Bringer of Winter- a M/M/M Epic Fantasy Romance

2- Courage

KHIF—

I was yanked awake by two large hands gripping my arms and jostling me to my feet. My entire body felt as if there were boulders holding me down, just under my skin, weighing down my blood and making my muscles clench with their weight.

Without thought I cried out, waking Ryker immediately. His eyes flew open, and he strained to sit up but was unable. Flinching and groaning, he watched with frustrated helplessness as Olin brought out a rope and tied my wrists together, his face unreadable. I watched him closely, trying to catch any sign of what they planned with us. His face was so blank, so concentrated on tying the rope around my wrists that there was nothing in his eyes I could see, nothing in the way he looked at me, at the other men in the camp.

By the time the men were ready to move out of their camp, I had Ryker sitting up and back against a boulder. I had checked his wound and saw no signs of infection. It was healing well, as quickly as my shay'yah was able to bind the skin closed. He was able to stand with my help, and walk with heavy breaths only with prodding from Olin and Paul.

Ryker and I travelled behind the men's horses until early afternoon, the ropes binding my wrists biting into my skin and chafing painfully. Every time I flinched or made a move to position the rope better, Ryker growled, his anger frustrated and helpless. I smiled up at him, trying to calm him, but he simply glared at me, as if berating me for my own serenity.

Yes, I seemed composed, but he knew as well as I that the peace I pretended to feel was just that: pretend. Inside I was terrified. I had never been more than a few miles outside of Nibea, never been too far from Rothart for very long, even. And with each step away from Wal'yah, I could feel my connection to the ancestors dimming. Their song was nearly silent in my mind, my soul crying out to them with each breath I took.

Gods, how I missed my home. How I missed the crash of the waves against the rocks so far under my window, the smell of the salt in the water and the seaweed clinging to the shore. The beautiful way the gray-blue of the sky met the deep, shadowy black of the ocean in the winter always made my heart feel as if it was too full, as if it wanted to run along the waves, crash into the ocean, and never emerge from the haunting depths that sung so beautifully into my ear, riding on the winds that wove their way into my bedroom each night. When the full moon shone in through the wide window I kept open even in the depths of winter, I imagined I was a wild mage, dancing and praising the moon, singing my prayers to the great mother whose form the moon itself emulates with its silver glow. I had spent every day of my fifteen years calling Rothart home. Besides going out with my father and Ryker on raids, I hardly ever left the comforting stone walls or the embrace of my Grana, my Mama. Never left the sides of my sweet baby sisters Naka and Ally. I always swore I would protect them, would spend my life in pursuit of their happiness. Since Ally was born when I was six, my little sisters had become my everything. I spent my days with them, I spent my nights singing them to sleep, and I made my healing potions with them in mind. Always, always, they were near me. They were like puppies that followed my every step, just beside a bemused Ryker.

I wondered with every step away from home if I would ever see it again. We had left Rothart burning to ash behind our backs, the heat on the back of my neck singeing my hopes and turning my dreams of ruling in the castle of my ancestors to dust. His big arms around me, clutching my stiff and catatonic form close to his body for warmth, Ryker had led me and the small contingent of men and servants who had survived the raid south, away from home, away from danger.

Danger had followed us, though, as each step brought only more pain, more death. In the midst of a snow storm that brought even us, winter's children, to our knees, the last of our women died before we could find aid from a Nibean tribe. The last child, one that had carried messages in Rothart, caught a fever that burned him inside out as I sat beside his bedroll and sobbed, holding his hand until his fingers were frozen solid around my own and Ryker had to crack them to get them from me. Only when we were at our weakest, when we cowered in the dirt, against boulders the size of giants, did the final blow come that left only me and Ryker to face the harsh land alone.