Juniper waited in the hallway. She grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the back of the lodge. “There’s another way out,” she said, ducking through a smaller door that led directly out to the woodshed. “And now we have to run.”

I clenched my jaw against the pain in my body and sprinted over the packed snow and into the trees.

The bear was gone.

Her hand slipped on the axe, and it bounced, nearly clipping her in the face as her body failed to compensate. She had blown her horn, calling the Hounds and the bear for the hunt, and the bear had not come.

Fish swam below.

She watched them, the axe forgotten as the lake ice bit into her knees.

The bear had come to her with the first snows, lumbering out of the drifts like something from another age. She remembered the feel of its fur, thick enough it nearly swallowed her arm to the elbow before she found the slab of muscle underneath.

Where it had come from or who it had been she had never known and never asked, not that the creature would have answered. It hadn’t mattered. Unlike the wolves, the bear did not age and mate and whelp and die. She was like the Huntress— unchanging, elemental.

Gone.

A drop of water fell on the blade of her axe.

She closed her eyes, loosing another tear as the wind blew across the ice, bringing with it the smell of rain.

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-One

Descending the mountain had been treacherous. Every exposed slope was an avalanche waiting to happen, and the cold stole in, weakening healthy muscles and promising peace and warmth and death.

Ascending was ten times harder.

Juniper was right about the bruised ribs. Every breath of frigid air hurt, and I had to lean on her from time to time to ease the ache. Soon, though, everything ached. The incline was relentless, and I had not eaten well since I had left the keep. Game was scarce outside the boundary. What little food Juniper had packed might have to last us days, and she had not had time to find my bow.

I missed the wolf. She had not returned, and I felt her absence like another ache. I also missed her jaws. Even a mouse or shrew would have been welcome.

Juniper looked like she felt little better than I did by the end of the first day. I might have been more bruise than muscle, but at least my body was used to navigating deep snow. What I could see of her face beneath her scarf was grim with determination, and she was more than happy to let me build the fire when darkness fell.

“How far?” she asked as I melted a little snow over the fire for us to drink.