When Dimitri releases me, the cold takes his place. It wraps its arms around me, digs its nails into my skin, and the sensation is so jarring, so counter to everything I wanted that I stagger back.
“You should go,” he says, matter of fact and to the point.
“Go?” Sai snorts. “They should stay. Their dorms are halfway across the castle. They’d be safer if they stayed here for the night.”
“That’s not what the captain said,” Dimitri growls, a muscle feathering along his jaw.
“Piss on a mage! Are you daft, boy?” Sai shouts, a disbelieving smile plastered on his face. “We can’t send them out there. We don’t even know where the demons are!”
“Well, they can’t stay here either. There’s a reason there’s a male dorm and female dorm. They don’t want us commingling like that. It’s against the rules—”
“Rules be Blighted!” Sai becomes hysterical. He marches across the room, pushing past me so that he’s right in Dimitri’s face. “Maybe you’re too young to have figured this out yet, but rules are subjective. They’re created to apply to general scenarios in the interest of keeping people in line. But let me tell you something: this is not a general scenario. This is one of those instances where the rules are meant to be broken. Or would you rather send our friends out to their possible deaths?”
“Hey,” Fox bristles. “We can handle ourselves.”
“Not helping,” Sai sings out the corner of his mouth. He turns back to Dimitri, examining him like a child would look down into a pond in hopes of spying a fish or something to prove that their trek through the woods hadn’t been for nothing.
Dimitri only looks away, nostrils flaring.
“Tell you what,” Sai says. “Should we survive the night—should General Alphonse and our oh-so-uptight captain—I promise I’ll take the blame for insisting the ladies stay.”
The two of them are silent for a moment. I keep looking over my shoulder like we are losing time, but the truth is, I have no way of knowing. I’m not sure how bad the infiltration is, how many demons have broken into the castle, how many Crusaders are fighting, how many have already died, but I know I’d feel immensely better if I was in a room that had a door, especially one that locked, instead of standing out here in the open.
“Get out of my face,” Dimitri growls at long last.
“Gladly,” Sai sings, bowing his head. Then he turns around and extends an arm out toward us. “Come on, girls, you’re sleeping with us tonight. My cot’s plenty big enough for two, maybe even all three of you.”
“In your dreams,” Fox says, equally as singsong. She comes up beside me and takes my hand into hers, soft and warm and steadying. “Are there even any empty beds in the men’s dorm? I heard you guys were crowded.”
“I has beds,” Güthric announces, but though his response is to Fox, he’s staring only at Silver. “I protect.”
The raven-haired woman gives a vigorous, nearly imperceptible nod, but I’m surprised she’s even registered what he’s said. Her eyes have gone wild, her body trembling.
Güthric holds out his hand, as large as a dinner plate, and Silver slides hers atop of his. He leads her toward the male dorms, glancing to Fox and I only once to tell us to follow. I have no intention of moving, not without Dimitri. We survived Gravenburg together, and we’ll survive this scourge together too.
But Fox’s grip is unbreakable. I stumble along with them, trying desperately to seek out Dimitri’s gaze, but he won’t look at me. He just stares at the fireplace, fire drawn to fire. And eventually, I stop fighting. I’m too uncoordinated right now to protest anyway, and the jarring tugging makes me queasy, so instead, I let Fox and Güthric lead us into one of the dorms and shut the door behind us.
In the Night
Male Dorms, Castle of Nigh, Arcathain
I awaken with a jolt to the snarling rumble of a demon about to devour its meal. Or at least, that’s how I make sense of the noise I hear in the pitch darkness. But as I bolt upright on my cot, the sound becomes rhythmic, a slow, steady, grumbling inhale followed by a short, airy exhale.
The rigidity of my bones relaxes when I remember, groggily, that we’re not in our usual rooms, and that I’m only hearing Güthric snoring a few beds down.
My eyes adjust to the moonlight offered from the skylight overhead, and I peek down the row of cots blearily. Silver rests like a peaceful princess frozen in snow, while Fox looks like someone threw her on the bed, all crooked and splayed limbs, and then haplessly flung a blanket over her, though it only reached her legs. And Güthric, he looks like he could use four of these small cots pushed together in order to sleep comfortably. Then again, it doesn’t seem to bother him that his head is pressed against the wall, his feet and arms dangling over the edge of the bed. He sleeps on, as do the half dozen other recruits in the room with us.
Vaguely, I remember falling asleep. I crashed onto the bed, the room spinning around me and certain I wouldn’t be able to sleep until we heard that the threat had been dealt with, and then, I was out.
But now that a few hours have passed, and the coaxing effects of the alcohol have worn off—aside from the lingering pounding in my head—I can think of nothing but the attack on the castle.
For all I know, the fight could still be going. Or, worse yet, maybe it finished and we are the only ones left as the demons work their way through the corridors, killing everyone they come across.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed, hop to the cold floor, and take a moment to steady myself. Almost by instinct, my hand finds Tor’s shadowsteel dagger at my hip. Even though I’m still learning to use it in any matter that could be described as useful, it always makes me feel safer knowing it’s nearby, like my brother himself was walking beside me.
On the soft pads of my feet, I tiptoe toward the door. When I crack it to glance out into the adjoining corridor of bedrooms, something heavy leaning on the other side makes the door swing wide.
A soft gasp escapes my lips, and it’s not until the startle passes that I realize how utterly useless such a response is—I wasn’t even loud enough to alert anyone else in the room.
A body crashes at my feet, and despite the darkness, I understand the implications all too well. Someone’s dead, which means a demon can’t be far.
But as the body falls, as I jump back, the silhouette grunts.
“Dimitri?” I whisper, and then falling to his side on my knees, add, “Are you all right? What happened?”
He pushes himself up onto his elbow, rubbing his head with his other arm. “Ow,” he whispers. “What are you doing awake?”
Confused by the seemingly normal tone in his voice and his question, and still too groggy to counter, I simply answer, “I—I couldn’t sleep.”
I look out into the hallway, sniff the air. Blood has a distinct scent. It’s heavy and metallic and, most of all, sickening. I know this because of my best friend’s former profession. But the hallway smells of none of these things. All I can smell is the burning coals of the dying fire, the crisp winter air that’s seeped into these halls, and the musky, warmth of Dimitri as he closes the door behind us and sits up, inching closer.