~~~

Before we reach the town we can smell it.Burning. Fire. Destruction. Violence.

It hangs in the air like a haze, coatingeverything; every breath, every movement, blackening our skin andour hearts. Smoke rushes in living columns above the trees, farthicker and heavier than the exhaust created by fireplaces, a starkcontrast to the whiteness of the falling snow. Smoke caused by firethat’s eating bigger things than a few logs of firewood.

I throw the weariness and fatigue off me thesame way I discard my coat, which has become too hot and heavy, asstifling as the dense forest.

Quickly and completely.

I half-notice Siena picking it up and pullingit tightly around her shoulders.

Exhaustion is nothing. Pain is nothing.

My sister is everything.

Jolie is everything.

Saying her name in my head stings me like thenettles on a pine branch, and I wince, but I don’t stop. Will neverstop until she’s back in my arms.

Finally—freezin’ finally—we break through thetrees and see the village standing before us, spotted with snow.The Brown and Red Districts sit heavy and low at the base of theslope, with their rows of small, densely clustered houses, whilethe houses of the Blue and White Districts rise above, with theirtall columns and pointed roofs, generous gaps between eachresidence. All burning, swept with orange and red and the darknessof the black riders, ripping holes and tears in the blanket of snowcovering everything.

And above them all…

Above them all, the palace, an impenetrablebarrier protecting the king and his men.

Smoke pours from beyond the gates.

“Hurry,” Skye says, grabbing my arm with onehand, a blade gripped tightly in the other.

I lead the way into the Brown District, wheremost houses are burning, spitting mountains of black clouds. A darkrider and his horse run off a ways, and we watch as he closes in ona group of Brown District Icers, who have organized themselves andare brandishing planks and clubs. The rider sweeps past them,slashing with his sword, cutting them down one by one. They don’tget one good shot in before they fall. I scream somethingindecipherable and I think Buff does too.

The enemy rides on, seeking out his nexttarget. A cluster of children run from a burning house, shepherdedby a slightly older, but still young, girl. Her mannerisms are sofamiliar, surprisingly mother-like despite her young age. A wadforms in my throat when I realize I know her.

“Darce!” Buff shouts, warning his sister ofthe rider that’s now only a few gallops away.

But she doesn’t hear, not amongst thechildren’s cries and the crackle of flames and the pound of horse’shoofs—and the screams of the men not five houses down.

Buff takes off and the rest of us do too,because we’re not separate people now, not anymore, we’re like asingle living, breathing creature, with lots of arms and legs andmore hearts than anyone could ever break.

But we’re also too slow and too far away andtoo late. Far too late.

The rider closes in, his sword out, levelwith Darce’s neck. Buff screams and screams and screams—

And I think I’m screaming too, my throathoarse and dry—

And the rider raises his sword—

And my body’s all tensed up, preparing itselffor the slash, slash, slash and more slashes that’lldestroy Buff’s life far worse than mine’s been destroyed, that’llchange him forever—

But it never comes.

It never comes.

The rider gallops on, a shadow passing downthe road, cutting up the slope toward the upper lofts of the BrownDistrict.

Toward where I live. Where my mother, evennow, is likely in a drug-induced stupor and oblivious to the worldfalling down around her.

Chapter Thirty

We leave Buff totake care of his family, his brothers and sisters. His father, whowas in the group of men defending themselves, is lying in the snowbleeding, being worked on by a group of healers.

There’s nothing more we can do to helpthem.

But we can still help my mother.

Can still save my sister.

(Can’t we?)

Buff thinks so and he pounds my back beforewe leave. I think he’s trying to boost his own morale, because ofhis father bleeding in the snow. I say, “I can stay, Buff,” eventhough I know I can’t.

“Nay,” he says. “Fight.”

I try to smile, but it comes out all crooked.“Even now, I fight with you,” I say.

And he says, “Cut the cosmic shiver. Just getit done.”

Up the hill we go, stepping in the snowyhorse prints, seeing spots of red where blood’s dripped off therider’s sword. Buff’s father’s blood, so fresh the rapidly fallingsnow hasn’t had time to cover it.

I’ll kill that rider. I swear to the MountainHeart I will.

We reach Clint and Looza’s place, which isn’tburning, which, if you look just at their house, appears to beseparate from the battle that ravages everything else. Untouched.Pristine. Just another house in a snow-covered village.

I burst through the door, nearly snapping itoff its hinges.

Clint and Looza, who are sitting in the dark,look up sharply, their eyes wide and white. “Dazz?” Clint says. Hiseyes flick to the posse of brown-skinned people behind me.

“My mother,” is all I say, my eyes dartingeverywhere and seeing no one else.

“She’s here,” Looza says, pointing to a pileof blankets on the floor. “She passed out and we couldn’t bear towake her.”

“There are riders,” I say.

“They came here,” Clint says.

“What?” I say. And then again, “What?”

“One of them barged in just like you did. Wejust sat here looking at him, not moving, not doing nothing at all,and he left, like he couldn’t see us. He left.”

“Oh, he saw us all right,” Looza says. “Helooked me right in the eyes and I could see him deciding, like hewas working out whether we were any kind of a threat, which ofcourse we aren’t. I guess he decided the same, because he left usalone.”

“Thank the Heart,” I say. I bend down, pullthe blanket away from my mother, touch her cheek with my knuckles,kiss her once on the forehead. “Wes is dead,” I say, and both oftheir mouths open, as if they might say something, but then theydon’t. They just nod. “Don’t tell her. I have to tell her.”

They nod again and I leave, out into theautumn snowstorm.

There’s only one place left to go: thepalace.

~~~

We don’t see any more riders as we runthrough the Blue District. They’ve come and gone, leaving burningbuildings and bloody bodies in the snow, who are being tended to byhealers, of which ice country seems to have plenny; they’recrawling like insects out of the woodwork.

Every rider seems to have moved on, focusingeverything on the final goal of taking the palace.

Where Jolie is. Trapped with Goff, who’ssurely the riders’ ultimate target.

The gate’s been cranked wide open, but theguards didn’t just open it up and let the riders in. There aresigns of a major fight littered all over the ground. Hundreds ofarrows lie in bunches, some on their sides, some stuck in the snow,some poking from the dozens of black-skinned bodies of riders andtheir horses, which lie at a dozen different angles, forcing us toweave our way through the carnage.

There’s red and white and blackeverywhere.

Long ropes are slung over the walls, whichexplain the gate being open. The riders dismounted, fought theirway up and over, and then cranked open the gate for the rest of theriders to pass through. Several lengths of rope are coiled at thebase of the wall, riders tangled in them, stuck with arrows. Therope would’ve been cut by the archers, sending them to the earthbefore shooting them.