Page 61 of All the Wandering Light

He dragged his gaze from Ragtooth, who was calmly washing between his toes. “Why?”

“Just do it.”

Tem gave her a puzzled look. He selected one of the kinnika, and murmured a word. The leaves at the end of the branch flickered with flame. Lusha settled the star on a rock and pressed the makeshift torch against it.

A painful glimmer flooded the forest. Instinctively, I turned my face away. The light was white-hot, radiating in a way that reminded me of a pulse. Lusha drew the branch away. As it cooled, the star dimmed, until it looked like an ordinary gray rock again.

I blinked away the spots that floated across my vision.

“Do you believe me now?” Lusha said.

Tem gingerly lifted the star. “Kamzin’s right. We have to take this to the emperor’s shamans. It’s the safest place for it.”

“Azar-at,” I said, my voice cold, “where are we? If you’ll be so good as to share that small detail.”

Sasani Forest, the creature replied calmly.

“That’s only two or three days north of the Three Cities,” Lusha said. She reached for her pack, which was lying on the forest floor—all our things were there, scattered around the glade at random intervals, even our tents. “I have a map.”

She bent her head over it. I became aware, suddenly, of how quiet the forest was, how still. The only sound came from Tem as he sorted through the kinnika, muttering about a wayfinding spell. The gentle tinkling of the bells seemed painfully loud.

The hair on my neck stood up. Slowly, I reached out and stilled Tem’s hand. I turned around.

The trees were broad-chested here, dark-needled pines mixed with birches and oaks. The forest was dense enough to dim the light, but not extinguish it—I could see well enough between the trunks. Something stirred at my back, and then, soft as the rustle of a leaf, came the sound of an exhaled breath.

My mind leaped to witches—Esha, stepping out from the trees, his eyes alight with menace. Had he somehow followed us here?

“Run!” I shouted, grabbing Tem’s hand. Lusha looked up just as chaos erupted.

Horses’ hooves thundered, voices shouted, arrows flew. People dressed in scaled armor and glittering silver helms charged us from what seemed like all sides. Tem and I dodged a man coming at us with the butt of his sword raised—Tem stumbled, but I caught him and dragged him on, still staggering.

“Lusha!” I yelled. She turned toward me, our eyes locking across the distance, and I realized she was surrounded by a ring of soldiers. She raised a hand.

It was covered in blood.

I let out a wordless cry. Then there were hands on my shoulders, shoving me into a tree so hard my vision blackened briefly. Other hands seized Tem, striking him across the face as he opened his mouth to shout something. I clawed ferociously at the person restraining me, earning the satisfaction of a muffled curse. The butt of a sword was driven into my stomach, and I stumbled, gasping and choking. I couldn’t breathe—

And then there was an arrow in my shoulder.

I stared at it. I was aware, distantly, that someone was shouting something, that soldiers were pouring into view, surrounding us with drawn bows, that Tem was staring at me with a look of horror I had never seen on his face.

He pulled me down just as another arrow sailed by overhead. That was when I felt the pain blossoming in my shoulder.

The arrow made it hard to focus on anything. So I reached up and pulled it out.

The cry caught in my throat and came out as a broken groan. It hurt, it hurt, it hurt—but not as much, it seemed, as the spells I had cast with Azar-at, nor was the pain as deep. I would be fine. Though those spells had not been accompanied by this strange floating feeling.

“Don’t worry,” I muttered. “I barely felt it.”

Tem, crouched at my side, was saying something. He was pressing against my shoulder. His hands were red.

“That’s a lot of blood,” I told him. It seemed important that he know this.

One of the soldiers pulled him away from me, but Tem, seemingly oblivious to the weaponry pointed our way, made a gesture that blasted him backward.

A man shouted something in a carrying, commanding voice, and another soldier moved to Tem’s side. And beyond them, everything was growing dark.

“River?” I murmured. My mind was a haze. The thought of River brought a surge of relief. It meant he wasn’t dead, wasn’t lying in a snowy wasteland where I could never talk to him, or kiss him, or curse him, ever again.