Chapter 12: The Frozen Gate

It was so cold, so dark. Andra couldn't help but laugh as tears welled in her eyes. The hero isn't supposed to die so soon.

Chapter 12: The Frozen Gate

We’ll put them lame if we push any harder,” Andra sighed for the hundredth time. “Maybe we should slow down so Eyrie and Gryphon can reach us.” Andra and Kylan had ridden another two days south and Eyrie and Gryphon had yet to catch up. Their tardiness was enough to keep Andra looking over her shoulder in worry.

     Kylan scowled over her shoulder, running her tongue over her teeth. She didn’t say what they were both thinking. Maybe they won’t catch up to us.

     “Fine. Let’s camp here, then,” the girl said. “Here” was a field of dead grass. A pine forest rose to their right about two-hundred paces away and the Frozen Gate was up ahead, maybe another day’s ride. Andra could see the frosty white peaks if she craned her neck.

     Another gust of frigid wind and Andra was quickly brought back to her present location. Eyrie was right. A few days south and spring was nowhere in sight. She huddled deeper into her fur-lined cloak as her breath puffed out in a little white cloud.

     The raven-haired thief marched off toward the trees in search of fire wood. Her androgynous shape was made even more so with her layered shirts and the dark jerkin she wore. Her cloak was a deep green, one that almost blended with the trees she walked toward. Andra wondered why the girl still wore that headband. It was alright if she was trying to blend in with the Solanese youths, but out here, Andra thought it just looked silly.

Shaking her head, she busied herself with their bedrolls. They had reached an uneasy alliance for now, and each took care of necessary things without any particular problems.

“Andra, what is this?” The lack of insolence in Kylan’s voice made Andra whirl around, hand on her sword. Kylan held an armful of bare twigs and branches in the crook of her arm and waved a branch with pine needles in the other. “All the trees looked like this.”

It took Andra a moment before she realised her jaw was hanging open. When she did realise it, she couldn’t help the guffaw that escaped. The thief frowned as her face turned pink.

“I’m sorry,” Andra said quickly. “It’s a tree. Er, pine,” she explained. “The needles are its leaves. They stay this colour even when it’s cold and they seldom fall.”

Kylan examined the branches in her hands dubiously. “They’re sticky,” she said in disgust. She dropped them into a pile near the unrolled blankets.

Andra had to suck her lips into her mouth to keep from laughing again. She looked up from her attempt at starting a fire to look up at the girl wiping her hands desperately on her breeches.

Her eyes crinkled in fascination, she asked, “Where are you from, Kylan?”

Kylan looked at Andra so sharply that Andra flinched. She was suddenly hawk-eyed and as hard as Eyrie. The look was gone as quickly as it came, but her eyes were still tight around the edges. The tension in Andra’s shoulders was not quick to leave, however. She eyed the thief warily, her eyes flicking to the thief’s hidden knives.

“I’m from the north,” she answered simply. “The trader countries. They don’t have trees like this.”

“But in Sholvayl—”

“I stayed in the city. Business was better there, if you take my meaning.”

Andra just nodded, still wary, and bent back over pile of grass tinder.

“It would be so much easier if you could just,” Kylan said, finishing her sentence with a flick of her hand. Easier if I could control my Casting, Andra finished bitterly.

“I know,” she snapped as the thief sat down. “But I don’t know how. I’ve tried. I would rather that than....” She pointed at the pile of branches. “They make a lot of smoke. It would be better to avoid using it, but we’ll freeze tonight as it is.”

“Awright, don’t get your smalls in a twist, m’love.” The insolence was back in full, the thief’s lips twisted in a crooked smile.

Andra curled her lip and pounded at the flint in her hand as if it were the girl in front of her. Sparks flew, and with Andra’s hands to shelter them, they grew. Black, smelly smoke curled up into the sky. She continued to ignore Kylan as she fed the fire bits of wood and started dinner with the lone pot she had. It was lucky she had kept Gryphon from taking this one, too.

     The snowflakes blew in shortly after they had finished cooking. As the two ate, the flakes became bigger. They stopped melting into the ground and started to pile up.

     “Solanis burn my eyes!” Kylan cursed, throwing her—thankfully empty—wooden plate to the ground. “Is it not scorching bad enough that I haven’t felt my toes since yesterday?”

     Andra smiled smugly behind her hand. She was a little chilly, but she could still feel her toes. At least, for now. She shrugged.

     “Of course,” Kylan spat. “You’ve got Solanis’s light inside of you.”

     “I still get cold,” Andra said coolly. She surprised herself by pressing her fingertips to the other girl’s cheek. Kylan flinched, proving Andra’s point. “We’ll go to the forest. The tree cover will at least protect us a little.”

Kylan shook herself and got up to put their dinner things away, while Andra tossed their blankets over their horses. They trudged through the whipping wind, clutching their cloaks close, the snowflakes stopping on their lashes. Every now and then, Andra snuck a glance at the shivering thief. The little white dots were a startling contrast to the girl’s long, dark lashes and her tan skin.

Walking under the tree cover was an immediate relief. The wind’s power was cut in half and fewer snowflakes made it to the ground. Another rock-enclosed fire later found them laying in exhausted silence, each to her own thoughts.

     After some time, Andra could still hear Kylan’s teeth chattering. The northerner really was having trouble with the cold. Then she had to admit that her own shoulders had not stopped shaking violently for some time now. There was nothing for it, then. She had done it often enough with Gryphon when they camped outside for the fun of it. It won’t be any different, she told herself.

     Oh, and won’t it? another voice in her head said. That’s probably what you’re afraid of.

     Andra blushed at the voice’s conjectures. It had been the last—almost the last thing on her mind! She wouldn’t—not with the thief! They were both cold, that’s all.

     Taking her blankets, she lay down next to Kylan and arranged their blankets to cover both of them. At Kylan’s groan of protest, she explained, “We can share our body heat. We’ll stay warmer.”

     The girl grunted and pulled Andra’s arm around her waist. “Alright, goat-milker.”

     Kylan’s waist was solid, as was her back against Andra’s cheek. Soon, the tremors that shook it stopped.

“They’re horses,” she murmured back. “And I don’t milk them.”

     Slowly, slowly, their breathing slowed, synced. Kylan smelt like the road, and Andra was pretty sure she smelled no better, but the warmth was a comfort as they drifted away.

     Andra woke stiff and covered in a light dusting of snow. She only just feel her extremities, and with them, the warm body in her arms. When she realised it was Kylan there, she flinched. Not the most compromising of positions, I suppose. The other girl’s breathing was still steady and deep. Trying to move as little as possible, she lifted her head to see if Kylan was still sleeping.

     “I’m awake.” The soft voice made Andra flinch again. “You’re as skittish as a horse this morning. I didn’t want to wake you.”

     “Thank you,” Andra said just as softly as she slowly unravelled herself from the thief girl and dusted off the snow. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she heard the girl whisper “thank you” back.

     Soon, they were back on their horses, riding toward the mountains.

     It was noon when they reached the Frozen Gate. This close, Andra couldn’t see their tops. The mountains were made of craggy gray rock, and somewhere up there, there was a pass that would let them through to the Ruins so that they wouldn’t have to go all the way around and through Tor. Eyrie had wanted a direct route, so if Andra and Kylan still wanted a hope to meet the other two, this was the best way to go. Up the mountain. Andra shivered at the thought. The snowfall was bad enough down here, starting and stopping, covering their tracks as they made them. At the heights...a true nightmare. Winter really is cursed, Andra thought with dismay.

     As she absentmindedly patted Midnight’s neck, she realised with a gasp that she wouldn’t be able to safely take him through.

     Kylan looked back to see what the problem was.

     “We...we need to leave the horses,” Andra said dismissively as she dismounted, wishing she could wave away the sting as she waved her hand at Kylan.

     “It’s alright, lad,” she cooed softly as she took off his saddle and their packs. “There you are.” She would have hugged the handsome beast, but she could feel Kylan’s eyes lingering and she blushed in embarrassment. Instead she rubbed his neck once more. “Now go, alright.” He nuzzled her hand and looked at her with baleful brown eyes. Andra forced herself to shoulder her bedroll and pack and walk away. She brushed away her tears before Kylan could make any snide remarks.

     But no remarks had come from the green-brown eyed thief girl as of yet. It was probably a notable occasion, in fact, that she had been quite quiet all day.

     In such sombre silence did they make their way up the small, almost vertical footpath.

     Andra had never climbed a mountain before, and was quite certain she never wanted to again. Every time she looked down from some ledge or other, she felt her stomach lurch violently. To say the snow was worse in the heights was a gross understatement. It was terrible. It blew about their faces, making it difficult to see each other. Kylan held onto the back of Andra’s cloak so that they wouldn’t lose each other as they scrambled up the twisting path. Her hands and lips were dry and cracked from the cold, her fingernails broken and palms cut from climbing with her hands when her feet were unsure.49

     At one blessed point, the snow let up. They could see again, finally, clearly, and the path in front of them diverged. The pass, Andra thought, or shelter.

     Kylan nodded at her and took one fork. Andra stumbled along her own path, once slipping and almost cracking her skull. The path went on with no shelter in sight. But what she did see was breathtaking. The pine forest stretched below her like a vast, blue-green blanket next to the rush-mat that was the field. The forest spread far until it reached a sparkling, winding river. The Lithe. It was all so beautiful.

And suddenly, she felt so alone. So blissfully alone. She had not felt this kind of peaceful solitude since she and Gryphon had left home. She had not been able to properly mourn her mother.

Closing her eyes, she conjured up her mother’s image. The woman was only an inch or so taller than Andra, with similar brown eyes. The woman's hair was a lighter brown, even a few blond streaks. Her nut brown skin was darker than most Almanians, but Andra now knew that her mother had not been Almanian to begin with. Her chest tightened. Mother. A sob racked her chest and salty tears slid down her cheeks.

Lifting her voice into the air, she sang a wordless dirge. The notes came out of her raw throat clearly, carried through the mountains on the cold wind. She coughed, her racking sobs causing her to choke and hiccough as her throat burned.

“Who was that for?” Andra stiffened, then opened her eyes. It was only Kylan, her hands raised in surrender. “It was beautiful,” the thief said.

"My mother." More tears leaked from Andra's eyes, and she did not try to stop them. She glared balefully at Kylan, daring the thief to make some comment. If she did, Andra was not certain she would be able to keep herself from pushing the girl down the rocky slope. Or maybe she would just let her wander off alone when the snow started again.

But she had never seen the raven-haired thief look so tender, so...kind. But she also looked older again, like she had when Andra had asked her where she was from.

“Here,” she said. Kylan opened her arms and beckoned Andra a little farther from the edge. When Andra hesitated sceptically, she said, “It’s alright,” and folded her arms around her.

Kylan was warm, at least at her core. Andra hadn’t expected her to feel so nice. Last night was duty, but this...was not. It was strange, though.

“Kylan, how old are you?” Andra said, her voice muffled by the girl’s shoulder.

     Andra felt Kylan stiffen. “Why?”

     “Because. You are strange,” she said bluntly. There were things about Kylan that made her seem young, like her silly gambits and teasing, but she could also exhibit a maturity so close to Eyrie's that Andra wondered. The thief even looked caught in between young and old, with her smooth young skin and the darkened hollows of her cheeks.

     “Well, if that is the only reason...I have twenty winters.” She nodded around them. “Twenty-one, if you count this extra one.”

     Andra pulled back from their embrace sharply. Twenty? If anything, Andra had expected sixteen at the most!

     “Yes, I’m winter-born, ill luck and all,” Kylan misinterpreted Andra’s reaction. “I suppose you were born under Solanis’s watchful gaze?”

     Andra shook her head, and then corrected herself. “Yes, I was born in the summer, but that’s not...I had no idea you were that old.”

     Kylan’s jaw was tight and she sucked her teeth like she always did when she thought about something she didn’t like. “I’m not that old. Scarcely older than you. Andra." She tilted Andra's chin and Andra looked up into those hazel eyes, brown ringed with green.

     Her stomach lurched. “But—Gryphon.”

     “He said you two were not betrothed.”

     “And you know he wants to be.”

     “But do you want to be?”

     “I—” The question took her aback and she jerked her head out of Kylan’s hand, staring at the ground in confusion. I’m not ready to be betrothed, she thought. Especially not to...

     “Then what? Why not, Andra? Tell me?” Her eyes were pleading, snowflakes falling again on her lashes. Andra never thought she would see a sight so beautiful as this arrogant pickpocket so humbled. The longing eyes framed by the dark hair...but no.

“You are a thief, and we’ve hated each other since you stole my inn key and I knocked you senseless, that is what is wrong!" Andra whispered fiercely.

The hand that had just held her chin was suddenly cradling the back of Andra's head and her lips...oh, Solanis, her lips were on Kylan's and she could not breathe for the fierceness of the crushing tenderness in the other woman's embrace. Kylan tasted sweet, and she was gentle when she caressed Andra's cheek, rubbing the tears off with her rough thumb.

When they finally pulled their faces apart, Andra swallowed and buried her face in Kylan's shoulder. She could not believe what she had just done. She couldn’t believe that she wanted to do it again. Smoky white puffs came out as she breathed heavily. She felt like she had just raced her mother, her heart thundered so.

     “You’re wrong, you know.” Andra looked up at the woman’s voice. “I never hated you. You just...tried my patience. But at least now I know how you feel,” she finished, tugging Andra back down the path, her crooked smile soft.

     Andra shook her head and tugged back sharply. Kylan came back. I could get used to that. She kissed the thief again, hard, as the snow came back in earnest, before letting her pull her away.

     This time it was Andra who trailed behind on Kylan’s cloak as Kylan showed her the path she had navigated earlier. The view from this side was vastly different. It was an icy wasteland with random outcroppings of stone that were probably once buildings, tall pillars and obelisks reaching from the snow into the sky.

     “I do think that is Emor,” Kylan whispered, the awe plain in her voice.

     “Was,” Andra corrected. “Now we just need to get down there.” As they stumbled and slid on the ice, Andra knew it was much easier to say the thing than to do it.

     By the time it was full dark, they still had not found a sheltered spot to rest, and the temperature had only dropped further. Andra felt sluggish, and more than once she had to catch Kylan as she faltered. Her legs burned and her back ached with the weight of her pack. Her throat was raw, and if she had had toes, she was quite certain they weren’t there anymore.

     When Kylan slipped, it took Andra a moment before she realised it, and suddenly she was sliding down a craggy slope on her side.

     “And-oof!” Kylan’s yell was cut short as Andra slammed into her stomach. She groaned in pain and Andra smiled apologetically as she tried to roll off.

     “Are you alright?” The thief’s downward decent had been broken by a large rock that bordered the edge. Another foot and she would have had a much longer fall. As it was...

     “I’m fine. The pack broke my fall. I’ll manage with a few bruises.” “Maybe you winter-born are more lucky than you think.”

     Kylan looked at Andra for a moment before saying, “Maybe. Then, of course, you came,” the thief finished. “We should stop now before something else happens, though.”

     As they were shrugging off their packs, Andra saw Kylan wince slightly and then grimace.

     “Ungh. Hurts more than I thought,” the woman gasped.

     “Is something broken?” Andra said, kneeling by her side and helping lift off the pack.

     Kylan breathed experimentally, testing. “I think, a rib. But...I’m not coughing blood, yet. I might just make it,” she said with a wink.

     “That is not funny, Kylan.” Andra ran her hands as gently as she could along Kylan’s sides. “Which side?” Kylan gasped as Andra’s hands grazed a spot on the left of her ribcage.

     Andra surveyed their impromptu camp. It was a shelf, broader than others but a shelf nonetheless. There was a ledge of rock along the outer edge, as if the path had been dug lower into the mountain to give travellers and handhold. It was all covered in the same snow that whipped around their faces, the same snow that would probably kill them.

     “I’m going to move you,” Andra said. “I don’t know much about setting a bone but I know it would be best if you just lie down.” The dragging process elicited only a few hisses of pain from the wounded, and when they were done she lay next to the rocky wall. “Now stay.”

     “Aye, what wiv me plannin’ on goin’ for a stroll about now,” the thief drawled, smiling. Her eyes opened and closed and Andra could only imagine the pain she must have felt on top of the exhaustion from their mountain climb. And the snow.

It was so cold, and dark. So dark. After using their packs to form a makeshift railing around their bodies, Andra covered them in all of their blankets and cloaks. They had already put on their extra clothes for more layers.

But they hadn’t been enough. Kylan’s body was already cold, her breath faint and staggered. Andra tried not to let her shivers jerk Kylan too much, and when she tried to move away, Kylan held her fast.

Andra couldn’t help but laugh at the impossibility of it all as tears welled up in her eyes. The hero isn’t supposed to die so soon, she thought before she slid into unconsciousness.

Reviews

[Chris]

The story is still going strong as it was since the beginning. I really like how things are shaping up and I like how you ended this chapter. However, I am confused as to why you have a 49 after a paragraph:

"...palms cut from climbing with her hands when her feet were unsure.49"

Just wanted to point that out lol. Other than that, I didn't notice anything wrong with it other than the sudden change of font color.