Siobhaen demand harshly, “What’s happening to him? Look at his arms! It looks like he’s fading, as if he isn’t really there!”
And then they were through the hall, into the corridor beyond, but the pain didn’t stop. It escalated and he gasped, “Get me out. Get me out before it catches me completely.” Pain lanced through his arms and legs and he cried out, the cry ending in a moan, but he suddenly realized what was happening, why it was so painful. He’d been wrong. He’d thought the past was intruding on the present, that it was surging forward. But it wasn’t. The past was trying to drag him back, trying to pull him there, into the horror, into the miasma of death. Somehow, it had become a riptide, an undertow, trying to suck him down into the blackness that Cortaemall had visited upon the place. That’s why they could see him, why they reacted to him-the lord in the pass who had glared at him, the lady in the hall. He was actually there. He was caught between the past and the present and it was ripping him apart.
Horror spread through him at the realization and he frantically clawed toward the present. He was nearly completely caught in the past now; he could see nothing of the present, only the carnage of the halls. Even as Eraeth and Vaeren dragged him forward, he saw three Cortaemall Phalanx butchering a mother and two children, all three cowering at the base of a wall, the woman’s hands raised imploringly even as the cattans fell. Two more chased a group of servants down a side hall, cutting them down from behind, the women shrieking as they ran. Colin’s gorge rose as he tried to draw back, but the only reference he had was the insubstantial hands that pulled him along the corridor.
The hands.
Instead of reaching for the present, he focused on the hands holding him upright, closed his eyes to the death and destruction on all sides, tried to shut his ears to the sounds. He drew in a ragged breath, slowly, through his mouth, and pulled himself toward the pain in his arms and armpit where Eraeth and Vaeren gripped him so tight he could already feel his arms tingling where they’d cut off the circulation. He pushed through that growing numbness, enfolded himself in it, and felt the past receding, the shouts and cries of the hunted in the halls of Gaurraenan growing fainter. Through the prickling of his arms, he heard Aeren commanding the rest of his Phalanx to move faster and realized he hadn’t been able to hear them at all a moment before. Hope surging in his chest, he pulled the tingling closer, strove toward it with every beat of his heart, used it as his lifeline to the present. The past began to pull away, but he could feel its greedy undercurrent still attempting to draw him down into its depths. He mentally kicked at it, as if he were truly trapped underwater and struggling upward toward light and air. He felt the pressure of the undertow in his chest, squeezing-
And then, the past wrenched free and he gasped, even as he heard the rest of the party cry out in triumph. Brittle, frigid wind slammed into his face and he sucked it in sharply and opened his eyes. The death grip on his arms and shoulders relaxed.
They stood on an outcropping of stone carved into the shape of the prow of a ship, stairs descending the sides of the mountain on either side, the steps barely visible through the drifts of heavy snow and layers of ice. Two stone statues-Alvritshai in robes and regal poses, arms stretched out and down in benediction toward the remnants of a huge city on the hills below-stood at the height of the stairs.
Colin tried to gather his feet beneath him, to support himself, but he had no strength left. He collapsed to his knees, the frigid air burning into his lungs. It stung, felt as if it were slicing through his chest, his heart, but he breathed it in deeply, using the sensation to push away the last remnants of the past and anchor himself in the present. He sobbed, felt tears burning cold against his cheeks and at the corners of his eyes.
“We’re here,” he gasped. “We made it.” He sucked in one more deep breath, then murmured, “Welcome to the White Wastes,” before the present overwhelmed him and he sagged forward into unconsciousness.
6
Colin woke to warmth.
He gasped and jerked upright, tendrils of a nightmare pulling away from his mind like tentacles, retreating back into the depths of the darkness. He groaned and settled back down, aches coursing up and down his entire body. Without moving, he surveyed the firelight dancing with shadows on the stone ceiling overhead and the wall at his side. The fire crackled, out of sight, but he heard nothing else. No movement, no voices. He breathed in the scent of the fire’s cedar smoke, the lingering sizzle of fat from some animal cooked over flame, and beneath all of that the sharp taint of cold.
“The city,” he whispered to himself. “We’ve made camp in Taeraenfall.”
“We have.”
Colin flinched away from the voice, regretted the motion as a muscle in his neck spasmed. He rubbed at it with one free hand as he turned and glared at Aeren. “I didn’t think anyone was here.”
Aeren smiled. “I’m the only one at the moment. The others are out hunting, or trying to find more wood for the fire. The White Wastes are well named. Nearly everything is covered in foot upon foot of snow. There are few trees, mostlyfirs and cedars, but there is game-snow hare and squirrel, some fowl, lynx and bobcat.”
“And wolves.”
Aeren nodded at the warning in Colin’s voice. “We’ve heard the wolves, but for now they are keeping their distance.”
Colin grunted and swung his legs off the raised platform they’d used as a pallet. He moved slowly, then began massaging his legs and shoulders. “How long have we been here?”
“Two days. When you collapsed at the top of the stairs above the city, we nearly made camp there. But it was too exposed, and no one wanted to risk taking you back inside the shelter of the halls. We spent the next day descending to the city and searching for a suitable place to make camp. When you didn’t recover the following day, we began hunting.”
“I can smell something roasted.”
Aeren rose and rounded the fire, set in the center of the floor and surrounded by stone pillaged from the ruins. He dug in a pack and produced a grease-stained cloth.
Colin’s stomach growled as Aeren made his way to his side, uncovering half of some type of bird, the skin charred black and crackling. “We saved you some,” the lord said, handing it over.
Colin didn’t hesitate. He ripped a wing from one side and bit into the meat. “Cold,” he said as he chewed, “but I don’t think I’ve tasted anything as good.”
“Boreaus does have a talent with cook fires.”
Aeren watched Colin intently as he ate, his brow furrowed. Tension prickled along Colin’s shoulders, but he ignored it until he’d picked the bones of the fowl clean. He sucked the grease from his fingers, then leaned back against the wall with a sigh. His entire body still ached, but the pain had receded.
He caught Aeren’s gaze, held it. “What do you want to ask?”
Aeren considered for a moment, then: “What happened back in the halls, in the mountain?”
Colin wasn’t certain how much he should tell him; Aeren-and Eraeth-could do nothing to help him. But he’d known them a long time. They were the only family he had left, the only people who cared for him. They deserved an answer.
He sighed again, looked toward the fire. “When I came through the halls before, I caught echoes of what had happened, what Cortaemall had done to Gaurraenan and his House. I thought at the time that I was merely seeing events as they transpired in the past, that the emotions of the time had scarred the stone of the mountain in some way and because of the Lifeblood I could see those scars.”
“But that’s not what is happening,” Aeren said when he paused.
Colin smiled grimly, gave a dark chuckle. “No. I don’t think so anymore.”
“Then what is it? It was obviously worse this time. And it was more than what you could see or sense. You were being affected by it. At points while we were dragging you out of the hall you appeared almost…” he groped for a word, settled reluctantly on, “… transparent. Eraeth said that he nearly lost his grip on you, not because he wasn’t holding tight enough, but because you simply weren’t there.”
“Because I wasn’t there.”
Aeren’s eyebrows rose.
Colin stood in frustration, began moving about the room, working strength back into his muscles as he talked.
