Page 44 of All the Wandering Light

“What answer did you find?” I asked.

“I stopped looking. Some truths aren’t meant to be found, even by the most determined explorers. I know one thing, though—your coming to Raksha freed me and my companions. Perhaps terrible things will result from the choices you made—perhaps good. You can’t know for certain before all’s said and settled. And you certainly can’t blame yourself for the paths that branch off from the one you’ve beaten, even if they lead others to dark places.”

I drew my legs up, hooking my arms around them. Even now, after all that had happened, I felt a familiar shiver of anticipation as I gazed at the unexplored landscape stretched out before me.

I wished that I believed what Mingma was saying. But I didn’t know if I could.

A thought occurred, and I laughed, surprising myself. “What?” Mingma said.

“I never thought I’d be sitting here with you, having this conversation.”

He smiled. The wind tossed a lock of hair onto his forehead, and he brushed it back. “Nor did I. When I set out for Raksha, I expected to be back within a month or two, with a few stories to tell. Now I’m heading for the Ash Mountains with some strange girl years after I should have died in my bed, my head full of gray hairs.”

I glared at him, but the corner of my mouth twitched. “I’m not strange.”

“I didn’t say it was a bad thing.”

I laughed again. I felt oddly refreshed, even after a night of little sleep. It was odd—Mingma had tried to kill me. But the Mingma I had met in the caverns of Raksha seemed an entirely different person—somehow, I knew this was the same Mingma he had been in life, not the bitter creature he had become.

My eyes drifted. Mingma was right about one thing: I had chosen the path I was on. Everything that I had done had been my choice. Just because I had chosen badly once, given my trust to someone who didn’t deserve it, didn’t mean it always had to be so.

“Why do you want to be an explorer?” Mingma said.

I frowned. It was like asking why the sky was blue.

Mingma smiled at my expression. “I felt the same way once. I grew up in a small village, and I wanted adventure. But there’s more to being an explorer than adventure.”

“Like what?”

“One day, your story will be written in the stars,” he said. “It’s up to you to choose what they’ll say. You have the power to reshape the world—for better or for worse.”

I was quiet. I remembered my mother, hugging me the night before she left on an expedition. She had pointed to the stars winking in the sky and told me that her story was already being written there, and that one day we could look up and read it together. I had been fascinated. I knew that the lives of famous heroes and leaders were written in the stars, and I had felt proud that one day, my mother would join them.

The best explorers make the night a little brighter, she had said. Not just because they do great things, but because they do good things.

I watched the bright tapestry wheel slowly across the sky. My mother had died before she had a chance to make her mark on the world. Now here I was, following in her footsteps. But would the world be brighter because of what I had done, or darker?

“You said before that you had traveled with them,” I said, my voice quiet. “Witches.”

“Once.” Mingma’s gaze grew distant. “She offered to guide me through Winding Pass—on a whim, I think. Though I had just saved her life.”

I waited for him to continue, but he only smiled at me. “That’s a long story. Perhaps for another time. But I had dealings with them before that. I mapped the southern half of the Nightwood, after all.”

“Dealings,” I repeated. “In the stories we’re told in Azmiri, the only ‘dealings’ you can have with a witch don’t end pleasantly.”

“And who are the storytellers? People who spend their entire lives in one place, never daring to see what lies beyond their borders. You should know better, by now, than to trust such stories.”

“Then what are you saying?” I felt my anger rise. “That the witches are innocent? They once tried to burn my village to the ground.”

“What I’m saying is that I’ve had dealings with them,” he said calmly, as if failing to notice my anger. “Some helped me. Most tried to kill me. Make of that what you will.”

I bit my lip. “So what’s your opinion? The stories say they’re evil, every one.”

“Well, I don’t find evil to be a very useful word. It’s true they don’t have much of a conscience, on the whole. They think nothing of lying or cheating—or killing—to get what they want. Some are worse than others, in that respect. Those that have spent time among humans often seem to possess a rudimentary understanding of right and wrong, though it’s not what you could properly call a conscience, being more learned than instinctive. But they can also be exceedingly loyal to those they care about. And fairness is important to them.”

“Fairness?” I said, surprised.

“Their definition of fairness tends to vary,” he added. “But if you do them a good turn, they’ll return the favor.” His gaze grew distant again. “The opposite is also true.”