassy eyes and aching joints. Katrin was already up, cooking oats over a small fire.
Katrin gave her a wide smile. ‘Welcome to Brinnica.’
Lida sat up and looked around. Everything was coated with white and despite her tiredness, she laughed in delight. ‘It’s like a faery tale,’ she said. ‘It’s so beautiful.’
‘Yes,’ Katrin agreed. ‘Beautiful, and deceptive, and deadly.’ She passed Lida a bowl of oats. ‘When we walk, you must not stray from the path we set. This is a treacherous country.’ She sighed happily and stretched. ‘I love it so.’
They started the trek through the mountains that day. It was tough work: the snow was only a few inches deep, but it hid rocks and rivets in the ground, and Lida found herself with jarred ankles more than once. She had been worried about Sacred, but the mare was far more sure-footed than she and seemed to enjoy the snow, pausing occasionally to snuffle and snort at it playfully. Sacred’s winter coat had fully grown in and she was shaggy as a pony, her lean and graceful lines hidden by thick chestnut fuzz.
The path they took was wide to begin with, the slopes to either side of them leaning gently upwards. As they walked further into the mountain range, the world narrowed, rocky outcrops becoming as close as bedroom wall
s, formations covered with snow sometimes reaching over their heads in cold, shallow tunnels. They were walking steeply up: Lida’s shins and ankles strongly protested, and she was grateful when they stopped for lunch.
Katrin halted them in a tiny, bowl-shaped formation, sheltered by mountain walls on both sides. It was so small that Lida’s knees touched Ella and Alys when they sat; she was so close to Lorcan that she could smell the sweet scent of his hair. She pulled the hood of her coat around her face as best she could. The horses stood behind them, sensibly using the break to sleep.
Dylan passed around some bread and cheese and they ate quickly. Katrin was oddly fidgety, getting up every minute or so to walk around, peering upwards. When she sat back down, it was soldier-straight, alert; Lida could see the tension in her shoulders. Katrin swiftly finished her meal, took a mouthful of water from her flask, then reached into her pack and pulled out a wicked-looking knife with a sharply serrated edge.
The northerners tensed, almost as one.
‘Wolf or cat?’ Lorcan said softly, reaching into his own pack. Lida expected another knife to emerge, but instead he took out a shortbow and a leather quiver full of black-fletched arrows. She watched as he strung the bow in one smooth, practiced movement, and nocked an arrow, tense but calm.
‘Cat,’ Katrin answered. ‘Leopard, not tiger. Young. He might just be curious, but be ready.’
Lida felt distinctly out of place as the Brinnicans drew their weapons. Alys and Dylan carried knives strapped to their thighs, and Ella pulled an elegant-looking shortsword from her pack and stood, holding it easily at her side. While Dylan moved to flank Katrin, Lorcan took two steps backwards without warning, forcing Lida to scramble to her feet and back into a small, sheltered outcrop until she felt cold rock against her shoulder blades and brushing the top of her head. He stood far enough away from her to draw the bowstring, but close enough that Lida couldn’t move from the outcrop without pushing him out of the way. She understood why he was doing it - she had never fought a wild animal, so what use could she be? - but his high-handedness frustrated her nonetheless.
For a few tense moments, they waited. The outcrop restricted Lida’s vision, but eventually she saw it: a glimmer of movement against the mountain face high above them. She couldn’t imagine how Katrin had spotted it; its colour was barely distinguishable from the snow-covered rocks, and every time she blinked she had to search to find it again. Lida watched until the shape slipped behind a rock and was lost to her sight.
Lorcan relaxed, letting the bow gently retract. He moved away without looking back.
‘Don’t stash your weapons,’ Katrin warned. Ella searched through her pack and came up with something for Lida: a small knife with a short blade and bone handle.
‘I can’t take this, El. I don’t know how to use it.’
‘Take it anyway,’ Ella said. ‘Slip it through the side of your boot, there. Knives aren’t that hard. Stab or slash; try not to stab into bone. With cats, aim for the eyes or up under the jaw and throat. With wolves?’ Ella shrugged. ‘Start praying and hope Andastra is listening.’
‘Comforting,’ Lida muttered, slipping the knife into her boot.
‘Come,’ called Katrin. ‘We should press on.’
The way widened after that into a shallow valley cut by a freezing river. Though it was less confining, the ground was slippery with new ice and they rarely spoke, concentrating instead on the careful placement of their feet over the treacherous rocky floor. Lida began to realise why Katrin had insisted they leave the Illarum immediately: the path was almost impossible to traverse, and the snows were yet to come. Some parts were excruciating in their slowness, and even though Lida mimicked Alys’ steps exactly, she still slipped more times than she cared to count and knew that bruises were spreading over her hands and legs and hips. Sacred was patient, which Lida had not expected, and far calmer than her mistress when her hooves skated on unstable rubble.
Katrin called a stop when the sun began to set, though none of them could see it, just the darkening of the stretch of sky directly above them. There was a shallow cave to one side of the track; Lida guessed that Katrin knew it was there, and it was what they’d been aiming for all day. Katrin’s stallion was loaded with firewood, and Katrin lifted the bundle from his back, pulling out some sticks and larger pieces of branch.
‘It will be smoky in here,’ she said, placing the wood carefully in the middle of the overhang. ‘But we will be warmer. And it will keep the wolves away.’
Ella collected some snow and melted it for washing and drinking. Lida scrubbed her face and neck, then gathered the dregs of her courage and removed her coat, half-heartedly cleaning the skin she could easily reach under her shirt, her teeth chattering. Ella and Alys were evidently unbothered by the freezing chill, stripping to the waist. Just looking at them increased Lida’s shivering, so she pulled a jumper over her shirt and wrapped her neck in a woollen scarf before throwing her coat over her shoulders and crouching near the fire to warm her hands.
Dylan stomped into the cave, triumphantly holding up a large, fat bird Lida didn’t recognise. He’d stripped down to a sleeveless tunic to hunt, and noticed Lida’s incredulous stare.
‘Are you cold or something, Lida?’ he said with a grin. ‘Want me to warm you up?’
‘I’d never be that cold, Dylan,’ she retorted.
He snorted. ‘You say that now. It’s not even winter yet, joli.’ He leered at her. ‘I will wait.’
Lida raised an eyebrow. ‘Feel free to hold your breath.’
He laughed and sat, beginning to pluck feathers from the bird with a practiced hand. ‘Do you want some, Lor?’
Lida stiffened, not realising he’d been behind her. Lorcan moved to take some of the wing feathers from Dylan, running them through his long fingers. He nodded.
‘They are perfect. I will carve some more arrows tonight.’
Lida stood and walked away, pretending to check on Sacred. She could feel eyes on her back and tears pricked her own; she wasn’t sure whether they were from anger or something else.
She was warmer that night and she slept deeply, nestled again between Alys and Ella. In sleep, she sank gratefully to the seabed of her rock pool; the cold seemed very far away from the warm water and the grainy sand, and there were no dark eyes to haunt her.
A wind blew up the next day, unlike anything Lida had ever known, seemingly full of ice and needles. She pulled her hood as close as she could, but her skin still stung and her nose and lips went numb. The wind made an awful howling noise as it tore through the crevasse they were using as a path, and Lida, who had never heard a wolf, was constantly on edge at the sound.
She was wearing every layer of clothing that she possibly could. She’d even considered wrapping her sleeping bag around her shoulders like a blanket, but she tripped so often on the ice that she thought she would probably injure herself without her hands to bear the brunt of the falls. She worried for Sacred, too, but the mare’s coat was so thick that she looked far more comfortable than Lida. Lida walked as close to Sacred as she could get, shamelessly sharing her warmth and taking comfort from the occasional snuffle the mare would give her arm.
She spent most of the night sitting up shivering, so close to the fire that her cheeks and nose burned, glaring at Dylan as he snored. He’d wriggled half from his sleeping bag in sleep, but it didn’t seem to bother him.
Lida cried unreservedly the next day. Her tears did not freeze but they did numb her cheeks, so she continually reached up to try to wipe her face dry. The path had started to tilt downwards quite sharply, but if anything it was worse than the continual battle upwards, as Lida found it difficult to keep her balance. She followed Ella methodically, feeling Siva’s ring slip on her shrunken thumb within her glove.
‘Why do you people live in this gods-forsaken place?’ she burst out.
Ella chuckled, then stopped still. ‘Look, Lida.’
Lida lifted her chin. As she did, she blinked fierce
ly, her eyes hurting in the sudden glare and strong, icy breeze.
They had emerged from the crevasse, and before them, stretching for what seemed like miles, was a frozen lake. It was ringed by snow-capped mountains, its surface white and blue and patterned where the ice had cracked and refrozen; snow had settled on its gentle shores.
‘Oh,’ Lida breathed, entranced. ‘Is this the Kali’s Lake?’
Dylan shook his head, stopping to reach up and quickly braid his fair hair into a warrior’s tail. ‘Kali’s Lake is bigger, and it never freezes. We think it’s too near the source of the hot springs. This is the Yoss.’
Lida frowned. ‘Like the river?’
Dylan snorted. ‘No. Not like the river. Like the snow god. You southerners steal our names for everything, and forget there is meaning attached to them.’ He started walking down the rocky slope towards the frozen shore, surefooted even when the ground slid and skittered beneath him. ‘This is where Andastra killed him for betraying her, and his blood pooled on the ground. That’s why it freezes; his blood was made of ice.’
‘Cheerful,’ Lida muttered. She petted Sacred. ‘Which way around do we go?’
‘Going around would take days,’ Ella said, with a gleam in her eyes. ‘We go straight ahead.’
Lida blinked. ‘We’re walking over the lake?’
Ella nodded. ‘We’re walking over the lake.’
Chapter Seventeen: Wants
The Brinnicans had special leather overlays for their boots, with tiny spikes sewn into the soles. Katrin had packed extra for Lida and Lorcan, and they all sat down on the snowy shores of the lake to tie them on. The horses, too, had special leather socks to cover their hooves; Sacred snickered while Lida slipped them on, but didn’t protest.
