Even the Darkest Stars

by Heather Fawcett

  I cursed. Tears of frustration stung my eyes, and I flung the talisman aside. Something entered my peripheral vision with an eerie gliding motion.

  The fire demon settled beside me. I can help you.

  “Oh, really?” I wiped my hand across my eyes. “And what’s that going to cost me?”

  Nothing. The fire demon watched me, still as a stone. Just a sniff. A sniff of your hair.

  I turned my attention back to the ember. “Go away.”

  Why do you fear me, brave one?

  “First, stop calling me that. Second, I don’t fear you. I just want to be alone. Please.”

  But you’re always alone. You’re brave, like River. You are not like the others, and so you are lonely. The fire demon tilted its snout toward me, nostrils twitching. Your soul is rich like honeycomb. Like strawberries.

  I inched away from Azar-at, trying to mask the movement by reaching for more twigs. “Thanks, but I would rather you didn’t compare my soul to strawberries, if you don’t mind.”

  I can help you. Azar-at’s tail wagged. It looked every inch like a dog eager to please, apart from the smoke fur and coal-like eyes. We could be friends.

  I started at the echo in the words. You will meet a fire demon on your journey, Yonden had said. I advise you not to befriend it.

  I tried to keep my voice even. “Like how you’re friends with River? No thank you.”

  Azar-at leaned forward, nosing at the twigs and branches. The wood burst into flame.

  I leaped backward. Azar-at moved away, but as it did so, I felt its snout brush against a strand of my hair that had come loose from its knot. I recoiled as if the creature had bitten me.

  “Stay away from me,” I snapped, moving so that the fire was between us. “Or I’ll tell your master what you said. I bet he won’t be happy about you offering your services to somebody else.”

  River is not my master. The fire demon’s tail was wagging again. I have no master.

  Tem emerged from the tent, his face drawn. He cast a dark look at Azar-at.

  “Go on, you,” he said, swinging a foot in Azar-at’s direction. “Get.” The fire demon darted away, back to the tent, and to River. I watched its bushy tail disappear inside.

  “Are you all right?” Tem touched my shoulder.

  “You shouldn’t do that,” I said, brushing him off. “It may look like a wolf, but it’s still a fire demon. You don’t want to get on its bad side.”

  “Fire demons don’t have a good side to be on,” Tem said. “I don’t care about Azar-at. I care about you.”

  I shook my head. “Aimo’s dead. Norbu is lost. Dargye and River are hurt. Everything’s fallen apart.”

  “Hey.” He pressed my hand. “We’re all right. We survived.”

  “Barely,” I murmured, rubbing my eyes. “We still have to climb Raksha.”

  “What?” Tem stared at me. “How are we going to do that? We have no supplies. The yak ran off. Even if we find her, do you really want to keep going after all that’s happened?”

  “What else are we supposed to do?”

  “Turn around. Go home. We tried, and no one can blame us for that.”

  “Go home?” I repeated. “What about Lusha?”

  Tem looked regretful. “I didn’t want to tell you this, because I knew it would upset you. I’ve been tracking Lusha—her magic, that is—since we left Azmiri.”

  I stared at him.

  “I didn’t know what I was sensing at first,” Tem hurried on. “That’s why I didn’t say anything. I’ve never done this before—I’ve used my magic more in the last two weeks than I have in my entire life. I didn’t even know it was possible to sense another person’s magic. Like us, Lusha and Mara have been setting wards every night, spells that leave a trace behind. Yesterday, for the first time, I couldn’t find that trace. I sent my magic out for miles in every direction.”

  I felt cold. “What does that mean?”

  “They’ve either taken a completely different route, which is unlikely—or they turned around.”

  Tem didn’t meet my eye. He knew as well as I did that there was a third possibility. I pictured the chasm that had swallowed Aimo, the creatures that had taken Norbu. My mind recoiled. “Why would they turn around?”

  “For the same reasons we should.”

  I shook my head. “Even if what you say is true, this isn’t just about Lusha. You know what’s at stake as well as I do. If the witches get their powers back, they could destroy Azmiri.”

  “Maybe there’s another way to repair the binding spell,” Tem argued. “We don’t know there isn’t.”

  “You’re willing to take that risk?”

  “Yes, I am! Because it’s a risk, and continuing isn’t—it’s death. We have no hope of succeeding anymore. If we go on, we’ll end up like Mingma.”

  “Turn around, then.” I moved back to the fire, heaping it with more wood, but not before I saw the hurt in his eyes. That was good—I needed to hurt him. Because Tem was right: he couldn’t carry on any farther. He needed to understand that. “Go with Dargye. Take the pass through the Amarin Valley. Use your power to avoid the witches.”

  “You really think I would leave you here?”

  “I never asked you to come in the first place,” I snapped.

  “You’re so . . .” Tem seemed to struggle to find words for what I was. “You’re selfish, Kamzin.”

  “Selfish?” I dropped the wet log I was holding, and the fire gave an angry splutter. “How am I selfish? I’m trying to protect the Empire.”

  Tem’s eyes blazed. I had never seen him so angry. “You’re doing this to make a name for yourself. Or maybe it’s to prove you’re better than your sister, I don’t know. That talisman isn’t what’s driving you—admit it.”

  I was frozen, stunned. Tem turned away. “You’re just like River.”

  “Just like River?” I said, regaining my ability to speak. “What does that mean? River cares about the Empire.”

  “He cares more about reaching the summit first,” Tem said. “If you can’t see that, you’re blind. He’s no different from most powerful men, Kamzin. That’s all he cares about—power. Glory.”

  “And you think I’m the same?” I said quietly.

  Tem rubbed his eyes. The anger seemed to drain from him, and he sat down heavily in the snow, his back to the fire.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean that.”

  I shrugged faintly, looking down at my hands. My anger had faded too, leaving a cold, hollow feeling in its place.

  “It’s fine.” I sighed. “You’re right about one thing—I didn’t join River’s expedition to protect the Empire. But now—”

  I stopped. I didn’t know how I felt now. Yesterday had changed everything. Yesterday I had watched two of my companions die. My desire to beat Lusha, to impress River, to earn the tahrskin chuba worn by the emperor’s explorers—did any of those things matter anymore?

  Aimo’s face rose in my mind. I hadn’t watched her die. I hadn’t even seen her fall. Her death had been silent and swift. Perhaps because of that, it cut deeper, shook me harder, than the horror of the fiangul, or anything else we had faced since leaving Azmiri.

  Tem touched my arm. “Let’s not talk about it now,” he murmured. “Let’s just make it to the morning, and then we can figure out what comes next.”

  I nodded, not trusting my voice to reply. The fire was burning low—too low. I hurriedly rearranged the wood that was smothering it. Tem rose to help, and we worked in silence, slowly coaxing the embers back to life.

  Daylight faded quickly, as it always did in the mountains. Tem and I prepared tea and a thin thukpa soup, trying to be careful with what few supplies the yak hadn’t run off with. Tem took some food to River and Dargye. Dargye, he reported, was awake and able to eat, but River was asleep.

  “I couldn’t wake him,” he said. “I tried, but he just muttered something and rolled over.”

  I wondered at that. Had using his st
range powers exhausted River, or was tiredness a by-product of having one’s soul worn away bit by bit, like a stone worn by a stream?

  I couldn’t fall asleep. Each time I found my way to the edge of rest, I was startled away by a stab of fear whose source I could not trace. It didn’t help that Tem and I were in River’s tent, as we hadn’t wanted to disturb River or Dargye by moving them. I had one of River’s blankets draped over me. It was woven from some sort of Three Cities wool that felt expensive, paper-thin yet unnaturally warm. It smelled like River, I couldn’t help noticing, like campfire smoke mixed with wildflowers. Not sweet, precisely—a kind of wildflower most dismissed as scentless. I tried to pinpoint what it reminded me of, before I realized what I was doing. I rolled onto my back. River’s tent was large and drafty, and I shivered.

  Tem seemed to be having trouble sleeping too, tossing and turning, his body wracked intermittently with coughing. I shuffled across the floor of the tent until I was lying beside him. I lifted up the edge of his blanket and drew it over me, breathing a sigh of relief from the warmth it brought.

  “Can’t sleep?” Tem said.

  “No.” I nestled against him, burrowing deeper into the blankets. After a hesitant moment, he wrapped his arm around me, and I pulled him closer, so his chin was resting against the back of my head.

  “That’s better,” I murmured. It wasn’t just the warmth that comforted me; it was his nearness. The darkness around me felt thicker, heavier somehow that night, and I didn’t want to be alone in it. Tem kissed me just above my temple. His hand moved to stroke my hair.

  I closed my eyes slightly. River had touched me like this when he had kissed me on the ledge. His mouth had tasted like the heady liquor we had drunk, and though his hand against my face had been cool, it had brought a heat to my skin that spread from my face across my entire body.

  I turned slightly, my face tilting toward Tem’s. His hair brushed against my face, and it brought me back to myself. River’s presence was all around me—and, apparently, in my thoughts—but it was Tem lying beside me, Tem leaning in to kiss me. I felt a stab of guilt, and stiffened.

  “Sorry,” Tem said, drawing back.

  “No, I’m sorry.” I pressed my fingers against my eyes. “I don’t know what I’m doing right now.”

  Tem let out a long sigh. “This isn’t easy, you being this close.”

  I rolled over, putting several inches of space between us. “I shouldn’t have—”

  “No—I don’t mean this,” he said. “I mean all of it. Going to sleep every night with you only a few feet away.”

  “Tem . . .” I paused. “I know what you mean. But it’s because it brings back memories, of when we were together. It’s not real.”

  “I thought that was true,” Tem said quietly. His expression was wistful, almost sad. “Now I’m not sure.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I knew how Tem felt about me—and I knew I didn’t, and couldn’t, feel the same. We had been friends for so long—a friendship that could make me feel at home even here, stranded in a vast and terrifying wilderness. I couldn’t bear the thought of risking something like that, of trying to twist it into a shape it would never perfectly fit.

  “I’ll move,” I said after a long silence.

  “No.” He sighed again. “You’re shivering. Come here.”

  He wrapped the blankets more securely around my shoulders, then folded his arm over them, and me, so that we were still touching, but with a shield of blankets between us. I could feel his breath against my head, but he did not move to kiss me again.

  I felt uncomfortable at first. But soon, Tem’s breathing turned into snores, dissipating the tension in the air. I closed my eyes and drifted into an uneasy sleep.

  SEVENTEEN

  I AWOKE TO the piercing call of a goose. I lay still for a moment, listening as the flock passed overhead, my mind a comforting blank. It was nice to lie there in my nest of blankets. Beyond the safety of my tent, there was a world filled with monsters—Norbu was one of those monsters now, a man I had shared food and stories with. And somewhere below our sheltered camp was a crevasse that held Aimo’s broken body.

  I rolled over. I wished the dawn would hurry up—it was awful lying here in the dark, running over everything that had happened. Now that I had started, I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop. I would have woken Tem, but I didn’t want to deal with the awkward place where we had left things. Instead, I rose and dressed. I would sit by the fire until sunrise.

  Rather than attempt to find dry kindling in the darkness, I woke the fire by feeding it several pieces of parchment, then gradually added twigs. It smoked ferociously at first, but after some coaxing, I managed to build it into a healthy blaze.

  I perched on a rock, shivering. No sound came from the tents—Dargye, River, and Tem were still fast asleep. I could have been alone. I felt alone. Two of my companions were dead. My vision blurred, but I didn’t cry. I had no tears left.

  I gazed at Raksha. It seemed even larger, somehow, in the darkness. Not merely large—it was an enormity, the idea of largeness given material form. Twenty thousand feet, if Mingma’s estimates were to be believed. Now it was only a shape that blocked the sky, a patchwork of shadow and snow. The wind whistled over the glacier, lifting my hair and making my teeth chatter, even with the fire. The same wind had scoured the sky of cloud. Except over Raksha, where a strange apparition had formed. A solitary, domed cloud wrapped itself around the very tip of the mountain like a ghostly net. It was banded and swirling, and lit faintly by the glow of the crescent moon that hid somewhere behind the peak. There were no stars in that part of the sky, as if they, like the witches, had forsaken Raksha.

  So little was known about it. The emperor had sent Mingma to climb the mountain decades ago. From that failed attempt, we had a map of Raksha—unfinished—and the disturbing tales of the two men who had survived. They had spoken of monsters lurking deep within the mountain, monsters made of snow or ice that knew everything that set foot there, and after darkness fell, came hunting for them. Stories like that were easily dismissed by those who knew anything about mountaineering—the rumble of an avalanche or the roar of a snow leopard could easily be attributed to some hulking monster, especially by those suffering from dehydration or altitude sickness, which was often accompanied by hallucinations. But the story had spread throughout the Empire, and many now accepted it as truth.

  More than forty years after Mingma, there had been my mother’s expedition, sent to improve the maps of the region and find a new route through the Northern Aryas, one less perilous than Winding Pass. My mother had revised the maps, but she had been unable to discover the path the emperor sought.

  And now there was River. River, who had made a contract with a fire demon, and as a result had a very real chance of succeeding where other explorers had failed. But at what cost?

  I rubbed my head, which was beginning to ache. It wasn’t just my head, though—it was my shoulders, from the weight of my pack, and my legs, from our grueling march over uneven terrain. My knee had throbbed constantly since I took a fall while clambering after River one afternoon, and was now covered in a black bruise. And yet, in spite of all this, I knew I was in better condition than anyone else, except perhaps River. Though Dargye complained little, he had been limping for several days from an injury he refused to acknowledge. Tem’s cough only worsened with each passing day. The healing spells he cast on himself were losing their effectiveness—as any shaman knew, a healing spell was undone if the patient refused to allow it time to work. Tem rested at night, but like the rest of us, his days had been spent clambering over boulders and up hills under the weight of a heavy pack. To heal properly, he needed several days of rest, preferably in a bed beside a warm fire, not shivering on the icy ground.

  I tossed a few more twigs onto the fire as slowly, slowly, the sky began to lighten. I was just about to begin preparing breakfast when I caught a flash of movement from the corner of my eye.

 
A light shone down among the rubble left by the glacier. It flickered gently between the rocks, rising slowly up the hill toward our camp. And with it came the sound of footsteps—heavy ones.

  Someone was coming.

  I leaped to my feet. My knife was in my pocket, and I drew it out, almost dropping it in my haste. The light was closer now. I glanced back at the fire, cursing my foolishness. Had we not agreed to use fire sparingly? And now here I was, lighting up our campsite like a beacon for the witches to follow.

  I considered shouting for Tem, but it was too late. The footsteps were loud now. Whoever it was, they were here. I tightened my grip on the knife.

  Then, out of the darkness, there came a muffled curse. I let out my breath, because I recognized that voice.

  River stepped into the firelight, pulling the yak behind him, the dark side of his chuba barely distinguishable from the dense shadows. A dragon ran in front of them, lighting the way—it snuffled up to me immediately, smelled my empty hands and pockets, then darted away.

  “I thought you were still asleep,” I said, tucking my knife away. I went to the yak and stroked her neck. She looked exhausted and wild-eyed. “How did you find her?”

  “She didn’t go far.” River dropped the lead and moved hastily away from the beast, rubbing his shoulder.

  “Are you all right?”

  “She charged me.”

  I almost laughed. The fat, lumbering creature had never charged anyone. “More likely she walked into you in the darkness.”

  River let out a long-suffering sigh, waving a hand in resignation. He settled on a rock with his back to the fire, still rubbing his arm.

  “Thank the spirits you found her,” I said. “I don’t know what we would have done without our supplies.”

  “Nor do I,” he said. “I won’t get far up that mountain without my ice ax.”