Even the Darkest Stars

by Heather Fawcett

  I tried to swim, each breath rattling in my lungs. The ghosts swirled through the water like luminous ink, tugging at my chuba, pulling me under again. I fought my way to the surface, choking on a scream.

  Mingma stood by the edge of the pool, watching. Other ghosts hovered in the air, whispering together.

  “Don’t do this,” I croaked.

  “Don’t worry,” Mingma said. “This way isn’t so bad, really. Soon you won’t feel anything. And then, before you know it, you’ll be one of us.” He almost seemed to smile, and I saw a hint of the man I had glimpsed before. “I think I’ll enjoy the change of company.”

  The cold burrowed inside me. It was as if my very bones had frozen. Even if I could drag myself out of the water, I was doomed without a blazing fire and dry clothes. The only question now was how long it would take for the cold to defeat me—to slow my limbs, and then my breath. My mind flashed to the story of what River had done to an enemy—taken his cloak and left him bound in the snow. That sort of death was slow, but as sure as an arrow to the heart. The cold was death itself—this had been drilled into me, and all the village children, since we could speak.

  A look of understanding passed over Mingma’s face. “It’s all right, Kamzin. You don’t need to be afraid.”

  Anger made my sluggish blood quicken. “No, but you do,” I forced out through my teeth. “When River finds you—”

  “No one will come for you,” he said. He knelt beside me, his voice a hiss. “You think I enjoy this? You think I want to watch you die? I’m trapped, Kamzin. As trapped as you are.”

  “I think you don’t even try,” I snapped. Each word caught in my throat, but I forced them out anyway. “I think you’re bitter because you’re stuck here—and now you want me to suffer the way you have.”

  Mingma drew himself up, his expression hard. “You don’t understand. But you will, soon enough.”

  “Kamzin?”

  I was seized by a desperate relief. “River!” My voice broke, barely above a whisper. “I’m here!”

  A light trembled along the tunnel, growing stronger and stronger, and then River burst into view, one hand cupped beneath a hovering flame. He halted, seeming to take in the scene before him—the ghosts, the dark cave, the pool of ice.

  “Hello, River,” the dead explorer said. “Nice of you to stop by and save us the effort of capturing you.”

  “Mingma, I presume?” River transferred the flame to his other hand. “I wish I could say it was a pleasure to meet you.”

  The two explorers gazed at each other like contorted mirror images in their tahrskin chubas. Both wore the pale side, so that they seemed like two smudges of light against the darkness.

  “Let her go,” River said, his voice quiet but carrying.

  The ghosts made no reply. Slowly, they drifted closer to River, keeping to the shadows. They were all eyeing the flame in his hand—ghosts hated light, it was true, but was that hatred strong enough to protect him? He did not flinch as they surrounded him.

  Mingma let out a short, harsh laugh. “You can’t be the Royal Explorer, surely? How ridiculous. Is the emperor hiring children now? Things were much different in my day.”

  “Your day is long gone,” River replied. “It’s time you moved on.”

  “Past time.” The bitterness entered Mingma’s tone again. “What difference does it make?”

  Something like regret crossed River’s face. He raised his hand, and the flame burned brighter. The ghosts stopped their advance—some even took a step back. The flame rose into the air, a sphere of white light. It struck the ceiling of the cavern, where it grew and grew, hovering like a massive chandelier, sending small flames cascading down.

  The ghosts shrieked, diving for the shadows. Mingma let out a cry of anger as he too retreated to the edge of the cavern.

  River flashed me a smile, and then he was gone, darting down one of the tunnels, away from the light. The ghosts poured after him.

  I hauled myself out of the ice-water, my fingers so numb it took three tries before I could maintain my hold. I tried to stand, but my body wouldn’t cooperate. I couldn’t feel my feet; they clung to my legs like stone blocks.

  “Kamzin.”

  I started. A hand touched my shoulder; mismatched eyes peered into mine. “River, how—”

  “Azar-at is leading the ghosts on a chase,” he said. “A distraction—we don’t have much time. Can you move?”

  He took hold of my chin, his thumb brushing my cheek, and examined me. “You’re like ice.” He wrapped his arm around my waist and hauled me up.

  “I’m fine.” I took a step, and immediately, my legs buckled. I was shaking so hard I felt as if I could come apart. River looped his arm around me and helped me walk.

  “Wait—Ragtooth!” I cried, spying his limp body. Grimacing slightly, River lifted the fox by the scruff of his neck and stuffed him in his pack. Ragtooth stirred, and I felt a wave of relief. River pulled me close again, and we limped on.

  Distant crashes shook the ground, and shouts echoed through the mountain. “What’s going on?”

  “Azar-at is sealing the cavern,” River said, “melting the rock with fire and weaving it with a spell the ghosts won’t be able to penetrate. They won’t trouble us again.” I gazed at him, startled by the barely contained fury in his voice. His arm tightened around me, his hand gripping my hip as if at any moment he expected me to be torn from his side.

  “You’re—you’re sealing them in?” I breathed. “Can’t you set them free?”

  “The spell that prevents them from crossing over is ancient, and as strong as the mountain itself. It’s possible that I could break it, but it would cost more than I’m willing to sacrifice.”

  Water sloshed around my boots. We were wading through a stream that had not been there before. It was growing, spreading across the cavern floor.

  River dragged me through the water, which began to lap around my ankles. “The fire,” he muttered. “Azar-at’s spell. It’s melting the snow above the tunnels.”

  “What?” How could he not have considered that?

  “I was in a hurry,” River said. “I’m not sure I fully thought this plan through—”

  “Do you ever?” Fear brought some of the feeling back to my limbs. The water rose rapidly, swirling around us in powerful currents. We plunged into the tunnel that led to the surface, gaining elevation with every step. Still the water surged, lapping almost to my waist. It lifted me off my feet, but River kept his grip on me, and finally we broke free of the torrent. I bit down on a scream as I looked back. The cavern was now completely flooded.

  And rising through the flood was Mingma, one hand outstretched, eyes wide with some terrible combination of horror, hatred, fear. River yanked me back around, and we sprinted the final distance, bursting out of the mountain and into the light of a gray sunrise. River let out a wordless shout as we fell forward onto the snow, throwing his hand out. The rock behind us seemed to glow and melt. It crumbled, sealing the shadowy entrance with a surprisingly soft sound like a sigh, and it was as if the tunnel had never been.

  TWENTY-TWO

  CLOUDS GATHERED ALONG the horizon, their gray backs brushed with pink and gold. The sunlight was already spilling over the mountain, igniting the snow. After being so long in darkness, the sight made my eyes ache. I lay still, overwhelmed.

  “Hey.” River lifted me upright, his voice low and urgent. “Kamzin. Stay with me.”

  Stay with him? Where else was I going to go? Then it occurred to me that he had interpreted my stillness as a sign of dire health. I made no move to discourage the notion—I felt breathless and bloodless, as if I were suspended in ice.

  “Let’s get this off.” River unbuttoned my sodden, ice-crusted chuba, drawing it over my shoulders. He stopped suddenly, as if realizing what he was doing, and an unfamiliar color entered his cheeks.

  He was blushing. I blinked. I had never seen River blush before—it wasn’t something I had thought he was
even capable of.

  “Azar-at,” he called. I couldn’t see the fire demon—it was beyond my range of vision—but I felt it when River’s hands on my arms grew warm, a warmth that spread across my body. The moisture rose from my clothes and skin in a cloud that was borne away by the wind. I began to shiver again as I dried. The warmth remained when River removed his hands.

  I stood slowly. I felt strange. River had never used his magic on me before, and the sensation was . . . befuddling. It felt different from Chirri’s magic, or Tem’s. Was that because it came from a fire demon?

  The power is Azar-at’s, he had said, but the magic is mine.

  The warmth lingered on my skin, on every inch of me. He returned my gaze, and I realized that he could feel the spell too. I looked away, color spreading across my own face. As I did, my gaze fell on the tunnel, or the place where the tunnel had been. And I felt the chill of water like knives burrowing into my bones, and saw Mingma’s remorseless face looming over me.

  I pulled myself to my feet, stumbling only slightly. Then I began to march away, very fast, not looking back.

  “Kamzin?” River had to jog to catch up with me. “Slow down; you don’t have your strength back—”

  “This is the way back to camp?” I said, not slowing.

  “Yes, but—”

  “Good.” I clambered over a boulder, banging my knee. That didn’t slow me either. “We’ll gather up our things and set out for the Ngadi face. If we move fast we can reach it by nightfall.”

  River grabbed my arm, but I threw him off. “You want to give up?”

  “I’m not giving up,” I snapped, my tone so ferocious that River took a step back. “You can’t give up when you had no hope of succeeding.”

  “Kamzin—”

  “They’ll win, River.”

  “Who will?”

  “The witches.” I stopped and faced him. “This is their mountain. They have the power—they trapped Mingma and his men, turned them into evil things, just like they are.” I saw Mingma’s face again, rising toward me out of the water, saw him trapped there in the darkness as minutes turned to days, and days to years—I shoved the image back, because it was too much. “Do you know who Mingma was?”

  He gazed at me, silent, his mouth a thin line.

  “He was a great man. My father’s library is filled with scrolls about his heroism. He drew half the maps of the Empire. He was fearless, brave. And the witches defeated him without even raising a finger.”

  River rubbed his eyes. He was still soaked, I noticed, though the cold didn’t seem to trouble him.

  “This is their world,” I went on, “and it doesn’t want us here. What will happen when we reach the summit? When we find their city?” I shook my head. “Tem was right. This expedition is madness—we’re much better off returning to base camp and figuring out another way to defeat them.”

  I watched him, waiting for him to argue with me. To say that we couldn’t return, that there was no other way to defeat the witches. To talk me out of leaving.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  I started. “What?”

  “I should never have agreed to this,” he said, seeming to speak half to himself. “I shouldn’t have brought you this far. You should have stayed back at camp, where you were safe.”

  Something was rising in me, something darker than anger. I could have hit him. My desire to get off the mountain as quickly as possible was all but forgotten.

  “You should have left me where I was safe?” I said. “As if I’m some frightened child? Where would you be if you had left me back at base camp? Dead, that’s where. Have you forgotten how I saved your life? Your recklessness would have—”

  “My recklessness?” Suddenly, River seemed as furious as I was. “You’re the one who decided to go for a late-night stroll, right into an army of ghosts! Why on earth did you leave the cave and the protection of the warding spells?”

  “I was looking for you!” I snapped. “Why did you leave the cave?”

  “To chase the ghosts away, of course. How do you think I felt when I returned and found you gone? When I realized they had taken you, that you could already be dead?”

  I stared. “I don’t know.”

  River glowered at me. “You’re an idiot, Kamzin.”

  We glared at each other, and I felt as if I would hit him. That infuriatingly handsome face wouldn’t be so perfect with a black eye or a missing tooth. My entire body seemed to pulse, as if the warmth he had pressed into my skin had turned to fire and was consuming me. Then, suddenly, he pulled me into his arms, pressing his hand against the back of my head so that my face was buried in his shoulder.

  I folded myself into his embrace, as if I were not holding him but melting against his body. As wondrous as it felt, it was also strange, because he was River Shara, and the Royal Explorer, and the most powerful shaman I had ever met, and I knew I shouldn’t be doing this. And yet he was also just River, who had become my friend and who I now trusted with my life. He ran his fingers through my hair, brushing it off my face. He was gripping me so tightly that I could barely breathe. I didn’t mind. I lifted my face to his and kissed him.

  River’s magic still brushed my skin, but the warmth that overwhelmed me didn’t come from that. This kiss was different than the half-drunken kiss we had shared on the cliff. That kiss had set my heart pounding, but this one was as heady as a barrel of raksi. Kissing River reminded me of dark forests and night skies. It was nothing like kissing Tem, or any of the village boys I had kissed because someone dared me. As different as night from day.

  It lasted only a moment, and then River drew back. His hand was still pressed against my face, his thumb and forefinger framing my eye.

  “What?” I murmured.

  River stepped away, a familiar veil dropping over his expression. “We need to get you back to camp. Make sure that water didn’t give you frostbite—it can set in without you noticing.”

  I stared at him. He turned to walk away, but I grabbed his arm. “Why do you keep doing that?”

  “Doing what?”

  “Pretending you don’t care about me. That I’m just some assistant you hired to carry your bags or cook your dinner.”

  “I do care about you, Kamzin,” he said, a knife edge in his voice. “That isn’t why we can’t do this.”

  “Why, then?” Anger rose within me again, and I had to grip the sleeves of my chuba to keep from lashing out. I had almost died. And somehow that had broken something, some reluctance or fear that had prevented me from voicing what I felt. I was frightened, and exhausted, and furious. I would make him talk to me. I would make him admit what I knew to be true—that he felt the same about me as I did about him.

  “Is it because you’re of noble blood, and I’m not?” I demanded. “Because after this is over, I’ll go back to my village, and you’ll go back to some palace in the Three Cities?”

  “No. If you were someone else, any other girl, I wouldn’t think twice.”

  I made an exasperated sound. “So the reason you won’t kiss me is because you care about me?”

  River let out a sigh of relief. “Yes! That’s it exactly. I’m glad you understand.”

  “I understand that you’re a lunatic,” I growled. “But I already knew that.”

  My hand was still on his arm, and his face was only a foot from mine. The veil had slipped, and his expression was an odd combination of confusion, anger, and longing. So I pulled him closer and kissed him again.

  He hesitated at first, but then suddenly he was kissing me back, with a forcefulness that took me by surprise. I was lifted off my feet and propelled backward until I was pressed against the rock face. I wrapped my arms around him, tightening my hold, heedless of the uneven rocks pressing into my back. River ran his hand over me until I found myself cursing the layers of clothing that separated us. It was as if the feeling that had been building between us all this time had exploded, and we were both giddy with it. I wanted him to kiss m
e until the snow melted, until Raksha was worn to nothing by the ice and the winds.

  “Would you like me to give you two a moment?” said a voice.

  River pulled away sharply, and I slid down the rock, landing with a soft oof in the snow. Standing behind us, framed against the distant peaks and valleys, was Mara.

  TWENTY-THREE

  THE CHRONICLER’S FACE was creased with fatigue and shadowed with an unkempt beard. His chuba was torn and stained with mud at the hem. He seemed thinner, or perhaps it was only weariness that bent his shoulders and made him a less imposing figure than I remembered. His gaze, though, was clear, and he seemed unhurt.

  “Mara!” For a moment, I could get no other words out, I was so astonished. Was he a ghost himself, to have appeared like this in our midst? Then I was on my feet and racing to his side. I grabbed his arm—he was flesh and blood.

  “Where is Lusha?” I demanded. “Is she with you? Is she all right? How did you get here? When did you get here? How did you find us?”

  He shook off my hand. “Your sister is fine. We noticed your tracks last night, and followed them to your camp in the cave. I volunteered to set out at first light to search for you.”

  “But how?” I stared at him, happier to see his haughty profile than I ever could have imagined. “I thought you must have turned back. I thought you could be—could be—”

  Could be dead, I wanted to say, but couldn’t. Mara took no notice of my hesitation—he had barely glanced at me. His gaze was fixed on River.

  “Mara,” River said, in a quiet voice that nonetheless carried over the wind. “You’ve exceeded my expectations. I doubted you would make it this far.”

  “Hello, River.” Mara’s disdainful expression slipped slightly. He raised his chin, as if to compensate. “I’m glad I’m able to surprise you once in a while.”

  “You know I don’t like surprises,” River said. His expression was calm, but a darkness lurked beneath it.

  “I can see you’re angry—” Mara began.