Soul Seeker

39: Return to Nome

Every step they took into the eternal night felt like descending into a nightmare, but there was no waking up.

The dogs hated it, too: they plodded along with their heads down and tails up, miserable but tense and alert. Even the wind seemed to be against them, pushing them back like a great invisible hand.

Ciara's mind whirled. She hated the thought of bringing her friends into danger after they'd already been through so much, but the idea of going to face the wolves alone terrified her, too. Now she had a little time to think, her fear was all-consuming.

They had to convince Sköll to bring back the sun. The idea was almost laughable, it sounded like a cautionary tale for children, not her life.

What could she possibly say to Sköll? What she wanted was answers. Why is there a pain in my chest? Did you mean anything you said to me? How much did you remember at the time – was everything just manipulation? And, selfish, immature, vulnerable: Did you really see something in me? These were not the thoughts she should be having, but she couldn't help it. She was not a guardian, she was a simple human with mortal feelings easily bruised.

How could she do anything, say anything, without one of the wolves taking one look and killing them all on sight?

The journey passed in a blur. The whole time, Ciara was convinced they would be far, far too late. She imagined arriving in Nome only to find it buried by snow, or burned to the ground. The little girl who lived across the street... the baker who smiled at her every morning... The gruff hunters who would occasionally give her nods when they saw her with an impressive catch in the market... it was too easy to imagine them all gone, all dead, consigned to Ginnungagap to have their souls be destroyed forever in the Yawning Void...

"We have to rest," Fell said.

"We can't," Ciara snapped.

"We're all dead on our feet, we haven't eaten or drunk anything in an entire day. If we don't rest, we'll die before we even arrive."

But she couldn't rest. Even when the others stopped the sleds and handed out smoked meat she paced furiously, chewing without tasting, unable to stop her thoughts from spiralling.

Would Darius be there, waiting for them? Was she finally to get answers? That terrified her as much as the wolves.

She finally stilled when Sebastian marched up to her, planted his hands on her shoulders, and pushed her down into the snow. She hadn't realised how much her feet were hurting until she took her weight off them.

"So how do you two know Morrigan? We deserve to know," he said to his aunt and uncle.

Fell sighed. He looked ragged. "Morrigan showed up at Blackwolf at the same time as Darius, just before everything went wrong – young, beautiful –"

At this, Isa made a choking sound in her throat.

"– and power-hungry. After the mountain... She and Darius joined forces with a common goal: to gain power through the guardians, through hunting them down. Darius, I think, has more of a personal tie to the guardians and wants them for himself, but Morrigan would be happy to sell them to anyone, as you heard back in the city. She sees them as incredibly useful bargaining chips, and if she had one she would use it to get everything. Wealth, followers, a seat in the Protectorate. Maybe not as Suzerain, because ruling out in the open and having to deal with every issue the country encounters would not be her style. I think she would find herself a role in the shadows, as you saw with her seduction of the Baron, and she would waste no time in making herself invaluable through blackmail and terror."

"She would sell the wolves to Darius?" Ciara whispered, wishing she wouldn't have to believe it.

"In exchange for him finding a way to get her everything she wants, yes."

A heavy silence fell. Tonraq sat beside Ciara and put his arm around her.

"We're just five people," he said quietly. "How are we supposed to win this? Especially when the wolves themselves are against us."

"We have a guardian on our side," Fell reminded him.

Ciara looked up with a jerk. "But... I thought we'd made this clear – I'm not a guardian, I'm practically useless. And don't bring up what happened in the mountain, that was just pure dumb luck. I don't know what I'm doing. Please, Fell, you know me – I can't – I don't have the control or the skill to pull any of this off, I feel like I'm pretending. Someone will figure it out and take the white soul from me eventually, I don't know why Ask hasn't done it already." She could feel her voice rising in hysteria with the effort to get them all to understand. "I'm losing control of myself, even without the powers! I don't know who I am. I wasn't born a guardian, all of this is so... wrong."

Fell gazed steadily at her, his eyes streaming with blue in the strange twilight. "I believe in you, Ciara."

"Well, I don't."

"I do," he repeated in his deep voice. Immovable, stubborn. Insufferable. "Trust me, we will be with you every step of the way. Don't you remember how much I disliked you when we met?"

She choked a laugh.

Fell walked up to her and extended a hand. "I've seen you grow from a confused huntress from a small town into a guardian. I don't think it matters how you got the powers. You're using them in the right way, for the right things, and you aren't failing, even if you think you are. After everything, after you tried to kill me, after you lied and cheated and tricked us... I believe in you. That should mean something."

She tried to swallow, but couldn't. The tears in her eyes almost blinded her to the waiting hand.

She took it, letting Fell pull her to her feet.

*

There was a way to bypass Nome to get to the Cradle, but Ciara and Tonraq couldn't resist taking them west past the village. Nome nestled in the tundra, a mosaic of golden firelight in the windows twinkling fiercely against the pressing darkness. It looked pitifully small underneath the arching black swathe of the sunless sky, but even so, it was alight with defiance, and the sight made her want to run home and dive into bed to block everything out.

Beside her, Tonraq inhaled deeply as if he was trying to let the familiar air give him strength, as if he felt the same way.

"You don't have to come," Ciara whispered, one last attempt to get him to change his mind, but he said nothing, and she finally gave up.

"Which way?" Sebastian said.

"East." Ciara turned the sled but kept her eyes on Nome until it was just a blur behind them.

The Cradle was exactly how she had left it that day, the fateful day of the sled race which seemed like a million lifetimes ago. The cliffs and hills which formed the sheltered bowl cut shapes of an even deeper darkness against the sky, but they stood silent and arresting.

"There's the pass," Ciara said unnecessarily. The spires on either side formed a natural gateway, and her eyes were immediately drawn to the one on the left, which was taller.

Sköll might be up there right now.

When they reached the foot of a steep, winding trail leading up the spire they halted the sleds and anchored the dogs, strapping weapons to their belts.

"Look," Tonraq said in a hushed whisper. He jumped off his sled and rubbed at a rock with his sleeve, brushing away snow and frost until he revealed a rune carved into the face. Small boulders at intervals along the trail of the Cradle pass had been etched into, turning them into trail markers – or so Ciara had always thought.

"The trail markers... are Sköll's. This is his ancient territory." Ciara barely heard herself speak. She was back in the river, having just poached on Virki lands and half-drowned to hide from their dogs. She was back in the woods checking the sled, when her dogs alerted her to a threat. And then a magnificent grey alpha wolf emerged from the underbrush...

Her entire life, her childhood here, all of it was unspooling before her eyes like a dropped yarn. Nothing would ever be the same again. Deni and Quill, the reindeer guardians of fate and coincidence – which of them had a hand in this? Had she been destined for this path all along, or was it simply cruel chance? She wasn't sure which was preferable, and with great effort, pushed those thoughts to the back of her mind.

"Now," Isa said, tying her long dark hair back, "we climb. Let's end this."