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“I’m safe, I’m here,” she reminded him. She was too tired to explain more.

It was so unfair that being held by him felt so good, yet she wasn’t allowed to have him.

She abruptly pushed away from his chest, looking around to see if anyone in the nearby camps was watching them.

“Everyone is sleeping or on watch,” Pyetar said, voice tinged with frustration. “We aren’t doing anything wrong.”

“Sorry.” But she was still stiff, worrying about what would happen if someone did see.

Pyetar slowly put her back down. “I should let you get some sleep while you can.”

“I—”

“It’s okay.” He brushed her cheek tenderly with his thumb, tracing her face with his gaze. Then he stepped back.

After days of huddling together, freezing at night, barely eating, fighting off dakii, retreating as quickly as they could, and waiting out the immense quakes, they were almost to the fallback location. It had taken much longer than she had hoped, though. The Bitter Moon had left, and the Lying Moon would rise for the first time that night.

Iryana and the rest of the forces walked through the one narrow pass into a glacial cirque, an abandoned air temple and frozen lake dominating the bowl. Sentries were already posted at the pass, a large pile of rocks waiting to fill it in as much as they could once all their forces were safely inside.

The ground steadied as soon as they arrived, the violent tremors fading away.

There were poor-looking attempts at winter shelters covering the available ground as the temple wasn’t nearly big enough for them all.

The relief she felt was tempered by all they’d left behind. They’d lost at least a dozen on the way, perhaps only a couple hundred of those who had stayed behind were left.

People streamed out of the temple gate, meeting them as they marched around the frozen lake. All Iryana could worry about now was whether everyone from the first group had made it safely.

Iryana spotted Teshya carrying Anara a moment before Tonhald did. He transferred Levek’s weight entirely to Uncle Dinhal and ran for his wife. They collided, crying and laughing, holding each other tight. Watching them was the first bit of joy Iryana had felt in days.

Then she saw the elegant, beautiful face of her big sister, bordered with fur, and a real smile broke out across Iryana’s face. She stumbled wearily in Hadima’s direction.

“Oh, thank the gods,” Hadima cried, pulling Misha and Iryana to her. “When the signal passed through that the wall fell, I feared the worst.”

Having both her sisters in her arms again was the best feeling in the world. But there was only so long she could let herself distract their healer.

“Levek is injured,” she told Hadima, breaking away.

Hadima immediately switched to medic mode, asking questions and telling one of the other healers who had followed her where to put him.

Iryana left everyone reuniting in the snow to hunt down her grandmother.

The inside of the temple was musty and damp, any decorations long since ripped away from the stone walls and rough floors. Mosses and vines likely took over in summer, but now they were just dried up clumps of brown around the edges of the space. Sound echoed almost painfully against the ceiling. The interior space was dominated by one big open hall ringed with small rooms. Above them, a balcony wrapped around a second ring of rooms around the upper floor and overlooked the hall.

She was eventually directed up the stairs to where the First was sitting next to a fire in one of the small rooms, her body looking more slumped and exhausted than usual. Her eyes, though, snapped sharply to Iryana’s. Relief bloomed on her face.

Iryana dropped to her knees before the First and hung her head. “We failed to hold the wall.”

Vesima grabbed her shoulder and pulled her in. “It was inevitable, my Third. You held it long enough.”

Those words gave Iryana permission to collapse, her head in her grandmother’s lap.

“Levek is injured, but we didn’t lose any of the clan. There were plenty of losses, though.”

Her grandmother ran a hand over her hair. “You’re here. You did everything you needed to, and you brought them here.”

“I—” She fought for the words to explain all that had happened, but exhaustion bore down on her.

“There will be time to talk later,” her grandmother soothed.