Winter, White and Wicked - Shannon Dittemore Page 0,81
the whites should be.
“You’re tired,” I say.
He raises a single brow. “I’m not the only one.”
I turn my gaze back to the road. “I’ll sleep at North Bend. It’ll cost us a few hours, but the Seacliff Road is a different kind of dangerous and I shouldn’t try it with my eyes closed. Not the first time.”
“You’ve never been this far north?”
“Not on the Shiv Road.”
“How far have you been?”
“There’s a road just south of the river crossing. To the west there are a series of Majority mining camps. Nothing big like Hex Landing, but the miners need food and supplies just the same. I’ve run a haul out to them a few times. Beyond that, there’s little reason to be out this far.”
His nod is simple and quiet. He’s more inviting when he’s exhausted.
“I didn’t realize the kol in your blood could be used up.”
He leans toward the front seats, looking at his face in the mirror. With his index finger he draws a thin line beneath one eye and then the other. “It restores itself,” he says, his voice ragged. “But the rate at which it does so is not at all consistent.”
It’s a dangerous question I’m about to ask, but I have to know. “And your body? Does it restore itself too?”
“Much like yours.”
“The kol, then.” I swallow, look down at the knuckles I’d bloodied punching the dash. Whole now, the busted skin new and pink. “I thought it was Winter all along. Healing me.”
“She doesn’t do that. I did tell you.” That reprimand again, so like Mystra Dyfan. But then he softly adds, “The covenant Winter made with the queen of the Kerce—the kol keeps her bound to that. Three hundred and twenty-five Rymes ago and Kerce descendants still share a measure of it.”
“And what of Mystra Dyfan’s limp?” I ask. “How do you explain that?”
“It’s been three centuries and the Kerce have intermarried. There were so few Kerce who survived the journey and even fewer who survived Winter. When the Majority arrived . . . I do not blame the Kerce for seeking comfort, for marrying where they loved. But, as a consequence, few have enough kol in their blood to do more than decipher Winter’s whispering. Some can’t even do that. And none have the power to do what needs to be done.”
“To send Winter away. To banish her.”
A slow nod. “You have other gifts as well, Miss Quine. Gifts the Kerce don’t have.”
“You should sleep,” I say.
He’s silent, angry. But he’s tired.
“Seriously, Mars. We have, what? Four twyl blossoms left? As it is, you’re the only one of us who’s guaranteed a clear mind out on the cliffs.”
“There are things you could do to remedy that,” he says. “Things you’ve already begun to explore.”
“The Seacliff Road isn’t a place to test your theories, Mars. We won’t see danger until we’re near on top of it.”
“Are you afraid of the kol monsters, Miss Quine?”
“Yes,” I say.
He nods and meets my gaze.
“Good.”
“Please, sleep.”
He leans back and crosses his arms over his chest. I hit a pothole that forces my eyes back to the road, but when I check on him again a moment later, his eyes are closed. I can only hope they’ll be dark as a burned wick when he opens them.
The Dragon rattles on, over miles and miles of melting highway, the black sea in the distance filling my window. Slowly, maliciously. Soon my windshield will be nothing but waves of kol.
“Sylvi,” Kyn says, his breath warm on my ear. “Do you believe in truth?”
“What do you mean?”
“Right and wrong. Good and evil. Do you believe the world is as simple as all that?”
I think of Bristol and I think of Lenore. I think of Mars and I think of Drypp. I suppose I do believe in good and evil but that’s not what I say.
“I don’t really think about it.”
“What do you think about?”
“My next haul.”
“You’re a bad liar.”
“Sometimes I’m a good liar.”
“Not today.”
I sigh. “I believe that there is evil and I believe that there is good.” My eyes flick to Mars’s sleeping form. “I can’t always say which is which.” I shift, switch my grip on the wheel. “Maybe that’s why I like the road, why I like traveling alone. Out here . . . survival, coin, that’s all that matters. The rest is a luxury for those who don’t have to worry about either.”
He’s yawning again, his eyes closing. “One day, you’ll tell me something and it won’t be