Ice Country(77)

Although I’m still catching up on fire country lingo, I’m pretty sure it’s a compliment.





Chapter Twenny-Nine





Kissing Skye doesn’t make my emotions any less frayed. If anything, it forces them even closer to the surface.

I want things to be normal, for Goff to be a distant memory, to get Jolie back, to get to know Skye. To really get to know Skye.

But that’s not where I’m at. That’s a dreamland, so far away that I’ll have to grab a passing cloud to get there.

We keep on traipsing through the forest, down, always down, until we reach the borderlands. With the air warming, Siena returned my coat a mile or so back, but it’s too hot to wear it now so I’ve got it draped over my shoulder.

Skye and I haven’t said a word since her comment about the kiss, but I’m glad for it. Words can only screw things up right now.

Fire country stretches out like an endless blanket of sand, while ice country rises up behind us like a ghost. And the two are stitched together by us, as if we’re the only link between two worlds.

“We’ll be back as soon as we can,” Wilde says.

Buff looks like he wants to do something, maybe hug her, but he just rocks back and forth awkwardly.

“We’ll be waiting,” I say, a promise I have little control over. Skye’s eyes are all over mine and I can tell we’re sharing memories, clinging to them like the branches of a tree that’s about to be chopped down.

“Fight like the Killer hounds of scorch are at your heels,” Siena says and I smile at her way with words.

“That’s just what we’ll do,” I say.

Circ thrusts a hand out and I shake it. Feve offers a firm nod, but it’s clear he’s ready to move on, to get back to his family.

As Skye moves in close, the others look away, already moving off into fire country, while Buff pretends to be looking at a bird at the very top of one of the border trees.

She whispers in my ear. “Find yer sister,” she says. “Find her and we’ll find you.”

“And then we’ll find your sister,” I say. Her cheek slides back against my skin and then she brushes her lips against mine, lingering for a second, causing my blood to flow and my emotions to swirl.

I grab the back of her head and pull her in, kissing her exactly the same way I kissed her before. We both come up gasping and open-mouthed.

That’s when a swarm of black swamps the edge of our vision.

“Skye,” I say, but the others have seen it too, are already running back toward us.

For a moment Skye and I just stare as the horizon fills with black, an avalanche of darkness, a single roiling mass, close to the ground, sending up clouds of dust all around them.

Dark like the tapestries on the palace walls; the dark men on dark horses, burning, burning everything, slaughtering Icers and the strange water riders as easily as if they were pulling leaves off a tree.

My first thought is: are they coming for us? But I shake that one away as quickly as it comes, because the black mass shifts to the right, turning, dust billowing behind them, as if marking their trail. They’re heading for…They’re heading for…

They’re heading for ice country.

“Oh, Heart,” I say.

“Who are they?” Skye asks, looking at me—looking right at me—like she expects me to know. Like I should know.

But I don’t. I don’t have a Heart-icin’ clue.

The others surround us, watching—nay, gawking—as the black horses gallop across the border, into the forest, their dark riders urging them on by sticking their heels into the horses’ sides. It’s not a friendly advance, like the Glassies coming to pay a visit, wandering silently up the mountainside. As the last of the dark men plunge into the woods, the sun catches the steel in their hands, glinting like silver coins in the distance.

Swords. The men are all carrying swords.

Ice country is under attack.





~~~





There’s no discussion, barely a word other than Go! and Run! as we charge back the way we came, back under the cover of the trees, back up the slope that seems to want to do anything to slow us down, seeming steeper and thicker with undergrowth than when we came down it in the first place.

Just by coming with us, the people of the Tri-Tribes have proven their mettle. They’re willing to help the Icers even at the risk of their own lives.

Even though we’ve got another couple hours before we reach the village, everyone who’s got a weapon has it out, ready, as if the dark men and their horses might be lying in wait to ambush us.

Buff, breathing heavy beside me, says, “What do they want?”

I don’t know, but if the tapestry was any indication of reality, there’s only one thing: “Blood,” I say.