Chapter 108: FIFTEEN

Aiden opened the bond all the way.

There was no catalyst to shape what passed through. Only his lifespan.

He dug his fingers into Cinder’s frost-solid coat, his jaw clenched as a tear slipped down his cheek.

Take it. Take whatever it costs. Just don’t die.

His vision greyed at the edges. His knees stopped holding him. He collapsed against her frozen flank, his hand still gripping her coat.

He felt something drain out of him. It started deep in his chest, spread through his body, and was gone before he could hold on to it.

The skin around his eyes tightened. His face felt suddenly heavier. The muscles in his arms ached.

Get up, Cinder.

The white in his hair ran back further.

And in her chest, where the cold had put the fire out, a coal caught.

The ember beneath her golden coat found something to feed on.

And it fed.

The cold that had reached the centre of her chest met the years pouring out of Aiden.

They pushed against each other inside her, the cold trying to bury the last of her fire while his life forced warmth back into the place where it had gone dark.

For a moment, nothing happened. The cold held on inside her, crushing against the heat coming back.

Then a thin line of frost on her flank began to recede. More followed.

The frost on her flank began to melt. Water ran through her golden fur. Steam rose from her skin.

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[ LIFESPAN EXPENDED — NO CATALYST ]

Transfer: direct, unshaped.

Lifespan Paid: −15 Years

[ CURRENT LIFESPAN: 31.3 Years ]

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Aiden read it on his knees.

Thirty-one. Down fifteen in one breath.

Cheap.

For one instant, as his life crossed into her, the resonance flared.

The same resonance that had made the Frost Wolf flinch in the barn. Aiden hadn’t known it would do that. He had hoped it could make the wolf back away from Cinder earlier, but it hadn’t.

It did now.

He wasn’t trying to use it. He was only giving his lifespan.

The resonance flashed between them.

And the Frost Wolf, standing over them, full and an instant from the kill, recoiled for half a beat. Exactly as it had in the barn.

Half a beat is all we’ve ever needed.

"Up!" Aiden was hauling at Cinder’s paw, and his voice came out wrecked. "Up and run."

Cinder planted her front paws beneath her. They shook. She pushed anyway. Her hind legs found the ground and held. The shaking lessened.

She rose, something blazing in her orange eyes. She wasn’t glaring at the Frost Wolf. She was glaring at his face. Older. Greyer. Sunk.

Her mouth twitched.

Aiden saw the look. He knew she understood what he had done, that she hated it enough for her eyes to water.

He ignored it.

"Nyx! Find us—"

Nyx was already gone.

It darted toward the nearest gap between two handlers. It slipped between their horses and vanished into the darkness beneath them.

The shadows around its body spread across the gap, swallowing the light from both lamps.

For a moment, the two handlers could no longer see each other.

A gap opened in the encirclement.

Miasma was through before Aiden even saw the opening, her pulse a green line marking the way.

Cinder bit Aiden’s collar and hoisted him onto her back. The cat clung to her shoulder beside him.

She ran through Nyx’s darkness and climbed the rim.

Away from the bowl, the wolf, the Ice Heart, and the man in the good coat shouting, "Get them!"

After half a beat, the Frost Wolf lunged after them with a glacial howl.

Nyx kept the gap dark. Miasma led them through it. Cinder kept her fire low and ran. Aiden trusted them. That was all he could do with legs that would not carry him.

His body felt wrong on the ride. The hands gripping Cinder’s mane trembled constantly. The fine shake hadn’t been there at dawn. It didn’t feel like his hands anymore.

His breath came shorter. His lungs weren’t the problem this time. He simply felt older inside. He likely looked older outside too, and he didn’t want to think about it.

He held on anyway.

Hold on. Just hold on.

Nyx pulled more shrouds of shadows behind them, blinding the wolf, while Cinder kept her fire low to give it as little heat to follow as possible. It still came after them.

Then the first kilns appeared.

Heat rolled across the road from dozens of furnaces.

Nyx plunged the wolf into darkness one last time. Cinder kept her fire low, and her heat disappeared among the kilns.

They lost the wolf in the kiln-belt by noon.

I almost lost her.

I won’t let that happen again.

We need to beat it, or we’ll never be safe.

He sat against a kiln-wall in the warm noon with Cinder’s head in his lap.

Sitting hadn’t been his choice.

Cinder had dropped him down from her back, and pressed her head against his legs, keeping him still. Then she refused to move.

Her jaw trembled, and he felt her tears wet his coat.

The cat slept curled beneath her jaw. Nyx eased on his shoulder. Miasma drowsed on warm brick.

He knew exactly how little he had won.

The Frost Wolf was still out there. Still hunting. Still Vane’s.

The only one who stands a chance is Cinder. But without the Frost Wolf’s decades of training, she needs to be a whole tier stronger than she is now.

I can’t evolve her without the catalyst and the right environment. Neither of which I can pick off the ground.

He caught his reflection in a rain-barrel beside the kiln.

A wider lock of his hair had turned white.

Fifteen years were gone. He should have felt the loss. He looked at Cinder instead.

He only felt a win.

He stayed beside the kiln with her head on his legs, her breath fogging against his knee.

Alive.

Fifteen years for that breath. And that one. And that one.

I had one year, once. Miasma put me at twenty. You gave me a reason to fight my way to forty-six.

The only thing that hurt was that, for a few weeks, he’d believed those years might actually be his.

He looked at Nyx, rubbed Miasma’s back, and scratched Cinder’s head.

I knew I’d have to spend them someday. For you.

I don’t get to keep things. I get to spend them well.

This I spent well.