Page 6 of All the Wandering Light

The notion that Lusha was prioritizing astronomy over a warm place to sleep surprised me for about half a second. Tem’s brow furrowed. “Your ankle.”

“It’s nothing.” I tried to balance my weight more naturally, even as my ankle seethed.

“I doubt that. But it will be, after an incantation or two.” He coughed—a slight cough, far different from the frightening rattle that had plagued him throughout our journey to Raksha. “Mara wanted to go back down, but Lusha refused. We didn’t know what sort of shape you’d be in. We thought you might need our help to get off the mountain. Lusha was planning to go after you, if the weather held today.”

I shook my head. “Tem, I thought you’d need my help! When I left, you were—” Dying, I almost said.

He nodded. “I know. But a day’s rest made a big difference. I slept for hours, and when I woke yesterday morning, I felt better. Stronger. I tried using my magic again, and I was able to heal my broken leg. And my ribs.” He tapped his side, wincing slightly. “I’ll be sore for a few days. Then I got to work on Lusha’s ankle. She’s practically as good as new, or so she says. You know Lusha: she wouldn’t complain if she was being burned alive.”

I was astonished. “All that, from a day’s sleep?”

“Apparently.” I could see that it had surprised him too. “I was using my magic too much. Once I was forced to stop for a while, it just . . . came back.”

I had never heard of a shaman regaining their powers so readily—overusing magic to such an extent should take weeks to recover from. But then, Tem’s powers had never been ordinary, or predictable. “Well, thank the spirits for that. Now I won’t have to carry you down to base camp.” Or have Azar-at float you there.

Tem seemed to read something of my thoughts in my face, for his eyes grew solemn again. “Kamzin, what happened?”

I turned away, feeling a stab of guilt. “Let’s find Lusha. I’d rather not have to tell this story more than once.”

We came upon them at the edge of the plateau, where they’d pitched the tent behind a boulder. The dragons spotted us first, and soon they were circling, chirruping their excitement at the arrival of a potential new food source. They were hungry, that was clear—their blue lights were barely visible, and flickered within their scaled bellies.

I paused. For a moment, the view struck me as strange: Mara and Lusha alone, framed against the sky. Part of me had expected more people to be there. But Dargye, one of our assistants, had been left at base camp to guard our supplies. And our other assistant, Aimo, as well as River’s personal shaman, Norbu, had died shortly before River and I set out for the summit.

Mara glanced up. When his eyes met mine, he reached out to grab Lusha’s shoulder. She was seated in the snow, bent forward as she peered through her small telescope. Of course she had brought the telescope, regardless of how much food she had to leave at base camp to compensate for the added weight. I wondered what she was looking at—it was too light to see any constellations, though the shooting stars were still visible, faintly.

Lusha blinked at me. She turned back to the pile of scrolls on her lap and calmly added a note. Then she stood.

“Lusha,” I began, alarmed by the look on her face as she approached, “I tried to stop River, I swear, but he—”

She wrapped me in a fierce hug, smothering my words against her shoulder. To my surprise, hot tears welled in my eyes. They flowed down my face, dampening the collar of her chuba. I hadn’t realized I’d been holding them back until now.

She stepped back and placed her hands on my shoulders. “So,” she said without preamble, “River broke the spell?”

I swallowed, brushing the tears away. I quickly recounted everything—leaving aside my contract with Azar-at. How I had followed River, and watched him shatter the spell. What I had found on the summit. The witches, who were not bound to human form, had lived there once, and built a city of shadow among the clouds. This sky city had been abandoned long ago, though some of the witches’ magic still lingered among the ruins. The place had had an uncanny, watchful quality about it.

I felt, again, the full weight of my failure. When I finished, there was a small silence.

“You were right,” I said. “I never should have trusted—”

She made a gesture, and the apology died on my lips. Lusha had always had that way about her—she could silence the General of the First Army with a glance.

“Preventing River Shara from getting his way was always a long shot,” she said. “What’s done is done.”

“Azmiri . . .” I stopped. The village filled my thoughts—the neat stone houses, the slopes dotted with flowers and snow, the terraces cut into the mountain like a staircase to the sky. For the first time, I understood how fragile my home was, how small, tucked into a wilderness at the edge of the Empire with the witches’ forest at its back. “It’s so close to the Nightwood.”

She nodded, her expression grim but thoughtful. “We need to warn the village.”

“How?” Mara said. “It will take us days to reach Azmiri. Weeks.”

Lusha held out her arm. For a strange moment, I thought she was trying to cast a spell without a talisman, but then there came a fluttering sound, and Biter settled on her wrist, his enormous talons curling gently around her sleeve.

“Biter!” I said. “I thought I’d lost you.”

Lusha bent to retrieve a scrap of parchment and scrawled a message with a bit of charcoal. Then she furled the note and tied it to Biter’s leg. The raven kicked once, but Lusha murmured something I couldn’t catch, and he stilled. Once Lusha had the note secure, he took off. The beat of his wings lifted wisps of snow from the ground, and then he was gone.

“He should reach the village by tomorrow morning,” Lusha said. “At least—at least they’ll know what’s coming.”

Mara and Tem were staring at her. Even I felt a stab of disquiet, and I was long used to Lusha’s familiars, their uncanny ability to understand her every whim. I knew, on some level, that this was how most people must feel about Ragtooth, though it was impossible for me to experience any awe when I thought about the creature who had trailed after me like a small, scruffy shadow since I was a baby.