Quinn suspected she’d lose the two girls if they didn’t find the Ciseans soon.
She also knew better than anyone, they wouldn’t find them until they wanted to be found. She just hoped that she looked like she used to so that they would recognize her. She still wasn’t sure how long she’d been in the dark realm, but if she could get the kids to the Ciseans, she might be able to dreamwalk long enough to get an answer out of Draeven.
As it was the bastard barely slept, and the few times she’d tried to contact him, she hadn’t been able to. Neiss suspected he was avoiding her intentionally and Quinn had to agree, but as long as Lord Sunshine did his job that was what mattered.
That and keeping her return to the world of the living from Lazarus.
Behind her, there was a thump followed by a muffled cry. Quinn didn’t need to look to know what had happened. Still, she turned.
“Get up,” she said softly.
The little girl looked up. Her skin was sunken in and her eyes bloodshot, yet dull. Any shine her silver hair might have had faded in the week they’d been traveling.
“I . . .” The child tried to answer, but the water gathering at her lids said more than the words. Quinn grit her teeth. She might be cold-hearted and cruel, but this was not a suffering she could revel in.
Not when she understood all too well.
“Get up,” Quinn said again. “You have to.”
None of the other children said anything, but their gazes were somber. They’d all lived in N’skara. They knew the signs of frostbite, exhaustion, and starvation. It was a deadly combination, and when water was also limited, it was all but certain. The only question was how long they all truly had.
“I-I’m . . . sorry,” the girl breathed. Her full lips were chapped. Quinn pressed her own together as she watched the girl tremble on her knees in the woods.
Without saying anything, she walked back and picked her up, hooking one arm around her back and one underneath her knees. The shaking didn’t stop, but they had to keep going.
All of them except Quinn would fall to the wilderness eventually if they didn’t find the Cisean tribes.
Quinn carried the girl up the mountain all day. Leviticus’ eye rose and descended, but she didn’t stop and neither did the children she led. They’d reached a point where it was easier to keep going because whenever they did stop, it was harder to start again. Quinn adjusted her pace and kept at it.
The trees thinned the further they went. So did the air.
The chittering of animals started somewhere around late afternoon, signaling to her just how far they’d truly gone.
But it was only when she heard the softest of roars that Quinn paused and took notice.
Water.
Running water.
She took a sharp turn right, deeper into the woods, where the sounds of squirrels and cawing from the birds grew quiet once more. But the roar from the water grew loud.
The children following in her wake picked up speed, seeming to have finally realized what she heard and where they were headed.
She moved around a boulder that had fallen from the rock face and saw it.
A stream no wider than three feet, running over rocks with crisp, clear water.
The children moved to run for it.
And that’s when they descended.
Quinn felt it only moments before they dropped down from the overhang.
Like shadows, they emerged in a dark blur. Men the size of beasts landed quietly as the rustling of leaves despite their size. Quinn didn’t move, and neither did the children. Their eyes grew round as they took in the leathers and cloaks made from the pelts of dead animals.
They still wore masks of skulls with the jaws unhinged and carried spears as tall as her.
“Eum chaka riek faerr mar.”
You have trespassed on our borders.
Last time she heard that, she didn’t know what it meant. Now she did.
“Hayr chaka vurd kaeverkn,” she called out.
I come as a friend to the tribes.
It was the same thing Lazarus had said. She hoped that hadn’t changed. The truth of the matter was that Quinn came here because it was either here or Ilvas, and she figured between the two that Thorne would be more likely to take the kids and not exploit them as Imogen might. Assuming there was still a treaty. Still peace. That the man she once served and planned to return to was still allies with this tribe.
Quinn waited as the chanting she hadn’t noticed this time stopped.
The layers of men peeled back as one in particular came forward.
He stopped in front of Quinn and raised his hand to the wolf skull he wore, removing it from his head. It dropped to the ground, the only sound in the silence.
Quinn’s lips parted.
“Vaughn?” she asked in surprise. A strange warmth ran through her chest at seeing the mountain man once more. He didn’t say anything, but instead drew her to his chest, even as she held the girl between them.
“You came back,” he said in Norcastan, his voice thick with emotion.
“As it turns out, there are ways around death if you try hard enough,” Quinn answered vaguely.
He smelled of mint and the mountain air. She breathed it in, and her chest tightened, thinking of another man that she wanted to see. To embrace.
Both Draeven and Vaughn were shaken to their core at seeing her, and not for the first time, she wondered if Lazarus would be too.
When Vaughn released her, the shock had faded in his face. A somberness took its place.
“Much has happened,” he said solemnly.
She nodded. “More than you probably know. We have a lot of catching up to do. Am I still welcome among your people?”
A light entered his eyes, despite the heavy words.
“The she-wolf will always be welcome in Cisea.”
Internally, Quinn breathed a small sigh of relief, though it was short-lived.
She might be welcome, which meant the alliance hadn’t dissolved . . . but that still left the question on what exactly Vaughn was doing back here when he’d been an emissary to Lazarus. War was coming and Lazarus would need them.
Quinn took in the short growth of his beard and the youthfulness still present in his face. He still had an innocence about him despite being older than her. At least he was before her time in the dark realm . . .
“Vaughn, I have to ask. How long has it been since I died?”
He looked at her not with pity, but with sadness. “Seventy-three days.”
Quinn tilted her head back to the sky so that they wouldn’t see her expression.
Seventy-three days. Hardly any time at all had passed here, but in the dark realm it had been years. She hadn’t thought to count it because she never thought she’d be leaving. Quinn came to terms with her death. She’d accepted it.
And then Risk came for her and made a deal.
Seventy-three days . . . while it felt as if no time had passed since she left Mazzulah’s side, she also knew that for Risk it would be a lifetime. It bothered her now that she walked away. That she left her there. It needed to be done for so many reasons, and yet Quinn couldn’t help the sliver of guilt that her sister would not be the same when she came back out.
All she could hope was that it would be for the better.
Or perhaps the worst.
In some ways, they were the same.
Chapter 16