I WOKE AT first light. A crow was squawking somewhere in the distance, fracturing the peace of the morning. I had been dreaming of one of Chirri’s lessons—I was hunched over an enormous basket, separating ripe winterberries from green ones. The task would have been easier had I been able to master the spell Chirri had given me—the ripe berries should have risen to the top of the basket, but instead, they flew up and pelted me in the face. While I wiped the stinging juice from my eyes, Chirri harangued me for my incompetence, her voice growing sharper and sharper until it made my ears ache.
As my eyes adjusted to my surroundings, I remembered that Chirri was miles away, and I had no lessons to attend. Muttering a prayer of thankfulness, I staggered to my feet, stripping off my old clothes and swapping them for clean ones from my pack. I moved as quickly and quietly as I could, trying to ignore the feeling of awkwardness. I was used to having Tem nearby when I slept—during his father’s drinking bouts, he would often spend the night on a pile of mats in my bedroom. But sharing a small shelter in the wilderness, with no privacy to be sought anywhere, was an entirely different experience, and I found myself wishing we had been able to bring separate tents.
Ragtooth was gone, which didn’t surprise me. He always appeared and disappeared at will. He would no doubt follow us when he felt like it, though I half hoped, for his sake, that he had gone home to Azmiri.
There were no sounds of movement from the others. I breathed a small sigh of relief—I wanted to be the first to rise. I had decided that I would make every effort, every day, to impress River with my skill and determination. I would be the first to wake and the last to bed. I would not complain, even if my shoulders burned from the weight of my pack and my feet felt ready to fall off. I would be the image of a daring explorer. I would be formidable.
My head nodded as I bent over my boots. Cursing, I forced myself to stand, dashing the sleep from my eyes. This part of my plan would take some getting used to. I was not accustomed to getting up early.
My hair was hopelessly knotted again, but I didn’t bother to wrestle with it. Tossing my chuba over my shoulders, I stepped out into the chill morning air.
There I froze. In the faint light of dawn, I could make out a line of tracks leading from the scraggly brush at the base of Mount Imja past my tent.
I bent down, brushing my fingers over the markings. They were like nothing I had seen before. It was as if their maker had half stepped, half glided through our camp. My heart in my throat, I followed the trail past Norbu’s tent, and over a little rise in the ground, where it stopped.
Directly outside River’s tent.
“River?” I called quietly. No response. “River!”
The tent parted, and River poked his head out. His hair stuck up like an angry cat’s. “What?”
I let out a sigh of relief. “I thought the bear had eaten you.”
“What bear?” Dargye shuffled out of his tent, looking nervous. “When did you see a bear?”
“I heard it, last night.”
“Don’t worry, Dargye,” River said. “There was no bear. Norbu cast his warding spells carefully.”
“I certainly did.” Norbu emerged from his own tent. He was still tying his chuba, but was otherwise fully dressed. “I have never before allowed such a creature to enter our camp. Any bear that came within smelling distance of us would have become disoriented and turned around.”
“Then it was something else,” I persisted. “What do you make of these tracks?”
Norbu and Dargye bent to examine them. River had disappeared back into his tent.
“Curious.” The lines in Norbu’s brow deepened. “It looks like the trail of a snake.”
“It was definitely not a snake. I heard it.”
“River and I have encountered beasts of all shapes and sizes in our travels,” Norbu said. “As the personal shaman of the Royal Explorer, I have some experience—”
“I heard it snuffling,” I said slowly. “Was it a snake with a cold?”
The shaman shrugged, seeming to lose interest. His gaze wandered to the fire Aimo was waking from the embers. “As I said, my warding spells have never failed. I’m sure it was nothing to worry about.” He moved away, Dargye trailing in his wake. I stared after him, speechless.
River emerged, running a hand through his hair. The green of his tunic made his gold-brown eye gleam, while the other seemed blacker by comparison.
“I have all my toes,” he announced. “I counted. Nothing took a nibble in the night.”
“Is Norbu really the greatest shaman in the Three Cities?” I said.
“Well . . .” River paused. “Why do you ask?”
“For one, Tem said he was having trouble with a basic wayfinding spell yesterday. And those talismans he wears are ridiculous. Gilded monkey teeth? Polished emeralds? They’re useless.”
River was gazing up at the sky, hands in his pockets, as if checking the weather. “Are they?”
“Yes.” My voice hardened. “Chirri taught me that much.” Shamanic magic required talismans, which channeled the shaman’s power into spells. Most shamans brought a supply of talismans wherever they went, as different talismans were conducive to different spells. Bone talismans tended to suit healing spells, while copper and iron were for warding or protective spells. Talismans carved from wood could influence or even control the elements—some could summon fire, for example. Not all talismans were equal in strength, though, and all weakened with age. Some were fakes—sold by unscrupulous merchants to wealthy villagers for appearances rather than power. These were usually made of gold or precious stones, which seemed to make up the bulk of Norbu’s supply.
“Greatness is overrated,” River said. “Norbu is one of my oldest friends. He’s a trustworthy man.”
“As in we can trust him to protect us, or we can trust him to lead us over a cliff?”
River let out a short laugh. “Shall we leave cliff navigation to your shaman, Kamzin?”
“I’m going to get Tem to look at these tracks,” I said, turning. “He’ll know a spell that can identify them.”
“What tracks?” River said, and then, before I could stop him, scuffed them rapidly with his boot.
“River!” I cried, grabbing his arm. But it was too late—all traces of the mysterious markings had been obliterated.
“You worry too much,” he said. “You’ll never make a good explorer if you’re always troubling yourself over things that don’t matter. Though I have to admit, I’m flattered by your concern. What would you have done if I had been eaten by a wild animal?”
I glared at him. I was still holding his arm, and released it hurriedly. “After I finished celebrating, you mean?”
He began to laugh. I left him to it and went to collect my breakfast. I hunched over my bowl, muttering to myself. Tem appeared moments later, and gave me a strange look.
“What’s wrong now?”
“Oh, just River,” I said, taking a vicious chomp out of a piece of dried yak meat. “I think he’s trying to drive me as mad as he is.”
Tem, for some reason, looked irritated at this. “Right. I’m sure that’s what he’s doing.”
I finished my breakfast and stared mournfully into the empty bowl. “I can’t believe I thought these rations would be enough.”
Tem, who had barely taken a bite of his sampa cake, handed it to me. “Here.”
I pushed it away. “You need to keep up your strength.” Tem still looked tired from yesterday’s hike. I hoped and prayed that his body would adjust to the demands of the journey.
He shook his head, coughing. “I don’t like how Dargye makes it. Too salty.”
“I think at this point I would eat dirt if it wouldn’t make me sick.”
We were packed and ready to depart within the hour. I gave the yak one final inspection, checking that her straps were secure but not too tight, and that her hooves were in good condition. If the beast were to sustain an injury, it would be disastrous. I rubbed the base of her horns, and she grunted with pleasure.
“Did you see anything strange last night?” I murmured, stroking her hair, which had a silky texture and smelled like summer grass. She gazed at me with her large, mournful brown eyes, as if she knew the answer to my question, and it was very dark indeed. The shadows were deep around us, and would remain so until midday, in this land of sharp valleys and snowy peaks that scraped the sky. Shaking off my apprehension, I gave the yak’s lead a tug and we set out, the others falling into step behind us.
“Dare you to jump in,” Tem said after dinner the next night, our third since leaving Azmiri. We sat side by side, dipping our feet in the pool of glacial meltwater beside the rocky meadow that would be our campsite. We had made good time again, reaching our destination several hours before sunset. We could have pushed on toward tomorrow’s campsite, but I knew the opportunity for rest was more important. Not that I needed it—apart from a blister or two, I could have kept going all night—but the others did, particularly Tem.
I watched as he leaned forward to splash water across his bare chest. The droplets glinted against his skin, slipping between the planes of muscle and bone. I remembered who I was looking at, and glanced away, feeling vaguely guilty. It wasn’t that Tem lacked strength—he could lift a year-old calf without breaking a sweat, and I suspected that his already-muscular build would one day rival Dargye’s—but he wasn’t built for endurance. When we were ten, I convinced him to hike to Nila Lake, a glittering blue pool fed by the Karranak glacier. It was a six-hour, uphill journey, and halfway there Tem had one of his breathing attacks, so bad his lips turned gray. There had always been something wrong with his lungs, even when he was a baby. He took medicine now that Chirri prepared for him, and submitted himself weekly to her healing chants. It seemed to keep the attacks at bay, but he still tired more easily than other boys his age.
“Come on,” Tem said. “I bet you can’t touch the bottom.”
I shrugged, watching the water swirl and ripple around my feet, the chill soothing the blister forming on my left heel.
Tem bumped his shoulder against mine. “You’ve been distracted all day. What’s wrong? Is it Lusha?”
I gazed over the mountains, the here-and-there patches of melting snow, the meadow grass speckled with clover and blue poppies. “I thought we’d catch them by now.”
“They’re moving fast,” Tem said. “It makes sense. Mara wants to stay ahead of River and reach Raksha first.”
I glowered at those words. Lusha would not reach Raksha first. Every hour that passed made me more determined to catch up to them. I still didn’t know what I would do when we did—either hug her or shout at her, or grab her by the shoulders and shake her until her teeth rattled and she agreed to turn around.
I supposed I could do all three.
I dragged a stick across the damp soil. “I feel like I’m missing something.”
Tem nodded slowly. “I feel the same. It’s hard to believe Lusha would do something like this for gold, no matter how much Mara offered.”
I thought about the charts I had found in the observatory, Lusha’s mysterious notes. I’m trying to work something out.
“Mara wants River’s position,” I said. “Maybe he offered her something more than gold.”
“Like what?”
I shook my head, frustrated. “I don’t know.”
“So what do you want to do?”
Laughter floated toward us from the campfire, where the others were gathered. I gazed at them, and an idea occurred to me.
“I want to learn more about this mysterious talisman,” I said.
I rose, and Tem followed. But before he could take a step, he suddenly doubled over, coughing.
I touched his arm. “Are you all right?”
He nodded, clearing his throat. “Fine.”
“You don’t sound fine. Have you been taking Chirri’s medicine?”
“Yes.” He brushed me away. “Don’t worry, Kamzin, it’s nothing I haven’t dealt with before. What’s your plan?”
I frowned, unconvinced, but the look on Tem’s face told me that further argument would get us nowhere. I squinted at the sheer wall of rock that towered over the meadow. It was glacial stone, layered and crumbly. Rhododendrons poked up here and there from narrow shelves. A smile spread across my face.
“Kamzin?” Tem said warily.
I pulled my boots back on, ignoring the bits of grass stuck to my wet feet. Then I marched back to the fire.
He was sitting with his back to the flames, drinking butter tea and talking—of course talking—to Norbu in a low voice. His hair was damp from washing, and fell loosely against his forehead. He glanced up and smiled as he saw me approaching—a sudden, unguarded smile that struck me unexpectedly like a physical thing, making my steps falter.
“Kamzin,” River said, “would you like to join us?”
“No thanks,” I said. “Actually, I’m feeling restless. I thought that, since we’re nearing the Nightwood, I’d survey the area before dark. You can’t be too careful.”
“If you like,” he said. “But you shouldn’t go alone. I’ll come with you.”
That was too easy. I suppressed a smile.
“Thank you, River,” I said. Norbu winced. He didn’t like it when I used River’s name, but he couldn’t very well protest, if River didn’t. Norbu wasn’t a snob, I had decided, but he did like things to be done a certain way. He had a wife back in the Three Cities, a noblewoman, and usually that “certain way” of doing things was her way. He had already spent considerable breath instructing Aimo on the precise ratio of flour to water for making sampa cakes, and had twice dropped heavy hints in my presence regarding the correct way of addressing nobles, a subject on which his wife was apparently an expert. I doubted that Norbu saw his wife as often as he would like, given how much time he spent tramping around in the wilderness with River, and his comments would almost be endearing if they weren’t so frequent—or so frequently aimed at me.
“We’ll need to find higher ground,” I said. “You can’t see much from here.”
River raised an eyebrow. “What do you suggest?”
I glanced over my shoulder at the sheer mountain face.
“Kamzin,” Tem muttered.
I shot him a look. I needed to get River away from the others, where I could interrogate him without being interrupted. Also, he was less intimidating when we were alone—the others, particularly Norbu and Dargye, acted as if he were the emperor himself, scrambling to fetch him things and hanging on his every word. Even though I found their behavior ridiculous, it was catching.
“What do you say?” There was a dare in my voice. River’s smile took on a wicked quality.
“I say let’s go.”
“Dyonpo,” Norbu began, “are you certain that—”
“We won’t be gone long, my friend,” River said.
Norbu bowed his head, frowning slightly in my direction. River shrugged on his tahrskin chuba and followed me to the base of the rock face. The others had fallen silent. I could feel their eyes on us. I could also feel Tem’s glare boring into my back.
“Would you like to go first?” River said. He gazed up at the mountainside with a calculating look on his face. It was a look I understood well. I felt a shiver of anticipation.
“Why don’t I shadow you?” I said.
His gaze met mine. “Is that a challenge?”
“Maybe.”
He laughed, and I couldn’t suppress a grin.
“All right,” he said. “Challenge accepted. You copy me on the way up, and I follow you on the way down.”
“Deal,” I said. I was almost hopping up and down with excitement, my worries all but forgotten. I knew I was going to win the game.
River cocked his head to one side, considering. Then, smoothly, he grabbed hold of a crack in the rock face, dug his toe into a root, and pulled himself onto a ledge.
I watched him closely, memorizing every move he made. It was clear almost immediately that River was like no one else I had climbed with. He climbed as easily as most people walked, moving with an almost bored grace. I found myself almost forgetting to note the route he took—merely watching him, my mouth half-open.
He paused perhaps twenty feet above the ground. Hooking his arm around a rock, he leaned back and called, “Coming?”
I started. Taking a deep breath, I stepped up to the rock face, and began to climb.
We moved swiftly up the mountainside. River paused several times to ensure I was keeping pace. In fact, I could have climbed much faster. I wondered if he was taking it easy to test me. The route he had chosen was straightforward enough, at least for me, though some of the moves he made were tricky, surprising. Creeping sideways along a narrow ledge, holding on with only your fingertips. Navigating an overhang upside down, your feet above your head.
As we climbed, I gradually became aware of the sound of rushing water. There were falls nearby, I was certain of it—somewhere beyond the curve of the mountainside, where I could make out a narrow chasm filled with boulders and trees. River climbed sideways along the mountain until he reached it. He paused, and I caught up quickly.
The chasm wasn’t overly deep—we were only halfway level with the pines rising from the mountain rubble below—but it was wide, several times the span of my reach. The other side was a slippery mess, coated with moss wet from the spray of the hidden waterfall. It floated toward us in icy clouds, dampening my face. Through the spray, I could just make out a narrow ledge on the wall opposite, slightly higher up the rock face.
River glanced over his shoulder. I couldn’t read his expression, but thought I saw the flash of a smile. I smiled back, because I knew that he was stuck, and I had won. I shifted position slightly, preparing to make way when he began to lower himself down the ridge.
Instead, he turned away from me and leaped.
Leaped across the impossible gap, or perhaps flew—I could see little difference. He grabbed hold of a knuckle of stone, wedged his foot against the rock, and pulled himself onto the narrow ledge in a single movement as fluid as a cat’s.
I stared at him. He called something, but the crashing of the water winnowed it to “Care—hold—ice—zin.” He sidestepped along the rock face and disappeared into the fine mist beyond. There was no doubt in his mind, apparently, that I would follow.
“River!” I shouted.
I climbed to where he had been standing and squinted across the chasm. Now that I was closer, I could see there were, in fact, several decent handholds—narrow, but nothing I couldn’t handle.
Did he say “ice”? I saw no sign of it, but that didn’t mean anything in this deep shade. I gritted my teeth. Normally, I wouldn’t have bothered to attempt what River had just done; I would have climbed down into the chasm, and then up the other side. Or, more likely, turned back. But if I did either of those things, River would win.
I would not let River win.
I took a long, slow breath and took my hands off the rock face, lowering my body into a crouch. A stillness settled over me, a feeling that was like hovering at the edge of sleep, but also its opposite, for everything was heightened. Then I sprang into the air.
I caught the handhold. But my gasp of relief was cut short—my hands began to slide slowly, painfully, down the rock.
He said “ice.”
Somehow, I managed to jam my fingertips into a crack. Shaken by the near miss, I pushed myself up to the ledge somewhat less gracefully than River, and then stood there for a long moment, my breath hissing against the rock.
Once I had caught my breath, I brushed my hair back from my face and composed my features into a nonchalant expression. The ledge broadened up ahead as the sound of the waterfall intensified. I could feel it reverberate through the mountain and up my legs as I walked. Where was River? The chill mist was sharp against my skin. Then the rock ahead folded back, and I stopped.
The waterfall thundered down, down, down, into a pool clutched between rock walls. The water was blue, glacial, half-frozen. Impossibly long icicles hung down from the mountainside, glinting in the sunlight, and rainbows draped themselves across the water like cobwebs. I stared in awe.
River, crouched at the edge of the cliff, turned his head slightly and tapped a finger against his lips. It was too late—at the sound of my approaching footsteps, the dragons he had been watching spread their wings and took flight. They were feral, I knew immediately. Feral dragons are smaller than domestic ones, barely the size of my two fists stuck together, and their lights were usually colorless. It was a family—two adults and four offspring. The baby dragons bobbed clumsily a few times, chirping, as they followed their parents up the waterfall to settle on some distant ledge.
A cloud of mist rose between me and River. I stepped through it, blinking, and he grabbed my hand.
“Careful,” he said. “There’s a lot of—”
“Ice,” I snapped.
He laughed. I laughed too, surprising myself. It felt like a reflex. I was still amazed. It wasn’t that I had never done anything as difficult, or dangerous. But I had never climbed with someone like River, who seemed to understand the mountain on an intuitive level that went beyond ordinary senses. The way I understood it.
We made our way along the ledge to the nearest fall of water, where we washed the dirt from our hands and took turns tilting our heads back to drink. We kept hold of each other, for safety, though River never seemed to put a foot wrong, and his eyesight in that world of mist and shadow seemed sharper than mine. I nudged him slightly as he drank, and he stumbled, the water trickling over his head and plastering his hair down on one side. He gave me another wicked smile. He tugged my arm as we clambered over a boulder, so that I had to stab my foot into a tiny crevice to arrest my fall. I half scowled, half grinned at him. A challenge hung between us like electricity.
My left hand was cold from the waterfall, but my right, pressed against River’s, was warm, almost hot. His palm was as rough and callused as mine. He did not attempt to hold me with his left hand, the one with the missing fingertips, as if he thought it would bother me. To show him that it didn’t, I made a point of reaching for it myself.
We settled on a ledge overlooking the meadow and the valley, with the waterfall at our backs. I could see the others—small, blobby dots far below—but I didn’t think they could see us.
I gazed over the landscape, exultant. I had traveled farther in the last two days than many villagers had in their lifetimes. The days had been grueling, certainly—but they had also brought moments of exquisite wonder unlike anything I had ever experienced, a wonder so complete I felt like an ember stoked to life by a gust of wind.
This is what being a real explorer would feel like. Every day would be like this.
“I’m not easily surprised,” River said, “but you keep surprising me.”
I swung my legs back and forth, equal parts tired and content. “I surprise you?”
“I never thought someone like you could exist.” He watched me with a half smile on his face. “A girl from a tiny village many explorers have never even heard of, with greater skill than most of them will ever possess.”
I flushed. Something in his gaze made my heart speed up and froze my tongue.
Get a grip, I lectured myself. Did I want River to think I was some delicate child, overcome by a compliment?
“I’m sure you’ve met girls like me,” I said, keeping my voice light. “You’ve traveled from one end of the Empire to the other.”
“Yes, I have,” he said, in a tone of quiet wonderment that clearly negated my first statement and deepened the color in my cheeks. We were still holding hands—for safety, I repeated in my head. An impulsive urge to move closer to him battled with an urge to pull away, and ended in a stalemate. I stayed put.
This is River Shara, I lectured myself. Not some village boy you can flirt with on Kunigai Lookout. It didn’t matter what he looked like. It didn’t matter that I felt strangely comfortable in his presence—more comfortable, in a way, than I did even with Tem. He was the Royal Explorer, and second in power to the emperor himself. I dropped his hand.
River, to my relief, seemed unaware of my confusion. He leaned against the rock. “Perhaps I shouldn’t be so surprised, given your mother’s reputation. Did you come here with her?”
I flinched. “No. We—we traveled through the forest.”
As I said it, a memory flitted through my mind. Lusha and me, racing each other through the trees. I had been all knees and elbows then, tripping over my own feet at every opportunity. Our mother laughing her booming laugh—the mountains seemed alive with it.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“It’s all right.”
He looked away, his eyes hooded as he gazed over the mountains. “My mother died a year ago.”
It was the first time I had heard River speak of his family. He spoke of other subjects freely enough, and perhaps that was why I hadn’t noticed.
“What was she like?” I said. “Noble and elegant, I suppose.”
For some reason, River laughed at this. He seemed to consider. “She was . . . respected.”
I examined him. He met my gaze, and the invisible thread that had been forming between us since the night of the banquet gave a thrum. I looked away, feeling almost drunk. I forced myself to focus.
“River,” I said quietly, “what is this expedition about? And please don’t tell me the emperor commanded you to keep silent. I find it hard to believe you care about following orders.”
He smiled. “Everyone at court cares about following orders. The emperor doesn’t generally issue requests.”
“Well, we’re not at court, are we? And the emperor is hundreds of miles away.”
He seemed to consider me. “What do you know about the witches?”
“The witches?” I blinked in surprise. “The usual stories. They devour human hearts and steal children from their beds. They cast spells to make crops wither and animals sicken, solely for their own amusement. They move like shadow and are hungry as fire.” Hearts of shadow, eyes of flame, the old rhyme went. None escape who witches claim.
“I’m not talking about stories,” he said, plucking at stalks of grass. “What do you know to be fact?”
I frowned. “They attacked Azmiri once—burned half the village to the ground. They attacked other villages too, and summoned floods to the farmlands of the delta. They wanted to starve the emperor’s armies.”
“Do you know why?”
“Everyone knows why,” I said, annoyed by his tone—clearly River thought the people of Azmiri knew nothing of the wider world. The witches despised the emperor. He and his ancestors had expanded the Empire far beyond the southern delta, building cities out of villages and villages from barren foothills. The witches, either out of spite or fear, took every chance to attack the emperor’s soldiers. Dozens of patrols disappeared, as if snuffed out in the night, leaving no trace that they had ever been. Terror of the witches spread through the Empire until, finally, the emperor acted. His shamans bound the witches’ powers, trapped them in their human forms, and drove them beyond the Arya Mountains into the dark forests of the Nightwood.
“A lot of people don’t know,” River said, “that the emperor himself cast the binding spell. He holds great power, though these days he primarily uses it to stave off his own mortality. He recently celebrated his two hundred and thirty-first birthday. Not bad for a man who doesn’t look a day over twenty.”
I furrowed my brow. “Father says that’s just a tale told to frighten the emperor’s enemies. That all the emperors since Lozong the First have merely taken his name when they assumed power.”
River let out a short laugh. “Azmiri is a very long way from the Three Cities, isn’t it? I assure you, it’s the truth—I was at the party.”
“So what?” I said, disliking the reminder of how little I knew about River’s world. “What do the witches have to do with any of this?”
“Everything. Many centuries ago, long before the Empire, the witches lived in a great city that they built in the sky. A beautiful and terrible place, inaccessible to ordinary people. No one knows exactly where this city was—it’s possible even the witches have forgotten.”
My heart thudded in my ears as I understood the significance of his words.
“Raksha,” I whispered. “You think it’s on Raksha.”
River rolled several pebbles in his hand, tossing them one after another over the edge. “I believe so. I’ve looked everywhere else. It’s said that this city is where the witches left a powerful talisman. The emperor needs that talisman.”
“Why?”
He tossed another pebble. Far below, I saw a branch shiver. “Because the binding spell has begun to weaken.”
“To weaken?” My voice trailed off as I thought back to my lessons with Chirri. There was one truth about magic that formed the foundation of everything she taught me, so fundamental that it was rarely mentioned, rarely thought about. Like everything else in the world, magic decayed. It was why Chirri had to recast the spells holding up the stone fences on the south side of Azmiri every few years. I had never thought about the binding spell that way—like an old fence that would crumble if ignored.
River nodded. He rubbed a hand absently through his hair, which only exaggerated the part that was always sticking out. “All spells weaken. Even the most powerful. And if the binding spell fails—”
He didn’t finish his sentence. He didn’t have to. The witches had terrorized Azmiri and the other villages for years before the emperor put a stop to it. What revenge would they take when they regained their powers?
“So the emperor wants this talisman to repair the spell?” I said. “Do the witches know?”
River shrugged. “They may know of the talisman’s existence, but they would have no way of knowing the emperor’s plans.”
“They must realize he would do anything to prevent them from getting their powers back,” I said. “If they find us—if they capture us—”
“They won’t.”
“We’re walking straight into their lands,” I said. “How can you be so certain we’ll be safe?”
“I didn’t say I was certain.” River looked at me. “I’m never certain of anything.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but stopped myself. I was shaking—the sweat from the climb had dried on my skin, and in the twilight shadow of the mountain, the chill was sharp. I watched the tents far below, the flickering glow of the fire Dargye and Aimo had built. Was it safe for us to keep the fire going? I wondered suddenly. We weren’t in the witches’ lands yet, but that didn’t mean they weren’t watching from the shadows, or some hidden ledge high above.
“Should I not have told you the truth?” River said.
I drew my chuba tighter around me. “Yes. I—I’m glad I know.”
But as the sky darkened and the wind began to moan over the peaks, I wasn’t so sure. What River had said was almost too big to comprehend. Could the safety of the Empire—its very existence—truly hinge on this expedition? And if so, that meant that Azmiri would also be in grave danger if we didn’t succeed.
My fear grew, deepening like the shadow that surrounded us. Yet within the fear was a flicker of something else. A fierce determination. I wouldn’t let the witches threaten Azmiri. If I could help River reach the summit, I could save the village, and the Empire with it.
My heart began to pound. I saw myself returning triumphant, and telling Father what I had done. I pictured his face—along with the faces of all my relatives—when they realized that I had helped the Royal Explorer defeat the greatest threat they had ever known.
“You understand, now, why this mission is so important,” River said. “More important than glory. More important than a title.”
His words brought me back to the present. “Then you don’t care if Mara reaches Raksha first?”
River launched another pebble. For a moment, I thought he wasn’t going to answer.
“Mara won’t get there first,” he said. “I will.”
I didn’t know what to make of this. For a long moment, we sat in silence. I knew that we should go—soon it would be too dark to see. But I made no move to rise, and neither did River.
“Can I ask you a question?” he said.
I breathed into my hands. My heart was still beating too quickly. “All right.”
“Who is Tem?”
It was such an unexpected question that I was startled into silence. I gazed at him, but his expression revealed only mild curiosity. “What do you mean? You know who he is.”
“He seems very important to you.”
“Well . . .” I was strangely tongue-tied. “He’s my best friend.”
“Is that all?”
“Yes.” I paused. “I mean—yes. Why do you want to know?”
He wasn’t looking at me. “I don’t. I was just curious.”
His voice was light, but something in it belied his words. I opened my mouth, then closed it again. I looked away too, and we both stared at opposite ends of the mountain.
“We should go,” I said, as the silence continued to hover awkwardly between us. “It’s getting dark.”
It felt strange taking River’s hand again, but there wasn’t much choice. Ice was forming on the rocks, and it was difficult to see the way back. I wished we had thought to bring one of the dragons. They were too far away to hear my whistle.
We came to the ledge where we had jumped. The gap seemed narrower from this side, less intimidating, but perhaps that was only a trick of the light. River’s hand tightened around mine, his knuckles brushing my hip. He was close enough that I could smell the campfire smoke on his skin, entwined with his own clean scent, which reminded me of a forest plant I couldn’t place—something that bloomed after nightfall, when the rest of the world slumbered. For some reason, I said, “We were.”
“What?”
“Tem and I. We were. We tried being—together, for a while. It didn’t work.”
“Why not?”
I shrugged. I didn’t really know the answer—or at least, I didn’t know how to put it into words. I never had. “We’re just better this way. As friends.”
River gazed into the chasm. He may have been calculating the distance, or lost in thought—in the darkness, I couldn’t see his face. He released my hand, and I saw his smile flash like a spark.
“Your turn,” he said.