Endure - Sara B. Larson Page 0,87

days’ time.

Assuming I survived that long.

I’d found a stream for Nia to drink from earlier in the day, and I’d replenished my flagon, but though Nia had found some dried-up leaves to munch on and a little bit of thin grass, there had been nothing for me to eat, except a few shriveled mushrooms at the base of a tree and a couple of hard, round nuts of some sort that seemed to have fallen from the tree itself. I was nervous to eat the mushrooms, not sure if they would be safe or not, but finally desperation won out, and I bit into one. It didn’t taste harmful, so I quickly ate the rest. But within a few hours, my stomach began to cramp, and I ended up stopping Nia so I could lean over and vomit my meager lunch back up again.

“Keep going, girl,” I murmured to her, half to keep myself from slipping into sleep and half to force my frozen lips to move. The cold was so intense; I’d never felt anything like it, not even on the coldest night in Dansii. The air had a crystalline feel to it, and the slate clouds that hung low in the sky, concealing the peaks of the mountain range in the distance, were different from any other clouds I’d seen before. I’d heard of snow, but I’d never seen it in person, except from a distance on the tops of the Naswais Mountains. I had a sinking feeling I was going to get firsthand experience with it very soon.

Nia dipped her head down as she reached the summit of one of the rolling hills, and I pulled back on her reins to let her pause and rest for a moment before continuing on to find somewhere we could sleep for the night. But when I looked down into the massive valley below us, my heart suddenly leaped into my throat, choking the breath out of me.

Hundreds of fires dotted the darkness with light. And in the distance, spreading across the far hills to the north of where Nia stood — hills that rose up into the massive mountain range — a huge city sprawled. It was a city full of people, judging from the tiny specks of glowing windows that gave the buildings a golden hue beneath the cloud cover. And rising above it all, built on an outcropping that jutted straight out from the base of the tallest mountain, stood a huge castle, its pearlescent walls so white, it was visible even in the darkness, even from all the way across the valley.

“Damian,” I whispered. Tears stung my eyes as I squeezed my ice-cold legs against Nia’s sides, urging her to hurry down the hill.

We’d made it. Somehow I’d done it. I’d escaped; I’d lived. And I’d made it back to him.

“Damian,” I repeated as Nia struggled down the steep, rocky path toward the valley below. Her hooves slid through the shale and rock, but she kept her footing and continued her stiff-legged descent toward the glowing fires and the thousands of tents that filled the valley.

I clutched the reins, sitting tall in the saddle and searching the darkness, straining to see if I could spot him, even though I knew it was irrational to hope that he would be staying on the outskirts of this tent city.

Nia picked up the pace the moment the trail began to level out slightly, as if she could sense my urgency, and trotted toward the massive camp.

It was so late, the fires were all burning low, and only a few shadowy bodies milled about while everyone else slept.

As soon as we reached the bottom of the trail, Nia broke into a full gallop, racing toward the tents.

A shout of alarm went up, but I didn’t care; I urged her to go even faster.

“Damian,” I cried out, quietly at first, then louder and louder, my voice rough with desperation. “Damian!”

The tents were only a few strides away when a Blevonese soldier on horseback rode into our path, lifting his sword, and shouted, “Halt!” in heavily accented Antionese.

I didn’t recognize him, so I wheeled Nia to the right and kicked my heels into her sides, leaning forward to knead my hands along her neck, urging her to go as fast as her legs would carry her. Let the soldier come after me; I didn’t care. If he was a sorcerer, he could try to stop me, but at least I knew he