Page 46 of All the Wandering Light

The moon peeked out from behind one of the neighboring mountains, providing enough light for my starved eyes to see clearly. The mountain descended steeply beyond where I stood in a series of cliffs and buttresses, all the way to the basin of the glacier far below. Another mountain reared up to the north, separated by a narrow col, but it was in silhouette, dark and unknowable. What I could see was empty. A vast series of snowy slopes, unmarked and unblemished.

I took out the unusual pocket-sized telescope I had rescued yesterday from Ragtooth’s jaws. It was expensive-looking, and emblazoned with the emperor’s symbol—I could only assume that the fox had stolen it from Mara’s pack, as I had never seen it before. I held it to my eye, sweeping the landscape.

A cry pierced the night.

Instantly, I was running—back the way I’d come, abandoning caution. My heart stopped as I saw that the narrow ledge where I’d left Tem was empty. Then I spotted the tip of an ice ax wedged into the snow. Tem had slipped, but somehow managed to swing the ax into the ledge.

I didn’t think. I just leaped.

The drop was at least thirty feet, but I managed to slide half the way in a breathless glissade and end the descent in a crouch, not a sprawl.

“Tem!” I cried. Below me, he looked up, his face the color of the snow. With one hand, he clutched at his ax; with the other, he fumbled desperately at the kinnika.

“Kamzin—” His hand slipped, and he was falling.

I did the only thing that made sense. I dove forward, driving my ax with all my strength through the fabric of Tem’s chuba, anchoring him to the mountainside. Unfortunately, I also drove it through a piece of his arm.

Tem shouted. He reached for the blade, trying instinctively to lift his weight off it. I had his ax in my hand now, and managed to anchor myself to the ice while I pulled him back onto the ledge. We collapsed against the mountain, breathing hard.

“Sorry,” I murmured, examining his wound. Fortunately, it was only a deep scratch.

“It’s all right.” He pressed his hand to his arm, wincing. Awe flickered in his eyes. “You’re fast, Kamzin. I didn’t even get through half an incantation in the time it took you to reach me.”

“Magic’s too slow for some things. Maybe that’s why I never had any patience with it.”

He let out the ghost of a laugh, his eyes drifting shut. We leaned against each other. One of the kinnika whispered in the wind, and Tem absently stilled it with his hand. I frowned at the talismans. I hadn’t been joking—magic often was too slow, in a place like this, where the line between life and death was as thin as a hair. I remembered how River had nearly fallen from the ice wall on Raksha—River, who had more power than any of us. But incantations and spells were useless when death came for you faster than you could think. Only instinct could save you then.

“I don’t know what I’m doing here,” Tem said.

“Here?” It took me a moment to realize that he didn’t just mean the mountain. “Why?”

He drew a breath that caught, making him cough, and gave me a weary smile. “Have you ever seen someone more poorly suited to an expedition like this?”

I felt another stab of guilt—Tem was echoing my earlier thoughts. “That’s ridiculous,” I said in a cajoling voice. As if I could cajole him as I had when we were little and I wanted him to join in one of my ill-planned adventures—hunting for spotted pheasants in Bengarek Forest, or a race to the highest ridge of Mount Biru. “Tem. Our firewood would be gone by now if it weren’t for you. Lusha would never have found the map she misplaced at our last camp, and Mara would have lost his ear to frostbite.”

“Everything you just described could be accomplished by a halfway competent shaman,” Tem said.

“If you’re going to pretend you’re only a halfway competent shaman, I don’t know what to say to you,” I snapped.

Tem was quiet. He leaned his head back against the ice.

“Would you rather be back in Azmiri?” I said. “Helping your father with the herds?”

Though spoken without rancor, the words themselves held a sharpness that I hadn’t intended. Tem flinched. I thought of what he had said about the Three Cities, and the Trials, and felt a wave of guilt.

“No,” he said. There was a weariness in his voice that matched his expression.

“You’ve forgotten the fiangul,” I added quickly, recognizing that I had gone wrong. “You saved our lives twice. Could a halfway competent shaman have done that?”

“Maybe not.” He gave me another smile, but it felt false, as if he was agreeing for the sake of ending the argument.

“I need you,” I said, my voice quiet. “That’s why you’re here.”

“Do you? Sometimes I get the impression that you don’t need anyone.”

His tone wasn’t angry, but it held an odd mixture of admiration and sadness that was somehow worse.

“You’re wrong,” I said. “You only think that because . . .” My voice trailed off. Because why? Because Tem didn’t understand me? Tem had always understood me. And yet it felt true. A distance had been growing between me and Tem since Raksha—perhaps even since we left Azmiri—and I didn’t know how to close it. Sometimes it felt as if Tem was receding beyond a horizon like daylight, even when he sat beside me, warm and close.