“Ava,” I pleaded hastily, instantly regretting that I’d said what I did. “That’s not—”
She slammed the door behind her before I could finish. I groaned my frustration, pacing over to the bed and dropping face first onto it. Then I groaned some more before rolling onto my back.
“Why, Albus?” I whined to the dog curled up on the bed nearby. “Why did I have to open my stupid mouth?” Albus took in a deep breath, letting it out in one long, grumbling sigh. I took in a deep breath too, though as I sighed I threw my arms out to either side of me. “Gods take me, that was a kiss for the storybooks.” Albus made another long-winded noise, and as if I could understand him, I slapped my hands against the bed with frustration. “I can’t kiss her again. If the king finds out, I’ll be killed.” I buried my face in my hands, groaning again. “Why’d she do that? Why is she intent on torturing me?”
I bolted upright when the door was thrust open. Ava burst in, and by the look on her face, I was terrified she’d grown enraged in her absence and was back to yell at me. She was breathing heavily, her normally energetic complexion pale.
“Soldiers,” she panted, slamming the door closed and plastering her back against it. “Soldiers in the tavern.” And my heart plummeted.
Chapter 6
“Are you sure?” I asked, rushing to the sleeping furs to roll them hastily.
“Kiena,” Ava said, and after she’d pulled on the fur cloak and gloves I made her, she came over and grabbed my shoulders, “they saw me.”
In reply to her claim, there was a pounding on the door of a room down the hall. “Open up!” a soldier yelled.
“We have to go,” Ava muttered, pacing to the window and pulling out the bark she’d wedged there in the morning.
I hurried over to stop her. “Ava, the storm. You don’t have proper clothing. You’ll freeze to death.” There was a crash as a nearby door was broken down.
“I’ll chance the cold before I let them take me back to Guelder,” she said in a panic, but when she remembered my intense fear of snowstorms, she paused, turning from the window to take my face in her hands. “Kiena, please, I am begging you.” I took in a breath to ask a question, but she didn’t let me get it out. “I’ll tell you everything. The moment we’re away from here, I swear it. Please.”
“We could die,” I emphasized, glancing at the window with my heart hammering so hard that I could feel the pulsing in my skull.
“We’ll die if we stay,” she pleaded.
I studied her face for the span of a moment, taking in the fear in her eyes and weighing it against the terror in my chest. I couldn’t get her caught, not yet, not when I didn’t know what was waiting for her back in Guelder.
“Go,” I said, motioning to the window.
She yanked it open to be met by an icy blast of wind. She grabbed Maddox before climbing out, and I threw on the vest and coat I’d shed in the warmth of the room and picked up my saddle. I gestured for Albus to jump out after Ava, and after he was clear, I threw the saddle out and followed. We ran in the direction I knew the stables to be. Once inside, I rushed to get the saddle on Brande’s back, working the straps and buckles as best I could with my already frozen fingers.
“Up,” I commanded when it was secure, and after Ava climbed on, I got up behind her.
I didn’t hesitate to kick my heels back, and Brande took off at a gallop toward the exit of the stables. We burst through right as a third soldier dropped out our open window. The wind was howling far too loudly to hear what they said, but one pointed, yelling back at some still in the room while the other two sprinted for the stables to retrieve their own horses.
It didn’t matter. It took less than ten paces before we were out of view. The snow whipping through the air was too thick to see much in any direction, and it blocked out the moonlight so everything that wasn’t blanketed white was pitch black. We only galloped for fifteen minutes, dodging trees and changing direction often because getting ourselves lost in the woods was better than being captured. Then we slowed, because if the soldiers hadn’t caught up yet then chances were they never would. The storm had likely already filled Brande’s hoof prints with snow. Now I had to find somewhere to stop, but I didn’t know if Ava would let me.
“Ava,” I hollered over the sound of the wind. “Should we keep going?”
She was hunched into herself, arms wrapped as far as she could get them around her chest. She made no response.
“Ava?” I yelled, leaning forward to see her.
She was already shivering so fiercely with cold that she couldn’t form words. I had to find somewhere to stop, but even if I did, there would be no dry wood to start a fire. Everything was frozen and wet—Ava’s clothes, my clothes, the forest, and my animals. This was the worst thing we could have done. We should have found another way.
I pulled Ava back into me and wrapped my free arm around her to try and warm her. Even over the violent wind whipping through my clothes, I could feel her shaking. We had to find somewhere to stop, and then maybe we’d get out of this alive. I steered Brande blindly, squinting into the storm to look for some form of shelter. There was nothing. Ten minutes and I couldn’t see a single thing, and Ava’s shivering was getting worse by the second because my outer clothes were wet, blocking any body heat I could’ve given.
I leaned forward on Brande, as if the extra inches would give me a better view because I was desperate for something. Anything. There was nothing but snow. “Damn it!” I reached behind me and untied my sleeping furs, wrapping them around Ava even though I knew they’d do little to help. She was already soaked and cold. “Think, Kiena, think,” I told myself.
I couldn’t let it end here. My blood was pumping too hard for me to feel fear or frost, but I felt the building sense of defeat. This was it. We never should have left because we had no idea where we were going, and now we were stuck in this storm and Ava was half frozen. It was so cold that I knew she wouldn’t last another twenty minutes, not in the clothes she was wearing. I’d have given her my layers but, like the blankets, they wouldn’t have done anything now, she was already too drenched. I should have given them to her at the start. I’d be half frozen instead of her, but what was my life compared to hers? I should have given her my layers.
I gave up. There was nothing to do, nowhere to find shelter or warmth, and I was about to surrender us to the cold. But then, just then, there was a flash of orange in the blinding white of the snow. I squinted harder, pulling Brande’s reins in that direction. Again, a distant dot of orange firelight. A torch. I kicked my heels back to get us there faster. It could have been a figment of my imagination, or it could have been a soldier searching for us, but at this point, I didn’t care. I’d get us captured. If they killed us, well, we were dead anyway. But maybe they’d take us in. They’d get us out of the storm and warm Ava back to life, and then I could think of how to rescue her and escape again.
The flame was getting closer, and nearby I spotted another, and we were nearly there. Brande was galloping as fast as he could through the drifts of snow, but it slowed him down considerably, and for a moment, I feared we’d never catch the lights. Then all at once we were upon them. We gained on the person holding the torch so unexpectedly that Brande almost ran them over. I pulled back on the reins as they dove to the side to dodge my horse, and when they realized they hadn’t been trampled, they rose out of the snow. Their entire face was covered for warmth, and their clothing was so thick I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman, but I could feel that they were shocked at my arrival.