Bittersouls, p.22
Bittersouls, page 22
She waited for the current to sweep her in close to one of the fjords, then made the desperate swim toward the shore. The tide had turned, this time pushing her inward toward the little rocky beach. It wasn’t until she’d heaved herself onto a sharp outcropping just above the line high tide had painted on the rocks that she realized how tired she was. How long had she been out there? How long had she been working to keep her face above water? Her muscles burned, and a fog had settled over her mind. She had to get to somewhere safe. Somewhere hidden. She couldn’t rest here.
Her muscles fought against her as she tried to move. She was shaking. Weak. But she couldn’t stay here. It didn’t matter if they were miles behind her; they knew she would emerge from the water eventually. If she collapsed here, fell asleep…
By the Bitters, she wanted to sleep.
But they would find her here. She had to find some cover. Had to strip these clothes and dry them. She was burning Warmth terribly fast, shining like a beacon on this rock by the sea.
She squinted at the cliffs towering over her. There had to be a cave somewhere. Even a little nook might give her enough shelter to escape notice. It couldn’t be too high. Couldn’t be too steep. It had to—
There!
Dela stumbled toward it, a mere handful of paces from where she’d stopped to rest. It didn’t look like much, but it didn’t have to be. She could get there. She could finally rest. Nothing else mattered right now.
She lost her footing on a slick stone and crumbled to the ground, gasping as she only barely caught herself. Her arms quivered. No. She couldn’t give up now. She was so close. She just needed rest; that was all. Just needed to get to that cave.
Her arms gave out almost instantly when she tried to crawl. Her legs could carry her, but in the darkness, her movements were anything but lithe. She fell again just outside the mouth of the cave, a flicker of fear filling her as she thought for a moment she saw something inside.
No. There was nothing there. With her wisp outstretched to shine its light into the hollow, she could be sure of that. But her heart wouldn’t stop pounding. Could her wisp save her if her heart burst? Could it simply keep it from bursting?
Dela heaved herself upward, scraping her torso on an outcropping she hadn’t seen. Something she carried clanged down behind her, plunging into the rising water. Whatever it was, it was gone now. She could only hope she wouldn’t need it.
Then, at long last, she dragged herself into the mouth of the darkness. Her eyes refused to focus and her head spun, but she couldn’t give up. She was right here. So close. She pulled herself forward, deeper and deeper. She pulled at her sopping clothes, grimacing at the inescapable scent of salt in the air. It would never go away. Her clothes would smell like it and itch with it forever.
She sank against the farthest wall of the cave, trying to shove her clothes against the opposite wall with her feet hard enough to wring out some of the moisture. It worked only slightly, but it was all she had left in her to do. She needed rest.
Tomorrow, she could think about everything. Tomorrow, she could decide what she was supposed to do with herself. Tomorrow, she could properly contemplate just how doomed she was.
* * *
If the dawn had greeted her, she’d rolled over and ignored it. Noon came and went, and still she slept. It was the burning of the evening sun that finally woke her, prying her eyes open with its harsh, titian fingers.
Her clothes hadn’t dried completely, but they would have to suffice. She needed to keep moving. Needed food. Wherever she was, there had to be something she could find. But first, she had to get to the top of the cliffs.
Dela climbed out of her little hole, shaking from hunger now more than exhaustion. It didn’t matter. She had to climb. The rocky face wasn’t without hand- and footholds, at least, but it had to be at least forty feet to the top. Unlike the Footprint, there was no obvious path up. This would take grit and muscle. All that she had—maybe even more.
She touched the side of the cliff. It was cold, like everything in the Bitters. She flexed her fingers, testing her grip. She looked up again to the distant height of the top. It was so far away. It had been years since she’d climbed anything like it, back when she’d still been with the congregation. Some of the children had held competitions every time their yearly trek circled to the Vermillion Heights. The red granite was perfect for young minds and hands to challenge each other. Who could climb fastest? Farthest? Longest? Dela had never been among the best, but that had more to do with her general disinterest with the competition. Unlike Freja and some of the other girls, she didn’t consider the categorical contest between girls and boys to be the height of entertainment.
She heaved herself upward, not stopping to consider how well her muscles would handle her weight. This was the only thing she could do. She would either reach the top or grow weaker down here as she starved. The queen’s Souls would eventually find her, too. There was no time for hesitation.
It was an arduous climb, but she ignored her complaining muscles. Though they quivered, threatening to let fall the body which sustained them, she willed them onward, always fighting. Her new wisp, yet unfamiliar with her and the touch of her will, reached its tendrils forward, bracing her limbs with its ethereal touch. Maybe it didn’t make any difference. The tendrils weren’t material, after all. But she felt better for them—as if it were a sign of the unison she had found: body, mind, and wisp.
She kept climbing. The cliff wasn’t sheer, thank the Bitters. About fifteen feet from the line of high tide, a little shelf allowed her a moment’s rest. The sun had nearly touched the horizon behind her, painting the rosy rocks in a bath of blood-red light. She couldn’t stay here. The only thing that could result from climbing in the dark was a fall—most likely only injuring her, but leaving her helpless all the same. No. She had to keep moving.
One hand, then the other. One foot, then the other. She hugged an outcropping as she reached another juncture, shifting her feet carefully around the cracks of the wall nearby. When she found purchase, she leveraged herself up onto the ledge. She kneeled there, panting, for a few precious moments.
The sun was still falling. Wouldn’t it stop for a moment?
She smirked. What a ridiculous thing to wish.
She put her hands back on the stone, glancing up to survey the last dozen feet of the climb—only to find something staring right back at her. She blinked, but the creature didn’t. Its huge, glaring, avian eyes watched her with the keen interest that only came from hunger.
A roc vulture.
Dela shuddered, but supposed she shouldn’t be surprised to see one. She’d apparently ventured further north than she’d realized. With winter advancing south, there couldn’t be much food its size, even in the enormous territory these creatures claimed. The congregation had always respected them for their resourcefulness, traveling as they did to find what they needed to keep moving, but that respect had always been tempered with a healthy dose of fear. They were ruthless opportunists of others’ misfortune, as Talon had learned in horror at such a young age. An adult roc vulture could stand nearly the height of a man with a wingspan broader than the largest tents the congregation carried. They weren’t picky eaters, so children who wandered too far from the others while in their territory… it had ended in tragedy more than once in Dela’s lifetime.
For it to be staring at her now could mean only one thing. Though she would not have worried—armed as she was—if she was on solid ground, her precarious position gave her a distinct disadvantage. All the bird would have to do was stay exactly where it was. She was stuck. It wouldn’t be hard for something its size to keep her from cresting the cliff if she tried. No matter what she did, the vulture could win through patience alone.
Dela scowled. A bird. A bird? That was what would stop her? After the Vaults? The Bittersouls? The Shade? The Queen of the Bitters herself?
No. That would not happen.
She clung to the wall carefully with one hand, reaching into her roughcloak with the other. She had a blackstick. Rope. Two ice axes. A waterskin. A scatbag. Most everything was still damp, but would serve nearly any use—as long as it didn’t involve starting a fire.
She swore. These birds had always steered clear of the camp itself when she was young. The Ministers said they were afraid of fire. Maybe that was true, but it didn’t help her now. She had to think of something else.
What about her wisp? Could she attack it with that? Jackals had wisps, according to Talon, even if they weren’t visible. Roc vultures might be the same. But she’d never heard anything about them being associated with Bale like the Jackals were. It was certainly possible her people simply didn’t know, biased as they were against the massive white canines, but it didn’t seem like the sort of gamble she wanted to make while suspended forty feet above a rocky landing.
The sun was still setting. She couldn’t waste time with this kind of deliberation. She looked back up at the creature, who had hardly moved on its perch, eyes still fixed on her.
“I will not die today,” she growled at the bird.
It continued to stare.
“You think you are going to eat me?” She glanced down at her feet, shifting a loose stone with her boot. Perfect. “I’ll give you four seconds to leave, or I’ll be the one eating you.”
But the bird didn’t care.
She picked up the rock, about the size of her fist, and looked back up at it. It cocked its head. The queen had done that a dozen times during her interrogation. Condescension mixed with curiosity. Well, she’d see about that.
She hurled the rock at the creature with a shout, then immediately clutched at the wall and covered her head. That rock was going to come back down, whether it hit the roc vulture or not. She grinned at the creature’s squawk followed by the flapping of wings. A dull thunk told her the rock had landed somewhere far below her, and she peeled her face from the stone, confirming the bird had moved. She didn’t wait to see where it had gone. She could still hear the flapping of wings, but every second it used to decide what to do was one she needed to use for climbing.
Her muscles burned, but the fire in her heart pressed them on. She might have only moments, but this wasn’t over. The vulture shrieked behind her, its voice tracking in tight circles overhead. It hadn’t forgotten about her and certainly hadn’t forgiven her.
Hope gleamed within her as she grasped the topmost stone of the climb. From here, she could pull herself up and—
A huge, taloned foot came down on her hand, clamping it to the cliff face. She looked up in time for the bird’s enormous face to nearly touch hers. It screeched at her, anger suffusing the sound. She jerked backward, releasing with her free hand—but her other hand was still trapped. She dangled there for a moment, ears ringing, head spinning.
Jerking into wakefulness, she renewed her grip despite the vice on her hand and reached inside her roughcloak with the other. She yelped as the bird’s beak snapped at her, closing around her head and pinching her temples. Her skull wouldn’t crack, she hoped. But she didn’t give the creature enough time to find out.
Her free arm swung upward, ice axe in hand. It was a blind strike, but there was nothing but beak and soft tissue to find up there. She roared as the creature bit down harder, hacking angrily until she found something the blade could sink into. The bird made a sound halfway between a squawk and a cry of pain, but it didn’t let go. She reached higher, trying to find something sensitive. The eyes, maybe. Would her axe make it through the skull?
She swung again, hard as she could, with a hoarse shout. This time, when the blade bit into the soft tissue past the massive bird’s beak, it was different. The sound the creature made was sharp, but short. The roc vulture released her, both head and hand, and her head throbbed as blood flowed back into it. She couldn’t pull herself clear before the giant bird went limp and began to fall. Her arm was wrenched backward, the ice axe still embedded wherever it had struck. She released it, but the damage was already done. She’d lost her grip with her other hand, no longer pinched against the stones, and the bird’s beak was still wrapped around her head.
She tumbled backward, tailing the bird even as she righted herself. There wasn’t enough time to think about the ground or how to properly meet it. It embraced their bodies like an avalanche, accompanied by the sickening sound of shattering bones.
Dela lay still for a long moment, hot blood pooling around her. Her whole body ached. It took her several seconds to attempt to move.
She sat up, swearing, rubbing blood-soaked hands against her temples. It wasn’t her blood. She wasn’t sure if her blow at the top of the cliff had killed the bird, but it was certainly dead now. She had landed fully on top of it, leading with her shoulder into its huge but delicate ribs as it smashed against the shore. Its breaking bones had softened her landing, and now she was painted in its death.
She stood shakily, glancing down at herself. The fading sunlight probably made everything look worse than it was, but all she could see was red. She stepped onto a wing, searching for her ice axe. It was embedded just behind the vulture’s left eye. So it could pierce the skull. Bird bones were hollow, she supposed. She ripped the weapon free and cleaned it off as best she could on the creatures underbelly feathers.
Feathers. She pursed her lips. “I told you what would happen,” she muttered, cringing at the pain of breathing deeply. “Now I have to eat you.”
With the last few minutes of sunlight, she got to work. She cut away a few fists full of tail feathers and walked them up to her little cave, then returned for a few choice cuts of meat. She soaked it in the nearby saltwater, clearing it of the worst of the blood, but didn’t have enough daylight left to do much else. She retreated to her cave as the light faded and set to work lighting her little pyre of broken-down feathers.
She scowled as they caught. They would stink the same way burning hair did, but it had been years since she’d had to smell it. Still, she needed a fire, and her materials were still too damp. She nodded to herself, reminded to set the scatbag near the fire to dry.
As the small blaze grew enough to cook something, she skewered what she’d cut from the still-warm body with an ice axe and held it out over the fire.
“So this is what it’s like to be a Bittersoul,” she said.
The sun was gone, and clouds gathered on the distant horizon. She would climb the cliff again in the morning. Bitters willing, she’d make it to the top before the snow started falling.
Dela rubbed the blood on her free palm dry on her knee, then kept rubbing until it peeled off in little clumps. She switched hands holding the makeshift spit and did the same with the other hand.
“Yes. This must be it. Just blood and sweat and sanguine silence.”
* * *
Dela awoke to the crack of thunder somewhere miles out to sea. She jerked upright, adrenaline setting her limbs shivering. If daylight was coming, it was still a long while off. The only light gracing that grim horizon was the occasional flash from the One’s abandoned heavens.
She gathered her things quickly and climbed back down to the rocky shore. The tide had come and gone, drenching the feathers of the roc vulture but also serving to brine the meat for a handful of hours. If it weren’t for a rocky barrier protecting the bay from the worst of the surf, the carcass would certainly have floated away during the night.
It took her more than an hour to cut out all the meat she could carry with her. The salt of the water and the cold, dry air would be all the curing she could afford. As a grim souvenir, she took its beak. Surely she could find a use for it.
She worried the Bittersouls might find her. Had dreamed of it all night, in fact. But when she crested the cliff shortly after dawn, no one was there to greet her. The empty, savage wilderness of the Bitters stretched out before her like a home long remembered but not entirely missed. At least she was out of that cell. Out of that fortress. At least she could make her own way out here, if she chose to do so.
Her own way. By herself. Alone.
She’d left Talon behind. Until now, she hadn’t spared it much thought. There’d been too many things to split her focus. But now, as she started out across the desolate landscape—a single dark smear on an endless plain of white—her solitude came acutely into focus.
She thought of the fateful night out in the storm, thinking she was following the light of some lost soul who’d strayed from the congregation. Instead, she’d found a Soul who had changed her life forever, saved her from death at least a handful of times, and had been there with her through the hardest parts of her life. She’d been afraid of him at first. Later, she had grown to trust him, and then to love him.
But he wasn’t here now. It was just her, trekking out into the wilds, armed only with what he’d taught her. She carried the burden of guilt with her. The burden of grief. And the burden of the certain knowledge that if she didn’t figure out a way to deal with the Queen of the Bitters, many more innocent people would die.
* * *
Days passed. Then weeks. The snows came and went and came again. She pushed onward, certain that if the Bittersouls had been tracking her, they would have shown themselves by now. She’d brined and cured enough of the roc vulture’s meat for about four weeks of travel, which left her with only another week unless she began rationing. Though she’d tried to replicate what Talon had shown her about hunting and trapping, she’d yet to have any luck. If only he’d taught her more.
If only he were still with her.
She veered southeast as the Grey Wilds sank away behind her. The Herdlands would have been relatively fertile a few moons ago, but now they were largely buried in snow. The yaks and boars were a hundred miles south by now—not that they would have helped her. Alone, she’d never dream of trying to take one down.
She stopped at the foot of a Wretchthorn for the night, hoping to find some mushrooms that frequented the space between their roots, but this wasn’t the season. There was nothing but dead, frozen ground from here to the Sisters.
