He’s right. Not only that, but we’re much closer to the base – and hopefully a passageway through – than I thought.
Any vague inclination I might have had to actually fetch wood is gone as I stare at the steep peaks. The sweeping lines cut through the cerulean sky, some sharper and angrier, others far softer, smoothed by snow and centuries of wind and rain. My eyes catch on one particular peak and I notice something: a slight shimmering of purple. The movement of it … it reminds me of something Stide taught me.
And that makes my heart pang all over again.
‘Kyor?’ I say, already moving closer towards the range, trying to get a different view – a clearer view. ‘Can you see that?’
‘Whatis it?’
‘The mountains.’ I point unnecessarily at the beasts that rise through the air. ‘Look at them.’
‘It’s pretty hard not to. They fill the entire view.’
‘No, look at them. Really look at them.’
I feel him frowning at me, but I don’t so much as glance in his direction. I can’t. All my attention is back on the slopes, at the same one I was staring at before, with the wide, sharp ledge.
‘There!’ I practically jump on the spot. ‘Did you see it?’
‘See what?’ Kyor asks.
‘The colour. It flickered. Changed.’
‘It’s probably the sunlight?’ he suggests. ‘Or the snow drifting.’
‘No, it wasn’t that. I promise. Please, look again. Pick a point and focus. It’s not the sun. I know it’s not.’
I check above me just to be sure, but there’s not so much as a single cloud in the sky now, and the sun sits low. Whatever I saw, it wasn’t because of the light.
The silence is taut with anticipation, and all I can hear is my heart drumming in my chest as I stare once again at the peaks. This time the shimmer is even more pronounced, with flecks of gold and brown. I spin around and look at Kyor.
‘Did you see it that time?’ My voice is almost begging. ‘Tell me you saw it that time.’
‘Words, words, but not what he wants to say.’ Loch is rambling beside me, but I try to block him out, looking only at Kyor as I repeat myself.
‘Tell me you saw it?’ I plead.
‘Uh … I … maybe … I’m not sure. What am I supposed to be seeing again?’
My frustration is close to boiling over.
I’m right – IknowI am. I just wish he could see it too.
‘There,’ I say, pointing to a narrow ridge on the mountainside. ‘Just look there. Don’t take your eyes off it, no matter what. Okay? Don’t take your eyes off it until?—’
‘Rose!’ Caz’s voice cuts through the air, and I spin around, distracted and annoyed, desperate for Kyor to see what I’m sure I’ve spotted. Asshe races towards me, her face a mixture of excitement and fear, my heart lurches.
‘Rose, Thessa said she saw something. The mountain. The mountain, she said?—’
I rush towards the Sanning, nearly breathless. ‘You saw it too? I’m not imagining it?’
‘No.’ She shakes her head. ‘No, you are not, The Rose. I saw it too.’
‘Saw what?’ Kyor questions, frustration bleeding into his voice. ‘What is it you saw?’
My eyes remain on Thessa a moment longer, needing her reassurance that what I saw wasn’t because of exhaustion. Not because of fading light or snowdrifts. It was because of what Stide taught me all those weeks ago. The Sanning who lost her life for us and yet may have just saved us once again.
With my heart tight with uncertainty and joy, I look back at Kyor, unable to stop the grin on my lips.
