Page 120 of The Tsarina's Favorite
In their avarice, the guards entered without checking their surroundings, believing Alaina’s tale of my death.
I grabbed the nearest one from behind and smashed his head against the ice wall.He slid down, a streak of blood left behind.Alaina kneed the guard who allowed his attention to be caught up with his companion’s fate.He doubled over with the violence of her placement.In his incapacity, I relieved him of his sword and concussed him with the hilt.
Together, Alaina and I stripped the guards.I donned the hat and coat from the first one, pulling the collar up around my face.She had the second guard’s coat on under the cloak and a fur collar wrapped around her neck by the time I rejoined her.I could barely see her eyes beneath her own hat.I offered her the first guard’s wool-lined boots and bear-skin gloves.She stuck her feet, slippers and all, into the boots and drew the gloves on, although they ill-fitted to such a degree that it might have seemed comical if we were not desperate.
We stopped just outside the ice building to ensure there were no other guards we needed to disarm.The silence and isolation, especially when our last view had been of a crowded entry, weighed upon me.Fortunate, of course, but so desolate and empty that I could not help but worry over our obviousness.We pulled the doors shut and bolted them again so that the guards could not pursue us, and no one would suspect what had happened until someone came in the morning.
We took a moment in front of the fire.I gave her the sausages the guards had been cooking as I warmed my hands through the gloves.
“It’s bad when toes burn, isn’t it?”she asked.
“It’s worse when you cannot feel them at all,” I assured her, although I did not tell her that I had stopped feeling my toes and the fingers on my left hand some time ago.“Wiggle them, if you can.”Mine were completely unresponsive, but that was a problem I couldn’t think about now.
“To port?”she asked after a few moments.
“To port,” I agreed.
She set out in that direction, and within several strides, I caught up with her.She glanced up at me briefly but then returned her attention to our path, effectively preventing any discussion between us.Wise of her to conserve our energies as we trudged through the freshly fallen snow in silence.The original slickness of the roads and the heavy accumulation eventually slowed us to a crawl as we fought to maintain our pace.
Even with our new barriers against the cold, the biting wind tore through them, and my will to continue waned in the painful, numbing, frozen air.I winded before she did and slowed my pace still further, trying to catch my breath and still only managing the most shallow gasps as the breath-dewed fur clung to my lips.
I took another several steps and stopped.My lungs burned.My chest heaved.I willed myself to take just a few more steps, just a few more, but my legs did not respond to any directive.
“It’s not much farther,” she encouraged when she noticed I had stopped completely.
I gulped and pulled the coat collar away from my face, certain I could breathe again if only I could get enough air.I took another staggering step, and my boot slid on the ice.My leg went out from under me, and I fell to my knees.Pain spread through my body like a bolt of lightning.I was burning.Even the collar around my throat clung to my skin by frozen fiery sweat.
“Leave me,” I rasped.
“No!”She grabbed at my arm.“You are NOT giving up now.I forbid it!”
I struggled to rise, not eager to continue, but recognizing she would give me less of a fight if I could manage.My legs, numb to everything, fumbled beneath me, and I fell again.
“Get up!”she screamed.She pulled at my shoulders to help me rise.“You need to get up!”
I had never considered that it might end like this, that I might die out in the cold, struggling to keep another alive, disgraced, collared, and mostly nameless.But I could not keep up, and I could not let her throw away her chance at escape and a new life because of me.
“I have never been able to save anyone that I’ve loved,” I told her.“So I need you to be safe now.Please.That’s all that matters to me.”
She tried to haul me up and slipped.I fell even deeper into the snow and closed my eyes.Nearly frozen shut anyway, giving into the inclination came too easily.
In the darkness, she called my name, my Varnasian name, my Varnasian name made sweet by her abbreviation of it.I wanted to answer her, to promise her it would all be well, to tell her I would be at peace, that my suffering was over, at long last.I couldn’t.My lips wouldn’t work.My voice didn’t come.I hoped she understood that I hadn’t wanted to leave her, but my purpose was fulfilled.
The Otherlander’s promise ushered me into tranquil welcome oblivion.
