Page 56 of All the Wandering Light

“Take the star?” River held it loosely in his left hand, as if it were nothing at all. “I don’t want it. This expedition was your idea.”

“Do you take me for a fool?” Esha began to pace, like an animal with too much energy. “You’ve been sneaking off every chance you get, to search alone. Did you think I wouldn’t work it out? I know you convinced the others to flee the Nightwood, to undermine my authority.”

River let out a disbelieving breath of laughter. “I didn’t convince anyone of anything. Those people left of their own accord. Not everyone wants to be ruled.”

I gave a start of surprise. I had always thought of the witches as a collective—fearsome and single-minded. But were there some who disagreed with Esha’s plan? Who wanted no part in his attack on the Empire?

“Then you deny you want the throne?” Esha’s voice was soft.

“The throne?” River’s brows knitted. “It seems I have an endless variety of secret plots. I thought I wanted the star.”

“Your magic is stronger than mine.” Esha came to a stop, his hands clasped behind his back. His red-rimmed gaze had a feverish intensity. “Haven’t you noticed?”

“I’ve noticed that I’m holding the very thing you sent me all this way to find. And that you still haven’t thanked me.”

“All right.” Esha held out a hand. “Prove your loyalty. Give it to me.”

“River, don’t.” I lurched forward, placing myself between the two of them.

I couldn’t have said, afterward, what drove me to do it. It certainly wasn’t wisdom. Esha looked at me as if I were a mouse he was about to crush under his heel, while River’s face went blank with astonishment.

“River,” I said, “please. Don’t give him the star.”

“What’s this?” Esha said. “A shaman? Have you allied yourself with the enemy?”

I didn’t look at Esha. I only looked at River. I didn’t know what I was doing. All my senses told me to run as quickly as I could. But there was a small voice, so small it was barely audible, that told me to stand fast and hold his gaze.

I didn’t move.

“Kamzin,” River said. His voice was barely above a whisper. His gaze held a rare emotion—fear. I had seen it only once, days ago—on Raksha, after I had narrowly escaped being crushed by a falling serac.

“He’s going to use it to destroy everything I know,” I said. My voice was raw and honest—I put aside anger, fear, betrayal. There was no time for any of them. “To kill people I love. He’s your brother, so you’re helping him. I understand that. But you don’t have to do this. You have your powers back. What more do you need?” I swallowed. “I helped you. So you owe me this.”

My words hung in the air, as strange to my own ears as they must have been to River’s. He was frowning, and I couldn’t interpret his thoughts. But I had lived his thoughts, if only for a few moments. I had seen a boy running through smoke and fire in a dark forest.

Esha let out a low chuckle. It occurred to me, an edge of hysteria in my thoughts, that if Lusha was wrong, I was about to be killed over a lump of rock.

“She says you plan to use the star to raise the dead,” River said. His voice was even, almost conversational. “Is that true?”

“And if it is?” Esha said. “The emperor has killed so many of us. It will be a reparation, of sorts.”

“He’s killed hundreds,” River said. “Surely you can’t mean—”

“To bring them all back? Yes, I do, every one. The star’s power has no limit.”

River’s face was pale, his freckles standing out in stark relief. “How could you be that stupid? You won’t bring them back—you’ll only turn them into monsters.”

“As I keep reminding you, River,” Esha said, “that’s what they always were. It’s what we are.”

The shadows stirred behind River. Something—someone—seemed to be emerging.

“River!” I cried. That was all I had time for. Suddenly the shadows were on fire, surging hungrily toward me. The flame was strangely dark—

“No.” River darted between me and the witch fire. It passed harmlessly over him and was extinguished, smoke leaping into the sky. He shoved me against the mountain, scraping my cheek against the cold rock, keeping himself between me and Esha—and the second figure who now stood at Esha’s side.

Unlike Esha, it was clear from a glance that the second witch was River’s brother—he had the same eyes, the same unruly hair. They looked so alike, in fact, that I was momentarily disoriented. But his build was heavier, his posture menacing. The same amusement hovered around his eyes, but his amusement was cold. He wore a finely woven chuba that I recognized, with a shiver of disgust, as being like those worn by the elders of the mountain villages.

“You are allied with her.” There was a strange edge of delight in Esha’s voice. “Did you see it, Thorn?”