“It’s ending again,” said Kerri, and her finger stopped moving. The life disappeared from her eyes.

Blood seeped out in a widening pool, hot and red and lost forever.

Chapter Thirty-four

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

“There’s definitely someone there,” said Ariel, dropping back down behind a tree-lined snowbank. The snow was worse now than it had ever been, a blizzard so thick and windblown they could barely see one another at more than fifty feet. They were north of Riverhead, slogging through wide, flat farmland, and hadn’t heard the noise until it was practically on top of them. “I don’t know who it is, or if they’ve heard us as well.” Ariel shook her head, checking her rifle; it was covered with snow, but it seemed like everything still worked. She wouldn’t know until she tried to fire it. “We need to find better cover if this turns into a fight.”

Xochi scanned the area, though there was little to see. “We passed a farmhouse a ways back, or a church or something. Looked small, wood construction.”

“Not the best defense,” said Isolde. Khan was strapped to her chest, and she covered him protectively with her arms. “We’re on the main road—maybe they’re just passing through. If we get off it, they might not notice us at all.”

“And if they follow us, who knows where we’ll end up?” said Kessler. “You can smell the seawater, even through the storm—too far north and we have our backs against the ocean.”

“I think they’re coming toward us,” said Hobb, running back from his position at the front of the line. “I can take a few shots now, try and get lucky, but that’s only likely to make them mad.”

“We don’t even know if they’re aware of us,” said Nandita. “I can’t feel anything on the link, but who knows how the blizzard’s disrupting that?” She grimaced. “North, then, away from the road. We’ll take shelter in the first suitable structure we find.”

They trudged across the snowy field, Ariel shielding her face with her hands just to be able to see. The world was a white void, unshaped and unmade. Slashing pellets of ice bit into her skin. Slowly the world in front of her grew darker, a patch of gray slowly coalescing to black, and then a building appeared, wraithlike in the snow. It was stone, at least three stories high, with a heavy wooden door flanked by thick stone pillars. It felt unnatural to Ariel, like a castle made real in a realm of dreams, but she ran to the door and heaved against it. It didn’t open. A plaque on the door identified it as the Bluff Hollow Country Club.