Bluewing by Kate Avery Ellison Read Free Book Online

wistful. “It’s always misty there. The lights catch the fog and glow. The whole city glows, like a painting where all the colors run together. The whole city breathes the same breath. Here...here everything is stripped bare, stark, wild.”
    “Free,” I said simply. He didn’t disagree, but by the look on his face, the word meant different things to him.
    I wanted to apologize for earlier, but that seemed too heavy amid this gossamer mood of memory. “What do you think of the note from the Blackcoats?” I asked instead.
    He considered the question. His forehead wrinkled. “I think you are right to be wary, Lia. From what your brother and you have told me, the Blackcoats made a mess of things before. But,” and he lifted both eyebrows as he said the word, “the Blacksmith’s son is dead now. There is a new leader. Things might be different.”
    “Is it worth that risk?” I argued. “Right now we have two goals: rescue our friends and contact the Trio. The Blackcoats have nothing to do with that.”
    “If we can drive the soldiers from Iceless, we will no longer have to live in this ruin,” Gabe said. “And everything will be easier.”
    That, if nothing else, was sensible. I hesitated. “I will think on it,” I said.
    He nodded, satisfied, and said nothing more. I might have reached for his hand in that moment, but before I could he lifted it to scratch his neck. We continued to stand together, inches apart but experiencing the same silence. Then I thought of Adam, and pain radiated from my chest.
    I needed Adam here. He was my partner, my confidante, and I felt lost without him. But he was gone, and I had no choice but to go on alone.
    “All right,” I said. “We can meet with the Blackcoat leaders to discuss the possibility. But I don’t trust them. And I don’t like it.”
     
     

FIVE
     
     
    THE DARKNESS OF night enveloped me as I journeyed to meet the Blackcoat leaders three nights later. Every inch of me screamed to turn back, but I kept moving forward, slipping between tree trunks and ducking around ice-covered boulders that jutted from the forest floor like broken teeth in the mouth of a monster. I had to do this. Adam was gone. I was the one everyone was counting on, and the weight of that knowledge pressed against me like a pile of stones.
    But I did not go completely alone. Gabe, Arla, and Everiss kept pace beside me, though we moved through the night without speaking. Everiss’s curly hair bobbed in the places where it had escaped from her braid, the tendrils visible where the hood of her cloak had slipped back. Her eyes were huge in her face when she turned to look at me. It was her first time in the Frost since we’d fled my family’s farm a few weeks ago, and in the moonlight I could see her hands shaking.
    Gabe was silent and grim, as he always was in the Frost. He was frightened too, but he hid it better. Only I knew him well enough to read the way he moved and know it meant he was two breaths away from panic. But he pressed on anyway, never hesitating. Beside him, Arla did the same.
    We all wore long, dark cloaks. Scarves covered our mouths and noses, and hoods drooped over our eyes, almost obscuring them. To an observer, I would be unrecognizable, as would Gabe and Everiss. It was exactly as we wanted it, because I was supposed to have fled the Frost, Everiss was supposed to be dead, and Gabe bore a striking resemblance to Korr. We all had our secrets to keep.
    We reached the river that flowed black as ink alongside the road marking the end of the Frost and the beginning of Aeralis, the Farther world. We’d agreed to meet the new Blackcoat leaders here in the Hunters’ clearing, a place where Hunters stored extra weapons and traps. The snow-filled circle lay undisturbed. Nothing stirred in the darkness.
    I crouched in the bushes and pressed my back against the rough bark of one of the trees. Gabe and Arla took their places beside me, and Everiss crept forward alone. Her boots