Page 171 of The Heart of Winter

Clinging to the cliff.

Was it a large gray bird? Or something else?

I stared, but my vision blurred. I had to get closer to see clearly.

With every step, my heart pounded harder. "Yes, go closer," it whispered. "Go closer. Find out what it is."

Could it be a person? A human figure crouched on a rocky ledge?

But if it was… who else could it be?

My sluggish mind struggled to grasp the situation. Everything was sinking in far too slowly. How would Sariel have ended up on a cliff? What would he be doing there?

Then I heard the cries of birds. The sound triggered a thought: had he gone up there looking for eggs? Could the answer be that simple?

My brain pieced things together at a frustratingly slow pace. My mouth hung slightly open as I stared. Finally, my gaze swept the cliff, searching for a way up.

A second thought churned in my mind.

Could Sariel have survived?

Could he still be alive after spending the entire night clinging to that freezing cliff, battered by the wind, trapped in an unnatural position?

It seemed impossible. Would I find a frozen corpse, stuck to the rock only because stiff, dead fingers had latched onto the jagged stone?

I didn’t want to believe it. I couldn’t believe it.

Myheartrefused to believe it.

But how was I supposed to reach him? My foggy mind struggled for a solution, sluggish and uncooperative. Almost on instinct, I began moving toward the slope that seemed to lead up the cliff.

Sariel had gotten up there somehow, surely, I could too. It was the obvious conclusion, but it still took me too long to reach it. I tried to assess whether the path was climbable.

It had to be. There was no other possibility.

God, I was so slow!

My body reacted with a miserable delay. I would tell it to move a foot, and there would be a pause before it actually responded. It felt like the sun had shifted noticeably toward the horizon since I’d started climbing.

It must have been around one o’clock by now.

What was I even doing here?

There were moments when I just stopped, standing in place, completely blank, not knowing why I was here. My mind would shut off. A part of me knew my brain was starting to betray me.

But betray who, exactly? Me?

Each time, I pressed my hands against my chest, desperate for something to hold onto, and every time, I heard that faint, steady thumping. It grounded me, snapped me back into consciousness, even if only for a moment.

Sariel.

I had to reach him at all costs. I had to find out if he was still alive.

He had come back for me when I lay unconscious on the beach. I owed him.

Wobbling, I forced myself onward, climbing toward the top of the cliff, keeping in mind where I had last seen him. I followed that general direction, startling a few birds into flight and spotting empty nests along the way.

Sariel must have been searching through them. Brave Sariel. He hadn’t given up on his mission to find food… Good kid. He fought for us. He fought with everything he had.

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