Winter, White and Wicked - Shannon Dittemore Page 0,40

dropping my window down.

Kyn’s buffing protectant into the windshield, avoiding my gaze even though his face is only inches from mine. Hyla’s beneath the rig somewhere, fiddling with the tank tread. In my side mirror, I catch a glimpse of Mars’s arm as he disappears around the back of the rig. After a moment, the trailer’s roll-up door rattles on its track.

Checking the haul then.

It’s a good call. Especially if we’re hauling what I think we’re hauling.

I’m not stupid. The weight of the load, the shift of the trailer on the slick highway. It’s not so hard to guess what they’ve got locked away back there. But if this run goes bad, I need the privilege of claiming ignorance. It’s my only out with the Majority. And if there’s any possibility Leni and I get to keep the tavern and the garage after all this, I’m going to need an out.

Overhead the clouds shift, throwing light onto the Kerce Memorial, setting its colors aglow, and hijacking my thoughts. The storms of Ryme rage, the mountain shakes, and plates of snow crash down on top of it, but year after year, this impossible stack of rocks takes a beating and looks no worse for the wear. It’s like the entire Kerce people are scraping their cheeks at Winter.

The stories say she gave up some of her power to them and I don’t understand why.

Curse Mystra Dyfan for not being better at keeping me indoors. But she wasn’t the first who’d failed. When the teacher at the little mountain school had washed her hands of me, Drypp yielded to the old Kerce navigator who’d wandered into Whistletop one day and found, in me, the likeliest candidate for her tutelage.

Mystra Dyfan had approached Drypp many times before, but teaching children history was not allowed on Layce. We were to look to the future, to the prosperity of the Majority. But the idea of private tutoring appealed to his granddaughter, so Drypp agreed to let Mystra teach me the language and history of the Kerce on the condition that Lenore could take lessons as well.

As tedious as Mystra Dyfan was, escaping her rooms at the tavern was much easier than escaping the schoolhouse, and Leni was happier than she’d been in a long time. I kept my complaining to a minimum.

Mars opens the door and I realize I could ask him to finish the story Shyne began in the caves. I could ask him why Winter bargained away her power to the Kerce. I could ask him about the elder and his sylver eyes.

“I was born into the waters of Begynd, Sylver Quine. It is his light you see.”

That’s what he’d said. Almost like he believed Shyne’s theory that I too was born in the great pool. Like he expected me to see the truth of my birth reflected in his eyes. Instead, his answer fills me with questions I’ll never voice. Asking them feels too much like believing, and I promised Winter I wouldn’t do that.

“You all right, Miss Quine?”

“Yeah. Of course. Your haul?” I ask, cutting my eyes at Kyn.

He and Hyla are climbing past me now, jostling for room on the bench seat. Mars is next.

“A little shaken up,” he says, sliding the trailer key into the medicine bag around his neck and slamming the door, “but no permanent damage.”

“Like the rest of us then.” I twist the key in the ignition and the Dragon roars to life. The incline is slick and I ease her slowly toward the highway. I press my hand to the dash; the thrum of the engine churns beneath my fingers. She’s all right. There’s a rattle under the hood—a belt that will need replacing, but the repair can wait until we’re on safer ground.

I lift my hand to the windshield and press a sliver of glass back into place. The repellent grabs it and I smooth it flat, sealing out a tendril of icy air biting at my fingers. It’s going to cost me a fortune to replace the windshield—but it should hold for now. So long as Mars and Winter can play nice.

The smuggler is far too proud of himself after mimicking the mountain skitter so perfectly—puffed chest, chin high, almost relaxed here in the cab. I don’t know what I expected, but anger seems most appropriate. At the Shiv for attacking him, for damaging the rig, for slowing us down. But for all the animosity between the Shiv and the Kerce, he’s strangely