Amara had never been so cold.
She swam in it, drifted in it, a pure and frozen darkness as black and as silent as the void itself. Memories, images, danced and floated around her. She saw herself struggling against the swordsman. She saw Bernard, on his feet and coming toward them. And then the cold, sudden and black and terrifying.
The river, she thought, Isana must have flooded the river.
A band of fire settled around her wrist, but she noted it as nothing more than a passing sensation. There was just the darkness and the cold-the burning, horrible purity of the cold, pressing into her, through her skin.
Sensations blurred, melted together, and she felt the sound of splashing water, saw the cold wind rippling across her soaked skin. She heard someone, a voice speaking to her, but the words didn't make any sense and ran too closely together for her to understand. She tried to ask whoever was speaking to slow down, but her mouth didn't seem to be listening to her. Sounds came out, but they were too cracked and rasping to have been anything she meant to say.
Sound lessened, and the cold lessened with it. No more wind? She felt a hard surface beneath her and lay there upon it, abruptly and overwhelmingly tired. She closed her eyes and tried to sleep, but someone kept shaking her just as she was about to get some rest, waking her up. Light came, and an ugly, unpleasant tingling in her limbs. It hurt, and she felt tears come to her eyes, simple frustration. Hadn't she done enough? Hadn't she given enough? She'd already given her life. Must she sacrifice her rest as well?
Coherence returned in a rush, and with it pain so sharp and rending that she lost her breath and her voice in the same gasp. Her body, curled into a ball, had tightened into a series of cramping convulsions, as though doing everything in its power to close itself off from the cold that had filled her. She heard herself making sounds, grunting noises, guttural and helpless, but she could no more stop making them than she could force herself to straighten her body.
She lay on stone, that much she knew, in the clothes she'd stolen from Bernardholt-but they were soaked through with water, and crystals of ice were forming on the outermost layer of cloth. There were sloped walls of rough stone around her that had stopped the howling winds. A cave, then. And a fire, that provided light, and the warmth that had brought tingling pain flooding back into her body.
She was freezing, she knew, and knew as well that she had to move, to get out of the clothes and closer to the fire, lest she sink back into that stillness and never emerge from it.
She tried.
She couldn't.
Fear filled her then. Not the rush of excitement or the lightning of sudden terror, but slow, cool, logical fear. She had to move to live. She could not move. Hence, she could not live.
The helpless simplicity of it was what stung, what made it real. She wanted to move, to uncurl her body, to creep closer to the fire-simple things, things she could do at any other time. But for lack of that ability now, she would die. Tears made her vision blur, but they were halfhearted, too empty of the fire of life to warm her.
Something came between her and the fire, a shape, and she felt a hand, huge and warm-blessedly warm-settle on her forehead.
"We've got to get those clothes off you," Bernard rumbled, his voice gentle. He moved closer to her, and she felt him lift her like a child. She tried to speak to him, to help him, but she could only curl and shudder and make helpless grunting sounds.
"I know," he rumbled. "Just relax." He had to struggle to get the shirts off, though not much-they were so large on her. The clothes came away like layers of frozen mud, until she wore only her underclothes. Her limbs seemed shrunken and wrinkled to her. Her fingers were swollen.
Bernard laid her down again, close to the fire, and its heat flowed over her, easing the cramped tension in her muscles, slowly lessening the pain that had come with it. Her breathing began to be something she could control, and she slowed her breaths, though she still shivered.
"Here," Bernard said. "I got it wet, but I've been drying it out since we got the fire going." He lifted her, and a moment later settled a shirt, a little
damp but warm with the heat of the fire, over her. He didn't bother to slip the sleeves on, just wrapped her in it like a blanket, and she huddled under it, grateful.
Amara opened her eyes and looked up at him. She lay curled on her side. He sat on his legs, holding his own hands out to the fire, and was naked above the waist. Firelight played over dark hairs on his chest, over the heavy muscle of his frame, and made soft lines of several old scars. Blood had dried in a line on his lip, where a blow from the other Steadholder had apparently split it, and his cheek had already darkened with a bruise, reflected by others on his ribs and belly.
"Y-you came after me," she said, moments later. "You pulled me out of the water."
He looked over at her, then back at the fire. He nodded once. "It was the least I could do. You stopped that man."
"Only for a few seconds," she said. "I couldn't have stood up to him for long. He's a swordsman. A good one. If the river hadn't flooded when it did-"
Bernard waved his hand and shook his head. "Not that one. The one who shot the arrow at Tavi. You saved my nephew's life." He looked down at her and said, quietly, "Thank you."
She felt her cheeks color, and she looked down. "Oh. You're welcome." After a moment she said, "Aren't you cold?"
"Some," he admitted. He nodded toward where several articles of clothing were spread on stones near the fire. "Brutus is trying to spread some heat into the stones beneath them, but he doesn't really understand heat too well. They'll dry in a while."
"Brutus?" Amara asked.
"My fury. The hound you saw."
"Oh," she said. "Here. Let me." Amara closed her eyes and murmured to Cirrus. The air around the fire stirred sluggishly, and then the smoke and shimmering waves of warmth tilted, moved toward the clothing. Amara opened her eyes to inspect Cirrus's work, and nodded. "They should dry a little faster, now."
"Thank you," Bernard said. He folded his arms, suppressing a shiver of his own. "You knew the men after Tavi."
"There was another, too. A watercrafter. Your sister threw her out of the river."
Bernard snorted, a smile touching his face. "She would. I never saw that one."
"I know them," Amara said. She told him, in brief, about Fidelias and the mercenaries and her fears for the Valley.
"Politics." Bernard spat into the fire. "I took a steadholt out here because I didn't want anything to do with the High Lords. Or the First Lord, either."
"I'm sorry," Amara said. "Is everyone all right?"
Bernard shook his head. "I don't know. After that fight, I can't push Brutus too hard. He's mostly making sure that other earthcrafter can't find us. I tried to look, but I haven't been able to locate anyone."
"I'm sure Tavi's well," Amara said. "He's a resourceful child."
Bernard nodded. "He's clever. Fast. But that might not be enough in this storm."
"He had salt," Amara said. "He took it before he left."
"That's good to know, at least."
"And he wasn't alone. He had that slave with him."
Bernard grimaced. "Fade. I don't know why my sister puts up with him."
"Do you own many slaves?"
Bernard shook his head. "I used to buy them sometimes, give them the chance to earn their freedom. Lot of the families on the steadholt started that way."
"But you didn't give Fade that chance?"
He frowned. "Of course I did. He was the first slave I bought, back when I raised Bernardholt. But he spends the money on things before he saves up to his price. Or does something stupid and has to pay for repairs. I stopped having the patience to deal with him years ago. Isana does it all now. All his clothes get ruined, and he won't stop wearing that old collar. Nice enough fellow, I suppose, and he's a fairly good tinker and smith. But he's got the brains of a brick."
Amara nodded. Then she sat up. The effort of it left her gasping and dizzy.
Bernard's hand steadied her, warm on her shoulder. "Easy. You should rest. Going into water like that can kill you."
"I can't," Amara said. "I have to get moving. To find Tavi, or at least try to warn the Count at Garrison."
"You aren't going anywhere tonight," Bernard said. He nodded toward the darkness at one side of the cavern they huddled in, where Amara could
distantly hear the howl of wind. "That storm came down and it's worse than I thought it would be. No one's moving tonight."
She looked at him, frowning.
"Lay down," he told her. "Rest. No sense in making yourself more tired."
"What about you?"
He shrugged. "I'll be fine." His hand pushed gently on her shoulder. "Rest. We'll go as soon as the storm breaks."
Amara stopped struggling against the warmth easing into her with a sigh of relief and let his hand push her down. His fingers tightened slightly, and she felt the strength of them through her skin. She shivered, feeling at once a sense of reassurance and a sudden spasm of raw, physical need that curled in her belly and lingered there, making her heart speed up again, her breathing quicken.
She looked up and saw in his face that he'd seen her reaction. She felt her cheeks color again, but she didn't look away.