“That’s beautiful,” I said.
Mara started. He muttered something that sounded like “thanks” but was accompanied by an unpleasant look in my direction.
“You’re still recording,” I noted. “No one would blame you for stopping. You aren’t exactly River’s chronicler anymore.”
Mara shrugged. “Some habits are hard to break.”
I watched him, wondering. If it was merely habit, why had he seemed so absorbed? The look on his face reminded me of the one Tem wore when he bent over a scroll detailing some ancient incantation, or Lusha’s as she arranged her telescope before settling in for a night of stargazing.
“You must be one of the greatest chroniclers in the Three Cities,” I said.
He swiped the charcoal over the page in rapid, precise lines. “Not one of. Why do you think I was chosen to accompany the Royal Explorer on his expeditions?”
“But you don’t want to be the Royal Explorer’s chronicler,” I said. “You want to be in River’s place.”
“And I will be.” Mara’s voice held a deep satisfaction. “Can there be any doubt? I’m the most experienced of the emperor’s explorers by far. Once River’s betrayal is known, the court will turn to me.”
I made no reply. I thought of all I had heard of Mara’s reputation, not to mention what I had seen from him. He may have traveled to the farthest reaches of the Empire, but it had not made him a great explorer. Would the emperor truly turn to him, when other candidates existed?
I watched, engrossed, as the mountain grew beneath his skilled hands. Mara captured not only the look of landscapes, but the taste of them. And he was certainly a natural storyteller—I had read over his entry from yesterday, which wove details together so skillfully that I had seen the images rise in my mind. It struck me as strange, almost sad, that Mara couldn’t content himself with what he was good at. Yet it seemed to be a fixture of his character, to care most for what he couldn’t have.
“I haven’t seen Ragtooth since morning,” Tem said.
“He’s probably skulking around the stream, looking for fish.”
Tem was frowning. “He’s been going off by himself a lot lately.”
I felt a flicker of worry. But Ragtooth had seemed perfectly healed, and in any case, his wanderings were as familiar to me as the stars over Azmiri. “He’ll turn up.”
Tem looked like he was about to say more, but Mara, his face still buried in his scroll, said, “No doubt precisely when you need him.”
I blinked at him, surprised. “What does that mean?”
“There’s an explorer in the emperor’s employ who travels with a familiar,” Mara said, leaning back slightly from the sketch to examine it. “A man named Tsering. I traveled with him once. His familiar is a brown panda. It had an uncanny ability to locate game and forage when our supplies were low.”
“Is Tsering’s familiar as bad-tempered as Ragtooth?” I said.
“No,” Mara said. “Tsering is a steady sort of man. A familiar’s temperament seems to reflect that of its master.”
Tem seemed to smother a snort. I glared at Mara, replying in a dignified voice, “I haven’t heard that to be the case.”
He shrugged. He was in an uncharacteristically communicative mood, as if his work had loosened something inside him. “They’re interesting beasts. Some have magical abilities, which must be spirit-granted. They seem to arise in response to the master’s need.”
This amused me. “Magical abilities? Can Tsering’s panda fly?”
Mara gave me the same puzzled look he turned on the yak when she made a sudden sound. “As I said, abilities that meet the master’s need. Tsering’s familiar could understand every one of his commands—even when Tsering spoke in the barbarian dialect. He once retrieved a satchel of maps Tsering had left back at the palace. At the time, we were weeks from the Three Cities. We never did figure out how he did it.”
“I’ve never known Ragtooth to be capable of anything like that,” I said dubiously. “Though he did fetch my mittens once. Well, after he gnawed holes in them.”
“From what I’ve read, a familiar’s capabilities are also proportionate to those of its master.”
“From what you’ve read.” Clearly, initiating any sort of conversation with Mara had been a mistake.
“Yes.” Mara stretched, furling the scroll, then he moved to Lusha’s side where she sat by the telescope.
Tem seemed to be on the edge of laughter. “Kamzin—”
“Oh, forget it.” I was too tired to get worked up over Mara’s remarks. He and Lusha rustled through the star charts, murmuring. Their voices melted together with the wind’s, which was calm tonight, playing gently over the oilcloth of the tents.
I leaned back on my hands. For a moment, seated next to a warm fire with a full belly, my fears for Azmiri, and the dangerous journey ahead, seemed like little more than the fading wisps of a nightmare. It struck me for the first time that I had climbed Raksha and made it back alive.
The peak of the great mountain gleamed white in the moonlight. I had stood there—it felt impossible now, looking up at it. And I had done it without the help of a fire demon, or any aptitude for magic. I dug my fingers into the earth, excitement sparking inside me—the sort of feeling that had lain dormant for days. The realization that I had been the only human to set foot on that peak filled me with determination. If I could climb Raksha, could I do other impossible things? Could I protect Azmiri from the witches? Could I face River again?
A cold, familiar weight settled in my chest. I saw River on the summit of Raksha, the fierce wind pulling at his hair and chuba. He hadn’t hurt me, even when I tried to stop him. Would he hurt Azmiri?
I thought of the evenings we’d sat together after a long day’s march, watching the stars wink into existence. His mismatched eyes sparkling as I teased him, or for no reason in particular—River often seemed at the threshold of laughter, which rippled over his features like sunlight on water.
I didn’t know what River would do. I didn’t know him—the face he’d shown me had been a lie. All I knew now was that he was my enemy. I drew my knees to my chest, an odd sort of loneliness washing over me.
“Can you really do what you said?” I asked Tem. “Amplify the magic in the witch bell?”
Tem touched the kinnika. He had strung them on a new cord, and they rested in their familiar place around his neck. His face, as he held the witch bell, was slightly troubled. “Yes.”
I wanted to feel relief. Our plan, meager as it was, hinged on Tem’s magic—his ability to use the kinnika to defend Azmiri. But something made me uneasy.
“I thought about what you said about amplifying talismans,” I said slowly. “I do remember Chirri mentioning it. But it wasn’t anything like this—the Janyim scrolls deal only with healing spells.”
Tem nodded. “I know. But magic is magic. I can do it, Kamzin. I know I can.”
I bit my lip. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe him. It was that, sometimes, I didn’t want to. Tem’s knack for magic was something I had never understood. This had become even more true since we left Azmiri. Tem had been forced to call on spells he had never used, and magical talents he had never explored. And, in a few weeks, he had exceeded anything even Chirri was capable of.
“What will you do if we get through this?” I said.
Tem blinked. “I don’t really think about it.”
“All right, I’ll go first,” I said lightly. “I’ll sleep in every day until noon, and spend the rest of the time stuffing myself with Aunt Behe’s spiced bean cakes.”
Tem laughed. “You’d do that for a day, and then you’d be so bored you’d go charging off to Mount Karranak to chase feral dragons.”
I laughed too, because he was right. We were quiet for a long moment. The kinnika tinkled faintly.
“I’d go to the Three Cities.” Tem’s voice was so quiet I could barely hear him. “I’d take the Trials.”
“The Trials?” It caught me by s
urprise. The Trials were the examinations taken by all those seeking to apprentice to the royal shamans. I had never heard Tem even mention them. But then, there were many subjects Tem didn’t speak about, most of them pertaining to himself.
“I mean, if I could do anything,” Tem said quickly, as if he regretted having spoken. “But my father would never allow it.”
“Your father doesn’t have to matter,” I said. “You’re almost seventeen.”
“It’s just a thought I had.” Tem turned back to the kinnika. “It’s not something I would actually do.”
I bit back a response. I wanted to tell him that I thought he would pass the Trials in record time. That he could probably best the emperor’s shamans, let alone their apprentices. But I knew Tem well enough to recognize that he wouldn’t be pushed to say anything more on the subject. He leaned over the kinnika, muttering an incantation I didn’t recognize.
“I thought you already cast the warding spells,” I said.
Tem’s brow furrowed. It was a moment before he was able to focus on me. “Actually, I was looking for River.”
It was as if the cold weight shifted an inch closer to my heart. “River?”
“I know he’s gone,” Tem said. “I just can’t figure out why that bell’s still sounding.” He tapped the bell absently, which was small and seemingly unremarkable, an outlier next to its shiny, gaudier neighbors. It made no sound. It only sounded in the vicinity of someone, or something, who meant harm to those who bore it. I pictured the fiangul, dark shapes gliding toward us through the blizzard. It had sounded then, a harsh peal.
“Remember how it kept whispering, during the journey to Raksha?” Tem said. “I thought it was because of him—I noticed that it went quiet when the two of you left for the summit. But ever since you returned, it’s been doing it again. At first I thought he could be following you. But that doesn’t make sense—why would he come back?”
As if on cue, the black bell gave the tiniest shiver of sound, then fell silent.
My heart pounded in my ears. “Ever since I returned?”
Tem smiled. “I didn’t mean it like that—obviously, it isn’t because of you.”
“Obviously,” I echoed faintly. “What about the other bell—the one that sounds when a witch is near?” Shadow-kin, the engraving on the bell said. “We know that one responded to River.”
“It’s been quiet.” Tem sighed. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe when the binding spell broke, something happened to the kinnika. To all the talismans. Their magic feels different.”
“You mean weaker?”
“No—not exactly.” Tem rubbed his eyes. “I can’t explain it. But it’s harder sometimes to work the spells. It’s as if the talismans don’t want to cooperate anymore.”
I set my butter tea aside—the smell, so enticing only moments ago, now made me queasy.
Could the black bell be sounding because of me? I thought back to the stories of those who had used the magic of fire demons—power-hungry shamans who lost all sense of anything beyond their own ambition, and were slowly driven insane. Would that happen to me too? I shifted closer to Tem, drawing comfort from the familiar timbre of his voice. As I did, the black bell gave another quiet shiver.
Six
I STARTED AWAKE before dawn the next morning. I rolled over in my blankets, trying to pinpoint what had woken me.
Voices. Lusha’s and Mara’s. I glanced over at Tem, but he was still snoring on the other side of the tent, his sleep-tousled hair the only visible part of him.
I rose, or tried to—before I got halfway, I encountered a lump of fur and claws, weighting me to the bed. Ragtooth, it seemed, had decided to fall asleep on my hair.
The fox growled, clearly under the impression that I was going to remain where I was. Rather than try to coax him, I simply sat up, sending him rolling onto the ground.
I riffled around in the darkness, searching for my socks. I knew I had a clean pair in my pack—where had they gone?
Ragtooth hopped back onto the bed, the socks clutched in his jaws. He dropped them on my lap. They were wet with drool, and the left had a hole in the toe now.
“Thanks,” I muttered. Ragtooth gave an insouciant stretch, then curled himself into a ball atop the warm pillow. I gathered up the blankets and flung them over him. A flurry of growls and snarls erupted as the fox tried to writhe his way out, only succeeding in entangling himself further. Smiling darkly at my victory, I tossed my chuba over my shoulders and stepped out into the chill air.
Lusha paced by the blazing fire, scattering our camp with shadows. She and Mara had clearly been awake for some time.
“Are we packing up?” I said. We had planned to set out early, but not this early—we needed daylight to see our way around the glacier’s crevasses.
“Dargye didn’t return last night.” Mara’s face, shadowed by his graying beard, was grave. He looked twice his thirty-one years. “We did a thorough tally of the food, and there’s too much of it.”
“Too much?” I swallowed. “That means—”
“He’s been gone longer than we thought,” Lusha finished. “Days.”
I wrapped my arms around my chest, feeling chilled despite the warmth of the fire. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“We’ll start the search as soon as it’s light,” Mara said.
I scanned the sky. The sun, still behind the horizon, painted the massing clouds a lurid orange.
“I know.” Lusha nodded at my unspoken concern. “Hopefully we can find some evidence of his trail before the storm reaches us.”
“We should send the dragons ahead,” I said. “They might be able to sniff him out.”
But Lusha was already shaking her head. “If the storm hits, and they get lost, we’ll be in a bad spot. We need them.”
“So does Dargye,” I said, but Mara was talking over me.
“We should take weapons,” he said. “Just in case.”
They began running over our supply of weaponry, paying me no further heed. Again I chafed at Lusha appointing herself leader of our group, despite the fact that I was the most skilled navigator. Not to mention twice as good at tracking.
I swallowed my anger, or tried to. Dargye’s safety was what mattered. Lusha’s insufferable self-assurance was something I could deal with another time. Just yesterday, I had been so relieved to be reunited with Lusha. Now, a tiny, dark part of me fantasized about a world in which I had left her on the mountain.
Ten minutes later, we were walking south through the frosty dawn, trailing behind Tem as he murmured to the kinnika. Even in that short span of time, the wind had risen, lifting the loose snow from the ground and dragging it along as a sharp mist. Mara had his dagger unsheathed, while Lusha’s bow was slung over her shoulder. I felt uneasy without a weapon of my own, though I knew full well that, if we encountered witches, neither dagger nor bow would be of much assistance.
Without comment, Tem gave a wide berth to the crevasse where Aimo had fallen. It was covered with snow, as it had been when we came this way, with only the faintest furrow to mark its presence. I didn’t want to think of Aimo, trapped down in that dark place, but once the image arose I was unable to think of anything else. The water whispering deep beneath the glacier had seemed peaceful before. Now it seemed hungry.
It was awful that we were going to leave her there. Yet that was the fate of most explorers, eventually—they weren’t cremated and put to rest beside their ancestors, in a temple where their family and friends could visit their spirits. They rested in dark mountain passes, or on precarious summits, with no company but the wind and snow. I thought of the bodies River and I had found on Raksha. That could have been my fate. It could still be my fate, if I became one of the emperor’s explorers—not that I was thinking of that now. The future I saw before me—before all of us—was dark and clouded.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered to the crevasse.
Tem stopped, waiting for us to catch up. He was frowning, his eyes fixed
on the kinnika. “His trail is fading. I don’t understand it.”
“It’s too old,” I said, my teeth chattering.
Tem sighed. He shook the kinnika roughly, and the bells sang in protest. “They aren’t cooperating again. I’m not sure I can trust what they’re telling me.”
“Let’s follow this course for a while,” Lusha said. “If we see no sign of him, we’ll return to camp and plan our next move.”
“What is there to plan?” I said. The thought of abandoning Dargye was terrible. But we had to return to the village. “We make for Azmiri as quickly as possible.”
“We’re not going anywhere with this storm bearing down on us.” There was a note of finality in Lusha’s voice that raised my hackles.
“It may swing south,” I said. “Even if it doesn’t, I can keep us on the right course.”
“Through a blizzard?” Lusha gave me a stern look. “I want to reach Azmiri as much as you. But we won’t be any help to the village if we end up dead on the way.”
My eyes narrowed. It wasn’t so much what Lusha said that angered me, it was her calm certainty, the dismissiveness with which she greeted my words.
“I can navigate a storm,” I said. “You’ve seen me do it. That time we visited the spring market with Father, and a squall overtook us on the way home. I led us to safety while you were in the wagon hiding under a blanket.”
It wasn’t entirely fair, given that Lusha had been ten at the time, but I felt a flicker of satisfaction at the sight of her cheeks reddening.
“We can’t just go charging off into a blizzard,” Mara said. “The wiser plan is to go back to camp and wait it out.”
“Oh, shut up, Mara,” I snapped. I knew I was being unreasonable, but I didn’t care. All the anger and fear I had been holding back since I had stood on the summit of Raksha seemed to swell, overwhelming me. “We all know the real reason you’re taking Lusha’s side. And it has nothing to do with wisdom.”
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