Page 30 of Winter's Fate

“Hardly.” She twisted her lip. “Perhaps twice.”

Even on the brink of death, the woman kept her sense of humor.

She raised her head slightly, glancing over his shoulder. “I can’t see anything. It’s still too dark.”

Callum followed her gaze, fighting a wave of dizziness. His head had been unhappy enough after the amount he’d drank last night. Now, he felt his skull might split open entirely.

But the storm did appear to be calming, though clouds obscured the sky. Even if they could see the stars to navigate, they had no sails or rudder to direct them. “I think we’ll be at the mercy of the current,” he said.

She sighed, settling her cheek back onto the wood. Was it a piece of a lifeboat, perhaps? A door? Impossible to tell. It might as easily have been a chunk of the hull itself.

“That was no natural storm,” she said.

No. No, it was not. He could still smell the putrid tinge of the heart-tithe in the air, the magic still thick and pungent.

Strange, that he had not detected a hint of a heart-tithe in the crystal she carried. He was so well practiced at sniffing out magic that his men sometimes whispered he could detect it from leagues away. Laena’s crystal had not reeked of magic. As far as he could tell, it had given off no odor whatsoever.

But if the garden-destroying crystal was not formed from a heart-tithe, then what kind of magic could it be—and how could he hope to help her destroy it?

CHAPTER 12

For a time, Laena feared the storm would carry the door away from Aglye’s coast and into the wilds of the open ocean, though she didn’t voice it to Callum. He lay draped across their makeshift raft, looking an inch from death. Which he had been.

If she had not been near enough to pull him from the waves, he would have drowned. The thought made her want to reach for his hand, to stare at his chest and ensure he was still breathing.

Only because she didn’t want to be alone. And because she would still need a guide to help her reach Vunmore safely.

King Hawk would want to know about the strangeness of that storm, and she would need to send messages to Katrina as well. Her sister might think the plague in Laena’s garden was a forgettable occurrence, but she would have to pay heed to a storm like that one. Particularly since Callum was another surviving witness to the incident.

None of that would happen if she and Callum were swept out to sea. But there was little Laena could do beyond holdingon to the raft and watching Callum’s chest, relieved each time he drew another breath.

She wished she could be as certain of the fates of the other men. She tried to tell herself that they would be watching out for one another, and as trained soldiers they certainly would have secured a lifeboat and known how to make their way in a storm.

If only they could find their way to the coast, they might meet up with the men once again.

Fortunately, the current showed mercy as it washed them toward the shore, allowing Laena and Callum to maneuver themselves onto the beach without much difficulty. The sky was still a starless black, but at least those unnerving red clouds had moved on.

All she could see of the shore was a stretch of sand and beyond that a forest of reedy looking trees. When her feet touched the sand, Laena allowed herself to collapse upon it and said, “If a tiger comes out of those woods to eat me, I’m going to let it.”

Callum offered her a hand. “I would object to that, my lady. Who would save me from drowning?”

She accepted his hand reluctantly, and his fingers closed around hers, sending a thrill of warmth tingling across her skin that nearly made her snatch her hand away again. And in her desperation not to do so, she held on perhaps a bittootightly.

Mages, but she was a fool. The man was dangerous. Why was it so impossibly hard to remember that?

“I trust you will avoid such situations in future.” She released his hand and brushed at her dress, more to cover her awkwardness than because she had any hope of dislodging the sand that had crusted there. The skirts were thoroughly drenched, and her hair hung in a limp mat around her shoulders, her sleeves clinging to her skin. She shivered. It might be the dip in the ocean, but it felt unnaturally cold for full summer.

“The trees will offer more shelter.” Callum started off across the beach toward the forest, which appeared quite threatening. But what choice did they have?

Brin stirred in Laena’s hair as she followed Callum across the beach, and she cupped the little shimmerling between her hands for a brief moment, relieved to find Brin was still with them. When she opened her hands, Brin scurried up to her shoulder and craned her neck with an alertness that said she, at least, viewed this as an adventure.

“Mischievous thing,” Laena whispered. “I was worried about you.”

Brin flicked her tongue out. Probably just hoping for a nice, juicy beetle.

Callum waited at the edge of the forest, and they entered together without comment. The last of the rain had abated, though she could still hear it striking the canopy above. The leaves crunched beneath their feet, dry despite the punishing storm that had passed through.

Though perhaps it had not passed through here with as much… exuberance.

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