I could have framed her. I could have just told the god-damned truth. But I didn't. I followed her into the mountain.
Ewen was dead, and I was on the run.
We stumbled on, tracing the lip of the cliff. Giselle pushed forward without fear of falling, despite the icy snow under our feet.
Giselle stopped.
She dragged me off the cliff. I didn't scream - I didn't have time before we landed on a ledge tucked below. The valley swung around me as Giselle pulled me into the mountain.
The small hole in the cliff face closed behind us, leaving nothing behind but darkness.
The uneven ground did not slow Giselle's pace. I stumbled in her wake, able to do nothing but trust her grip on my forearm.
"I know these mountains better than most," said Giselle. Was she trying to reassure me? "We have a head start. But the locals know these paths too. If we stop, we may as well burn where we stand."
My lungs were already burning, and the icy air smarted my bruised throat with every breath. Inside the mountain it was still and cold, and soundless except for my ragged breathing and our echoing footsteps.
The dark swallowed up all time, too. I didn't know how time had gone by when I saw a faint and reddish light. Faint enough I dismissed it as a hallucination, but it persisted; bloomed larger and brighter. Our passage had led us to a much larger tunnel lit by a seam of crystals, glowing crimson.
The Veins of God. I had read about the network caverns in preparation for my journey. They were said to reach right to the heart of the mountain range, glowing in different colours of Stelarium.
Giselle had let up a bit. Maybe not by choice; her gait was uneven. I could half-catch my breath. I used it to ask the question that had been consuming since Giselle had cut my arm on the cliff.
"Why are you kidnapping me?"
"Two girls standing over the corpse of the Duke of the Southlands. Even if we tried to pass it off as self-defence - the journey would be over. We'd be back at the Capital, with all eyes of suspicion on us. I couldn't let them find us. But you couldn't vanish without a trace again, either.
"One unexplained disappearance is a mystery - but two? This one needs an explanation. I gave them enough evidence to draw their own conclusions. The Capital Mages will analyse the blood. And I didn't use magic to take his life, so they wouldn't suspect witchcraft. You didn't let them take you without a fight. And Ewen - he died a hero. As for who would want to abduct you: the list is not short. But I can guess who the top suspect will turn out to be..."
Giselle trailed off. Her neck bent down. Her hair gleamed neon red in the light from the crystals.
"M will be mad, but I can make her understand... I did what I had to. You didn't leave me with a lot of options."
"Where are you taking me?"
She sped up again, shoulders hunched. "The plan hasn't changed. We're going South. That's the only thing that's left. The only thing that matters. I'll bring her back, and figure out the rest after. And you won't have to worry about any of this anymore."
Twice, she spat that word out, you, like I had done something worthy of disdain. My throat was bruised. It hurt all the way around. Speaking was harder than before.
"Have you ever killed anyone before?"
Giselle flinched. She looked over her shoulder and saw me; eyes bright and round, lips parted like a child. "Yes," she said.
I didn't ask her any more questions. What had happened had clearly affected her, and I didn't know how it would backfire on me. Ewen was her fiancé. That was real, even if nothing else was. He was a person. He was alive, until he wasn't. She was the one who killed him. And I hadn't done anything at all. I'd lost my feet entirely to the current.
"Let's stop here for the night. This is as good a spot as we'll get."
Was it already night? I had no way of knowing. We stopped in a gloomy alcove off the main tunnel. Giselle sat down and wrapped her arms around her knees. I sat, too, leaning against the cave wall. It was cold, the same, still cold all the way down the tunnel. All I had were the clothes I'd left in this morning; my woollen overdress and cloak, and my reticule, which had nothing relevant or useful to this situation. Giselle wore even less. I could see her shivering.
I lay down and turned to the wall. My dagger holster dug into my arm. I twisted it. How useless it had been, because I hadn't used it. I closed my eyes but couldn't sleep. My thumb just kept tracing the point of my dagger, over and over again.
"Why did it have to be you?" Giselle's soft and muffled voice floated across my thoughts.
I rolled to face her. "What?!"
She was curled in on herself. Her eyes locked on me through the hair that fell over her face. "Of all the people in all the worlds, why did it have to be you?"
"Do you blame me?!" I sat up, alive with anger. She blamed me for what had happened. For what he had done to me.
"I blame you! Why would you sneak out like that without a care for the position you were in? Why would you talk to Ewen alone, and make him so mad he attacks you? Your stupidity, your naivety. It's your fault he's dead!"
"I wasn't the one who killed him." I said quietly.
"You should have been. I didn't want to kill him. I wanted him to suffer, as he deserved! That dagger you keep fingering was shoved in your sleeve for a reason - wasn't it?"
"You knew?"
"I knew you'd never use it."
"I might," I snarled.
"Oh, yes? And then, where would you be?"
The cold shivered between us. I didn't know mountains like this.
"I hate you for this," I said.
"You are a fool. You are the cause of all of my misery, and the ruination of all my plans. You tainted her legacy from every direction - and the fact that you didn't mean it makes it so much worse!"
"Where do you get off! You have no right to resent me. I didn't have to help you at all!"
"Yes you did! I threatened to kill you! If I hadn't acted, you would have stayed sitting pretty in her body, rotting away until there was nothing left but the bones - a curtseying, waving marionette spending money and making speeches about a war you know nothing about! You were destined to be a puppet either way. But now you're my puppet, and you're bad at it."
She was a cat, yowling and spitting with her ears flat to her skull. There was no elegance at all. This was the pure Giselle: a ragged black hole of spiteful rage.
"You're insane!"
"Do you think that would mean anything to me, coming from you?"
I tried again. "You're insane!"
She rolled her eyes.
"You're insane! You're insane. You're insane! You're insane! You're insane!"
That one hit - like I'd hit her. She stumbled backwards, horror-struck at the ghost I'd summoned inside me. Her lips curled into a snarl, but it was too late: I knew her weakness, and it was me. Because I was in Amacia's body. I had the potential to be exactly like her.
I looked down at her, drawing on the same tone as I spoke. "It's not that I'm me. It's that I'm not her."
And then, I lay back down. Giselle curled up too, silently, back turned to me, but still beside me. We went back to pretending to sleep.
What else could we do?
We were in a stalemate. We could despise each other more than anything in the world and we would still need each other more than anything.
Why did it have to be her?
Why had Kesper not saved me?
If I'd run away by myself. If I'd run away from the start. If I never tried to be her friend...
I could have framed her. I could have just told the god-damned truth. But I didn't. I followed her into the mountain.
And now she was stuck with me.
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