Soul Seeker

17: Survival Or Nothing

Ciara woke the next morning with ice on her cheeks. Groaning, she fought to move, and a film of ice covering Fell's coat cracked. After painstakingly working the material until it was wearable again, she slipped hands inside her boots and pinched each toe. All of them hurt fiercely, which was good, because if they had died she would have had to bite them off or she would die, too. Her face was puffy, swollen, the skin peeling, and it felt like the trickster guardian had visited in the night to rub grit into her eyes. The glittering, snow-cloaked forest was so bright it hurt to look at.

Ciara stood up and the entire world rocked. Her stomach was tight and empty, her mouth dry as Muspelheim, the fire realm. But she was alive, and Fell's coat had saved her.

Her arm throbbed. In her panic the night before, she hadn't even had a proper look at it. Ciara untied her makeshift bandage, hissing in a breath when she saw how much dried blood was caked to the inside. She dug through the snow cover until she found a clump of damp moss which she used to wipe away the worst of the blood. Next, she tore a strip of bast from a willow tree, pressing the bark back down to ensure the tree healed and cover up a mark that others might spot. She stuck the bast in her mouth and chewed, screwing her face up at its gritty, bitter taste. The chewed-up willow went on the wound – it stung, she cringed – and Ciara wound a flat reed leaf from a frozen stream nearby around her arm as a fresh bandage to keep the bast in place, tying the ends into a knot with her teeth.

There was nothing more she could do for it now except hope an infection wouldn't set in and that she hadn't waited too long to clean it.

As she trudged mindlessly on, following a slight incline, the horrible image of Fell collapsing replayed in her mind again and again. He had known there was no way they could both escape and had given her every chance he could to get away... at his own expense.

Perhaps she should lie down in the nice, fluffy snow and wait for death to arrive. She would like to see her parents again, and surely Ginnungagap was warm.

Cark! A glossy raven alighted on a branch. It ruffled its wing feathers, which had a purple and green sheen against the colourless forest.

Hugin or Munin. The eyes of the guardians were watching to see what she would do.

Survival or nothing, Ciara told herself as she struggled on. Wouldshe end up like the poor dead woman? What had happened to her? She should findher again, give her a burial... But she had no idea where she was or how she waseven going to survive the day. She couldn't think, couldn't plan ahead.

She walked to the top of the incline and looked back, scanning the trees for any sign of smoke. Instead she saw a sea of trees swaying under their burdens of snow. Perhaps she hadn't travelled as far as she thought, and the camp was only an arrowshot away. That unsettling thought spurred her on.

Ciara found the stream again and followed its path. It was thoroughly iced over, and walking along it was much easier than scrambling up and down the banks on either side. She knew she should stop and look for food, but she kept walking anyway. Maybe she would find the village soon, maybe she would turn a corner and stumble into the warm inn, maybe the innkeeper had finished roasting an entire boar for her to eat off the spit, all crispy skin and tender, juicy meat...

She should stop this. Foolish fantasies would kill her.

"There is no village nearby," Ciara muttered, watching her breath rise to carry her words to the sky. "You are on your own and you'll die if you don't eat." But her feet would not stop moving. Her head was fuzzy, and making decisions right now seemed impossible.

Finally, she forced herself to slow when she came across a sheltered area where leaves poked through the snow, not yet killed by the worsening winter cold. The forest had not abandoned her. Ciara found a clump of late red clover; she stripped some leaves and ate a few blossoms. Wood mushrooms had sprung up as a result of the wet snow during the night, and she picked them before moving on to a patch of lace plant. She dug down to get at the roots of evening primrose, then used her fingernails to tear a patch of bark off a pine tree to get to the edible inner bark.