Page 31 of All the Wandering Light

Something stirred the air above me. Just a bird—probably. There was no way to be certain anymore. The fire Tem had lit, though it burned low, was like a beacon among all that snowy dark.

I hurried to descend the boulder, suddenly nervous. I didn’t like leaving Tem and Lusha alone.

Mara had gone south. Alone, despite the danger—though, as he had pointed out, in his dismissive way, danger couldn’t very well be avoided, as it lay in every direction. He would go to Jangsa to see if there were any survivors. Then he would continue south to the Three Cities and tell the emperor what the witches were planning.

I hadn’t thought I was capable of feeling admiration for Mara. He hadn’t spoken a word of complaint, despite the fact that he had poor odds of surviving the long journey without the protection of a shaman. When he set off, Lusha followed at his side for the first few paces. They had stopped together briefly, speaking in low tones. Then Mara had carried on, growing smaller and smaller until he passed the brow of a hill and was gone.

Now we were only three.

I tried not to dwell on that as I marched back to the campfire. Eight of us had left Azmiri on a mission to save the Empire. And now it fell to Lusha, Tem, and me to finish it.

The ground beneath me gave a shudder, and I leaped back. But it was just the snow settling, not a crevasse opening to swallow me as it had swallowed Aimo.

My heart pounded. I didn’t trust the snow fields as I had before—now, whenever they groaned or shifted, I saw the blackness of the crevasse, Dargye’s face as he clutched the torn scrap of Aimo’s chuba. Death came so quickly in the wilds—it was something I had never understood before, when I used to run heedless with Tem over the slopes of Azmiri. Without warning or ceremony, it could snatch away someone you had known your entire life.

Our camp nestled between two boulders, which leaned drunkenly together, forming a natural shelter from the wind. I hurried toward the fire, shivering. The climb had warmed me, but it was still bitterly cold, particularly with the wind running its claws over the earth. At the edge of the light, I stopped.

Three figures sat around the fire, huddled together in conversation, their backs to me. Tem and Lusha—I would recognize either of them from a mountain summit—and someone tall and slender, with disheveled black hair.

He wore a tahrskin chuba.

My breath caught. I was surging forward, my heart in my throat, when Tem saw me. His expression was wary, but not alarmed. The man turned.

With a start, I recognized the heavy, brooding brow, the stiff posture. The light fell on his tahrskin chuba—the garb of one of the emperor’s explorers—revealing it to be old-fashioned in style and cut.

“Mingma,” I breathed.

“Kamzin,” the ghost said drily. The light glinted strangely off his skin, as if he were made of water. “I gather you aren’t overjoyed to see me.”

My mouth seemed to have stopped working. When I had last seen Mingma, he and his terrifying companions were attempting to drown me in a glacier-fed mountain pool, all acting under the power of a spell laid down centuries ago by the witches. I felt again the agonizing chill of the water, the thin fingers dragging me below the surface—

“He’s been following us since we left the Aryas,” Lusha said. “He won’t hurt us.”

“I’m sorry about that business on Raksha,” the ghost said. “As you know, I didn’t have much choice in the matter.”

“That business?” My terror was giving way, slowly but surely, to fury. “That business?”

“Kamzin,” Lusha said in a quelling voice. “Mingma has offered to help us locate the star—as you know, he spent more time in the Ash Mountains than any explorer.”

“He tried to kill me,” I said, emphasizing each word through my teeth.

“I also saved your life,” Mingma said. “You’d be a mound of snow on that mountain if it weren’t for me.”

I froze. I saw a figure silhouetted against a sky blazing with shooting stars, chuba rippling in the wind. I had been desperately lost. And like a familiar star, he had pointed me home—to Lusha and Tem.

I had thought it was River that night. Then, later, my own delirious imagination. But it had been Mingma.

“He didn’t have to stay,” Lusha said. “The other ghosts crossed over when the spell holding them on the mountain broke.”

“I thought you could use my help,” the explorer said, scanning the landscape with that clear, intelligent gaze, as if he were comparing his surroundings against a memorized scroll. “Though Kamzin less so, perhaps. I kept an eye on you as you descended Raksha—I don’t think I’ve seen a climber so skilled. You’d make an excellent explorer.”

In spite of myself, I felt my face warm at the compliment. I hid it behind a stony glare. “How did you free yourself from the spell? How can we be certain this isn’t some kind of trick?”

“When River broke the binding spell, he also shattered the one holding us on Raksha,” Mingma said. “I doubt he intended it, or even knew it had happened. The breaking of a powerful spell like that often has an effect on other, nearby spells, particularly one as old and brittle as that which bound us to the mountain.”

I glanced at Tem, who, as usual, had been quiet, listening as the conversation played out, his expression partly shielded by his hair. “What do you think?”

“It’s true that he isn’t under the witches’ spell anymore,” he said thoughtfully. “I was able to detect traces of it, but that’s all that’s left—traces.”