Page 64 of Frost Like Night
She couldn’t speak for the sob that gripped her throat. When it passed, she lowered her hand, sight blurring.
“I don’t know how to move on,” she said. “I don’t know how to forgive him when he isn’t here.I hate him—”
Meira just sat there, listening, while everyone else waited. Their silence made Ceridwen laugh, of all things, and she chuckled heartlessly through her tears.
“And I ruined everything,” she finished, palms up, because what more could she say?
“You did not ruin everything,” Meira said, but it was as empty as her smile. “Angra gave Theron something I’m searching for—those keys. If I can get them, I can defeat Angra, and we know who has them now.”
“Angra gave the keys to Theron before we revealed ourselves.” William leaned forward. “That was part of his plan. To make sure word spread that Theron has them.”
Everyone heard the words he didn’t say.It’s another trap.
Meira’s expression stayed the same.
Ceridwen locked eyes with her. “We’ll be more prepared. I won’t . . . fall apart next time.”
Meira shook her head. “We should do our best to make sure none of us falls apart next time.”
Midnight had long since passed by the time they left the hidden passage. It released them just outside the palace’s walls, in an alley more akin to a garbage dump. That felt appropriate as they spilled into the night, covered in filth and blood and failure.
Juli had changed. The overhanging tension that had kept the city silent and nearly empty when they first arrivedseemed enhanced. Fights broke out in taverns; warring groups tumbled through the streets; cries pierced the air from every direction, calling for help in an echoing rebound that made it impossible to track. Farther down the street, soldiers patrolled, barging into houses and demanding any residents turn over the Winter queen.
Ceridwen kept her head down, her muscles taut, and led the battered group out of Juli. They could stay and try to help where they could, but Angra’s Decay would no doubt foster two more problems for every one they solved.
Ceridwen bit her lips together, inhaling the smells of the city one last time. Heat-soaked wood; bitter sweat; tangy wine; the grittiness of sand with every breath.
She was leaving. But she would return, and she would fix Summer—and maybe, through that, she would find a way to fix her relationship with Simon, too.
19
Meira
IT ISN’T UNTILwe leave Juli that the full weight of what happened settles over me.
Ceridwen’s group stashed their horses in an abandoned barn south of the city. Now there are five riderless mounts, providing transport for the Thaw and me, who partner up to take them because we don’t have our own. Mather eases up onto the saddle behind me and settles in, his arms loose around my waist. No one mentions how the former riders of these horses were left behind, bodies now at Angra’s disposal. But I see Ceridwen stare at the horses as we ride out, her eyes tear glazed in the shadows.
As grim as a funeral procession, we head east, to the only Season that Angra hasn’t had a chance to infiltrate yet: Autumn.
Angra was counting on us being in Juli. If he laid a trapfor us there, did he know we’d try to go to Autumn too?
I swallow the question. It doesn’t matter. I’ll do what needs to be done.
I will find a way to get those keys without having to kill Theron.
One afternoon later, the sun casts light over a long swath of something on the horizon—trees. And not Summer’s dead, spindly trees, but plump ones bursting with red and yellow leaves. Beneath them lies crisp green grass and tangled brown undergrowth—such a welcome array of colors that I actually whimper.
As our horses burst into the Autumn forest, the air sweeps over me in a rush of coolness that, compared to Summer, feels like getting plunged into an ice bath.
Ceridwen pulls her horse to a stop in a small clearing.
I nod into the forest. “We should find water,” I say. “Replenish our supplies before—”
But Ceridwen isn’t looking at me. Her eyes narrow into slits looking over my shoulder, a frown wrinkling her brow before she pulls a dagger from her belt.
That’s all the explanation we need—Mather draws a sword, the Thaw arm themselves, Sir and Henn and Ceridwen’s remaining Summerians spin in their saddles, trying to find the source of the attack.
But it isn’t an attack—at least, not immediately.
