Nightvine by Felicia Davin

Author:Felicia Davin [Davin, Felicia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

As much as Alizhan hated traveling Nightward, now that they’d finally made it to Estva, even she could admit that the sight before them was impressive. The city’s walls of ice towered above them, rising out of the snowy ground and glimmering white in the darkness.

“How can it possibly be warm in there?” she muttered.

“The city’s not made of ice,” Ket said. He was still seated on the driver’s bench of the wagon. He and Henny, well suited to the cold, had spent the last few hours there together. “Just some of the walls. But I heard there are outposts farther Nightward, little huts dug into the snow and built out of ice, with a firepit in the middle. Supposed to be quite warm. The tribes use them when they go on long hunts.”

There were very few animals on the frozen plains, but on their journey, they’d passed a few oases—thermal pools with strange plants growing in their hot, sulfurous water. Grey caribou gathered to graze there.

“Will they really let us in?” Ev said, peering at the walls from her position inside the wagon.

“Only one way to find out,” Thiyo said.

He and Alizhan walked along the wall until they reached the gate, and Ket drove the wagon slowly behind them. Ket got down from his bench, and Henny helped Ev get out of the wagon, so the five of them could stand together in front of the gate.

There were two guards. It was hard to see their faces through the slot in the gate, even though it was lit with torches on either side. Alizhan couldn’t distinguish their thoughts. Perhaps it was the distance, or the gate, that prevented her from learning more. The guards had a moment of conversation with Thiyo, and from their voices, Alizhan determined they were women. They were as pale as Nalitzvans, but both short, which Alizhan had heard was a characteristic of the Nightward tribes who roamed outside Estva.

“Anyone who agrees to work and follow the rules is welcome for as long as they choose to stay,” Thiyo translated.

“So what do they need walls for?” Ev said.

One of the women said something to Thiyo in Estvan, and her companion laughed and added something else.

“Bears, wolves, Nalitzvans,” Thiyo translated. Ket and Henny both shifted nervously. Alizhan had no idea why the King of Nalitzva would bother to march his army through the snow to capture this remote outpost, but apparently the inhabitants had been motivated to build strong walls.

“And the second woman, what did she say?” Ev said.

“People who don’t follow the rules.”

“How hard can it be to follow the rules?” Alizhan said. “Let’s be good so they’ll let us inside where it’s warm.”

Thiyo conveyed their consent to this agreement, and the huge wooden door swung open to let them in.

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