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CHAPTER

TWENTY-NINE

CORVAK

The sight of Aidy, alive and well, is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

The exhaustion I feel in my bones eases for just a moment, and I stagger toward her.

When she flings herself into my arms, wrapping herself around me, I feel content for the first time in days.

Her scent is warm and welcoming, with just a hint of the herbs she'd rubbed herself with before she'd left my side.

I hold her close, just enjoying the moment.

This is what I have been fighting for. This makes everything worth it.

"Where have you been?" she asks, laughing. There's an edge of tears in her voice, though, as if she's trying to hide her anxiety. "You took your time."

"I wanted to make sure none followed me," I say.

The truth seems like so much more. Do I tell her about the last few days and how terrible they have been?

How I led hundreds of the snow-people up into the mountains with me, to the cliff I had picked out that loomed over our swimming hole?

Do I tell her about the cries of sadness they made when I gestured to them that I was leaving?

That the time had come for me to ascend back to the heavens?

How the closest ones had clung to the "ceremonial cloak" I was wearing and made the "no" gesture over and over again?

I felt like a monster, a terrible father betraying his children.

I cup Aidy's face in my hands, tired and shaking with fatigue, and study her features.

She looks good, my mate. There are tired rings under her eyes, but the ever-present scratches and burns that have covered her arms and hands from her endless cooking are gone.

She no longer looks thin and worn, like a hide stretched too tight over a frame. She glows as she smiles up at me.

I decide I'm not going to tell her any of it.

Not of my fear as I'd lifted the heavy weight of my cloak, extending it with the long bones we'd worked into it so it would act like a curtain.

I'd stood on the edge of the cliff and stared at the pool of water far below, terrified.

Lightning had cracked overhead in that moment, the storm finally marking its arrival, and I knew I could wait no longer.

I'd swallowed my fear and stepped into the pool.

It was a move we'd practiced on the edge of the pool inside the cave—holding out the cloak overhead and then dropping it at the perfect moment so it would seem as if I was disappearing into thin air.

A magic trick, Aidy called it. Like sleight of hand, only bigger.

I stepped off the ledge and let the cloak fall as we'd trained.

The screams of the snow-people and terrified hoots that followed as I'd plummet through the air told me that I'd been successful in that much, at least.

Then, the water had slammed into me, and I went under the surface. I'd gone under for so long and so deep that it seemed I would never make it back to the surface.

How do I tell Aidy the terror I felt in that moment? That I'd feared I would never make it back to her side? That I would die in the pool and no one would ever know what happened to me? That she would have our child alone because I'd abandoned her?

But my head had eventually broke the surface and I'd fought back a sob of relief.

I'd forced myself to keep quiet, keep calm, because I could hear the snow-people moving about above, calling for me in that strange hooting way of theirs.

I climbed from the waters and covered myself with the scent of the crushed leaves, burying any remnants of their Great One that they might follow.

They had lingered by the cave for two more days, and it took everything I had to remain quiet all that time.

To move without making a sound, even pissing in silence.

I did not sleep for fear that I would make noise and alert them to my presence.

I kept out of sight of the entrance, hiding in the middle chamber and listening, waiting for them to leave.

I didn't think it would work. I had thought they would be cleverer, see through the laughably thin ruse. But as Aidy has said before, they think like children.

And like children without a guardian, they had eventually wandered away.

It takes a full four days before I dare enter the front cavern and move to the entrance.

The stink of them lingers, but when I look out to the path, I do not see them waiting.

Only tufts of dirty fur and metlak scat left behind mark their existence.

I wait until dark before I take my first few cautious steps out of the cave, worried that I'm going to be ambushed and then have to start all over again.

All is quiet, the valley silent for the first time in weeks.

I run. I race as fast as my legs will carry me, moving towards where I will meet up with my mate.

My dreams have been full of nightmares—that Aidy and Valmir did not get away.

That the snow-people found them escaping and tore them to pieces.

That they grew lost in the snows and froze to death.

A dozen horrible scenarios had filled my mind, making me run even faster.

My legs threatened to give out and my lungs burned and still I ran.

And now she is here in my arms, and the scent of strangers is nearby and I find I cannot care, because Aidy is here and beautiful and laughing and I feel such joy as I hold her close.

Nothing else matters.

"How did it go?" she asks me, breathless. Her gaze is wide, hungry for details.

I lean in and press a kiss to her forehead. "It went as we planned."

"Then we're free?"

"Free," I agree. The word feels…incredible. Like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. I am free to do as I choose, free to spend my time with my mate and no one else. There is no army to direct, no game to be forced through. I am…unchained.

It is a glorious feeling.

Aidy pulls back and gazes up at me, her expression uncertain. "There's a stranger in the cave, just so you know."

I stiffen. "Not another metlak?"

Her lips twitch with a hint of amusement. "No, this is a woman. A human woman. She says she traveled looking for Valmir and she was with two others. She knew who I was."

I say nothing. If there is no game, what will they think of the fact that I took Aidy away? Will they think I stole her from them? Valmir was a gladiator. He knows that females are prized and usually kept apart from us.

She squeezes my arm as if to reassure me. "If you don't want to go with them, we won't. I'll go with you wherever you feel most comfortable. We're a team. Always have been."

"Will they try to separate us?" When she shakes her head, I ask a second, equally important question. "Is it true that they have a healer?"

"They do. April—that's the woman—was teasing Valmir about being injured out here." She grimaces comically. "They're resonating and not super cool with it, it seems."

My fears are laid to rest, though. If there is a healer, and they will not separate us, we want to be with these people.

Aidy is safer with them, and I am…tired.

Tired of fighting alone, tired of having to spend every moment trying to survive.

I would like to spend a few hours in bed with Aidy and not worry that our situation will fall apart.

"If they will lead us to the village, I am ready to go. "

Aidy beams up at me with relief, hugging me once more. "I have a feeling everything's going to be all right."

I hope so.