“A nickname,” he said. “Most of us don’t use our real names when out on patrol. These woods are full of bandits—if they heard a nobleman’s name spoken aloud, it would create a target for ransom.”
“You’re a nobleman?” Lusha said. Her tone was as cool as his. It was impossible to tell if this information impressed or bored her.
The captain smiled. He moved closer, until there were only inches between them, and placed his hand on the tree behind her. “I am, firefly. My family has enough wealth to plate your little village with gold. There, I can see I’ve caught your interest at last. You’re impressed.”
“I’m impressed that a brute like you convinced someone to make him a captain,” she said in a calm voice. She could have been remarking on the make of his chuba.
Surprise and a sudden, hot anger filled his face. Then, to my astonishment, he smiled. The anger vanished, but the surprise remained. “You have a sting, don’t you? No matter. We’ll have all day tomorrow to become acquainted. I’ll find a way to impress you.” When he smiled, some of the tension in his face lightened, and he looked like what he was—a young man. Then he moved away, returning to his former self—cool, commanding, predatory. I didn’t trust a single inch of him.
“You shouldn’t bait him,” I said, once he was out of earshot. “He’s captain of the Fifth Army.”
“I know what I’m doing,” Lusha snapped. To my surprise, her cheeks were faintly flushed.
“Like you knew what you were doing when we were searching for the star?”
Lusha shushed me violently. I didn’t see what the problem was—the soldiers had no idea what she carried. They had searched us, of course, but they’d been perplexed by the gray rock they found inside Lusha’s pack. The captain had narrowed his eyes, taking it into a patch of sunlight for examination. He glanced at us and shrugged.
“The heart of one of your admirers, I presume?” was all he had said before returning it to Lusha.
Branches rustled above us. I turned my head, but saw nothing. Somewhere, a raven croaked.
A soldier bound Lusha and me for the night, lashing our hands with rope that was then secured to the trunk of a tree. Two soldiers stood guard, while the rest retreated to another campsite that I glimpsed through the trees. I could just make out the back of Tem’s head.
After securing us to their satisfaction, the soldiers barely moved. Both kept their eyes fixed on nothing in particular, as if Lusha and I were not the sole reason they were standing there like incongruous statues. Their gazes only flicked to us if we made a sudden movement. One of the soldiers, I noted with disgust, was wearing the kinnika around his neck.
In a voice barely above a whisper, I said, “We have to get away.”
Lusha shot me an exasperated look. “Really?”
I narrowed my eyes. “I don’t see you making much of an effort.”
“You haven’t been paying attention.”
“Then what’s the plan? And please don’t say it’s flirting with the captain. I don’t want to lose what little food I have in my stomach.”
“No.”
“Then what?” I swallowed. “Lusha, you know I can’t use Azar-at’s magic again.”
“Not Azar-at.” Lusha’s voice was so sharp that one of the soldiers glanced her way. She leaned back against the tree. “Wait until dark.”
Of course she wasn’t going to tell me. I swallowed a retort. In spite of myself, though, I felt a shiver of hope. I knew from experience that when Lusha came up with a plan, it was never halfhearted.
I examined my binds. They were tight enough, but not painfully so, and I thought I could probably wriggle out of them if given time. Whenever I strained, though, one of the soldiers lifted his bow.
Lusha, beside me, hadn’t moved. I could just make out the line of her implacable profile. Something fluttered overhead, and the soldier started, scanning the darkness. But the bird was already gone.
Time passed. The clouds split apart, and I caught glimpses of stars between the branches, tiny pearls snared in a net. Trees were scarce in Azmiri, and mostly of the skinny, sharp-needled variety. It was strange to view the sky through leafy boughs.
I shivered. I was a long way from home. Was Azmiri all right? Losing the star wouldn’t prevent Esha from continuing his attacks.
The constellation Damaya’s Drum disappeared slowly behind the leaves, replaced by the Great Boar. I was tired, so tired. Occasionally, the breeze brought us a murmur of conversation from Elin’s camp. But for the most part, the night was quiet, the trees becalmed. I closed my eyes, intending to rest only briefly.
A twig snapped, jolting me awake. I felt someone’s breath on my cheek, warm and soft. I opened my eyes and choked on a scream.
A girl leaned over me, her face only inches from mine. It was the girl I had seen before, in the tent back in the Ashes—the one with my face. But not just my face—she had my long hair, my height, my clothes. For a moment I could only stare, transfixed. It was like looking into a mirror.
But the girl didn’t start when I did. She leaned back slightly when she realized I was awake, her mouth half-open as if about to speak. She seemed equally fascinated by me. Her hair was a mess—a snarl of leaves and tangles, and there was a scratch across her cheek.
I raised a hand to my own cheek, where a branch had grazed it. The girl reached out and removed a twig from my hair.
“Lusha.” I grabbed her arm. She leaned against the other side of the tree, gazing into the forest.
She turned. “What?”
I expected her to jump at the sight of the girl, but she showed no sign of surprise. I whirled back around.
The girl was gone.
One of the soldiers was gazing at me strangely. Had he been watching me this entire time? If so, how had he failed to notice my double crouching over my sleeping body? I began to shake.
I was going mad.
“Kamzin, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” I turned away. “Thought I saw something.”
I folded my arms over my knees, trying to still the shaking. But it emanated from some fundamental part of me, and wouldn’t stop.
I knew what happened to shamans who borrowed magic from fire demons. I had recounted one such story to River, of a woman who went mad and began murdering her neighbors. Was that what was happening to me? Was this how the madness began? The girl had seemed as vivid as Lusha, or the soldiers.
I bit down on my lip so hard I tasted blood.
A raven landed on a rock in the stream, settling its wings against its back. The bird cocked its head at the closest soldier, as if sizing him up. The man made a threatening gesture. The bird didn’t flinch.
Biter. I recognized that long, curved beak. What was he doing?
I started as another raven landed by my side. The soldier behind me stamped his foot, and the bird leaped to a perch a few feet away.
“Jumpy?” Lusha said.
The soldier flushed at her scornful tone, and tried to assume a semblance of his former stoicism. Biter continued to stare from the rock.
A whisper of motion overhead. I glanced up and found several pairs of beady eyes gazing down at me.
The soldier let out a muffled curse. He had seen them too. But before he could do anything, the birds floated to the ground, forming a rough semicircle around him.
“What is this?” the man said, shifting his bow from one raven to another. They kept moving, darting from tree to ground and back again, croaking eerily. One soared so close to the man’s head that he loosed the arrow by accident—it thunked harmlessly into a tree.
The other soldier seemed to be having similar difficulties. After loosing his own arrow, unsuccessfully, he had tossed his bow aside and drawn his sword. He swiped first at one raven, then another, the creatures nimbly dodging the blows. It was like battling the wind.
Someone seized my wrist, and I started. Lusha had freed herself and held a knife—had the ravens brought it? Within seconds, she had sliced throug
h my ropes.
The soldier closest to us seemed half out of his mind. More ravens had settled in the nearby trees—the man loosed arrow after arrow until his quiver was empty, then began slicing at the air with his sword, each time missing the mark.
“Send for the captain,” he said to the other soldier, who barely seemed to hear him.
Shouts rang out from the other camp. To my astonishment, the soldiers there seemed to be engaged in a flailing battle with an invisible enemy. Then I saw a flash of feathers as a raven swooped past their campfire.
I had enough time to marvel at the sight of the fearsome soldiers of the Fifth Army locked in battle with a flock of birds before Lusha crept up behind one of our guards and struck him on the head with a rock.
I surged to my feet. The second soldier didn’t even notice—ravens skimmed his scalp with their claws. Following Lusha’s lead, I hefted a rock, and slammed it against his skull.
The man dropped like a dead branch. I poked him with my foot, but he merely let out a low groan.
I snatched the kinnika from around his neck. Then Lusha and I ran toward the chaos of the larger camp, ravens trailing like the train of a dark dress.
“Tem!” I yelled.
He looked up, his eyes widening. He was restrained by two soldiers, though he didn’t appear to be struggling. They must have assumed he was the cause of this—and why wouldn’t they? The ravens who had accompanied us joined the others attacking the soldiers.
I tossed Tem the kinnika. He caught them one-handed, already mouthing an incantation. The bells sang out, and the soldiers restraining him staggered back as if propelled by an invisible force.
I was at Tem’s side in a heartbeat, my arm around his shoulders. “Can you run?”
One side of his face was bruised, and he held himself stiffly, but he nodded.
Lusha reappeared, holding her pack. Motioning, she dashed into the trees, and Tem and I followed. Behind us, the soldiers were still fighting their impossible battle. Ravens lay dead on the forest floor, but it made little difference. Each time they killed one, another took its place.
We plowed through the forest at a stumbling run. Several ravens came along, flitting ahead of us like sentinels. Tem tripped over a root.
“Lusha,” I called, “slow down. Tem can’t—”
“And where, pray tell, are you going?”
Lusha stumbled to a halt so abruptly that I collided with her. The captain stepped out of the trees, bow drawn, arrow nocked, his expression savage.
“I presume these creatures are yours?” He neither flinched nor shifted his gaze as a raven fluttered past his head. He stopped before Lusha, the arrow mere inches from her throat. “And that they would mourn if I loosed this arrow?”
Lusha held up a hand, and the ravens stopped swooping. They clustered in the branches like deathly spectators in an arena, their black gazes fixed on Elin.
Lusha didn’t look at the arrow. She only looked at the captain. “You won’t kill me.”
“No? You seemed so certain of my malicious intentions earlier. And that was before you threw my army into chaos.”
Lusha moved forward so that the tip of the arrow brushed her skin. “If you were going to kill me, you would have already done it. For some reason, you’re holding back.”
“Do you truly not know the reason?” His voice was low. His fingers gripping the bowstring were white. “What are you? Tell me the truth.”
“I have. We are not witches. We mean no harm to anyone.”
“Says the girl who can command a flock of ravens with a gesture, and a man’s heart with a glance.”
I expected Lusha to fix him with that cool look she gave all men who were too familiar, no matter how handsome they were, or give him a sharp retort—but to my astonishment, she did neither. Her lips parted, as if she was uncertain how to respond.
The captain seemed to sense this. His bow lowered slightly, his chin only inches from her forehead. Lusha made no move to step back, merely gazed up at him. Elin’s hair tumbled forward, obscuring one eye.
Then Lusha’s arm shot up, so quickly I saw only a flash as her knife sliced through the captain’s bowstring.
“Kamzin, run!”
Tem and I fell back as the ravens descended in a swarm. The captain gave a shout, stumbling as the creatures converged on him, pecking at his cloak and any exposed inch of flesh they could find. He appeared, for a terrible moment, to be shrouded in a plume of darkness, a darkness with talons and sharp beaks. Then Lusha shoved me ahead of her, and we stumbled into the forest.
Twenty-One
River
FOR THE FIRST time in his life, he was cold.
Light flickered through his eyelids. He coughed and inhaled a mouthful of snow. He shoved himself upright, though the world spun, desperate to be free of the snow that covered him like a smothering layer of blankets.
River blinked, scattering the snowflakes that clung to his lashes. For a moment, he didn’t remember where he was. He had been on an expedition, but where? Where was Norbu, and Mara? Had the barbarians captured him? His hands shook as he brushed snow from his arms and shoulders. The snow was pink.
He looked down at his hands, covered in blood, and remembered.
He surged to his feet. His side gave a vicious throb, but he ignored it.
Esha.
He would kill his brother. He thought it calmly, though he was filled with a black fury he hadn’t felt since Thorn had sent him word of Sky’s death. Esha had killed Sky, the only thing in River’s life that had mattered. River would kill him. It was as simple as that.
With shaking hands, he examined his wounds, peeling back the torn, frozen layers of his chuba. His shoulder was completely healed—ordinary knives were largely useless against witches. The two wounds in his side were ugly and dark. Yet they seemed to have stopped bleeding.
He should not be alive. Esha had used an obsidian dagger. Yet apart from the chill that nestled under his skin, and the pain—both of which were bearable—he felt almost normal. He considered the mystery for a moment, then discarded it. There were more important things.
The wind howled; the clouds churned. His chuba billowed around him, his hair tossing in his eyes. Since he had fallen unconscious, a ferocious storm had covered the mountain—he guessed it was morning, but it was impossible to be certain. He paid the elements no attention. He pressed his face into his hands and was surprised to find his cheeks wet.
He didn’t know how long he stood there, leaned against the mountain, as the wind moaned and the snow raged. He could only think of Sky—alone, vulnerable. River had left his eldest brother, who had always protected him, not realizing that he might need protection himself.
He didn’t move until what he felt crystallized into something hard, sharp, deadly. He wiped his face. Grimacing against the pain he anticipated, he shifted into a hawk.
Agony. He hadn’t lied to Kamzin—changing shape when injured was something to be endured as a last resort. He crouched for a moment, the wind tugging at his feathers, as waves of pain crashed and receded. Then he launched himself into the air.
The wind whipped him toward the mountainside, but he fought it, before letting a gust sweep him into a valley. He saw no sign of Esha or any of the others.
He folded his wings and plummeted toward the ground. Hail tore at his feathers, sharp as nails, and he was tossed around like a doll. He fell for some time—it had been high in the mountains, where he had confronted Kamzin—before opening his wings and settling on solid ground.
Esha was gone. He forced himself to swallow his fury and view the problem rationally. Even if he found Esha, what could he do? His elder brother might not have the Crown, but neither did River, whatever Esha thought. Esha had allies—he had every witch in the Nightwood. River couldn’t stop him alone.
And he had to stop him. He wouldn’t give up his search for the star—River knew him too well. Once his brother decided on a course of action, nothing would turn him from it
. And what he planned to do with the star was so terrible that River could barely bring himself to consider it. He had to move fast.
There was only one person with the power to stop Esha. It wasn’t an appealing prospect, but River had few options.
River hadn’t been there to protect Sky, but he would be there now. He would stop Esha from turning Sky into something twisted and wrong. Sky would rest in peace, as he deserved. It was as much as River could give him.
The shadows stirred, and River was airborne again, leaving behind only faint marks in the snow, which the wind soon erased.
Twenty-Two
WE RAN—FOR HOW long, I couldn’t say. Until the trees grew too thick and tangled for speed, and the sound of the stream faded to nothing. Hills rose up on all sides, partly obscuring the sky.
“Lusha,” I gasped. “I can’t—my shoulder—”
She finally stopped, and I collapsed in a half sprawl on the forest floor. Each deep, gasping breath seemed to send another arrow into my shoulder. I was certain I would faint again. Lusha collapsed beside me, lowering her head between her knees. The bead of sweat trickling down her cheek caught the moonlight as she turned her head.
“Well, if the captain wasn’t already convinced we were the enemy, he is now,” I said, once I was able to speak.
“They’ll follow us,” Lusha said. Biter settled on the leafy ground beside her and let out a low croak. “We have to keep moving.”
I touched Tem’s arm. He was hunched forward, his face reddened. Beneath that, though, there was a grayish tinge to his skin.
“Did they hurt you?”
He shook his head slightly. “It’s not that.”
I wrapped my arm around his shoulders, and he leaned his head against mine. Lusha, to her credit, didn’t speak, though I could sense the urgency radiating from her.
“The strangest part is,” he murmured, “I’m not that surprised.” He drew back. He was smiling, but it was a sad thing, as gray as the rest of him.
I didn’t have to ask what he meant. Tem had never fit. Overlooked and ignored by the villagers, including his own father, he had never seemed part of Azmiri, despite rarely setting foot outside the village boundaries.
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