White Stag (Permafrost #1)(72)

I couldn’t feel it. When I turned to look, it was covered in bandages. Building up my strength, I propped myself up on an elbow, ready to take them off. Someone stopped me.

“You really don’t want to do that,” Soren said.

I stared at him. “How bad is it? Why can’t I feel it?”

“It’s not as bad as it could be; it’ll heal. But you don’t want to look, not yet. Now lie back down.”

I did as he said, tugging at the furs that covered me. They’d slipped down. I was wearing a long undershirt, though I couldn’t remember putting one on.

“Skadi gave us clothes, food, supplies,” Soren explained. “I needed to get you out of your clothes, but I figured you wouldn’t want to wake up naked.”

Heat slowly burned in the pit of my stomach.

Soren pulled out a waterskin and a few strips of jerky and dried fruit. “Eat.”

Despite my protests, he insisted on helping me sit up enough to drink from the skin. The freezing cold water brought the life back to my parched throat. I stared at the meat, mouth watering.

As I ripped into the jerky with a fervor I didn’t know I possessed, Soren spoke.

“You scared me for a while,” he said. “I thought you were going to die.”

“Where’s Seppo?” I asked, remembering the young halfling, lying limp on the ground. “How is he? Is he … all right?”

Soren nodded. “I managed to fix it. He’ll be sore for a while, but there’s nothing I can do about that. He’s out with Hreppir and the wolves; apparently Skadi found a sufficient task for him to repay his debt.”

“Which is?”

“He’s spending his day among the wolf pack, getting rid of fleas.”

I snorted. “Doesn’t seem very punishing.”

“I think he grew on her.” Soren lips twitched. “He seems to do that.”

I harrumphed. Soren raised an eyebrow, a question piercing in his gaze. “He’s still annoying, but I suppose he grew on me too. He just better not give us fleas. Then I might really push him off the mountain.”

Soren chuckled. “I never said he wasn’t annoying. He’s just the type of annoying that grows on people.”

“How did I get here?” I asked. His words were lightening the dread I carried in my chest at the sight of my bandaged hand, but it was better to get the terrible news over and done with.

“Breki carried you.” He wrapped his fingers around my good hand. “You’re going to be all right.”

“Then why won’t you let me see my hand?” Every second that passed without knowing how wounded I was, the more worry churned inside me. I should’ve felt pain, agonizing, unbearable pain. I remembered what it looked like, remembered the skin ripping off as I tore it away from the iron nail. It was the cost of saving Soren and Seppo’s lives and the cost of honoring our bargain with Skadi. I needed to know what I had paid.

Soren sighed, shaking his head. He came over to my other side as I leaned to watch him. He took my bandaged hand in his, gentle as could be, and slowly started to unwrap the wound. “I need to dress it again,” he said. “So it smells bad, I’m sorry.”

I gritted my teeth, expecting the worst. Slowly, the bandages were peeled back from the flesh with a sickening sticky noise; it had to be bad. It had to be. The bandages were colored red and black throughout, soaked in my blood.

Finally, he pulled the last of the wrapping away. The smell hit me first, and I recognized the sour ointment smeared across my skin. Tanya used it for burns. The skin was inflamed and bright red with black, scalelike patches all around. It oozed a bit from a few open sores, but the liquid was clear. A good sign. I tried to move it and with a burst of panic found I couldn’t.

“Why can’t I move it?”

“Skadi deadened it so you wouldn’t feel the pain. Unfortunately that also means you can’t move it right now. You’ll get the feeling back in a while.” He sat back against the rock. I nibbled on the food he offered me and drank when he shoved the waterskin in my lap, but we talked little. For a long time there was only silence and a wave of heat between our bodies.

“What did Skadi say about Lydian?” I asked, breaking the long silence.

Soren cast a glance outside. “You know that a hunt never lasts longer than until the next new moon, right?”

I nodded. “For whatever purpose, yes.”

Soren clasped his hands together. “Well, there’s a reason for that. Normally the contest ends by its own natural means before the month is up because usually the competition is thin enough for the most powerful goblin to kill the stag. But if it draws itself out longer, in order to make sure the destruction and transfer of power doesn’t get out of hand, the spirit of the Permafrost forces the stag forward toward the two goblins most likely to become the new Erlking. If the new moon comes and the stag hasn’t been slayed, then it will happen.” He swallowed. “What’s more is that if during this time it’s killed on the border along with the losing competitor, the cycle will stop. No one knows why; the ritual has mainly been forgotten.”

A shiver went through me. Soren’s voice was calm, but he couldn’t not be worried. He was Lydian’s only competition. “Can’t you avoid Lydian and hunt the stag?” I asked.