Winter, White and Wicked - Shannon Dittemore Page 0,93

I refuse, collapsing again to the ice. If Mars notices, he doesn’t allow it to show on his carefully arranged face.

I’M HERE, I’M HERE, Winter whispers. LET ME HELP.

I reach up and take Mars’s hand instead, let him pull me to my feet.

“And the bike, Miss Quine? Shall I bring it?”

Winter’s already working up a protest because Mars means to fly.

“Leave it,” I say, refusing to meet his gaze. I hate losing anything of Drypp’s, but it’ll slow us down.

He wraps my waist with his arm and we lift into the air. It’s strange, the sensations warring within me. Winter disputing his command over her and yet entirely submissive to the words dripping from his lips. Tears stream down my own face now, but they’re not tears of pain or fear. I care little for Winter’s discomfort in this moment. They’re simply the result of the wind in my face. The force of it pushes me tight against Mars.

I can’t hear the Kerce words he’s whispering, but I can feel them in the rumble of his chest. They don’t cease, not for a moment. Words with so much power they compel the greatest force Layce has ever known into action. It strikes me then how little he’s used it—his power, his magic. More than I was initially comfortable with, sure. But as we soar over the Desolation, I can tell there’s so much more stored inside. I feel it in the tremor that shakes his entire body, in the thudding of his heart against my ear, in the rattling of kol inside his lungs. He could hurt Winter—he could. I wonder what it is that keeps him from doing just that.

“There,” I yell, “look.”

I’ve no idea if my words are loud enough to be heard over the wind, but Mars doesn’t slow. To the south, a flame flickers and grows on the ice. The Shiv are nothing but a thicket of shadows as they watch their dead rise into the gray sky. I can’t see their faces and I can’t hear their cries, but my heart breaks for their loss.

The Kerce words slow, the rumble in Mars’s chest growing faint before disappearing altogether. We’re dropping from the sky. The wind that held us so carefully is now unraveling, twisting away, shedding like the thick Ryme coat of a fox when the rains replace the ice. Winter sets us down roughly and our bones rattle as we strike the ground.

“Inside, Miss Quine,” Mars says, his breathing ragged. “Quickly.”

He takes my elbow and we run, but he stumbles and I turn, my own hand reaching out and grabbing his.

“You all right?” I ask. But I see he’s not. Kol dust is smeared across his chin, blisters cover his lips. His eyes have lightened again. Green irises are visible behind the shroud, a slick of sweat coats his face and neck.

“Go! My body will heal itself,” he says. “Kyn’s will not.”

He stands and shoves me toward the gaping mine with a strength I would not have guessed he had left in him. A cry makes its way out the yawning entrance and I sprint toward it. The bright white of the Desolation has left my eyes handicapped. Someone’s got the generator working, but the swinging yellow lights overhead are akin to darkness after where I’ve been, and my eyes blink and blink, trying to make sense of the shapes and sounds filling the cavern.

By the time I’ve zeroed in on the scene unfolding before me, Mars is there. Moving slowly, but near enough to pull me forward.

Kyn’s so still. Once again there are bloodied hashmarks across his chest, open puncture wounds on his neck where the Frost White latched on. Hyla holds his hand, grease and tears streaking her face.

“It’s your blood he needs,” Mars says.

But my dagger is already out, already sliding across my palm. I switch hands and with blood spilling over the bone handle, I slice open my other palm as well. The fall to my knees is sharper than the pain in my hands and Mars has to pull Hyla away from Kyn’s body as I inch forward.

“He’s gone,” I say, taking in Kyn’s ravaged face, feeling the absence of his emotion inside my own rib cage. “He’s already—”

“Your hands, Miss Quine.”

I press my hands to Kyn’s chest, our blood mingling on contact. And I feel everything, bright and wide and all encompassing. None of the sensations—the pain in my knees, the stinging bite of the slice across my