Even the Darkest Stars

by Heather Fawcett

“Yes, he always travels with me.” River scratched the creature’s ears. “I asked him to stay out of sight, of course, but I didn’t count on you being such a light sleeper. You’ve almost stumbled upon him more than once.”

  “You’ve bound yourself to him, then?” Tem said. His voice made me jump—I hadn’t noticed that he had come to stand beside me. He fixed River with a hard, scrutinizing look.

  “He’s mine, if that’s what you’re asking.” River’s eyes narrowed as he held Tem’s gaze. I was suddenly conscious of a heat crackling between them, cooler than anger but more intense. Perhaps it had always been there, just beneath the surface, but I had not noticed it.

  “So the answer is yes.” Tem’s tone was flat. I knew as well as he did what this meant. River had made a contract with a fire demon. It was a rare feat, and an immensely dangerous one. In the old days, some of the more powerful shamans would form such bonds, but I knew of none in recent memory who had risked doing so. A fire demon could amplify a shaman’s spells, combine them with its own powers, but the creatures were unpredictable, impulsive. The only way to ensure a fire demon’s loyalty was to form a magical contract with it, which bound you together for a fixed length of time. In exchange for power, the shaman would feed it. But a fire demon didn’t consume ordinary food. It drew its sustenance from the shaman’s soul—or, more specifically, small scraps of it, broken off piecemeal like crumbs of bread.

  Who is this one, River? The fire demon was gazing at Tem. He smells of salt and starlight. Such power for one so young.

  River muttered something, and Azar-at sat back on its haunches. It didn’t take its eyes off Tem.

  River, on the other hand, was looking at me. “I’m sorry I had to keep this from you. I thought it would be for the best.”

  “It’s fine.” I turned. I felt an overwhelming urge to be away from River, as far away as possible. “I’m sorry I ambushed you like that. I thought—well, it doesn’t matter.”

  I thought that you were in danger. It seemed so stupid now, looking back on it. River wasn’t in danger.

  If anything, the opposite was true.

  I glanced back at the fire demon. It panted lightly, its belly moving in and out, its tongue lolling, looking for all the world like a large gray wolf, but for the eerie hunger in its gaze. It was no ordinary, animal hunger. It was something very different.

  “Well, since you clearly don’t need any help,” I said, “I guess I’ll go back to bed.”

  River tried to catch my eye. “Kamzin—”

  But I was already walking away. Dargye hovered for a moment, but soon disappeared into his tent. I heard him muttering to Aimo.

  Tem watched me as I climbed back under my blankets. He started to speak, but I cut him off.

  “You don’t have to say it.” I rolled onto my back, so that I was staring up at the tent rather than at Tem. “You were right not to trust him. All right?”

  “I was a long way from right. I can barely believe it. A fire demon—how could he be so stupid?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “At least I understand what I felt now, when he cast that spell in Winding Pass.” Tem coughed, shaking his head. “Fire demons don’t require talismans—their magic is of an entirely different kind. Elemental magic. Wild magic.”

  I was barely listening to him.

  Tem let out his breath. “This changes everything.”

  “Maybe not,” I said. “The fire demon is bound to River. That means it can only do his bidding. It can’t hurt us, or disrupt the expedition.”

  “Unless River wants to disrupt the expedition. Have you considered that? What if he wants to do something that puts us all in danger?”

  “Like what?” I let out a humorless laugh. “We’re already in danger.”

  He muttered something.

  “What did you say?”

  Tem blew out his breath. “I said, you’re still defending him. How long are you going to keep doing that?”

  I made no reply. After a moment, I heard Tem settle back into his blankets. There was a pause, longer than usual, and then finally, there came the faint sound of his snores. That was when I allowed the tears to slide down my cheeks.

  I wasn’t sure why I was crying. So River had lied to me. So he had concealed something so enormous, so frightening, that it would make any sane person recoil from him if they found out. I could understand lying in a situation like that.

  But I didn’t think I could forgive it.

  It wasn’t just that he had invited an unpredictable creature of unfathomable power along with us. It was that he was the danger. He had made himself that way, by his own choosing. That was the unforgivable part.

  I shuddered. How much of his soul had River already given the fire demon? How much more would it take before he went mad? For that was the only outcome I knew of, for people who bound themselves to such creatures. They became powerful—frighteningly powerful—but only for a time. Until the fire demon took everything from them, and left behind something that was not quite human anymore.

  My tears had stopped. They had not been many, after all—I was too overwhelmed to cry. My thoughts were in such a jumble that I didn’t think I would ever fall asleep. Eventually, I gave up trying, and simply listened to the moan of the wind.

  FIFTEEN

  I WAS UP early the next morning, lighting the fire and starting breakfast. It wasn’t my turn, but I needed something to occupy my thoughts. My sleep had been poor—I kept starting awake, each time convinced I had heard the fire demon lurking outside my tent.

  I put spices, momo, and dried vegetables into the pot of boiling water. I had seen Aunt Behe make mothuk soup often enough, though I’d rarely paid attention to the process. Still, after leaning over to inhale the smell, I thought I’d come close.

  Dargye and Aimo rose soon after, their weariness evident in their slouched shoulders and shadowed eyes. As I stirred the soup, Aimo touched me on the shoulder and motioned me away with her kind smile. I grudgingly sat and watched Dargye tend to the yak. He brushed out her long hair with quick, sharp strokes, while the beast grunted with pleasure. A few minutes later, Aimo handed me my breakfast. It was not as good as Aunt Behe’s, and had an odd aftertaste resulting from a bad guess on the spices, but it wasn’t likely to turn anybody’s stomach. I wolfed down the meal in ten seconds. I hadn’t lost as much weight as Tem or Aimo, but my clothes were not as snug as they had been. At this rate, by the time I returned to Azmiri, I would be as thin as Lusha.

  I squinted down at my broad thighs. Perhaps not quite that thin.

  Tem sat beside me. “Looks like someone’s taken an interest in you,” he said, his voice low.

  I turned. The fire demon, Azar-at, was crouched by River’s tent, tail thumping against the ground. In the morning light, it was barely visible, a plume of wolfish smoke. But its hot-coal eyes glittered like sequins stitched to the wind, and they were fixed on me.

  “River isn’t asking it to hide anymore,” I noted. My voice was flat.

  “No need, is there?”

  River himself emerged soon after, rubbing his hand through his hair. He muttered something to Azar-at, and the fire demon finally turned its eyes away from me.

  “Where’s Norbu?” River said. His expression was distracted, and he kept glancing at the horizon, where a line of clouds was massing.

  Tem and I regarded him in stony silence. Dargye scurried to fetch his breakfast, moving so quickly he could have been treading on hot coals. Aimo, warming her hands by the fire, not-so-subtly maneuvered herself so she was standing as far from River as possible. River, as usual, seemed oblivious to the effect of his presence on others.

  The kinnika around Tem’s neck gave a whisper. I stared. It was the black bell, I was certain of it—as well as the one closest to it, which was small and cracked with age. The metal was unevenly tarnished, as if by fire.

  “What’s that?” I said.

  “I don’t know.” Tem coughed, his forehead creasing with nervous
ness. “But it’s not the first time it’s sounded. Chirri said she didn’t know what it was for.”

  The bells tinkled again. The fire demon sniffed the air, as if it could smell the notes.

  “Music isn’t required right now, thank you,” River said.

  Tem gave him a hard look. “They’re not meant for your entertainment. They’re meant to warn us of danger.”

  “If that’s the case, they should have been ringing madly since the day we left Azmiri,” River said. “Put them away. The only purpose they serve right now is to give me a headache. Dargye, go check on our shaman.”

  Dargye scurried to do as he said. Tem looked at me, and I gave him a slight nod. He sighed and left, and I was alone with River.

  “Kamzin,” he said, kneeling before me, close enough for me to count the freckles on his nose. “I’m sorry.”

  I didn’t look at him. “Why? You only lied to me, and put us all in danger.”

  “I didn’t lie to you. I simply didn’t tell you everything.”

  I gave him a stony look. If he was going to use logic like that, there was no way I was going to talk to him.

  He let out a long sigh. There was a sadness in his gaze that I had never seen before, and which was startling, it was so foreign to his usual expression. It reminded me, strangely, of one of Yonden’s long-distance looks.

  “Why did you do it?” I said quietly.

  River’s eyes drifted away from mine. “It was necessary.”

  “Necessary? You’re borrowing magic from a fire demon.”

  “Not borrowing. That isn’t how it works. The power is Azar-at’s. But the magic is mine.”

  “What does that mean?”

  He leaned forward, taking my wrist before I could stop him. His fingers brushed the bracelet I always wore, which had been my mother’s. “Who made this cord? The worms that spun the silk?”

  “No.” His fingers brushed my skin, and though I should have recoiled from his touch, I felt a tingling travel into my bones. “The weavers did.”

  “Ah.” He smiled. “Well, think of me as a weaver. Azar-at provides the materials. But I shape them and stitch them together. In a way, the spells I cast are as much mine as they are his.”

  I gazed at him. His eyes always seemed darkened around the rims, as if with charcoal, but I knew it was just his lashes. I had spent enough time sneaking glances at his face, as we bent our heads together over the maps, to know it well. He held my eyes, and despite my fury at him, I felt that traitorous thrum in the air between us.

  “Dyonpo, the shaman won’t get up,” Dargye said, striding back from the tents. “I touched his forehead, and it was hot.”

  River’s brow furrowed. He glanced at the sky again, his hand slipping from mine.

  “He’ll get up,” he said, “if we have to drag him.” He followed Dargye to Norbu’s tent, watched by the fire demon at every step. I shivered and turned my back.

  Within twenty minutes, the yak was loaded and we were ready to go. Tem had given Norbu a tea brewed with healing herbs, and spoken a chant to ward off fever. It seemed to have helped—the shaman was up, and moving around, but he still seemed pale, and there was a sheen of sweat on his brow. He seemed diminished, somehow—not just thinner but drained.

  “What is it?” I said. “He was fine yesterday.”

  “I don’t know,” Tem said. “The healer in Jangsa said he needed rest. I think we’ve been pushing him too hard.”

  I shook my head. “Once we reach base camp, he’s staying put. He couldn’t climb Biru in his condition, let along Raksha.”

  “We’re almost there, aren’t we?”

  “Yes—according to Mingma’s maps.”

  “Mingma,” Tem muttered, shaking his head.

  “What?”

  “You’ve been poring over his maps for days,” Tem said. “Ever since we left Azmiri. You and River rely on them so strongly.”

  “Of course we do.” Tem’s tone made me feel annoyed, as if on Mingma’s behalf. The explorer’s hand was by now almost as familiar as my own. “He’s been accurate so far. His maps are a reliable guide to Raksha.”

  Tem laughed softly, but there was little humor in it. “They’re a reliable guide to the grave, Kamzin. Don’t you see that? We’ve been following a dead man’s map to his own destruction.”

  I felt a shiver of trepidation. “We don’t know how Mingma died.”

  “No,” he said quietly. “But perhaps we’ll find out ourselves.”

  We set off, moving with a nervous haste. Norbu managed well for the first hour or so, but after that, he began falling behind. River muttered to the fire demon, who paced along at his side, every time we were forced to stop.

  The terrain rose and fell around the base of Mount Chening, which thrust its long spine out into the valley. Then, suddenly, there it was.

  Raksha.

  We had seen it before, in bits and pieces—a sliver glimpsed between two mountains, a shrouded peak looming ahead as we came to the top of a rise. But now it was before us, its monstrous form stark against the sky, as if the world had parted to reveal a glimpse of some dread realm where no beast or human had ever trod.

  A cloud was draped over its side; it looked strangely like a crossed arm. The peak was embraced by the mountains Yanri and Ngadi, connected by uneven, bony ridges. Though its neighbors were also massive, much higher than Azmiri, Raksha loomed largest. It was cloaked in disheveled layers of snow, and its sharp peak slanted like a bowed head. There was nothing welcoming about the mountain—quite the opposite. The longer I gazed at it, the more I felt convinced that somehow Raksha did not want us there.

  This was a place for spirits and monsters. Not for the likes of us.

  We reached the glacier that afternoon. Though much of it was covered with rubble and snow, in some places we were walking directly on the ice, which was as smooth as a river-washed stone and gleamed blue-black. Water could be heard flowing beneath its surface, as faint as a whisper. I felt myself becoming lost in the sound as I trudged along. There was something lulling about it. It was like music from a ghost realm.

  Tem placed a hand on my arm, pulling me to a stop. “Kamzin.”

  I turned, expecting to see that Norbu had fallen behind again. However, Tem’s gaze was fixed on the sky. The thin line of clouds River had been eyeing that morning had thickened into something far more troubling. A storm was clearly brewing. It stretched to the ground in long curtains of gray.

  “We should look for a place to take shelter,” I said. “Somewhere out of the wind where we can set up the tents.”

  Tem coughed. “River wants to reach the mountain today. He’s not going to like that.”

  “Then River can carry on alone.” My voice was hard. “This time, we’re doing things my way.”

  “Don’t do anything rash,” Tem said. “Let’s wait to see if the storm swings west.”

  I made an exasperated noise, but did not argue. We continued on, our footsteps barely audible over the shush-shush-shush of the glacier. I began to hope we would escape the storm, that it would turn to the west, as Tem had suggested, and miss us entirely. River set a punishing pace; even Dargye and I were having trouble keeping up. Norbu walked behind River, no longer struggling, but moving with a strange, stiff gait that made me suspicious—it was so unlike his usual stride. Had River, frustrated by Norbu’s sluggishness, put a spell on him to strengthen his body? If so, it was a dangerous thing—Norbu might not feel the strain being placed on him now, but he would later, when the spell wore off. Depending on how ill he still was, such a spell could break him.

  Suddenly, my thoughts were interrupted by a crash that shook the ground, followed by a terrible cry.

  I whirled. Behind me, the terrain had broken into shards, fissures radiating from the jagged crevasse that had materialized in the glacier. I blinked, unable to make sense of it. Aimo and Dargye had been behind me—now Dargye lay at the edge of the crevasse, where the ice sloped toward the sudden void, shouting and cla
wing at the ground. And Aimo—where was Aimo? Something inside me shattered, and for a second I could only stare—it was as if the world had frozen, like a nightmarish scene on a silk scroll.

  I ran. Dargye slid another foot toward the darkness. One of his gloves had come off. Against the snow was a smear of blood from where the ice had grated against his fingertips. He held on, but barely.

  I leaped across the crevasse at its narrowest point, trying not to think about how deep those shadows went. Throwing myself to the ground as close to the opening as I dared, I slammed my ax into the ice and reached for Dargye.

  My fingers grasped the sleeve of his chuba just as he slipped farther away, the fabric tearing from my grip. Swearing, I stretched my hand out again, praying that my ax would hold. The crevasse was deep—so deep I could not see the bottom. Dargye gazed up at me, his eyes wide and uncomprehending with terror.

  “Climb!” I shouted. Dargye slipped another inch. His hand—the cut one—shook uncontrollably as it gripped the ice.

  “Do it, Dargye,” I ordered. Ice crystals stung my throat. I couldn’t hold on much longer myself—every muscle strained and protested. If he could gather enough energy to raise himself to meet my hand, I thought I had enough strength—just—to pull us both to safety.

  Dargye slipped again. His mouth was open, but he made no sound. Tangled in his fingers were strands of torn, tan-colored fabric.

  Aimo’s chuba.

  I shouted at Dargye again, my voice so hoarse I barely recognized it, but still the man made no move to heed me. He continued slipping, down, down, down, until he had reached the very edge of the abyss. I could do nothing but stare in horror as his grip began to falter.

  A whirl of movement on my left. “Kamzin!”

  “Tem!” I almost let go of my ax, I was so startled. He had seemed to step out of the wind itself, appearing in a space he had been nowhere near, just seconds ago. “Tem, I can’t—”

  “Leave it to me.” Sounding the kinnika, he shouted a word, some incantation I didn’t recognize, and suddenly I was falling uphill—as if the rules that bound the world together had been upended. I tumbled up the slope, my ice ax and Dargye skittering after me. My breath was knocked from my body as the man collided with me, and we sprawled across the snow, coming to a sudden, chaotic stop.