17

SHELTER

The ale boy sounded the vawn whistle until the snow-blown world spun. If that shrill call failed to pierce the wind and reach poor Rumpa, he would stand no chance of finding shelter, nor would he live to deliver Cyndere’s promise to Cal-raven.

He rehearsed his message for the Abascar king as if the words could burn a tunnel through the snow. “The heiress of Bel Amica. Wants to help you. And I believe her. She’s kind. She’s generous. She’s not like. Other Bel Amicans. She’ll bring you whatever. You need. For the winter.”

Moving southward through sparse patches of the Cragavar, he had ventured into knee-deep drifts. He still wore the padded green coat with the fur-lined hood that reached to his heels. But sleet pelted him from all sides while snow clouds converged in a conspiracy to bury him alive. Using curses he’d picked up from the prison guard, he punished himself for wandering away from Cyndere into this impassable trouble.

His feet stayed warm. The ale boy had gathered baskets of Auralia’s work as he traveled through autumn and winter—remnants of her cloth; sculptures of eggshells and feathers edged with translucent insect wings; outrageous hats and other jokes; deep clay bowls that, when filled, reflected things the water remembered. Until he could return to his hiding place, this pair of shoes was all he had left of her.

And he would have chosen nothing else. The shoes had been folded in a blanket in the cave. He had stuffed them into a basket, intending to give them to an Abascar survivor whose feet were the right size. But during a rainstorm, shivering and anxious, he tried them on. They had remained on his feet ever since. He even slept with his shoes on, which had served him well in sudden flight from trouble.

Here in the snow, his feet snug in their warmth, he was moved to thank Auralia, and not for the first time. But when he spoke her name, the words that followed were not what he had intended.

“Auralia, where are the tracks?” He puffed his way, one laborious step at a time. “I can’t. Find them. The Keeper’s. Forgotten me. And I think. You have too.”

He stumbled, thrusting his hands out to catch himself, punching a boy-shaped print into the snow. Rising, he blew the whistle again. The wind swallowed every shrill signal, and he heard mockery in its howling. He hoisted the heavy pack that Cyndere had prepared for him.

“Keeper,” he said, fighting onward another few steps. “Keeper.”

He fell forward again at the top of a long slope, then slid down as the snow loosened around him. Soon he was caught in an avalanche, encompassed in white, crashing past the snow-draped stones he had seen on the way up.

When the continent of sliding snow smashed against stones at the bottom, he felt as if he too was broken. He could not feel his hands, and his face was a frozen mask. “I’ve got no problem with fire. Why can’t I have a gift for surviving cold?”

A rise in the ground swept upward and outward to create an overhang. Shelter. Not much, but perhaps enough. He staggered toward it.

Seconds later a bolt of lightning pierced the storm, and he saw a flower of smoke bloom beneath the outcropping. A dead tree, scorched and blackened by the blast, flared into a blaze.

If he had been any less desperate, he might have been astonished. All he could do was drag himself between the wall and the fire, hold out his arms, and welcome the waves of heat. Thawing, his fingertips stung. Eventually he could open and close his hands. He unbound the snow-covered pack he had strapped across his back and stuffed a strip of dried huskbeast into his mouth.

“I’d give my shoes for a bottle of hajka,” he said, rubbing his hands together.

A few moments later, hunched over toward the glow, he was asleep. But this time, he did not dream of the lake or the Keeper. He dreamt of the fireplace in the heiress’s chamber and tasted dark ale on his lips.

In Jorn’s snowstorm dreams, that mysterious, dragonlike beast loomed, the same creature the brothers had tracked through the woods. Fearsome beacons of light beaming from unfurling wings. From its jaws, fire.

He woke up at the edge of the Cragavar forest, smelling smoke.

Jorn had followed the boy from Tilianpurth through the woods, through the whitegrass, and into the Cragavar. He had waited until the Bel Amican soldiers were far behind him. And he knew he was close to his prey.

He uncoiled, springing up onto the snow’s crust, his skin as white as the world around him, his claws out for any traveler who might be huddled at a campfire. Loping lopsided, awkward as an injured gorrel, he pushed through sideways sleet, tracing a trail of swirling darkness through the blizzard. He watched for any flicker of fire, any sign of life there in the lee of that dark overhang.

Colors wavered against the rocks at the base of a column of smoke. Relief. Fire. Heat. And even better—hot blood. The boy would fill his belly, and shelter would save him from the storm.

Crouching, he considered his approach. He licked his arms, which still tasted of the murky brine in the Tilianpurth washtub where he had hidden from the soldiers. He had leaped through a kitchen window and concealed himself there in a soup of gristle scraps, fruit rind, seeds, bits of bone, and traces of gravy. An overturned pot floated on top, and he had shoved his snout into it, breathing air rank with the burnt residue of stew. It had kept him alive and hidden until he dared to creep out and escape. He raised his head just in time to see the secret door closing behind the cabinet, and he had followed his nose, stalking along behind a woman and this boy as they made their way out of Tilianpurth by night.

As he closed in at last, the great shelter took on definition. He slowed. He stopped.

Jorn cursed the dream that had fooled him. He was not awake after all. This was not the real world. He was trapped in his nightmare. The gargantuan creature watched him, eyes glimmering, fangs sparking with lightning. How could it see him? Jorn boasted in his capacity for concealment, but those eyes were fixed upon him, running through him, sharp and strong as iron spears.

The creature held one enormous wing against the storm, sheltering the boy beneath. The boy was not afraid. Jorn was not even sure the boy knew it was there, for he was hunched at the fire, his hands held close to the flame. Jorn looked again. The boy’s hands were thrust into the fire.

Jorn suddenly changed his mind about the hunt. He knew he could not fight this creature. It was mighty and unhindered by the elements. It could swallow him the way Mordafey swallowed mice. It would probably do just that for the boy, who seemed to be cooking himself in willful sacrifice.

Then the nightmare took a bewildering turn. The creature, never shifting its gaze, unfolded another wing from its rough, bristling side. That wing hung like a curtain against the wind, creating a second shelter, a cave. A third wing rose up from its back, offering more protection around the bend, and yet another unfolded beyond that.

Some unfamiliar emotion sparked faintly within Jorn’s heart, but he growled, snuffing it out. While it seemed the creature was offering refuge, Jorn knew better. He was a Cent Regus hunter. This monster would make an easy meal of him, just as it would surely devour the boy. What is more, to accept would be a sign of weakness.

In a surge of pride, Jorn began to back slowly away, then turned and bounded into the storm.

When the ale boy opened his eyes, the world was white, the storm’s mission complete. He did not know how long he had slept. The pearly light gave no clue as to the sun’s position.

He got to his feet and stared up the slope he had sought to climb. The dark overhang that had sheltered him was gone, as if the storm had carried it away. The only trace of his salvation was the smear of ash on the snow before him. He got to his feet and surveyed the landscape.

“When a rocky hillside disappears, where does it go?” he asked. He turned and stared back toward the Cragavar, which was invisible in the fog.

A beastman appeared, striding across the snow.

The boy collapsed. “Why?” he whimpered. “ ’Ralia, why? Why is it ending like this? After all you told me, I’m going to be supper for a beastman?”

He narrowed his eyes. The approaching figure looked just like the beastman Cyndere had sketched on the wall. The one who had let him escape.