Joden coughed as the sacred smoke grew thicker and then started to swirl. Everything vanished and the heat faded.
“Uppor?” Joden called, but his voice was lost as the winds howled into the lodge, extinguishing lights and stealing the breath from his body.
Joden staggered up. The pallet was gone, the walls were gone, and the ice cut into him once again. Once again he raised his arms to protect his eyes from the sting of the pellets.
He was alone, naked, wandering the snows.
The winds lashed out, swirling around and around, trying to force him back, strong enough to knock him from his feet. Whatever respite he had was gone. There was only him now, and the struggle.
Joden pressed on against the wind, staggering through the drifts, fighting to… fighting to… fighting against—
He stopped and closed his eyes. “Some Singer I am,” he muttered, then shook his head. “He could have just told me.”
But the winds laughed in his ear as they circled around him in a tempest of snow and ice.‘How then would you learn?’
Joden stretched out his arms. “Where the winds will,” he said.
He was turned, pushed, and started running with the winds, leaping drifts, almost losing touch with the earth below. There was something white ahead, a glowing expanse of rippling white cloth, waiting, ready—
He took one last leap, spread his arms and let the winds take him through the white light and into the darkness.
Chapter Twelve
As she struggled for another handhold, Amyu decided that mountains held little truth.
A place that looked close was in fact hard to reach. A path that seemed straightforward was in fact steep; the brush that you thought to push through fought back. The rock that looked trustworthy would slide away under your foot. The root that you grasped to pull yourself up gave way.
The climb she thought would take little time was taking far longer.
Mountains were not to be trusted.
Amyu set her jaw and kept at it, out of sheer stubbornness. That flicker of white was still there, above her. Pure white and fluttering. Taunting her.
What was worse, it was now right above her, at the top of a wall of rock and roots. She would have to climb the sheer face to reach it, at the risk of falling.
Tired, hot, Amyu checked her footing, leaned against the rocks, and took a drink from her waterskin. She winced at the grit under her nails and the itch of sweat on her scalp.
She could turn back.
Sheshouldturn back.
Shifting carefully, she looked out, towards Water’s Fall. Unlike the rest of the mountain view, this one was blocked by thick green trees, heavy with needles instead of leaves. Birds darted and peered at her from the branches, scolding as if astonished to see a human this high. There was a small breeze, just enough to stir the trees. She lifted her hair off her neck to let it dry.
Even if she started down now, she’d be another night on the mountain. A cold, hungry night, but she’d at least be headed down, and back in the city before—
A snatch of song drifted through the air.
Amyu jerked her head up. That sound had stopped during the climb, but there it was again. Faint, irritatingly familiar, and yet she couldn’t name it.
It didn’t matter. She had toknow. She secured her waterskin, and headed up.
Nothing worked with her, not rock, not branch, not root. She lost the sound of the music in her own rough breathing. Muscles straining, she blinked against the sweat in her eyes.
The bit of white was still there.
Amyu reached up again, and tested another hand hold, and then another until finally, finally, she reached and felt an edge with her fingers.
She heaved herself up and over, on her belly on the cold worked stone, breathing hard.
