Winter, White and Wicked - Shannon Dittemore Page 0,22

lifting into the cold air, smell the sweat freezing on their skin. Kyn releases me and we both raise our guns. I don’t want to fire this gun up here, I don’t want to shoot anyone, but Winter is worming her way up my chest, spreading out along my arms, tightening my finger on the trigger.

DANGER, she says.

She’s just trying to keep me safe, but my hands are shaking with nerves and cold and again the girl’s face flashes clear and bright in my mind. I shouldn’t be here. I’m afraid I’ll do something I can’t undo. I work to pull my finger away, sliding it slowly out of the trigger guard.

“We’re not here to cause trouble,” I say to the Shiv man who’s not four feet from the end of the rifle. He’s not as dark as Kyn, but his skin is brown, the stone like milk spilled across his face, patches of white rock on his elbows and knees. A triangular gold medallion hangs against his thin chest, but despite his brittle frame, he spins the walking stick in his hand and jabs it deep into the snow.

“Why have you returned?” he asks me, his words clear if menacing. He’s speaking in the common tongue. The language of the Majority.

“You know him?” Kyn asks.

I shake my head.

“I did not think you were stupid enough to venture this way again.”

My throat is tight, sweat breaks out along my spine. “I mean no harm.”

“We’re just passing through,” Kyn answers.

The old man blinks at him and turns back to me. “You cannot leave.”

“The gun says I can.”

And then it’s not in my hand any longer and my fingers are stinging. A rock flung from somewhere nearby.

“You cannot leave,” he says, leaning onto his stick.

In the strange stillness of the sacred memorial, I hear Hyla cock her weapons. Two Shiv children have emerged from the brush.

“Back up,” she growls.

The children carry their weight on their fingertips and toes as they creep toward Mars. A girl and a boy. The boy is a younger version of the man with the staff, the white stone running along his spine and across his forehead.

I try not to look too hard at the girl. But I see her nonetheless. I see her everywhere.

Hyla steps toward the children, but they continue forward. She fires a warning shot that sends snow flying inches from their fingers.

“Don’t,” I say, panic rising in my chest. “Hyla, let them be.”

“They will not approach Mars, Sessa. Not while he is like this.”

“We’re leaving,” I say to the Shiv, my voice remarkably steady. “We’re just passing through.”

He twists the walking stick in his hands. “You stay and we will grant your companions safe passage.”

I feel the confusion on my face. It’s unlike the Shiv to be so accommodating. “Why would you let them pass?”

But I don’t get an answer. His mouth moves but only squeaking gasps of air cross his lips. He turns his face to Hyla—no, to Mars. And though his chest is heaving, his eyes bulging, he manages a quick nod of his head. Stones fly from the hands of his companions once again.

But Mars is on his feet, Winter pulling him upright. Blood blackens his face but there’s magic on his tongue. It sounds like the chip of a hammer on solid ice.

The ground shakes, icicles ringing as they fall from the frozen trees. Two Shiv fall from their hidden perches. Then three. Hyla fires into the cold and blood marks the snow. I reach out, try to grab the guns from her hands.

We just need to go.

A stone hits me in the gut and I double over, only to take another to my shoulder. But Kyn grabs my belt and lifts me back to my feet.

“Get to the rig!” he yells in my face. “Go!”

I grab his sleeve and reach out for Mars and Hyla. I’m leaving this place and I’m taking them all with me. But we’re too far away and Kyn is pulling my hand. We manage two steps before the mountain skitters and I lose my footing. A plate of ice shifts somewhere high above and my gut clenches tight, my head spinning.

Last Ryme, a bar fight broke out at Drypp’s. Roughnecks with too much beer and not enough road to truck. A man was thrown into the wine rack and the mess was unbelievable. It took Lenore and me all night to get the tavern back in order after that brawl. All that spilled wine,