Page 104 of The Evernight Court

“If I do decide to go back to the castle, Iwillhave company,” I said with a smile, then turned to the mountain again. “Take care, Quinn.”

“You, too. Keep your eyes open,” she said. And I planned to do just that.

She remained right there at the edge of the mountain as I made my way up, Shadow flying in circles over my head. There were rocks and trees to help me climb, and my legs were tired but my feet were numb, so I didn’t feel much. I was thankful for it because no matter how bad the exhaustion was, I wouldn’t stop. Not until I reached the top of that mountain and found Storm.

Snow.

It had been so long since I last saw snow. It didn’t really snow in Roven, but it used to back home in Detroit. Now, as I caught the snowflakes in my shaking hands, I wondered what it would be like if I was back there again. If I’d chosen to use the goddamn train money Brandon had given me and gone back to Missy. If I’d just…given up.

Where would I be now?

God, that life was so foreign to me now. Jobs and computers and TVs and phones and clubs—all of it was like a dream to me, not something I’d ever actually lived.

All of it was so…unimportant.

A screeching sound filled my ears, pulling my eyes toward the sky. Toward Shadow, who was having difficulty flying with the sharp cold wind and the falling snow, even though we were still only halfway up the mountain by the looks of it. Halfway, and there were no more trees around us, just dirt and rock and snow.

“Yes, I know,” I said, pulling the skinwalker fur coat around my shoulders tighter as I kept going, and Shadow roared again. “Come down here. Don’t waste energy flying!”

My chin was shaking from the cold, so the words came out twisted, but he’d understand. Yet he still refused to comedown to me. Still refused to stop screeching—his version of a roar—and the higher up I went against the wind, the more I realized, he was trying to warn me. For the first time since we left the castle, Shadow wasn’t just watching and protecting me from a distance—he was trying to warn me, to get me to turn back.

And I had no trouble ignoring him while I tried to keep from falling on my face and rolling all the way down to Quinn again.

So many things crossed my mind as I climbed that mountain. I had no idea how much time passed, but the darkness of the Whispering Woods was the same at any hour. For once, I was thankful for it, thankful that I could trick myself into thinking it had just been a few minutes. I’d only been climbing for a few minutes, and I was going to make it to the top in no time.

I continued to ignore Shadow’s warnings until my legs gave up on me and I couldn’t keep my balance. I fell against the soft snow that reached up over my ankles now, but hard rock was underneath it, so it hurt like hell. I pushed myself to stand up, only to lose balance again and fall on my ass, roll around for a bit, then slam with my side against the edge of a sharp rock that supported my weight perfectly.

There, I stopped.

There, I couldn’t continue to fool myself any longer, to tell myself that I had only walked minutes. That I didn’t need to rest, that I could keep going indefinitely.

My body wouldn’t let me if I tried.

Holding onto the coat covered in snow, I allowed myself to close my eyes just for a minute, just so I wouldn’t be so tired as to lose my balance before I even stood up again.

I slept right away.

Twenty-Five

When my eyes opened,nothing about the world around me had changed—except Shadow. He was no longer flying in circles over my head, but he’d landed on the rocks right behind that edge that was supporting my weight and keeping me half seated. His eyes opened as soon as I moved and he spread his wings, but he’d been asleep with me, and I had no clue how long either of us had been out. No clue, but I had to get moving.

My muscles were sore. My feet hurt and my stomach growled. As much as I wanted to just start running up against the wind again, I knew I wouldn’t last long. I must have slept for longer than I realized to be this hungry. With shaking hands, I took the last of the cheese and bread from my bag, but I had more dried meat left to last me to the closest town if I somehow made it back from this mountain.

If I found Storm and convinced him to join me.

The more I thought about it, the less hope I had. But even so, I kept going.

Shadow was still trying to warn me as he came after me,flying slower by the minute. Again, I ignored him, and it was easy to do when I could barely see where I was stepping—everything was covered in so much snow. I told him to leave, to get down there and wait for me, three times, but he wouldn’t listen. So, we both continued up the mountain.

I tripped and fell too many times to count. The climb got steeper the farther up I went, and Shadow’s roars became more desperate. I could hear the other dragons, too, but they sounded distant still, so I wasn’t afraid, not yet.

And what must have been hours later, I finally managed to climb up a relatively straight surface, where I could stop to rest and catch my breath for a second.

Fuck,that was hard. Every inch of my body hurt. It was a damn miracle I hadn’t frozen to death yet, but I wouldn’t. Because I wasburningon the inside—from that magic that seemed to turn up the heat on itself the colder the wind that blew against my face.

How much higher would I have to climb to get to the top? How much?—

My thoughts came to a halt when I straightened up and thought to take a look around, assess my surroundings.

---