The Fourth Runi (The Fledgling Account Book 4) by Y.K. Willemse

Author:Y.K. Willemse [Willemse, Y.K.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Non-fiction
Publisher: Burnett Young Books
Published: 2018-02-16T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Two

Into

the Mountains

Tremendously grateful to be alive, Rafen woke with snow heavy on his lashes. The cold was seeping into his bones, and he was surprised he had woken at all. It was the perfect place to sleep. The snow beneath was soft, and its icy powder on his limbs actually formed some kind of insulation. A whistle in the distance shook him properly awake. He sat up and was momentarily blinded by the pain of the wound in his side.

“Etana,” he whispered, then cried, “Etana!”

The falling of the snow around him was so unbearably quiet. He looked desperately around himself and then saw her hand. Her face was already powdered with snow. He quickly lifted up her torso, his side burning as he did so. She was unconscious, and a bruise blackened her left temple. Her silver ring lay nearby, and he pressed it onto her finger.

They had been knocked from Trinity’s back into an opening in the left stone wall they had been riding alongside. The rocky outcrops appended to the wall partially hid them and made the opening look narrow. Yet the area they were in actually widened out into a vast snowy slope from which the wind blew bitterly. The sky above was velvety and dark. Night had fallen.

Rafen’s shoulders sagged. They were entirely without food, and they had no idea where Fritz, Francisco, and Sherwin were. Their enemies had likely missed them and continued pursuing the fleeing horse. It was only a matter of time before they came back for their frozen prey. He had a thundering headache, and his side left him so weak that he could barely stand up, let alone carry his pregnant wife to a place of shelter and safety, away from the path the Naztwai had been following.

He put a hand to his phoenix feather. This wasn’t, after all, nearly as impossible as destroying Nazt. He could do this.

He bent over Etana and draped her torso over his shoulder. With his limbs vibrating terribly, he straightened and started to plow through the snow, away from the path.

He was aiming for the slope. His feet kept sinking into the snow so deeply that he could scarcely pull them free again. Etana was a dead weight over his back. Her breathing was shallow, and her heart fluttered against his shoulder blade.

The wind blew savagely as he began his ascent. The spirits flocking around him were persistent. He ground his teeth (a painful feat, considering his smashed jaw) and determined to focus on Etana’s weight and the phoenix feather in his hem. After all they had been through that day, they were still alive, and he had to do everything in his power to make sure Kasper’s sacrifice was not in vain.

His eyes burned as the wind swept snow into them, yet he was already crying. He asked himself why, though he already knew. He should have been used to it by now. Death had happened numerous times, and each time, weeping never helped – never erased the memories, erased the guilt.

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