Page 135 of Untempered
We needed to get back. We wouldn’t, not without them. But right now, we both needed warmth.
She gripped my belt again as I put an arm around her to lift her up—she could walk, but it wouldn’t have mattered if she couldn’t. I would’ve gotten her in. Determination burned like molten steel through me. Right then, I could’ve lifted the entire house out of the ground if I’d had to.
Once out of the cold, I pushed her down on the opposite side of the small stone hearth to where I’d found the last resident and threw my cloak over her, reaching for the flint and tinder.
“You should leave,” she said, the words thin, reedy. “Before you catch it. Tell Isolde. Tell Thomas.”
I’d heard enough last words in my time, and words that the speaker thought were their last, to recognize that tone. Fury writhed in my guts.
She was mine, damn it. That’s what we’d both sworn on my blood, sealed by magic older than any of us knew. “Tell them yourself,” I demanded impatiently. “Because you swore yourself to me, Embers. Until my heart no longer beats, you swore. That’s a magically binding oath, woman.Myheart. Not yours.” The tinder struck, and the flame caught. It wasn’t enough warmth. Not yet. “You don’t get free whileI’malive.”
Her lids flickered prettily, but there was no whiskey to be found in her gaze. I wanted to drink deep, but the well was dry.
“That’s not…how it works,” she murmured. “Not how…the stone works…either.”
“Obviously, you did it wrong,” I snapped at her, feeding the flame hurriedly. There wasn’t much wood, but there was some, and it had to be enough. “Tell me about how that knight used it against those locusts. I bet he has the key.”
She didn’t move. “I can’t, Chay. I’m so cold.”
Any other time, and I would’ve suggested some wonderful ways we could both warm up. And I hated that not even the thought of her in the firelight in this remote little space could shake the threat of death. The reek of it still lingered. “If you die,” I told her, without looking, “who’s going to stand up to the Butcher? I’ll follow you into your rebellion,” I told her, willing the flame to burn faster, hotter, higher. “I’ll teach you how to use a sword. I’ll teach you everything I know. The first thing lesson is now. Move. Fight it.”
Tears glittered on her lashes. “It hurts.”
“Hasn’t it hurt for hours?” I demanded, frustrated. “Days?”
“Weeks,” she whispered.
“Well, as your advisor, Embers, I advise you recall that fact and movedespiteit.” I tossed a log onto the fire and stood. “I have to get the horses secured, or we won’t make it back.”
“My bow,” she said, stretching her hands out to the flame, the words thick with pain. She was moving her toes in her boots.
I wanted to press a kiss to her head. I had no right to do that. I had no right to ask anything of her at all. But Ihadasked, and I’d damned well keep on asking. She needed someone to tell her no and walk beside her as she braved the lessons that followed.
I shut the window as best I could and strode back out into the wind. Promises made mattered. I settled the horses as fast as I could, then barred the door again. She was sitting up, rotating her head slowly on her neck. I built the fire higher and hoped no one saw the smoke, then went outside to find the wood pile.
With the clouds roiling above us, I put my mediocre woodcutting skills to use, furiously cutting through logs that were still green. He’d used everything.
He’d saved Isolde and then died himself.
Was she alive?
The thought of her retribution if I lost Audrey left me feeling cold. I’d take it.
I needed to get wood into the house. Was I better to ferry it in now, or stack it outside and retrieve it as needed?
I didn’t know, but each time I went in, Audrey was still moving. I kept an eye on the sky—the sun was lower than it should’ve been, the clouds heavier than they had been. We weren’t leaving for the keep today. And with that knowledge, I cut yet more wood, stacked it right beside the door, and drew up some buckets of water. The chores felt like they took years. The reverberations of the axe up my arms made them burn.Until my heart no longer beats.The words punctuated my thoughts in time with the splintering of wood and the thud of the axe.Until. My. Heart. No. Longer. Beats.
When I got back inside, there were still no coals in the fire, and it was still cold as ice. Audrey was lying on her side, wrapped tight in my cloak, but just as I went to curse, she said, “There’s honey. Food. East wall.”
I gave the place she mentioned a cursory glance. She’d opened cupboards. She’d been up. The relief that flooded through me was dammed up by the way she didn’t even shiver, now, before the fire, despite the fact that the edge was barely taken off the air. Or was I too sick to tell? I peeled back the wrist of my glove. The skin there was pale, the veins dark, but not the stark contrast of black and white that I knew I’d find if I looked at her skin. No, I wasn’t too far gone.
Moving to the far wall, I grabbed and dragged the beekeeper’s pallet closer to the fire, kicking a chair out of the way. “Up off the cold floor,” I told Audrey when she looked at me dully.
She moved agonizingly slowly, but move she did. I built the fire higher, hoping again that the cloud cover would be low enough to hide the smoke, that no marauders would venture here, then took out some of the cold meat and cheese from the bags. I sat close to her. She huddled in a little more. I felt every muscle in my body pull taut with the need to drag her into my lap and crush her to me. Rage, impotent and useless, coursed through me. We sat shoulder to shoulder and looked at the flames while we chewed in silence, broken only by the rain that began to lash against the side of the wall. My thoughts went to the horses—there was little I could do for them, though. They had what shelter I could find them.
“I’m sorry,” she said, with a few bites of meat still held between gloved fingers.
Without understanding why she felt the need to apologize, I just shrugged and finished my own cold, heavy meal. The wind whistled in the cracks beneath the walls and in the ceiling. I ignored it. There were fewer drafts in here than out there. “Usually, I’d offer straws to see who gets the bed,” I said flatly. “But we both need the warmth, so if you don’t mind.” She turned and looked at me, her expression dull. I waved a hand toward it, and she folded herself down like she was an old woman.
