Palace of Silver (The Nissera Chronicles #3) - Hannah West Page 0,63

emotions and dragged the boning knife, once again poorly suited to the task, along the rabbit’s flesh to skin it. When the animal was gutted and ready to cook, I turned around and found Navara still struggling to light her poorly assembled kindling.

“Let me,” I said, prying the flint stone and rock from her fingers and rearranging the kindling. When the fire caught and seemed healthy enough to need only a little tending, I barked, “Surely you can handle it from here,” and stalked back to the privacy of the rock shelter.

I’d barely reached its welcome shadow by the time a violent sob wrenched my body. I staggered into the shelter, dropping to my knees and issuing a silent scream.

How had an innocent life found itself the victim of a cruel, broken world?

Perennia. Perennia. Perennia. You’re gone.

A frigid wind swirled through the shelter, scattering leaves and carrying the taste of bitter winter, of snow and ice. I wept and wept, my shoulders shaking with sobs. I wept until I wretched up the berries and sunflowers seeds that had failed to sustain me, and wept even more, without holding back, refusing to care about the consequences of the stinging cold I was provoking.

When I woke, walls of glimmering ice surrounded me. The world sparkled in clean, pale colors.

Maybe I had died. This seemed like a faraway place, a place from a dream. I felt safe in this peaceful palace of silver.

But then I remembered Navara, the rabbit, my unrestrained power. I remembered weeping myself to sleep in a den of rocks in a foreign forest.

I gasped, realizing what I’d done, and my exhale clouded the air.

My aching bones creaked as I pushed myself up. The snow underneath me was deep enough to drown my ankles as I stalked toward the mouth of the shelter and ducked to pass through, looking at the world on the other side in disbelief.

Glittering, white winter cloaked the forest. A frozen creek cut through clumps of fresh snow, and little flurries dusted down like powdered sugar.

“Navara?” I called. My voice echoed in the eerily quiet woods.

“I’m here,” she said hoarsely. I turned to find her huddled up under an icy ledge near the ghost of the campfire, shivering, her hair damp and clinging to her face.

“Are you all right? I’m so sorry.” I almost gathered her in my arms to warm her, but I realized I was soaked to the bone.

“You wouldn’t wake up,” she said reproachfully through chattering teeth. “When I tried to wake you, it got worse.”

“I’m sorry,” I repeated, softer.

“I saved you some of the rabbit.” She unwrapped what was left of the juicy meat on a stick, which she’d tried to shelter in a layer of her skirt. It must have taken a great deal of self-restraint not to devour what remained.

“Thank you.”

“Ambrosine will have no doubt we’re alive now,” she said.

I licked my lips and reached for the skewer of rabbit meat, hunkering down next to her. “I’m afraid not.” My teeth tore the flesh and the flavor burst on my tongue. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t think again until I’d finished the last bite.

“Do you know how far this spread?” I asked, gesturing.

“Much farther than I could go without worrying I’d get lost.”

“Maybe the sun will come out and melt it before anyone else sees,” I said optimistically, but I knew how powerful I was. I couldn’t help thinking of villagers who would have to strive to forage and hunt in this weather, their crops ruined and plans waylaid.

Not that we would be any better off than they were. I dreaded the inevitability of our tamed hunger roaring back in just a few hours.

“What do we do now?” Navara asked. She’d asked me the same question yesterday, but at the time, I had been focused on our most urgent needs. Now we had to face the inevitability that Ambrosine would hunt us down.

“You might be better off going it alone,” I said. “I can’t seem to lay low to save my life, and you’re the beloved princess. I’ll bring you to one of the outlying towns, where you’ll find a sympathetic soul to offer you food and shelter. You can hide out until this is finished.”

Navara glared at the fire. “No. We are supposed to go back and finish this. We are going to save my father and my kingdom, and avenge your sister’s death.”

The word death bit, stung, tormented.

“You’re not abandoning me like some useless rag,” she commanded, but her