Page 3 of All the Wandering Light

The exposed rock of the mountainside curved down to a shallow plateau, and a mound of rock where a cave had collapsed. The very cave where River had trapped the dead explorer Mingma and the other ghosts, what felt like weeks ago.

I hadn’t been traveling in the wrong direction after all. I just hadn’t gone far enough.

I sank onto the snow, weakened by relief. To think that I had almost turned around, when I was only a few hours from Lusha and Tem! Biter, catching my excitement, flapped in a circle around my head. The wind tossed him against my pack, which gave a shudder.

And then another shudder.

My heart leaped into my throat. I wrenched the pack from my shoulders, fumbling with the flap with half-frozen hands. I reached inside, my fingers grasping at soft—and surprisingly warm—fur. There came a quiet whine.

I eased Ragtooth out of the pack and tucked him inside my chuba. My vision dissolved as tears streamed down my face.

“I thought you were gone.” One of the tears caught on his whisker and hung there like dew. “I’m sorry.”

The fox stirred. One eye was sealed shut from the swelling and dried blood. His back was bent at an odd angle, his limbs stiff and cold. I held a finger in front of his face, and he gave it a weary lick.

I cradled him to my chest. Ragtooth made a sound deep in his throat and burrowed his head into my chuba.

I knew that I should say something, but the words didn’t come. Ragtooth had been at my side since before I could remember, his uncanny presence a constant in my life, through my mother’s death and my father’s absences. His green eyes gleaming in the dark had comforted me as a child afraid of monsters. And after all our time together, this would be how it ended—in this cold and barren place, far from home.

Silent as falling snow, Azar-at settled beside me.

No help for death, it said. No use for tears. Tears will not bring back friends.

“He’s hurt.” It was stupid to deny what was happening. But still there was a part of me that refused to accept it. “He isn’t—”

I stopped. Slowly, I turned to face Azar-at. “Can you heal him?”

I? I do not interfere in human business. But you could, Kamzin.

I stared. The creature gazed back at me, its eyes as unfathomable as the stars, or the darkness between them. I turned back to Ragtooth. His chest rose and fell, rattling with each breath. But still he managed the faintest of growls.

“Don’t start,” I snapped, dashing my tears away. “I don’t care if you think it’s a good idea. It’s my decision.” Losing Ragtooth had felt like a wound that would never heal clean. If there was even the smallest chance that I could save him, I would take it, no matter the cost.

I turned back to Azar-at. “All right.”

The creature almost seemed surprised. Almost—it was eternally hard to read its emotions, if it even possessed them. Are you prepared?

Nausea rose in my throat. “Never mind that. Are you sure this is possible?”

Yes.

“Then do it. Quickly.” I leaned back, bracing myself for pain worse than I had ever felt. I pictured Ragtooth opening his eyes, alive, healthy. But the fire demon merely sat there, motionless. The seconds slid past.

“Well?” I said. “Is there—?”

Ragtooth let out a ferocious growl. He leaped to the ground, and suddenly there was no trace of injury anywhere on his body—even his fur seemed healthier, gleaming faintly in the starlight. He growled again, his gaze fixed on Azar-at.

My cry of delight was cut short by a force that knocked me onto my back. To call it pain would be a mistake, for this was something beyond pain, a searing heat that bloomed in my chest and radiated through every inch of me. And with that agony was a strange sense of something being torn from me so quickly I couldn’t place what it was, leaving behind a haunted feeling, as if I had awoken from a nightmare that evaded memory.

Then it was gone, and my weariness returned tenfold. Shakily, I sat up. I didn’t feel any different—at least, I didn’t think I did. Was this what River had experienced each time he used Azar-at to cast a spell? How could he have borne it so many times?

Ragtooth nipped me. With a shaky laugh, I wrapped him in my arms and buried my face in his soft fur. He struggled, but only halfheartedly. Azar-at watched us. The fire demon’s gaze burned, but its expression was the same—frozen in a wolf’s grin, tongue lolling.

“Ragtooth, no,” I cried as the fox writhed out of my grip and scuttled close to Azar-at, growling and snapping. I knew all too well what had happened the last time he challenged the fire demon.

No need to fear, Kamzin, Azar-at said. I would not hurt friends.

I shook my head. I didn’t have time to make sense of Azar-at’s loyalties, which seemed to shift as easily as the smoke off a campfire. I gathered Ragtooth back into my arms, risking a kiss on his furry snout. A star soared past the mountain, so close I heard the air crackle, with a smaller one trailing in its wake.