Page 134 of Untempered
CHAPTERFIFTY-THREE
CHAY
“The believers lifted up the Son, and before all his kindness spread. Prosperity and joy like nothing that had come before was experienced. Those who suffered had their pain lifted, if they repented.” ~ The Book of Bread and Salt
The monotony of the task and the bite of the cold numbed my mind. It was the only thing I could think of to explain why I worked for so long, dragging branches and gathering armloads of twigs. My feet ached. My hips ached. Myfingersached.
I’d thought I’d checked in on her often enough. She kept pacing near that damned stone, her eyes on its surface or the ground around it. Sometimes, when I glanced at her, she was warming her hands, and I was glad of it. The color bled from the sky, and the temperature dipped. I’d thought I’d kept track of it.
I’d stopped watching, though. I’d stopped, and when I’d looked around, she was motionless in a pile beside the stone.
My heart froze in my chest. The distance between us was huge, my limbs too cold, too stiff, too ungainly. Leaves slipped beneath my boots and skidded beneath my knees. “Audrey,” I said, but the word came out as an explosion of sound as I grabbed her.
Her eyes opened. They were black—but open. “It isn’t working,” she said, the words full of defeat.
A laugh born of relief bubbled inside me. I locked it deep in my belly, helping her stand only for her legs to collapse.
The laugh burst in my chest. It made my eyes water. I caught her before she fell, picking her up to carry her to the horses. She protested, the words jumbled and slurred.
“Apologies, Embers,” I said, holding her in close and hating the necessity of that. “I’ll listen to you again as soon as you’re capable of standing.” There was really no excuse. I should’ve watched closer. I should’ve steered her homeward when we’d last spoken. The One, I may as well have been asleep.
At some point, she stopped fighting. I breathed deeply and held her close, willing any shred of warmth from my body into hers. I was damned if I was letting her die out here in the cold, alone. It just wasn’t happening. Everything in me refused to let it. I didn’t care why. It didn’t matter.
Her long legs fit ill beneath her cloak. Bliksem knelt for me as I adjusted the cloth to better cover those vulnerable calves. Layered like a solstice gift she might be, but the afternoon was long, and her illness hadn’t been brief.
Patiently, Bliksem waited as I climbed into the saddle, forgiving my own impatient movements as if he knew I was in a chokehold and only barely hanging on.
I just wanted her to complain. She didn’t, curling into me when she was jostled in a way I knew damned well would be painful. I wasn’t letting her go long enough to tie her to her saddle.
I wasn’t letting her go.
Storm willingly followed us down the incline and away from the stone. The beekeeper’s hut where Isolde had sheltered. It couldn’t be far. I’d spotted its smoke, that day we were set upon. There was none now, but the hutmuststill be there. I breathed through my teeth, my hands white-knuckled where I clutched the reins to her. The icy wind whistled through the trees, stinging my eyes.
It felt like an eon before she moved in my arms. “I’ve got you,” I said, alarmed that she might try to sit up and topple us both. “We’re on Bliksem.”
She didn’t respond, but her arm worked its way around me, and I felt her twist her fingers into my belt. My mouth a desert, I was grimly glad both at this sign of life and for the assistance as I tried to hold her securely and guide both horses on unfamiliar, uneven ground as fast as I could.
We passed a beehive, then a second. The ground leveled out, and I saw a break in the trees ahead, then the stone chimney. “Almost there,” I told her. She was still holding me, and I could barely breathe. “Just up here.” The little home appeared in the center of a clearing with a small garden. I guided the horses right to the door of the house.
“Stay here,” I told Audrey, disentangling myself with difficulty from her claw-like, icy hands. I didn’t stop to throw my cloak over her. She needed to be out of the wind.
I unhooked my shield from my saddle and threw it over my shoulder, then strode toward the solid but plain wooden door. Hammering a gloved fist against the wood, I shouted, “Hello?” only for the word to be tossed uselessly into the wind.
There was no response. I tried to pull the door open, but it was barred from within.
My first thought was to raise a leg and kick the damned thing in. Urgency beat at my breast like a drum. But a broken door was a poor windbreak. I ran around the small house and found what I was hoping for—a window on the far side. The shutters were locked, but I managed to force them with the sound of splintering wood. If they were broken, they’d be easier to block than the door.
Climbing in through the narrow gap meant throwing my shield into the darkness first, flicking my cloak back over my shoulders, and twisting my body in a way I knew damned well Audrey would’ve been able to do far more gracefully. The thought filled me with grim resolve.
The single room reeked of death.
By the thin light I made my way to the door, lifting the bar to let the wind and sun in, such as it was. The place was as cold as a grave anyway. At least the wind carried the scent of soil and salt. I looked back over my shoulder and found the source of the odor.
He’d probably been the beekeeper in his life. In his death, he curled protectively beside the fireplace, skin white, veins black, like roads to one of the old hells we weren’t supposed to talk about.
I didn’t waste words on him, just grabbed him beneath the arms, dragged him outside, and sat him beside the house. I’d deal with him tomorrow. If we lived that long.
Audrey was already sliding down out of the saddle. She collapsed to the ground with an indrawn breath and a partially muffled sound of pain that escaped from between her teeth. I grabbed the reins in time to stop her from being stepped on, quickly hobbling the horses.
