All the Wandering Light

by Heather Fawcett

  “Oh, I have a trick or two up my sleeve.” He threw himself on his back across the foot of the bed. “I believe this belongs to you?” He reached into his pocket and handed me a rock. Not just any rock.

  The star.

  I snatched it up. “Where did you—”

  “I didn’t. It was on your windowsill.”

  I brushed the star with my thumb. It was warmer than it had been—the same temperature as my own skin.

  “If you light it, you’ll release its power again,” River said. “It appears to be dormant.”

  I set the star aside. I would deal with it later. “What else did you learn on your spying mission?”

  River wove his fingers together and tucked his hands beneath his head. “The witches have retreated, though no one knows where. The emperor suspects the Nightwood—more likely they’ve gone in all directions. Lusha is to receive some sort of medal.”

  I snorted. Of course. “What about the sky city?”

  “It’s fading.” River looked thoughtful. “Though it may never be completely gone. Magic like that always leaves traces.” He looked at me. “Tem paid a visit when you were asleep. And Mara.”

  I was bemused. “Mara?”

  “The servants sent him away quickly enough. He kept demanding to speak with you—I think he was beside himself, not knowing the full story of what happened. He’s used to being at the center of things. I almost bit him.”

  “Bit him?”

  “I was a dragon at the time.”

  I let out a breath of laughter. “How long have I slept?”

  “It’s almost midday. I thought about waking you. I was getting bored.”

  I groaned again. I didn’t want to get up. The odd feeling had intensified. I rubbed my face and let out a gasp of pain as I brushed the scar where the ember had landed. It wasn’t like other burns I had felt.

  “Here.” River was at my side, gently drawing my hand away. “Let me.”

  “I thought you didn’t have any healing powers.” I held myself still as his fingers brushed my cheek.

  “I don’t.” He leaned in so close that I could count each of his eyelashes. “This is different, though.”

  He chanted no incantation and waved no talisman, but slowly, as his hand moved across my face, the pain in my cheek eased. Or, at least, it no longer throbbed like an infected wound.

  “There.” He drew back a little, examining me. “You’ll have a scar. I can’t do anything about that.”

  “I’ve always wanted a scar,” I said lightly. On the table by the bed was a small mirror, next to a decanter of water and a gilded hairbrush, no doubt placed there by a helpful servant. I lifted it, examining my reflection. The burn was small and round, resting on the edge of my cheekbone beneath my eye. It was darker than an ordinary burn.

  River was watching me. I sensed, somehow, that he was about to apologize—for something, or for everything, I didn’t know. I realized that I didn’t need to hear it.

  “How are you at treating stomachaches?” I leaned back into the pillows. “Or whatever I’m feeling now.”

  There was an odd pause. “Is it a pain you can’t place?”

  “Yes,” I said slowly.

  River nodded. “I felt it too, after. It’s Azar-at.”

  “Azar-at?” I felt cold. “He’s gone.”

  “Yes. But it’s no simple thing, ending a contract with a fire demon.” He absently rubbed the side of his head in that familiar way. “It may be that we’re the only people who have ever done it. You were connected, and now you’re not. It leaves a mark.” His eyes drifted to the scar on my cheek. “One that no one else can see. The pain will fade in a day or two.”

  We sat there for a long moment as birdsong flickered through the window and the sunlight cast dappled shadows on the marble floor.

  “Do you think it . . . grows back?” I said quietly.

  River’s gaze turned inward. After a moment, he said. “I hope so. But no—I don’t think it does.”

  There was a knock at the door. River disappeared. He fluttered to the windowsill in raven form, settling there in the sunlight, which threw his shadow on the floor tangled in leaves.

  “River,” I hissed. Was he just going to sit there like a misplaced gargoyle? He merely regarded me with glassy black eyes.

  The door opened. To my horror, the emperor himself strode in, all six and a half feet of him, menacing and stark in his white chuba. His gaze rested on me, then slid to River.

  “One of Lusha’s, I presume?” was all he said, before striding in as if he owned the place. Which, of course, he did.

  I was too surprised to respond. Then, for clearly it was the right answer: “Yes.”

  “At least half a dozen have come to her in the last few hours,” Lozong said. He took the chair River had vacated, though he did not settle in an indolent posture with his feet on the bed, but rather held himself still with an elbow leaned on each arm, taking up as much space as possible. His presence, blunt and forceful, took up enough space already. “It’s an interesting gift, these familiars. Not that it surprises me that they would be drawn to your sister. For that reason, we don’t harm them unless given cause.”

  Lozong regarded me in silence. I felt like an insect beneath his gaze, as if it had a weight and substance other gazes did not. Something deep inside me rebelled against that feeling.

  “Well now, I’ve spoken with your sister,” he said. “What do you have to say, Kamzin of Azmiri?”

  That was all he asked, and then he waited. Clearly, I was supposed to guess the sort of response he expected. I wondered briefly what would happen if I guessed wrong.

  “I say my first visit to the Three Cities didn’t quite go as planned,” I said evenly.

  “Your sister feels we should focus on rebuilding the city, rather than chasing after the star you caught.”

  “You’d do well to listen to her.” I said it with heartfelt honesty.

  He smiled, and I felt a shiver of relief. “I quite agree.” He leaned back, and his scrutiny dimmed to something bearable, though still it was not particularly pleasant. “She said you found it. Oh, she tracked the approximate location, but you were the one who retrieved it from the mountain.”

  I hesitated. “Yes.”

  “You’re brave.” It was a cool assessment, not a compliment. “Stalwart. I’m sure you know what I do with people like you.”

  Again I felt as if he were testing me, as if there was a correct response and an incorrect one, and a great expanse between the two. “I know you have an opening for Royal Explorer.”

  At that, he laughed. I didn’t risk glancing at River, though I wanted to. I merely waited.

  “I like you, Kamzin. Do you know how many people I can say that about?” He paused, and then, as I was about to reply, he said, “Very few. I’ve come to realize—recently, in fact—that trust can be a very dangerous thing.” He regarded me. “But you already know that, don’t you? You trusted River, and look how he betrayed us.”

  I felt about as comfortable being referred to as an “us” by the emperor as I did being told that he liked me. Claws pecked against the windowsill, as River scrabbled at the wood in an attempt at raven-like behavior—or, as I suspected was more likely, as he dismissed Lozong’s words with mockery.

  “Have you seen him?” The emperor’s tone was mild. His gaze was not. “Lusha told me you had no particular relationship with him. But I wonder. The two of you spent a great deal of time together. And River can be very charming, can’t he? I confess that I too was taken in by his charms.”

  I felt my heart speed up. The emperor’s voice held the calm of a loaded spring in the moment before release. I didn’t trust myself to speak.

  The emperor smiled, and it was as if the spring had snapped. “You’ll tell me if he does visit you? Or if you ever learn of his whereabouts?”

  The words bore only the superficial semblance of a question. “Yes, Your Highness.”

  “No, no, no,” he said.
“You will call me Elin, if you call me anything—a childhood nickname, and one few have permission to use. You did help preserve my Empire, after all. And I suspect we may be seeing a lot of each other in the future.”

  I swallowed. Perhaps because he had unnerved me, or perhaps because I wanted, in some small way, to surprise him, the question just came out. “Are you going to ask Lusha to marry you?”

  His smile changed. For a brief moment, I caught a glimpse of genuine warmth in his eyes, a hint of what might have been there when he was actually the age he appeared.

  “She is very like Iranna.” His tone was distant.

  He blinked, and reached over to squeeze my hand. “Rest now, Kamzin. You’ll have little opportunity for that in the coming months, as I’m sure you’ve guessed.”

  I swallowed. Was he offering to make me one of his explorers? I thought so, but he made no move to clarify, merely let his bland words hang in the air, where they assumed an ominous quality. The emperor smiled again, and strode out, his white chuba rippling behind him, painfully bright. He seemed to draw some of the light from the room with him, and as the door closed I fell back in relief, welcoming the return of the shadows.

  Thirty-Four

  WE TRAVELED THROUGH dense forest for the next two days, keeping mostly to the road. Despite this, it was slow going with such a large group and all the gear that entailed.

  “Here.” Lusha settled at my side by the fire, handing me a bowl of something fragrant with spice.

  “What is it?” I said.

  She gave a small shrug. “Ask Urma.”

  I glanced across the fire, where Urma, our personal cook, busied himself with something that might have been dessert, though it was hard to tell with Three Cities food. Everything was laden with sweetness and spice and rare garnishes. It was enough to make me crave even the frequently burned sampa porridge of our old rations.

  “Tell me again why you agreed to bring a cook.”

  “I didn’t,” Lusha said, her voice curt. Her cheeks flushed. “The emperor determined our escort. I had no say in it.”

  “Of course not,” I said, and had the satisfaction of watching Lusha’s blush deepen. Though the soldiers who arrayed themselves around us during the day, their armor clanking, and the assistants who snatched things from my hands as we made camp were annoying, I supposed that I should have counted myself lucky. The emperor had been reluctant to allow us to leave at all, given the danger posed by the witches. He had relented only after Lusha agreed to travel with a full guard.

  “Just as you had no say in the emperor’s planned trip to Azmiri next month,” I added.

  “That—” Lusha drew in her breath. “That is a ceremonial visit. To honor us—and Azmiri—for protecting the Empire.”

  I rolled my eyes. I didn’t know the specifics of what had passed between Lusha and the emperor. But they had spent much of the past week in each other’s company. I would have disliked it more, had I not recognized, on some instinctive level, how closely matched Lusha and Lozong were. It had been evident from the very beginning. Lozong was fearsome and commanding, and I would never cease to be intimidated by him, but many people felt the same way about Lusha. I didn’t notice, because I was used to her.

  “What about you?” I asked. “Have the dreams stopped?”

  Lusha didn’t answer immediately. She had told me her sleep had been troubled since that night—though, being Lusha, she wouldn’t provide any details. “I’m all right.”

  “Are you?” Dark circles framed her eyes, and her normally sharp gaze clouded sometimes, as if she had recalled something that troubled her.

  “Yes.” She smiled at me. “Or getting there, anyway. Don’t worry about me, Kamzin.”

  A thought occurred to me. “What will Yonden think of all this?” I said quietly.

  Lusha looked away, but not before I saw the flash of pain in her eyes. I knew how important Yonden was to her—I may have been the only one who did. I also knew that, as a seer, he could never marry. Seers were prevented by fiercely guarded customs even from forming friendships, and his relationship with Lusha had only survived by being kept secret from the rest of the village.

  “I don’t know,” Lusha said finally. “I suppose I’ll find out.”

  I could think of nothing to say to that. I thought of the seer’s distant gaze, the long hours he spent charting the futures he glimpsed in the stars, and wondered how much of what had happened he had already guessed. Lusha’s gaze was distant. After a moment, she went to help the servant tasked with assembling our tents.

  I sat there for a while, gazing into the night. Then I too stood and slipped away—into the darkening forest.

  The leaves rustled as a bird or other small creature flitted through the underbrush. I was still within the perimeter of the wards, where there was no need to wonder at unusual sounds. But I kept walking—farther upstream, past the place where the protective magic stopped and the sounds from our camp faded beneath the nighttime forest sounds. The trees parted along the bank, revealing a slash of starry sky.

  I paused next to a waterfall, waiting. The wards kept him away too, but even if they didn’t, he couldn’t show himself when the soldiers were near.

  I let out a slow breath. I was happy to have a moment alone. Amid the bustle and clamor of the palace, it had been difficult to find time to think. I scanned the trees. The nights seemed darker since the witches had returned to the Empire, the shadows deeper, more dangerous. I was almost certain it was my imagination. Almost.

  I had traveled from one end of the Empire to the other—beyond the Empire. It still felt strange to think it. At times, I wondered if everything that had happened had been an elaborate dream—soon I would awaken in my room crowded with shamanic trinkets, late for my morning lessons with Chirri. I would climb to her lonely hut, gazing down the slope to where Tem grazed the yaks—and beyond, to where the Arya Mountains dissolved into sky, a world of magic and wild places that I would never know.

  One of the kinnika—I didn’t have to look to tell which one—gave a whisper. I didn’t start when his hand slipped into mine, but I did feel my heart speed up.

  “So,” River said, “it seems that your appearance before the emperor’s court was a success. Congratulations.”

  I glanced down at the tahrskin chuba I was wearing. It was wonderfully warm without being bulky, and molded itself perfectly to my form. But of course it did—it had been made for me.

  Ragtooth had followed River out of the shadows. These days, he was often in River’s company, as if he belonged as much to River as he did to me now. Though I suspected this was at least partly Ragtooth’s way of making River aware that he was being monitored.

  Ragtooth gave my toe an affectionate nip, then began to wash his knee. Since the battle with Azar-at, the fox hadn’t demonstrated any unusual abilities—unless gnawing through a pair of new boots in the space of an hour counted as an unusual ability. He sniffed the air, the wind playing through his whiskers, the image of an ordinary, if remarkably scruffy, fox. I shook my head. I wondered if I would ever fully understand what Ragtooth was.

  “Did he name you Royal Explorer?” River said.

  I let out a short laugh. “No. But Lusha said she’d work on him.”

  “I’m sure she will.”

  “I don’t need it. Just having this”—I played absently with the sleeve of the tahrskin chuba—“is almost too much.”

  River’s grip on my hand tightened. “Kamzin. You deserve every honor the emperor could bestow on you.”

  “Do I?”

  His voice was steady. “Yes.”

  I wondered at that. I hadn’t set out for Raksha to fulfill some noble purpose. Lusha had. Lusha was the one who always thought of the greater good—I had wanted something else. An adventure. A chance. Now I had another one.

  I thought of my mother, her face turned to the stars. The best explorers make the night a little brighter. I felt a surge of determination.

  “So,” R
iver said, “where is your first expedition?”

  My eyes met his. There was a pensive, almost awkward quality to his expression, as if he were asking an entirely different question.

  “West,” I said, through the happiness that rose inside me. “Beyond the Drakkar Mountains. The emperor wants a report on the new village by Otinza Falls—its position makes it a target for raiders.”

  “Sounds dangerous.”

  “Yes.” The happiness brimmed over. “But nothing we can’t handle.”

  He smiled. “True.”

  My hand tightened in his. “You don’t think you’ll be missed? You are their leader now, after all.”

  “Technically.” He gave a small shrug, as if the vast powers he had inherited were nothing at all. “No, I doubt anyone will miss me. I don’t think we’re well suited to courts and thrones and following orders.”

  “Will they return to the sky city?”

  “Some will. It’s the safest place for them right now.”

  I didn’t like thinking of the witches’ city. I pictured it again on the wind-blasted summit of Raksha, its darkness strengthening as the witches returned, and shuddered. I was glad that River wouldn’t be joining them.

  “Is this a good time?” he said. “Or should we wait?”

  I reached into my pocket, drawing out the star. It looked small and lifeless against my palm, no different from the pebbles scattered across the stream bank. “I don’t want to wait any longer. I promised I would help her. I need to keep that promise.”

  “And this is what she wants?”

  I nodded. “I wish we could have done it back in the Three Cities.”

  River shook his head. He knew as well as I did that it would have been impossible. After all, I had told the emperor that the star had escaped.

  I gazed at the star dubiously. “Do you think she’s still . . . alive?”

  “Let’s see.” River took it, holding the star with thumb and forefinger. Almost immediately, it began to glow, dark fire gleaning through the cracks and pores of its surface. The light grew brighter and brighter, until I had to look away.