Voices reverberated through stone tunnels and melded with the bleat of animals, the crying of children, and the thump of packs dropped from aching shoulders. Fires began to spring up, one by one, and the darkness fled to reveal a small system of natural caves. Outside, where the eastern edge of the canyons cut into the forest in jagged slices, steadily falling snow muffled the morning light—and guarded our footsteps from watching, pulsing foxfire.
“The snow and rock should hide us from Imilidese,” I murmured to Berin. I’d joined him beside the cave’s large, triangular mouth, watching Aruth families shepherd one another into safety beneath woodmaidens’ runes.
Though I was long past the edge of fatigue and shivering under my Hask cloak, I couldn’t help marking the myriad wounded hobbling past us. I assessed them with tired eyes. I would need to begin my work soon.
“She’ll know the direction we fled in, but…” I rubbed at my eyes with the back of one hand. “We’ve bought some time.”
“Hopefully it’s enough.” Berin nudged me toward the cave mouth. “Yske, rest. You look spent.”
I was too tired to comment on his own disheveled appearance, and simply joined the flow of Aruth. Firelight illuminated their drawn, haggard faces and cast a motif of shadows on the gray walls—the wounded leaning on one another, a father with no fewer than three children in his arms, an old man and woman holding one another. A young woman standing unmoving, staring down at her round, pregnant belly.
A head shoved under my arm and I looked down into Nui’s earnest eyes. The strain and worry of the night ebbed at the sight of her, and I crouched to wrap my arms around her damp bulk. She endured the gesture patiently for a time, then began to chew industriously on my hood.
I dropped my pack and set out a wooden bowl for her, filling it from a flask. The dog immediately drank, the steady wag of her tail and the slosh of water consoling in the midst of so much upheaval.
I did rest, for sparse moments. Then I eased my aching body upright, picked my way to the neighboring hearth, and healed. I bled. I soothed, though the Aruth and I could not understand one another. I touched tear-streaked cheeks and gaping, bloody wounds. I assisted Aruth healers, anyone with any knowledge of medicine scrambling to do what they could. All the while Nui followed, lying at my feet or allowing red-eyed children to pet her.
The hound and the children’s happy chatter were only temporary reliefs from the pain and uncertainty all around. At some point, as I traversed a darkened corridor between two caves, my head spun. I put a hand on the wall and closed my eyes, focusing on the cool damp of the stone. The clatter of voices and muffled sobs battered me, overwhelming until I picked out a grandmother’s distant, lilting lullaby. I didn’t know the words, but her tone and emotion were universal—consolation, rest, and comfort.
I sank into a crouch with my back against the wall and Nui nuzzled close. She was so large that her head loomed over me, and it made me feel like a child again. But I did not mind. Being a child, cared for and held and with only a dim understanding of the odds stacked against us seemed an enviable thing.
Berin found me sometime later, still scratching Nui’s ears. The distant lullaby had faded but a spattering of new melodies drifted from various caves and hearths. The Aruth were settled in, the panic of the night abating.
“You need to sleep.” My brother crouched, surveying me. His eyes found my hands, marked with small cuts and new scars. “And stop doing that.”
He didn’t know just how right he was. I considered telling him the truth. The full moon was days away, and I wouldn’t be able to hide my payment in such close quarters.
But I was too tired to admit that now.
“I also need to eat and drink and go home to my mountain,” I added with forced good humor. I pulled down my sleeves to cover my hands and stood up, bracing myself on the wall. When I found I couldn’t push myself off the stone, my bravado faded. “Do you happen to have a bedroll?”
Berin steadied me, concern written across his face. “No, but you’re welcome to my cloak.”
“Then find me a fire, feed me and let me sleep,” I requested, slipping my arm through his.
I did sleep soon after, drifting off as my companions murmured around me—Berin’s deep rumble interjected with Seera’s sharp words, Askir’s corrections and Ittrid’s observations. Nui curled at my back and one by one, my worries faded—yielding to a haze of warmth and the soothing presence of my own language.
When I jolted back awake, their voices were gone. The caves were full of the sound of crackling fires, the drip of water, the shift of animals, snores, and the occasional hushed conversation.
I held still, wondering what had awoken me. My immediate fear was that the moon was already full and the time for payment had come, but though my body ached there were no newer, sharper pains.
An owl fluttered through the air with a muted ripple of wings. It was small and gray, with black tufts around its beak and wide, searching eyes.
He alighted on my pack, next to me, and hooted softly. His eyes were full moons, harbingers of my impending fate.
I slowly sat up and released my breath in a long, steady exhale. “I’m listening.”
The cave faded, the details obscuring and sounds retreating. My mother coalesced before me in smoke and shadow and plays of light. She wore her legendary axes in a brace upon her back, their heads framing her face with hooded blades angled out. Her gray-streaked hair was fastened into a single tight braid over one shoulder, its end bound with beaded leather. She wore a padded tunic, overlaid with a mail vest and multiple weapons belts, hung with knife and hatchets and pouch. Her Eangen-dark eyes, so like Berin’s, were smudged with black paint.
“The High Halls east of the Headwaters have begun to open,” Hessa said without preamble. Her lack of a greeting prodded a lonely place in my heart, but I couldn’t truly be hurt by it. The connection the owl brought would not last long. There was no time. “Isik says you can open the Eastern Rift.”
“I can.” Despite my resolve, I discovered my voice was thick with emotion. Isik had reached the White Lake. He was safe, and with my mother. “Though I can’t guarantee it will work.”
“Vistic and Omaskat believe it will,” my mother said. “But can you get to it?”
“Yes,” I said with certainty. If all else fails, I thought, Logur would gladly take me back to the island.
“Timing will be key,” my mother reminded me. “And it must be soon. Send the owl through as soon as the door is open, and we will come.”
The little owl, still seated on my pack in a corner of the vision, blinked broadly.
“How much time do you need?” Hessa asked.
I thought of the forest between the lake and I, of the Revenants and human enemies between. I could reach the lake in two days under normal circumstances, but I was hunted and the world was at war. Imilidese’s foxfire had spread everywhere, and despite the snow swept in by the Winterborn, it was only a matter of time before her servants found me—both here and in the forest above.
Understanding unfurled inside me, so grim I couldn’t speak it aloud. So I didn’t.
“I can be there in three days,” I said. “Will you be ready to stop her?”
I didn’t need to specify who “her” was. Hessa nodded and spoke quickly, sketching details. But though I heard her, my mind was filled not with her words, but the way her mask slipped from her face as she spoke. By the time her voice was spent, she looked at me plainly, with raw fear and determination and resignation in her eyes.
“I love you, child,” she murmured as the edges of her began to blur and the owl, still perched on my pack, ruffled his feathers. “Stay strong, just a little longer. We’re coming.”
* * *
I’d forgotten how early dusk came in the canyons, and the onset of winter only made the darkness more premature. I slipped east past a stand of hearty pines, ignoring how the foxfire fluttered and flared as I passed. I was careful not to touch it, and to keep my footfalls from exposed roots. I didn’t want to be found just yet.
Mawny, the owl, flew on ahead into the forest. I carried nothing but the knife at my belt, though I didn’t expect to keep that for long. I’d left everything else in the cave, save the blue and yellow Algatt paints I’d found in the bottom of my pack and smudged at the temples of my carefully combed and braided hair. The paints reminded me of my father, of my connection to home, and I needed that now more than ever.
I’d left my horn behind too, lying on Berin’s folded cloak. He’d know what it meant, but by the time he returned from scouting and saw it, I’d be long gone.
The sound of snow-muffled paws made me turn. Nui bounded along my trail, tail wagging, snow scattering.
I cursed. “What are you doing?” I scolded as she barreled into my legs, happily nipping at my cold hands. “You’re supposed to be sleeping.”
The hound put her paws on my shoulders and enthusiastically licked my face. I spluttered and pushed her back, wiping slobber and tears from my cheeks.
My determination lagged. No part of me wanted this—to trek off alone into the forest until the Revenants found me and Logur led me east. My will was weak, my heart quavering in my chest. And now that Nui was here, what would I do? She’d follow me and get herself killed.
I put the back of a hand to my eyes, finding them wet with yet more tears.
“Yske!”
Berin jogged up the path Nui and I had left, his face stricken with anger. More figures came behind him, parting from the growing night. Seera. Askir. Ursk, his eyes knowing and his mouth twisting into an apologetic smile.
My escape had had no chance of success.
“What are you doing?” Berin demanded. Both our horns hung from his belt and he was fully armed, an Aruth shield slung over one shoulder and his hair in a smooth topknot.
I closed my lips, watching the company surround me. Everyone had come, trailing out of the gloom with weapons at their belts and various expressions of annoyance, exasperation, or guardedness on their faces. Thray was there too. The most reserved of the group, she watched me with an inscrutable expression.
“You knew I’d leave?” I asked, directing my question mostly at Ursk, who looked more than a little blurry. Why were there more tears in my eyes? I wasn’t crying.
Ursk gave a half-shrug. “I had a feeling.”
“You weren’t the only one to receive an owl from Hessa,” Thray added. The others parted in front of her. “I asked the Windwalkers to keep an eye on you.”
I looked up at the wind. Mawny circled high overhead, and silver sparked on currents of wind. I cursed myself. “I must get to the island. The rock and snow can only protect us for so long; Imilidese will realize where we’re hiding, so I’ll go to Logur willingly and let him take me to the rift. You can’t stop me, and you can’t come with me.”
Seera looked at me blandly. “You know very well we can stop you.”
Despite the threat in her words, my heart warmed—too full, too painful.
“Logur will kill you,” Bara pointed out.
“There is a chance I can convince him to let me heal the tree instead,” I replied, though I didn’t bother infusing my tone with false optimism. “Either way, I can get there and open the rift.”
“You’re not going anywhere alone,” Berin said with finality, and looked from Thray to Ursk. “Can we do it?”
“Do what?” I interjected.
“Get you to the island.” Berin gestured impatiently at the company. “Together.”
At my side, Nui snuffled through the snow distractedly, ears pricked.
“If we keep to snow, rock, and do not touch the foxfire directly,” Ursk said, eyes taking on a distant, perceptive light. “It will not be easy, but it is possible.”
Behind him, I saw Esan rub at his beard, hiding a flinch of tension behind the stretch of his hand and neck.
As useless as it was, I gave one final protest. “I don’t want to risk you all. It would be easier alone…”
I trailed off as Berin moved closer, unhooking my horn from his belt and reaching to fix it to mine. Then he took my cheek with chiding affection and held my gaze. “You’re my blood. My sister. My twin. Nothing in this world or any other will convince me to leave you.”
I blinked back a rush of tears and gave a grimacing, choked laugh.
“Fine,” I managed, squeezing his hand. “Fine.”