Chapter 16: The Arrow in the Snow
1054 Words
The arrow struck the tree beside Destiny’s head with a violent crack.
Wood splintered across her cheek.
Her horse reared.
Cassian was moving before the sound finished echoing.
“Down!”
Kael’s arm locked around Destiny’s waist and yanked her from the saddle just as two more arrows sliced through the air.
They hit where her chest had been.
Snow exploded around them as they fell behind a ridge of stone.
Lyra rolled off her own horse with elegant profanity.
“I hate mornings!”
Cassian had already drawn steel, charging uphill toward the tree line where dark figures moved between pines.
Royal guards they were not.
Kael shoved Destiny lower behind the rocks.
“Stay here.”
“No.”
“That was not democracy.”
“I can help.”
“You can survive.”
He rose before she could argue and shifted mid-stride.
Bones cracked.
Muscle surged.
In one breath, the man became a massive silver-black wolf.
Destiny forgot to inhale.
He launched uphill like storm given teeth.
The attackers broke formation instantly.
One screamed.
Reasonable.
Lyra crouched beside Destiny, loosing knives with frightening cheerfulness.
“Still think he’s merely annoying?”
Destiny stared at the battlefield.
“Yes.”
“Liar.”
---
The ambush ended fast.
Too fast for trained assassins.
Which meant they were not elite.
Desperate hired blades.
Cassian dragged one wounded attacker down the slope by his collar.
Kael returned in human form minutes later, shirt torn, blood on his shoulder that clearly belonged to someone else.
Destiny stood too quickly.
“You’re bleeding.”
“Barely.”
“It’s bleeding enough for me to notice.”
“That seems emotionally revealing.”
She glared.
Lyra groaned.
“Even injured, he flirts like a menace.”
Kael ignored her and knelt before the captured man.
“Who sent you?”
The attacker spat blood.
Kael did not blink.
Cassian cracked the man’s wrist.
The scream echoed beautifully through the trees.
“I prefer honesty too,” Cassian said.
The man gasped.
“A noble—paid us in gold—said stop the girl before the pass.”
“What noble?”
“I don’t know his name! Masked. Hawk ring—black stone!”
Lyra’s expression sharpened.
“House Marrow.”
Kael’s eyes went cold.
“Thought so.”
Destiny frowned.
“Who are they?”
“Unpleasant,” Lyra said.
“Ambitious,” Cassian added.
“Temporary,” Kael finished.
The prisoner fainted.
Possibly from pain.
Possibly from hearing that.
---
They made camp deeper in the mountains after dusk.
The temperature dropped viciously.
Snow covered the pines in silver hush.
Destiny sat near the fire while Corvin—who had somehow caught up with them and complained the entire arrival—stitched Kael’s shoulder.
“You moved too soon,” Corvin muttered.
“You stitched too slowly.”
“You heal too arrogantly.”
“I fund your clinic.”
“And squander my patience.”
Destiny hid a smile.
Kael caught it.
“Mocking an injured king is treason.”
“I’ll risk execution.”
“Noted.”
Corvin tied off the bandage.
“There. Try not to get stabbed until breakfast.”
“No promises.”
He stalked away.
Destiny moved closer once the others dispersed.
“You should rest.”
Kael looked at the fire.
“So should you.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
She folded her arms.
“You frightened me today.”
The words escaped before pride could stop them.
Kael turned.
Something in his face softened.
“I know.”
“That’s an irritating response.”
“It was honest.”
She sat beside him in silence.
Snow drifted softly beyond the firelight.
Then she asked, “Why didn’t you stay behind the rocks?”
“Because arrows were aimed at you.”
“That is not strategy.”
“It was mine.”
Dangerous man.
Again.
---
Later, unable to sleep, Destiny walked a short distance from camp.
The mountains were moonlit and endless.
She breathed in the cold until her thoughts slowed.
Footsteps crunched behind her.
“You walk alone badly,” Kael said.
She didn’t turn.
“You track people obsessively.”
“I track one person selectively.”
Her heart betrayed her with one hard beat.
He stopped beside her.
For a while they simply watched the snow.
Then Destiny said quietly, “If I had died today…”
“You didn’t.”
“If I had.”
His voice dropped.
“Then something in me would have gone with you.”
She turned sharply.
He was looking straight ahead, jaw tight, as if annoyed by his own honesty.
The wind seemed to pause.
“Kael…”
“I know,” he said. “Inconvenient timing.”
“You say impossible things so calmly.”
“I feel them less calmly.”
Her chest ached in a wholly different way now.
She should step back.
She stepped closer.
“You barely know me.”
“I know enough.”
“What do you know?”
He finally looked at her.
“That you were taught to shrink and keep standing anyway.”
Her breath caught.
“That you joke when frightened.”
Heat rose to her face.
“That you think kindness is a debt instead of a gift.”
She looked away.
“And?”
His voice turned rough.
“That I have wanted to kiss you since the first time you argued with me.”
Silence crashed.
Snow fell.
Destiny’s pulse thundered.
“This is a terrible place to confess that.”
“I’m aware.”
“You’re bleeding through a bandage.”
“Also aware.”
She should laugh.
Instead she whispered, “Then why say it now?”
“Because men keep trying to kill you, and I dislike poor scheduling.”
A startled laugh broke from her.
Then she was smiling.
Then he was too close.
Then neither moved.
The moment stretched sharp and trembling—
A howl tore through the mountain night.
Not wolf.
Human.
A scream followed from camp.
Cassian’s voice roared.
“Destiny!”
They ran.
By the time they reached the firelight, Lyra was on her knees beside a fallen guard.
And the pendant at Destiny’s throat was gone.
- Writer
