I’m homesick already.
I’m sure Zekhi feels the same, nudged in an unfamiliar hutch he blew into a molten dribble before he tucked himself inside. Trying to keep warm until I return.
Another pushy gust, and the massive colk pulling Noeve’s cart trembles all the way to his thick fluffy hind, though he keeps his plodding pace along the frail Path of Daes, snorting milky plumes of air that tangle with his curly horns.
I lean my head over the side, looking down the sheer drop to our left, finding the below still hidden by a swirl of mist that creates a false sense of security.
Very false.
I’ve traveled this part of the wall on mistless cycles. We’re so high the plummet looks endless. Like falling into a pale, moonless sky.
Another howl of wind crams a flurry of snow into my hood, and the entire cart jolts right toward the equally brutal fall on the other side of the Path. My heart jolts with it, my hand whipping out to white-knuckle the side of the cart. Not sure why, we’re all fucked if this thing goes off. The cart, too.
I clear my throat, busying myself by brushing away some of the snow that’s gathered in my lap. “That was a bad one.”
Beside me, Noeve chuckles—the maniacal sound of an old crone who’s done this so many times she clearly believes she’s invincible. I sure hope so.
I intend to die doing something brilliant and heroic. Not free-falling to my doom.
“You’re out of practice,” Noeve says, her voice a husky rasp from all the smoke she’s inhaled over the phases. “A blow like that never used to ruffle your feathers.”
I look sidelong at the fae—a short, stumpy female who must be over a thousand phases old to have earned the dollop of gray hair she keeps coiled atop her head. Not that I’ve ever inquired about her age.
Seems rude.
“How are you not cold?” I ask, eyeing her simple gray tunic and pants, only embellished with a fluffy patchwork belt that knots around her waist and dangles to the floor, made from the hides of her favorite beasts from times past.
Or so she told me once.
She quirks a quizzical brow my way, the reins draped within the loose grasp of her bare hands.
“I’ve never seen you in a cloak,” I continue. “No matter the weather. How you haven’t frozen to death yet is well beyond me.”
She clicks her tongue. “Have to be tough to live east of the Path of Daes, my dear. Especially in times like these. You know as well as I do that it’s a hotspot for renegades and folk a few eggs short of a clutch. The cold is a cushion compared to some of the shit I’ve seen.”
I don’t doubt it, and I don’t particularly like going there myself. But flying into Gore’s hutch would publicly announce my arrival to my not-so-darling brother. Making use of one of the old, abandoned hutches in the east has always been my safest bet since I’d rather risk falling off this very sheer cliff than tempt a run-in with Cadok.
At least until I finally get the chance to meet him in a battle ring and cut off his head.
There’s a jingling sound from somewhere ahead, tolling through the din. Noeve pulls her own handheld bell from a compartment by her feet, rattling it, informing whoever’s waiting to move onto the frail Path that it’s currently occupied. That they need to wait until we pass before they move onto it themselves.
I tuck deeper into my fur-lined cloak. “Here I was thinking the Path would be quiet at this time.”
“Often times, others have the same thought,” Noeve says. “You can clamber into the back if you’re worried about being seen.”
I twist around and lift the flap of leather that saddles the deep wooden tray, frowning at the flock of goggin birds pecking at a scatter of seed, clucking away. One of them tilts its plump feathery ass, then paints the thick drape in a splash of white.
Gross.
“Think I’ll take my chances,” I mutter, dropping the leather, Noeve’s chortling laugh making it impossible to keep a straight face. “You’re terrible.”
“You missed me.”
“I did,” I admit as a squeal of wind whips past us so fast it makes the cart wobble again. The colk tosses his head and snorts at the sky rather than buck us over the edge.
That’s the difference between Noeve’s Path-traversing colks and almost anyone else’s: they’re truly charmed. Less chance of death. Well worth as much bloodstone as I can pack into her very deep pockets.
No wonder she turns them into belts.
“It’s been a while since you’ve graced my cart, my dear. I started to think you’d gone off me.”