A SOB ESCAPED me. I pressed my face into the mountain. My cheeks were wet with tears that dripped from my chin and onto the rock, where they froze instantly, glistening.
Keep going, some small part of me said. You’re not finished. But I couldn’t keep going. I could barely breathe.
My foot slipped, and the pain in my ankle wrenched me back to myself. I remembered where I was—at the summit of Mount Raksha, in a city of shadow.
Stay calm, the voice said. Just a little longer. Then you can fall apart. Then you can rest.
The tears didn’t stop, but they slowed—enough for me to see my way. Because of my ankle, I was forced to climb with a sort of hopping motion, as dangerous as it was tiring. The rock was nowhere near as high as anything I had recently climbed—if it had been back in Azmiri, I would have laughed at it. But by the time I reached the top, I was so exhausted I could barely stand.
I wiped my face—the tears had partially frozen, covering my cheeks in a lacework of ice. I reattached the witch bell to the string of kinnika and dropped them in the snow. I couldn’t look at them—I couldn’t think about what I had done.
River was gone, but that didn’t mean the danger was past. The binding spell would break, if not today, then tomorrow, or a year from now. It made no difference. When it broke, the Empire would surely fall, and Azmiri with it.
I had to find the witch king’s bones.
The shadow tower loomed before me, wavering ever so slightly in the breeze. It was hard to believe it had ever had a practical function, even when it wasn’t terrifyingly shapeless—it was windowless, and barely broad enough for a person to stand in. Perhaps a monument?
But a monument to what? I scanned the ledge. In front of me, it sloped down, toward a sheer drop of thousands of feet. I could see Raksha’s neighboring mountain, which River and I had named Aimo, ensconced in cloud—it was higher than Azmiri, but below where I stood now. The land fell away, crumbling, its decay hastened by endless cycles of wind and snow. Jutting out from the rocky earth was the edge of a box.
A coffin.
I staggered forward, ignoring the dangerous slope and the expanse beyond it. I tried to pull on it—the wood was so ancient that it seemed to splinter in my hands, and the box remained stubbornly stuck in the mountainside. Changing tacks, I scrabbled at the frozen ground, managing to pry up a sheet of ice that held the box locked in place. Finally, the soil shifted, and I pulled the coffin free.
I stared at it, hardly daring to move. Inside were the bones of an ancient witch king. How could I think about touching them? How could I even think about opening his coffin?
As I sat there, the wind seemed to whisper in my ears. The shadow tower—had it moved? Was it closer to me now?
I shook off my fears. I was here, at long last, and I had to do this. Still, a strange sorrow tugged at me, at the notion of disturbing the rest of an ancient king, witch or no. River’s ancestor.
“Forgive me,” I whispered, and wrenched the heavy lid back.
It skidded sideways, landing in the snow with a dull thud. Swallowing, I gazed down at the skeleton.
It was paler than moonlight, and so fragile it looked liable to turn to dust if touched. Any clothes it had worn had long since disintegrated. The bones had a faint sheen, a glow that seemed to emanate from within.
Apart from this, there was nothing to identify it as a witch. The skeleton could have belonged to an ordinary man, if ordinary men received burials in shadow cities thousands of feet in the sky.
I was pondering what to do next when I heard the black bell sound. I turned slowly, my heart heavy with dread.
Behind me, close enough I could reach out to touch its smoke fur, stood Azar-at, tail wagging, a doggish grin on its face. Clutched in its jaws was the string of kinnika. The black bell swayed back and forth, though there was no wind to move it.
Ching, ching, ching.
“Azar-at,” I said hoarsely, “give those to me.”
Should not abandon power, brave one, the fire demon said. Should keep it close, keep it safe, or others will come and claim.
I lunged after the creature, but it retreated toward the mountainside—with every step, just out of my reach. I finally stopped, gasping, my ankle throbbing.
Suddenly, Ragtooth was there, a growling, spitting bundle of fur. He launched himself at the fire demon. Azar-at, startled by his ferocity, fell back a step, dropping the kinnika in the snow. The fox nipped at the creature’s toes, forcing it back another step.
“Ragtooth!” I shouted. “Get back!”
But Ragtooth was impervious to my commands. And Azar-at, to my horror, seemed to be quite over its surprise at the attack. Its form wavered, dissolving, and for a moment it became a smoke cloud with only the hint of a hideous, grinning face.
Ragtooth darted toward the kinnika, ignoring my shouts. They were inches from his grasp when the fire demon shifted position again, appearing at the fox’s side. Ragtooth reared, teeth bared, but Azar-at was faster. The creature snatched Ragtooth in its mouth, shaking him from side to side like a ragdoll. Then it threw him against the mountainside, so hard a piece of rock shattered into a cloud of dust. The fox tumbled into the snow, his back bent at a strange angle, and was still.
Ragtooth.
It was impossible to comprehend it. I fell to my knees. Any moment now, Ragtooth would sit up and shake himself. He was hurt, that was all. He would rise again, and everything would be fine.
But he didn’t move.
A guttural sound tore from my throat. Something was choking me, something inside me that clawed its way to my chest. I couldn’t look away from Ragtooth’s motionless form. In some distant corner of my awareness, I knew that Azar-at had taken up the kinnika again, and was gliding away, toward some dark shape that appeared at the edge of my sight.
“We’ll take it from here, Kamzin,” River said.
I whirled around and screamed.
River was an image from a nightmare. Blood soaked one side of his head, running in rivulets down his face. His right arm was angled oddly. The bone stuck out above his elbow, piercing his chuba. I felt sick.
“River—” I choked out.
“Concerned?” Despite his state, his expression was still eerily cold. “Don’t worry, I’ll heal soon enough. As soon as I have my rightful powers—which won’t be long now. Ah—thank you, Azar-at.”
The fire demon dropped the kinnika into his hand. Wincing as the witch bell sang out, River turned and flung them over the side of the mountain.
I let out a wordless cry. River didn’t even pause. He bent over the bones of the witch king.
Shakily, my ankle screaming in protest, I took a step. Then another. Then, suddenly, I was running headlong across the ground, which sloped downward, toward the terrifying drop. I plowed into him, knocking him over.
We rolled together. I knew that the empty air was close, so close, but I was heedless of the danger. I had to stop him. Somehow, I had to. When finally the motion ceased, I was on top of him, pressing his shoulders to the ground.
“Kamzin,” he said.
I realized I was crying again. I couldn’t look at him. I fell sideways, and he rose, his fingers brushing my hair. I couldn’t stop him—I couldn’t even lift my head.
“For what it’s worth,” he murmured in my ear, “I’m sorry.”
“River, please—” But he was already turning away. He bent over the bones and seemed to run his hand over the skull without touching it. Something unreadable flitted across his face. Then he turned to Azar-at.
“Let’s end this.” He raised a hand over the bones and closed his eyes.
The bones seemed to flicker, small shadows flitting over them like birds. Then, to my horror, they began to move. The dead king seemed to raise himself into a half-sitting position, one arm darting out as if for balance. River raised his hand again, and the flickering, rippling apparition intensified. The shadow spread over River and the king, then spilled up into the sky, where it pooled and pulsed like a spreading wound.
The world shattered.
The ground heaved, pitching me sideways. I would have tumbled right off the cliff if my instincts hadn’t kicked in, causing me to slam my hand into the earth like the blade of an ax. The lid of the coffin slid down the slope and into the abyss of sky. The rumbling grew. Boulders shook loose from the mountain and tumbled into the sky, or rolled through the witch city, tearing its towers apart. My vision flickered; shadows darted everywhere, or perhaps the world had turned to shadow, I didn’t know. There came the distant roar of avalanche after avalanche. It was as if the mountain was tearing itself apart, and all I could do was wait for it to fall out from beneath me, and leave me adrift in the clouds.
Then, after what could have been seconds or hours, the mountain stopped roiling, and the shadows cleared enough for me to see. River was crouched on the snow, his hands pressed against his head.
He seemed to be muttering something, but the words were garbled and unintelligible. The air rippled around him, as if the shadows were descending upon his body, consuming him. He let out a cry of agony, and then another. I pressed my hands against my ears—even after the mountain’s terrible roar, this sound was so raw, so agonized, that I could not bear it.
Finally, River was silent, his breath hissing against the snow. Azar-at approached him and sniffed his head. He sat up slowly.
Are you all right?
“Yes.” River sounded dazed. The strange rippling was gone. He stared down at his hands, as if seeing them for the first time. He began to laugh. It was his old laugh—and yet it was different, a darker version of the same color.
You smell of the wilds now, Azar-at said. Of forests and lakes and open skies. Of rock and earth and valley.
“Thank you, my friend.” Though River sounded exhausted, he was smiling. I could no longer see any sign of injury—no blood or broken bone. He stroked the fire demon’s muzzle. “According to the terms we agreed to, our contract is dissolved. I have my rightful powers now. And so do the others.”
Azar-at nuzzled his hand. I will miss you.
“Strangely enough, given how you have gnawed away at my soul, I feel the same.” He gave the fire demon’s ears one last scratch. “Good-bye.”
Good-bye, my friend.
River stood. He seemed to have changed in a way that was impossible for me to describe. There was a lightness about him—a grace and otherness. Though he still looked the same, it was somehow starkly clear, in a way that had not been quite visible before, that he was not human.
“River?” The tears were drying on my face. I felt hollowed out, a frozen, empty vessel.
He looked at me only once. Then his gaze drifted past, and his eyes closed, his expression flooded with what could only be described as joy, pure as sunlight or rain. It happened suddenly, too sudden for human eyes to follow. One moment, River was there; the next, a black leopard stood in his place, its long fur ruffled in the wind, half shadow and half flesh.
The leopard shook itself. The sunlight made its coat gleam with fire and copper. It stretched, then set off at a run, heading toward the cliff’s edge. As if delighted by the sensation, it ran even faster. It leaped down the side of the mountain, its claws gripping effortlessly at the nearly sheer slopes. I followed it as far as I could, until it rounded the curve of the mountainside. Then, in a moment shorter than a breath, it was gone.