Even the Darkest Stars

by Heather Fawcett

  “Thank the spirits,” he said, his voice a tremor. “I had just about given up—”

  “Where’s Tem?” I demanded. “Was he ahead of you?”

  Mara blinked repeatedly. His expression was dazed, and he seemed to make an effort to focus. “Last I saw. Perhaps twenty yards.”

  River motioned to the fire demon, who darted forward, snout to the ground. I watched, frantic, as the seconds passed. Azar-at paced back and forth, his nostrils snuffling against the snow. But still he did not give any sign.

  “He may be buried too deep for Azar-at to smell him out,” River said, his brow furrowed.

  “Can’t you do anything?” I said, desperate.

  “That’s not a good idea.” Lusha gave River a dark look. “The slope isn’t stable. If he uses magic—”

  “We’ll have to deal with the consequences,” River said. It had the air of an announcement. “Lusha, take Mara back to camp.”

  Scowling, Lusha knelt over Mara, helping him to his feet. She supported him as they made their way back along the path of our footprints. Even through my panic, I couldn’t help feeling a grudging admiration for my sister. She knew what to do in the face of danger, knew that pausing to argue—even if you were in the right—could make the difference between life and death. She wasn’t going to sway River. So she didn’t bother to try.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  River only shook his head, giving me a faint smile. Then he turned away.

  “All right, Azar-at,” he said. “Let’s find our shaman.”

  He raised his hand, and it was as if the air began to hum. My teeth chattered; my skin tingled. I was suddenly very aware of my heartbeat, the feeling of my breath in my throat. And another sound—a strange, distant thudding. Slow but steady. It was a heartbeat. From beneath the snow, some yards upslope.

  “Tem,” I breathed. “Is that him?”

  River made no reply. He closed his eyes briefly.

  A crack appeared in the snow. It widened into a crevasse that branched outward, splitting enormous chunks of snow and rock. The crevasse was deep—I couldn’t even see the bottom. Startled, I took a step back, though I was in no danger—the crevasse did not extend to where we were standing. River raised his hand again, his brow furrowed in concentration. The heartbeat grew louder as a limp figure rose out of the tear in the mountainside. It was Tem.

  He floated toward us before coming to rest gently at my feet. I knelt beside him, checking to see if he was breathing. His eyes fluttered as I touched his face.

  “Tem!” I dashed away the tears that trickled down my cheeks. “Tem, can you hear me?”

  He opened his eyes. They wandered for a few seconds before focusing on my face. His mouth moved. Kamzin.

  “We have to get him back to camp,” I said. “Lusha will know a healing charm.”

  River made no reply. He had fallen onto the snow, and sat with his head bowed and his hand over his eyes. Azar-at, standing at his side, licked his arm.

  “River?”

  “I’m all right.” His voice was distant. “Just give me a minute.”

  But as if in response, the mountain gave an ominous rumble. It was even louder than the first. The ground shook so violently I stumbled and almost fell. Tem moaned, muttering something that sounded like not again.

  I looked up and choked on a scream.

  A wall of snow swept toward us—so fast, faster than anything I had ever seen, monstrous in size and utterly unforgiving.

  River dragged himself to his feet, and stepped forward to meet it.

  “River!” I screamed.

  River stopped, raising his hands toward the wall of snow. I stood frozen, unable to speak or even breathe. I was about to die. We were all about to die.

  Then the avalanche struck . . . something. It seemed to collide with an invisible place just beyond River’s outstretched hands, as if we were a rock in a stream—the snow surged past on either side. The sound was that of a ferocious wave pounding against solid rock—a terrible roaring, as if the mountain were placing its will against River’s. He staggered back a step, but did not fall. Azar-at stood still as a stone at his side. I sensed, rather than saw, the connection between them—like a rope stretched taught. I stared at the snow pouring past, only a scant few yards from where I knelt next to Tem. It was like the landscape was being pulled out from underneath me, while I sat motionless, a mere observer. Even after the mountain grew still again, I could only sit there, staring, as the snow cloud swirled and settled around us in thin sheets.

  We were still there when Lusha returned. Tem was awake, though dazed and groaning in pain. I was certain his leg was broken, and possibly several ribs. River, who had collapsed once the mountain had fallen silent again, was alive, though he didn’t wake no matter how loudly I called his name. Azar-at was silent, watchful, thinking his impenetrable thoughts. He alone was not dusted with snow—anything that touched his fur melted almost immediately.

  Lusha lifted Tem, staggering slightly under the weight, and hurried away, leaving me to drag River along. When we finally staggered back to camp, we found that Mara already had a fire going. Apart from a reddish bruise darkening the side of his face, he seemed to be the most mobile of all of us. Lusha collapsed next to the fire, holding her ankle, her face a grimace of pain.

  I chafed River’s arms and hands. His face was pale; the scattering of freckles across his nose stood out in stark relief. He seemed to be barely breathing.

  “Mara, help me bring him closer to the fire,” I said.

  He is unhurt, Azar-at said. He requires only rest.

  I glared at it. “Unhurt? How can you say that, after all you’ve done to him?”

  His choice. Always his choice.

  I turned my back on Azar-at. “River? Can you hear me?”

  But River neither moved nor opened his eyes. In the end, Mara dragged him into the cave, where I removed his boots and covered him with blankets. I didn’t like leaving him alone, so still and pale he resembled a corpse more than a living person, but I had no choice.

  Outside, Lusha, her face pinched with pain, was preparing a concoction of healing herbs and berries in a pot over the fire. Though she knew the basic healing spells, she was by no means as talented as Tem, and it took us the better part of the day to make him comfortable. Mara assisted when he could, holding Tem’s shoulders while Lusha set and bound his broken leg, melting snow to clean the cuts on his face. Even Ragtooth seemed inclined to be helpful, curling himself up against Tem’s head to warm him.

  As the sunlight faded, I remembered that I hadn’t eaten all day. Mara was preparing a stew, which was more broth than substance, but about as good as we could expect given our meager supplies. I helped Tem prop himself up so that he could drink.

  Lusha sat beside me. “How are you, Tem?”

  “Better, I think.” His voice was faint. He blinked a few times before focusing on Lusha. We had given him herbs for the pain, and a side effect was disorientation. “Kamzin, are you there? You keep fading.”

  “I’m here,” I said, taking his hand. “You’re going to be all right.”

  “He won’t be, without a proper shaman,” Mara muttered.

  “That’s not helpful,” Lusha said. Our eyes met. There was no need for me to ask if my sister was thinking what I was—I already knew it. Mara was right—Tem wouldn’t soon recover from such injuries without the attention of a healer. But we were stranded. Lusha’s injury alone would make descending the mountain a hazardous feat—Tem’s condition made it impossible. Both our firewood and food were low, and we wouldn’t be able to stay where we were for much longer. To add to our predicament, clouds were massing against the peak of Raksha, and thickening and swirling their way toward us. The chill wind warned of a brewing storm.

  Our prospects were suddenly very grim.

  The others took shelter in the tent that night, but I wanted to be close to River. He was still asleep, still barely breathing, but at least he no longer seemed as pale a
s death. There was nothing I could do except make sure that he was warm. I adjusted the blankets around him and brushed the damp hair gently off his forehead.

  I turned my attention to my feet. They had been aching for days, on and off, but something had changed after that day’s frantic trek in my heavy, cumbersome snowshoes. I drew my boots and socks off carefully, wincing.

  The blisters on my heels had burst, and blood stained my socks. Two of my toenails were blackened and broken, and would surely fall away soon. But what worried me most were my toes—the two smallest ones were bent oddly and had a grayish tinge. Could it be frostbite? I massaged my feet. It was as if they were swathed in thick blankets, diminishing their ability to feel anything.

  Next I examined my knee. The swelling had gone down somewhat, though my recent exertions and lack of rest had prevented it from healing properly. Even now, whenever I took a step, a shard of pain stabbed into the bone.

  I lay down, forcing my thoughts away from my injuries. Ragtooth nestled against my head, his tail folded over my neck. Sleep took me as soon as I closed my eyes.

  Some time later, I was jolted awake by crashing thunder and pounding hail. I lay there, listening, for what could have been a minute or an hour. I felt even more the strangeness of being there, stranded in the sky so far from home. As the storm crashed and the wind raged, it was easy to imagine that the mountain was trying to shake us off, as a yak would shake off a mosquito. I wished that I could hear River’s steady breathing in the darkness, but such sounds were lost among the clamor of the storm. I gathered my blankets around myself, shivering, praying that morning wasn’t far off.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  WHEN I OPENED my eyes, a faint gray light was spilling into the cave. I could hear voices outside—Mara’s and possibly Tem’s. I propped myself up on my elbows, blinking. Judging by the light, it was perhaps an hour after dawn, and the storm seemed to have broken.

  I looked over at River. But instead of a mound of blankets with a tousled head sticking out of them, I saw only bare rock.

  River was gone. So were his blankets and pack.

  A shiver traveled slowly down my spine. I pulled on my boots, ignoring the accompanying wave of pain, and hurried out into the light.

  The clouds gathering along the mountain peak were ragged, but the thick cluster lurking to the east warned that the storm was not entirely past. I could not see the sweep of the landscape; a blanket of fog covered all below us. The sun shone only intermittently through the clouds, like a tired eye opening and closing.

  The tent flaps were tied back, exposing Tem to the heat from the campfire that burned low among the rocks. He lay asleep in a nest of blankets. Lusha sat beside him, murmuring a healing charm while she waved a bone talisman. Mara bent over a pot of melting snow.

  “River’s gone,” I said as soon as I reached Lusha’s side.

  She didn’t look up. “I’m not surprised.”

  I stared. “He wouldn’t just leave. Not without saying something.”

  Lusha gave me a dark look. “Why? If River Shara makes his mind up to do something, I doubt he pauses to inform anyone else. All he cares about is reaching the summit.” She threw down the rag she had been using to wipe Tem’s face. “And now we have no way to stop him.”

  “He would have told me,” I insisted. “Something’s happened to him. I know it.” My mind was filled with images of the ghosts. Could they have returned for River? Or had he been so unwell that he had, in a daze, staggered off into the storm?

  Lusha made an impatient noise. “What could happen to him, with that creature at his side?”

  “When did you notice he was gone?” Mara said. To my surprise, he actually appeared to be listening to me.

  “Just now,” I said. “But I don’t see his tracks in the snow.”

  “The storm could have buried them,” Lusha pointed out.

  “Only if he left when it was still raging. Why would he have done that?”

  “I’ll go have a look around,” Mara said. “Before these clouds close up again.” He rose and was gone before I could even thank him. Lusha turned back to Tem, her lips pursed.

  “Well done, Kamzin,” she said. “Now I’ll have another person to rescue if Mara gets himself lost.”

  “He won’t.”

  Lusha settled back onto the tent floor, massaging her leg. “I couldn’t sleep last night. What we went through yesterday more than undid Tem’s healing spells. If anything, the pain is worse. My ankle is broken.”

  I stared at her. “You should have told me.”

  Lusha gave me a look. “I’m telling you now. There are other people here who need your help more than River Shara.”

  I bit my lip and did not argue. I melted another flask of snow, then took over watching Tem while Lusha lay down, her arm pressed over her eyes and her face pale. Tem stirred when I touched his face, but did not wake. Sadly, I put the healing herbs aside, not trusting my abilities even with them.

  Mara returned an hour later, his expression dark. Fat snowflakes clung to his hair and beard. “I saw no sign of his trail,” he said. “I climbed onto a boulder to try to sight him, but I couldn’t make out any human shapes either above or below us. The visibility was deteriorating, so I turned back.”

  I felt a surge of panic. “What about the ridge? I could—”

  “There’s nothing more we can do in this weather,” Lusha said. “You and Mara can search again once this lets up. Until then, please help me with the fire.”

  I bit back a retort. It would do no good to quarrel with Lusha. Yet I was certain something was wrong. As I stirred the ashes of the fire, trying to rouse the few remaining embers enough to melt one last pot of snow, I gazed up at the peak of the mountain. It was hidden from sight, but every once in a while I caught a glimpse of its jagged outline through the cloud.

  As the storm worsened, Lusha and I took shelter in the cave. Mara stayed with Tem—his injuries were too raw to risk moving him. I shivered in my blankets, hungry and exhausted and out of sorts, as well as sick with worry. The snow fell in thick, roiling curtains from the dark cloud that surrounded us. The wind howled dully, rising every few moments to tremendous gusts that pummeled the mountain until it shook. I wished my sister would speak, but Lusha’s eyes were half-closed, her face pale; she seemed occupied with her pain.

  I shifted position restlessly. My feet still ached, a dull, wearying throb, and something was digging into my neck. I reached beneath the blanket, expecting to find a rock. Instead, I discovered the bundle of string River had been preoccupied with.

  My lower lip trembled as I unfolded the bundle on the cave floor. It wasn’t the ratty mess River had been peering into; he had somehow shaped the strings into an intricate looping pattern. Against the dark cave floor, the pale bundle reminded me of the lillies and orchids he had summoned out of the darkness as we sat together toasting his nineteenth birthday. It seemed like so long ago now.

  My eyes stung with tears. River had placed this in my bed last night—he must have. What did it mean? And where was he now?

  Why had he left me?

  The wind rose again. Suddenly, the air was split by a tremendous crash, followed by muffled shouting.

  It was coming from the tent.

  “Tem!” Tossing my blankets back, I dashed out of the cave.

  Tem lay exposed to the storm, his arms raised as if to push it back. The tent was in tatters around him, having been torn off the bamboo poles. Part of the fabric, still buffeted by the wind, was wrapped around his injured leg, and he was yelling in pain. Mara, in his socks in the blowing snow, was attempting to unwind the fabric.

  I raced to Mara’s side. Together, we freed Tem from the remains of the tent. The scraps floated away like monstrous bats. We lifted Tem, blankets and all, and carried him into the cave. I tried to be careful of his broken ribs, but to no avail. His body went limp in my arms—he had fainted from the pain. Lusha helped me settle Tem on the floor, and then Mara dashed back into the storm i
n search of the supplies that had been in the tent. He returned with only two satchels.

  “We lost the rest of the blankets,” Mara said.

  “What about the other tents?” I demanded. “Are you saying you only brought one?”

  “We left most of our supplies with Dargye,” Lusha said. “We didn’t think we’d be on the mountain for long.”

  “You might be right about that,” I said grimly. Being stranded without food was one thing—a person would be fine for a few days, if they were fit and strong. But lacking reliable shelter was something else entirely, in an environment where even one night of exposure to the cold meant frostbite or worse.

  How would we survive now? How had everything fallen apart so utterly and completely?

  No one spoke for a long time. With four people in the cave, not to mention two sleeping dragons, it was warm, almost too warm. I shrugged my chuba off and tucked it under Tem’s head. I was fighting back tears. I stroked his head, praying for him to wake up soon. It was a selfish hope—Tem was much better off asleep, in his condition—but I couldn’t help it.

  Lusha leaned against Mara, who seemed to be occupying himself with a longing examination of the top of her head. She fiddled with something, moving it back and forth between the palms of her hands.

  Our mother’s statue. She had carried it all this way. I swallowed as tears blurred my vision.

  Our eyes met. For a moment, I didn’t think she was going to speak, but then she said, “Would you like to hold it? It’s strange, but I find it helps somehow. At times when everything around you seems dark.”

  I took the little statue gingerly. It was barely the length of my palm. It looked nothing like my mother, of course—my mother, with her broad shoulders and callused hands, and a laugh that seemed to shake the very ground.

  I thought about what Lusha had said, about the statue bringing her comfort. But it was cold against my hand, cold and heavy and unyielding. I could find no comfort in it.

  Mara leaned forward suddenly, his hand pressed to his eyes.

  “Are you all right?” I said.