The Hawk twitched, muttered something Anji couldn’t make out, then began hacking again, like something sticky and stubborn was caught in her throat. Each cough sent her frail form curling tighter in on itself, until finally the Hawk dribbled a wet black glob out of her mouth and onto the stone.

Anji grimaced. How much has she been using? And for how long?

Though her fingers itched to claw at the woman’s face, a small piece of Anji couldn’t help the concern she felt, regardless of whether the Hawk said it was hers to feel or not. They’d faced death together, hadn’t they? That had to count for something. Up against a Scorphice the Hawk had lived up to her reputation as a merciless killer, but here in this cave, curled in on herself and shaking like a leaf, she looked anything but formidable.

Anji crept forward. Prodded the Hawk’s shoulder.

Nothing. The woman was out cold, her mouth slightly open.

Anji’s heart leapt. She’d finally been left to herself for the first time in days. But she was still a prisoner as long as this thing was tied around her ankle—as long as she was poisoned. She scanned the Hawk’s seamless array of leather armor, trying to remember whether the Hawk had stashed Anji’s antidote on her person by mistake. The inky-black material covered every bit of the woman’s skin apart from her face. Anji leaned over the Hawk’s still form, checking as many spots as she could without touching the woman’s body.

No sign of the antidote. She’d have to go outside. She’d have to hope the tether was long enough for her to find the bag out in the snow. Hope it had ripped open on its way down.

Anji licked her lips, and with a final glance at the Hawk, ducked out of the open doorway.

Chapter 14

14

Stars crowned the mountain peaks standing sentinel above the snow-filled gully, blinking in a milky swath across the void. The wind had died to a whisper, whistling through the boulders and crags and outcroppings like an icy chorus with neither beginning nor end.

Anji couldn’t care less.

Cold crawled through to her bones as she clambered down the slope. It scratched at her crusted lips, fingered the holes in her shirt, the bare skin exposed by pants Matron would have forced her to throw out weeks ago. Her feet had fled from aching, past numb, and into pulsing pain in the few minutes since she’d left the cave.

And the wind. That incessant, wailing wind. It slapped the sword she’d stolen against her thigh. It stung her ears like a thousand pinpricks, found its way up her nose and down her throat.

She closed one nostril and blew hard.