Page 28 of All the Wandering Light

I shook my head. “Lusha, we don’t have the luxury of worrying about some seers’ code. The witches will destroy the Empire, and Azmiri.”

“If they catch the star,” Mara said. To my complete unsurprise, his certainty was wavering in the face of Lusha’s hesitation. “It’s possible it’s already returned to the sky.”

“I need to think,” Lusha said abruptly. She strode to the edge of the stream, seating herself beside the water. Mara drifted after her, clearly of the opinion that his presence could only help her thinking.

Tem was watching me. His expression was difficult to read—there was concern there, but also something like wariness. It seemed to soften as I met his eyes.

Suddenly I was sick of the tension that lay between us, all the sharp, unspoken words. I just wanted Tem on my side again.

“You don’t have to say it,” I said. “You were right. I won’t use Azar-at’s magic again. There’s too much we don’t understand about it.” I paused. “And one visit to River’s mind is quite enough for me.”

Tem’s face broke into a smile so genuine that it warmed me like sunlight.

“I can protect us, Kamzin,” he said, his voice low and fierce. “I promise. I won’t let you down the way I did with the fiangul.”

I gazed into his drawn face, which looked even thinner in the wan light of morning. The shadows under his eyes were almost as dark as the bruise that bracketed mine. I forced myself to smile back.

Tem took my hand. “Tell me everything.”

It was no easy thing, describing what I had seen, because I hadn’t just seen it, I had lived it. The visual impressions were all jumbled up with scraps of River’s thoughts, and snippets of memories and emotions that I couldn’t interpret, being absent of any context. It was a bit like rattling around in someone’s messy drawer, trying to make sense of the odds and ends of things. By the time I finished speaking, Tem’s gaze was miles away.

“So they’re still a distance from the Ashes,” he murmured. “And not all of them have mastered their shape-shifting powers, which means they’re probably not traveling much faster than human speed. I assume it would take them a while to find the star.”

“River has mastered his powers.” I pictured the enormous black cat on the summit of Raksha, felt again the ghostlike flight of the owl. “We can’t assume anything.”

“How far are we from the mountains?” Tem said. My own trepidation was mirrored in his eyes. It was one thing to contemplate traveling to the Ashes—it was quite another to actually undertake the journey. The Ash Mountains, which ran perpendicular to the Aryas to the northeast, were said to mark the edge of the world. No one—not even the emperor’s explorers—had ever traveled beyond them. Time was said to move strangely there—the nights lasting days, the daylight as short as minutes. The twilight mountains, they were often called in the stories.

“Three days, maybe,” I said. “But I don’t know where to look.”

“Lusha does.”

We both turned to watch her. But she and Mara were no longer perched on the stream bank—they had moved to a small rise. They seemed to be gazing at something to the south. Lusha’s hand was pressed against her mouth in an uncharacteristic gesture.

I squinted. Rising from one of those distant mountains, whose foothills were hidden by the horizon, was a column of smoke.

My breath caught. The column was thick and towering, so great that, even at this distance, I was surprised we hadn’t already smelled it. As if in response to my thought, the wind rose, carrying with it a hint of ash.

“That’s Mount Zerza,” I murmured.

“And that,” Tem said grimly, “is witch fire.”

I swallowed. The smoke was dark—unnaturally so. So dark it seemed mixed with shadow. It twisted strangely, plumes reaching toward the sky like grasping hands. There was only one possible source of that smoke—the sole village on this side of the Aryas, where, mere days ago, Tem and I had eaten and drunk and danced by firelight.

“Jangsa.” I felt a chill deep in my bones. “Jangsa is burning.”

The Elder of Jangsa had welcomed us, had given us shelter and aid when we desperately needed it. I remembered the smile of the healer who had treated Norbu, the faces of the villagers we had met. I remembered something else too: River’s hand on my waist as he spun me through the dance at the Ghost March, his voice murmuring in my ear. The elder had welcomed us, not knowing that among our expedition was someone whose true mission might destroy us all.

I dashed away the tear that slid down my cheek. “We have to help them.”

“How?” Tem looked as if he had been struck. “It would take days to reach the village. By then—” He didn’t finish his sentence. He didn’t need to.

By the time we reached Jangsa, there wouldn’t be a village left to help.

“Why?” I said. “Why attack them? Jangsa isn’t even part of the Empire. It doesn’t make sense.”

Tem fingered the letter Biter had brought from Azmiri. “It does if you want the emperor’s attention.”

I waited.