Even the Darkest Stars

by Heather Fawcett

  “Why would I be angry?” River said. “You only stole my supplies, my assistant. You’ve attempted to steal my title.”

  I felt a twinge of surprise, and a hurt sort of irritation. Was River still upset about Lusha choosing Mara over him?

  “And after this,” he continued, his voice low but eerily carrying, “you have the audacity to survive long enough to find yourself in my presence again.”

  Though Mara’s mouth was set in a hard line, I saw it tremble slightly before he mastered himself.

  He’s afraid. And with good reason. I recalled the stories of what River did to those who betrayed him. And I didn’t doubt that Mara had seen demonstrations of River’s power.

  “You talk of betrayal?” Mara said. “Of loyalty? How am I to remain loyal to someone who has deceived me for so long?”

  I stared at him, baffled. River took a step forward, his expression stormy. “How have I deceived you?”

  Mara didn’t reply. He watched River as one might watch a dangerous animal. I looked from one to the other. This was ridiculous. They were going to come to blows, here, after all that had happened. After I had just learned that Lusha was safe.

  “River,” I said, touching his arm. “I want to see my sister.”

  He blinked, and something within him seemed to recede. “Yes. Of course you do. Lead the way, Mara.”

  The chronicler gave him a long look. He walked past us, giving River a wide berth. I could have run after him, but River grabbed my arm.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes,” I said. I felt perfectly warm, and though his magic still hummed distractingly against my skin, the sensation was fading. “Your spell—”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  Something in his tone made me think again of the ghosts, and the chill water wrapping me in its deathly embrace. Somehow that chill still burrowed inside me, though I felt warm enough on the surface. I looked away.

  “I think so.”

  River shook his head, dismissing my words. He took my chin gently in his hand, sending a shiver down my spine. Then, just as gently, he brushed my lips with his.

  Some of the ice melted.

  River turned. “Come, Azar-at.”

  I started. I had almost forgotten the fire demon was there, perched by the mouth of the cave, gazing at us. It had surely been watching as River and I kissed, as we almost—what? I shivered, despite River’s spell. Azar-at’s fiery gaze was calm, patient. So like a wolf, and yet so unlike. Even when I turned away, I knew that its eyes were still on me.

  “What?” River’s pack was moving. He wrenched it from his back and dropped it in the snow. A horrible growling emanated from somewhere within its depths.

  I laughed with surprise. I knew that growl. “Ragtooth! We forgot all about you.”

  The pack continued to emit menacing sounds. The fox had woken up in an unfamiliar place, and he was not happy about it. The pack began to roll down the slope, writhing, until I caught it and yanked the creature out. Ragtooth leaped up my back and wound himself around my shoulders, nipping my ear.

  River looked into his pack, letting out a cry of dismay. He lifted what looked like a handful of ribbons. “That rabid beast shredded my spare shirt.”

  “Sorry,” I said. Ragtooth made a sound that was almost a snort.

  By the time we arrived back at the cave, it was full morning. In front of it, someone had built a fire, which silhouetted a hunched figure. The sound of our boots made him turn.

  He was pale, with a faint sheen of sweat upon his brow. When our eyes met, his face lit up with such unbridled relief and joy that I let out a cry.

  “Tem!” I ran to him and threw my arms around his neck. “What are you doing here?” The dragons fluttered out of the cave, wheeling in a circle around us as if they too were delighted by our reunion.

  Tem hugged me back, so tightly I could barely breathe. “Kamzin. You’re all right.”

  “Why wouldn’t I be?” I drew back, half laughing, wiping the tears from my eyes.

  He touched my face, then drew back, frowning. “Your hair is wet.”

  “It’s a long story. Tem, how did you—”

  “Lusha and Mara found us,” Tem said. “They were camped on the far side of the glacier. They saw our fire and hiked over. Showed up only a few hours after you left. Dargye just about fell over, he was so startled.”

  “Where is Dargye?”

  “Back at camp with the yak.” Tem shook his head. “He was in no shape to go any farther, with his injured arm. Lusha, Mara, and I followed your tracks in the snow to the Ngadi face, and I used my magic to help us up.”

  “You used your magic.” I gazed at him, amazed yet again by the evidence of my unassuming best friend’s power. “Tem—”

  “I know, I know,” he said. “You wanted me to stay behind. But I couldn’t, no matter what it cost me. Not after what Lusha told me.”

  “What?” I said. Something flitted by overhead, momentarily blotting out the sun. “What did she say? Where is she?”

  Tem’s gaze drifted. The shadow flitted by again, and then a sharp cry shattered the air—

  A raven’s call.

  “What—” I began, before something black and flapping descended on my head. I waved my arm, stumbling away from Tem, as the raven skimmed my hair with its talons.

  “Biter!”

  I recognized the raven instantly. The creature darted away from me as a second dark shape floated into view—Lurker, her wings tucked against her body as she dove toward the snow. Toward River.

  He was crouched at Azar-at’s side, murmuring something to the fire demon. Lurker let out a sharp call a second before she struck, and when she did, it was no ordinary feint. Her talons raked the side of River’s face, speckling the snow with small drops of blood.

  River swore, pressing his hand to his head. A second later, Biter joined the attack, coming away with a strand of River’s hair. River raised his arm to protect his face, and in response, Lurker sank her talons into his hand, spilling more blood.

  “Stop it!” I started forward. “Biter, stop!”

  But the birds paid me no heed. Again they dove, and again, the snow was dotted with blood. The ravens were large birds, but I had never feared them before. They were quick and merciless, with an eerie focus.

  “Enough.”

  As Lurker circled back for another dive, River made a motion with his hand. The raven abruptly paused in midattack. Her body shuddered, and she dropped to the ground. She lay there in the snow, one wing half-raised, and was still.

  “No,” I whispered. River’s gaze turned to Biter, and I grabbed his shoulder. “No! River, don’t.”

  “To me,” a voice cried.

  Biter wheeled around with another echoing crrrk. He drifted over the snow, wingbeats scattering the loose flakes, and settled on Lusha’s shoulder.

  Lusha.

  She strode toward us, her head bent against the chill breeze, her eyes full of fury. She walked with a slight limp that did little to lessen the imposing aura that surrounded her. Like Mara’s, her face was pinched with weariness, her chuba torn. Her normally glossy, flowing hair was a tangle. But somehow, with her height, and the darkness in her gaze, her disheveled appearance only made her more intimidating. She could have been an avenging spirit. I had imagined running to her, and hugging her as I had hugged Tem, but I now had to suppress the urge to run away.

  Though the drifts were knee-high in places, Lusha plowed her way through them as if she were made of fire. A few paces from where River and I crouched, she stopped.

  “Kamzin, get away from him.” She didn’t look at Lurker’s motionless body. Her voice was quiet, so quiet you almost had to strain to hear it. Lusha didn’t yell when she was truly angry. Her anger condensed inside her to a silent, glittering heat, like a cloud brewing with lightning. “Now.”

  I was still holding River’s arm. “What are you talking about?”

  Tem went to stand behind her. Mara lurk
ed by the cave, his eyes darting from one person to another.

  “Please listen to her,” Tem said. He was holding the kinnika—he must have retrieved them from my pack, which I had left in the cave last night. He held them before him now, as if to be ready to sound them at any moment. The scorched bell rang faintly, for no apparent reason.

  I let out a disbelieving laugh. “Have you all gone insane? Tem, are you going to cast a spell on River?”

  “Only if I have to.” His face was grim.

  “You really don’t have to,” River muttered, his expression a grimace of pain. I turned away from the others to examine him. His hand was bleeding freely, as were the three deep scratches that had just missed his eye. His ear was bleeding again too, the one that Ragtooth had bitten. I scooped up a chunk of snow and pressed it against his forehead. The blood had already trickled onto his chuba.

  “Kamzin.” Tem’s voice had a plea in it.

  “Mara, I have some bandages in my pack,” I said, pressing more snow against the wound. “Can you fetch them?”

  “If you’d just listen to me,” Lusha snapped, “for once in your life.”

  “You’ve gone mad, Lusha,” River said. He drew himself to his full height. “You may be in the habit of setting your ridiculous pets on people you don’t like, but you’ve gone too far this time. You know who I am.”

  “That’s the problem,” Lusha said. “I don’t.”

  “What are you talking about?” I said. I took the bundle of cloth Mara handed me, and used it to bind River’s hand.

  “There is no River Shara,” Lusha said. “He doesn’t exist.”

  I stared at her. Then I let out a sharp laugh.

  “He’s right here,” I said. “Are you saying he’s a ghost?”

  “No,” she said calmly. “I’m saying there is no River Shara. Not according to the stars.”

  “Spirits,” I muttered. River was right. She had gone mad.

  “She may need more of an explanation than that,” Mara said. He moved closer to the fire—which also happened to be farther from River—and rubbed his hands over the flames.

  Lusha sighed, rubbing her eyes. The weariness I had seen in her face seemed, for a moment, to overtake her. But then she straightened, forcing her shoulders back. “As you know, Kamzin, or you should know, the stars can’t predict every event. Not everyone’s birth can be read in the patterns of the constellations and the paths of shooting stars. But many can—the Sharas, for example, are an ancient and powerful family. Their births are always foretold—you can see them. It isn’t easy to read the past in the stars, much harder than it is to read the future, but I managed it. I found the story of every Shara since the Empire’s founding—their births, their lives, and in many cases, their deaths. All but one. River. He simply isn’t there.”

  Biter croaked, and Lusha, in an absent gesture, touched her finger to his beak. “I don’t know who he is,” she said, “but he isn’t the emperor’s cousin. I puzzled over it for days before River came to Azmiri, but it wasn’t until I met Mara that I knew I had to take matters into my own hands.”

  “Mara?” I stared at him. “What does he have to do with this?”

  “Once I realized that there was something strange about River, I began searching the stars for those who I knew were close to him,” she said. She paced before us—three steps one way, three steps the other. “Mara, for example. I studied the events of his life. After speaking with him, I discovered that he had no memory of things that are written about him in the stars.”

  “Like what?”

  “The time he drowned in Nageni Lake, for one. And another occasion, when he was taken prisoner by witches in the Nightwood.”

  My head was spinning. “Why would he have lost his memories?”

  “The only explanation I could come up with,” Lusha said, “is that someone took them. Someone with an extraordinary magical gift.”

  Everyone, suddenly, was staring at River. He gave a short laugh.

  “I can assure you that Azar-at and I have better things to do than muddle around in Mara’s head.”

  “Lusha.” My voice was low. “You’re wrong. You read the stars wrong.”

  “No.”

  “Of course you did.” My anger was rising. “Did that possibility never occur to you?”

  “Yonden verified my findings,” she snapped. “I’m not wrong.”

  “No,” I muttered. “You never are, are you?”

  Lusha’s expression closed, but not before I saw a flash of pain. My words echoed with an old argument, sharp and bitter as bile. I had shouted something similar at her after our mother died. When I had been angry at everyone, but especially Lusha. For she should have known. She could read the future in the stars. How could she not have known? How could she not have prevented what had happened?

  But the simple truth, as I had finally realized when my anger faded and was replaced by cold grief, was that Lusha could not see everything. The messages woven in the stars were imperfect, flawed.

  And so was my sister.

  I turned to Tem. “And you believe this?”

  “Some of Mara’s memories have been stolen,” Tem said quietly. “At some point, he was enspelled. I used the finder’s incantation—there are traces of magic all over him, like cobwebs. I don’t know the spell that was used, but I’m trying to find out.”

  I threw my hands up. “And you assume it was River?”

  River touched my shoulder. “It’s all right.”

  “No, it’s not,” I said, shaking him off. “How can you say that?”

  “I don’t see the point in arguing with them.”

  “Of course he doesn’t,” Lusha snapped. “He wants us to step aside and let him continue to the summit. That isn’t going to happen.”

  River’s expression became flat and cold. “Isn’t it?”

  “No.”

  They stared at each other, and I was surprised that the snowdrifts surrounding us didn’t melt into vapor. Hastily, I stepped between them. I wasn’t certain whose safety I was more concerned for, but it didn’t matter. This was ridiculous.

  “Lusha,” I said, “why did you come here with Mara? What do you want?”

  “The witches’ talisman, of course,” she said. “Or rather, to stop River from taking it. Whoever he is, I can’t allow something so powerful to fall into his hands. It was Yonden who worked it out—when River wrote to me, asking my help in guiding him to Raksha, but refusing to reveal any details about his intentions, we decided to search the stars for the truth. Many of the signs surrounding the expedition were strange and contradictory, but there was enough for Yonden to make the connection between Raksha and the tales of the witches’ sky city, and the power hidden there. At first I planned to lead River’s expedition to Raksha, as I promised, and then steal the talisman once we located it—destroy it, if I could. But once I discovered how River had altered Mara’s memories, I knew that course was too risky—he is too powerful. I decided I would beat him to the talisman, to prevent him from ever touching it. It was then that I enlisted Mara’s help—he may not be the Royal Explorer, but he has led many expeditions in his lifetime. I also hoped to break the spell on his memories, to unlock the secret of who River is, and what he wants.”

  “Lusha, Lusha,” River said, “this is ludicrous. Think about what you’re doing. You know that by threatening me, you’re threatening the emperor himself.”

  “Then I am threatening the emperor himself.” Lusha’s voice was ice.

  “Lusha—” I said, horrified.

  River exhaled slowly. “You have no idea what you’re saying.”

  “I know exactly what I’m saying.”

  “Stop, please,” I said, as fire crackled between them again. “Both of you.”

  There was a painful silence. Lusha and River looked daggers at each other. Tem’s eyes flicked back and forth, his hand clenched tight around the kinnika. Mara leaned against the rock, his face pale. Azar-at moved quietly to River’s s
ide.

  River’s laugh cut through the silence. I drew a small sigh of relief, though the others did not seem comforted by the sound. They watched River with wary expressions.

  “All right,” he said, waving a hand wearily. “You can stand down, Tem. I won’t fight you. Nor will I argue with the stars—there are far too many of them. But a thousand voices can be as wrong as one, and if I were you, Lusha, I wouldn’t put so much faith in the stories they tell.” He yawned. “I’m going to get some sleep. I had a very tiring night, and this certainly hasn’t helped. Azar-at, come.”

  The fire demon slid across the snow toward River, following him into the cave. Mara leaped out of their way as quickly as if something had bitten him.

  “What are you doing?” I said to Lusha. “Did you just threaten the emperor? I thought you cared about Azmiri’s safety.”

  Lusha shook her head. Now that River was gone, she seemed to have deflated, as if he had taken some of her energy with him. She reached down to rub her calf, wincing. “That’s all I care about. If you’d only open your eyes, you’d see that.”

  My eyes narrowed. “What’s wrong with your ankle?”

  “Nothing. I tripped back in the icefall. Tem healed me.”

  “It doesn’t look healed. Why don’t you let River—”

  “No.” Lusha’s voice was like a lash. “I’ll be fine.”

  “I think you’d refuse help if you were dying. Let me see it, then.”

  “I’d have to be dead before I let you use your unfortunate magic on me, Kamzin. Leave me alone.”

  “I did what I could,” Tem said, coming to Lusha’s side. He looked relieved to have a reason to join the conversation. “But I’m not at full strength, and the healing charm wore off too quickly. I may have done more harm than good.”

  “You did fine,” Lusha said. “I just need to rest it for an hour or so, then I’ll be as good as new.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Oh, right. Like you were ‘good as new’ after a cup of Aunt Behe’s tea the night you fell asleep stargazing. You lost a toe to frostbite, all because you were too proud to complain.”

  Lusha gave me a look of dignified disdain. “I won’t get into old arguments with you.”

  “Let’s take another look at Mingma’s maps,” Mara said, touching her arm. “He hinted there might be an easier route to the summit beyond that ridge.” As he watched my sister, his gaze was filled with concern. Concern—and something more than that. I had to suppress a bitter laugh. I had seen enough men direct similar gazes at Lusha to know what they meant. He was in love with her—or at least, he thought he was.