Four more days. They had to last four more days.
Gwyn said hoarsely as they moved into the wilderness, the snow mercifully lightening, “You two came looking for me.”
“Of course we did,” Emerie said, interlacing her hand with Gwyn’s, then Nesta’s, and squeezing tightly. “It’s what sisters do.”
CHAPTER
68
Nesta far preferred caves to trees. But as night fell and no caves revealed themselves, she found herself with no other option but to scale one behind Emerie and Gwyn, the latter revealing how she’d managed to rest while up one: a long stretch of rope. It must have been one of the items Queen Briallyn had the Illyrians leave, presumably for trussing captives or stringing them up or strangling them, and Gwyn had used it to bind herself to the trunk of a tree each night. It was long enough that the three of them, sitting side by side on a massive branch, were able to tie themselves together and to the tree itself.
“How’d you avoid the creatures climbing up to eat you?” Emerie asked Gwyn, who was wedged between her and Nesta. “They were pulling Illyrians off the branches like apples.”
“Maybe because I don’t smell like an Illyrian,” Gwyn said, frowning at her clothes. “Despite these.” She nodded to Nesta. “You don’t, either. If we’re lucky, our scents will mask Emerie’s.”
“Perhaps,” Nesta said, voice quieting as the night deepened. The snow had finally stopped hours ago, and even the whipping wind had eased. A small miracle.
Gwyn peered forward to look at Emerie. “How much do you know about the Rite?”
Emerie tucked her hands under her armpits for warmth. “A good amount. My father and brother—and my horrid cousins—talked about it endlessly. Any family gathering, all the males told and retold their oh-so-glorious tales from their own Rites. How many they killed, the beasts they escaped. None of them ever made it to Ramiel, though.” Emerie nodded to Nesta. “They always hated that about Cassian. And Rhysand and Azriel. They hated that the three of them made it to the very top and won the whole thing.”
“The mountain is that hard to climb?” Gwyn asked, voice hushed.
Emerie grunted. “Hard to reach; harder to climb. It’s covered in jagged rock that slices you up like a cheese grater.”
Nesta shuddered.
“And with our healing slowed to a human rate thanks to the rules of the Rite,” Emerie went on, “we’ll be lucky to make it to the Pass of Enalius in one piece.”
“What’s that?” Nesta asked.
Emerie’s eyes shone. “Long ago—so long ago they don’t even have a precise date for it—a great war was fought between the Fae and the ancient beings who oppressed them. One of its key battles was here, in these mountains. Our forces were battered and outnumbered, and for some reason, the enemy was desperate to reach the stone at the top of Ramiel. We were never taught the reason why; I think it’s been forgotten. But a young Illyrian warrior named Enalius held the line against the enemy soldiers for days. He found a natural archway of stone amongst the tangle of boulders and made that his bottleneck. He died in the end, but he held off the enemy long enough for our allies to reach us. This Rite is all to honor him. So much of the history has been lost, but the memory of his bravery remains.”
As Cassian’s name would last through history, Nesta thought. Would her own? Some small part of her wished for it.
“There are a few different paths to the top of Ramiel,” Emerie went on. “But the hardest one, the most infamous, is the one that takes you through the Pass of Enalius. Through the archway of stone. They call that path the Breaking.”
“Why am I not surprised that’s the one Cassian and his brothers took?” Nesta grumbled.
Emerie and Gwyn chuckled, but when a beast roared in the distance, they instantly fell quiet.
Nesta murmured, “We should take watches.”
They divvied them up, Nesta taking first watch, Emerie second, and Gwyn third, and when that was decided, they sat in silence for a long moment. They’d eaten a meager meal of some roast squirrel Gwyn had managed to pilfer from an unsuspecting Illyrian, but hunger remained a vocal knot in their bellies.
Nesta leaned into Gwyn’s warmth, let it seep through her bones. And prayed to whatever god might be listening that the rumbling of their stomachs wouldn’t reveal them to the beasts below.
The fourth day brought sun, bright enough to make the snow blinding, even in the shadows of the pines. Gwyn had climbed their tree to its summit, then estimated that Ramiel lay days away to the northeast. Leaving them, should they make it, a day to climb its barren face.
“I couldn’t see if anyone else was ahead,” Gwyn announced, “but there’s a massive ravine nearby with a small wooden bridge. We must be the first to find it—if anyone else had, they would have destroyed the bridge to prevent further use. We need to reach it before the others do.”
“How far ahead?” Nesta asked, checking the knife at her side, the rope she’d coiled over a shoulder and the Illyrian bow there. Emerie had the sword she’d snatched from Bellius’s camp, and Gwyn bore a shield and a knife of her own.
“Several hours, if we can run it,” Gwyn said.
“Running risks attention,” Emerie warned.
“Walking risks losing the bridge,” Nesta countered.
The three of them looked at each other. “Run, then,” Gwyn said, and they nodded.
They set a light pace, meant to keep their steps silent and easy even with the snow underfoot, but running after days of exhaustion, limbs stiff with cold and belly mostly empty, made Nesta’s head pound.
“We’ve got company,” Emerie panted, and the three of them halted. Not five hundred yards away stood six males.
“Do you think they know about the bridge?” Gwyn breathed.
As soon as she said it, the males burst into a sprint. Not toward them, but toward the ravine.
Swearing, Nesta launched into movement with Gwyn and Emerie close behind, snow flying at their feet. “Hurry!” she shouted.
Through the trees ahead, the world lightened—as if the forest had stopped. It had, she realized. At the ravine’s edge, now equidistant between them and the males. Whoever made it first would cut the bridge behind them.
And if they both reached the bridge at the same time …
“We have to intercept them,” Nesta panted. “Well before they reach the bridge.” She altered her trajectory abruptly, and Emerie and Gwyn moved with her as one. The males aiming for the bridge seemed to realize their enemy was now coming right at them. They slowed, reaching for their weapons.
Nesta found her target, a male with a good foot on her, and swiped with her dagger as she careened into him. He’d been running fast enough that he lost his balance and went down as he dodged her blow. Precisely where she wanted him: right in front of Emerie. Nesta pivoted to the next male as her friend drove her sword into the first male’s chest.
The next male Nesta attacked was ready, swiping with a short sword. She ducked, twirling away—allowing him to land the blow on Gwyn’s shield. Just as Gwyn ducked, slashing across his shins with a dagger.
The four others—
Nesta weaved and bobbed against another male, dagger to dagger. Each movement sang in perfect harmony with her breath; each pivot of her body, her limbs, was part of a symphony.