Page 2 of All the Wandering Light

We are friends now, Azar-at said. I will do anything you want.

I suppressed a shudder. Biter nipped at the flap on my pack, and I shooed him away. I carefully tucked the pack into a crevice in the rock where the snow wouldn’t settle on it. I knew that the small creature inside could no longer feel the cold, but I couldn’t bear the thought of Ragtooth’s body being swallowed by the snow, becoming a frozen feature of the mountainside. Loyal to the end, my familiar had challenged Azar-at on the summit, and Azar-at—who had then been bound to River—had broken him. I felt fury at River rear up again, followed by grief that ached in my bones.

No tears came. I had none left.

I didn’t realize I had fallen asleep until I opened my eyes and found that the night was still. I blinked, uncomprehending, shaking off the snow that covered me.

The blue-black sky hung before me like a vast, unraveled scroll. Countless stars flickered, forming constellations both familiar and strange. And across them streaked something I had never seen before.

Thousands of shooting stars. So close to where I sat, in that pocket of sky, that I felt I could touch them, and so bright my eyes watered.

“Azar-at,” I whispered, equal parts fearful and awed, “what is this?”

The fire demon—crouched above me in the shadows—shook itself. Little drops of melted snow speckled my chuba.

It is River, Azar-at said.

Terrified, I shrank back as if the stars would burn me. They streaked across the sky in fiery bursts, tinged with red and yellow and blue. It was as if the night was tearing itself apart. I half expected the sky to give a shudder and fall to the earth in shards, revealing some strange otherworld hidden behind it.

“River?” During that long day, I had beaten back all thoughts of him, my fury subsumed by the simple need to survive. He had lied to me, betrayed me, and left me. He was not the person he had pretended to be—the emperor’s favorite, his trusted advisor. Or, rather—even worse—he was those things, and he was also a witch who had been working against the Empire from the very beginning. He had stood at the summit of Raksha, in the witches’ abandoned city, and unleashed their powers. Even the sound of his name seemed to settle in my chest like a small, cold weight. “What do you mean?”

They tell stories, Azar-at said. River made an end. An end and a beginning.

“Stories,” I murmured. The stars told stories, certainly, for those—like Lusha, or Yonden—skilled enough to read them. What had my sister once said about star showers like this? That they were rare, so rare the last one had faded from living memory. And that they marked significant events. Turning points in the course of history.

I watched the sky. In spite of myself, I was awed. River had done this—altered the fabric of the world. But he hadn’t acted alone.

I bit my lip so hard I tasted blood. I had helped him, guided him to Raksha. And everything that happened as a result would be my fault. If I couldn’t warn Azmiri of what was coming, if I couldn’t get back to the village before the witches attacked—

“Biter,” I said, wincing as I shifted position, “we may not have another chance like this.”

The raven, who had returned to the crook between my neck and shoulder, croaked sleepily. He shook his wind-ruffled feathers and took flight, winking past the burning trails of the stars. But though the gusts had lessened, they never completely abandoned this exposed crag. After being beaten back against the mountainside twice, Biter flapped back to the shelter, landing inelegantly with wings askew.

“That’s all right,” I said, even as dread unspooled within me. “We’ll take it slow. At least we can see now.”

I forced myself to my feet. The pain in my ankle had dulled, but I knew it was just because everything was dulled, and that this was a dangerous thing. I leaned against the snow-caked mountain for a moment, then I drew on my pack and began descending again. The burning sky provided enough illumination to make out the shape of the mountainside.

I stabbed my ax into the ice, using it as an anchor as I craned to look in all directions. This couldn’t be right. I had been bearing west all day, and by now, I should be close to the rocky plain where River and I had evaded the ghosts. And yet I could see only snowy slopes, impossibly sheer. I would have to turn back and find another route down.

I punched at the snow. How could this have happened? My sense of direction was normally unerring. As I contemplated my worsening prospects, Biter called out a warning, sharp in my ear.

I turned. To my right, the terrain rose to form a treacherous cornice, wreathed in mist. My breath caught in my throat.

A figure perched on the cornice, silhouetted against the blaze of shooting stars. He was tall and slender, clad in an expensively woven chuba tugged by the wind. His hood was up, and I couldn’t see his face. It didn’t matter. I would have known that chuba anywhere.

“River?” I croaked.

The figure’s head tilted. Even his stance was River’s—one foot propped carelessly against the lip of the snow as if nothing but solid ground was beyond it; elbows bent over hands thrust into pockets. Graceful and nonchalant, and equally unknowable, a shadow in the night.

How could he be here? When I had last seen him, he had been descending the mountain faster than any human could move.

Fury rose again, dwarfing the surge of hope that had risen, unbidden, at the sight of him. After all that River had done, he would dare return here? And for what purpose—to gloat? I crept toward him, raising my second ax. But before I could get any farther, he took a single step forward and plunged into the abyss.

“River!” I cried.

A moment of mad scrambling brought me to the cornice. The ice groaned ominously beneath my weight. To my astonishment, there were no footprints in the snow. And there was no sign of River. The mountain fell away in a sheer drop of perhaps a hundred feet, and at the bottom was—

I gasped.