Strands of a long-forgotten sun soothe over my eyes, golden streaks caressing my closed lids.
I hum in my sleep, joy leaping up, nostalgia pulling at me. I turn my face toward that shining warmth, but I can’t quite make it, can’t quite feel it.
Another silken graze over my brow, and I manage to open my eyes, only for a burst of pain to greet me. I blink against the pulse that triggers through my skull, as two of my ribbons fall away from my face, moving to caress my arms instead, as if those are the next things they aim to rouse.
Not beams of sun, then, but my persistent, protective ribbons. The comforting glow was only in my head.
Groaning, I sit up to gain my bearings, just as everything rushes back. My entire body stiffens as I catch up to the present, and I look around at the still, broken carriage lying on its side.
Snow is crowding in beneath me through the broken window, already numbing my legs where I landed against it. I manage to pull my feet beneath me, my eyes adjusting to the near pitch-black as I attempt to get up. The door is above me, and I slink slowly to a stand, my fingers coming up to feel for the handle.
Grabbing hold of it, I flinch at the sound of fighting outside. There’s the unmistakable clashing of swords, guttural groans of the injured, shrieks of the women. It makes me cower for a second, the noise making me want to curl up into a ball and shove my hands over my ears.
But I force myself to stay standing, despite how badly my knees shake, regardless of the dizziness that sweeps through my head. I push through it because I can’t pass out again. I can’t cower or hide.
Sail is out there. The other guards, the other saddles… So I tighten my hold on the handle to steady myself and then lift my head out of the empty window frame. Just a bit, just enough to peek over.
But all I see when my eyes lift is a man climbing onto the carriage, a heavy thump marking his ascent. I flinch back, smacking my already sore head against the window frame as I try to pull myself back into the carriage, as if I have any hope of hiding. But before I can fully scramble back, the man leans down, a pair of eyes latching onto me as I try to sink down, his hands snatching at my arms, hauling me right back up.
I shriek and struggle, but he lifts me up as if I weigh nothing, as if my fight doesn’t hinder him at all. The man pulls me out of the carriage, the hold brutal against my arms, my waist scraped against the jagged edges of the broken window pane.
I’m barely out of the carriage and standing on top of it with him before he turns and tosses me carelessly over the side.
I don’t even have time to pull in a breath before my body tips headfirst, and I fall into the snow pile on the ground. I land cold and hard, on a hidden rock buried beneath the white. My shoulder and lip smack into the sharp edges, and I instantly taste blood in my mouth, wincing at the pain.
Dazed, I hear the person on the carriage jump down nimbly behind me, and then he’s yanking me to a standing position by the back of my coat, the fabric pulling tightly against my throat.
By the veiled ethereal light of a hidden moon, I can just make out one of the horses dead in the snow, still attached to the broken carriage. The other one is gone, pole strap snapped free, reins abandoned.
Sail is nowhere in sight.
Fingers wrapped in thick white bandages grab my chin and turn my face, forcing me to look at the man holding me. The first thing I notice is that he’s dressed head-to-toe in white fur. Blending in with the landscape around us, except for the blood-red cloth around his face—the notorious band of the Red Raids.
“What do we have here?” His voice is muffled but rough, like his voice box froze a long time ago in this frigid world, a throat iced over, words that dig out like shards of ice.
“Get the fuck away from her!”
My head snaps to the left, and I see Sail being hauled forward at knifepoint by three more pirates. Gone is his gold-plated armor and his cloak. He’s even been stripped of his uniform, leaving him in just his thin tunic and trousers. His face is swollen and bruised, a crack of blood clotted against his brow—either from the carriage wreck or a struggle against the Red Raids.
The pirate holding me laughs at Sail’s struggles, but the two holding him by the arms easily subdue him by punching him in the stomach and making him bow over with a cough. A pained breath pointed at a sagging snow, droplets of blood landing at his feet.
“Now, let’s get a look at this one,” my captor says before shoving my hood back.
The moment my hood is pushed off my head, the pirate grabs my chin again and tilts my head, pointing it up at the cloaked light. His eyes widen, flicking over my hair, my skin, my eyes. I don’t know how well he can see, but it seems like it’s well enough.
“Take a fuckin’ look at this one.”
My stomach tightens, fear tensing along with the ribbons caught in his punishing grip at my back.
“She’s got paint all over her face.”
I blink, but I don’t dare look relieved. I don’t dare speak.
The one holding Sail licks his lips. “Hmm. She’s a pretty one. Cap’n Fane will want to see her.”
The pirate grunts in reply and drops his hold from my chin. “You three bring ’em,” he says before stuffing two fingers in his mouth, letting out a deafening whistle. “I’ll make sure the carriage gets pulled in.”
One of the others snorts. “Good luck. That fuckin’ thing is heavy as shit. Look at all the gold on it!”
“Aye, heavy enough to fetch a pretty price,” the pirate replies.
Behind me, I hear movement, and I see a group of more Red Raids coming, answering my captor’s whistle. The first pirate releases me, just to hand me off to another. The brutal grip on my arm digs in as I’m dragged forward despite whatever protests I try to put up. Sail and I are led away, up a hill, leaving the broken carriage behind.
Sail keeps his eyes on me, ignoring the way the two pirates manhandle him, struggling not for himself, but to try to get closer to me, as if he wants to shield me, protect me from this. “Don’t fucking try anything,” one of the Pirates sneers, holding a blade against Sail’s side in clear warning.
The stricken tears that blot in my eyes are cold. So, so cold.
“I’m so sorry, my lady,” Sail says, defeat and anger in his gaze.
Apart from his armor, the pirates stripped him of his helmet too. With stark fear on his expression, he looks even paler than usual. Only the bruises and blood give his face any color at all. The grim terror he holds is so unlike his familiar joviality, so different from the open kindness normally worn on his face.
“It’s not your fault, Sail,” I say quietly, trying to ignore the way the pirate to my right grips my arm so tightly that it cuts off my circulation. My body wants to shake in terror, but I staunch the urge like a pressed hand against a flowing wound. Suppressing it. Holding it in.
“Yes, it is.” Sail’s voice wobbles, and my heart cracks with the sound of that trembled concession. Cracks deeper with the way his throat bobs, as if he’s trying to swallow down his panic, trying to push through, despite our circumstances.
And all I can think of are the stories he’s told me as we rode side-by-side these long nights. Of his four older brothers, who ran barefoot and wild down the slums of Highbell. Of his tough but fierce-loving mother, who swept them out of the house with the end of her broom and a scowl but would walk all night alone searching for them when one didn’t come back in time for supper.
He doesn’t deserve this. He made it from the shanties to the barracks, to a personal guard of the king’s favored, all without a coin in his pocket. He’s the kindest person I’ve ever met, and he doesn’t deserve to be shoved up a hill by a pirate with no name.
Sail looks over at me, his blackened eye growing darker, puffier with every passing second. He looks tortured. Not for himself, but for me. That apple in his throat bobbing again. “I was supposed to guard you. To protect you—”
“You did,” I say fiercely, cutting him off. I refuse to let him blame himself for this. “There was nothing else you could’ve done.”
“Alright, shut the fuck up, you two, or we’ll shove gags in your mouths.” The pirate holding me shakes me to emphasize his words, turning me limp, despite the steel I try to hold in my spine.
Sail’s blue eyes flash with anger at the sight of the pirate being so rough with me, but I shake my head at him, telling him not to react, not to fight.
We fall silent as we’re shoved onward. The scar at my throat throbs, like a pained premonition. A physical pessimism, as if it knows my life is being held against a knife’s edge once more.
My ribbons itch to wrap around it, wanting to protect the vulnerability there, but I keep them down, keep them wrapped around me.
Behind us, the mountain pass is a looming backdrop. Howls of wind rush out from that gap between the crests, pushing us even further away. I turn my back on its dark outline, hating the sight of its mocking mouth gaping at us, wide open, as if to laugh.
Too far. Much too far away. Our only chance at escape, and we never had any real hope of reaching it. Even the mountains know it.
The laughing wind continues to blow.
