Page 75 of A Scar in the Bone
I dashed around wildly like a motherless lamb, senselessly, holding my hand out in front of me as though it were some kind of broken compass. It felt like that. An instrument that had failed me.
“Tamsyn? What is it? Are you—”
Gulping back a sob, I whirled, holding up my hand like a torch that had burned out. “I can’t feel him! He’s gone!”
She frowned. “What do you mean … gone?”
“One moment I felt him, as always, and now I can’t!” I clutched at my chest, at the spreading ache there. A hollow pain. A chasm where Fell’s heart had once been, lodged alongside mine. “What is happening? Where is he?”
Her expression grew grave, her eyes soft and sad and … pitying. “Oh, Tamsyn. I’m sorry.” She clasped my hand that should be alive and buzzing.
“Where did he go?” I croaked.
“If the bond is gone … so is he.”
Panic bloomed in me—the same kind of panic I’d felt on the day a bloody and broken Vetr had stumbled home with the news that Fell was gone. Loss. Despair. This wasthatall over again.
Only this time, it was the truth. It was real.
“No. That’s impossible. He’s been with me. He can’t—”
“No room to move, to breathe. No food, no water, no company for so long.” Kerstin shook her head slowly as she listed these things. “Magic needs a place to thrive. Without a place to go, it can do things to you. Break you so badly even the svefn can’t protect you anymore. Eventually you have to be free or …” Her voice faded as she gazed at me.
“Or what?” I demanded. “You die? I thought a dragon couldn’t die that way.”
“Well, no.” She winced a little. “Not a traditional death.”
“A traditional death?” I laughed mirthlessly. “What does that mean?”
“Well, the svefn can deepen and pull you into a darker, deeper … unreachable place.” Her ochre eyes were wide with pity for me, and I saw my own sorrow reflected in them. “A place where even you can’t find him.” Her head turned slowly side to side. “And he can’t find you.”
“So … I’m too late?”
At her silence, I staggered back, away from her. When she didn’t refute my question, I turned and stared out at the maw ofwilderness. The wind whistled, razor-sharp on my face. I looked all around at the vast expanse of snow and rock and white-dappled trees.
Again, I started one way, then another … until, overwhelmed at the immensity of terrain before me, the limitless possibilities of where he could be, I stopped. Dropped to my knees with jarring force. It was no good. My gaze flitted wildly, like a bird seeking refuge, seeking a place to go, a place to land.
There was nowhere.
20
TAMSYN
WE MADE CAMP EARLY. KERSTIN FORGOT ABOUT HERtired feet and took over guiding us. She found a cave. Admittedly, she was better at locating them than I was. It was some instinct I didn’t seem to possess, a knowledge of the Crags that was not yet inherent to me, and now … the will seemed to have gone out of me entirely. At least for the night. Tonight, I let her take the helm.
She arranged some moss beneath my bedroll, waved me to bed, then set about gathering kindling for a fire, bringing me a piece of wood to light. I obliged, blowing a ribbon of heat. A fire soon crackled before us, casting dancing shadows over the space.
“You’ll feel better after a good night’s sleep,” she said as she handed me an apple and dried venison from her knapsack. Last night we’d roasted rabbit over the fire, but I was not much up to hunting right now. Nor did Kerstin seem to be.
I accepted the food with numb fingers, staring into the dancing flames. “I’ll never be able to find him now.”
Kerstin nodded slowly in grim agreement. “So we go back, then?” My gaze whipped to her. Go back to Vetr and the weight of his eyes, the yoke of his expectation, his hope for us? No. I couldn’t do that. “I can never go back.”
I couldn’t return to the pride and pretend I was fine—that everything was fine.
“Very well.” Kerstin tossed her apple core into the fire. “Then we don’t go back.”
“That’s kind of you, but you have a life waiting for you with the pride, Kerstin. You belong there.”
