Chapter 15

The next day was lost to the blizzard. They spent the better part of it huddled together in their blankets, pressed in close, as near to their small fire as they dared. The stone cliff was a forbidding face of rock and ice, and even with the nearby fire, the ice held strong, glittering with stubborn beauty in the firelight.

The blizzard outside was a wild, angry thing. The winds were a deep, soulful wail echoing through the canyons of the mountains. Very briefly, Rael had stepped out of their shelter to see if he could ascertain anything in their snowed over surroundings. By the time he had given up just moments later, the ice and snow had already formed a brittle, frozen crust on his clothes and in his beard. The sky was blotted out by swollen clouds hanging low. They pressing in around the peaks of the FrostFall Mountains like a glorious and hostile cloak in a constant state of decay and renewal, expanding and ebbing as they hemorrhaged snow in great white bleeding gouts.

"It's frightening," Silmaria told Rael, speaking of the storms. They sat, hip to hip, eating a meager breakfast and doing their best to ignore the incessant gnaw of hunger the slim meal did nothing to abate. "My whole life lived in the dale, and I've never seen anything like this."

It was true; blizzards and harsh winter storms were a regular occurrence in DarkFyre Dale, but the storms in the pass were different. Even with their shelter and fire and bundling up so heavily in thick winter clothes and cloaks and furs and blankets, not to mention sharing body heat, the cold crept through, insidious and patient and unstoppable. The temperature made their blood sluggish in their veins, and the gale blew violent enough that had they been walking the pass, exposed, it probably could have ripped them right off the side of the mountain.

Well, ripped her off, anyway.

"They say the storms in IceMarch Pass are an old god," Rael said to her.

His arms were around her, holding her close to the heat of his body as he sat behind her, with the Gnari girl's head on his chest, practically sitting in his lap. Silmaria drank in the warmth of his body as much as the warmth of the fire. She stared into the fire, studying the shift and flicker of the flames, and listened.

"Legend says several hundred years ago there was a holy place, a monastery whose monks followed the old gods. The focus of their faith and contemplation was the guardian spirit-god of the FrostFall Mountains. They praised and worshipped the god, and the monastery prospered and grew.

"It didn't last," Rael went on. "One year, during an especially mild and gentle summer, a tribe of raiders who wandered the flatlands came up into the mountains after hearing of the monastery's prosperity. The monks welcomed the wild, half-starved men into their sanctuary, bid them be comfortable and at home, and help themselves to whatever food and sustenance they required. The raiders returned their hospitality with bloodshed, and cut the monks down to the man. They raided the holy temple, stole all the supplies and goods they could carry from the monastery, and set it ablaze.

"Upon discovering the travesty at the monastery, the god became enraged. Once, the god had been the gentle serenity of the Mountains the monks had enjoyed. After the monks were slain, he became a spirit of vengeance, taking the guise of a terrible, powerful storm, and smiting the Mountains with his wrath. In a blizzard of unheard of intensity and suddenness, the flames of the monastery were extinguished and the raiders were swallowed up and slain, all in the span of moments."

"If that's true, why is the old god still an angry storm?" Silmaria asked.

"Who can say what motivates a god? Assuming it's a god at all, and not simply a very nasty, very un-divine storm. Because his followers are lost, I suppose," Rael shrugged. "No one ever returned to the monastery. No one has taken the monks place and worshiped the old god of the mountain again. Even now, the storms rage in the Pass so frequently that hardly anyone uses IceMarch Pass except during the summer months when the blizzards aren't so deadly. Maybe the old god is angry that no one looks to him with praise anymore. Maybe he is lonely. Or maybe he just cannot forgive what was done."

"I don't understand the gods, really," Silmaria said, and stifled a yawn before curling in closer to Rael's warmth, sitting on his lap in full now, and feeling rather content about it.

"My mother didn't believe in the new gods. She said they were vain, and that gods didn't wear faces. And The Highest Holy is too pious and self-righteous. She said The Devout would sooner spit on us than give a care, and that said nothing good about their Holy One. The old gods ... well. Mother said that father died for the old gods. So she had nothing good to say about them."

"Died for the old gods how?" Rael asked gently.

His hands rubbed slowly along her arms. Silmaria wondered if he was aware he was even doing it. She doubted it.

"She wouldn't say. She never talked about how he died. I have no idea how he would have died for the old gods. Part of me is curious. And part of me thinks I'd rather never know something like that."

"There's something to be said for closure," Rael said.

His hands rested on her shoulders. They were so distracting, those hands; the feel of them touching her flesh even in such a casual way nearly derailed her train of thought. She thought about telling him as much, but then he might take them away, and she didn't want to so much as chance that.

"Yes. But closure with a ghost is probably not quite so satisfying," she returned. "All I have of him is stories and half-imagined memories. That's not so much to need a lot of closure with. He died before I knew him enough to care."

"Perhaps," Rael said doubtfully. But he let any argument on the matter go, and that was the end of that.

Silmaria let out a quiet sigh, shut her eyes, and relaxed against his solid form. She'd spilled her guts last night in a vast outpouring of grief and shame and pain. She told him about the Stirring, and how she was helpless in the face of it. She told him about giving in to it, again and again, unable to endure the agony of the cravings and demands of the flesh burning at her insides until she satisfied her need. Silmaria confessed her passionate love affair with Master Edwin. She felt oddly comfortable sharing that with the man's son, and knew on some level that he would understand.

She was much more ashamed to admit to her nights of depravity and senseless rutting with men she cared nothing for. She told him everything, the most horrid, hurtful details, feeling in turns embarrassed, vindicated, and worthless, and she wanted so badly to just stop, knowing he would surely be disgusted now that he knew what a wicked little whore she was, but the words flowed out of her as unstoppable as her tears.

Only, Lord Rael wasn't disgusted with her at all. He listened to her as the sin poured out of her, and he never swayed, never flinched. He listened silent and unjudging, and his hands rested at the small of her back. He never let her out of the comfort and security of his arms. Not when he learned of her relationship with his father. Not when she told him the times she'd gone to the guard barracks in utter desperation, and stayed until they were satisfied to the man. Not when she sobbingly confessed her quiet and quite real fear, that if the Stirring grew strong enough, she didn't think there was anything she wouldn't do to satisfy the unyielding need. Rael held her through it all, and his beautiful eyes held no judgment, only compassion, as she told him everything.

Well. Not quite everything. One thing, one tiny little nuance of detail among the outpour of her scarred and frightened soul, Silmaria kept for herself. She was too confused, too lost, and too scared to tell him how deeply she was coming to care for him. She'd already been rejected once. Even if Rael had done it out of concern instead of cruelty, Silmaria didn't think her heart could take another just now.

At last, it was all out, the great jumble of words and emotion and rawness Silmaria had kept buried deep inside, and once it was out, she was at a loss. Rael reached up and wiped the tears from her cheeks, not for the first time, before cupping her chin and lifting her glossy green eyes up to his.

Silmaria stared into those intense silver eyes.

Lost.

"You are beautiful, Silmaria. Truly. As you are. What you are. Who you are. You don't see it. Other people do. They see your beauty, and they try to shame it and sully it, because your beauty is from within as well as without. You have a good, kind, giving heart that has been bruised and mistreated, and is still good in spite of that.

"Most people go through less," Rael continued, in that low, smooth, soft voice that made Silmaria shiver. "And they're still ugly for it. Because they aren't as strong as you. People cannot stand to see that. It's like a mirror, showing them all that they are not and can never be. So they judge you, and shame you, and hurt you, because it's easier than having to look at that mirror and see their lack staring back at them.

"I see you, Silmaria," he said, and the sincerity of his words and his eyes made her heart quiver. "And I see nothing shameful or ugly. I see your passion, your kindness, your tenacious spirit, and all the carnal lusts and needs and deeds in the world won't change those things about you. I see you. Not what you've done. Or what you will do. Just you."

She wept, again. Hot tears soaking his already soaked shirt. Tears of relief, this time. She wanted to tell him. She wanted him to understand the healing he'd just offered, if only she were brave enough to take it. She wanted to tell him, but she'd run out of words.

Rael knew. His hands were in her hair, pale, strong hands running through the soft and yielding blackness of her curls, and his touch spoke understanding in ways words never could.

He knew.

The next day the storm was gone suddenly and completely, like the dark vengeance of an old god's fury, spent and restive until it gathered itself once more. As soon as the pair found the storm had waned they hastily broke camp, gathered their supplies, and set out onto the path once more to cover as much ground as possible before the storm began anew.

Dawn broke over the mountains sluggish and weak, as if the sun hadn't fully mustered its strength after the thrashing of the storm. The Pass was wrapped in clouds and clumps and reaching tendrils of an eerie and beautiful fog in shades of indigo and azure. The sun was obscured behind and backlighting the mist and vapors hanging in great blue veils all around them, fitting to the mountainsides like filmy gauze. The valleys and canyons were covered by a blanket of sapphire fog, and little ribbons of murky cobalt shifted on the snow caking the path ahead, swirling into airy nothingness around their trodding feet.

It was cold, but not the unbearable deathly cold it had been. Rael and Silmaria moved briskly along, bundled heavily, and allowed themselves to enjoy what now felt, compared to just last night, like entirely mild and fair weather.

Or Silmaria enjoyed it, at least. Rael appreciated the gentleness of the day, but the Nobleman was too preoccupied to truly enjoy it. He was worried. Chiefly, about their supplies; they still had some dried goods and smoked meat left, and the last of the nuts they'd gathered before heading into the pass, but it was a meager supply and rapidly dwindling. It would last them three, perhaps four days tops, and that only if they stretched the food so thin that it would barely keep them on their feet. He'd been hoping to spot some game, a mountain goat or squirrel or hare or hawk or, well, anything, but the storm had driven whatever hunting was to be had deep into hiding.

Rael feared the very real possibility that by the time anything became brave enough to venture into the open, the storms would be on them again.

Which was yet another concern. They'd been very lucky to find shelter under that rocky overhang. He hadn't even recalled it from his previous trip through the Pass years ago. If they were unable to find another such spot before the storms overtook them ... It was only about three days before they came out the south side of the Pass. But if the storms caught them, they could end up losing who knows how many days waiting it out. Their food was likely to run out, but truly that would be the least of their problems. If they were exposed out in the open when another blizzard found them, every scrap of clothing and body heat and firewood wouldn't save them from freezing to death.

"Something bad is going to happen," Silmaria said softly, startling him from his thoughts.

Rael glanced down at her. Her shorter legs had to work twice as hard to keep up with him and walk at his side, but the Gnari girl didn't complain.

"Why do you think that?" He asked slowly.

Silmaria craned her head back to look at him, her hood falling away to show the darkness of her hair. There was a smudge of dirt across one of her cheeks, drawing attention to the dark slash of the black stripe set against her orange and white coloring, accentuating her cheekbone.

Not for the first time, Rael was caught unexpectedly by her unique, exotic beauty.

"I see it in your face," was her simple reply.

That, he hadn't expected. He swore silently; he'd been trying to hide how grim their situation was. Now that she'd seen it, though, there was no point in lying to her.

"I was thinking about the days ahead. If we don't find some food, or some shelter, we're going to be in some very serious trouble."

The girl shrugged and kept step with him, stepping around an especially thick drift of snow up against the cliff face. "We've been in trouble a long time. This whole journey is about us being in trouble. We've managed so far. We'll manage again."

She made it seem so simple. It wasn't. But then again, it was. Rael took heart from her brave toughness; there was nothing he could do about the future now, in this moment. "Save your energy for the things you can control by letting go of the things you can't," he mused, reciting words his father spoke often.

"He was fond of saying that," Silmaria said, then gave self-depreciating smile. "Good thing, I guess. I needed to hear it an awful lot."

Rael chuckled softly to himself as they came around a bend where the path curved around the mountain. "I tried to control and order things too much when I was a lad. I felt like I had to. That was what a Lord did, what a man who would one day lead did. I wanted to fit everything into little boxes that were neat and orderly and sensible. It's a nice thought. But not practical at all. And makes for a horribly unadaptable leader. Hell, a horribly unadaptable person in general."

"I wanted to control people," Silmaria told him. "I wanted to make everyone stop hating me and judging me. I wanted everyone to stop staring at me with that look. The one that says I'm less than I should be, just because I'm ... me. Didn't work, obviously. Definitely a waste of good energy."

Rael stopped, his bright eyes scanning the fog out across the empty space to their right where the Pass opened into great, gaping emptiness. He squinted briefly, then nodded as he pointed, "There."

The Gnari girl followed his gaze and stared out into the fog. She probably saw through the haze better than he with her acute vision, but it took her a moment because she didn't know what she was looking for. Then it became all too obvious.

It was massive. A great, sprawling structure hewn into the rocky mountainside across the gorge. It was a wonder of craftsmanship, engineering, and bravery. The compound boasted a great central hub, rounded in shape and rising into a proud roof of fine, sturdy clay tiles. Their once vibrantly painted red was now flecking and peeling, the color of fresh rust. The walls were a faded old green and the huge timbers were rotted and warping from the toll of the elements.

The central temple, for there was no mistaking it as otherwise, was set in the mountain face itself, on a cliff that had seemingly been carved out specifically to cradle the house of worship. The temple branched off to both sides with walkways leading to towers flanking the temple on either end, above and below. The towers were likewise settled into the side of the mountain, and they rose high and slender into the air in spindly points, except the topmost tower in the east, where the top was sheared off and crumbling.

"The monastery in the stories," Silmaria breathed, taking in the sad splendor.

"So many believe," Rael nodded. "Some people think there was once a way to reach it from this side of the Pass. A bridge or crossing of some kind. It's long gone now, if it ever was. The Monastery has stood isolated for as long as any can remember. Hundreds of years, certainly."

"I can understand why the old god is angry still," Silmaria said softly. "Something so special shouldn't have to be so lonely."

Rael nodded, and for a brief time, the pair stood there on the lip of the Pass, staring through the slowly dissipating haze of blue fog at the decaying monastery. The ruins were dying a slow but unavoidable death. Each winter, each storm, each outburst of an angry god tore away just a bit more of the temple, made one of the towers that much weaker. What the fire had not accomplished all at once, the storms would, in time. One day, the compound would crumble to rock and rubble and broken timber. Isolated. Alone. Then it would be nothing but a tale. A legend.

Lost to the ages.

Silmaria leaned against Rael's solid form so she woudn't feel quite so tragically alone.

The break in the storm didn't last, just as they'd known it wouldn't. By midafternoon the next day it was upon them, the gentle snowfall of the morning shattered by a fierce and punishing storm that bore down on them from seemingly nowhere. A fierce gale wind blasted them against the mountainside and threatened to send them tumbling out into the abyss ever-looming beside the path, and the snow and ice whisked around so thick that they could hardly see two feet in front of them.