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“Careful!” Iryana shouted as Misha slid down another slope, snowshoes kicked up in the air.

She shouldn’t have let her sisters come, but they’d insisted and she couldn’t bring herself to make any decisions for her clan members. Didn’t trust herself to choose the right path.

Hadima caught Misha’s arm as she reached the bottom, slowing her down and helping her back to her feet. The ground shuddered beneath them.

Vaneshta set a relentless pace, constantly urging their guide to hurry. They followed the earth-forged tracker back down the mountain, faster than was probably wise. He was a short, nimble, middle-aged blond man who’d been so claustrophobic in the caves that he’d immediately volunteered to guide them.

She couldn’t explain the strange moss-green forging in the tracker’s hand, only that it formed a sort of looking glass that he could see through. One of Lidishta’s scarves was wrapped around his arm. They had no choice but to trust in his forgings.

Another quake knocked them all off their feet, a surge of wind blowing them down against the snow. It was brutal. Iryana had thought feeling the swaying mountain in the caves had been bad, but they’d had Limhiz’s staff to stabilize the ground. Beyond the influence of that staff, the entire earth felt unstable.

The only benefit to the state of Istri was that it seemed to be dangerous for the dakii as well. They’d passed plenty of the beasts buried in snowfalls and trapped beneath trees. Still, they kept a careful watch. Pepha, Vaneshta, and the tracker took the front. Iryana, her sisters, and Pyetar followed next, and after them, Vabihn, Shahn, and Mezhimar took up the rear.

Every time they were knocked down, they scrambled back up and kept going.

The tracker led them down the mountain, an entirely different direction from the post and the fort. It was full of exposed rocks and cliffs, jutting above the snow-draped pines. The gods’ war had collapsed some of the cliffs already, leading to steep piles of unsteady fallen rock that had a tendency to roll farther downhill with the worst of the earthquakes.

“We’re getting close.” The earth-forged tracker was holding up his forging, squinting at it through the trees.

“We should break for a few minutes,” Pyetar said, pulling down the scarf wrapped around his face.

They were all exhausted, breathing heavily, and flushed from the cold.

“We can’t stop,” Vaneshta snapped, balling her fists. “We have to get her now.”

The rest of them tensed. Iryana knew charging ahead wasn’t the right call, but she didn’t know how to explain that to Vaneshta.

“Vani…” Pepha soothed, trying to reach for the fuming Vaneshta, but she pulled away.

“You’ll come with me, right?” Vaneshta turned to Vabihn, eyes pleading.

“You know I love a good fight…” He looked away. “But we have to be smart about it. My family…”

“If it was your family that Tenar took, you wouldn’t be hesitating!” Vaneshta growled.

Iryana winced.

“If we rush in barely able to fight, how do you expect we’ll get her back?” Pyetar demanded, his voice hard but not cruel.

“Every moment we wait means a higher chance we’re too late,” Vaneshta snapped.

“You know how to calculate risk, Captain.” He was even firmer now. “You know what puts us and her in more danger. Think about it. Imagine if this wasn’t Lidishta we were going after.”

She glared at Pyetar, every line of her body tense and ready to fight. But the moment she realized Pyetar was right, her whole body sagged.

“It’s already been too long,” Vaneshta whimpered, hanging her head. “What if we’re too late?”

Iryana wrapped her arms around her friend. She was worried too. “We’re going to get her back.”

“I’m scared,” Vaneshta cried into Iryana’s shoulder, squeezing her tight.

“I know,” was all Iryana could offer. “Me too.”

Even if Noshtiz won and her attempts to keep everyone alive were for nothing, Vaneshta and Lidishta deserved to die in each other’s arms.

They drank water, ate their tough jerky, and recovered a bit of their strength. It didn’t take long, but it felt like forever. Every moment they sat there, Iryana’s fears grew worse, Vaneshta fidgeted more, and the risk for Lidishta grew.

The moment they decided to start moving, Vaneshta was back up and pushing the tracker to move quicker. There wasn’t much farther to go.