Page 20 of All the Wandering Light

An idea struck me.

“Tem,” I said, “try River’s spell. The one he used on the fiangul in the pass.”

He blinked, struggling to focus on me. “I told you, I—”

“Just try,” I urged. “You can re-create it, can’t you?”

“Kamzin—”

“Please, Tem.” I gripped his shoulder, squeezing until he flinched. “Trust me.”

He swayed, seeming on the edge of unconsciousness. Lusha’s bow twanged. A glimmer of recklessness dawned in his eyes. I could see what he was thinking—what did it matter? If we were about to die, why not die fighting with every ounce of strength we had?

“All right,” he said.

He ran his hand over the kinnika almost absently, his fingers hovering over two bells—one small and bright and intricately carved, the other larger, tarnished, and bent. He began to sound them in unison. He spoke the incantation quietly, which gave me a little start. Some spells were cast this way; that wasn’t what surprised me. It was that Tem, who had never cast such a spell before, would sense its characteristics instinctively.

“Azar-at,” I whispered, “get ready.”

The winds shifted. I realized that Tem had chosen not the spell River had cast in the pass, but the second, more frightening spell. A funnel cloud formed above us, snatching at the fiangul’s feathers and spiraling the snow.

The fiangul screamed. But just as it seemed the cloud was gathering momentum, it faltered and dissolved. Tem’s forehead beaded with sweat.

“Now, Azar-at.” I stepped forward and pressed my hands into Tem’s chest. I pictured Azar-at’s magic flowing through my arms and into Tem—into the spell he was casting.

Tem made a quiet sound of surprise. For a moment, I thought it wasn’t working—I couldn’t feel anything. Then my hands began to tingle, a sensation that radiated up my arms and into my chest.

The wind rose again. The funnel roared to life, reaching down to the ground, where it caught at the snow and flung it into the air. Lusha ducked as an enormous sliver of compacted ice soared past. The fiangul were screaming again. The creatures nearest to the funnel tried to flee, spreading their wings and darting with uncanny speed toward the mountains.

But another funnel was there, spilling to the earth like water. It wrapped the fiangul in its cloud of displaced snow, and drew them in. The first funnel whipped around us, barely stirring my hair, devouring the remaining creatures. It spun once around the second funnel, and then they collided with such force that the ground shook. The fiangul had gone silent. Slowly, the enormous cloud lifted off the ground, and then it was sinking back into the sky. The clouds, once dark and menacing, began to thin and break apart.

It was over. But I had no time to feel relief. The agony overwhelmed me, and I fell forward with a cry. Tem caught me in time, gathering me in his arms.

And then the pain was gone. It had been briefer than last time, but just as intense. I felt off balance, unsteady, as if I had drunk a barrel of raksi.

“What did you do?” Tem was pale with shock. “I felt . . .” He didn’t seem able to put in words what he had felt.

“I’m fine.” Was I? For a moment, I felt a difference, something that didn’t quite fit anymore, like a shutter swinging on a loose hinge. But then it faded.

I sighed. “Azar-at, you don’t need to hide now.”

The fire demon stepped out from behind a snow drift that should have been too small to conceal it, and came to my side. It sniffed at Tem’s chuba, then licked my hand before I could draw it away. You are safe. Friends are safe. This is good.

Lusha stood up. Blood flowed from her scalp where the fiangul had torn at her hair. Her eyes narrowed.

“Lusha,” I began, “I can—”

She struck me across the face.

Seven

ONLY A FAINT mist lingered as the sun sank behind the mountains. The clouds formed circles over the Aryas, whirlpools shaped by the fierce winds that scoured the peaks. Here, though, the world was calm.

Too calm.

We had set up camp under the overhang of an enormous boulder twenty miles south of base camp. Twenty miles closer to Azmiri. It wasn’t enough—we would have to move faster tomorrow. It had been a long, difficult hike over the ice before finally, at midafternoon, we had left Raksha’s glacier behind. As we set foot upon solid ground, I felt a sense of release, as if Raksha’s power had swung shut behind us like a gate. The great mountain was no longer fully visible, its massive bulk hidden behind its crenellated neighbors.

A streamlet trickled down the mountainside and past our camp, trapped beneath a layer of ice. Lusha was perched, as usual, in front of her telescope, maps and star charts spread about her and weighted with rocks. She hadn’t spoken to me all day. Mara sat next to her, pretending to ignore me. He kept darting glances in my direction, then acting as if he were only scanning the landscape for the hundredth time.