Page 103 of Frost Bound

“Reilleve! Reilleve?” A warrior knelt next to her, his faced creased in concern. His hand hovered over her, like he didn’t want to touch her. “What can I do?”

“Help me up,” she slurred.

He reached for her knife, but she pulled it away from his grasp and shakily shoved it back into the sheath she’d made to sit inside her breast band.

Lia spared a glance at Lumi before she took the warrior’s arm and he helped her descend. Her right eye had already swollen closed, and throbbed painfully. They entered the last illuminated corridor. The guards looked horrified, but she nodded to them, and smiled despite how much it hurt.

“We’ll send someone for your healer,” the warrior said, the words heavily accented.

The short stone hallway opened up to another immense cavern. Lia grinned when the scent of horseflesh, hay, and fresh air teased her nose.

She’d finally found it.

To her left, war horses pranced in their paddocks. Toward the mouth of the cavern wererukhalsgrazing out in the open. To her right, warriors were training. Giants stopped their tasks and gaped.

“There’s a place to sit over here.”

“No,” she muttered. “I want to see the horses.”

A long pause. “As you wish,reilleve.”

It was a short wobbly walk to the paddock, but worth it, especially when Lia spotted a familiar coat.

“Anwen!” she called.

The warrior whistled, the sound about splitting her head, but it worked. The war horse lifted his head, ears twitching, before the great beast spotted her. Dahlia tried to whistle as he raced toward her, tail lifted in the air.

She released the warrior and climbed up the first rung of the paddock fence, wobbling slightly.

“I don’t know about this,reilleve. You’re bleeding.”

“Am I?” She wrapped one arm around the beam, and gingerly touched her face where it hurt the most. She pulled her fingers away and stared at all the blood on her fingers. That wasn’t good.

Anwen slowed almost to a stop, just out of reach. She switched arms, holding on with her right and holding her left hand out flat. “Hello, beautiful,” she murmured, the words feeling garbled in her mouth. “Did you miss me?”

The horse snuffled her hand before nudging her palm with his downy nose. This was exactly the break she’d needed. Stealing a trained warhorse wasn’t the best idea, but neither was fist-fighting a giantess, and she’d survived that.

Barely.

He pressed his head into her chest and she scratched his ear, smiling when he nosed her pocket.

“How did you know?” she whispered. Lia pulled her arm back and slipped a mangled carrot from her leathers and held it out to him, clinging to the fence as the world tilted again. “Sorry it’s not much.”

He took the vegetable, crunching on it happily.

“You know he’s trained to snap your fingers off, right?” a familiar female voice drawled.

Dahlia closed her eyes.Lumi.

“I’m not sure you should be here, my lady,” the warrior practically growled.

Lia slowly turned her head to see her sister-in-law out of her good eye. Lumi limped, leaning heavily on another warrior.

“What do you want?” she sniped, petting Anwen, her head feeling like it was about to crack open.

Lumi already cracked you open.

A delirious laugh caught in her throat.

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