I AWOKE TO the piercing call of a goose. I lay still for a moment, listening as the flock passed overhead, my mind a comforting blank. It was nice to lie there in my nest of blankets. Beyond the safety of my tent, there was a world filled with monsters—Norbu was one of those monsters now, a man I had shared food and stories with. And somewhere below our sheltered camp was a crevasse that held Aimo’s broken body.
I rolled over. I wished the dawn would hurry up—it was awful lying here in the dark, running over everything that had happened. Now that I had started, I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop. I would have woken Tem, but I didn’t want to deal with the awkward place where we had left things. Instead, I rose and dressed. I would sit by the fire until sunrise.
Rather than attempt to find dry kindling in the darkness, I woke the fire by feeding it several pieces of parchment, then gradually added twigs. It smoked ferociously at first, but after some coaxing, I managed to build it into a healthy blaze.
I perched on a rock, shivering. No sound came from the tents—Dargye, River, and Tem were still fast asleep. I could have been alone. I felt alone. Two of my companions were dead. My vision blurred, but I didn’t cry. I had no tears left.
I gazed at Raksha. It seemed even larger, somehow, in the darkness. Not merely large—it was an enormity, the idea of largeness given material form. Twenty thousand feet, if Mingma’s estimates were to be believed. Now it was only a shape that blocked the sky, a patchwork of shadow and snow. The wind whistled over the glacier, lifting my hair and making my teeth chatter, even with the fire. The same wind had scoured the sky of cloud. Except over Raksha, where a strange apparition had formed. A solitary, domed cloud wrapped itself around the very tip of the mountain like a ghostly net. It was banded and swirling, and lit faintly by the glow of the crescent moon that hid somewhere behind the peak. There were no stars in that part of the sky, as if they, like the witches, had forsaken Raksha.
So little was known about it. The emperor had sent Mingma to climb the mountain decades ago. From that failed attempt, we had a map of Raksha—unfinished—and the disturbing tales of the two men who had survived. They had spoken of monsters lurking deep within the mountain, monsters made of snow or ice that knew everything that set foot there, and after darkness fell, came hunting for them. Stories like that were easily dismissed by those who knew anything about mountaineering—the rumble of an avalanche or the roar of a snow leopard could easily be attributed to some hulking monster, especially by those suffering from dehydration or altitude sickness, which was often accompanied by hallucinations. But the story had spread throughout the Empire, and many now accepted it as truth.
More than forty years after Mingma, there had been my mother’s expedition, sent to improve the maps of the region and find a new route through the Northern Aryas, one less perilous than Winding Pass. My mother had revised the maps, but she had been unable to discover the path the emperor sought.
And now there was River. River, who had made a contract with a fire demon, and as a result had a very real chance of succeeding where other explorers had failed. But at what cost?
I rubbed my head, which was beginning to ache. It wasn’t just my head, though—it was my shoulders, from the weight of my pack, and my legs, from our grueling march over uneven terrain. My knee had throbbed constantly since I took a fall while clambering after River one afternoon, and was now covered in a black bruise. And yet, in spite of all this, I knew I was in better condition than anyone else, except perhaps River. Though Dargye complained little, he had been limping for several days from an injury he refused to acknowledge. Tem’s cough only worsened with each passing day. The healing spells he cast on himself were losing their effectiveness—as any shaman knew, a healing spell was undone if the patient refused to allow it time to work. Tem rested at night, but like the rest of us, his days had been spent clambering over boulders and up hills under the weight of a heavy pack. To heal properly, he needed several days of rest, preferably in a bed beside a warm fire, not shivering on the icy ground.
I tossed a few more twigs onto the fire as slowly, slowly, the sky began to lighten. I was just about to begin preparing breakfast when I caught a flash of movement from the corner of my eye.
A light shone down among the rubble left by the glacier. It flickered gently between the rocks, rising slowly up the hill toward our camp. And with it came the sound of footsteps—heavy ones.
Someone was coming.
I leaped to my feet. My knife was in my pocket, and I drew it out, almost dropping it in my haste. The light was closer now. I glanced back at the fire, cursing my foolishness. Had we not agreed to use fire sparingly? And now here I was, lighting up our campsite like a beacon for the witches to follow.
I considered shouting for Tem, but it was too late. The footsteps were loud now. Whoever it was, they were here. I tightened my grip on the knife.
Then, out of the darkness, there came a muffled curse. I let out my breath, because I recognized that voice.
River stepped into the firelight, pulling the yak behind him, the dark side of his chuba barely distinguishable from the dense shadows. A dragon ran in front of them, lighting the way—it snuffled up to me immediately, smelled my empty hands and pockets, then darted away.
“I thought you were still asleep,” I said, tucking my knife away. I went to the yak and stroked her neck. She looked exhausted and wild-eyed. “How did you find her?”
“She didn’t go far.” River dropped the lead and moved hastily away from the beast, rubbing his shoulder.
“Are you all right?”
“She charged me.”
I almost laughed. The fat, lumbering creature had never charged anyone. “More likely she walked into you in the darkness.”
River let out a long-suffering sigh, waving a hand in resignation. He settled on a rock with his back to the fire, still rubbing his arm.
“Thank the spirits you found her,” I said. “I don’t know what we would have done without our supplies.”
“Nor do I,” he said. “I won’t get far up that mountain without my ice ax.”
I gazed at him. River, in spite of all that had happened, was evidently troubled by no new misgivings about the journey ahead. I found that I was not surprised.
“How are you feeling?” I said, sitting beside him on the rock. The fire was warm against my back. It was now light enough to see his features, but only just.
“I’ll have a nasty bruise, I think. But I managed to roll out of the way before she stepped on my head, so that’s something.”
“I don’t mean that,” I said. “I mean the spell yesterday.”
“Oh.” River shrugged. “It hurts less. Each time less than the last time. I suppose I should be concerned about that, but I’m not. It’s a great relief. The first time, it felt like—well, it’s rather hard to describe. Like being burned alive, but from the inside.”
He could have been describing a pulled muscle, his tone was so mild, rather than the feeling of some otherworldly creature devouring pieces of his soul. I scrutinized him in the half-light, expecting to see a difference there. But he was the same River, to my eyes, his handsome face flushed in the firelight, his hair sticking up on one side—which it always did, unless he bothered to comb it, which was rare. His eyes registered faint amusement as he returned my gaze.
“What?” he said.
I sighed, looking down at my hands. “My father knew someone once, a long time ago, who did what you did. I haven’t been able to stop thinking of it.”
River gazed at me silently.
“She was the shaman of a village in the Southern Aryas,” I continued. “She lived with her fire demon for years, and eventually she—I don’t know how to describe it, exactly. Father said she became broken. She was powerful, so powerful, but she decided that it wasn’t enough. She began sacrificing animals to the spirits, praying that they would grant her more power. It didn’t work, of course—she was mad to think of it—but still she kept trying. Eventually, she started killing people. She took several lives before the villagers discovered what was happening. When they confronted her, she just laughed. Father said they found the skulls of those she had killed buried beneath the floor of her hut. Perhaps she thought to use them as talismans.”
“That’s a dark tale,” River said. “I’ll admit, I’ve heard similar things about other shamans who have formed contracts with fire demons. The risk seems real enough.”
I gazed at him. “Then you’ve never felt—”
“The desire to start a skull collection? Fortunately not. My guess is this sort of magic doesn’t touch everyone the same way.” He looked thoughtfully at the fire, and seemed to search for words. “It’s more difficult to hold on to feelings, I think, than it used to be. Happiness, fear, grief—it doesn’t really matter what. I feel it, I think I do, but then it fades. As if it’s muffled somehow.” He looked back at me. “Did you think about Aimo last night?”
I swallowed. “Yes.”
He sighed slightly. “I didn’t. Not once. It wasn’t until I was walking past that crevasse again with the yak that I remembered. Really remembered, I mean. It’s the same with Norbu—the man has been at my side for three years. I should miss him a great deal more.”
I didn’t know how to reply to this. The cold wind eddied over the campsite, and I tucked my hands into my sleeves.
There was a rustling sound from the tent I shared with Tem. Then, low and muffled, the sound of his cough.
“I should go,” River said, standing. “I don’t like good-byes, they’re bad luck. Give Dargye my thanks, will you? And Tem. He fought bravely back in the pass. I don’t think I ever told him that.”
“What?” I said. But he was already walking away, heading toward his tent. He ducked briefly inside, then reemerged carrying his pack. “River!”
“What?” He approached the yak, pausing every few steps as if trying to anticipate an attack. The beast didn’t even raise her head—she seemed to be sound asleep.
I hurried after him. When I caught up, I grabbed his arm and wrenched him around to face me. “What are you doing?”
“You know what I’m doing,” he said, looking surprised. “What I came here to do. Fetch the emperor’s talisman.”
I sputtered. “You can’t climb Raksha alone!”
“What do you suggest? I won’t ask you to come with me, Kamzin. Not after all that’s happened.”
I stared at him. “So I’m just supposed to turn around and go home?”
He removed one of the satchels from the yak’s load, checked it, then slung it over his shoulder. “Why not? I know why you’re here. You want to be an explorer, to have great adventures. Well, you’ve had a great adventure, haven’t you? And I promise that if I ever make it back to the Three Cities, the emperor will know your name. You’ll be celebrated at court, with your pick of the best expeditions that will take you to the farthest reaches of the Empire. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
I stared at him. He stood before me, offering casually what I had dreamed of my entire life. The breeze stirred his tahrskin chuba. I had gazed at it so often, so often imagined wearing one just like it, the feel and movement of it.
It was what I wanted. And yet—
“If anything goes wrong—” I began.
“If anything goes wrong, I have Azar-at. He’s very reliable.”
I shook my head. I could think of a hundred words for Azar-at, and “reliable” wasn’t one of them. The idea of abandoning River to that creature, whether he had asked for it or not, was too awful to contemplate.
“I’ve warned you before about trusting me,” he said, and his voice had no levity in it now. “You see why. I lied to you. I would do it again, to complete the mission. It’s the most important thing in the world to me. I must succeed, no matter the cost.”
“You think I don’t understand that?” I glared at him. “Azmiri overlooks the Amarin Valley, the path to the Nightwood. If the witches get their powers back, what would stop them from attacking my village, my family? Will the emperor’s armies be able to defend us against creatures that can take any form, or conceal themselves in a hundred ways? Aimo died because of them—they’re the reason she came with us.” I lowered my voice, suddenly fierce. “I won’t let her die for nothing.”
And I won’t let you die either.
He gazed into the shadows. I noticed, suddenly, that Azar-at was there, standing just behind him. Had he been there all along, watching us?
“Kamzin.” He took my hand, drawing me toward him. “If you’re truly determined to come with me, I won’t argue with you. I’d lose—I know you well enough by now to realize that. Besides, I—I don’t really want to leave you behind. But please consider this carefully.”
“I have.” I stepped closer, so that my face was only inches from his. “I don’t do anything halfway. Besides, I’m the better climber.”
He laughed then, a familiar sound, wild and twisting. Somehow, in spite of everything, I felt a stab of excitement. I remembered the Elder of Jangsa’s words. He had said I sought danger, even reveled in it. He had also said I would succeed—though not in a way I would expect.
I thought of Aimo. Was that what he had meant? A success shadowed by sorrow and loss? Or something else entirely?
“Get your pack,” River said. “Let’s begin.”