He couldn’t sleep. Sephone seemed to be having another nightmare. Going over to her, he gently laid a hand on her shoulder. “Sephone.”

She jerked awake, confusion on her face.

“You were dreaming.”

She blinked, glanced around at the others as they slumbered, then focused on him. “Did I wake you?” she said apologetically, sitting up on her bedroll.

He shook his head, then sat beside her. “Did you never wish you could perform the mind-bleeding on yourself?” he asked her.

“Always,” she answered. “And you? Do you ever wish for courage?”

“Always.” He smiled. “Perhaps it is the lot of an alter to envy the gifts he gives to others.”

“That is the nature of a true gift, is it not? To give something away is to deny it for the self, to share without any expectation of return.” Her voice grew husky. “It is easy to accept. A far harder task, though, for the person from whom it exacts its cost.”

“Aye,” he replied, thinking of Cass and his sorrow, Sephone and what he would ask of her once they’d found the Reliquary. What would it cost her to take his past from him? Would he be able to save her using the ancient relic? To bestow any gift was to weaken the giver. What if the Reliquary worked the same way?

“You seem troubled, Dorian.”

“Nay, I’m afraid.” But he chuckled. “A fine thing, coming from a calor.”

“It takes a special type of courage to admit weakness rather than pretend strength,” Sephone observed.

“I think I would know if I felt brave.”

“You say that like courage is merely a feeling.” Her voice wavered. “I can remove the pain of others, but do naught about my own. Perhaps that is the point of the gifts. To show us our weaknesses, reminding us we are not as powerful as we think we are.”

She was right, of course. A bonesetter could do naught for his broken arm. A metus could still feel fear, just as a calor could feel his lack of courage. Cass was forever cursed to be revealing the truth, though he had a tumultuous relationship with it himself. And Dorian himself could learn the intricacies of another tongue and still have no understanding of the language of his heart.

“Have you ever wished you were ordinary?”

“Always,” she responded immediately.

“We are of an accord, then.” His light laughter gave way to seriousness. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you.”

He felt her stiffen. He didn’t want to lose this easy camaraderie he had with her. Perhaps he could share a lesser secret.

“You’ve seen the wall in my mind, yes? And you know I can feel your presence.”

At once, she relaxed. “Aye.”

“It was the same for my daughter, Emmy. She first entered my mind when she was only a babe, little more than six months old. Before she could even talk. When I realized she was a mem, I tried to help her hone her abilities. I have some empathic ability of my own—a very weak third gift. It is sketchy and unreliable, but sometimes I can feel the emotions of others. When I was a boy, I would use my calor gift when I felt someone was afraid. Later, when Emmy was a toddler, I learned how to build the wall in my mind.”

She remained silent for a long time, but there was a smile in her voice as she said, “Is that all? No fourth or fifth gift I am yet to be made aware of?”

He held in a breath. “That’s all.”

“You’re a man of many secrets, Dorian.”

“Well, now you are privy to them all.” All except one. His conscience squeezed at the reminder.

“You can make it up to me by teaching me Lethean,” she suddenly declared.

He could feel her excitement at the prospect. All he could detect in himself was relief. If this was the way to keep her close to him, he would gladly do it.

“I must warn you. It is not the easiest of languages.”

“Your warning is duly noted. When do we begin?”

In the following days, Dorian learned that Sephone came alive when discussing her homeland and native language. They left the river and the boats behind—others would use them to return to the settlements—and continued on foot. Though she slept poorly, and he sensed she was far sicker than she let on, she always had ample energy for his lessons. If he had not been conscious of the years between them before, he was almost certainly conscious of them now, for she had the liveliness of a young woman, and her previous reservations had fallen by the wayside.

But her high spirits were invigorating, and he increasingly found himself eager to peer into the past alongside her. He told her about his younger sister, Kaesi, and the old-world legends they’d been obsessed with as children, all the stories Memosinians shared about the world-that-was. He even told her of the caves near Maera, with their thousands of glowworms, and the aurora that illuminated the northern sky with colors so dazzling it would put even the most stunning alter to shame. He and his sister had sometimes camped out for days in the hope of seeing it begin.

More often than not, darker memories encroached on the lovely ones. Memories of Lida, Emmy. And even Kaesi. But the more time he spent with Sephone, the more his own nightmares abated, and he thought about what she’d said.

As one reality is brought into focus, another grows dim and eventually fades. It is the way of all memories. Remembering, after all, is only a type of forgetting . . .

Was that it? Would there come a time when he would forget the feel of Lida’s hair, the sound of Emmy’s laugh, or the smile on Kaesi’s sun-browned face?

Wasn’t that what you wanted, Ashwood?

Aye, he had wanted to forget it all. But, increasingly, the thought of oblivion did not draw him as it once had.

They had nearly reached the end of the tunnels. The cavern they traveled through widened, then narrowed again, sometimes only a few yards across in places, and so low the taller men among them had to stoop. Dorian moved to the rear of their party, always on the watch for their pursuers, though it had been days since they’d left Orphne. Regis had promised to do what he could to harry Ignis and his band.

From up ahead, Bear announced that the passage had narrowed once more. One by one, they squeezed through a small hole, and Dorian remembered Regis warning them of the tightness of the space. Bear went first, and Bas passed their packs to him before helping Sephone crawl through.

Cass sidled up next to him, visibly unsettled. “One necessarily questions why the hole has not been enlarged in all these years.”

“This is solid rock,” Dorian replied. “Perhaps you’d like to return here with a pick and widen the opening yourself.”

“I’m hoping I never pass this way again.” Cass shuffled his feet, then followed his gaze to Sephone. “When are you going to tell her, Thane?”

“Tell her what?”

“That she is not your friend, but your slave?”

Dorian glared at him. “She’s not my slave.”

Cass raised a knowing eyebrow. “She relishes her newfound freedom.”

“As she should.”

“Then you must tell her the truth, before she becomes too accustomed to it.” He grinned. “Or perhaps you’d rather leave the truth to me.”

Dorian abruptly pushed past him, but Cass only laughed softly.

The tunnel opened into another vast cavern, this one suffused with light from a slit in the roof several hundred yards above. Between them and the surface, a steeply sloping, rocky cliff loomed, with several protruding ledges, but no visible path.

Dorian frowned. “Regis said naught of mountaineering.”

“And yet he packed rope,” Cass said, holding up a coil. “Symon certainly enjoys his little surprises.”

Sephone pointed at a pile of rocks at the base of the cliff. “It looks as if there was a rockfall recently.” She tilted her head back. “Further up, there’s a path. Can you see it?”

Dorian squinted. Her eyesight must be better than his.

“She’s right, my lord,” said Bas. “The path begins about a quarter of the way up.”

He could just make it out—a continuous rocky ledge zigzagging across the face of the cliff. Could they reach it? He studied the surface of the rock, looking for handholds. There were enough for him, but what about a shorter person, like Sephone?

“I can do it.” She seemed to read his mind.

“We have the rope,” added Bear.

“Rope is only good if you have something to tie it to,” Cass objected, and Dorian had to agree. The rock face was too sheer for their purposes, and there were no exposed tree roots to turn the rope into a safety harness.

“There’s no other way up,” concluded Dorian at last. “But we can at least use the rope to lift the packs. Sephone, why don’t you stay—”

But she was already assessing the cliff face, tracing out a route. Then, ignoring his attempts to dissuade her, she slipped her pack and cloak from her shoulders, tightened the laces on her boots, and began climbing. He was surprised to discover she was naturally good at it, and even seemed unhindered by her burned arm.

“Well, well. The girl is certainly full of surprises,” Cass mused. “She wasn’t half as eager to climb down the roof in Ceto. She must be thinking of the sun.”

Or she was desperate to prove herself. He recalled the way she’d scaled the tree when they were attacked by wolves. But that was a tree, and this was a cliff. He prepared to follow her as Jewel whined.

“You can probably find a way up with your eyes closed,” he said to her. “Go on, then.”

Jewel gave him a wolfish grin and started off.

“There’s no point all of us risking our necks,” he told his guards, indicating they should stay at the base and prepare the packs. He hefted a coil of rope over his shoulder. “Cass, you may as well accompany me.”

“Evidently you don’t have any qualms about risking my neck,” came the wry observation.

Sephone was already a fair way up when Dorian began climbing. He couldn’t help tensing. She might have been born in the Grennor Mountains, but very little in Nulla outgrew the height of a man. Though he sensed her fear, she made steady progress, and not once did she hesitate to reach for another hand- or foothold. He doubted she had need of his courage. She’d found her own.

He concentrated on his holds. It had been a long time since he’d done any climbing, but his fingers remembered the mountaineering he’d enjoyed as a youth, and the rock was not slick, but dry. Still, it was crumbling in places, and he carefully tested each section before entrusting it with his full weight.

He glanced around. Sephone had reached the broad ledge that marked the beginning of the trail and crouched there, waiting for him. Cass was halfway up and climbing quickly, having waited for him to go first. Presumably, he didn’t enjoy the prospect of breaking Dorian’s fall. There was no sign of Jewel, but he wasn’t concerned. The wolf would find her own way to the summit, using methods only a wolf’s paws could manage.

Hauling himself over the ledge, he noted that Cass was standing on another smaller ledge just below. So, he’d found himself a different route. Dorian uncoiled the rope from his shoulder.

They were at least fifty yards from the ground, but Sephone showed little fear as she knelt on the edge of the ledge and peered down at his guards. “We’re almost ready,” she called. “We’ll send you the end of the rope in a minute.”

Cracks appeared beneath her knees. Dorian quickly dropped the rope and started for her. “Sephone! Get back!”

She gave a cry and flung out her arms. He lunged for her just as the rock gave way beneath her. He landed flat on his stomach, but his hand closed around her forearm. She screamed, and the next moment, a dead weight wrenched his shoulder. She dangled from the crumbling edge, tethered to the cliff only by his hold on her arm.

Her bandaged arm.

“Sephone!” he shouted. He caught a glimpse of her terrified face as she swung below him. “Don’t struggle! I have you.”

But panic widened her eyes, and her legs thrashed, making it difficult to maintain his hold. Stones broke away from the cliff edge in a flurry of sand and debris, and he knew the rock beneath his stomach could give way at any moment.

“Can you reach my other hand?”

The gloved hand to which he referred flailed in the air, like a loose sail. She tried to reach up to him, but after a few failed attempts, he saw it was hopeless.

“All right, it’s no problem. I’m going to pull you up—”

“Nay, Thane,” Cass called from below. “I’m right beneath you, standing on another ledge. If you let her go, I’ll catch her.”

Dorian swiftly looked further down. “I can’t see you.”

“I’m directly underneath. I swear she’ll drop straight into my arms.”

Sephone shook her head violently, jerking her body all the more. His fingers slid to her wrist. Her voice grew frantic. “Nay, Dorian. Don’t let me fall.”

“Your arm, Sephone.” The bandage had already begun to unravel. He could pull her up, but it would cause her unimaginable pain. And then there was the matter of the rock ledge beneath his own weight. If he didn’t act quickly, both of them would die. “I won’t let you fall. But I must let you go.”

“Please,” she begged. “I can handle the pain.”

Around them, the world went still. Her fingers were clasped tightly around his wrist, and he felt her enter his mind. He registered her terror and agony as if it were his own, and though he didn’t have Cass’s gift, he knew she was lying. She was close to passing out.

“Please,” she repeated, and at that moment, he felt something else. A rich current of warmth swept through her fingers and sank beneath his skin. His vision turned black and then white, and suddenly they were standing in a sun-drenched meadow, facing each other. She wore an ankle-length garment like one of Lida’s day dresses, and her hair tumbled around her shoulders in white-blond waves. The smile she wore warmed him more than a month of sunshine. He had never thought her beautiful, but this woman—

Then shadows stole along the grass with the force of a north wind, trampling the green blades in the damp earth. Wildflowers wilted in their wake, while animals scampered to their burrows to avoid fat drops of rain. The sun slid behind a cloud, and all was darkness. He knew, instinctively, that it was his darkness.

It cannot be, he said, and he didn’t know if she heard, but her smile faded. I cannot save you.

But she had to know he wanted to.

“Thane!” shouted Cass, and the vision wavered and melted away. Her fingers on his wrist were now cold as ice. “You’d best make your choice. The ledge won’t hold much longer.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered and let her go.