It wasn’t dark.

Not yet.

Snow flitted down between Laova’s squinting eyes and the brilliant farewell of the sun. Lumbering snow clouds of purple and gray slung low between the mountains, and had made the short day blank and without color.

Laova was glad—so very glad—that they’d broken just for a moment to let the light through. There had been no such luck, yesterday, and all of her party had feared in silent communion that the long night had started early, that perhaps they’d each already seen their last glimmer of sunlight.

Today was the Short Eve, the briefest day of the year. It was a day of common unease, with the taste of fearful anticipation on the air. No one spoke of it, but every task was made a distraction, every word a changing of subject, on this day. This sunset might be the last. The sun had always returned, every year in living memory, but perhaps it would not. Not this time.

The warmth lay thick on her face for a moment, and Laova basked within it. She was a dark-child, born in the weeks of night when the moon ruled these mountains. Her birth had come early and easily, as if the All-Mother had always intended her to come into a world of night. Few dark-children survived. Laova had. Perhaps she should embrace the darkness, then—thank it for her life.

Laova smiled as the wind lulled, just for a spell, and the full heat of the passing sun shone on her white face and neck. Not this time.

It was still day, maybe for the last, but for at least a few more minutes.

It wasn’t dark. Not yet.

They had set camp together seven times before this night, as was custom. Seven nights, seven companions. Tonight, the short tents were constructed, the fire lit, and a small supper was ready to prepare. All of their party sat about the fire, but the attention was upon the Hunt-Leader and the Initiate, the adult-to-be.

Laova loved to hunt, and had known without doubt what she wanted when the time came to choose her future life. On the twentieth dark moon of each life, a man or woman was born, and expected to make a decision. Laova chose to become a hunter; nothing else was possible. Her life would wither without the freedom of the woods and mountains, and the feel of her spear, of her bow, in hand. So she had told the clan Chief, who had bowed her head in approval.

Excited, Laova sat opposite Rell and tried not to fidget.

It was full dark, now, and snow still slanted and sifted down around the oasis of heat that was their little fire. The sky overhead swelled black with sloughing clouds, not a star to be seen, nor the silver-drop face of the moon. Rell cleared her throat and began the short ritual; the Hunt was beginning.

“Laova,” she pronounced clearly. “Tonight begins the twentieth long night of your life, and a decision is before you. Make it now. Who will you be?”

Of course, the decision had been made months ago. She kept eye contact with Rell, although she nearly let her betraying gaze slip away across the fire, to someone who had only watched her so intently in her fantasies. A flush of heat crept up her back beneath her wools and furs, but Laova replied resolutely.

“Laova, of the Hunters.”

Rell smiled; as always, Laova felt a pang of gentle envy as she did so. Rell the Hunt-Leader was an older woman, this being her thirtieth-something dark moon, but she was beautiful and fierce as a mountain cat. Her smile was not warm but precise, as if the gods had carefully crafted her face for only unexpected loveliness. But more, she was crowned with shining orange tresses that ripped a hole in the dark of the night as if with the coming of dawn. Laova’s own river-bed brown locks looked quite dull in comparison.

But as they shared a smile, Laova’s admiration turned to camaraderie, and she smiled in return.

“Then join us, Laova,” Rell replied; a coy tease between stoic ritual and the thrill of a beginning—something new and alive—thickened in the air. “Be a Hunter with us. Track with us. Fight with us. Live with us. Die with us.”

“I will,” Laova promised.

“As you are born tonight a Hunter, so you will live, and so you will die.”

“I will,” Laova agreed.

“The clan’s life, and our life. Our life, and your life. Your place is decided, and you must live by it.”

“I will,” Laova breathed, grinning.

A roaring cheer went up between them, a joyful howl like the song of wolves. It echoed briefly through the night, unafraid—just this once—of what might hear. It was a fearful life they lived, aware of the harsh world whose heart they rested within. The cold, bitter, endless winter. The ravaging of bear and wolf and mountain cat. The threat of other tribes, other clans that sometimes grew desperate, dangerous, in the mad grip of the long night…

But here and now, Laova felt again the promise of the sun, and curiously felt in her soul that still, even now, it was not dark. Not yet.

“Time for the story,” Ghal announced gleefully.

All of them groaned. Even solemn Rell rolled her eyes.

“Must we?” Khara teased. She gave Laova a wink across the flames.

“Yes,” Ghal grouched. It was good-natured grouching, however, and good-natured teasing. They all knew the way of things. Each new adulthood must begin with remembering.

Now that attention was off of her, Laova let her eyes wander, let them fall heavily where they’d longed to go.

He was perfect. Nemlach.

This was his twenty-seventh long night, so he was a little older than herself. He’d never married; by some immense luck, few girl-babes had been born in the years near him, so men of the clan had sometimes been left solitary. Some had chosen to leave and marry women of other tribes; Laova was fervently relieved Nemlach had not been one of them.

His hair was black, like the night sky over their campfire. Carved white stones woven into braids were picked out like stars, and Laova had always longed for the opportunity to examine them more closely. His hair was wild compared to his beard, which he kept short and neat. It cupped a long, dusky face, a quiet face, a face Laova had spent much time examining with both her eyes and heart.

She knew she was young to be coveting such a fine man. He was a respected Hunter, and beloved of the Grandmother. It was said that Nemlach had been expected to submit himself to the ways of the spirits when his initiation came; instead, he’d chosen to hunt, and no one except the Grandmother could regret it. The Grandmother was their link with the gods, their shaman, and she accepted few into the House of Spirit.

Laova was also relived at this; the Spirit-speakers could marry, but rarely did. It was unlucky.

Some happenstance of fortune had brought him here, unattached, available, within her grasp tonight. Just the thought sent an excited shiver across her skin. And now that she was an adult, Laova was permitted to act on her feelings. If she dared.

While she’d been gazing with embarrassing frankness at Nemlach, Ghal had situated himself and now cleared his throat.

“We live in the shadow of greatness,” he began.

Without warning, Nemlach’s blue eyes—clear and blue as ice—crossed the fire and met Laova’s. She was so shocked she froze, staring at him, motionless, like a deer locked eyes with a wolf. In her mind, Laova waited in agony for him to smirk or frown. He did neither; to her surprise a tiny, shy, welcome smile turned up one edge of beard, and he gave his attention back to Ghal and the Losing Story once more.

Her heart punched at the inside of her ribcage as Laova did the same.

“Before us, there were the Eldermen,” Ghal was continuing. This role was his because in their group, he was the oldest, at forty-two dark moons. Laova couldn’t imagine. Such years seemed so far away.

Ghal peered at them all, the grays in his hair and beard catching the firelight. “The Eldermen—and women—were not as we are. They were powerful, masters of this world. They could turn even the long night into day. Their houses were mountains, and their villages were thick with more of their people than you could imagine. No sickness was beyond their reach to heal. Even the Summoning God of Death agreed to wait on their will, and their lives stretched outward, endless, like long summer days.

“They understood the turns of the earth, and looked beyond to see other worlds, realms only the gods were meant to know.”

No one present had heard this tale any less than a thousand times. It was told at this coming-of-age rite, and also at the naming of children, at the deathbed of elders, in times of crisis and times of joy. The words were worn and rehearsed, but at this part, there was always a coil of something slippery and cold in Laova’s gut. They all felt it; it betrayed them each in the stiffness of their smiles, the down-casting of their eyes.

“They say the gods turned against them,” Ghal murmured, shaking his head. “They say the tides of sea and winds of storm came crashing down on their great cities. They say the earth opened her mouth in a war cry and swallowed their world. I dare not ask the gods for the truth.

“But we remember always the lost Eldermen,” Ghal recited the beginning of the end of the short, terrifying tale. “We remember than they climbed too high, and forgot that they were not gods.”

Silence fell. The fire crackled low, and Bamet added a few branches of deadwood. The flames exulted and raised praising arms upward, lively in the midst of a sudden stillness.

On her left still sat Rell; on her other side, Taren turned to Laova and grinned.

“Well, you’re an adult now. Before you know it, it’ll be your turn to tell that old story.”

Laova shoved him playfully. “You expecting to die, soon? You’d better pay attention and start practicing.”

This seemed almost absurd; Taren was only one year older than she, and to imagine either of them as old as Ghal was like imagining herself to be as tall as a tree. There was something impossible and odd about it. Something… uncomfortable.

“Hey!” Bamet tossed a stick at Nemlach. “Give us a song, you badger!”

Nemlach smiled and muttered something about tomorrow’s early start.

As one, all of them protested and insisted and pleaded. It didn’t take long to convince him, and Nemlach sighed dramatically and stared into the fire, thinking.

Laova held her breath.

His first notes rumbled out wordlessly like summer thunder. Full and rich and sweet, Laova had nothing to compare it to. There was nothing in her life so wonderful, except, perhaps, Nemlach himself. His voice as it rung out was better than the bonfires of feast days. Better than the smell of the pine trees, or the glittering light of stars. It was as if the All-Mother had rolled together the warmth of her parents’ arms, the familiarity of the common-house hearth, and the unmeasured majesty of the sweeping mountains and given it to Nemlach to sing with.

The opening tones became words, long, drawn syllables in mournful cadence. Laova’s chest squeezed as she watched him, and she wanted him. If he would have her, she wanted him.

His mournful, hopeful melody strung outward into the dark night and wrapped them in a magic, and Laova forgot to stop staring, forgot to worry that he might catch her open gaze again. This did not happen; Nemlach’s eyes were fixed on the fire as he sang, concentrating, or perhaps fighting his own stubborn instinct to avoid attention. Either way, Laova was free to gaze, and dream, and wish.

Nemlach’s song tonight was a story, as many of their clan’s songs were. It was the tale of the Bear and the Summer-Woman, of love that died with the cold breath of winter. But, if only the sun agreed to return after the long night, there was hope, at least. Hope that the two could meet again in the spring.

It ended in a gentle fade of heart-rending beats, and Laova wished he could only continue, endlessly…

“It time for you to rest, Laova,” Rell told her with another small smile. She patted Laova’s arm. “You take no watch this first night. Go, and sleep. When we have rested, the Hunt will begin.”

Laova nodded. Her fellow hunters were not ready to sleep, so alone she crossed to one of two low hide tents lashed between the gnarled fir trees and crawled inside. Of all they carried, the warm hides that formed the tent walls were among the most important. It was not unheard of that a hunter might freeze in their sleep if they slept exposed. Another hide was laid out over the packed snow, and Laova settled down to rest, to sleep, to prepare for the sunless morning that waited.

Sleep was playing coy tonight, however. Laova sighed and loosed her scarf from her neck. In the small space, her heavy winter skins were too hot for thinking of Nemlach. But think of him she did, imagining him there with her. No one saw much more than hands and faces during winter, but she’d seen him take off his shirt in the summer… Her hands twitched, thinking of all that muscle, the rippling, dark skin that spent most of the year beneath his layers of warm clothing. She longed to see the rest, to have her imagination satisfied.

She’d never been with a man. Laova tried to avoid admitting this, as she could offer no excuse or proper explanation. No one in the clan waited so long to act upon natural desires, natural needs. But for her, it had simply never happened. Before Laova realized, she was twenty moons old and a maid. It was embarrassing.

But then, she couldn’t deny a part of her situation was her own doing. She’d been watching Nemlach for years without the courage to approach him. It was viewed as strange for an older man or woman to couple--even temporarily—with a teenager, so he’d seemed quite beyond her reach. In truth, he likely would have refused her out of nothing more than propriety.

Longing for him had surely blocked the chance to explore sexuality with someone her own age, Laova realized. It continued now, here in this tiny tent on her ritual hunt. In her head, she wished him to come to her, to open the flap of the tent and crawl in with her, to kiss her, run his lips down her throat, loose the ties of her hide clothing.

Heat flushed up Laova’s neck; it suffocated her, made her legs weak. She imagined his beard against her skin, running her fingers through his thick hair. His weight, his scent, his body against hers, against and then inside, inside, hot and rumbling like his voice in song. His voice, speaking her name—singing it—in her ear, only for her…

The tent flap rustled. Laova sat up, shaking. Was it possible?

Taren smiled in at her, and Laova half-relaxed.

“Still awake?” he asked as he settled in by her side. Laova nodded.

“I’m too excited to sleep.” It was, after all, the truth.

Taren nodded, folding an arm under his head. “I was too excited to sleep this time last year. Do you know what you want to hunt?”

Laova grew very still, trying to think up something to say. Taren saw it at once; thankfully, he mistook her reaction.

“I don’t think anyone is really sure the night before,” Taren assured her. He pushed back strands of his long sandy hair absently. “I kept thinking I might try to slay a mountain cat, but I ended up with a nice elk, instead. We’d have to move away from the mountains for elk, though, I think.”

“Yeah,” Laova agreed. “I’ll know by tomorrow.”

Taren lay there grinning at her a moment, and Laova knew what he was thinking. They both always knew what the other was thinking. They’d grown together, played and learned together, and were more like siblings than Laova even felt from her own two elder sisters. Perhaps it was because she could run in the forest and hunt and laugh freely with Taren, who had a wild spirit, as she did.

Or maybe it was because, as Taren believed, they were meant for each other.

“You can marry now,” he murmured, hushed.

Laova groaned and pulled her hood over her face.

“I’m serious, Laova!”

“That’s the worst of it.”

She peered with one brown eye out from under the hood; he was trying to look serious, and maybe he was succeeding, because she felt it impossible to joke at a time like this. Taren was closer to her than anyone. Her lust after Nemlach was insatiable, but she really knew Taren. His likes and his needs and his life. Perhaps too well, Laova thought, looking into his brown eyes, so much like hers.

Taren inched closer. “We’ve never been able to talk about it seriously.” He brushed a lock of dark hair out of her eyes. “Even I haven’t been able to stay serious. But do you really think it would be so bad? To marry? Me?”

Wasn’t that the question! Laova had been asking herself for months, would it really be so bad? The answer, of course, was no. She did love Taren, but what she felt for Taren and what she felt for Nemlach were two opposite creatures. Neither would depart, but where one felt like the comfort of a loyal pup, always near and happy, the other felt like the insistent press of a wolf at her door.

It would be easier to speak freely of this if she could at least decide which man was which.

Taren moved closer still, and Laova allowed it. She was curious, always curious, and her scalding dreams of Nemlach had left her wanting. Taren was a different sort of man, younger and slimmer, lighter of skin and hair, with nothing of the beard that Laova imagined brushing against her skin, coarse and intimate.

Taren’s hand lined her jaw, his long fingers melting into the hair at the base of her skull. Laova’s heart picked up a sprinting beat, gaining speed, sending blood pounding through her ears. She’d never lain with a man, but she’d kissed before, and she knew she liked it. And Taren’s kiss was just as she expected: smooth and fast and dizzy with need.

Inside the little tent, it was growing warm, indeed. Taren held her close—no easy task, with both of them padded with thick hides—and rolled her onto her back, propped on his elbow next to her, not on top of her, not yet…

That possibility was eminent, and it shot through Laova’s mind, what was left of it, as she moved her lips to Taren’s jaw, clutched her fingers in his hair. The sounds he made brought out a wild and feral instinct in her, primal as the hunt, primal as a fresh kill.

For a moment the clouds seemed to roll away, and Laova saw how happy her life with Taren could be.

And then she recalled the other hunters just outside the tent. Sex was a natural part of life, and no one would do more than tease the two of them come tomorrow. Except Nemlach. He wouldn’t tease. He would just go about his morning respectfully, sadly, or worse, with utter indifference.

Like cold water to the face, this image broke over her and Laova drew away from Taren.

He frowned, puzzled. Rightfully so, Laova thought ruefully. Why had that thought come to mind now? Why had she thought of Nemlach now, of all times?

“What’s wrong?” Taren asked, panting.

“It’s just… I’m just… I’m… I’m… anxious,” Laova stammered. “I… I can’t stop thinking about tomorrow.”

But Taren knew. Laova couldn’t bear to look at him, afraid he’s see the truth in her face; but not-so-deep down she knew it was herself she was trying to spare, because Taren always knew what she was thinking.

He waited, but she had nothing more to say. Taren drew nearer; Laova flinched and didn’t know why. He leaned forward and kissed her cheek, but didn’t try for more.

A moment later the tent flap shifted, a wash of cold burst in as Taren stepped out, and then Laova was alone again. Alone.

Tears welled up in her eyes, and Laova huddled into her skins.

The world of Laova’s dreams was black as still water. She was not afraid; she didn’t feel oppressed or lost in the darkness, but welcomed by it. Part of it. Nothing here meant to harm her. A cloying breeze snaked against her back, urging her forward, and Laova began to walk through ankle-deep snow.

And now, the lights. As her steps trenched on, the colors of the lights of the spirit realm would spin out like ribbons in green and crimson and purple overhead. They rippled and stretched and crossed one over the other, veiling the stars and backlighting a shape up ahead. She knew the dream well, up to a certain point. If she continued to walk through the snow, she would make no progress, but something anchored in her chest would approve, as if a rope pulling her forward had slackened.

Onward she marched. The wind and the spirit lights and her own feet were the only movement. The world below, the ground under her boots, Laova’s own body, all were wreathed in shadow, and before her loomed the colorless specter of the mountain. It had taken her some time to understand which mountain, but tonight, as before, the next phase of the dream commenced.

The lights that shone from the realms of gods and spirits gathered together and their brilliance joined. Some feeling—not sound, not quite—echoed out into the night, and the lights touched down at the crest of the peak. It was Star-Reach. Laova had seen it from afar only, but there was only one place that the god lights met the earth.

It was the highest place in the world, the Grandmother said. Looking up at the impossible height, Laova believed it.

She was being summoned to there. By god or spirit or demon she was expected to climb to the top of the mountain, where no mortal had ever reached—or if they reached it, no one had ever returned.

In the dream world she hesitated. It was too high. She’d been walking for what seemed like hours, and she was hardly any closer. It was too far. It was too high.

To her shock, Laova noticed trees around her. Those had never been in the dream before.

The wind dove deep through the needles and boughs, rustling the branches and making the music of the wild world. After such silence, Laova listened for a while, still, drinking in the sounds she loved best.

But then… something unfamiliar lurked among the treesong. There were no animals, no people, none that Laova could see. It wasn’t quite a sound, but a feeling. It wasn’t quite the trees, now, but the ghost of a voice. If it spoke in her words, she couldn’t make them out.

Understanding was not necessary. Laova simply knew. Like the wind and lights and the very snow easing her path, whatever swooped and flew with the wind through the trees was urging her gently, firmly, forward.

There was no snowfall in Laova’s dreams; always, it was ankle-deep thin, effortless to move through. She could have run, if she liked, but Laova only walked, looking upward in awe and fear at Star-Reach.

The lights coalesced and burst upon the peak of the mountain, as they had in nights before. In green and red, violet, and now gold, colors Laova had never seen so brilliantly, they waved and spun as if in a frenzy of divine storm.

And tonight, for the first time in many nights, something new. A full and phantom moon cast down a silver glow upon the mountain’s white face, bathing all the winter night in sharp blues and blacks. And upon this lonely world of two colors, the gods’ lights offered a respite, a gift of glorious hues and vibrant energy.

And Laova looked down to finally see that the path she was following was scarred by the steady stride of another pair of feet that had gone before her, through the snow.

“Morning, Bamet,” Laova sang, ruffling his hair where he was scrubbing out the fire.

He huffed. “Don’t know what’s so good about it. Don’t know what makes it morning, either.”

It was morning simply because they were starting the day’s work, nothing more. The barest smudge of light was shining feebly through the pass of mountains in the south, without hope for it getting any brighter. In fact, over the next few days, that bare smudge of purplish, bruise-colored sky would stop appearing altogether, and for perhaps seven or eight straight cycles of their daily routine there would be only the yawning azure-black of the night.

It happened every year. There was no reason to expect that the sun wouldn’t reappear at the end of the long night, just as it always did. Still, Laova crossed her mouth and eyes, the silent prayer to the gods that what she might see or say would not offend them.

As Bamet smothered the last coals, the tents were tightly rolled, the provisions stored, and packs strapped together. For the most part, their travel was light. Each member carried perhaps two stone or three upon their back. Each were armed with their stone daggers; Nemlach and Ghal carried thick sharp-wood spears. Laova and Khara and Taren were armed with bows. Bamet preferred a short club of knotted hardwood.

Rell, as Hunt-Leader, had inherited the Scim.

There were tales and legends of how it might have been crafted, stories about fire hotter than the sun, and the crushing force of giants—no matter how it had come to be, Laova cherished every time Rell drew it from the hide wrapping that swung at her side. Normally, only the battered handle was visible. Rell rarely drew the Scim, fighting and hunting with spear and bow and knife almost without exception.

Laova shouldered her gear, day-dreaming. When she was initiated as a Hunter, she would be in the running to be Hunt-Leader someday. Maybe someday, the Scim would ride her belt, at her side.

Maybe… if she had the chance to live longer than Rell. Laova looked up through the night that hung thick between the trees.

Looming large and gray above them were the Stormjaw Mountains. It was a literal name, taken from the jagged, fanged line of peaks and cliffs and spires that huddled together, near its base. True, the crags were good for hunting mountain sheep and the foothills that the hunting party had long passed were rich with wool-heavy snow buffalo. But further up, there was no hunting. Nothing mortal lived or breathed there.

And yet, the base of Star-Reach grew closer with each spent day.

Laova felt them watch her with unease. Bamet’s grouchy attitude was the most plain, but Laova saw it in Taren’s nervous smiles, Khara’s giving each new arrow a few extra swipes of her blade, to make sure each point was sharp as a crack when its turn came.

And Nemlach—

“Laova, might I speak with you?”

Her breath stopped, and Laova struggled to draw it back in without him seeing. Nemlach stood at her side, drawing her aside. She nodded, concentrating on thawing out her frozen tongue, and let him take her elbow and walk a short distance away, around a ridge of stone punched upward through the hill.

Was this real? Laova couldn’t be sure.

“What is it?” she asked as he came to a stop. The camp was not far away; just on the other side of this stone ridge. It might as well have been on the moon; Laova felt their isolation with exaggerated and unreal gravity.

“Laova,” Nemlach began. He twisted his lips behind the thick hair of his beard. The part of her that was still a child wanted to hope… “Laova… Rell and the others asked me to speak to you. They are curious… and worried.”

Laova’s heart sank, but she kept her face still while he continued. “You know what lies close by. You know our people don’t come to this place. We are afraid, and not ashamed to admit it.” He smiled at her grimly. “Mortals are meant to fear gods.”

The night turned slowly, endlessly on its side as Laova hustled to imagine something, anything, to explain. She’d known they would notice. She expected them to notice. But why did it have to be so soon? And of all the people to confront her, why did it have to be him?

“I…” What was she going to say? Laova’s tongue felt like a rock. Was she about to admit she’d followed the lead of dreams to bring them here? Prophetic visions usually didn’t lead to good hunting; Laova doubted fully that the members of her new extended family would appreciate being drug from their purpose to chase the wishes of the spirit or the divine.

And then, what was she hounding, anyway? What if it was a malevolent spirit?

“I…” Laova was still staring into Nemlach’s blue eyes, and she was thankful he could not read her, as Taren could. Perhaps Taren would keep her secret. But if anyone else found out about the dreams, there would be no more hunts. The Grandmother was ever-watchful for children with the sense or the touch, young ones that could be schooled to succeed her in the spiritual ways.

Laova was not spiritual. She wanted to hunt.

“I…” She couldn’t even consider telling him.

Nemlach watched her, timelessly patient.

“Actually, I have a question for you,” Laova said softly. She took a step, then two, and suddenly she was just where she’d always dreamed of being: so close to Nemlach that the front of her coat pressed slightly into his chest. She looked into his face. “Am I too young?”

Of all the things he might have expected, Laova saw with a dizzying thrill of white-hot, jittering nerves that this was not one of them. His mouth gaped open, speechless.

“Laova… Too young…?”

The worst thing he could do was reject her. Laova’s entire body shuddered with the horror, the sickening dread of that thought, but it was clearly the lesser evil. Nemlach was what she wanted; her new life as a hunter was what she already had. Possibly throwing away one was worth preserving the other. Possibly…possibly…

He hadn’t moved away. Not yet.

Where had she ever found this courage? She held his eyes. “You know what I mean,” she told him, resting her gloved hands on his chest.

It was Nemlach’s turn to be speechless. He searched her face for what seemed like a long time, too long. This close, Laova had time to admire the startling blue of his eyes. They were like ice pools in spring, light and cold and deepening to rich sky blue in the center. The fairest of lines framed his eyes and nose and scored his forehead—leather that was not old, but well-worn.

Her boldness was disappearing the longer she waited. The only sound was the spiteful, cackled whistling of the wind, and the distant noises of their group, their fellow hunters. She couldn’t keep it off her face; any moment, he would see she understood, and then he’d pity her. Laova knew he would; he was kind and good, and she hated that even in rejecting her, she would love that kindness. Laova took a step backward.

Finally, Nemlach moved. The confusion and concentration had fled.

“In the eyes of the clan, you are an adult now,” he answered finally. “If I thought you were too young, I would be wrong.”

Giddy, in disbelief, Laova watched him as he loosened the ties of his glove and slipped his hand free into the sharp-toothed cold of the mountain winter. As if nothing could be more natural, he took her hand, and tugged the knots open until her glove, too, was removed.

His open hand closed around hers, and Laova remembered suddenly that she’d never even touched Nemlach’s skin before. The thought came to her from a distance, as if someone far away was shouting it back to her. His hand was rough, of course, as hers was. Rough, and deliciously strong, and warm in the thin, frigid air.

She watched, and could do nothing but remain still as he lifted her hand to his lips, their eyes connected by something powerful and without name. Laova couldn’t look away, and feared if she tried to move she might simply tumble apart. He gave her a lifetime, it seemed, to pull away or protest. Laova could not and did not; there was nothing in this earthly plane for which she’d make him stop.

He kissed the back of her knuckles. He kissed each finger, her thumb, and the sensitive patch of skin just inside it. Nothing could have prepared her for it; Laova’s anxious shivers turned into a trembling deep in her core, where the root of who and what she was grew fast. His eyes closed as he turned her hand over and ran his lips over her palm. Laova nearly closed hers as well, but the sight of him was melting her. She wanted every moment of it.

His eyes glanced back to hers, and he glided to the edge of her coat, to the nervous patch of soft skin on the underside her wrist. Laova’s pulse thudded in her ears; Nemlach smiled, a small, sly smile, and closed his teeth gently across the veins that lived close to her skin.

It was electric, and Laova wanted him to continue. But Nemlach released her hand, as if finished.

Laova was not. She reached up, finally, finally, burying her fingers through his hair, and pulled his face to hers.

Lips met, and there was storm. He freed his other hand, and suddenly both were cupping Laova’s face, pulling her closer, tracing the edges of her jaw as if he were blind and she was the only thing he wished to see. Laova forgot the long night, forgot the dreams, forgot Star-Reach. She clutched Nemlach and dug her fingernails into his scalp, wishing there was even another inch closer they could be, needing to be closer, needing there to be nothing between them.

“Nemlach,” she gasped around his lips.

He didn’t seem to need directions. His large hands clasped her torso, and even through the layers of hide and fur Laova could feel their strength. He brushed his thumbs over her breasts; suddenly Laova didn’t care how cold it was. She started to tug at the neck of her coat.

“Wait,” Nemlach stopped her. His voice was hoarse. “Wait. You’ll freeze. We’ll both freeze.” He chuckled, breathless. He rested a hand, more carefully now, around the back of her head and looked into her face. Laova’s entire being felt twisted too tight, and she needed him to finish what he’d started. What she’d started. What they’d started together.

Nemlach looked back towards the others, as if he could see them through the rock. “The others are waiting to leave. But tonight… tonight I will come to you.”

Her head spun at the thought. All the night’s she’d dreamed, and now he was promising to make it real.

Nemlach kissed her again. “Tonight.”

Laova pulled him fiercely by the coat collar, desperate for just another taste of him.

When she reluctantly pulled away, Laova nodded. “Tonight.”

They walked back to camp together. All discussion of Star-Reach or the hunt was forgotten.

To say Laova was distracted that day seemed insufficient.

A clutter of shifting, shouting thoughts assailed her endlessly, pounding at the inside of her head and making it difficult to even answer simple questions. For several hours, she had been ranging through the trees that mantled the lower reaches of the god mountain, threading this way and that, following whatever trails appeared in the attempt to convince the others of her sincerity. The black sky overhead rumbled with wind and unshed snow; there would be snow tonight, for certain.

Laova slipped on a hidden patch of ice, thinking of tonight. Tonight, in the warm retreat of a low, hide tent. Tonight, when the fire had burned low.

Tonight, when Nemlach would join her.

It would have been prudent to push the thought away, to concentrate, but it thrilled Laova. Excited, terrified, and thrilled her.

The lazy tracks of something crossing the mountain’s rocky slopes scored the snow ahead, and Laova pretended to examine them. The seven of them were scattered across perhaps a quarter-league, within shouting distance. The closest was Taren, and he seemed to be quite remote in the dusky winter night.

Her night sight was good, better than many of her clan. The legends said the Elder Men could turn night into day; Laova wondered if that meant they could not see in the dark, as her people could. Even at such a distance, she knew the others could see her movements.

Worry poured in at that thought, and the chill breath of the mountain seemed to caress her face in affirmation of her doubts. They’d sent Nemlach to confront her, which meant they were growing desperate indeed. It was completely irregular to interrogate an initiate outside the ritual. She’d been depending on their acceptance of her lead, assuming that she’d be able to just swindle them right up the side of Star-Reach.

That was not possible, and Laova was trying hard to deny that fact. The thought of continuing alone was out of the question. How could she survive alone, up on that bare, white slope? Without firewood, without anyone to keep her sane and share the burden of warmth?

But she was always alone in the dreams.

A fear so clawing, so bone-snapping and resolute that it felt to be a living thing, bared its teeth and roared within her as she was forced to remember this fact. Laova padded onward through the long night, following meaningless tracks and digging herself deeper and deeper into troubling thoughts. For the first time, she worried about the time when she would lay down to sleep, tucked away in her shelter. She was afraid of drifting into the dream world, into the world where the mountain swelled beneath her feet as she climbed, and the trees passed thinner and thinner with her ascent, and the spirit lights bannered and watched overhead.

A stand of brush stood in the path of the trail, and Laova busied herself, looking over the branches mechanically, finding broken edges here and there and flattened boughs that told the passing of something big.

But before the dream, Laova recalled again with a shiver that had turned sweet and feverish, she would have Nemlach. After all her dreaming and wishing, it had been a moment of blind foolishness that had pulled him to her. Laova stilled, hardly seeing the darkness around her. She was lost in memory, reliving with acid clarity every touch, every look, every sound he’d made…

“Laova?”

She jumped and spun about guiltily. Taren was approaching, bow held loosely at his side; his face asked a clear question, and Laova nodded.

“Something… something’s passed here. I—”

“I see.” Taren nodded. Laova nodded. That wasn’t what he wanted to talk about, then, and Laova would have been swamped with relief, if she weren’t too busy dreading his true purpose. She almost wished he did want to talk about the hunt; after all, she and Taren knew each other too well.

“Laova, what were you doing with Nemlach today?” he asked, propping the point of his bow near his feet.

Annoyed, Laova scoffed. “You should know. You and Rell and the others put him up to it.”

Taren frowned. “I didn’t. They did.”

“The result is the same.”

“I meant, what did you do over there, out of sight?”

Yes, they were too perceptive, one to the other. Laova knew he’d seen, and Taren knew what had happened, but both of them knew the other would not breach the topic willingly. So Taren was taking an offensive.

“We talked. And then we kissed, some.”

Taren’s look thundered into something stony, something masklike. “Why?”

Why?

Laova just stood there, perhaps shocked or perhaps simply speechless. What a strange thing for Taren to ask. Her hair itched down her neck, but she’d have a hard time reaching it with her thick gloves and coat; it prickled in unwelcome imitation of their awkward little talk.

It occurred to Laova that for Taren to ask why, he must really not understand.

It was a thought that was so jarring as to be bizarre. Laova had lived with her desire for Nemlach for years. It was impossible to imagine the Taren had missed it all this time, when he knew everything about her, when he knew her favorite day and the birthmark on her inner arm and when she’d had a nightmare or when she started her woman’s shed or when… when anything. Laova realized that although she hadn’t told Taren in words what she wanted from Nemlach, she’d thoughtlessly assumed he would intuit it, as he did everything.

A sickening thought occurred. The only way, in fact, that Taren could have so completely mistaken her lust for Nemlach would be for him to have done so intentionally. The only reason he would have purposefully ignored or avoided the fact would have been because to do any differently would have been unthinkable; like a bird that does not move an injured wing, one must not touch a thing that hurts.

A little horrified, Laova tried to lose the feeling that she was responsible for hurting someone she cared for very much. Not as a husband, perhaps, but at the least as her brother.

“Taren…”

How could she speak to him, now? They had always spoken candidly. And now, Laova had her finest friend’s pain to bear on her shoulders as well, as if this situation was not difficult enough.

Dumbly, Laova found herself retracing a day in their youth when they’d run alone through the forest around the village in the summer, careening through the extra hours of the fading sunlight and daring to caper out further and further from the safe wreath of their settlement. Purple twilight had descended as they played, children barely ten winters old, and they’d forgotten, in their giggling bravery and exploration, to pay attention to where they were going.

Dark began to settle, as did the fear. Nothing had ever frightened Laova so much as the darkness drawing close to her side as a child back then. Like a terrified animal, she’d lost caution and the ultimate result was a badly turned ankle.

“Go on without me,” she’d wept at Taren, cursing as fiercely as her child’s words could form. “Go! You have to make it home.”

In the whispering of the forest, Taren’s reply had been so low Laova hadn’t heard, and had to ask him, shaking and stammering, to repeat it.

His face was red as a sunrise as he replied in a mutter. “The clan is our home. If one of us is lost, we are all lost. We’ll both get home; the clan’s life, our life. Together.”

Relief and immaturity had made it impossible for the full impact of his words to sink upon her, but as she stood here now, in her twentieth year in the dark shadow of Star-Reach, Laova heard them again and again and again.

The clan’s life. Our life. Together.

Similar words were spoken at every major ritual, every life event. The welcoming of a new child. Coming of age. Even in death, the deceased held the hands of their family, their community, as they moved on to meet the Waiting God. But these words in particular Laova would not hear for another several years, long after that shivering night in the open that she and Taren had waited. Eventually hunters had ranged out and found them safely, and Laova forgot to remember when marriage season arrived in the turn of another moon, Taren had already spoken a portion of the words to her.

Even then? Laova stared at him in the here and now, aghast. She had known he felt this way, but even as children? How could he have possibly known back then—how could he have an inkling—of how their lives would unfold? How could he have decided for them both back then what should await?

“Laova… I don’t want you and Nemlach…” Taren sighed and cursed quietly. “I mean, I want for you, and I…”

“I know what you want, Taren,” Laova answered for him.

“Then don’t take him.”

“That isn’t fair,” Laova hissed. In another moment, she would have unleashed a torrent of the situation’s injustice at him. How could you put this on me? How could you force me to bear responsibility for plans you laid all on your own? How can you gaze at me so sadly, as if you have any right to hold me accountable to your wishes?

In another moment, all this and more would have come rolling off her tongue, and Laova would have likely regretted it. But neither of them were offered that next moment, because in the brush at her back, Laova heard movement. Not the rustle of the wind, this time.

This time, it was something solid. Something big.

“Laova…” Taren whispered. She didn’t need his warning; the size of his dark eyes, the slight crouch he dipped into, and the slow, the ever-so-slow rise of his bow spoke everything Laova needed to know.

What were the tracks she’d been pretending to follow? Laova closed her eyes as the brush of warm breath oozed over her back. A low grumble knackered out into the night, rattling off the inside of her skull. Laova gripped her own bow tight, but she’d never have time to lift it. She’d been following a solitary set of paws, big ones, with claws and the purposeful lope of a predator’s stride. Laova hadn’t expected to find their owner.

A lone set of wolf tracks rarely led to something living, breathing. But over her shoulder, the hot exhale of something very alive and very close told Laova that she’d been quite mistaken.

Laova’s eyes locked on Taren’s, all thoughts of Nemlach long fled. In silent agreement, they made a plan together across the air between them. If it had been anyone else, Laova may have felt lost. But Taren knew what she wanted done, and she understood what she had to do. If it had been anyone else, she’d be afraid of a misunderstanding. But Taren always knew…

Seconds only had passed, and the grumble was escalating into an undulating growl.

Desperately, Laova whirled and brought up her bow across her chest. In a simultaneous blur, the great gray body of a mountain wolf lunged out of the scrub. With all her strength, Laova thrust the sturdy wood of the bow into the wolf’s jaws, past the gnashing teeth, as far back as she could get it, over the flatter back molars and gums.

The world disappeared as her back and head were ground into the thick snow; Laova blinked back into consciousness, fighting to hold the bow and to hold herself out of the limp blackness of a hard sleep.

The wolves of the mountains were not like their smaller cousins in the valleys, near Laova’s home. Wolves were grudging neighbors, and pests when they raided food stores or chased away game. Sometimes they killed children who wandered away. For the most part, they were a part of life, a dangerous part, but manageable.

The mountain wolves were different; they stood bigger than an elk, their hulking shoulders as tall as a man. Their jaws were easily wide enough to swallow a human skull, and strong enough to crush one in a few grunting bites. Thankfully they lived in the high places, and were few. But even a pack of four or five mountain wolves were death to any hunter caught alone.

Laova thanked the gods she was not alone. Several thick-throated whistles shook the stillness and the writhing monster, whose teeth were inches from her nose, shuddered and roared from deep in its belly. Laova clung to the bow, bracing her shoulders against the ground; her arms felt like they were about to break, and the ravaging claws of the wolf kept raking closer and closer to her sides as it scrabbled the snowy ground for purchase.

Taren had fired four arrows, one after the other. Drawing a fifth, he seemed to hesitate—in the back of her mind, Laova was well aware why. Taren had set out on the hunt with twelve arrows; he’d lost one in a bad shot for an elk that bounded away to live another day. He’d used a few since, bringing down rabbits and foxes for their meals, but he’d been able to recover and reuse them.

Now, this beast held four arrows sticking like crests out of its coarse gray fur, and if it bled at all, even Laova, struggling beneath it, couldn’t see. If Taren wasted any more arrows, they were both dead.

Shouts could be heard, now. The others were coming. The frozen mountain night seemed hot and sluggish as Laova’s heart stuttered overtime, crowing blood into her head and hands and eyes. She looked over at Taren; he asked a silent question.

It seemed outside her reach, but Laova tried anyway. Her bow was creaking in protest; it might already be damaged beyond use, but soon it would snap under the pressure. One last task for you, friend, Laova thought grimly.

She let her left arm crumple to brace an elbow against the ground. The wolf’s head tilted with it, still trying to dislodge the bow and get to Laova. Her other arm shot upward, and with the jaw of the beast now brushing her own cheek, spit flying, its rotten breath choking her, Laova nodded to Taren.

Now, the wolf’s head was squarely turned for an easy target.

Taren whipped up his bow and drew an arrow back to his ear.

Laova held her breath, knowing that if the shot was bad, she’d die in seconds, and even if it was good, she might still die soon after.

In the breath that Taren spent aiming, the wolf let out a growl and turned its eyes to Laova’s.

She gasped. They were gold, shimmering, shining gold. They glowed and rippled and… waved… just as the spirit lights.

Confusion and terror erased Laova’s sense, but at that moment, the shrieking war screams of her fellow hunters filled the night.

Suddenly, the wolf was gone, away from her, and Laova lay there breathing the clean ice of the forest night air. Was she alive? Was she unhurt?

In another heartbeat, none other but Nemlach himself was over her, asking exactly those questions. She’d never seen him so afraid, and it took a moment to connect that his fear was for her. His blue eyes searched her face, then her clothes for signs of blood, her body for signs of injury. It took seconds, and there were only seconds to spare, because the fight was not through.

“I’m fine,” Laova heard her voice claim. It sounded a little like a question, to her own ears.

Nemlach offered a hand; she gripped it like a lifeline and was dragged out of the snow.

Life roared back through her. She was back on her feet, all seemed right. Nemlach thumped her shoulder, shaking loose a fall of clumped snow from her coat and hood. He gave her a smile, raised his spear, and leapt into the fray with their fellows.

Before she joined, Laova gauged the situation.

Over the nearest rise, a figure was sprinting closer; Bamet, the last to arrive, had probably been ranging further away than the others. Around the wolf, five small human shapes darted and danced the dance of survival, of something very like savage determination to endure.

This was why she was a hunter, Laova knew in her soul as she surged forward across the sloping forest floor. She was made for this. She lived for this.

A scream cracked the air and bounced with almost physical force upward against the rising mountains around them. Laova’s blood chilled twice, first at the very real fear of snow-slide, and second, for the terrible whiteness of Taren’s face and redness of his blood as the wolf finally got its jaws around something solid.

Perhaps a snow-slide was coming, but there was no time to consider it. Bamet had arrived, and dealt a crushing blow to the wolf’s skull with his club. A valley wolf would be dead under such force; the wolves of the mountains were different creatures indeed, and this one did not seem any closer to death. It did yelp painfully, opening its powerful jaws and allowing Ghal and Khara to yank Taren to safety. He held in his screams, but it seemed to Laova that he was growing whiter, whiter…

And the Rell was advancing; her hand was on the hilt of the Scim, and Laova felt a shiver of something—something old, something deep inside them all—as the smooth surface of the Scim sliced out of its hide-wrapped home, tasting the night air.

It was a knife of some kind, Laova knew. But if you honed stone down so thin and so long, it would break. And the Scim could bend, it could flex like living thing. Rell held it steadily now, between herself and the wolf, between the wolf and Taren.

Laova took another running step, raising her bow, but the ground betrayed her. The snow bank crumbled too fast for her to even yell; her breath was knocked out of her against first a tree root curling upwards from the ground, then a rocky shelf that her back hit flat. She rolled off it and onward, picking up speed as she tumbled head over heels through the dark.

Her sense returned in spasms and Laova threw out all her limbs. After another few paces of half-hearted downward motion she finally landed on her stomach in the snow. A shuffling after-rush of loose snow and dirt ran over her, and Laova had to dig herself out when her breath finally returned in stopping, shocking gasps.

“Damn,” she muttered, collapsing beneath the hollow under-roots of a sturdy old pine. She was lucky she hadn’t snapped her spine in half against a tree trunk. Laova took a series of slow breaths, easing her bruised lungs back into working order.

Her bow was missing, and all but three arrows had fallen out of her quiver. Laova groaned. She might find a few while she trekked back up the hill, but her hopes were low. At least her bow would be relatively easy to find—three feet long and she had surely dropped it close to the others. Maybe they’d found it already. Maybe they’d already slain the wolf…

Laova froze; in the snow above her, something was walking.

She tried to control her breath; her chest protested, aching and burning and causing an impudent fuss. Laova calmed her heart and shrunk deep into the roots. Shrouded as such, still covered in snow and bits of icy dirt from her fall, her scent would not be easily detected. And to see her, whatever passed above would have to cross on this side of the tree. Surely, it would simply stride out into the night, away.

With a growl, the wolf leapt over the edge of the hollow and landed before Laova, gazing again into her with its eyes of living gold.

There could be no question; it saw her, and not only that, it had followed her. Taren’s blood still darkened its muzzle, and his two of his arrows still fanned out from its shoulders.

Not it. He. It was a ‘he’. Laova didn’t know how she knew, but she was certain. And now, he was advancing, and there was something clipped in his jaws…

Laova’s bow knocked against her knees and fell numbly to the ground. She stared at it, far from having the courage to move and try to pick it up. The wolf stared at her with eyes that glimmered and danced in the dark, and if Laova was not mistaken he was brazenly daring her to try, to pick up the bow and try.

Laova shook her head.

A low growl rumbled out and over her. Unless Laova was quite mistaken, it was a laugh.

And then the wolf moved on. It shook its massive shoulders out, and the two clinging arrows flew off into the snow. Laova sat there shaking as it turned, impossibly graceful, impossibly fluid, and melted into the forest.

Time continued with or without her; Laova just sat there, quivering, for some time. She was flushed with fear beneath her clothes, but as the high of hot-blooded motion faded the cold returned to settle in her bones.

She began to cry. They were hysterical desperate tears, and Laova struggled through them to get back to her feet. She picked up her bow, retrieved Taren’s arrows. By the gods, he might be dead, and she was sitting under a tree, shaking and crying in fear like a child.

Was it fear? Laova began her trip back up the slope. The question rotated, slowly, in her mind, as if to give her time to examine every angle. Was it fear? Was she afraid? Or was it the feeling of the world raising its walls against her? Fear she knew; was she afraid, or was she merely striking out on a path from which there could be no deviation? For the first time, Laova wondered. Why had the wolf come just as Taren tried to open his heart to her? Had she tracked it? Or…

Ahead, movement. Laova had picked up a few arrows on the treacherous, slick hillside, and now her quiver was at least a little less pathetic as she staggered over the last shelf. She approached her small party; they were making camp, having decided that here was as good as there to set up, and Taren didn’t have an excess of time to zigzag this way and that scouting.

“Help Bamet with the tent,” Rell ordered bluntly. Laova hopped to immediately; they needed to get Taren somewhere warm so they could take off his coats and shirts and treat the wound. Khara was striking a flint to the best brush and kindling they could find, trying to get a fire burning. Nemlach and Ghal both knelt on either side of Taren, keeping him awake. Rell was standing guard, still armed with the Scim, which still bore streaks of ruddy red where it had scored the body of the beast.

“Wake up, boy,” Laova heard Ghal teasing. “It’s your night to forage firewood, lazy ass.”

Laova’s breath caught as she helped Bamet string up the tent frame between tree trunks, waiting and hoping and despairing that Taren would not answer. But he did, weakly.

“Sorry.” His voice a creak of a thing, but it was there. “I figured you could just talk the fire to life. You talk everyone else to death.”

Ghal roared with laughter. “Is it that way? Well, you can just go on and fletch your own arrows, from now on.” Laova caught Ghal exchange a look with Rell. It was a good look, hopeful and optimistic. The Hunt-Leader smiled a little, relieved.

Laova smiled, too, and reached for an edge of the hide walls of the shelter. She and Bamet stretched it over the rope frame, while Laova let herself forget about things. For at least the moment, she let herself forget about the wolf and feelings of decided fate, about the hunt, about the dreams, even about Star-Reach. Even about Nemlach.

Taren was alive, her best friend was alive.

Once more she felt rather than thought that perhaps it was not really dark.

Not yet.

The fire was burning quite well when Laova finally stepped out of the tent where Taren lay, naked from the waist up. The meat of his shoulder had been savaged a little, but his thick winter clothes had taken the worst of the wolf’s bite. It was miraculous, really. If the wolf had put just a little more gruff into it, Taren would be not only headless, but likely snapped in two. Bizarre and blessedly fortunate that his injuries were so forgiving.

And yet, something in the back of her mind whispered still… Perhaps the wolf had not meant to harm Taren. Maybe, it had only come to deliver a warning.

“Laova.”

Beside the fire, Rell sat cross-legged. She’d been cleaning the Scim; a soiled rag was in one hand, and she was scrubbing with care at the blade. It gleamed, now, catching the firelight. It shone like sunlight off water. Nothing Laova’s people made could compare, and Rell cared for it with deliberate and delicate caution.

Rell’s eyes dropped back down to the weapon. Laova understood her perfectly, and took a seat beside her at the fireside.

For the few minutes that Laova waited, her stomach was sinking. She knew what was coming—what else could Rell possibly want to speak about? The fire crackled mockingly, and the wind sighed as if in reprobation. Laova tried and failed to recall how she had expected to explain herself, what she had planned to say.

Rell finished cleaning the Scim and sheathed it. But then she simply sat, staring at the firelight, catching it in her red hair and her stony eyes. Laova tried not to fidget. Ghal was in the tent caring for Taren. Khara and Bamet had watched first last stop, so now took the chance to disappear for the night into the second tent, wordlessly avoiding the conversation that approached.

Nemlach lurked quietly out of the firelight, whittling at the point of his spear. Laova saw him and felt something like relief. At least he was here with her; even he was certainly more ‘over there’ than ‘here’.

“What did you think would happen, Laova?” Rell asked finally.

Laova met her eyes; Rell’s were flashing and bright and hard, but Laova could meet them. At least she wasn’t stiff with fright, unable to react as she had been under the wolf’s stare. She took a deep breath.

“I was tracking the wolf,” Laova lied.

Rell did not move.

“I was looking for my ritual hunt to be… great. Maybe too great.” Laova watched Rell’s face.

“Taren almost died.”

“I know.”

“You almost died.”

“I know—”

“It is different to hunt something that will hunt us back.” Rell’s words were sharp as arrow-points, each one punched through the air. “Even an idiot can understand. Deer and elk will run away—that is what we all thought we were hunting. Because you said so.”

Laova swallowed; her throat was dry as grass in high summer. She waited to see if Rell had more to say, and in a moment more she apparently did.

“If that wolf had been part of a pack, we would all be dead. Did you ever consider that?” Rell snarled. “Did you consider the very likely possibility that the creature was returning to its pack? That we might come upon them any time?”

“Yes, of course…”

“So you meant to get someone killed?” Rell stood. “You meant to sacrifice one of your hunters so your kill could—could be a surprise?”

Laova opened her mouth, but found it mute. Tears sprang into her eyes, and she wished she had something, anything to say. But the only thing she could possibly offer in explanation was the one thing she felt sure Rell must not know.

“This is not how we hunt,” Rell’s voice lowered again, and Laova nearly wished it wouldn’t. She looked up at the Hunt Leader in dread. “As the wolf pack hunts, so do we. The wolf does not fool its pack-mates. The wolf hides nothing, because each wolf supports the next to survive.

“When you fool us, you fool yourself,” Rell hissed. “When you lead us to death, you walk into it yourself, as well.”

Laova trembled; she knew she wasn’t meant to speak, which was good, because she felt she could not.

“Would it have been you that brought his dagger back?” Rell asked quietly, staring down at Laova. “Would you have presented Taren’s weapon to his mother? What about Ghal? Bamet? Khara? Nemlach? Myself? Would you have walked back alone with your kill, and presented the tokens of our deaths to the tribe?”

What a cruel thing to ask. As Rell said the words, they took shape in her mind, and Laova could see herself return to the village alone. Explaining to first Rell’s family, as the Hunt Leader. Then Taren’s. Then the others. Then the next tribesman who asked her quietly, in private, what happened. And then a dozen more. Until everyone knew…

“Childish.” Rell spat. “Childish. Selfish. Foolish. “

She crossed around Laova and the fire and stormed into the tent where Taren lay. She did not come back out, and Laova was left alone by the fire, tears streaming down her face. She refused to sob. If it took all the strength in her, she refused to sob. Her vision blurred and blinded and the fire became a great smudge of white-orange against a world of muted black. Still, not a sound.

Laova had never imagined a day when she’d hate him doing so, but eventually Nemlach came to sit beside her. He sat near, and set a hand on her shoulder.

She’d almost gotten him killed, too, didn’t he understand? When that thought surfaced, Laova finally coughed out an ugly, gurgling whine, and she bit her lip shut tightly to prevent another one escaping.

“Laova,” Nemlach murmured with a sigh.

“Please,” she hissed through her teeth. “Just go. I’ll sit the first watch. Please go. I can’t… I just can’t.”

“I understand,” Nemlach nodded.

And go, he did. Laova relaxed, out alone in the dark night, in the biting wind. Would Taren have left her in peace with so little resistance? No. She would have had to fight and scream and force him away, which would have made her more upset still. Nemlach was wise, where Taren was not, and Laova cherished that wisdom.

Eventually her tears dried, or perhaps they only froze. The shadows around her did not move, and yet… at times, Laova looked into the woods and seemed to feel something there. It would send a chill down her spine, but she was only a little afraid. After all, she suspected she knew exactly what watched her.

A guide. A hand to show you the way.

Laova felt the words, as if understanding the meaning of a language she did not speak. It was the same as looking into a pup’s eyes and seeing his happiness, seeing him ask wordlessly for a bite of fish. It was understood, communicated in graceful ease.

In the blue-gray stillness of her dream, these impressions sunk through her flesh, into her heart, and she heard movement in the trees. She looked and saw the black shape of a shade prowling at her side, although she could not discern its features. Perhaps fear would have been prudent, but she did not feel it. She knew clearly, this shape in the dark was not here to hurt her. It had come to show her the way.

This was not necessary in her dream. The way was clear; it lay before her feet, closer than ever before. Laova took step after step, looking up at the shimmer of the god lights over the crags of Star-Reach. The sheets of snow at the summit were pristine and blank, untouched by mortals. Untouched, perhaps, by anyone.

Laova trudged onward. The snow was still thin and put up no resistance to her boots, but it was growing deeper. It had swelled gently around her ankles before. Now, it was midway up her calf. If there was one thing Laova understood, it was snow; before long, it would be up to her knees, and further still.

Was it cold? Laova couldn’t feel it, although she was certain it should be. She was far from the peak, but the mountain stretched downward behind her to the shapeless valley far below. So high, and she could feel only a breeze, a hint of a chill. It was odd; in her waking hours, Laova would fear she’d taken a nasty frost, perhaps bad enough to lose fingers. Perhaps bad enough to die from.

If she’d taken a frost, she’d feel tired and warm. Laova felt neither of these. She was energized, or at least moving on momentum. As for warm… Laova felt nothing. No cold, no heat. Nothing.

Upward, ever upward. The cut path in the snow before her grew fresher, as if she were drawing near to the feet that made it. The thought was a little daunting, but not enough to slow her. After all, this was the way she was meant to go. Fear or hesitation could not stop her now. Guilt could not stop her now. Rell could not stop her now.

The night seemed to grow brighter the higher she climbed, and Laova knew why. The trees were thinning, leaving greater spaces of white snow to bounce back the colorful, wheeling lights overhead. The air should have felt thinner, as well, but of course in her dream Laova felt no different. She didn’t gasp for breath. She didn’t struggle.

And finally, when she chanced to throw her eyes forward farther up the slope, her persistence was rewarded. It took her by surprise. Obviously someone had to have been ahead leaving the footprints for her to follow, but it was jarring for Laova to finally look up and see the tiny, moving figure of another climber, ascending Star-Reach just barely within her sight.

And like a passed message, a voice carried back to her in the shifting mountain wind. It spoke one word, and one word only, just barely audible. Laova.

Rell crawled out of her tent the next morning, or what passed for morning. The sky was clear today, a brilliant black-blue speckled with glittering stars. It peered down through the tree branches, through needle and bough that were quite used to the dark.

The fire was still burning, tended now by Nemlach, who was turning a series of meat chunks on a spit over the fire. The traps that Khara had set the night before must have been successful.

“Morning.”

Nemlach glanced at her with his eyes only. He mumbled something that might have been a greeting without moving even one muscle more than necessary.

Rell sighed and let him be. She wandered out for a moment into the forest to attend nature’s calling, came back to find Nemlach still intently cooking the rabbit, or fox, or whatever had stumbled across the trap. After washing briefly with a cup of melted snow, and checking over her gear, Nemlach was no more talkative. Not that she expected him to be; with another low, slow sigh, Rell sat beside him at the fire and watched breakfast as it sizzled and browned.

Nemlach waited with patience. Not many men were as patient, as gentle, as he. Even fewer could balance that gentle nature with an ability to be fierce, to answer the call for action when it came. He was unique in that. Rell’s well-missed husband had been no such creature. He had died three winters ago when he was injured on a hunt and froze before she could find him; Rell often wondered if he’d made a mistake, just a foolish mistake, on account of his sometimes foolish nature. Sometimes foolish, and childish. But she missed him still.

Not Nemlach. Rell knew he’d never die of a silly error, nor let anyone else perish of needless or negligent cause. He was protective towards those he cared for, even more for those he loved, which was probably the reason that he was giving her the cold shoulder this morning.

She was a little jealous, she had to admit.

“You know I had to do it,” Rell said eventually.

Nemlach’s mouth twisted. “Do what?”

Rell frowned. “Don’t play that game with me. You know exactly what I mean.”

Nemlach gave the spit a quarter turn and shrugged. “You do many things. You’ll have to give me more of a hint.”

It would be undignified and inappropriate for her to grab him by the hair and shake him until he cried for mercy, but Rell imagined it for a moment. She rested her arms safely on her knees and clicked her tongue.

“You’re angry that I did it, but you also are well aware that I had to impress upon Laova how serious a wrong she committed, and how dire the results could have been. She could have killed us all. I didn’t even mention the most frightening truth of it—most of the hunters are here with us.

“You know it’s true, Nemlach. If we all died, there are only three other hunters left in the village. They would survive this winter, and might scrape by the next. But we are few,” Rell tried to catch his eye, but Nemlach ignored her attempts. “We are very few. By leading us all to our deaths on this mountain, Laova could have ended the village.”

“I know that,” Nemlach murmured.

Relieved that he’d at least spoken, Rell continued. “She had to learn, without a shadow of a doubt, what could happen. She’s to be a hunter with us. We must be able to trust her. When we hunt together, there is no time to wonder if someone will do what they must. There is no room to think about what to do if someone fails to play the part they were given.”

“I know that, as well,” Nemlach agreed softly.

“More than that,” Rell pressed on, leaning forward. “I won’t live forever, Nemlach. When I am gone, someone must be the next Hunt Leader. Perhaps it will be a youngling that has not chosen our path yet. Perhaps it will be Taren. But if it is Laova, she must be a Hunt Leader who respects and values her hunters.”

Rell’s voice had dropped to nearly a whisper. “What she did yesterday terrified me. I saw it clearly; her becoming Hunt Leader one day, and leading her group into danger again and again. Losing men and women. Killing us off with her recklessness.”

Shocked out of his sulking mood, Nemlach turned to her. “You really think Laova could be Hunt Leader someday?”

Jealous she might be, Rell still smiled wryly. “Does it make you want her more?”

Nemlach’s surprise melted into embarrassment. “That isn’t why I disapprove your methods.”

Rell chuckled, although it hurt. “Yes it is. If it were the other way around, and Taren had gotten Laova injured with his idiocy, you would have thrown him off the mountain.”

“He’d throw himself off the mountain,” Nemlach replied softly. They were the only two awake, as far as they knew, but it wasn’t difficult to eavesdrop. “He cares for her, at least as much as I do. In a way, I think more so.”

Rell looked at Nemlach, deeply, directly. “You could reconsider my offer, you know. Laova would probably be happy with Taren if you were no longer available.”

Nemlach’s embarrassment took a sharp spike, and his dusky face reddened. “I… you already have my answer to that, Rell.”

“I thought we had fun together,” Rell whispered. She glanced back the tents; there didn’t seem to be movement or sound, but the last thing she wanted was for Laova to overhear this.

Nemlach opened his mouth, left it hanging uselessly open for several seconds, then closed it again. Rell laughed; it had been a while since she had, and it felt nice to relax a little.

“We wouldn’t be good together,” Nemlach protested finally. “You are too wise, and I am too wise. Between us, there isn’t any innocence or newness left.” He looked at her and grinned a little. “I already bore myself to death. I’d hate to bore you to death, too.”

Rell shoved him lightly. In her heart, she agreed. Nemlach was not thirty, and she’d left thirty behind a year or two ago. He was still old beyond his years, which was, maybe, the source of his serenity. It was said the Elder Men had lived to be a hundred or more winters old; Rell didn’t care to consider the Elder Men much, but she did know that she was only human, and thirty-something was too old for a soul like Nemlach’s.

The soul maybe. His body, however, still had her wishing he’d reconsider.

And in his tent, beside a sleeping Ghal and a sleeping Laova, Taren heard this and prayed silently. Rell was beautiful, too; there was no reason, in Taren’s understanding, why Nemlach couldn’t chase after her instead.

Surely, if Nemlach were taken, Laova would see how mistaken she’d been. She’d choose Taren. Surely, she would.

Laova opened her eyes.

Immediately, she groaned and closed them again.

She’d been dreaming of the mountain again. From the moment she slept to the moment she woke, she dreamt of it, now. They were pleasant and invigorating dreams, but waking from them today put her back into the real world, a world where Taren still fought to win her over and Rell was still furious with her.

Yesterday, she’d spent hours fantasizing about finally having Nemlach to herself. She wished it were still possible, but even though she was alone in her tent, there was no way to summon Nemlach inside with Taren noticing.

Laova sat up to check anyway.

Outside the tent flap, Ghal and Khara were huddled near the fire. Rell was nowhere to be seen, and neither was Taren. Perhaps Bamet was still sleeping, because he was missing, too, but across the fire, clear within sight, sat Nemlach.

Laova couldn’t believe her luck; her stomach cramped with nerves, as suddenly she realized she had every opportunity to do what she wanted.

Should she beckon him over? Laova’s mouth went dry thinking of it.

It seemed she thought too loudly, because at that moment Nemlach looked up and caught her eye.

Her heart thudded into her throat, but Laova smiled. She felt that her eyes were too wide, and maybe her face was pale with indecision. But when his eyes were on her, she couldn’t help but smile, and her heart spluttered into frenzy as Nemlach smiled back.

He was getting to his feet; Laova watched in horror and excitement, dread and desire. He was approaching, and Khara and Ghal pretended not to notice in good-natured conspiracy. Laova silently thanked them; if they’d teased or even sent a scandalous wink in her direction, she wouldn’t have the stomach to move aside and let Nemlach slip into the tent with her, which is exactly what he did.

He helped her fasten the flap shut against the cold. Laova’s fingers were shaking visibly. When he removed his gloves, Nemlach’s were still and sure, and Laova couldn’t stop watching them.

The moment the flap was shut, Nemlach pulled her to him. Laova went without protest; without the thickest outer layer of her cold-weather hides, it was a little easier to meld into his arms.

“Laova,” he murmured into her ear. His voice was thick and gravelly, and it was fire. Laova’s body was shot through with heat, and she clutched at his coats almost desperately. He cradled her face as they kissed, wove his fingers through her long, dark hair at the back of her skull.

Laova pulled at the ties of his clothes, and this time Nemlach did not attempt to stop her. Quite the opposite, he helped her. In seconds his outer coat was off, and Laova was able to draw her lips over the corded muscles of his neck, over the bones of his collar and dip where neck and shoulder meet. She could feel his heart beating against her tongue, his rasping breath through her hair, and she ached for more.

Another layer of her clothes went, as the temperature in the tent rose. She saw the need in Nemlach’s eyes as she came closer to bare skin, and a fluttering thrill of partial fear and partial joy made resistance or even rational thought impossible.

A breathy gasp escaped her as Nemlach laid her back on the tent floor. He pulled off the last of the clothing on his upper body; maybe being horizontal was a disadvantage, because her blood flowed blindly into her head and made Laova dizzy. But then, he was close to her again, kissing her, and Laova was finally able to examine and explore every dip and ridge of muscle on his torso with her fingertips. Her hands looked very white against his dark skin, and small.

Nemlach’s hands were larger, and currently sliding under her innermost shirt. The skin of her stomach and waist prickled; his fingers wrapped around her ribcage and back. A man had never touched her this way, and Laova wanted more of it, and dreaded more of it, and wanted more…

His thumbs were rubbing upwards, massaging the softness of her breasts, teasing closer…

Laova gasped in delight as Nemlach finally found the points of her nipples, circling and teasing, leaving her gripping his arms and back without realizing her fingers had turned to claws, digging into his skin. He chuckled against her throat as his lips caressed her.

“Hey,” Khara whispered through the closed tent flap. “I’d get a move on. Taren’s coming back.”

Nemlach started to draw away. Laova took his hands and placed them back under her shirt.

“Rell’s coming back, too.”

The color drained out of Laova’s face and she sat up.

Nemlach kissed her lightly and began to draw his clothes back on; he understood, and Laova loved him more every day for that understanding. “Later.”

Laova nodded and searched for her layers. Later. They would finish this later. Come rain or snow or storm or Taren physically refusing to leave the tent. She’d mate with Nemlach right in front of him, if it came to that.

As she pulled her cold-weather clothes back on and tied them tightly, Laova sincerely hoped it would not come to that.

She and Nemlach climbed out of the tent together; of course, Rell and Taren were both already back, but at least neither had let themselves into the tent during Nemlach and Laova’s intimate and badly needed few moments together. Taren gave Nemlach a simmering, dirty glare, and Rell raised her red eyebrows, but no one commented.

Snow was flurrying downward as they broke camp. Out of guilt, Laova tried to do everything; every time she looked into Khara or Bamet or Ghal’s faces, she was forced to see Khara’s husband, Bamet’s brothers, Ghal’s children. The words she’d be forced to say circled madly in her head. I’m sorry. They died for the clan. It was a wolf. A mountain wolf. I led them there.

She felt half-crazy with the burden of what had almost happened by the time they were packed. The fire was the last piece to be smothered, and Rell stood beside it.

“Laova.”

Dread choked her; Laova turned to face Rell, afraid and feeling cowardly for being afraid, but afraid nonetheless. Rell beckoned her closer.

“Come here.”

There was no refusing, so Laova advanced, standing beside the fire, beside Rell. It was hard to read Rell; her face gave little indication to her mood, one way or the other. Maybe it was because her wild red hair was so distracting; it was difficult to stop looking at it long enough to gauge the expression of the face beneath it.

“Laova, you haven’t told us where we’re going today,” Rell said softly.

Laova stared at her in disbelief.

The tiniest smile curled up the corner of Rell’s lips. “This is still your hunt. You made a terrible mistake. Correct it now—where are we going? What are we hunting?”

Laova looked around at the others. Khara and Bamet were both grinning. Ghal seemed determined, and perhaps a little excited. Even barely healed, Taren was brimming with energy, practically beaming at her. Nemlach met her eyes evenly, without a hint of fear or accusation.

She turned back to Rell, questioning.

Rell rested a hand on the hilt of the Scim. “You’re joining the hunters, Laova, and you should know that we can’t hunt without knowing what we’re hunting. But before it’s too late, we should probably tell you our secret, as well: we all like a challenge from time to time.”

Laova’s disbelief dissolved into understanding, then relief, then anticipation.

“All right, then,” she nodded. “All right.” Laova smiled up at them all over the fire. “We’re headed farther up the mountain. We’re going after a mountain wolf.”

By their best estimation, it was afternoon when the snow flurries grew heavy. It was deep winter and always cold; still, Laova felt like the temperature was dropping. Young as she was, she didn’t need experience to realize she didn’t like the look of this new development.

The wolf’s tracks meandered over the slopes, inching higher and higher, never in a straight line. Around the same time Laova noticed the snow coming faster, she beckoned the others, partially to confer, partially because she had to rest. The thinning air was becoming difficult to breathe. The rest of the hunting party seemed to gasp as well, taking longer than usual to settle their breath into a normal rhythm.

“The wolf is heading up the mountain,” Laova told them. “It won’t go much higher. The beast is looking for food, not its pack; I don’t believe it has one.”

“Why wouldn’t a wolf have a pack?” Khara asked.

“Eventually, I think this one means to find a nice she-wolf and starts his own pack,” Laova answered. Khara already knew this; it was part of the ritual hunt to ask scores of redundant questions, to keep the initiate on his or her toes. Laova had gotten quite used to it, even between the more dramatic aspects of her first hunt. “He’s mature, but not very old. He probably just outgrew his old pack and is looking to find a better fit.”

Bamet snickered. Ghal frowned at him.

“How far ahead is he?” Taren asked. Laova actually wasn’t sure if this was a redundant question; it was hard to read the wolf’s tracks in the snow, as they didn’t show some common patterns of wolf behavior. He tended to go in a mostly-straight line more often than not, only veering this way or that when an obstacle popped up in his path.

“He seems to have a day’s lead on us,” Laova answered. “We knew where he was five days ago, and the tracks have been constant since.”

Taren nodded; in the five sleeps since his injury, he’d recovered fully, although he seemed to grow more annoyed with Laova and Nemlach’s behavior than ever. Laova’s determination to lay with Nemlach whether Taren liked it or not turned out to be nothing but smoke. When she sat up to watch, Taren sat up with her. When she went to sleep, Taren suddenly felt sleepy, too. He hadn’t let her out of his sight in days, and Laova was beginning to feel harassed.

Nemlach seemed willing to let Laova handle it in her own way; this was a little frustrating. Laova didn’t want to have to spell things out for Taren, but Nemlach clearly couldn’t be expected to take the kid aside and set him straight. It wasn’t fair for Laova to expect this of Nemlach—Taren was her problem. Still, it would have made her life easier.

“Why is he going up the mountain for either of these things?”

Laova looked up at Rell. This question was murmured. It seemed as though Rell had not even meant to speak it out loud. She was looking through the trees, toward the slopes that led the peak of Star-Reach.

“I don’t know,” Laova lied.

Rell looked at her, thinking.

“We must be more careful than ever,” Rell told them solemnly. “It’s getting colder, and the snow is falling heavier. If the wind starts, we could be in the midst of a storm by tomorrow.”

“We might catch up to him by then,” Laova replied. “If we catch him in the midst of a storm, do we run or fight?”

Rell grinned at Laova, telling her wordlessly that asking for help was the right move. “It depends on where we find him, and how bad the storm is.” Rell shouldered her pack and tied it on tight. She shrugged to arrange the straps in the right place. “And of course, on what he wants to do.”

The wind was picking up, and Laova was trying hard to focus on the trail. Of course, she was following the wolf’s paw-prints through the snow. It would have been impossible to lie to a group of seasoned hunters about that. It was true that he was trekking upwards over the ridges of the mountain base, the area they were now climbing. And he was going in a basically straight line. Not straight up the mountain, but as if he meant to circle it, ascending slowly at a more gradual angle.

What Laova was lying about were his motives. She’d seen the beast in her dreams many times now, close enough to look into the mellow green-gold of his lupine eyes. He’d as good as told her his plan, and it wasn’t to find a mate.

No. The wolf was helping her find her way to the peak of Star-Reach. Without a clear understanding of her human motives, he saw the need to lead her fellows on, and was aiding her. Never in her life did Laova think she might be conspiring with a mountain wolf to pull a trick on the very people she wanted more than anything to accept her—yet here she was.

This was all distressing enough without Taren’s help. If Laova didn’t know better, she’d be sure Taren knew her plan and was trying to drive her insane before she could complete it. Knowing what she did, however, Laova was well aware that it was Nemlach’s arms that Taren was trying to drive her away from. He was blind to all else.

“He’s almost thirty and isn’t married—doesn’t that seem strange?” Taren pecked at her. “You have to admit, that’s strange. What’s he waiting for? How do you know there isn’t something wrong with him?”

Aggravated and nearly at her wit’s end, Laova tried to ignore him. The first six hours of the day had been spent first patiently trying to disillusion his rants, then poking holes in them, and finally bickering back and forth with him until they both were red in the face.

For five days, since Taren’s narrow miss with the wolf, they had ranged across the mountainside. Always, they split into three groups and fanned out. Laova always tracked—it was her hunt, of course, so the task fell to her. Another group of two or three would cross lower on the slope, while the last crossed higher up.

Taren blocked every attempt of hers to be alone with Nemlach. When he could, he partnered himself with her. When Nemlach got there first, he attached himself without invitation and they all spent the day in awkward silence. But even awkward silence might have been preferable to Taren’s constant racket.

“Taren, would you shut up and let me track?” Laova snapped at him.

He scoffed and turned his bow irritably between his fingers. “Well, I know I don’t have Nemlach’s darn pretty voice—”

“Nemlach wouldn’t pester me for six straight hours!” Laova straightened and faced him, clenching her fists at her sides to keep them from striking out. “Nemlach knows when to shut his bloody mouth! For the sake of my sanity, would you stop your whining!”

Taren threw his hands up. “Sure, Laova. I’ll stop my bloody whining.”

“Thank you.”

And stop he did, at least for a few minutes. Laova enjoyed about thirty paces of peace and quiet to track in before Taren started up again. Unfortunately, this time he seemed to decide that the time to pull punches had long since passed.

“He’s slept with Rell, you know.”

Taren had had it coming all day, all of yesterday, and all of the several days preceding. Laova’s restraint snapped, and she spun around. Quick as a cat, she socked him across the nose; her thick gloves cushioned both her knuckles and his facial bones, but something cracked and Taren’s face was smeared with blood in seconds.

He yelped and swore and clutched his nose. Laova wasn’t sorry, not even halfway. The groups ranging upward and down the mountain were too far away to see or hear what was happening, but she knew she only had a little bit of time before their stopping was noticed.

“You’ve gone too far,” she hissed. “You’ve gone too far by days. You need to stop, Taren. I’m not going to take this anymore. From now on, you go with Rell or someone else. I don’t want you with me. I’m not going to put up with your nonsense.”

Taren stared at her like she’d grown another nose.

Laova glared at him, daring him to make her repeat herself. She stood there with her hackles raised, unimpressive in height and stature. Still, he didn’t reply, nor did he make any attempt to refuse. Laova huffed and shook her head at him.

“And I know,” she muttered. “It’s none of my business.”

Taren’s face crumpled.

“Laova, I’m sorry I said that.”

“I’m sorry you’re only now realizing it was terrible thing to say.”

“It was a terrible thing to say—I just—”

“No, don’t ‘I just’ me,” Laova cut him off. “You’re stupid sometimes, Taren. You’re emotional and you let your mouth outrun you. I do too, but at least this time it’s your mistake, not mine.”

“I shouldn’t have said that,” Taren continued. Laova had started walking again, and he trailed her. His nose was still bleeding a little; Laova was quietly glad she hadn’t shattered it. “I just meant I think she still feels fond of him, and she might—I don’t know, she might not like the two of you together.”

“That is a damn stupid excuse.”

“It’s not an excuse!”

“Yes, it is,” Laova exhaled. At this rate, she was going to end up punching him again. “What, are you afraid she’s going to challenge me to mortal combat over Nemlach? We aren’t southern barbarians, Taren. We don’t fight to the death over people.”

“It’s happened before!”

“Once, and the offender was put to death,” Laova corrected him quietly. She looked at Taren straight. “You know the laws. Murder is punishable by death, no matter the circumstance.”

He released his nose. “Is it still bleeding?”

“I think it froze.”

Taren sighed. “Well, at least it stopped.”

Laova kept walking. “And Rell knows about us, by now. If she had a problem, she would be harassing Nemlach just as much as you’re harassing me. And she’s not. It’s just you.”

“It’s just me?” Taren’s voice hitched again. “Just me? Don’t I matter to you at all, Laova?”

“Of course you do, idiot!” Laova had to stop again and turn back to him. “How can you ask me that? You’ve been like a brother to me since we were children! I love you—like a brother!”

“Well, I don’t love you like a sister!” he hissed back. “I love you as a woman!”

“Well that’s your problem!” Laova shot back. “What can I do about it?”

“You can give me a chance!”

“A chance to what?”

Taren gestured in frustration, mindless, pointless hand waving that really just illustrated how incomprehensible he considered her response.

Laova stopped him with a hand on one arm. “Look, Taren. I don’t think you know what you’re talking about.”

He glared at her, and the frozen blood across his nose and cheek made him look slightly insane. Before he could lash out, Laova pushed on.

“Taren, I’ve loved you for as long as I can remember,” she told him. “There was even a time when I thought we could get married and we’d do well together. But then I got older and I realized that I was wrong—no, let me talk.”

Taren had started to interrupt, and lapsed back into sullen silence.

“I realized that we are too alike,” Laova explained gently. “Taren, we’re exactly alike. We’re both hot-headed and we rush things. We make each other angrier and angrier. Just look at how we are now. You’re right: Nemlach would never behave this way, and I’d never behave this way around him. We fit together better.

“But you and I are too alike,” Laova repeated sadly. “And I don’t love you as a husband. Not now. Not ever.”

Taren’s arms dropped to his sides. “You can’t mean that.”

“I do.”

“No, you don’t.”

Laova looked at him and realized he might be right. Maybe in some world, in some circumstance, she might have loved him enough to marry him. Maybe if Nemlach had never existed, or if he’d left to marry a woman in another tribe. Perhaps if Taren had been a little older, and had had time to become wise, as Nemlach was.

Or maybe Laova was right, and they weren’t meant to be.

“Please don’t make this a mess, Taren,” Laova pleaded quietly, aware that the time had passed to avoid this becoming a mess.

Instead of answering, Taren held her hands in his.

“Dammit, Taren, don’t make this a mess.” Laova knew what he was going to do. She could have stopped him, and she never could pinpoint exactly why she didn’t. She could have. She should have. But Taren leaned down, bloodied face and all, and kissed her, and Laova let it happen.

His blood was coppery in her mouth; everything about him tasted wrong. The very love she felt for him turned bitter and cold and she desperately wished she had the heart to push him away.

There was a crack, a sharp explosion through the air like thunder. Laova and Taren darted apart, staring wildly upward. They were far up the mountain. Neither of them had any idea what had caused such a boom this far into winter—it was snowstorms, not lightning storms, this time of year—they were too well aware what was bound to follow.

Something far above was crackling, like splintered wood. Like a tree falling. Like a big, giant, white snowy tree falling.

“Oh, gods,” Laova gasped.

“Run!” Taren shouted.

The snow started impossibly slow. From a distance, it hardly seemed dangerous. They all knew it was misleading; blindly, the two of them charged forward, forgetting the wolf, forgetting the tracks, forgetting the hunt, forgetting everything except the will to live. The avalanche picked up speed as it barreled down the face of Star-Reach, and the crackling had intensified to a roar.

Trees whipped by. Laova thought desperately that they might climb one, but that would be awkward and slow in their gear, and they could easily get ripped out of the branches if—when—the snow rushed by through the lower boughs.

Their best chance was to find a ridge, or some rock outcropping that would protect them. There was no time to regroup with the others. Laova knew they were running, too, and prayed silently to any god watching that all of them would make it, but especially one, especially one…

“There!”

Laova looked where Taren was pointing; it was perfect. Perfectly treacherous. A little ways down the slope a rocky shoulder cut upward out of the mountain-side. Under normal circumstances, it would be damn dumb and pointless to try and climb it, but now Taren and Laova bolted for it with the last of their strength. The snow was pouring in fast, speeding down upon them and there was no other chance to escape it.

Through scrub, under tree branches. Laova and Taren dashed, tripped, rolled, and staggered like wounded animals towards their best chance. There was a roaring in their ears, and Laova guessed it was half the sound of a cold death approaching, and half the sound of blood pounding in time with her fleeing boot-steps.

The first of the avalanche was swirling around their feet when they reached the shoulder of rock, and Taren unceremoniously grabbed Laova and hauled her up the rock face. Taken by surprise, Laova found herself climbing before she realized what had happened, and had to scurry into motion so she could reach down and grab Taren by the neck of his coat. The two of them scaled the rock to its summit and collapsed.

An avalanche is a short ordeal. Terrifying, but short. The snow did its work, rushing and growling past. It rose uncomfortably high on the rock, and for a moment Laova was quite certain they were going to be swept away, despite their efforts. But then it slowed. The current that once raging diminished to a flow, then coalesced into a full stop. And Laova and Taren breathed, hearts racing long after the danger had passed.

When their arms and legs stopped shaking, it was time to look for the others, but this turned out to be a short affair. Their five companions were old hands at this; all of them had survived an avalanche or two. It was difficult walking on the loose snow, but Rell and Ghal were not far away. They soon appeared, picking their way down the slope with due—if cautious—haste, and the four of them continued on to find the other three.

“Where’d you shelter?” Taren asked Ghal.

“Couldn’t get to shelter fast enough,” Ghal admitted. “We went with the snow. You just swim with it, boy, if the time ever comes. Just let it sweep you away and focus on keeping your head up.”

Taren had simply stared at him, awestruck.

Laova hardly had a thought to spare towards swimming with avalanches. Nemlach had been in the downhill group today. He’d been with Khara and Bamet, and she didn’t remember seeing shelter down this far.

The further down the hill they went, the more they slowed. Rell searched and scanned with her eyes, clearly anxious. They called for their missing friends softly; it wasn’t too late to trip another snow-slide. No one answered.

“Khara!” Laova hissed. “Bamet!”

There was no answer. She rushed a little way down the hill, slipped on a loose cluster of snow, and slid about ten paces before skidding to a halt. She waved at Rell that she was all right, and turned back to the trees; ten or fifteen feet of trunk was buried in snow. Laova tried not to think of her friends, cold and buried beneath it.

“Nemlach!” she shouted in a whisper.

“Laova!”

Her heart leapt, and she beckoned frantically for the others. “Nemlach?” she asked. Her voice burst out louder than she meant, and when she spoke again, it was softer. “Where are you?”

“Here, Laova.” A tree further up rustled.

“Over here,” she waved to the others again, who were following her slide at a careful and slower pace.

Taking care not to sink into a patch of loose snow, Laova crossed over and peered through the tree branches. She squeezed through them, and saw the problem at once.

“You climbed a tree, I see,” she observed, chuckling.

Nemlach rolled his eyes. “We tried.”

“Laova?” Khara head peered over another branch. “It’s Laova!”

“Good,” Bamet’s voice muttered from somewhere around the trunk. “Dig us out.”

They were all buried up the chest in snow. If they’d stopped climbing five feet sooner, all of them would be buried alive; as it was, they were all stuck.

The sight of solemn Nemlach in a tree, buried to the chest in snow was funny, but it wouldn’t have been quite as hysterical if Laova hadn’t been worried for his life seconds before. Her anxiety crackled into fits of laughter, which Nemlach and Khara and Bamet bore with varying degrees of patience.

Finally Nemlach reached out and grabbed her arm. “That’s it. Come here.”

He pulled her against him, which amounted to Laova lying on the snow in his arms. She hugged him tightly and kissed him as if he really had died. He kissed her back in assurance that he hadn’t. Khara whistled.

“You won’t find his nether parts much use at the moment,” she jeered through the branches.

Laova threw a snowball at her; it seemed Khara’s arms were pinned, because she could do nothing as the snow struck her cheek and filled the collar of her coat.

“Hey, I survived, too!” Bamet teased.

“Shut up, you,” Laova kissed Nemlach again and wriggled backwards out of the branches. He held her hand until the very last, squeezing it fondly.

The other three were searching around for her when Laova stepped out of the tree branches.

“We have some digging to do.”

“You’re lucky we weren’t dumb enough to try and climb trees,” Laova teased.

“Yes, we are,” Khara replied, and sneezed.

They’d dug the three of them out with little difficulty; Nemlach was the only one whose arms were free, and it would have taken him hours just to dig himself out. Khara’s arms were stuck between tree branches and snow, and Bamet had actually been buried up to his ears. In relatively little time, they were free.

Finding a safe camp was a little longer in doing. In the end, their group settled below a shallow outcropping. Another avalanche would hopefully tumble safely over them, if it came to that. All of them hoped in silent unison that it didn’t come to that.

They’d built the largest fire they could manage, and combined the two tents into one larger one. It wasn’t quite as effective as two smaller ones; there were large gaps in the hide walls. But they allowed entry and exit, and were fairly easily covered. Besides, with the fire inside the shelter, heat was plenty. They had all removed their outer layers within an hour of settling in, and the rest were going piece by piece. Soon the little chamber was warm enough for all of them to sit about in their inner cloth layers. The aim was to keep the ones who had nearly been buried alive warm. There was no telling if one had taken sick from such circumstances, but the best thing was to help prevent it.

For almost having died, their mood was rather jovial. Perhaps it was the breaking of tension, or the feeling of immense luck. There was more joking and laughing around their fire that night than there had been in weeks, and when Rell and Laova sat together to complete the ritual part of the evening, even their stoic Hunt Leader was grinning like a girl.

“Well, what did you learn today, Laova?”

“I learned that avalanches are a lot faster than I am.”

Laughter answered this response; Laova caught herself gazing at Nemlach. She loved to see him laugh. Rell nodded. “Yes, they are. Anything else?”

“In such a circumstance, it’s best to find a rocky shelter, if I can. If not, swim with it. Climbing a tree can be… risky.”

More chuckles, and Rell smiled. “I’m glad that lesson was well-learned.”

“I also learned that an avalanche is devastating to a successful hunt,” Laova continued.

There was no laughter this time, all grew still. Rell looked at her seriously.

“What do you mean?”

“A wise huntress knows when a hunt is over,” Laova replied. She looked around. “I believe it’s time to move on. The tracks of the wolf are fully lost, if it survived the avalanche at all. Even a mountain wolf has its limits. If it ran, it could be miles away in any direction by now. And there’s no way to figure out which.

“But, there are still a few days of the long night left, and if we head down soon, we can bring down a buck elk, or something that lives somewhere where avalanches don’t reach so easily.”

She gave a sad smile. “A wise huntress doesn’t waste her time. She doesn’t waste her fellow hunters’ time. She does what’s best for the group, and for the village. My life, our life.”

Laova looked up at Nemlach; his face was blank with surprise. Rell recovered first, and took Laova’s hand.

“That is the wisest thing I have ever heard you say,” she breathed.

Without warning, she reached out and drew Laova into an embrace. Shocked, Laova hugged her back, looking around to see if this was normal behavior. Rell drew back and held Laova at arm’s length.

“Welcome our new hunter,” she announced. “It’s rare that one so spirited can also see the greater good. It’s rare that one so young can choose what’s best for her clan. It would have been a great thing for you to slay a mountain wolf on your first hunt, Laova. But believe me when I say, it’s greater still to let it go for the safety of your brothers and sisters.”

It was dawning on her; Laova began to grin, looking around.

“You’re one of us, Laova,” Rell told her. “For life.”

She reached out a hand. Laova took it, tears welling up in her eyes. Rell and Laova both kissed the back of each other’s knuckles fiercely.

“Laova the Hunter!” Khara shouted to loud approval from the others. Nemlach was smiling, also, now, and moved closer to pull Laova again into his arms.

No one noticed Taren. He watched uncertainly, smiling but not joyous. He watched Laova’s face, watched her kiss Nemlach and smile for the others. He noted the stiffness of her eyes, the careful motion of her limbs. The way she kept tossing back her hair, and how her pale face had whitened even further.

And the tears. That was unlike her. True, much of what she’d done lately was unlike her, but still, something was amiss.

Taren let them celebrate. There was no need to draw attention yet. He’d wait for Laova to move first.

The trees were few, now. There was little to block the vision of the glowing sky and the bands of waving color. Vivid color rained down on her and reflected off the snow.

“Why are you calling me?” she asked. The figure was closer now. Perhaps close enough to hear her. But the wind was blowing the wrong way. Her voice surely didn’t carry up against it.

She stumbled on through snow that was up to her knees. If she followed the footsteps of the figure ahead, it was a little shallower, but she still couldn’t seem to close the distance by more than a pace or two.

Even now, with the sky circling her on all sides, Laova couldn’t feel the cold. The air seemed no more or less full here than below, as if she weren’t practically on top of the world. Stars gleamed through the ghostly lights above. She knew them well, because they were the same ones she saw in the waking world.

The wolf padded back and forth through the trees around her. She felt no fear at all for his presence now. He’d gotten her this far, and would continue to aid her.

“Wait!” she called. The figure might have slowed; she couldn’t make out a single feature, not from all the way down here. He, she, it. Laova could just barely discern the flexing steps of long legs pushing stubbornly up the increasing slope. “Wait!”

It slowed this time, she knew.

“I’m trying to reach you!” she shouted, oblivious to the threat of avalanche. It seemed impossible here. Perhaps it was.

And again, no answer in words. The god lights swirled onward as the figure bent back into the work of ascent. But on the air floated a reply, a feeling, an instinct.

You’re almost here. Come to me.

Laova woke to the feeling of another body near, very near.

For a moment, she was afraid it was Taren. But then, the lips at her collarbone were bearded, and she knew Nemlach’s scent well enough by now to recognize it instantly. She sighed happily and ran her fingers through his hair.

In response, Nemlach’s hands slipped to her waist. He hooked a finger in the ties of her trousers and tugged their ties loose. They felt insecurely draped across her hips, now, and Laova’s heart raced as he dragged them lower by miniscule notches.

Her entire body wanted this; the racing of her heart pumped hot blood through her veins, making the place between her legs, where Nemlach was drawing closer and closer to, burn. Her skin was alive with sensation.

Nemlach leaned over her. With one hand, he still teased the waist of her trousers lower. With the other, he reached up and exposed one breast, then the other.

Laova gasped, but her breath caught in her lungs altogether when Nemlach lowered his mouth to her chest and took one nipple gently between his lips and teeth. His hair fell over the other, teasing it ecstatically, wildly, obliterating every Laova thought she knew about mating. About men and women. About life, maybe.

She was shaking so badly, she hardly heard the awkward cough of Bamet, two feet away.

Nauseating embarrassment turned her desire sour. Nemlach saw it immediately and chuckled.

“You don’t have to be embarrassed,” he whispered in her ear. “He and Khara used to fool around, before she got married.”

“We don’t talk about that,” Bamet hissed briefly. After this outburst, he immediately fell back and continued to feign sleep.

“See?” Nemlach lowered his mouth back to her breast, and Laova drew a sharp intake of breath.

“Wait.” She stopped him. Nemlach looked up, waiting.

Laova tried to formulate words around what she felt. On the one hand, she knew this was normal for the hunters. On the other, she didn’t really want to start out her sexual life with an audience. Did anyone want that? She didn’t think it was so much to ask for privacy. Moreover, Bamet was within arm’s reach, and Taren was just around the campfire. Laova didn’t even want to think of the scene if he woke up and saw her and Nemlach copulating like rabbits in the corner.

“I…” she leaned up to whisper to Nemlach. “I’ve never done this before. And Taren… I’m worried he’ll…” Laova trailed off. She didn’t know any other way to say it. She was expecting Taren to be childish about this.

Nemlach nodded; it was only now that Laova realized he was sweating, and his breath was raking in a little shallow. Laova felt his cheeks and forehead. “Are you all right?”

He nodded again, and rested his weight next to her. As he did, his groin pressed against her thigh, and Laova realized for the first time how… immensely aroused he was. And she wished Taren could be counted upon to be less of a child.

“Nemlach?”

“Hmm?”

Laova reached down and caressed the bulge in his trousers. She felt the shape and size of it through the material. Every touch seemed to pleasure him, so touch him she did. It wasn’t until he held her close, burying his face in her neck that she paused.

“Nemlach, your face is hot.” She felt his forehead and neck again. “You have a fever.”

“I’m fine—keep going,” Nemlach rasped.

Laova was tempted to, but concern was beginning to elevate into alarm. His eyes were bright and glassy in the dying firelight.

“Rell?” Laova called. Nemlach tried to stop her, but Laova shook him off irritably. “Rell, Nemlach’s feverish.”

The Hunt Leader roused awake, blinking.

“There’s no need for this,” Nemlach tried to protest.

“You’re just saying that because now you aren’t getting any loving from your woman, here,” Bamet teased him as they made Nemlach lay with his feet closer to the fire. Khara went out and brought more wood to lay across it, most of it abysmally fresh. It took some time to catch properly. “Any other night, you’d know better.”

Nemlach grumbled but didn’t argue, this time.

“Get some snow, Laova.”

With one of their packs, they arranged a pillow of snow for Nemlach’s neck. He clenched his teeth and his fists when they laid snow on his forehead, but didn’t try to move.

“Dammit that’s cold,” he muttered. Laova had never heard him curse before; her heart went out to him, but she kept the snow fresh, anyway, more concerned that the fever might rise.

Thankfully, it did not. This was lucky; he’d probably die up here, with hardly any supplies, in a temporary shelter, if his body grew any hotter. Laova tried not to think about that.

“It’s a good thing you were already awake, isn’t it?” Khara chuckled.

Laova rolled her eyes; she’d grown accustomed to the teasing already, and they hadn’t even lain together yet.

Hours passed, and Nemlach’s low fever disappeared before long. Laova sat up for a while, watching him. But as the night drew on and the others fell deeply into slumber, she looked out the tent flap, out into the night, thinking, praying, planning.

Nemlach stretched awake, feeling cold.

The darkness was everywhere; the fire was low, as there was no one tending to it. That was strange. Laova had been sitting up last, but that had been hours ago. Surely someone had relieved her by now.

The tent flap rustled and Nemlach looked up to see Ghal struggling through with an armful of firewood.

She must be sleeping then, he reasoned. Nemlach felt about beside him. The space was empty and cool. How long had she been gone?

He sat up and looked around the tent, but didn’t see her. “Where’s Laova?”

Ghal looked up from poking at the fire-coals. “She went out with me to find firewood. Should be back any minute now.”

Nemlach relaxed back. His mind, however, was not settled.

“How long ago?”

“Not too long. We went out at the same time. Too soon to be worried, I’d say.”

Nemlach looked around, trying to place why he felt so anxious. Something was wrong. Maybe it was merely the bone-cold place where she was supposed to be laying, next to him. His eyes landed on his pack.

“Where’s Laova’s pack? And her bow?”

Ghal stared at him, confused. Understanding dawned over his gray face, and he and Nemlach came to same conclusion at once.

Laova had left, and taken her gear.

“Rell!” Nemlach shook her awake, still clad in only his trousers. He couldn’t imagine why Laova had left, and it was making him frantic. Rell sat up, clearly annoyed to be awoken in a dither twice in one sleep.

“What?”

“Laova’s gone.”

“What!”

Rell leapt to her feet. Khara and Bamet were awake, now. They all stood around, trying to puzzle out why she might have left; in the end, it was clear that whatever she was doing was ill-advised. There were still several nights to go before sunlight would return, and after one avalanche, another was not hard to imagine. There were mountain wolves, pitfalls, ravines. Nemlach was growing clearly agitated by the time Rell glanced once more around the tent.

“Dammit,” she hissed. “Now where’s Taren gone?”

Ghal swore Taren had been lying by the fire when he and Laova had exited the tent. Rell looked at Nemlach.

“Do you think they might have left together?” she asked.

The question caught Nemlach off-guard. The others looked at him sheepishly, and he glared back.

“They might have,” he admitted. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Whether or not it means anything, two younglings are out in the dark and the snow, and I’ll tell you, it’s picking up,” Ghal interrupted. “When I went to get firewood, the snow was coming down, but not like this.”

They all peered outside. Ghal’s light snowfall had thickened into a blinding flurry.

“I’m going to find her,” Nemlach announced.

As one, the group turned a stare both incredulous and admiring—in varying balances—to Nemlach. Rell was the first to recover.

“You’ll never be able to follow her tracks in this snow. I can’t let you kill yourself out in this storm.” Rell exhaled and shook her head tiredly. “There’s nothing you can accomplish except throw your life away.”

“So we let two young hunters die as we hide in our safe little enclave?” Nemlach asked quietly.

Rell bristled, her red hair almost visibly rising. “Going out alone in the dark in the mountains in the snow is foolish enough,” she snapped. “Going out in a snow storm is something different entirely. I don’t pretend to know what in this world made Laova leave the tent by herself. On the other hand, it’s clear Taren followed her. Or maybe they left together. Maybe they planned to meet out in private.”

Nemlach’s stomach flipped and a wave of flushed dizziness assaulted his senses. He was still a little unsteady, and the picture in his mind of Laova going with Taren, of secretly stealing away with him like hushed lovers, was threatening to bring on a whole different kind of fever. It hadn’t happened that way. Even Ghal confirmed Laova had left on her own. Taren had clearly followed her, because unlike Nemlach, Taren had been healthy and awake enough to notice her leave. Because unlike Ghal, Taren had been wary enough to see her collect her belongings before she departed.

If it had been Nemlach, he would have stopped her, not followed her. A writhing, wiggling doubt wormed through his thoughts, and Nemlach tried to bat it away. Laova had been hesitant to mate with him because she was shy. And also, because Taren was within hearing distance.

“That isn’t what happened,” Nemlach insisted, calm and rational, even as his mind did cartwheels and odd sideways jerks and tried to right itself while all the time, the thought of Laova in Taren’s arms was bringing his usually cool blood to a simmer. “You know how he is. He must have seen her leave and followed her out.”

“Why follow her?” Khara asked, exactly as Nemlach wished she wouldn’t. “He should have stopped her.”

“Maybe he heard what she was saying in her sleep,” Bamet suggested.

They all looked at him. He looked back.

“What?” he shrugged. “I thought all of you heard it, too. But then, she was really just whispering…”

“What did she say?” Nemlach swallowed, his throat muscles working against the dryness. He was a patient man. He’d never had a natural inclination to rush anything. But this… he felt like if Bamet didn’t speed it up, he might just shake the words out of him.

Bamet spread his hands. “She was just whispering things like, ‘I’m coming’ and ‘wait for me’ and I heard a lot of ‘why’s’ and so on, but I thought she was just dreaming.”

Nemlach could almost feel Rell go very still, very tense beside him.

“A wolf,” she muttered wryly. Nemlach glanced at her carefully; her expression was neither happy nor understanding. Her eyes were hard and blazing as she glared around the shrunken group. “It seems we’ve come to Star-Reach for more than hunting a wolf.”

The wind was deafening, drowning. Laova had to fight just to stay upright, forget making any progress.

She hiked through the trees; they provided some shelter from the snow—a growing storm, surely—but her steps were achingly small and staggering. She thought it might help to rest and wait for the snow to subside, but she feared to stop. She’d revealed herself to the others, and by now they would have discovered her treachery.

Laova’s heart twisted. They wouldn’t know why she was gone, but Rell wouldn’t let any of them go out alone after her. Not after the freezing death of Rell’s husband. She was notoriously cautious of snow storms ever since. Rell would keep them all safe in the shelter, perhaps even long enough for Laova to do what was needed at Star-Reach and return. To try to explain.

A sob slipped out of her, quite surprising Laova, who hadn’t realized she was crying. Nemlach would wake from his fever dreams to discover her gone. What would he think? Would he worry himself back into another fever? Laova hoped and prayed not. It was all she could do now.

Backtracking seemed no less than impossible. As difficult as the path forward was becoming, it was as though the mountain ceased to exist behind her, as if going back… simply didn’t exist.

Without looking back, there was no way Laova could have possibly seen Taren follow her.

He’d noticed her strange behavior in the tent, but hadn’t imagined she’d do something as silly as leave alone. It had taken him so much by surprise when he saw her gather her gear, for a moment Taren had assumed he was dreaming.

This wind! Taren clung from tree to tree. At times he had to drag himself onward. Taren was skinny, but Laova was shorter, and without much more meat on her bones. How was she moving so quickly through this blasting snow? He’d been able to catch up at first—before the snow grew heavy. Now he went terrifying periods without even catching sight of her. He’d been following the deep trough through the forest floor that she’d left behind, but soon that would start to fill with snow.

This was stupid. If he thought she might hear him over the wind, Taren would have called out to Laova. He should have called after her from the beginning. He’d had a moment of delusion, of catching up to her. He’d even dreamed that perhaps it was Nemlach she was running from. He’d been foolish, and he was afraid that this time his foolishness would be the end of him.

Fear was growing closer. Taren’s teeth chattered with it and the cold, and he hated that he wished someone were here to tell him what was right. He could go back and save himself. The wind was fierce, but the shelter was close enough to reach again. But if he left her out alone, Laova would surely die.

What would Nemlach do? There was a time when Taren had liked Nemlach and admired him greatly. That was before he noticed how Laova watched his booted steps, how she anxiously peered out into the forest with ridiculous frequency when the hunters were away. It wasn’t terribly long ago that Taren aspired to be a man like Nemlach.

But Nemlach wouldn’t have been dumb enough to walk out into a snowstorm. He would have found another way. He would have stopped Laova, or woken the others. He was older and wiser, and Taren hated that in himself this piece was missing. It was the piece Laova loved in Nemlach; it was what she couldn’t find in Taren.

It was futile, but Taren tried anyway.

“Laova!” he shouted.

She didn’t hear him. She didn’t slow; he glimpsed her tiny form up ahead, and it was moving, moving, without a lapse in pace.

He shouted after her again, but to try without hope is as useless as shouting against the wind.

“We can’t leave them,” Nemlach murmured.

A babble erupted; everyone spoke at once. Rell’s voice boomed above them, indignant and skeptical. Her face was almost as red as her hair; Khara and Bamet both took a step back. Rell was one of the most levelheaded of the village leaders. It was rare and disturbing to see her scream, but scream she did.

“They left this tent freely!” Her voice filled every space like a physical force.

Nemlach didn’t answer—for better or worse.

“I will not give our lives for two fools who don’t value their own!”

Nemlach waited.

“I can’t protect anyone from themselves—I don’t want them to die, but neither do I want to kill anyone else! I won’t ask my hunters to pay their lives for Laova and Taren’s error, no matter how grave.”

Nemlach crossed his arms.

Rell narrowed her eyes and stepped forward until her face was inches from his. “I am the Hunt Leader. And I forbid you from stepping from this tent.”

Calm as ever, Nemlach nodded.

Rell relaxed a little.

“As a hunter, I must defer to my Hunt Leader,” Nemlach agreed.

Her breathing began again; the high color retreated from Rell’s face, and she sighed.

“Nemlach—”

He picked up his pack and his spear and turned to the door. “Consider me rogue, then.”

“Stop!” Rell ordered.

Nemlach shook his head. “No.”

Rell stared. Khara and Ghal and Bamet stared.

“No one will tell me to leave two of our number to die. No one.” Nemlach pulled back the tent flap. Stunned, the others watched him hunker out into the dark, and in a blast of deathly and sinister cold, he was gone.

Was this a dream?

Laova was walking with ease.

Every step took her higher and higher into reaches unknown, to places no mortal had travelled. Her village told stories about the Elder Men and how they would climb mountains for fun, as if to challenge the gods, claim this land as their own. Laova was no Elder Woman, and she knew with thrilling, uneasy certainty that the way should be growing harder.

The trees were falling away, now. This must be real—in her dreams, the wind was always gentle and coy, never harsh and bitter as it was tonight. The moon shone bright on the mountain, in her dreams, and the gods’ lights glimmered above. It was cloudy now, indication enough that it was her living legs that carried her upward.

And to what? The question was becoming more important.

Laova still didn’t know. But it seemed to her that if she looked quickly enough, a tiny figure would slip out of sight just before her eyes landed upon it.

A larger shade prowled the woods beside her: the wolf, of course. He’d appeared to guide her way some time after she’d fled the warm shelter of her fellow hunters. If she strayed, he nudged her back onto the path. If she fell—and she did, more than once—his hulking, bristling nose would burrow under her arm and goad her back to her feet. She would have certainly gotten lost by now without him.

Still, his presence frightened her. He’d been sent, ordered. What called to Laova so imperiously held sway over the beast, as well, and she feared her will might fare no better when the time came.

The snow slipped underfoot again and Laova sprawled out in the snow. It pressed against her face, cold and biting but also claustrophobic, and she fought to separate from the press of white. She was practically smothering on shadows on this moonless mountainside.

As she knew and feared he would, the wolf had dug his snout under her midsection in moments. He snuffed her over with a grunt, and Laova hugged his neck so she could be pulled upright.

“Thanks,” she mumbled. Perhaps thanks were unnecessary. If the wolf could even understand, he did not act according to his own will. Laova turned and began to trudge on.

He was not acting according to his own will.

Was she?

There were gods in this world. That was what Nemlach had always held true. He’d prayed to them often; he felt them near when his strength waned, and they had favored him with their help on occasion. He was a spiritual man, and if he’d shown the signs he would have accepted a place in the Grandmother’s house without complaint.

There were gods in this world, and they had not been overly cruel to him. His parents were dead, but such was the way of life; perhaps he’d lost them too early, in his teenage years, but he did not feel a victim. He asked the gods for little, and was not disappointed. After all, nothing is free, and when you ask for too much, Nemlach knew, perhaps you’d find the price is also too much.

There were gods in this world, and Nemlach honored them. But tonight, this meant nothing. Tonight, the gods meant to see him struggle after that which he wanted.

Snow blasted and his thick hair was whipped across his eyes. The wind shrieked and crashed through the waving trees. The sky was black with heavy snow clouds, and the jagged silhouette of Star-Reach towered above.

That was where Laova was going. Nemlach knew in his heart. He just wished he knew why.

Tonight, ‘why’ was not important. Nemlach struggled on carefully, following the near-invisible trail of bent branches and broken underbrush, signs and marks that could have been left by anything. Perhaps by holding Laova close he had asked for too much. But there were gods in this world, and he trusted them, and climbed.

“Laova.”

It was more than a voice. The sound rolled and grated like low thunder. It was a rumble in her chest. Laova stopped, stunned, and looked up at the spirit lights cresting Star-Reach, finding herself closer than ever. The trees were far below, and the mountain expanded in spotless silver. Only the ripples of red and green and glorious purple touched here.

But then, there was also Laova. And above her, standing less than a dozen paces up the slope…

“Come to me, Laova.”

She tried, but her feet were still. Was it a man? She was so close, Laova felt sure she should have seen him clearly. The only feature she knew was his voice. She’d heard it before; it was the sound of wind, high in the clouds. It was the hiss of rain, and the silence of stars.

“I’ve brought you here to join with me, Laova.”

She shivered. Did he mean what she thought he meant?

“Come to me. Meet me here.”

She wanted to ask him to wait, to ask him to explain. But then, she understood enough. In her gut, she understood what it was she was needed for.

Warm fur welcomed Laova back into the waking world. Still dark, still night, and still spitting snow. She burrowed into the wolf’s heat just a little longer. Her heart thudded and strained with what she had learned.

He was a god, surely. What else could he be?

And he wanted her, as Nemlach wanted her.

Laova lay there for a time, listening to the wind howl. Should she feel guilt? Was it a betrayal to Nemlach that she went now to lay with a god?

There was no question of refusing, guilt or no guilt. Laova was not afraid, she was not reluctant. It seemed as if, perhaps, she had known for some time that this day would arrive. She was curious and entranced. There was no refusing—she had to know.

With a groan, she shambled to her feet and felt the cold close in all the places where the wolf had curled near. It pierced her skin through her many layers of hides and skins, and Laova began to shiver almost instantly.

The beast that guided her seemed little bothered with the storm. He stretched and yawned and unfolded his body out of the cold rock crevice they’d nestled within. Laova watched him with envy; it might have been a balmy summer afternoon, for all he was affected.

Night stretched on, and the wolf gazed at Laova expectantly with his great green-gold eyes.

“Let’s go,” she breathed.

It was the first sound besides wind he’d heard in hours, and it shocked him with horror and dread.

Nemlach lurched forward after the faint shout. Instinctively, he wanted to shout back and assure the bodiless voice that he was looking for its owner, but it would be a waste of what precious breath he could snatch up here, high on the mountain’s slope. Instead, he listened more closely than ever before, straining to catch another snippet of sound besides the hand of winter crashing about.

Visibility was practically gone; the clouds hung so low on the mountain that Nemlach actually stood within them now, like a fog. The trees were becoming scarce as he climbed, which meant struggling upward through blank stretches of lonely wind-blown snow. The mountain surface was not smooth here; ravines dropped and crags rose, and Nemlach felt sure that if he didn’t find Laova soon they would both end up dead, buried beneath a white and frozen shroud.

He’d gone thirty struggling paces when he heard the voice again, much clearer. It wasn’t Laova.

“Taren!” he called.

“Help!”

“Keep yelling!” Nemlach scanned the snow, but didn’t see the boy. “Where are you?”

“I slipped down a ravine!”

Nemlach’s stomach dropped into his boots. How far had Taren fallen…? “Are… Are you injured?”

“No, I’m stuck! The snow—it’s too heavy—I can’t get out!”

At least his legs weren’t broken. Nemlach dug through his pack, searching for his rope. He wondered how he would have explained to Laova—if he ever saw her again—how he had left Taren to die. There was no way to get an injured man out of a ravine, much less back down the mountain safely. Not in this weather.

“Are you still there?”

“Here.” Nemlach followed the voice cautiously. He caught sight of a dip in the snow, and the closer he approached the deeper it became until he stood perilously close to the edge of a blessedly shallow ravine. In the dark, he could just make out a figure, mostly buried at the bottom. No wonder he couldn’t get out; Taren’s legs were both securely rooted. It was lucky he’d fallen in such a position. It would be fairly easy to drag him straight out.

“Nemlach!”

“Here.” Nemlach threw down the rope, and Taren tied it under his arms.

“What are you doing out here?” There was a crackly suspicion to his tone that made it sound less appropriate for the lucky recipient of a rescue.

How grateful of him to ask, Nemlach thought with a sigh. He labored to drag Taren free; the boy was relatively light, but still burdened with snow and heavy clothes. Nemlach had to take one step at a time, gasping for air all the while. His gloved hands held the rope tightly, but he still almost dropped it twice when his grip unexpectedly slipped.

Slack appeared in the line, and Nemlach rotated his head on his neck to try and see past his hood and hair; Taren had gained the ledge, and his arms were scrabbling for purchase. With the end in sight, Nemlach drove further still, dragging on the lightening rope until Taren lay spread-eagled in the rising snow.

“Are you—all right?” Nemlach asked again. The air this high on the mountain was wispy and insufficient. It was the opposite of trying to breathe water, or mist; it felt as if he drew in nothing. Nemlach looked up at the mostly-obscured crags of Star-Reach and tried to guess how far up Laova might be. She might do better than himself, being smaller. He had hoped the cumulative weather and thinning air might slow her down enough for him to catch up.

Taren, meanwhile, fought to his feet. The wind nearly blew him back down the ravine, but Nemlach scrabbled for a grip on his coat and dragged him safely away.

Impatiently, Taren batted his hands away. “You—shouldn’t be out—here.” Taren was feeling it, too. Just the strain of getting to his feet had left him laboring.

“Neither should you,” Nemlach replied.

Taren glared at him through the dark; their night-sight was good. Not as good as a wolf’s or a snow-panther, but better than an elk or deer. Elk or deer didn’t have to try and read each other’s faces, however, and with his scarf pulled up to his nose, Nemlach only had Taren’s flat and impetuous eyes to go off of.

“You should—go back,” Taren said.

Nemlach stared at him. The snow railed down, endlessly, blinding them to anything beyond twenty paces or so. He almost physically felt something in his chest snap back, like a child who’d been hanging on a tree branch and finally let go.

In a half-wild flurry, Nemlach flew at Taren. He couldn’t remember, later, what had gotten into him, but he punched Taren straight across the nose and felt a crack, even through three layers of gloves. Taren staggered backward.

Nemlach froze. “Gods, why did I do that?” he muttered with a sigh. He stepped forward carefully. “Here, let me see—”

Nemlach doubled over as Taren delivered a clumsy, heavy kick to his abdomen.

“That’s for Laova,” Taren hissed.

Oh, we’re doing this, are we? Nemlach glared up at Taren, and couldn’t imagine a more inconvenient time or place for this particular scuffle.

But the gods rarely give us a choice in when events boil over, and Nemlach had had enough of Taren’s moody sulking and little fits. Taren wanted to fight; Nemlach was surprised to discover that he wanted to, as well. It was a relief, as he and the boy swatted and battered back and forth at each other in the barren reaches of the gods’ territory.

They didn’t have a barest extra breath to talk or jeer at each other; that was unnecessary. The fact that they were losing time and Laova was getting further away seemed less vital, as if perhaps she was waiting politely for them to hash out their differences before proceeding with her escape into the night. There was a desperation and an urgency in the physicality of battle, even a minor one such as this, and by the time both of them were panting and gasping for air in the swirling—and worsening—snowfall, it seemed as though some tension had broken lightly into pieces and vanished.

Taren tried to swing another comically slow punch; Nemlach saw him coming without difficulty and waved him away, rasping. Taren didn’t need to be told twice. He dropped his arm and refocused on the task of getting air into his lungs.

It was some time before either of them had the breath to speak, and by the time they did, Nemlach’s blood had fully cooled and he grimaced at all the time they’d lost. Laova could be a half a league ahead, by now. Of course, Nemlach wasn’t aware that at that very moment, Laova was curled up in a rocky nook with a mountain wolf, sleeping, warm and safe. If he had known this, perhaps he’d feel less crushing guilt at acting the fool now, pummeling this confused youngster on this frozen slope in a malevolent, darkening gale of storm and snow.

“I wish--she’d never—met you.”

Nemlach glanced over at Taren. Both their face-scarves and hoods had been knocked askew, and finally Nemlach could see Taren’s face clearly.

“But she—did,” Nemlach replied, hardly loud enough to hear over the wind in their ears.

They stared at each other, waiting. With a sigh, Nemlach spoke again.

“She isn’t… yours. She isn’t mine, either. We were—weren’t made to be—owned or poss—possessed.” Nemlach took a moment, breathing deeply. “You have no right… to be angry at her… for choosing me.”

Taren’s expression jolted, and Nemlach knew he had the right of it. “And you have no right to be angry with me… for loving her back.”

“How dare you?” Taren snapped. “I have every right! You don’t even know her!”

“You’re right,” Nemlach agreed; which shut Taren up for a moment. “I don’t know her. But neither do you. You think you know everything there is to know about Laova. Yet, here we are. You knew a girl - the Laova that ran out into the snow tonight is no longer that girl. You just can’t see it. You just don’t want to see it.”

Taren seemed to be visibly shaking, either in rage or from the cold. Nemlach waited, hoping he still had the energy to fight, if that’s what Taren was after. Somehow, that didn’t seem likely.

“I hate that you’re right,” Taren shouted over the storm.

Nemlach shrugged. “I hate that we’re out on this damn mountain in a storm.”

“I should have stopped her,” Taren admitted grimly.

“Yes, you should have.”

“Next time I will.”

“Let’s make it through this time, before we plan next time.”

“Why me?” Laova asked out loud. Her voice was small, and her steps were smaller, still.

The answer came to her, in the waking world, twined about the falling pellets of snow and riding the bitter wind. Because you came to me when I asked. I reached out to you, and you answered.

Upward, always upward. Laova was in disbelief of how high she had climbed. The mountain, here, cracked through the snow. The wind was fierce. So fierce, she had to shelter between rocky shelves if she wanted to move at all. She’d been knocked down by gales that blasted around corners, gusts that she’d walked into unexpectedly. The snow was thin on the ground here, at least. She walked on a frozen layer that held her weight, and only had to shuffle through knee-deep drifts.

The wolf had disappeared. He’d seen her a good way up the last stretch of passable terrain, before this alien world of windswept rock and snow began. She hadn’t noted the exact moment he left her side, but she felt the isolation draw around her as she fought through the low cloud of the storm. When she’d fallen and had been forced to pick herself back up, that was when she noticed for certain he’d left her.

Her dark hair hung half out of her hood, and she tried to tuck it away. The strands kept blocking her vision, and she had precious little of it to begin with. But then, there was only one path, anyway, and her feet seemed stuck to it, stubbornly resistant to the thought of turning around.

“I’m on—my way,” she whispered between breaths.

I know.

“Why don’t—you—make this—easier?” she gasped, exasperated. She felt something like amusement answer, whispering over the wind, wordless.

If it were easier, there would be nothing remarkable in the fact that you have made it this far.

Laova pressed on, one foot before the other. It was a strange time to dream of it, but she thought of Nemlach. His fever had broken; if she’d stayed, they could be wrapped together in the shelter now, entwined in warmth and security, surrounded by friends. That would have been wonderful.

But to have that, she would have had to turn away from the nagging voice in her head, not the voice of the god but her own curiosity that always asked… what if? Where? How far?

The fact of the matter was, she admitted to herself as she moved along, one hand on the rock wall beside her for support, that Laova did truly love Nemlach and desire the warmth safety of his arms. But it wasn’t enough. That was why she was a hunter; safety, security, routine and predictable, was not enough. There was more in this world, and she wanted it.

The thought caused her a moment’s despair, and her steps faltered. Perhaps this meant that she was never meant to be satisfied. Or that she was cursed to adventure herself into an early grave.

“Please, don’t let that be,” she murmured, placing both hands on the wall and shoving herself on. Forcing herself on. Struggling against the forces of the world around her and forces of doubt within her.

I have no say in that matter.

The voice answered, though Laova hadn’t expected it to. She felt along with her boots as the snowfall grew worse, worse, and the clouds seemed to close around her. Her breath ran fire through her chest, never enough, always seeming as though part of the air she drew in was missing. The skin around her eyes was the only part exposed, and it felt immobile with cold. Even under her face scarf, her jaw ached with it; her nose was long beyond the realm of feeling.

It was so much worse now than when she began. The wind seemed to be trying to lift her off the mountainside, it was so strong. She could see nothing. She was feeling along the rock, and if a ravine opened under her feet she was doomed.

Still, she took step after step, because there was nothing to do but continue forward. She’d come this far. Too late to turn back.

The wind blasted like a physical force with sudden life, sudden intensity. Laova did not stop.

And suddenly, she stepped out into open air. Her boots crunched through snow that rifled gently along in a calm breeze, and the black fog and driving snow vanished. There was light. Moonlight. Laova spun around, and saw the miasma of the storm just below, but above, the clear sky was almost close enough to touch. Stars glimmered, and she could not look away. She’d never been at such a height in her life, and even while she still struggled to breathe, it was calm, now, calm enough to afford a moment of wonder.

Her hood had been torn back off her head, and it was cold, but Laova hardly paid it attention. The ghost moon was wide and round. It was full, the full moon of her ritual hunt.

And then, as if they had been waiting for her, the spirit lights. They began as wispy hints of color against the sky. Laova watched in fascination as the colors stretched and undulated, waving at her, beckoning her nearer. In red and yellow-green and purple, they beckoned, and Laova answered the call.

Nemlach froze.

Taren, who’d been barreling stubbornly forward with his head burrowed into his chest, diving into the wind, ran right into his back and nearly bounced off into the nearest snowdrift. Indignant, he righted himself.

“What are you doing?”

Nemlach didn’t answer. He made a small gesture with his hand, not turning to look at Taren, but it was too small a movement for Taren to take note of in the dark.

Taren meanwhile, strode up to stand even with Nemlach. They hadn’t stopped in hours. Both were perilously exhausted and the storm was not lightening, but Taren still expected to see a ravine or a sheet of rock at Nemlach’s feet, for how suddenly he’d frozen.

“Why are you stopping?” Taren shouted.

Then he looked. Then he froze, too.

Sitting five paces—less than five paces—ahead crouched a shape in the snow. Details were impossible to make out; the veil of the cloudy storm assured that. It sat stock still on its haunches, great shoulders rippled gently with each breath. Two green-gold glimmers picked out of the darkness, watching the men approach.

Taren could almost feel the teeth in his shoulder again. He shivered.

“She came this way,” Nemlach murmured.

Taren nodded; he felt it, too. The creature was unnatural. He’d known the minute it sank its fangs into his body. Laova’s behavior, also, was surreal. That the two were connected seemed simple, expected.

“We’re on the right track.”

Taren looked up at Nemlach. He was staring at the wolf with something like excitement, with a thrill of fear. It all fell into place suddenly, and Taren looked back at the creature.

“Do you think it will let us… go to her?” Taren asked quietly.

“If it wanted, it could have killed us already,” Nemlach replied.

Nemlach moved forward, walking towards the glowering mountain wolf as if it were a happy dog with a wagging tail. Taren’s heart was thudding like drums in his ears, but he couldn’t let Nemlach be so brave while Taren cowered. He shadowed the old hunter’s steps carefully; watching as the vague shape in the snow grew clear.

A low growl welcomed them as they approached; Nemlach ignored it and kept walking, even though the sound send ripples of chills up and down Taren’s skin under the hide coats. Maybe it was just the memory of those teeth in his chest, those eyes so close to his own, but Taren was having a difficult time forcing his feet to move closer to the creature.

Their progress up Star-Reach had felt slow and pathetic, but it was far too soon that the two hunters stood close enough to see the hairs rising on the hackles of the wolf. It growled again, but did not moved. Taren was beginning to doubt Nemlach’s confidence, but they kept walking, calmly, past the wolf, up the mountain, through the storm.

“She came this way,” Nemlach said again. “We’re almost there. I know. We’re almost there.”

Taren had never heard Nemlach speak so much as he had tonight. They battled and clawed up the slope, through crags of black rock and winds so fast they had to hold onto each other to stay grounded. Onward, after Laova.

Onward, towards whatever had called her to chase this mad quest.

It never occurred to either of them that they might suddenly come upon Laova’s frozen corpse. It was not possible. Without having to say it, they both understood that something more than a mere storm was in motion, something pervasive, something that had brought them all here.

Something that wanted Laova, and it wanted her alive.

Sure enough, they stumbled across no corpses.

“They’re probably all dead,” Khara mumbled miserably.

Ghal snorted his agreement, but it lacked his usual gruff spirit. His lined, gray face had never looked quite so sagging and lifeless. His dark eyes were hooded with a solemn melancholy, one they all felt sharply as the four left behind huddled close around the fire. Perhaps it hadn’t really grown colder in their sheltering tent. Then again, feeling the void left by those that were missing, maybe it had.

Bamet lay on his back with his head near the fire, staring up at the low canvas ceiling.

“Could you tell a story, Ghal?” he asked softly, feeling and sounding like a child. “Something to… pass the time.”

The time until the storm broke. The time until they departed, hopeless, never knowing… No one spoke it. Instead, three hesitant gazes rolled to fix on Rell. They darted away almost as quickly. No one wanted to draw her attention.

Since Nemlach had left, Rell hadn’t said a word. As if there was nothing to say—she had watched in shock, with the rest, as he tramped off to certain death. Then she’d turned without comment or sound and taken a seat by the fire.

The others had gone about arranging their campfire and a good store of wood, enough to last out another day or two. No one needed to be told that there was no chance of safely escaping Star-Reach’s foothills while this snowstorm raged, so they assumed that blocked themselves in, stopping up the gaps in the tent walls and doing everything possible to keep in heat, was the best way. The snow helped; as it buried them, it insulated their walls.

Ghal looked over at Bamet and Khara and nodded.

“It is said,” he began, slipping back into his familiar story-teller rhythm, “that the cities of the Elder Men still stand. Some are in ruins. Some fell, into deep crevices that opened up to swallow their houses, their great houses that reached into the sky. Some are filled with water, deeper than any lake, deeper than any man could swim. Only the tops of their tallest towers can be seen, still aglow.

“All are dangerous, but it is said that brave men and women have journeyed to pay homage to the old ones, the dead ones.”

Khara spoke up in a half-whisper. “Why must it be this one?”

She was understood perfectly; there was an eeriness, even apart from their sorrow for their lost friends. Something unnatural on this mountain. Unnatural, or perhaps merely unearthly. In any case, it made the familiar tale uncomfortable.

“Yes,” Rell answered.

They all looked at her, uneasy.

Rell was still staring into the smoking, guttering fire. “Yes, it must be this one.”

There was no more discussion after that. Ghal began, the old parable about the brave shaman, Henra, how he’d journeyed to the land of the lost Elder Men, those who had so resembled gods, following a voice in his dreams, in his head…

Henra had gone to them, those who had died thinking they were gods. It was said he’d met them, communed with spirits of the departed that still lingered on in the old places. He’d returned, bringing some pieces of their world back with him. The Scim was rumored to have been retrieved by Henra’s hand.

But what had killed the Elder Men also lingered on in their empty houses. Henra carried it back inside him, and it withered him slowly. Even those who tended him grew sick, if less. The ones who touched and carried the artifacts brought back grew weak and thin.

Soon Henra was gone, leaving his people with only a handful of haunted tokens as a reminder that when you travel to the realms of gods, or even just those who consider themselves gods, you do not return the same.

Nemlach and Taren moved as fast as possible through the clear air. Without warning, the storm had vanished like a nightmare, leaving a surreal world of depthless sky, bright stars, and fiery colors of the gods’ lights above. Star-Reach stood fast against the night, catching the light of the full moon and glowing like the shadow of a white flame.

It was perfectly clear, and against the pristine white of the peak’s face, Taren and Nemlach could clearly see a line of tracks that ascended toward the sky, toward the highest summit. Laova.

“Come on,” Taren panted. “Almost there! These tracks… aren’t old!” They were practically fresh, in fact.

Nemlach was feverish again; maybe it was just exhaustion and the altitude. He felt cool under his hides, and tried to ignore it. Until a short time ago, he’d been plenty warm from the exertion of hiking up this damned mountain. But a little before they’d broken into the open air…

“I’m going,” he growled.

“Gods,” Taren whispered. Without the storm to struggle through, he moved easily through the shallow snow. “The stars are so close! And the… the spirit lights!”

The lights were not an uncommon sight, but Nemlach had to agree, he’d never seen them like this. They seemed to surround the mountain. They were above the clouds, now, so nothing of the world existed except this mountain, those stars, the phantom moon and the lights of the gods, gods that could not have been far off.

And Laova. Laova was here, at the end of this trail. Was she all right? What had brought her here? Did Nemlach even want to know?

He decided he didn’t, but it was too late for that.

The summit was near. Thirty paces, up a steep, snowy grade, jutting with steps that almost seemed deliberate. Nemlach and Taren rushed to climb them, eager and terrified to meet what they would find at the top. It was close.

The air was so thin. Nemlach tried not to let Taren see how difficult it was, how dizzy he felt. He slugged behind, despite his best efforts to keep up.

“Nemlach! What’s… taking so long?” Taren asked, breathily.

Nemlach shook his head. He wasn’t going to admit it.

To his shock, Nemlach felt an arm around his waist.

“I don’t feel—like expla—explaining to—Laova—why I left you—staggering up—the hill.”

So together, they worked upward. Taren went slower, but Nemlach went faster, and they moved steadily toward what they both wanted.

Ten paces… Nemlach’s vision was blurry every few breaths. Maybe he was too old.

Five paces… The terrible possibility that they were about to find Laova dead, or worse, still missing, arose. Nemlach could hardly bear to contemplate it, but now that it was in his mind, it persisted as he and Taren hiked up the four, then three, then two paces left.

And then they were standing at the top of the world.

“Laova!”

Both of them said it at once, and she turned, shocked to find them here. She didn’t need to say in words what she thought; Nemlach could see clearly on her face the stages of surprise as first she realized they were here, then realized they were here together.

His breath caught; a tiny part of Nemlach had believed that he was never going to see Laova again, and here she was, no worse for wear. Her hood and scarf were down—her face was going to freeze and she’d lose both her ears if she didn’t cover up soon. But she was here, alive. They’d done it. They’d found her.

Nemlach took a step toward her. Laova backed away.

He realized how close she was to a precipice, a rocky cliff that cut out of the flat summit and looked over what was likely a steep fall onto the crags below.

“Careful, Laova!”

“Please stay back,” she pleaded urgently. “You aren’t supposed to be here.”

“Come down,” he urged gently. Nemlach didn’t try to approach. “Come down, tell us what’s… going on.” He didn’t try to get closer, just stood as passively as could be, waiting for her to make her own move. Taren stood back, uncertain and willing to let Nemlach handle this unexpected situation.

“I’m going,” Laova told him. Did his vision blur at just the wrong time, or was there sadness, real sadness in her eyes?

“Going where?” he asked. And yet… something seemed wrong. Nemlach felt it clearly, gradually growing like the dawn. An energy seemed to blossom, and it tingled the hairs on his arms and neck unpleasantly. The space around them seemed thick, not with driving snow or wind or anything visible, anything tangible. He didn’t like it. He didn’t like it at all.

“Laova, come back with us!” Taren exclaimed suddenly. His voice was a little shrill and panicky; he felt it too, then, whatever bizarre force that filled their ears and eyes and pressed against their skin. Nemlach held out an arm to stop Taren before the kid could dart forward. He knew what Taren felt, the urge to run up to Laova, grab her by the arm and physically carry her away. It wasn’t safe here. It wasn’t right here.

“I’m going,” she repeated.

This was not reassuring; she clearly did not mean ‘going with them’, going back to safety, back to their village.

“Going where?” Nemlach asked.

Laova hesitated. It was evident in every line of her body as she looked at Nemlach—regret. It hurt worse than if she had carelessly sauntered off, run into the night without a backward glance.

“I’m so sorry, Nemlach.”

“Then come back with us,” Nemlach murmured, trying to hold her eyes.

There was a second—just one—where Laova relaxed. Her shoulders came down, and her wide eyes blinked. She even took a half step in his direction. The tightness in Nemlach’s chest, that which had been there since the moment he reached for Laova in the dark and did not find her, loosened. It was the moment he believed he might actually convince her.

But then, everything turned bright. It was as if the spirit lights had closed in around them, wrapped around them like a cloth. There was a humming, then a roaring in Nemlach’s ears, like he was falling.

In the next moment, all the colors had blinked out, gone. And gone, too, was Laova.

Despair shook Nemlach to his core.

“Laova!”

He ran, or ran as best as he could, to the ledge. The last thing he ever wanted to see was Laova’s mangled body on the slopes, falling away, but he had to know. Not knowing was going to kill him. But there was nothing, not even a blemish to suggest anything had landed below.

“Laova!” he shouted. “LAOVA!”

When the light touched down and took her, Laova had shut her eyes; she had no choice, really. It was far too bright to even try keep them open. It had been terrifically, breathtakingly cold on Star-Reach. It had been sinking into her bones, although in her excitement Laova had hardly noticed.

So when the cold vanished, it was the first thing she felt. The warmth was welcome, healing. She realized that her nose and ears were numb as prickling sensation seeped back into them.

And then, she realized that she wasn’t wearing her hides any longer. She felt naked without them; instead, a light garment flowed from her shoulders and was sashed around her waist. She was standing barefoot on a fur; she felt it between her half-frozen toes.

Laova swallowed past a sudden dryness in her throat. She shook, and tried to tell herself it was only an after-effect of the mountain cold.

“Welcome.”

The shaking got worse.

Laova didn’t open her eyes. This voice was familiar, but also different. It was solid, real. It filled her ears, and fluctuated with the imperfections of a physical body. It was deep and resonant.

The warmth was soothing her stiff muscles and sore skin. Through her eyelids, she could see the hint of gentle light. Firelight; she heard it crackling.

“Open your eyes, Laova. You’re safe here.”

She swallowed dryly again. Slowly, Laova cracked open her eyelids and looked around.

To her surprise, she was in a canvas tent. It was large; the commune tent back in her village wasn’t even quite this size. Dark alcoves and cozy corners reached out, away from the central hearth that merrily burned and gave off a wonderful, radiant heat. Fur lined the floor; heaps of cushions and hides were spaced about, more than she’d ever seen.

She looked down at herself, to see that she was wearing light, loose gown of something soft and sheer. Her people didn’t have anything like it; she couldn’t imagine a loom that could produce such fine cloth, or a wheel that could spin such tiny thread. And it was black, purely black, austere and elegant. It might have been dipped in the night, for its color.

“I thought you might like it.”

The voice was behind her, a respectable distance back. Laova straightened her spine, quite certain she was not ready, and turned around anyway.

She didn’t know what she expected. Her visions had never revealed his face or form, so she had half assumed he would appear as nothing but a diaphanous shadow. The thought was ridiculous, in retrospect, as she looked at the form he’d taken. He was tall and broad of shoulder, perfectly so. His skin was dark and rich, much darker than even Khara’s, and molded over great, muscles arms and a great, muscled chest. His black hair was long and flowing, his beard short and neat.

He came to her in only trousers, which caused Laova a moment of tremulous anxiety. But he was such a man to look at… Her eyes rose to his face.

Relief filled her. His expression, his eyes, were gentle. When she’d heard him speak in her mind, he spoke with such power, such strength, that Laova had truly expected—and dreaded—a fiercer look when they finally met face-to-face. She was happily mistaken.

“Who are you?” she asked.

He smiled, a slight pull of his lips. “You know me as the Sky Father.”

Laova stared. “Truly? Why… why am I here?”

“I told you why you’re here.”

Laova flushed. Yes, he had, and heart frantic heart driving blood to the corresponding places would not let her forget it.

“Yes,” she agreed. “And I came to you, still. But… could I know why?”

The Sky Father walked towards her. He did not threaten nor intimidate. His very presence was soothing, except for the agitation he caused in her blood, the excitement he caused… He stopped before her. Tenderly, he reached up and tucked her hair behind her ears.

But then, his hands, large and warm and sure, trailed down to her shoulders. Laova’s heart was racing, racing, as her mind seemed stuck, as if it were still frozen as a rock on the summit of Star-Reach. His hands slipped around her rib cage. Through the thin fabric, it seemed as though she was already naked, especially when his thumbs traced the edges of her breasts, bringing their tips to hard points.

“Yes, you can,” he replied. “Much of it you cannot understand, not in this moment. But I will explain in full. For now, I have waited many years for you, Laova, and if you are in agreement, I think it’s time.”

His thumbs crossed over her nipples, and Laova was in agreement.

“Yes,” she breathed. “Yes, it’s time.”

Smiling again, the Sky Father leaned down to kiss her.

“But… will I be allowed to go back?” Laova asked, afraid of the answer.

He stopped. A very deep sadness entered his eyes, and he nodded. “Yes. You will not want to, but you will be allowed to go back. You will have to.”

He reached up tugged the sash loose from Laova’s waist. The gown fell off her shoulders of it had merely fallen apart, and she stood there, naked, trembling. The Sky Father looked down at her body and brought his lips to hers, and Laova’s hesitation melted.

His fingers returned to her breasts, teasing and plucking at the sensitive skin there, as he kissed her. Laova kissed back, enthusiastically; he tasted like… well, he tasted like summer. She could feel the sun and the rain on her tongue as his dashed over it, and his face near hers gave off radiance very much like sunlight.

One of his hands circled around and crushed her hips to his, and his hardness ground against her belly; she reached up and tugged blindly on the straps that held his trousers closed. He didn’t stop her. When the pants fell down his long, strong legs he stepped out of them easily and lifted Laova to carry her to the great mass of pillows and furs near the fire.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured against her mouth. His breath, too, had grown short. He was over her, holding his weight up on his arms as he gazed down at her naked body; Laova’s body was trembling with need, and he seemed to know it. “I had intended for this to be slow, and more careful.”

Laova moaned and reached up to hook his neck and bring his lips back down to hers. “Not slow—fast.”

“Not too fast,” he replied in a murmur. He kissed her, less gently than before. “Dear one, you have never lain with a man before, much less with a god. Be careful what you ask for.” His hands returned to her breasts, caressing, driving Laova mad with need.

His warning was a wise one, and Laova bore under his hands with it in mind, writhing, letting her hands drink in the shape and angles of his body to try and distract herself from his patience. His legs rested between hers, so close to where they needed to be… Laova inched upwards slightly, aligning herself with the very erect proof that he wanted her, as much as she wanted him, now, right now…

The Sky Father seemed amused and wise to her tricks. He slid down her body and Laova’s mind shambled apart again when he began working her nipples around his mouth, with his lips, his tongue. Now his abdomen pressed in the aching place where her thighs met, and it was not enough.

“Please,” she whispered. “I can’t bear this…”

The Sky Father kissed her again, and one of his hands reached down, pleasuring her until she gasped. “If you can’t bear this, how do you expect to bear me?”

She looked at him, and saw the humor in his face. She sighed, then gasped again at his hand’s tantalizing motions.

“Please,” she asked again in a shaking whisper. “You brought me here for this… don’t make me wait…”

“Dear one, you’ve waited only a short time for this,” he pointed out, lips against her ear. His breath was ragged, almost as ragged as Laova’s. “But I will do as you ask. Hold on to me.”

Laova did, desperately, and the Sky Father moved squarely between her legs. She felt it pressing against her, felt his hands help part the way, and then his hips were pressing against her legs and he was inside her.

It was everything she’d ever hoped. The Sky Father pulled back and thrust in again, and she cried out. Her very core roared agreement, and the Sky Father’s body pulsed and moved within her. Everything disappeared—she forgot about the people she’d known, and her village, and her harrowing journey up Star-Reach. Something in Laova’s mind opened fully, as if a window had been suddenly thrown open.

And suddenly, Laova knew what a window was.

Her climax twisted her and she felt as though she were breaking, but all the while, she saw things, understood things, that hadn’t existed a moment ago. The Sky Father lay within her, spent, breathing heavily in the aftermath of their hurried consummation. He looked down at her, curiously.

And Laova blinked, thinking. Her muscles were loose and swampy with languor, but that was all right. All of the sudden, she had a lot to think about.

“Laova!”

Taren kept shouting it, running back and forth as if she might suddenly appear without warning. “Laova!”

Exhausted, Nemlach leaned against a rock. She was gone. She’d just disappeared; along with the spirit lights. If he’d looked over the edge of the summit, Nemlach would have been able to watch the storm cloud below dissipate and dissolve, as well. As if its purpose had been served, it simmered out and vanished, leaving a glorious vista of the valley below.

But Nemlach closed his eyes. The air was still too thin here, and this was too much. She’d been right there, within his reach. What on earth had happened?

“What happened?!” Taren echoed his thoughts frantically. “Where is—she?!”

“I don’t know,” Nemlach answered weakly. “All I saw… was the light… she’s gone.”

“Gone?!” Taren was growing hysterical; his pale face was turning blue at the nose. Nemlach knew they’d have to get back down the mountain, and soon. “Gone? She couldn’t have just disappeared!”

“She did.”

“Laova!” Taren carried on. The situation was terrible, but to Nemlach that horrible fruitless shouting into the night was the worst of it. He couldn’t stand to hear it. He reached out and grabbed Taren’s arm.

“Stop it!” He shook the kid, until Taren wrestled away. “Stop it! She’s not here!”

“She has to be here… somewhere!”

“What are you not understanding? She’s gone!” Nemlach paused; they really had to get down from this mountain. They would both die up here slowly, otherwise.

Taren stood there, panting. “Nemlach,” he moaned. “She can’t! She has to, we have to… find her!”

“Look at yourself!” Nemlach insisted. “We can’t even breathe here!”

“You want to leave?” Taren asked in disbelief.

No, he didn’t. The truth was, Nemlach didn’t want to leave. He didn’t want to move from this spot again. He’d worked and labored to reach her, to save her. And at the last second, right out from his grasp… Nemlach didn’t want to leave. He wanted to lie down and die, freeze to die or suffocate, whichever came first.

“Yes,” Nemlach lied. “We have to… she wouldn’t want us to… die here.”

Taren opened his mouth, as if to argue.

A cringing zap of light and pressure enveloped them again.

It blinded him, just as it had the first time. Nemlach blinked, heart pounding, waiting for his vision to clear and for the night to reappear. Appear it did, slowly—Taren was blinking too, trying to get his sight back.

But there was a third silhouette, as Nemlach fought to see straight. The mountain summit was just as it had been, except for the addition of a familiar figure, standing just where he’d last seen her.

“Laova!” Nemlach saw her before Taren did, and ran instantly to her side, as he should have done the first time around. She seemed a little stunned, blinking in confusion. It was her face, certainly, just as she’d left…

But her black hair had turned white.

Nemlach stared at it; afraid his eyes might have been damaged by the light flashes. Taren had caught up now, and was standing beside them, staring openly at Laova’s hair.

“Laova! What happened?” he asked, still unable to stop staring.

She didn’t respond at first. Clearly disoriented, she clung to Nemlach’s arms.

“It worked,” she whispered. There was a ghostly look to her, both wistful and baffled. “I… I’m back.”

Nemlach hadn’t thought there was anything left that could possibly confuse him more. But then, without warning, Laova’s face crumpled, and she sobbed. Great tears froze on her face and he brushed them away carefully.

“Oh, Nemlach!” she cried, and let herself be gathered up into his arms. He hugged her close.

Nemlach froze.

Slowly, he pulled back. He hadn’t paid much attention to her clothes before; her hair was startling enough, if he needed more surprises after her abrupt disappearance and reappearance. But now that he looked, they were not the same as the ones she had left in. Similar, yes. They were made of hides and furs, and cut in a fashion that almost seemed… intentionally similar to what she’d had. This was not what had drawn his attention.

Laova watched him with great, dark, unreadable eyes as he felt carefully down her abdomen, to her distended, very pregnant, stomach.

Just yesterday he’d lain beside her, touching her intimately, becoming familiar with all the lines and planes of her body.

This was impossible.

Taren stared, dumbstruck.

Laova stared into Nemlach’s eyes, waiting. Things had changed in her; it was obvious, now that the jolt of her sudden return was passed. Her face… she was older. Not, perhaps, in years, but in knowledge.

“Laova…” he whispered. Nemlach hadn’t meant to whisper. “Where have you been?”

Her lips parted, and Nemlach watched as doors closed in her heart at the very question. Sadness quieted her voice as she answered. “Many places. Oh, gods, Nemlach, many places.”

He laid a hand on her stomach. “How… long?”

“I don’t know,” she replied.

He glanced down at the swell of her belly; a prickle of hurt twisted inside him. “Who?”

Laova squeezed his arm. “A god. He goes by many names. But this is the child of a god.”

It was easier to descend from the mountain; without the storm, the only obstacle was occasionally slippery footing. It had been cloudy for days; they hadn’t been able to see the sky lighten over the past week, preparing to receive a reborn sun.

But as the three of them stood on the high slopes of Star-Reach, Nemlach holding Laova’s hand, watching her every step, the brightening sky unexpectedly broke open. A sliver of sunlight struck them, and after so long in the dark it was blinding. Except to Laova; it was as if she had been in a lighter place, where sunlight had never fled.

She looked out over the world that lay below, beneath scuttling clouds and towering mountains. It was a wronged and ravaged world, one that her people did not understand. She set a hand on her burgeoning stomach and thought that despite everything that had happened, perhaps all was not dark.

Not yet.