Page 72 of Blood Beneath the Snow

When I was close enough to the camp, I climbed a tree and leaptfrom branch to branch. Soon I settled above a busy path between two large tents.

I made myself comfortable on the powdered perch, thankful for my waterproof cloak. Without it, I would have been soaked from sitting in snow. Below me, small figures swarmed the fire in the center of camp. Canvas tents were pitched around it from every side.

The Hellbringer had only said he wanted information; he hadn’t specifiedwhatinformation. Hopefully that meant I could get away with saying nothing of importance when I returned. I wasn’t about to give him the advantage he needed to win the war.

The Queen of Kryllian could send as many messengers as she wanted to convince me she intended to negotiate a truce with us after I became Queen of Bhorglid. But until a treaty had been signed, I refused to trust her fully.

I waited for half an hour, watching the crowds come and go, their chatter merely a hum from my vantage point, before a face I recognized appeared: Erik, walking purposefully toward the tent closest to me. He didn’t look up, and if he did, he probably wouldn’t have seen me. The trees were good cover.

He pushed through the entrance and disappeared into the tent.

Were they going to do all the talking inside? I frowned. There must be a way to get closer without arousing suspicion.

A hand brushed my shoulder. Without thinking, I grabbed it, whirled around, and delivered a solid punch directly to my attacker’s nose. There was a crack as my fist connected with bone, and I moved to push the person off the branch.

A grunt of pain. “Shit, Rev, why’d you do that?”

I froze and took in the face in front of me, covered with blood. “Frode?” I pulled him back up to balance on the branch. “Oh, gods. I didn’t realize it was you!” I pulled my sleeve over my hand and used it to wipe the blood dripping from his nostrils. “How did you—”

He cut me off with a look. I sighed. “Right. My thoughts are loud. I remember.”

He chuckled, but it was muffled beneath his blood-soaked glove. “I shouldn’t have startled you. What are you doing here? Everyone thinks you’re dead. How did you get away from the Hellbringer?”

For a moment, I considered lying—but even that made Frode raise an eyebrow. I groaned. “I’ll tell you everything, but first we need to find somewhere we won’t risk being overheard. The whole camp is probably wondering what that ungodly screech was.”

My brother raised an eyebrow. “Are you talking about my cry ofpainfrom when youbroke my nose?”

I couldn’t smother my grin. The events of the last week felt like they’d happened years ago, but Frode managed to be the person I was most myself around.

How would I possibly live in a world without him if we didn’t win the Trials?

“Come on,” he said, beckoning for me to follow him. “And get those thoughts out of your head.”

I did my best to empty my mind as we leapt a few trees over and clambered down. Frode led the way as we shuffled through the snow to a patch of forest with fewer trees. It wasn’t a clearing, but sunlight glittered through the spaces between the pines.

Frode sighed with relief, stretched out his arms, and fell backward until he landed in the snow’s soft embrace. “This is where I come when it all gets too loud,” he explained. I moved to sit cross-legged next to him. “It’s far enough away that I can barely hear anyone at camp. Jac knows how to shout for me if they’re under attack, but since we moved so recently, it’s unlikely we’ll be ambushed again.” I watched as he grabbed a handful of snow and pressed it to his swollen nose.

A momentary echo of music floated in from the distance. I frowned. “Is anyone nearby?”

Frode shook his head, and the red of his hair looked like flame against the whiteness. The music faded into frozen silence once more. I must have imagined it.

“They say the forest is haunted now,” he replied to my thoughts. “That it’s Aloisa-touched. Full of wandering souls killed by the Hellbringer.”

“And you believe that?” I asked, raising my eyebrow. “I didn’t take you for the superstitious type.”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve just wondered lately if my own soul might be better suited for this place than any kind of afterlife.”

I stiffened, the lack of feeling in his words like a knife between my ribs. He shouldn’t be thinking about his own death, not when our plan was laid out in stone. Why the sudden morbidity?

I wanted to press the matter, but I told myself there would be time later. Instead, I changed the subject.

“Well, the Kryllians do know the location of your current camp,” I said, “so don’t get your hopes up about avoiding another ambush.”

“Are you going to tell me how you know or keep being mysterious?”

I let out a breath and watched it fog in front of me. “You have to swear to me you won’t tell anyone. Even Jac. The only reason I’m telling you is because eventually you’ll read my thoughts and figure it out anyway.”

His solemn face didn’t match the mischief in his eyes as he put his hand over his heart. “You have my word.”

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