Page 58 of Winter's Edge
I stopped and took in the two men, who stared right back at the woman with a wolf in her coats and aiming an arrow right at them. The uninjured guy I didn't know. The other…
Oh god. My whole being shattered just looking at my wolf's face.Archer, covered in blood and both eyes almost completely swollen shut.
The man with the poison frowned. "Wha—?"
Behind him, the door swung open, and a cannonball barreled into him. He went sprawling to the floor in a tangle of limbs with Grady on his back all the way down.
Grady, just as bloodied as Archer.
The poison bottle flew from the man’s hands and smashed to the ground. Some of it must’ve splashed up because the man flinched away from it and screamed. Grady cut him off, though, already rolling him onto his back, his fists flying at the man's face.
Archer, without anyone to prop him up, teetered wildly on his feet. I dodged to his side, and Sasha whimpered as we drew closer and the smell of blood on him thickened the air with copper.
"What happened?" I asked him, my hand splayed across his chest. His heart beat a crazy rhythm into my palm.
"Ronin," he rasped. "Where's Ronin?"
It was as if the name had grown strings and puppeted Grady off the man. His fists were bloody, and the man on the ground didn’t move. He stared at Archer, his face ashy behind the blood and bruises, and a look of pure torture creased his features.
And then I knew why. Archer didn't know Ronin wasn't here, had already been taken into the Crimson Forest, and telling him might destroy him all over again.
“Found the lanterns, but no bitch.” Footsteps sounded behind us. Lager.
Grady and I didn't hesitate. He took Archer's other side, and we helped drag each other out of the tavern. Smoke and fire choked the air, making breathing almost impossible. The flames had spread to the two buildings neighboring the jail, and the jail itself was completely engulfed. People scrambled about to refill buckets, and others stood in assembly lines passing up buckets to slosh on the fire. It didn't look like it was doing any good.
We darted as fast as we could away from the chaos toward the right along the side of the tavern. We averted our faces, but the smoke billowed so thickly I didn't see how anyone would see us anyway.
When we reached the rear of the tavern, Archer stumbled out of my grip and crossed into Grady's path. "Ronin! Tell me!" He had to shout to be heard over the roaring fire, and the effort made his shoulders heave, made his legs almost give out.
I went to reach for him, but he held up his hand for me to stay. The orange glow in the night cast a horrifying light on the blood all over him. He didn't look like Archer anymore, but something much more dangerous.
"Tell me," he shouted, his voice agonized.
Grady shook his head. "We need to get out of—"
"Tell me where Ronin is!" His voice cracked, and I felt myself splinter in half.
Grady hung his head, the muscles in his jaw working like he was struggling to find the words. "She's not here. One of Faust's guys took her to another town in the Crimson Forest to search for the caves."
Archer staggered backward as if Grady had just hit him. Then he sliced his bruised eyes toward me, and what I saw in them through Sasha hollowed me out with an excruciatingly dull edge. There wasn't an accusation there, just defeat, brutal and raw and devastating.
"I'm so sorry," I tried to say, but my sob swallowed everything up.
"No. No, you're wrong.She's in there." He broke toward the tavern again, but Grady lunged in front of him with his forearm pressed to Archer's chest.
"She'snotin there,” Grady shouted into his face. “We would've found her. You know this, Archer, because you and I tore the tavern up looking for her. She's. Not. There."
"No."Archer shook his head, his eyes going glassy like he couldn't focus on any one thing. "No." He backed away several feet from Grady and then stopped. His whole body crumpled as he fell to his knees. A yell ripped from his throat, so full of pain that the sound punctured my heart with a hundred thorns.
Sasha joined in with a little howl.
And then it began to snow.
Chapter 16
Grady patched Archer up the best he could as fast as he could, but he refused when I offered to look at his leg.
"No time," he'd told me.
