Page 75 of A Dance With Fire
“Come on,” he urged. “The stronghold isn’t far from here.”
Questions burned at the tip of her tongue, but they froze with the biting cold. She decided to keep quiet until she was near a roaring fire, hoping they’d come to one soon.
Clay guided her along, rubbing his palm up and down her arm to get her blood circulating. She wondered what would happen if she let a sliver of her power loose, but then decided against it. She was still feeling a bit depleted from before. All her superficial wounds had healed the moment Ryker had placed his palms against her collarbones. She’d felt a bit of her energy come back to her as well, but that fight had been brutal. Her power had exploded, and it left her body feeling odd in the aftermath. She couldn’t quite describe it.
Magic felt like… like a soul inside her. Like some separate part of her soul that clung inside her, down to the marrow of her bones. As essential to her body as the blood flowing through her veins, and yet she couldfeelit like it was its own being. Right then, it felttired. Overworked like sore muscles after dancing for a week straight.
They trudged through snow, her feet and toes numbing more and more after each step. Shula wasn’t the only one. Everyone in the procession shivered as though unaccustomed to the cold, or perhaps it was because it was unexpected.
“We’re almost there, Fire Dancer,” Clay whispered, his lips against her ear.
Her teeth chattered. She couldn’t feel her feet anymore and it made walking difficult. She stumbled, snow kicking up to her knees. She felt the cold down to her bones, and her magic was so dormant, there was absolutely no hope at all that she could access it.
“Shit,” Clay cursed.
A moment later, she felt warm hands wrap around her and lift her from the snow. She went, burrowing close to the thick wall of muscle that held her and inhaled the scent. Like herbs and spice and blood…
Her eyes snapped up to look into the familiar scarred face of Ryker. He grunted with each step he took and ignored her. Shula frowned. She hadn’t even realized he was the one to pick her up. It was surprising, to say the least, especially with those glares and growls he gave her constantly.
“You should’ve given her your shoes instead, dumbass,” he growled, but this time it wasn’t directed at her, but at Clay. “Her toes are frozen.”
“W-what d-d-do you c-c-care?” she chattered.
His arms flexed around her, and the scowl on his face deepened until a crater damn near appeared between his eyebrows. “I don’t.”
Of course he didn’t.
But sometimes it felt like he did.
Sometimes it felt like he used these moments to his advantage just to put his hands on her. Just so the others wouldn’t suspect he actually gave a shit about Shula. Maybe she was just delusional, because despite the strange pull both Shula and Ryker seemed to have that made them gravitate towards one another, she hated him. He hated her. It was the way it should be.
He was too big, too frowny, toomean.And she saw the way he stared at her ears with disgust. As if he could ever know what she had to do to survive, the things she had to give up, the feelings she had to betray to live. She’d watched her parents get taken, and she had no doubt they were dead. Those who entered the iron camps never came out. She only wondered if they suffered and prayed that they hadn’t.
Ryker couldn’t possibly understand her feelings, her fears, her own culpability. He didn’t deserve to know. Whatever she’d confessed under the allure of Fae wine didn’t matter, so she doubted he’d want to swallow the rest of her history.
At some point, Shula must have dozed off with those angry thoughts in mind. She awoke with a start as Ryker jostled her awake. He barely took the time to wake her up fully before he was placing her on her feet. She stumbled, groaning at the pins and needles sensation creeping up her legs.
After straightening, it took all but a moment for her to take in her surroundings. They were no longer in the snow, but she could still feel the breeze flittering ice through the massive arched doorways behind her. She turned and watched as two Fae pushed it closed with a squeak.
Her feet were pressed on stone floors that matched the drab, crumbling walls. A fire roared in a nearby massive hearth, and the people’s footsteps milling about echoed up to the cavernous ceiling. Candles tapered across walls and provided dull illumination.
It was a castle, that much was obvious, with broken, boarded up windows that the cold snuck through. Shula’s gaze wandered around the space with curiosity. Fae and humans bustled around; newcomers she didn’t recognize walked up to their little group with blankets and furs. They proceeded to wrap them around the wet and shivering people.
A small female Fae with green skin and twisting horns that protruded from her forehead came towards Shula and threw the blanket around her shoulders. Enveloped in instant warmth, she pulled the ends of the blanket together, wrapping herself tighter in it.
Wings snapped out from behind the female’s back, clear and shimmering; they buzzed at a rapid pace, and she flittered in a circle around Shula’s body, not asking permission before she pulled her hair out and began wringing it out and letting the water splatter on the ground.
She chattered rapidly in a voice that sounded like fluttering insects, and Shula didn’t understand a bit of it.
“She’ll be showing you to your quarters,” Clay explained, appearing suddenly beside her.
“Where are we?” Shula was glad her teeth had stopped chattering.
“This is our Fae stronghold, Castle Aileach. We bring Fae and human alike here to protect them from the Emperor of Illyk.”
She turned in a slow circle, gazing up at the place. It was… drab. Yet it had a warm feel to it despite the dull tones.
A sharp, piercing cry echoed through the castle, capturing Shula’s attention. A Fae man dropped to his knees, face scrutinized in pain. He grasped for his midsection, where blood seeped through the material of his jacket and stained his hands.
