Page 105 of Blood Beneath the Snow

I couldn’t look to see if Jac’s injuries were worse. I could only stare at Frode’s face, devoid of color, devoid of laughter, devoid of life.

“Leave the body,” my father snarled. “We’ll ride back to camp.”

The body.

“What?” I whispered. “Why would we leave him?”

There was no reply. Maybe I spoke too quietly. I took a deep breath in to repeat myself. “Why would we leave his body?” My voice cracked midway through the words.

“I watched him die,” Father said. I couldn’t bring myself to look away. “He didn’t fight. He held out his arms andaskedthe Hellbringer to kill him. He was so desperate not to compete in the Trials, he would rather die at the hand of an enemy.”

“No.” I shook my head and stars erupted at the edges of my vision. “That’s not what happened.”

“She’s in shock.” Erik’s voice was smooth and sticky like honey. “Let’s get her home.” He placed one hand around my shoulders and the other under my knees, then lifted me into his arms.

I reached toward Frode. “You can’t leave him.”

I tore my eyes away to look at Erik’s face. Was I imagining things,or did his eyes seem sorrowful? “We have to,” he whispered. Behind him, I could see Björn and my father in the distance, trekking back to where the horses were hitched.

The words tumbled out of my mouth before I could think to stop them: “You’re going to let them decide what is right when you already know? You’re going to leave him here when I saw him sacrifice himself? You would dishonor your own brother that way?”

“Would you rather see his body burned to ash and swept into the gutters of the arena?” Erik snapped. I winced, turning away from his glare. “Of all the options, leaving him here is far more honorable than returning him to a place where he will be shunned for how he died. And I don’t take orders from you, little sister.”

He turned and started for the trees. Panic seized me and I arched my back, kicking and screaming. “You can’t leave him! YOU CAN’T LEAVE HIM!”

Erik carried me the entire way back to where the horses were before placing me on his saddle and securing an arm around me. The entire time he said nothing, a figure of stone against the backdrop of my screams and sobs.

The healers spent hours laboringover Jac. I doubted their abilities were as good as Volkan’s, but they managed to put my one remaining ally back together. For that, I was grateful.

Jac kept his horse right behind mine for the journey home—back to the castle, back to Freja and Halvar.

At first, I pretended not to notice. He wasn’t bothering me, and I was mostly grateful not to have Erik restraining me this time around. But eventually I felt the weight of Jac’s stare on the back of my head with every step the horse took.

Finally, when I could tell my jitters were making my horseanxious, I twisted at the waist to face him, scowling at him through narrowed eyes. “Why are you following me?” I hissed.

He blinked, then shrugged. “Aren’t we all going to the same place?” he asked. There was a strangeness in his voice I didn’t recognize. His eyes weren’t quite focused on anything.

I frowned. “What’s wrong?”

Jac looked out over the snowy wasteland. The wind whipped my dark hair around my head and blew the light dust of freshly falling snowflakes onto my face. They stung.

“Do you think preparing for your own death makes it easier?” he asked the mountain path. “Or does it make everything harder in the end?”

I stared at him in silence for a moment, the only noise the wind and hooves breaking through the slightly frozen snow.

Jac tilted his head to the side. He wasn’t looking at me. “I don’t think I’m ready to die.” He said it so softly I barely heard him.

There was a knot in my throat. I tried to swallow it, but it was stubborn.

“We aren’t going to die,” I said, feeling the lie of it in my very bones. I glanced forward, made sure Erik, Björn, and Father weren’t listening in. “We’re going to win. Together. You and me, remember?”

A sliver of fear made its way into the space between my ribs. Was our pact to work together no longer in play? Was he backing out?

“Jac?”

“I don’t know if I can do this, Rev.” He sounded utterly broken, and, gods, I didn’t blame him. How could I when my own throat threatened to close every second I thought about Frode?

He should have been here. Should have been making snide comments about both of us losing our nerve, getting off our asses to fight another day. Instead, his body was frozen over somewhere in the wastes, unseeing eyes gazing up at the blue sky.

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