Gwyn, limping halfway down the bridge, didn’t stop moving. The males were only a few feet behind, crowding onto the rickety structure.
Nesta brought the blade down upon the bridge’s ropes. Even as the wood fell out from beneath her, Gwyn still seemed to be running, then leaping into the open air, only that rope around her middle to keep her from death as she began to plunge—
But Nesta had grabbed on to the rope, dropping before the bridge post and wrapping her legs around it, holding on tightly as inch after inch of rough fiber ripped through her hands. Behind her, braced against the pine tree, Emerie held on just as tightly.
Gwyn fell toward the ravine floor, Illyrian males shrieking as they tumbled, untethered, with her.
Nesta screamed, her palms on fire. Red coated the rope, but she clamped her torn hands tighter and breathed through the ripping, tearing sensation.
Until Gwyn halted her plunge, yanked to a stop. The entire world seemed to suck in a breath as Nesta waited for the snap of the rope.
But Gwyn only careened toward the rock face, grunting in pain as she hit.
The Illyrians who had fallen had carried the only bows, thankfully, and the males on the other side cursed and spat.
But Nesta and Emerie paid them no heed as they hauled Gwyn upward, bloodied hands turning the rope redder still. Each pull had Nesta panting against the pain until Gwyn cleared the cliff edge, grimacing as the arrow through her thigh touched the ground. It had been a clean shot, but blood soaked her leg. Her face was already pale.
“Fucking bitches!” one of the males roared.
“Oh, shut up!” Emerie bellowed across the ravine, helping Nesta lead Gwyn into the snowy trees, their breaths puffing out before them. “Find something new to call us!”
They managed to slide the arrow out of Gwyn’s leg and bind it using an extra shirt they’d taken from a dead warrior, but the priestess still limped. Her face had grown ashen, and even propped up between Nesta and Emerie, she kept their pace glacial.
Yet they continued toward Ramiel, now visible ahead of them.
They encountered no one else. It began snowing again around midday, and Gwyn’s steps grew staggered. Her breathing too labored. Soon Nesta and Emerie were half-carrying her between them.
By the time evening fell, just getting Gwyn high into a tree took all their remaining strength. They secured themselves to its trunk with the bloodied rope, and Nesta and Emerie idly plucked tiny rope fibers from their torn hands. They had no more food, only water.
The next day was the same: slow walking, snow flurries, ears straining for any hint of other warriors, too many breaks, only water to fill their bellies, and, as night fell, a new tree.
But this tree was the very last before a barren slope rose above them like a black beast.
They’d made it to the foot of Ramiel.
Nesta awoke before dawn, checked that Gwyn breathed, that her leg hadn’t become infected, and stared at the black-and-gray slope ahead.
Far up, too far, lay its peak with the sacred black stone. Three stars glinted above the mountain: Arktos and Oristes to the left and right; Carynth crowning them. Their light flared and waned, as if in invitation and challenge.
“Cassian told me only twelve have made it this far,” Nesta murmured to her friends. “We’ve already earned the title of Oristian just by being here.”
Emerie stirred. “We could stay up here today, wait it out overnight, and be done at dawn. To hell with any titles.” It was the wise thing to do. The safe thing to do.
“That path,” Nesta said, pointing to a small one along Ramiel’s base, “could also take us down south. No one would go that way, because it takes you away from the mountain.”
“So we’d come all this way and just hide?” Gwyn said, voice hoarse.
“You’re hurt,” Nesta countered. “And that is a mountain in front of us.”
“So rather than try and fail,” Gwyn demanded, “you would take the safe road?”
“We would live,” Emerie said carefully. “I’d love nothing more than to wipe the smirks off the lips of the males in my village, but not at this cost. Not if it costs us you, Gwyn. We need you to live.”
Gwyn studied Ramiel’s craggy, unforgiving slope. Not much snow graced its sides. Like the wind had whipped it all away. Or the storms had avoided its peak entirely. “Is it living, though? To take the safe road?”
“You’re the one who’s been in a library for two years,” Emerie said.
Gwyn didn’t flinch. “I have. And I am tired of it.” She surveyed the blood-soaked leather along her thigh. “I don’t want to take the safe road.” She pointed to the mountain, to the slender path upward. “I want to take that road.” Her voice thickened. “I want to take the road that no one dares travel, and I want to travel it with you two. No matter what may befall us. Not as Illyrians, not for their titles, but as something new. To prove to them, to everyone, that something new and different might triumph over their rules and restrictions.”