Page 110 of Kissed By the Gods
My breath comes in puffs that form droplets of ice in the air. Every step forward is soundless, swallowed by snow. My footprints are quickly covered with fresh powder, as if the gods want no witnesses to what happens here.
I climb higher and higher until the snow disappears, and I skid on the layered sheets of ice. It catches me so unprepared that I slide backward a full body length before I slam my scythe down. The blade cracks through the top layer with a sharp snap, anchoring me in place. My breath is ragged now, not from the climb but from the presence.
Something is watching me.
The wind screams overhead, howling through the jagged crags like a warning—or a song, if I were foolish enough to call it that. My knuckles blanche on the scythe’s shaft. I pull myself forward inch by inch until I find my footing again, the tread of my boots crunching on cruel ice.
The path narrows into a spine of ice that winds around the face of the cliff, vanishing into a wall of mist where the waterfall freezes midair. That’s where the pull leads me.
Not to safety. Not to warmth. But into the mouth of something vast and silent and sacred.
The sky above is impossibly close now. If I reached just a little farther, I could press my palm to the clouds and feel the pulse of the gods themselves. It makes you ache for it—for the divine.
But I know better. This place doesn’t welcome. It judges. Here, it is brutally clear that the gods don’t want us. They need us. We are tools. Pawns. Weapons made flesh. And when we break, they forge new ones. No mourning. No mercy. Just another name etched into wax.
A gust tears across the narrow ridge, nearly knocking me sideways, as if the mountain heard my thoughts and disapproved.
Good. Let it be angry. I’m angry too.
The air grows thinner as I climb, sharp with the sting of altitude. My lungs burn. My ribs ache. The climb carves pieces from me, little by little, an offering to the peak. Still, I keep going, because if the gods think I’ve come to beg, they’re wrong.
I’ve come to demand.
Here, the incline goes nearly vertical, with only rock and ice as far as the eye can see. And that’s not particularly far, because there’s a dark cluster of clouds—if I were fanciful, I would say a veil—that conceals the upper slope. What’s beyond the clouds could be anyone’s guess, but I don’t imagine it’s a set of stairs.
A trickle of sweat slides down my face but freezes before it reaches my chin.
As I continue making my way up the mountain, putting one foot in front of another, the snowfall shifts to a nasty mix of ice and slush. The sun lowers, quickly sliding from view behind the snow-capped Valespire Peaks that surround me. I truly didn’t think it was possible, but the creeping darkness makes it even colder. The wet slush gleefully soaks through my wool overcoat before it hardens to ice against my skin. Within a few minutes, my coat, my gloves, my trousers, the pack strapped to my back, my boots, my scythe, which I’m using like an axe—all are covered in a thick layer of ice.
The unrelenting cold is agony, at least until my body goes blessedly numb. It’s a false relief, I know. A dangerous one, even. But I’m still thankful for the respite. Numbness is the only thing going for me as I claw my way upward, hanging from the side of this mountain of death.
Not for the first time in the hours I’ve been trekking up this cursed mountain, I get a tingle at the base of my neck and whip my head around to peer through the unrelenting darkness. But each time there’s only ice and the unending pile of jagged rocksthat make up Elandors Veil. No one is stalking me through an ice storm. There’s no one else here, I tell myself. Again.
I pull my shoulders over a ledge and heave the rest of my body up and over, rolling until my back presses against the mountain. I take the time to run my fingers through my hair, causing the icicles that have formed in it to fall and shatter, and then I stagger to my feet. Only, my numb body no longer responds to commands, and I tumble down an embankment, the jagged rocks slicing through my coat as I fall and fall and fall.
My heart beats a fierce rhythm when I finally slide to a stop, wedged up against an outcropping of rocks. My breath heaves in and out, until I work up the energy to sit up and catalogue the damage. My pack is ripped, but still functional. My weapons are fine; no surprise there. Me, though … I cough, and it burns. I rub my gloved fingers against the back of my head, and they come away bloody. My skin is torn all down the backs of my arms and legs, although, I realize with a vague sense of detachment, the wounds aren’t bleeding like they should.
I’m too cold. My blood has started to slow.
There’s a fog over my brain that I can’t quite work around. Still, I’m lucid enough to know that this is not good.
It occurs to me that I might die. This night, this mountain, could very easily be the death of me. In fact, my death is looking more and more likely with every breath—each time I struggle and fight and gasp to inhale the smallest wisp of this thin, cold air. I drop my head heavily against the frozen ground at my back and close my eyes. The snow continues to fall, and I open my cracked and bloodied lips to let the moisture in. The cold wet is a soothing balm.
My thoughts turn to my brothers. A single tear slides free from the corner of my eye but freezes before it can trail down my cheek. I’m sad that they’ll never know peace. That I failed them.
At that thought, the familiar whisperings of anger stir. It’s fuel, and it gives me the push I need. I clamber awkwardly to my knees and take a breath, as deep as I can, before I heave myself off the ground with a roar.
I will not fail Seb and Leo. I will fight for their future.
I take a stumbling step forward, and then another. I consider pitching my tent where I stand to ride out the rest of this storm. But even that is a dangerous move. It would get me out of the worst of the wind. But I’m more likely to fall asleep—and never wake up—if I stop moving. I stagger to a stop, resting against a boulder. My eyes flutter closed. I stop shivering, and I’m almost warm. I could take a quick nap.
“No.”
I snap my eyes open and shove my body forward, driven by the sharp command in the voice. I stop when I reach a dead end—a sheer wall of smooth ice. I run my fingers against the ice, looking for rock, for handholds, for somewhere to set an anchor to keep climbing. Nothing. I heave out a sob, the sound echoing in the pass I’ve found myself in. I’ll set up my tent here. I don’t have another choice.
“No.”
That voice is so real, like someone is standing right next to me. I turn in a full circle, looking up and down and all around. No one. No one is here. My brow crinkles. I’m going crazy, hearing voices in my head. Maybe Faelon wasn’t just being dramatic. I look up again. It’s hard to see in the darkness, even for me. There’s no light from the night sky shining through the clouds that cover the summit. But I’m close, so tantalizingly close, to the peak of Elandors Veil.
