The cords are tight against my wrists and ankles. They've got us lined up like cattle for slaughter, all hunched up in the back of the cart, just useless cargo. Sigrid ties the final knot behind my fingertips. I feel my hands turning colder than ice, lacking circulation.
"You can just let us go." I tell her. "We're just merchants. Broke merchants at that. We'll just be dead weight you have to carry." I swallow at the unfortunate choice of words. "I mean... we won't tell anybody."
"We have no choice." Her voice is hoarse as she laughs. Her throat is dry, and I notice most of their flasks lie empty in their cart. "We get provisions for any lost souls we bring to camp. We need them to get through winter." Sigrid shakes her head, the hollows in her eyes, in her cheeks, from starvation. "They said join us, join the Masked Men or be killed. Bran they would've hung from a cliff. Slaughtered me and Amos for being too old. And Nova and Gertrud... dear gods, I don't want to know what would've happened." She loosens the cords a bit, just enough for me to wriggle my fingers, to feel blood flowing through. "We had no choice. We let them through, through the gates of Hreindyri." She finishes, quiet.
"Everyone has a choice." The words tumble past my numb lips.
The sneer at the edge of her lips tells me I've messed up. She laughs, sound as hollow as her eyes. "Foolish girl. Only rich folk would say a thing like that. Not everyone gets so lucky with our choices, do we? Not everyone can choose between butter or jam for their bread. Some of us... some of us just got bone and blood. That's all."
"I'm from Ymir. I'm... I'm someone important. I can help."
She laughs. "Oh, fífl. What have the fancy lords in their towers in Ymir done for us? You've all hidden from the wrath of winter, leaving the good folk to starve while you sit on your riches. You take our children from our arms to serve in your armies, fight in your wars. For once, we chose to fight for us. I'm sorry if you're on the losing side, but that's where we've always been. Doesn't feel so nice, does it?"
She finishes tying my cords, cutting in skin, and moves me near Lord Kaz and Quinn, nudging me over like a sack with her boot. The curtains push aside, and Bran is last, hauling Fell up, half-carrying him on his shoulders. Bran's huffing and puffing, breathing hard from his stomach, cheeks bright red and sweating from exertion, like he's carrying five-hundred stones on his shoulders.
But Fell, he can barely scramble to carry his own weight. His eyes, the usual rose-quartz, they gleam paler. The life sunken to someplace other. Someplace I can't reach.
Sigrid holds out a shriveled plant, crushed beneath her fingers, smelling bitter and sweet and everything all at once. "They give us the root when we're initiated by the Masked Men. It's supposed to calm us before attacks. In the markets in Okami, they call it Hokkai-Kisso... but around here, we call them valerian root." She crushes a bit of the stem and wafts it into my face, the powder stinging my eyes and nose. I blink away the flakes, seeing them fall on my skin. Seeing how they trail along the lips of Fell, Lord Kazmer, and Quinn. All their eyes are heavy, lidded with stinging sleep. "Sweet dreams."
Darkness crowds in at the corners of my vision. Soon, I'm lost to sleep, and the feeling of Fell's head draped across my lap in heavy, unnatural unconsciousness.
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