Page 26 of The Ocean's Heart
He inhaled through his nose, his expression grave. “Then I will fight.” His sapphire eyes blazed down on me. “You will be safe. I swear it.”
I was tempted to give him the same assurance but held my tongue and did the princess-like thing of merely nodding and smiling.
Hopefully I wouldn’t need to unleash my skills in his presence. To do so would be to cast suspicion on myself, for princesses weren’t given the raw tutoring that I’d received.
All I could do was hope we beat the blizzard to shelter.
* * *
The storm hit aswe made our way out of the mountain pass and onto flatlands, the blizzard so thick I could barely see a few feet in front of me. The wind screamed and shrieked, battering at my eardrums and tearing at my clothes as it tried to find a way past the barrier and to my skin.
Vaarin held my hand, steering me through the blind spots. I kept my head down to shield my eyes from the clawing grip of ice.
My breath shivered in my lungs, each inhalation like swallowing needles.
I was going to freeze.
But Vaarin drew me along with him, and I focused on putting one foot ahead of the other.
The howling ebbed a little, and Vaarin brought us to a halt. I looked up, and my squinted eyes popped wide at the scene before me.
Spectral humanoid forms fought with swords and axes that collided with no sound. They wore cloaks that swirled and whipped about their bodies and armor that glinted, opaque one moment and translucent the next. I caught a flash of a face, a skeletal thing with blue neon orbs burning in the dark sockets where eyes should be.
Vaarin drew me close, leaning in so that his mouth pressed to the fabric of the scarf wrapped over my head.
“Wraiths,” he said. “They cannot see us. We can pass if we take the safe route. But youmuststay close. Follow in my steps. One misstep will bring a warrior on your head. Two missteps, and the whole army will be on our heads. Once we start, there is no going back. We must move forward.”
What safe route was he talking about? There was no path through this carnage.
“Thalia. Trust me.”
What choice did I have? I nodded. He squeezed my hand and led me forward. A strange prickling skated over my skin, and my vision blurred before the ground bloomed with criss-crossing lines that formed huge squares like a chess board. Each was a meter squared.
Oh…Oh wait…the specters, these wraiths, they had roles. Now that I studied them, they wore uniforms. Plain leather and simple swords for pawns, heavier armor for the knights, and thick robes for bishops. There was no king or queen present, though, on either side.
This was a game. What the fuck?
“Focus,” Vaarin called over the wail of the wind. “Follow my steps exactly.”
He dove into the fray, left, then right, then forward across the squares. The wraiths ignored him. Blind to him just as Vaarin had explained they would be. I mimicked his movements, stepping on the same squares that he had. He waited till I was a step behind him, then took three more moves.
I followed.
We made progress across the battlefield this way, past a bishop and a knight, sword to javelin, then between two pairs of pawns parrying with expert urgency.
The blizzard thickened, the howling rising like a mournful cry, and I was momentarily blinded. When the snow cleared a little, Vaarin had already moved his steps.
Fuck. I stared at the squares then back at him, shaking my head hard to let him know I was stuck, but he couldn’t even retrace his steps to show me.
He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted.
The wind grabbed his words and ripped them away so all I caught was “left….”
“Mine or yours!” I called back.
He frowned and then jabbed a finger at me.
Mine then. I hoped I’d interpreted that correctly. I leapt onto the square diagonally left of me, my attention swinging to Vaarin.
