Page 82 of Winter's Echo
Nicco sniffed, spat to the side, and ignored me. “If you come for her again, I’ll kill you all. Go back and tell Vornthat.”
I felt like I couldn’t breathe past my fury as Nicco made his declaration. I looked at Vorn’s men, sure they would attack. I wasn't sure if that was Nicco's doing or luck when they didn’t.
The stranger held my gaze for three more seconds. Then he turned and walked back toward the settlement, and hismen followed, gathering their dead. The snow swallowed them the same way it swallowed everything, completely and without ceremony, as if they'd never been there at all.
I stood very still for a moment.
Then I turned to Nicco. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Are you trying to get usallkilled?”
He pulled his face wraps up. “Daylight is wasting. Let’s deal with the injured, and we can move on.”
Move on. I couldn’t even fight with him because he was already cataloging injuries and assessing the others with Captain Marson’s help, and I really,reallywanted to fight with him.
I turned to Baxley.
He was already watching me, steady and entirely unrepentant.
“She'd have died in there,” he said simply, wiping blood from his sword.
“She’s dead out here,” I reminded him sharply.
“Maybe,” he said. “But she got to choose her death.”
I wanted to argue with him. I wanted to tell him that “maybe” was cold comfort in Crystallese, that “maybe” was just another word for hope, and hope was a liability we couldn’t afford in this country.
I wanted to tell him he'd made enemies of the only people north of Skallfen, that my word was worthless now, that anything waiting between here and Iskaeld we'd be facing without the possibility of shelter or aid.
I said none of it.
Because the part I couldn't get past — the part that sat wrong and cold in my chest — was that I understood exactly why he'd done it.
And I hadn't.
I turned away from him before I said something I couldn't take back.
The soldiers were redistributing, checking injuries, tightening straps, and handling the quiet administrative work of people who had just been in a fight and needed to convince themselves they were fine. Two of them had cuts. Nothing serious. Nothing that would slow us down.
Captain Marson spoke to Gralen in the low, clipped tones of men assessing damage and finding it manageable. I caught the word “rations,” then stopped listening.
Nicco stood apart from all of it.
He watched the snow where Vorn's men had disappeared, arms crossed, expression doing the thing it always did, revealing nothing while clearly processing everything. He hadn't moved since the older man walked away. Hadn't checked on anyone. Hadn't said a word.
I crossed to him, berating myself for doing so, knowing he was only going to piss me off even more.
“You knew what he did?” I asked.
He didn't look at me. “I suspected.”
“That's not a different thing.”
“It is, actually.” He turned his head then, just enough to look at me sideways. “Knowing requires certainty. Suspecting requires judgment. I made a judgment call.”
“To say nothing.”
“To say nothing,” he agreed, entirely without apology.
I felt the anger climb my throat and swallowed it back down. “So did I.”
