Winter, White and Wicked - Shannon Dittemore Page 0,104

did. For me.” Kyn’s eyes are wine and rage. They’re passion and loss. They’re flame, the embers of a fire that could die as easily as catch. “She made us swear.”

“She made you swear?”

“A Paradyian covenant,” he says. “It’s a sacred thing and I will not violate it.”

I search the feelings between us, looking for weakness, for a way forward, but Kyn’s decided. He won’t let me touch Hyla.

I sag against the Dragon, not sobbing, but tired. I’m sick and angry and so heartbroken I could crawl into the earth, pull the mountain down around me, and sleep like the Shiv lost beneath the ice.

“Hyla was a Paradyian warrior,” Kyn says, kneeling, looking me in the eye. “A soldier of the highest order. It is honorable to die in battle. It is noble to give your life fighting alongside your friends. She counted you among her friends, Sylvi. She didn’t want her life to be a burden to you.”

“Kyn, please.”

“No, Sylvi,” he says, his face more stone than I’ve ever seen it. “She made us swear.”

CHAPTER 27

The ground is still prickling with whatever magic Mars used to freeze the Abaki. I don’t know if it would have been enough to keep the climbers off the road, but I can feel the electricity in my feet as we work. We haven’t seen another monster since Hyla.

Kyn moves Mars into the sleeper, and, while I crawl under the Dragon to get a better look, he wraps Hyla’s body in blankets and makes room for her in the trailer. It’s not proper; she deserves better. But a respectable send-off will have to wait until we reach the camp.

The trailer door slides shut and the lock clicks into place—I hear it echoing off the wet ground. When I climb out from beneath the trailer, Mars’s satchel is hanging around Kyn’s neck and he’s standing bare-armed in the wind. I wish he hadn’t gone through both jackets. He doesn’t feel the cold like I do, but there’s something malicious in this squall. I’m about to offer Drypp’s old spare again, but he’s wrapped so fully in Hyla’s loss, I realize it’s almost stifling. He doesn’t need a coat. His suffering is deeper than flesh.

“It’s my fault,” I say. “I shouldn’t have run down the Abaki.”

He blinks. His lashes soft against the stone. “It’s my fault,” he says. “The axe never would have been on the road if I hadn’t handed it to the monster.”

Winter is doing her best to blow us into the sea. I don’t have the energy to pick a fight with her just now, but it’s brewing. I let her push at me, the clouds overhead bumping along, full of drink.

Blys is coming.

“You were right,” I tell Kyn. “It’s the radiator.” I hold up the shattered remnants of a femur. “Punched a hole right through it. Our antifreeze is all over the road.”

He nods, his gaze wandering away, over the sea, settling somewhere far beyond me. I watch him for a minute, watch what he does as the scene with Hyla rolls like thunder through his mind. The crumbling rock. The axe. His muscles burning. The sensations are hard and fast—they take my breath away—but his face doesn’t alter.

I reach out and set a finger on the satchel resting against his sternum, trace the outline of the trailer key pressed against the leather.

“Tell me it was worth it,” I say.

His eyes drop to my hand.

“Tell me that whatever it is we’re hauling is worth all the carnage we’re leaving behind. Tell me it’s worth Hyla’s life and the lives of the Shiv set ablaze out on the Desolation.” My words are hard enough, so I keep my voice soft. “I may never be able to return home, and if I do, there’s no guarantee it’ll be with Lenore at my side. Things will never be the same for any of us. Please tell me this haul is worth it.”

He blinks, long and slow. He’s too full of questions to have an answer.

I drop my hand but he catches it, presses my palm to his chest. “Please. Just stand here with me.”

A flash of memory—windows shattering, Mistress Quine staring.

Kyn squeezes my hand, concern replacing his stolid expression. “What is it?” he asks. “What’s wrong?”

It takes me a moment, my eyes on his hand, on his stone knuckles and the etching I still don’t understand. It’s different, I know. This is different. But: “The last man who grabbed my hand and made me touch