The shadow of the mountain had crept across the high valley beneath a golden sky by the time Meg crested the wide windswept snowfield. The yak herder’s hut was barely visible in the dusk, made of gray slates and nestled against a copse of stunted spruce. A wisp of smoke drifted from its chimney.
Meg rapped on the door with frozen knuckles. She’d journeyed a long way from the melting valley to this wintry mountain, hope battling despair in her mind the entire time, and still she wasn’t certain she wanted to be here.
The door opened to a waft of warmth and the fragrance of roasting sausage. Rennika stood before her, a puzzled frown melting into astonished delight. “Meg!”
Before Meg could speak, Rennika whirled her in and closed the door, wrapping her in a fervent hug. “You’re—here!” she squealed. “How—? How—”
Meg dropped her sack and held her sister close for a long moment, a rush of joy engulfing her, hardly daring to believe she’d found her. Rennika had...grown. Tall. Her hair, a tangle, was the color of honey and her cheeks bloomed like roses. Her voice—lower, modulated with the highlander vowels. She was, what, thirteen? But the promise of great beauty blessed her features. “I didn’t think I’d ever get through all that snow.”
“Where’s Janat? Tell me everything. It’s been so long! What have you been doing?”
“Janat...” Meg faltered.
Rennika’s face went white.
“Nothing like that,” Meg hastened to reassure her. “Last I saw her she was—fine.”
Rennika stared at her for a long moment, as if still not believing her eyes. “Last you saw her?”
“We parted ways. I don’t...know where she is.” Saying the words tightened her throat.
Rennika looked puzzled. “I thought—”
“We’re fighting for Shangril,” Meg said as brightly as she could, unwrapping herself from a layer of woolen swaddling.
“With the uprisers.” Rennika took Meg’s cloak. She produced a thick yak hide from somewhere and threw it on the hard dirt floor before the hearth. “We haven’t much, but we have butter and a bit of honey for the bread. Are you hungry?”
“Starving!” Meg took in the single room of the hut. The walls were well-chinked and cemented with some sort of mortar that kept most of the drafts at bay. The hearth, though not large, dominated the small space with a bright turf fire and a large iron cooking pot. A loft made a small sleeping space over a table with two wooden chairs and a tidy set of shelves and bins. A spinning wheel and small loom dominated one corner, surrounded by skeins of wool. Meg pressed her lips together, all at once filled with inexplicable sadness and joy. “I met a woman in Highglen who told me how to find you,” she said by way of explanation. “She said you’re working as a maid?”
Rennika gave her a puzzled grin, and turning to a shelf, produced two mugs. “Come. Sit.” She disappeared through the door and returned in a moment with a jug of cream. “Colin will be home soon. This is his hut, but he’ll welcome you. He’s a good man.”
Meg sat slowly, reappraising the hut and her sister. Rennika had grown taller, and her body, from what Meg could tell beneath the girl’s layers of skirts and shawls, was developing the shape of a woman. “And Colin is...?”
“My master. He feeds me and lets me sleep on his hearth.” She knelt before the fire on the yak hide.
Ah. Not a lover, then.
Rennika’s smile was still naive. “I cook and keep the hut and make very good worlding potions for him and his yaks.” She pinched dried herbs from a small sack into a pot with a lid and a spout. She poured in hot water from a kettle by the fire. “And for the neighbors, for trade.” She poured a bit of the thick cream into each mug. “Once summer’s here, though, I’ll be able to do a lot more to pay for my keep.”
“This spring equinox will be the second since we left Mama,” Meg cut in.
Rennika poured the tea into Meg’s mug, then looked up at her questioningly before pouring her own. She didn’t remember.
“We need to be in Coldridge before then,” Meg reminded her. The Gods had done nothing to help the uprisers; if Mama had found a way to spirit the Amber out of Archwood, Meg and Rennika had to carry out their charge and be prepared to use it.
Rennika poured the second cup of tea.
“Rennika.”
She set the tea pot down.
Her sister’s silence was unsettling. “Rennika, before we left Archwood, Mama—”
“I know what Mama said.”
Meg was confused. “We have a duty.”
Rennika licked her lips and gave Meg her cup. “I thought it was only you who had to go.”
“Mama said...” Said Rennika was strongest. Meg took her tea, then rested the mug in her lap. Rennika had changed. Since they’d run from Archwood, she’d always done what was required of her. Beg. Steal. Run. Always been their sister. A Falkyn. “Any of us can go, but it should be all three of us. You don’t want to go?”
The girl took her own mug and brought it to her lips, but she did not drink. “It’s a long way. Can’t you just go with Janat?”
“I told you, I don’t know where Janat is.” Heat tightened Meg’s chest. She hadn’t expected Rennika to argue. “Do you have somewhere else you need to be?”
Rennika tilted her head, dismissively. “No.”
“Then?”
She shrugged a little. “This war is about big people. King Artem—King Huwen, I mean. Uprisers like Sulwyn and King Gramaret.”
“And you. And me.”
Again, Rennika tilted her head in dismissal.
“Are you wed to this man? Colin?”
Rennika’s head shot up, and Meg knew by her sister’s shock that she’d missed the mark. “Colin’s an old man.”
Meg didn’t speak, but she held her sister’s gaze.
Rennika let out a sharp breath. “Look at this place, Meg,” she said, relenting. “It has everything a person could want. It’s warm. It’s comfortable. It’s away from the war. There’s food. There are people in this valley who need me.”
“This place?” Meg scoffed. Meg and Janat’s attic in Wildbrook was more comfortable than this hovel.
Rennika frowned in frustration.
“It’s people who make a home,” Meg said. “A family.”
“Colin’s people. He’s like...like a father. And there are the people of the valley.”
“The yak herders?” Meg couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You grew up in a castle!”
“A long time ago.”
“And once the world is restored, you’ll be a magiel princess.”
“I don’t want to be a princess.”
Meg stared at her. This wasn’t about what she wanted. “Well,” she said at last, “what do you want?”
Rennika fingered her mug. “I met a boy. A man, I mean. A weaver, in Highglen. An apprentice, but he is working on his journeymanship—”
“A weaver!”
“He’s saving his money. Soon he’ll be able to open his own shop, and one day, he’ll be a master—”
“A weaver!”
Rennika shot her a black look. “You say that like it’s a bad word.”
“Rennika, I spoke with Mama. Four weeks ago.”
This caught the girl’s attention.
“I was flickering through moments of my life after doing a spell. I found myself in her room before we escaped. Mama told me something. Why we need to go to the tarn above Coldridge. She’s arranged for us to meet a prince.”
Rennika stared at Meg. “A prince?”
“He’ll have the Amber.” This, Mama hadn’t said, but it had to be what she meant.
Slowly, Rennika’s head began to shake back and forth. “It’s gone.”
Meg pushed the lie. “Mama smuggled it out of Archwood.”
“A bard was here. Three days ago. He said King Artem was dead. The prayer stone was smashed—”
Meg set the two mugs on the hearth and took her sister’s hands, her pulse thumping. “The prince, Rennika. And the Amber. We have to go.” They were so close. So close. “It’s our duty to the people of Shangril to give them access to their Gods.”
The girl paled, as if she were trapped. “Your duty, Meg. You’re the oldest—” Rennika blinked about the room, as if looking for an escape. “It was to be you all along. You know that.”
“I can. Yes.” Meg gripped her sister’s hands harder. “But the Amber might only take me to the sixth Heaven, Rennika. Mama thinks...Mama thinks you could go to the seventh. To the One God. End this war.”
Rennika’s nostrils widened, as if she sucked in air.
“Return Shangril to peace. Return the people to their Gods. Ending the war is more important than one person. More important than marrying a weaver.”
Rennika’s face was white and pinched in the firelight.
Gods, let Rennika see.
Rennika’s eyes became bright and her throat worked, forcing out a whisper. “I’ll go.”