She couldn’t run. Not yet. Conifor was even farther away now, and she refused to make the journey without the dagger and coin. She’d carried them through the confused aftermath of her parents’ deaths. They’d been on her as she mucked out the castle stables. She’d found a box to store them in under her cot in the laundresses’ quarters. Those bits of metal were her only shreds of a life torn from her hands, and she’d die before continuing on with those hands empty. What was safety or warmth without the only pieces of herself she still cared for? How could she carry on?

The moon’s silvery crescent had sunk past the mountain’s edge by the time she actually saw the bag. A patch of black, stark against the dim white. Her heart leapt in her chest and she trudged faster, sending up puffs of powder in her wake.

Just a few more steps and she’d be out of this mess. She’d never step foot in the mountains again. She’d never even think about mountains if she could only—

Something tickled and tugged at her ankle and she plunged face first into the snow.

Her scream was muffled as she floundered and jerked like a jackal caught in a trap. She scrambled in the powder and scratched at the invisible tether.

“Fucking thing!”

The shout echoed off the crags overhead. Anji jerked around, staring wide-eyed at the ridge, at the silent ruins, at the Scorphice’s dead carapace still lodged at an awkward angle at its edge. The world remained still.

Anji slapped at the snow, teeth clenched in a silent snarl, and twisted on the spot. As though mocking her, the tether tingled around her ankle.

The bag was only a body length away. Anji stretched herself over the snow, the strap inches from her clawing fingers. The tether pulled at her aching joints, a sharp pain shooting up her calf and knee socket and into her hip.

Her bare hands throbbed as she scooped uselessly at the snow. She cursed herself for not stealing the Hawk’s gloves and kept digging, shards of ice cutting into her palms. She grazed the silken fabric with the tip of her middle finger and heaved an icy breath, stinging but clear and rejuvenating.

The tension pulling at her ankle released, and Anji flew forward into the snow once more. She spat flakes from her mouth and froze at the sound of heavy steps at her back.

“Well, well. What’s got you out here in all this mess?”

Chapter 15

15

Anji spun, her stomach plummeting. She ripped the stolen sword from her belt and faced the source of the voice.