They swirled around me, tugging at my cloak. One alighted on my shoulder, small as a bird. It clung to me, digging itself into my chuba. Other shadows grasped at my hem and sleeves. Slowly, impossibly, I felt my descent slow. I was no longer tumbling head over heels. I was on my back, just below the cloud cover, hovering over a snowy valley. I opened my mouth to scream, but no sound came out.
The tiny shadows began to lift me through the air, rippling like wings, so quickly that I flailed and thrashed instinctively. I rose back into the cloud, gliding toward the spur where I had fallen.
When I reached the edge of the rock, River was there, grabbing me by the back of my chuba and hauling me onto solid ground. The little shadows dissolved. I sagged against River, and for a moment, I felt his heart thudding against mine. Then I shoved him back and slid away from him.
River leaned against the rock, his hand pressed against his shoulder. Blood seeped through his fingers. We gazed at each other across a small distance. For a moment, the only sound was the moan of the wind across the upper slopes of the mountain.
“So,” I said, aiming for a dismissive tone, which was difficult with my heart throbbing in my ears, “it doesn’t take an obsidian blade to hurt you.”
He regarded me warily, as if he suspected that at any moment I would toss myself over the cliff again. “It won’t kill me, even if you drove it through my heart. But yes, being stabbed does hurt, thank you.”
I leaned my head against the frigid rock. “You don’t need to look at me like that. I’m not going to run again.” My voice was bitter. “It’s clear that there isn’t any point.”
“I don’t know about that.” He seemed amused. “You can move faster than any human I’ve met. If it wasn’t for the snow, I don’t think I would have found you.”
“The snow?”
River pointed to the spur stretched out behind us, where, unmistakably, there was a trail of footprints.
I cursed inwardly. Lusha would never have made such a mistake. Anger rose again as I looked at him. His dark hair fell haphazardly across his forehead, speckled with snow, and for some reason that angered me too.
“It would be easier for you if I did run again,” I said. “Wouldn’t you rather collect the star from my broken body, if I were to fall?”
“You wouldn’t fall,” he said. “I wouldn’t let you.”
I let out my breath. River’s voice was annoyed, as if it irritated him to state something he viewed as self-evident. And it was true that he had saved my life, even after I had thrown a knife at him. I didn’t understand him at all. My eyes roamed his face as if I could find some way back into his thoughts.
River shifted slightly, wincing. He sprawled against the mountain in his familiar, casual attitude, one leg dangling over the ledge. But his body held a tension that was not usually there, and I knew he hadn’t lied about the pain he was feeling.
Casually, I removed the star from my pocket and tossed it between my palms.
“What’s wrong?” I wasn’t above taunting him, even when there was nothing to be gained from it. “You don’t seem as eager to change your shape as you usually are. Don’t you want to turn into an owl and carry the star away in your talons?” I paused. “Or perhaps a yak, to tear it from my hand?”
River looked repulsed, as if I had said something unimaginably filthy. “No.”
“So, being injured makes it harder for you to change shape.” Because some tiny shred of hope remained, I ran through all the possibilities this created. Each was wilder and less plausible than the next.
“Not harder,” River said. “But it becomes unpleasant. The injury doesn’t vanish, you see. It has to change its shape too. If I changed form now, it would feel like being stabbed several times over.”
Some small part of me was intrigued by this—with their powers restored, I had imagined the witches to be nearly invincible. The larger part of me was filled with fury and despair. Then it was as if those feelings crumpled, leaving a cold emptiness in their place. I gripped the star.
“This is it, then,” I said. “You’ll take the star and create an army. You might not care about the Empire, but what about the spirits of the witches you’ll raise from the dead? Don’t they deserve their rest?”
River gazed at me blankly. There was a small silence, and realization dawned in me.
“You don’t know what the star’s powers are.” My voice was low.
“I don’t care what they are. It’s my brother who wants it, not me.” But his expression was troubled. “I doubt it has that power. Nothing can raise the dead.”
“Fallen stars can,” I said. “In a way. They can bring a person back to life, though they aren’t the same. Haven’t you heard the stories? The ancient shamans who raised the dead and kept them as slaves?”
“I’ve heard the stories. That’s all they are.”
“Why would I lie to you?” I was frustrated. “How was I to know you didn’t want this?”
“Esha wouldn’t do that.” River seemed to speak half to himself. “Not even him.”
“Why did you think your brother wanted the star?” I snapped.
River didn’t reply immediately. “It grants power. He didn’t know what kind. I didn’t think he even cared, so long as it hurt the emperor. He said—” He stopped.
I didn’t understand his reaction. His expression was distant and uncertain, and for a strange moment, I was reminded of the boy who had followed his brother into the woods and become lost. But it didn’t matter. From the moment he had appeared, all hope was gone.
“Clearly, I can’t escape.” My voice was hollow. “And I can’t fight you. So take it and go.”
River blinked. Uncharacteristically, he seemed at a loss for words. He gazed at me as if I were a riddle whose solution had long eluded him. His gold eye gleamed in the fading light, while the black was all shadow. Despite myself, my heart gave a strange skip.
A tremor ran through the shadows surrounding us. River looked up, and his face darkened.
“Esha.”
My heart seemed to stop. I dragged myself to my feet, turning to look at the creature who stood slightly above us at the very tip of the spur, the darkening sky at his back.
River was already standing, moving with that disconcerting speed. In another instant, he was at my side, plucking the star unceremoniously from my hand and then—to my confusion—shoving me behind him.
“You followed me.” River’s voice was flat, almost dismissive, but a tension had entered his body.
“Of course I followed you,” Esha said. “You don’t think I’d let you take the star?”
He came forward, stopping only a few feet from River, and I let out a choked gasp. Esha was just as I remembered—thin, pale, but with an eerily forceful presence. He reminded me of a cadaver unnaturally returned to life. I saw nothing of River in him, except perhaps in the grace of his movements, or the shape of his mouth, that slightly upturned corner. He wore dark rags, and his feet were bare.
I fell back a step, or perhaps River moved forward—I wasn’t able to focus on anything beyond Esha’s presence.
“Take the star?” River held it loosely in his left hand, as if it were nothing at all. “I don’t want it. This expedition was your idea.”
“Do you take me for a fool?” Esha began to pace, like an animal with too much energy. “You’ve been sneaking off every chance you get, to search alone. Did you think I wouldn’t work it out? I know you convinced the others to flee the Nightwood, to undermine my authority.”
River let out a disbelieving breath of laughter. “I didn’t convince anyone of anything. Those people left of their own accord. Not everyone wants to be ruled.”
I gave a start of surprise. I had always thought of the witches as a collective—fearsome and single-minded. But were there some who disagreed with Esha’s plan? Who wanted no part in his attack on the Empire?
“Then you deny you want the throne?” Esha’s voice was soft.
“The th
rone?” River’s brows knitted. “It seems I have an endless variety of secret plots. I thought I wanted the star.”
“Your magic is stronger than mine.” Esha came to a stop, his hands clasped behind his back. His red-rimmed gaze had a feverish intensity. “Haven’t you noticed?”
“I’ve noticed that I’m holding the very thing you sent me all this way to find. And that you still haven’t thanked me.”
“All right.” Esha held out a hand. “Prove your loyalty. Give it to me.”
“River, don’t.” I lurched forward, placing myself between the two of them.
I couldn’t have said, afterward, what drove me to do it. It certainly wasn’t wisdom. Esha looked at me as if I were a mouse he was about to crush under his heel, while River’s face went blank with astonishment.
“River,” I said, “please. Don’t give him the star.”
“What’s this?” Esha said. “A shaman? Have you allied yourself with the enemy?”
I didn’t look at Esha. I only looked at River. I didn’t know what I was doing. All my senses told me to run as quickly as I could. But there was a small voice, so small it was barely audible, that told me to stand fast and hold his gaze.
I didn’t move.
“Kamzin,” River said. His voice was barely above a whisper. His gaze held a rare emotion—fear. I had seen it only once, days ago—on Raksha, after I had narrowly escaped being crushed by a falling serac.
“He’s going to use it to destroy everything I know,” I said. My voice was raw and honest—I put aside anger, fear, betrayal. There was no time for any of them. “To kill people I love. He’s your brother, so you’re helping him. I understand that. But you don’t have to do this. You have your powers back. What more do you need?” I swallowed. “I helped you. So you owe me this.”
My words hung in the air, as strange to my own ears as they must have been to River’s. He was frowning, and I couldn’t interpret his thoughts. But I had lived his thoughts, if only for a few moments. I had seen a boy running through smoke and fire in a dark forest.
Esha let out a low chuckle. It occurred to me, an edge of hysteria in my thoughts, that if Lusha was wrong, I was about to be killed over a lump of rock.
“She says you plan to use the star to raise the dead,” River said. His voice was even, almost conversational. “Is that true?”
“And if it is?” Esha said. “The emperor has killed so many of us. It will be a reparation, of sorts.”
“He’s killed hundreds,” River said. “Surely you can’t mean—”
“To bring them all back? Yes, I do, every one. The star’s power has no limit.”
River’s face was pale, his freckles standing out in stark relief. “How could you be that stupid? You won’t bring them back—you’ll only turn them into monsters.”
“As I keep reminding you, River,” Esha said, “that’s what they always were. It’s what we are.”
The shadows stirred behind River. Something—someone—seemed to be emerging.
“River!” I cried. That was all I had time for. Suddenly the shadows were on fire, surging hungrily toward me. The flame was strangely dark—
“No.” River darted between me and the witch fire. It passed harmlessly over him and was extinguished, smoke leaping into the sky. He shoved me against the mountain, scraping my cheek against the cold rock, keeping himself between me and Esha—and the second figure who now stood at Esha’s side.
Unlike Esha, it was clear from a glance that the second witch was River’s brother—he had the same eyes, the same unruly hair. They looked so alike, in fact, that I was momentarily disoriented. But his build was heavier, his posture menacing. The same amusement hovered around his eyes, but his amusement was cold. He wore a finely woven chuba that I recognized, with a shiver of disgust, as being like those worn by the elders of the mountain villages.
“You are allied with her.” There was a strange edge of delight in Esha’s voice. “Did you see it, Thorn?”
“I’m not allied with anyone,” River snapped. I couldn’t see his face. “She has nothing to do with this.”
“You protect humans now, in addition to deserters?” Esha’s expression could not have been more appalled.
“I’ve been saying it for years,” Thorn said, shaking his head. “There’s something that isn’t right about him. Sky never listened to me, of course. He wouldn’t hear a word against his precious River.”
Esha, who had seemed as incurious about the presence of a human in this forsaken place as he might be about an unusual insect, examined me properly for the first time. I shuddered, for it was like being examined by a raging storm—with a gesture, he could toss me from the mountainside.
“Is she from the emperor’s court?” Esha demanded. “Did you bring her here to spy on us?”
“Who cares?” Thorn sounded almost bored. “Let’s get this over with.”
“Get what over with?” River said. In the same moment, an enormous hawk soared over my head, its talons narrowly missing me. I cried out. The shadows around Esha and Thorn began to move. At least three more witches were there, though I could make out only the barest hint of their outlines. A black jay darted past, ruffling my hair, its form melting into that of a barefoot woman, her hair a tangle that hid her eyes. She was at once physical and ethereal, flesh and bone and something bloodless and breathless, like night. In that sense, she reminded me of River—in every other, she was a monster from a nightmare.
Esha was eyeing River with an expression that was half-wary, half-calculating. “Did you think I’d let you keep the Crown, River?”
River’s expression was as confused as I felt, though my confusion was dwarfed by dread. I wanted, increasingly, to put distance between myself and him—all of them—but moving would only draw Esha’s gaze. “The Crown—”
“I didn’t inherit it, you see.” Esha turned away slightly. “Nor did Thorn. That leaves you. You were so quick to master shape-shifting, weren’t you? And the shadows obey you without hesitation.”
“Esha, you’re mad,” River said. “The Crown always passes to the eldest child, unless . . .” He stopped. An awful expression dawned on his face. He seemed to take in the witches circling in the shadows.
“River.” My fingers dug into his arm. It was clear to me what Esha’s intentions were, even if I didn’t understand anything else. We had to get out of here, now.
“Unless,” Esha murmured. “‘The Crown can be fickle’—is that not what Mother always said? It may have abandoned our line entirely. But perhaps—perhaps—it’s fickle enough to pass to the least deserving member of the family.”
“Esha,” River said, his voice very quiet, “what really happened to Sky?” The shadows at his feet, as if sensing his agitation, were trembling. A chill settled in my chest as I realized what River meant, and I looked at Esha with new repulsion.
“Ah, you guessed that,” Esha said. “No matter. I knew the binding spell was breaking, and I knew it would be harder to get rid of Sky after the fact, when he came into his powers. With Mother’s death, and you off gallivanting around the Empire, Sky was distracted.”
“He always did have a talent for moping,” Thorn said, in the sort of tone you might use while examining your nails. I wondered distantly if anything had ever shaken the look of smug malice from his face. “Esha and I were more than a match for him.”
“He didn’t deserve it.” Esha’s voice was twisted with an old, bitter anger. “Sky never had what it took to lead us. He wouldn’t have had the courage to attack the Empire.”
“This has nothing to do with courage,” River said, so low I could barely hear him. “Unlike you, Sky wasn’t obsessed with revenge at any cost.”
“In fact, I couldn’t care less about revenge,” Esha said. “This is a preemptive strike. Do you truly think that the emperor won’t attempt to bind our powers again? Lozong despises us. He will take our magic, and then he will hunt us to extinction. The only way to ensure our survival is by reduc
ing the Empire to ash. What I’m doing, everything that I’m doing, is for our people. Sky never would have thought that far ahead, because he wasn’t a leader. And neither are you.”
“I see.” River’s voice was almost as conversational as Thorn’s, though the shadows’ agitation had only grown. They were like living serpents at his feet. “So there was a reason you followed me here.”
Esha lifted his hand—in almost the same instant, River seized me and pushed me out of the way. But I was tired of being flung around, so I clung to him, and we rolled together down the slight slope as behind us the mountainside exploded, a tremendous crater opening as projectiles of stone soared in every direction. River was on his feet in an instant. In one smooth motion, he removed the kinnika from his neck and tossed them at me. I had only a second to marvel at this, though, before everything dissolved into chaos.
In a whirl of shadows and cloak, River was gone. The others vanished too, including the hawk, folding into the shadows that cloaked the narrow crag. The shadows became a tangled swirl, stirring my hair and chuba. I staggered back until I was pressed against the mountainside as the animate darkness surged and spun, churning up the snow.
“Wait,” I murmured to no one in particular. I had seen something, somewhere among the shadows. The star—River had dropped it, and it lay against the mountainside among the broken shards of rock. But to get it, I would have to plunge into that blizzard of darkness, and where would I go after that? I doubted the witches would remain distracted long enough for me to escape.
That was when a mad idea struck me.
“Azar-at,” I whispered. “Are you there?”
Yes, Kamzin, the creature murmured into my thoughts. It appeared at my side, tongue lolling.
“I need your help with something. Something big.”
Remember my promise.
“I don’t want to hurt River,” I said. “This won’t touch him in any way.”
That is good. The fire demon settled on its haunches. Friends should not fight.
All the Wandering Light Page 17