Winter, White and Wicked - Shannon Dittemore Page 0,25

prints, see? All toes, no heels. It’s how I found her that day. But I was slow, my legs aren’t what they used to be. The rig almost devoured her.”

The rig did almost devour her, but it was her own fault. She should not have been in the road. I don’t dare speak though, the pain still fresh in my mind.

More wheezing from somewhere beyond the fire, but my attention is settled irrevocably on Shyne’s knotted fingers. They tap slowly, one after the other, on the rock pressing on my chest. Every tap is a hammer chiseling fear into my rib cage.

“I would like to have this stone removed,” he says. “So we can talk. But you must promise me something.”

He raises his brows and suddenly he reminds me of Drypp, wanting a confession for the missing bottle of rum. But I can say nothing—confess to nothing—pinned this way.

I attempt to raise my own brows. To what success, I cannot say. My eyes are watering, stinging, closing.

“You must not use the Kerce language here in our home,” he says. “You must not use your magic.”

I don’t even have the energy to move my head. To nod or decline. A tear leaks from the corner of my eye and races down my temple and into my ear.

“You must not.”

Two men flank him now, their silhouettes blurred and hazy. My eyes flutter and I drift. Something changes then, relief and pain flooding my lungs in equal measure.

I breathe deep but it hurts—the air like gravel as it scrapes its way home. It sets me coughing.

“Slowly, slowly,” Shyne says. “Give your lungs time to remember what it’s like to be full.”

I gasp and spit and wheeze, my chest burning, blood on my tongue, a cold sweat breaking out across my neck.

“You will not call for Winter. Not here.”

He’s waiting. Waiting for an answer that will steal the little air in my lungs. I’m reluctant to give it, to let him win, but he seems content to wait forever.

“I won’t . . . I don’t call her.”

A sound, deep and primal, curdles in his chest. “But Winter calls to you.” He crouches at my head and lifts the stones from my hands. “I’m going to have my men leave the ones on your legs. Just for now. I don’t want you moving too much.”

I want to sit up, I want to kick out, but I’m so grateful to have air again, I do nothing to jeopardize the small relief I’ve been given. My hands tremble and a chill clenches my stomach tight. My parka lays open but I’ve no strength to wrap my arms around myself.

The wheezing is heavy now, desperate. Shyne pulls his walking stick from the dirt and strides over to a body on the opposite side of the fire. The shadows shift and I see Kyn, eyes bulging, veins taut in his neck.

“Sylvi,” he gasps.

The rock on his chest is much larger than the one I had on mine and, atop it, perched like a finch too stupid to seek warmer skies, sits Crysel.

“Get off him,” I say.

“He just needs to sleep.” The stubborn tilt of her chin is familiar. It’s me at that age. Not mean, but brash. It’s terrifying on her sweet face.

Shyne kicks the bottom of his walking stick, hard, and it connects with Kyn’s temple. His eyes shut and his head lolls and the wheezing falls to silence.

Crysel leans forward, peering into Kyn’s face. “He breathes, Sessa. He will be all right.”

But every breath is a fight. They rattle and hiss as his lungs work to survive.

“Get off,” I gasp, pleading with the girl. “Get off. Please.”

“His rocks are for more than confinement,” Shyne says, but Crysel slinks off the stone and disappears into the shadows.

Shyne backs slowly toward the cave wall, settling onto an outcropping of stone. The fire plays off his face, shadows falling into the age lines cut there, deepening them until he looks so like the rock behind him, it’s only the sheen of his eyes that tells me he’s man and not stone.

“Do you know why the Ranger was here that day? The man they call Leff?”

“I think so.” The words send me into a coughing fit that burns my throat and jabs at my insides. My ribs are cracked, I’m sure of it, but there’s nothing resembling remorse on Shyne’s face.

He picks at his fingers while I recover. I take my time, my mind spinning again with the revelation. “The barrels,”