Kushiel's Dart

else, though, to measure it against the vast, trackless expanse we travelled; and I was no navigator. When at last the sun began to sink in the west, throwing tree-shadows long and black toward us, I realized we'd angled off-course. We corrected our course, then, trudging westward toward the lowering orange glow.
    "That's far enough." Joscelin's words broke a long silence between us. A scrap of light remained to be glimpsed through the trees, and no more. "Any further, and we won't be able to see to make camp."
    He dismounted, then, tying his horse's reins to a nearby branch. I followed suit, trying not to shiver at the encroaching darkness. "Do you think it's safe to make a fire?" I asked through chattering teeth.
    "It's not safe not to, unless you want to freeze in your sleep." Joscelin tramped down a patch of snow, then set about gathering dead branches, stacking them efficiently. I helped as best I could, lugging wood to the fire site. "We need to tend to the horses first," he said, digging out Selig's tinderbox and kneeling to strike a spark. Once, twice, three times, it failed to catch. My heart sank. Unperturbed, Joscelin drew one of his daggers and carefully shaved wood from a dry branch, then struck another spark. This time, it caught. He nurtured it tenderly, feeding it with twigs, until a tidy blaze resulted.
    "What do you want me to do?" I felt hopelessly inadequate.
    "Here." Joscelin handed me the cook-pot. "Fill it with one of the skins, and water the horses. We can thaw snow to refill it. When you're done, set the pottage to cooking."
    Circumstance is everything. In Delaunay's household, I'd have balked at eating a meal cooked in a pot from which horses had drunk; now, it couldn't have mattered less to me. My hardy pony dipped his muzzle and drank deep, lifting his head when I drew the pot away lest he guzzle too much at once. Droplets of ice formed on the whiskers that grew from his soft muzzle, and he looked at me with dark limpid eyes under his forelock.
    While I went about my assigned chores, Joscelin worked with a tireless efficiency that humbled me, removing the horses' saddles and rubbing them down with a bit of jersey-cloth, rendering makeshift hobbles from a length of leather he scavenged from one of the packs, giving each a measure of grain fodder-which smelled, in truth, better than our pottage-and erecting a windbreak from deadfalls and gathering a night's supply of wood. He gathered more pine boughs, green ones, hacking them down with his sword while I stirred the pottage, and made a springy bed of them upon the snow. Rummaging among Selig's clothing, which I'd taken, he found a woolen cloak which he spread over the boughs.
    "It will keep the snow from stealing the heat of our bodies," he said by way of explanation, sitting on the pine-bed and drawing his sword. "We'll... we should sleep close, for warmth."
    There was an awkwardness in his tone. I raised my eyebrows at him. "After all we've been through, that embarrasses you?"
    He bent his head over his sword, running a sharpening stone that had been among his things the length of the blade. His face was averted, fire-cast shadows flickering in the hollow eyeholes of the wolf-mask on his brow. "It does if I think on it, Phedre," he said quietly. "I've not much left to hold on to, by way of my vows."
    "I'm sorry." Abandoning my burbling pottage, I came over to sit beside him, wrapping both mittened hands around one of his arms. "Truly, Joscelin," I repeated, "I am sorry." We sat there together, staring into the fire. It burned merrily, melting a hollow into the snow and throwing dancing branch-patterns into the night above us. "I tried to kill Selig last night," I told him.
    I felt the shock of it go through him, and he turned to look at me. "Why? They'd have killed you for it."
    "I know." I gazed at the shifting flames. "But it would have been sure, that way. The Skaldi wouldn't unite under another, he's the one holds them together. And you wouldn't have had to betray your vow."
    "What happened?" His voice was soft.
    "He woke up." I shrugged. "Maybe it's true, maybe he really is proof against harm. It was that old priest made me think it, who called me Kushiel's weapon. But he woke up. I was lucky, he didn't know what I was about."
    "Phedre." Joscelin drew a shuddering breath, and loosed it in a sound almost like a laugh, but not quite. "Plaything of the wealthy. Ah, Elua . .. you put me to shame. I wish I'd known Delaunay better, to have