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"Even if we beat theht on our asses!" Collette shouted over the wind

The engine sputtered She’d practically forgotten ho they were on fuel She looked up at the winter man His icy blue eyes met hers and she saw the determination there, the utter sureness, and she wondered what that unshot echoed across the water

"Whatever you have planned--" Collette started

She never finished the sentence

Frost flowed toward her, half solid and half storripped her wrist in that icy touch and the world see silvery and opaque Collette felt herself break through the Veil and then the wind and the human world released her The boat disappeared froed into the warm ocean

She kicked to the surface, sodden clothes clinging, trying to drag her down Spitting salt water, she wiped her eyes and looked around They were only fifty or sixty feet frounshots

Several fishing boats drifted further out, but these were sailing ships with an antique flair The spit of land had vanished The harbor village as well The landscape of the coast had changed entirely

"Where are we?" Collette asked as she struck out for shore

Frost seemed to float in the water without any effort What he did could not rightly be called swilide just underwater, only his head above the surface "Through the Veil"

"I know that raphy is all different in this world, I gather But I know there’s a loose correlation, right? So we’re still in Yucatazca?"

Frost stood up Collette put her feet down but could not touch the bottoht She swaain, and intoward the rocky shore

"This place is called the Isthed body glistened as water ran off of hi from the south, they have to take this route"

Collette had been trying to squeeze water out of her shirt, twisting up the botto the cloth She dropped it and stared at hio north a ways and then cross back over?"

Frost shook his head, ain "The distance on that side of the Veil is too great We must stay here and ers through her hair, shedding water As unwelcoue What would be the point? They were behind eneer than was necessary

"You’re saying thereup behind us--"

"Infantry and cavalry," Frost interrupted "When the invasion force from Atlantis comes, it will be by sea But it will be on the eastern side of the Isthmus, so we’d do well to stay here on the western shore"

Collette took a deep breath, gnawing on her lower lip

"It sounds i is impossible"

"And if we run into the Yucatazcan army from behind? Hell, e run into the you have a plan?"

Nothing about Frost could be construed to look hu to remind herself that she wasn’t supposed to like him--he had deceived Oliver, and left her to die, once upon a time Yet in that moment, his eyes betrayed a vulnerable huht be overstating"

Collette stared at hi her head "You’re not exactly reassuring me"

All trace of huo north as swiftly as we can If we encounter eneet you past them And e catch up with this hideous war, I will carry you over the battle lines and see you safely into the company of friends You have my word"

Not even a flicker of a smile remained on Collette’s face

"I’ll hold you to it"

CHAPTER 14

Even gods needed to rest

Kitsune walked along the bank of the Atlantic River in the dark, theof its flow She wanted to hurry on to their destination the way the river did A knot of anxiety had wound into her gut, and it tightened with every moment they spent camped on the eastern bank

Bellona had insisted they oddess did not seem to imply that they were tired, so much as that a pause in their s They stopped to rest because ars It maddened Kitsune, especially since she herself trembled with exhaustion, and yet her mind would not let her rest

Guilt burned like poison in her blood, and emotions warred within her She felt shamed by her jealousy and by her behavior with Oliver, even as she hated hientleness and the lust she had seen in his eyes But had she really given him any choice? Kitsune had played the temptress, had nurtured his lust quite purposefully, even as she pretended innocence She had hungered for hi Julianna

Kitsune had fallen in love with hih tempted, Oliver had never succumbed He had wanted her--there could be no doubt about that But he did not love her, and never could His heart belonged to Julianna Confronted with that truth, Kitsune had turned bitter, and her trickster nature had eht Ty’Lis with them, she would only have been captured herself But that would have been better than striking Julianna and fleeing for her life Better than seeing the pain in Oliver’s eyes

Now she would reclaied, and she had called the gods the Hunyadi Oliver eon in Palenque, but if she helped to turn the tide of the war, one day soon he would be free He and Julianna

They could find happiness