Chane appreciated secrecy. No mage revealed more than he had to. But he was tired of Welstiel doling out tidbits concerning undead existence only when necessary. Now it appeared that Welstiel’s arcane knowledge was greater than Chane had estimated.
To create an object that conjured fire within itself was one thing. But Welstiel’s steel hoop included something more that made only him immune to its damaging effects. But a few nights later, a more immediate problem reared up. The last of Welstiel’s stored life elixir was gone, and the monks grew difficult to control—especially Sethè.
Chane awoke one dusk to find Welstiel gone. He stepped quickly from the tent to find his half-mad companion sitting in the snow, scrying for Magiere.
“I feel she draws close to her destination,” Welstiel said, as if sensing Chane’s presence.
Chane did not care. The monotony of hunger, cold, and suffering continued each night. And for what—the promise of a better existence?
“Then we are not long from completing our bargain,” Chane whispered.
“Yes,” Welstiel answered. “You will have your letter of introduction to the sages’ guild.”
A twinge whipped through Chane. The beast inside of him scurried into a corner, hiding from an unseen threat. Chane stared at Welstiel’s back.
This had happened once before, as he had left the monastery behind Welstiel. Twice was too much to ignore.
What was this abrupt panic springing from mere words that only his instinct seemed to know? Not just suspicion or wariness, but an ache in his head, like atrophied muscles used too harshly before they could be strengthened.
But the sensation left Chane with one unexplained certainty.
Welstiel was lying to him.
A full moon after the shipwreck, Magiere tightened her coat’s collar and resecured her face wrap beneath her hood. Fortunately, Osha had carried a spare pair of gloves. The fingers were too long, but she did not care. She forced one foot after another through the deep snow.
After finally reaching the high mountain altitudes of the Pock Peaks, south of the Blade Range, she had not seen a tree in the last six days. Only crusted snow choked the paths between jagged outcrops and canyon walls, and charcoal black peaks speared into the dingy white sky.
The icy winds were harsher than those of the Broken Range, when Leesil had dragged her through to the Elven Territories. And worse, breathing took effort. They halted often in the thin, frigid air and buckled where they stood to catch their breath.
Daylight waned, and Magiere could barely make out anyone’s face beneath their cowls, hoods, and the cloth wraps Leesil had made by shredding spare clothing.
Chap pushed on ahead. Wind-driven snow coated the blanket lashed around his body and neck. Leesil and Sgäile trudged directly behind Magiere. Wynn and Osha staggered along at the rear.
Wynn was too fragile for this terrain, and her small body lost heat quickly. Her short legs took more steps to cover the same distance as the others. Osha had never been outside the elven forest and its constant climate. The cold heights were proving a shock to his body, and he had the most trouble breathing.
But these worries remained faint in Magiere’s obsessed thoughts. Only the pull upward and the dreams mattered. Only finding the orb before anyone else could.
Chap barked from ahead, and Sgäile struggled past Magiere.
“Here,” he called, voice muffled beneath his face wrap.
Magiere almost shouted at him to keep moving. They still had daylight, and she was still on her feet. She had to go on.
Chap struggled halfway back through the deep snow. He stood in her path and would not move. Magiere looked beyond him.
He’d found a depression at a granite wall’s base. The vertical face curved away from the wind, and the pocket was large enough for them to take shelter.
So far, Sgäile and Chap had managed to find a suitable place to camp each night. In the worst cases, Sgäile and Osha piled and packed snow walls, which they would then roof and enclose with a canvas tarp. Everyone huddled together, sharing coats and cloaks as blankets, having long abandoned all sense of modesty.
Magiere heaved a breath, and its vapor tore away in the wind. She knew they couldn’t pass up shelter so close to dusk.
Leesil trudged over and looked inside the depression’s mouth, only the slits of his eyes visible within his cowl.
“This is good,” he said. “We can curtain the opening with canvas . . . and trap some heat from the fire.”
Osha’s hands shook as he tried to dig in his pack, and Sgäile took the pack from him.
“You and Wynn go inside,” he ordered.
Without a word, Osha crawled to the depression’s back with Wynn close behind. He leaned against the stone wall, opening his cloak, and she collapsed against him. He drew the cloak closed, and she became nothing but a gray-green lump on his chest.
Sgäile pulled his face wrap down, exposing cracked lips as he glanced at Leesil. They were both freezing and exhausted.
Magiere finally rolled her pack off her shoulders.
Without a word, they set to staking the canvas tarp to block the depression’s entrance. When they finished, Magiere took the small pot from Sgäile’s pack.
“Start the fire,” she said, her voice cracking. “I’ll get snow to melt.”
She slipped out through the canvas’s edge as Sgäile arranged a small pile of deer droppings and Leesil retrieved their nightly rations.
They were all sick of berries, which turned mushy once thawed, and flaking fish made bitter with powdered fungus. Most of them couldn’t even take food until they’d downed tea or hot water to warm up. For the past three nights, Wynn only wanted sleep when she stopped, and someone always had to force her to eat.
Magiere scraped the pot against the snow, filling it, and ducked back into their enclosure. The stench of smoldering dung filled the space. The barely recognizable lump of Osha and Wynn heaped together hadn’t changed, except that Chap now lay curled up against Wynn. The shelter began to grow warmer, at least above freezing.
Leesil unwrapped his hands and pulled the tattered cloth from his face. His lips and the skin around his eyes were badly chapped. He leaned against the depression’s side, rubbing his hands together as he held them out to the tiny fire. Magiere settled beside him as Sgäile took the pot from her.
“We should let Osha and Wynn rest a while,” Leesil said. “Even into midday tomorrow.”
“Midday?” Magiere hissed. It was hard enough to sit through the night, waiting for another dawn.
“They need it,” Leesil said and grasped her hand. “We all do . . . including you. We’ll travel better after, and I doubt we’ll find shelter like this again.”
Magiere tried to relax beside him, shoulder to shoulder, but inside, she quaked with the urge to move on.
Hkuan’duv halted when he saw A’harhk’nis hopping back across the deep snow. The scout’s early return meant he had tracked their quarry more quickly than expected.
“Sgäilsheilleache found a shallow cave and called for early camp,” he said.
Hkuan’duv nodded and pointed to a small outcrop. “We can set up behind those rocks.”
Neither Dänvârfij nor Kurhkâge spoke as they pulled off their makeshift overcloaks of white sailcloth. During the days, the garments made it harder for them to be spotted in the snow. At night they draped them over the tent, camouflaging it.
They had remained behind and to the north of Sgäilsheilleache’s group, but A’harhk’nis often scouted closer, slipping unnoticed through the frozen slopes and crags. He also tracked the pale pair of men and their crouching companions, who steadfastly remained farther behind. At first the distance they kept had confused Hkuan’duv, as nights here were as long as the days, providing these nocturnal travelers ample time to catch up.
“They travel slowly on purpose,” A’harhk’nis had told him. “They seem even more hesitant than we to draw close.”
A’harhk’nis suffered least from cold and altitude. He had ranged for many years in all forms of wild climate and terrain. Kurhkâge and Dänvârfij were more accustomed to covert purposes in urban areas, the former in the southern coastal regions and the latter in the wetlands of Droevinka. A whole moon on light rations in this frigid range took its toll on the two.
Hkuan’duv removed linked pieces of wooden rods from his pack and assisted A’harhk’nis in erecting the tent.
“We are hidden enough for a small fire,” he said. “Can you take first watch?”
It was unfair to ask this of A’harhk’nis after he had scouted for most of the afternoon, but the others needed to rest.
“I am usually still awake,” A’harhk’nis answered, “when Kurhkâge starts snoring.”
A weak but welcome jest, and Hkuan’duv began building a small fire with elk droppings they had gathered in the foothills. Soon small, stinking flames danced before the tent’s opening, and he ushered Dänvârfij and Kurhkâge inside.
Crawling in after them, Hkuan’duv pulled down his face wrap. The quarters were cramped but thereby better for sharing heat.
“Are you well?” he asked.
Dänvârfij uncovered her face, and only half-smiled with chapped lips. “Of course—and I need no nursemaid. We have all spent nights in the cold.”
“Not like this,” Kurhkâge said.
Hkuan’duv agreed, but if Kurhkâge or Dänvârfij were in trouble, he needed to know.
“No,” she agreed softly. “Not like this.”
Hkuan’duv pulled out his bedroll, and Dänvârfij untied her own.
“Do you think we are near the destination?” she asked.
This was as close as she would ever come to telling him she could not last much longer.
“A’harhk’nis says we now climb the highest of the Pock Peaks,” he answered, “so they could not go much farther.”
He did not add that each day they went on meant another day for the journey back.
“Rest, both of you,” he commanded. “I will see how A’harhk’nis fares with the tea.”
“Will you bring me shortbread, too?” Dänvârfij asked with a slight scowl. “Oh, and if you spot a wandering snow hare, you could shoot it for me as well.”
He looked into her face, her words a reminder that this was not the time nor the place for lost sentiment to muddle their purpose.
“There are no rabbits up this high,” he answered and crawled out.
But as Hkuan’duv stood in the cold darkness beside their small fire, he knew a small part of him would regret this mission’s end. In Dänvârfij’s company, he did not feel alone.
The dreamer flew closer to the castle with a hissing voice whispering all around.
Here . . . it is here . . . only steps away and your journey nears an end.
Six towers loomed, their ice fringes and the rocky peaks more familiar.
She was so close.
Then she stood upon the stone steps before the high iron doors.
Only steps away . . .
and the castle vanished.
Magiere slipped sideways off the depression’s wall, flopping to the frozen ground before the hanging canvas. Through the crack along that curtain’s edge, she saw a world of snow and ice, waiting so close.
She crawled into the open and trudged off into the night.
Wynn lay half-conscious against Osha, both of them reclined on a pile of packs against the wall. She could feel Chap curled up against her back.
Too exhausted for true sleep, she loathed the thought of opening her eyes to a world of endless snow and ice. Outside the cramped shelter, a hard wind whistled through the peaks.
The cave and Osha’s body offered warmth, and beneath the wind’s noise, she heard their small fire sputter. Sgäile must have kept it burning and, even better, Leesil promised they would rest late into the morning.
Osha’s chest rose and fell beneath Wynn’s head, and Chap was snoring again. Even if she could not fall asleep, these sounds and small movements brought her comfort. She had never suffered so much as in the past moon.
A numbing pain in her right foot grew every day, creeping up her calf. Today it had spread to her left foot, as if her body were warning her that it would soon quit altogether. Her eyes burned from so many days of blinding white.
She rolled off Osha’s chest and wrapped her arm around Chap. The dog’s snoring ceased when she tried to pull him against her, but he was too heavy.
“Scoot closer,” Wynn whispered. “Move your rump!”
Chap grumbled and sidled in, and Wynn pressed her face into the fur between his shoulders.
“Only steps . . . away . . . ,” someone murmured. “. . . Journey nears an end.”
Wynn tried to lift her head, barely cracking her eyes open.
Sgäile slept on Osha’s other side, and beyond Chap, Leesil leaned against the wall in deep sleep. Wynn laid her head back on Chap’s shoulders, closing her eyes.