The Way Past Winter by Kiran Millwood Hargrave

Author:Kiran Millwood Hargrave [Hargrave, Kiran Millood]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chronicle Books LLC
Published: 2020-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

The Pass

Cold hovered like a carrion bird. The higher they went, the thinner the air, and it seemed to Mila the cold took on the shadowy presence of a crow, circling over her, finding her exposed wrists, the soft parts beneath her ears and at the base of her neck. It perched on her shoulders, making them heavy and stiff, dug needles of pain into her joints, buried its beak at her pulse points, cawed ice through her veins.

Mila saw now what a luxury a sleigh was, absorbing most of the unevenness of the ground. Now she felt each jolt of the rocky terrain. The wind moaned through her cap, crept up her nostrils and gummed into her eyes, making them stream hot tears that froze into gritty ice dust. The knots Rune had tied around her ankles bit tightly, and her legs felt sore and cramped from the slight bend needed to stop the jolts from shaking her knees out of place.

“Are you all right?” she asked, leaning forward to whisper to Pípa. Her little face was so bundled in furs that all Mila could see were her bright brown eyes, streaming like hers. Pípa nodded, and Mila twisted her head to speak out of the corner of her mouth to Rune.

“Will we ski through the night?”

“No choice,” said the mage.

Mila drew the dogs back to a fast trot over the icy steps of the mountainside. The wind dropped a little here, nestled against the shoulder of the mountain, and Mila again looked up and up at its jagged teeth, wondering what it must be like to stand at the top and see all of the world stretched out beneath you.

“Have you been here before?” she called over her shoulder to Rune.

“Yes.”

Mila sighed and turned forward again. If he doesn’t want to talk, I’m not going to force him. But finally the mage seemed to relent. “I love the mountains. I love being up high.”

She sent a shy smile back over her shoulder. “I’m not so sure about it.”

“Nor me,” said Pípa.

“I think I was a gyrfalcon once. Or perhaps I will be someday, in another life.”

“You think you’ll be a bird in another life?” Mila couldn’t help but smile a little.

“My mother and grandmother became bird spirits,” said Rune smoothly. “I suspect I will be no different.”

“You really believe your family turned into birds when they died?” said Pípa.

Rune ignored her and tapped Mila’s shoulder. “You’re taking us too far to the west. The smoother course is further right.”

Mila corrected the dogs and waited for Rune to reply, but he had fallen silent again. Mila let the silence stretch, focusing on the ascent. Finally, the dogs reached the summit and she pulled on the reins. “Stuta.”

She saw now that it was the way of mountains to carry on outdoing each other. Like in a forest, where the tallest trees vied for the sky—here the mountains seemed to graze on the sky itself. The mountain they had climbed now seemed more of a hill—and what faced them was a ridge barely wider than their skis.

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