Chapter Twenty-Eight

After Esbern, travel became slow, the way winding and steep. Fog blew in from the ocean, heavy and thick, causing water droplets to bead along our noses, our lashes, muting the rolling shapes of hills, the jagged cut of the coast.

I destroyed Stefan’s letters, had torn them to pieces and fed them to the wick of a whale oil lamp, but his words still danced circles through my head. Minister of trade is dead. King and queen under arrest. Territory of Volgaard. Fear the Sanok Isles will collapse.

I just needed to do better.

Erik pulled up on his reins, stopping along the rocky edge of Troll’s Finger. The ravine cut through the island of Saeby like a seam, black as soil, black as lead.

I stopped Buttercup beside him, the cold cutting straight to my bones, the fog rolling so shimmery and thick, I could taste it. “The bridge?”

There should be a bridge here. There were the fuzzed outlines of two posts, jutting up from the earth like monuments, there was the sign. Crossing.

But the bridge…

The bridge…

Signey dismounted and strode to the posts. She fingered the bridge’s ends, snapped and fraying, disappearing over the side of the cliff and into the valley below.

“Out,” she said.

I steadied Buttercup and blinked through the heavy fog. “The map says there’s another. It’s not too far.”

The next bridge was out too.

Signey didn’t even bother to dismount this time. “Out again,” she said, her voice flat. Her white-gold braids hung limp around her face. Her lips pulled into a scowl. “So much for getting to the other half of the island.”

“It might be a trap,” Bo said. “The bandits could try to drive us inland.”

Kaspar rubbed the back of his neck “Are we sure the bridges haven’t been washed out from the—”

Buttercup wandered off to nibble a cluster of fennel, making me miss the end of his sentence.

“Come on,” I said, trying to guide her back to the group. We’d gotten good at this game, which I’d dubbed the eat-pull game. She would eat, I would pull. She’d eat harder, I’d pull harder. Eventually, one of us would give up.

It was usually me.

“This is a bad time to be hungry,” I said. “We’re missing the plan. Do you want me to abandon you?”

In response, Buttercup snorted and wandered to the ravine’s edge, where a cluster of dewy fronds sprouted like whiskers. Mist muted them to a blackish-green, fuzzed their edges like a drop of paint suspended in water.

“Okay. You’re right, that was an empty threat. Let’s get back.”

Another snort, this one coupled with a flick of her yellow tail.

Fine. She’d won. In two minutes, Erik would come get us.

I adjusted my legs so they hugged Buttercup’s belly and pressed my palms against the base of her neck. I could return to my original plan: befriending them. But the jewelry box… I’d felt something when I’d held it. Maybe I needed to figure out what it was. The only issue: Signey had never taken it out in front of me. Did I need to—

From the corner of my eye, a flick of moment. There, then gone.

I squinted through the sheet of gray and white, searching for that flick and… There. Something dangled down the far side of the ravine, a little lighter than the rocks.

Something…something…

I squinted harder, mist weaving the thing in and out from view like a pair of hands.

Ba-dum, ba-dum .

A rope.

Not the fraying rope of a cut bridge, but a new one, the palest tan. It hung stiff.

Was someone trying to drive us into the ravine?

Buttercup nosed a thistle weed growing over the ledge. The weed bumped out of her reach. She nosed it again. Another bump out of reach.

“Guys,” I called. “Come look at this.”

Buttercup nickered and edged forward, stretching her neck into the abyss. One clop as she readjusted her footing. Two. She bent her front knees, tilted her whiskered chin…

“Guys?” I said again.

Three things happened at once.

Buttercup screamed. My heart flipped. The rock dropped out from under us.

Everything blurred, a rush of cold. I grabbed the saddle, my bags banging my knee.

Rock and grit poured down the mountainside, engulfing flowers and bushes that grew from splits in the stone. Below, the river rushed, and we were going to—

Hoof met rock as Buttercup found her footing. Her sides heaved.

I glanced around.

The air was colder here, moist like the sea, but with the stagnant stench of limpets and old shells. Fog rolled down the sheer cliffs like clouds, swallowing flowers and grass and bushy-tailed mice that darted in and out of the underbrush. Petrels swooped in and out of high nests.

“Are you okay?” Bo shouted, his voice faint.

“Yes.” My heart pounded. I tried to pull Buttercup in the right direction, but she shook her head and pranced in place, yanking the fistfuls of mane from my grasp.

“Come back up,” Bo said.

“Working on it.”

Buttercup whinnied and pranced again, her hooves ringing over the rocks.

“You on your way?”

I gritted my teeth, tried to swallow the tears. “No. She’s—We’re stuck.”

A pause. “Okay. Erik’s coming down.”

From above, a horse’s nicker and a clack as a few loose stones tumbled down the cliff.

A minute later, the blue-black shape of Erik and his horse appeared. He stopped a few feet ahead, mist clinging to his shirt, white and open at the throat. His knees hugged the animal’s body.

“You’re okay.” He scrubbed a hand over his face and glanced toward the sky. “You’re okay.”

He clucked his tongue and spurred his horse closer, the relief slipping into the hardness of a general addressing his troops. “You can’t take your feet out of the saddle. Ever . And you have to be more forceful with her. She doesn’t make decisions. You do. You have to— Isabel. Isa— Don’t— Stay on your horse.”

“I’m done,” I said, scrambling off. Fog billowed around my ankles. My boots slipped against the gritty cliff face. “Buttercup and I had a good run, but I’ll walk.” I pulled my bag down and threw it over my shoulder. My hands shook.

“You can’t wa— Isabel! ” He dismounted and caught my wrists. “Will you at least ride Buttercup until we get out?”

A mouse crinkled through the underbrush. A few rocks clacked into the rushing river at the ravine’s bottom. I should be brave, shouldn’t show that this had gotten to me, but Hans was dead, and the minister was dead, and Katrina was probably going to die, and our home was gone, and all those things were gathered storms and they pressed against my teeth like a kettle screaming.

“No.” My voice cracked.

Please don’t look at me. Please don’t notice how close I am to breaking.

I’m not breaking.

I’m breaking.

The kettle screamed. I pressed a hand to my mouth, splayed my fingers against my lips, tried to hold it all in, but it wasn’t enough and it was coming out, water bubbling over.

Erik’s eyes flicked between Buttercup and his dappled gray. “Fine.” He dropped my wrists and started adjusting the straps on his saddle.

“What are you doing?”

“Putting you on Helhest. With me.”

“I don’t want to ride with you.” He was my enemy, and I shouldn’t, I shouldn’t—

“You can’t walk.”

“You can’t stop me.”

He grabbed my arm and pulled me to the side. “Hey,” he said. Then softer, “Hey.” He laced his hands through mine and pinched the soft skin between my thumb and forefinger. “Can you breathe? Good. Take deep breaths.”

“That’s a pressure point—”

The corner of his lip quirked. “For stress and panic attacks, I know.” He adjusted his fingers, drawing me closer. His gray eyes found mine, so steady. His hands were warm, and his body was warm. It shouldn’t be calming, but it was, and I wanted to cry. “Keep breathing, Isabel. Good. It’s okay. I have you. You’re safe with me. Just breathe.” He modeled a breath in and out. “Now, I’m going to explain the situation to you like you’re one of my men. I’m not trying to talk down to you, it’s just how I think about things. Several bridges are out. It means that someone is trying to lead us somewhere. Into the ravine or along it, I don’t know. Right now, we need to rejoin the others.”

His thumb smoothed my knuckle and his eyes didn’t leave my face. “If you don’t want to ride Buttercup, that’s okay. It really is. You can ride Helhest. But I can’t have you walk. If there was a confrontation, it’s better if we’re not on f—”

At that moment an arrow whizzed through the air and cracked off the rock behind us.

Erik whirled, his eyes wide.

The ravine went quiet. Knife quiet. Cat quiet. No rustle of mice. No call of birds.

He turned back to me. “Isabel. We need to—”

Another crack, another whizz. Erik’s body lurched forward, one shoulder twerking over the other. He flung his arms around my neck.

A feathered-tip arrow stuck out of his back, the fletching dark as ink. Something warm and sticky dripped over my hands. Blood? His blood. His weight sagged against me.

The shadows of men stepped from the swirling mist, eight of them with broad shoulders and wide-set eyes.

Whoever had been following us earlier?

They’d found us.

I shoved it all back, the things too big to hold, too large to name. “We have to go,” I said, hauling Erik over the rocks, back toward the others.

Erik murmured something, his head lulling. Smoke curled around us, spilling from him the way steam spills from a kettle, and suddenly, we were invisible, my hands, my feet, Erik.

The world spun and I couldn’t see him, but I could feel the press of him, the weight of him, the warmth of his body, the warmth of his blood seeping down my hand, sticky like honey. He leaned his face into my neck.

“They’re still out there,” one of the bandits called. His voice echoed off the high walls of the ravine, everywhere and nowhere.

A volley of arrows clattered against the rocks, some skidding off stone and rolling into the river below.

A second bandit clucked his tongue. “Come out, little mice. Come out and play.”

Erik and I scooted over the rocks, invisible boots, scraping over grit. His weight pressed against me, threatening to drag me down. How was he so heavy?

“I know you’re there,” the second bandit called.

Erik groaned. His arm dug into the back of my neck. I couldn’t hold him, couldn’t hold him, and—

There was my boot, my hand.

I glanced up.

And Erik. His head lulled, eyelids fluttering, skin cool and ashen. Sweat sheened his brow. Shock. He was going into shock. And—

We were surrounded by trees, then snow, then a thousand horses thundering on a rain-slick plane. A castle. Ghosts. A chest spilling rubies. And there was Kaspar, scrambling down the mountain toward us.

“Do something,” I shouted, hoisting Erik higher. “ Do something! ”

Another spray of arrows. Something sharp tore my ear. A pop. A burst. White pain and warmth. Had I been hit?

We were fuzzing in and out of visibility, my feet whiskering like rain, like smoke, like flowers wavering on moonlit bluffs.

Kaspar dismounted his steed. “Help me lift him.”

“How many men can you hold an illusion for?” I asked, blinking hard. My ear throbbed. Something hot oozed down my neck.

“Sixteen,” Kaspar said. “But I have to see them.”

Shit. There were at least one, two… Maybe eleven of them? The fog made it impossible to tell.

Where was Bo? Where was Signey?

A horse’s scream, a whinny. The clang of steel up above. We could run back up to them, but we’d be exposed. Signey could hold for twenty-eight, but Erik—

The illusion wavered, spilling into mountains, markets, wheat fields crushed under a blue-black sky, images so frayed and tattered, the real world and the false one transposed over each other.

My eyes strained against the sheets of white, trying to make out the river rushing below. There was no way we’d be able to lift Erik onto Kaspar’s horse under this sort of fire, but if we could make it to the bottom of the ravine, we could shelter behind some of the bigger boulders.

“Erik, stop. Stop .” I gave him a hard jostle. “You’re making it worse.”

“There they are,” a bandit shouted. “Down there!”

Another volley of arrows clattered off the cliffs.

Erik’s body jerked forward. He let out an oof , his weight coming down hard against me.

“Down to the river,” I told Kaspar. “Let’s go.”

Kaspar scraped a hand through his hair. “What? Not back to Bo and Signey?”

“You think Signey can see?”

“You think you can see?”

I couldn’t. But I’d splashed around the Colt enough times to know the biggest boulders were always at the bottom. The Colt wasn’t the same as Troll’s Finger, but—

“If I find a place for you and Erik to hide, I’ll run up and show them the way down,” I said. “We go in three, two—”

Another spray of arrows.

We ran. Ran, ran, ran, our boots slipping over the stones, down a path that really wasn’t a path, white fog parting around us. The river rushed, the shapes of boulders sprung up from the earth.

I pulled Erik into the shallows, freezing water splashing up the back of our legs, my skirt swirling. We crouched behind the biggest one.

The river rushed, black water barely visible through the fog.

“I thought you were going to wait until one,” Kaspar said. He twisted and glanced at the arrow protruding from his thigh. “Thanks for that.”

Blood trickled down my neck. I touched my ear, my fingers coming away bright red. So, I had been hit. How bad was it?

“Next time,” Kaspar continued, “if you don’t say ‘one,’ I’m going to—”

“I’m sorry,” I hissed. “Would you rather we stick around and get shot?”

“I got shot!”

“Little mice,” the bandit’s voice echoed, too close. “I know you’re down here. There’s nowhere for you to go, nowhere for you to hide.”

I peeked around the boulder’s edge. The world was empty, a sea of white. Up above, more clambering. A shout? Signey?

A shadow seemed to detach from the fog like a fly, unfurled and stretched into the shape of a man, dark hair, dark bones. He smiled, a scar that split his lip. A red armband fluttered around his bicep. His left eye drooped.

“You’re wounded.” He said the words simply, as if he were talking to a child. “You’re hurt. You can’t hide forever.”

Erik’s hand tightened around my shoulder. “An…ight…” he murmured into my hair.

“What?” I asked.

“I can…fight.” The words were slurred, heavy like he was drunk. “Help me…stand.”

“You can’t fight, you’re in no position to—”

But Erik was already pushing himself up, the warmth of his presence disappearing. He staggered into the open, the white roar of the water rushing around his legs, his lips blueish, skin so pale.

“Ah,” the bandit said. “There you are.”

Erik raised a hand, his fingers splayed and the earth rumbled. “I don’t know…who you are. Or why…you’ve been…following us.”

The ground split, the space between them opening into a chasm.

Erik’s lip twisted into a snarl as his fingers twitched. “But it ends here.”

Bugs streamed out of the chasm, beetles and moths, a black and writhing mass that swarmed the bandit, his nostrils, his throat.

“Hey,” called one of his comrades. “Are you—”

Erik twerked his hand.

The mass of bugs separated, cleaved in two, and flew at the second bandit, encircling him, eating him.

Their screams echoed off the ravine walls, and they clawed their eyes, their chests, their necks. Burning. It looked like they were burning, the bugs pluming off them like smoke.

They were screaming, screaming, screaming, and then, they weren’t.

Two bodies hit the ground with a smack.

Erik turned to me, his hand still raised, the mass of insects roiling behind him. His eyes burned black as hollows, black as pits.

They found me, and something in his stance softened. “Isabel,” he said.

And collapsed face first into the water.