17

“Wait,” panted Pirra, “I have to rest.”

“Just for a bit,” said Hylas. “Dark soon, we’ve got to find shelter.”

Wearily, she slumped onto a rock. Hylas was alarmed to see that her lips were tinged with blue. She couldn’t go much farther.

They hadn’t spoken since leaving the gorge. It had taken all their strength to scramble over boulder-strewn slopes and through snowbound forests, and now they were at the bottom of a wooded gully. Silent firs guarded a frozen stream, and the slopes were pocked with the dark mouths of caves.

There’d been no sign of the Crows, and Hylas guessed they must be at least a day behind. Unless of course they’d found another way down.

Leaning against a tree, he waited for Pirra to recover. She sat in a cloud of frosty breath, clutching her knees. They glanced at each other, then swiftly away, both aware of the months they’d spent apart and the weight of things unsaid.

“Better be going,” said Hylas.

Raising her head, Pirra gave him a level stare. “What are you doing on Keftiu? Why did you come and find me?”

“Pirra, not here, there isn’t time—”

“I need to know.”

There was too much to say and he didn’t know how, so instead he said, “Why are the Crows after you?”

She licked her lips. “They think I’ve got the dagger,” she said under her breath.

“What? But—I thought they did.”

She shook her head. “I brought it to Keftiu.”

He stared at her. “So—on Thalakrea when I put you on that ship—”

“Yes. I had it then.”

“Where is it now?”

“I hid it.”

“Where?”

She glanced over her shoulder. “Do you really want me to tell you out here in the open, where anyone might be listening?”

She was right and he didn’t press her; but as they headed off, he struggled to take it in.

Night gathered under the trees, and he started looking for a campsite. Pirra kept glancing expectantly at the sky, as if she was waiting for something to appear. He spotted a cave that might do. Telling her to wait, he climbed up to check it for bears.

At first the cave appeared promising, but as he crawled deeper, he felt the warning ache in his temple. At the corner of his vision, he glimpsed a shadowy man and woman. Their breath didn’t smoke—because they had no breath—and around them swarmed a seething mass of Plague.

“That one’s no good,” he told Pirra as he ran down to her. “We’ll have to keep looking.”

“What’s wrong with it? You’ve gone pale—”

“It’s nothing, it’s—it wasn’t right.”

She shot him a puzzled glance, but didn’t ask any more. Then she saw something over his shoulder and her face lit up. “Echo!” she cried. “You came back! You came back!”

Farther down the gully, Hylas made out the young falcon, perched on a rock by a clump of junipers.

“Echo!” Pirra called softly—and to Hylas’ astonishment, the bird flew to her and landed on her wrist. “I kept calling her in my mind,” she told him. “I felt that she was coming, but I didn’t know when. And look, she’s found another cave.” She pointed to a patch of darkness behind the boulder that had been the falcon’s perch.

“How do we know it’s all right?” said Hylas.

“If Echo thinks it’s all right,” said Pirra with startling confidence, “then it is.”

The cave turned out to be perfect: hidden and dry, with a fissure at the back, which meant they could risk a small fire. Hylas went to gather wood, and Pirra crawled inside and slumped with her head on her knees.

She was dizzy with fatigue and still shaky from the fever. She was also confused. Now that Echo had returned and they seemed to be safe for a while, she could allow herself to think about Hylas. All through the winter she’d been furious with him, but now . . . she didn’t know what to feel.

And she dreaded telling him about Havoc. How was she going to break the news that his beloved lion cub had been lost in the Great Wave?

As if sensing her confusion, Echo ran toward her, her talons clicking on the rocks. With her forefinger, Pirra stroked the falcon’s scaly yellow foot. “I’m so glad you came back,” she said softly. Echo took the toe of Pirra’s boot in her beak and gave it a tug. Then she decided it wasn’t worth eating and flew to the rock at the cave mouth, where she settled herself on one leg for a nap.

Pirra realized she was ravenous: She hadn’t eaten since Taka Zimi. Rummaging in Hylas’ food pouch, she found six wizened olives and a lump of sooty cheese the size of a goose’s egg. She wolfed two olives, left three for him, and offered one to Echo—who just blinked at it, so Pirra ate it herself.

Hylas crawled in with an armful of firewood. Without looking at her, he started laying the fire. “Feeling better?” he said.

“Mm,” she lied. “I ate some of the olives.”

He nodded. “We’ll split the rest when I’ve woken a fire. When the snow in the waterskin’s melted, we’ll have something to drink.” He was talking too much. Pirra wondered if, like her, he didn’t know what to say.

She watched him strike sparks between two stones in a handful of bark. A tiny red flame flared, and he bent and blew on it softly to make it grow.

He’d changed since last summer. He was taller, and his shoulders were broader. His voice was deeper, which made him seem different from the boy she had known, and in his rough sheepskins, he looked startlingly foreign: more Akean than when she’d last seen him.

“Did you find your sister?” she said awkwardly.

“No,” he said, snapping sticks over his knee. “I heard—I heard your mother died. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said curtly.

“Right.”

She was almost disappointed that he took her at her word. The harder she tried not to think about her mother, the more she did. Her feelings were a painful tangle of anger and loss. She wished Hylas would help her sort it out.

On her perch, Echo stretched out one wing and began preening with furious little beak-clickings.

“Does she need water?” Hylas said suddenly.

“She needs meat, but I don’t think she knows how to hunt.”

“She doesn’t. I saw her chase a baby crow and get mobbed by its parents.”

They exchanged tentative smiles.

Hylas described how he’d seen Echo wheeling over Taka Zimi. “That’s how I knew you were there.”

Pirra went to the falcon and put out her finger. “Thank you, Echo,” she said. Echo gave her finger a gentle peck, then went back to tidying her feathers.

The fire crackled and warmth stole through the cave. They shared the cheese, and Hylas put a crumb at the foot of Echo’s rock. The falcon shot him a wary glance, then surprised Pirra by hopping down and eating it.

“I didn’t even know she liked cheese,” said Pirra with a twinge of jealousy.

“Tomorrow I’ll see if I can catch her a mouse,” said Hylas. He asked how she’d met Echo, and she told him. Then she asked how he’d survived since Thalakrea, and he told her about roaming the Sea with a gang of escaped slaves.

“Do you miss them?” she said.

“I miss Periphas. But sometimes when I was with him, I almost forgot about Issi and you and Havoc. I hated that.”

At the mention of Havoc, Pirra’s belly turned over. “Hylas . . .” she faltered. “About Havoc—”

“I wish she was here now. The last time I saw her was on the other side of the mountain, and—”

“She’s alive?” cried Pirra, startling Echo. “I thought she’d drowned in the Great Wave!”

“It’s because of Havoc I knew about the Crows,” said Hylas. “I pulled one of their arrows out of her shoulder.”

“They shot her? Is she all right?”

“I don’t know. I wish I did.”

At the thought of the Crows, they fell silent, listening to the firs moaning in the night wind. In her head, Pirra saw Kreon’s murderous glare as he took aim at her with his bow. She heard Telamon screaming his oath to hunt Hylas to the death.

“Do you miss your sealstone?” said Hylas, startling her. “You keep rubbing your wrist.”

“Oh. Well, I’ve had it since I was born, so it feels weird without it.”

She asked if he still had the lion claw she’d given him, and he drew it out on a thong from the neck of his jerkin. Then he asked if she had the knife he’d made for her.

“Um. No,” she said. “I chucked it overboard as the ship left Thalakrea.”

“Ah,” said Hylas.

“I threw away your falcon feather too.” She flicked him a glance. “Seven moons, Hylas. Seven moons shut up at Taka Zimi—because of you.”

He sat with his arms about his knees, scowling at the flames. Firelight glinted in his fair hair and lit the strong, bony planes of his face. “The last thing you said to me on Thalakrea,” he said, “is that you’d hate me forever.”

“You’d just bundled me onto a ship and sent me back to captivity.”

“I was trying to save you.”

“You didn’t give me a choice, you decided for me.”

“There was no time! And when I put you on that ship, I had no idea Keftiu would suffer worst of all. I didn’t know the Great Wave was going to happen, or the Plague.” He paused. “But you’re right. It’s my fault you were shut up at Taka Zimi. I’m sorry.”

Pirra stared at her boots. “Well, if it wasn’t for you, I’d have burned to death or been caught by the Crows, so I’m glad you found me.”

She glanced up to find him watching her with an unreadable expression in his tawny eyes. “It’s good to see you, Pirra,” he said quietly.

She flushed. “Is it?”

“Yes. It really is.”

Her flush deepened, and she sucked in her lips. “Well. It’s good to see you too.”

Another silence.

A beetle had wobbled its way to the end of a stick and was in danger of falling into the fire. Hylas picked it up and set it down at a safe distance. Then he went off, muttering about fetching fir branches to sleep on.

As Pirra waited for him to return, the warmth of the fire made her sleepy, and her thoughts began to blur. She seemed to be back in the cellar, with the flames crackling overhead and smoke seeping through the hatch . . .

She jolted awake. “Userref!” she cried.

Echo squawked, and Hylas came running. “What’s wrong!”

“I just realized! Userref—he’ll find Taka Zimi in ruins, he’ll think I’m dead!”

Hylas looked puzzled. “But you’re not, so what does it—”

“No, you don’t understand! When I was ill, I made him swear that if I died, he would fetch the dagger and destroy it. So now . . . oh, poor Userref.” She pictured the Egyptian staring in horror at the smoking ruins of Taka Zimi. He would be devastated. He had devoted his whole life to keeping her safe.

“Pirra?” said Hylas. “Did you hear what I said? The dagger. Where is it now?”

She swallowed. “I hid it. As soon as we got to Keftiu, I hid it, but then my mother sent me to Taka Zimi that same day and I didn’t have a chance to take it with me—”

“So where is it?” he cut in.

“In the House of the Goddess.”

“The House of the Goddess,” repeated Hylas. “Which is standing empty. Unguarded. The Crows could just walk in and take it.”

“They’d never find it,” said Pirra, “not if they searched for ten years. Besides, they don’t know it’s there, they think I’ve got it.”

They fell silent, turning this over in their minds.

“We can’t leave it there,” said Hylas. “As long as it exists, it’s a threat.”

“I know. We have to get it before they do. We have to destroy it.”

Yes, but how? thought Hylas. To destroy the dagger of Koronos was no easy thing. He remembered what Akastos had told him in the smithy on Thalakrea: No forge made by mortal men will ever be hot enough to destroy it. The dagger of Koronos can only be destroyed by a god.

And how, thought Hylas, are we to make that happen, when the gods have abandoned Keftiu?

“Of course,” said Pirra, “if the Crows pick up our trail, we’ll be leading them straight to it.”

“I thought of that too,” said Hylas. “But we’ll have to risk it.” Then he met her eyes. “Problem is, Pirra, how do we find the House of the Goddess? I’ve no idea where we are. Do you?”