I can show you River’s mind, Azar-at said. I can send you into his thoughts, so that they become yours, and you can control the words he speaks, the decisions he makes. I can take his memories, and give them to you, so that it will be as if he has no past, and cannot recognize friend from foe.
A shiver trailed down my back. “No, that’s—that’s not what I’m asking. I want to look into River’s mind. I want to understand what he’s doing. Don’t you see?”
The fire demon’s tail wagged faster. You wish to understand River.
“Like I did before,” I said. “Can you tell me how?”
Close your eyes.
I didn’t move—or blink. “Do you understand what I’m asking?”
Yes, Kamzin.
“I don’t want to take anything from him,” I said. “I just want to see through his eyes.”
I understand.
Trepidation washed over me. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was talking past Azar-at somehow. But didn’t it always feel like that? And wasn’t it essential to understand what the witches were up to? My heart thudding, I closed my eyes.
Think of River.
I thought of River. I saw his mismatched eyes, so jarring at first glance, the hint of a smile at the corners. His messy hair, the scattering of freckles across his nose, which in some lights made him look younger than he was, boyish. I couldn’t picture River as a boy. It seemed impossible that he hadn’t simply stepped fully grown from the shadows, capable of unerring navigation in whiteout conditions and moving like the wind over the most treacherous terrain.
That was the last thought I had before everything dissolved.
I stood in a forest clearing. The trees were blackened, twisted—many almost leafless. They knitted together overhead like a cage, and the air was heavy with smoke that seemed to emanate from the ground. It was dark, so dark.
I knew immediately that something was wrong. This was not like the other visions I had experienced. In those visions, I had been River. The connection had been seamless. Now I saw the world from behind River’s eyes, but there was a distance. And I was very much myself.
“Esha!” River shouted, and I started. River’s voice was different—he was young, possibly six or seven.
I wasn’t seeing the present. I was seeing the past.
Part of me began to panic—this wasn’t what I wanted. Azar-at had tricked me. Another part of me watched in awed fascination.
River continued walking, pushing through sharp underbrush, shouting his brother’s name. His voice was hoarse—how long had he been out here, lost? For clearly he was lost, judging by how often he paused to study the stars through the thicket of branches. Something darted past, something that whispered like a ghost. But River, perhaps accustomed to their presence, didn’t look, so I couldn’t either. Though I had only been there a few moments, I hated this place. The burned trees were alive, but in a ghoulish, unnatural way.
“Esha!”
It was strange. I saw through River’s eyes, but I could only see flashes of his thoughts. River wasn’t cold, barefoot as he was, but he was hungry and tired. Esha had brought him here, promising a game—they had walked for hours. Then Esha had hid himself, which had been part of the game, but this, he knew, was not. River stopped to examine the sky again, then readjusted his course. Part of me marveled at it—there were only a few stars in the scrap of sky visible through the branches. Even I couldn’t have found my way by them.
Something was moving through the forest, making little effort to conceal itself. A young man stepped out of the trees.
He was tall and broad, with a frowning face and lank hair that hung past his shoulders. He would have been handsome, in a coarse sort of way, but for the fierce glint in his eyes that made me want to take a step back. When he saw River, his expression lightened.
“Thought I’d have to walk all the way to the headwaters before I found you,” he said, in a voice that was surprisingly gentle for such an intimidating man. “And what are you doing out here? Don’t you know the wolves have returned to this part of the forest?”
“I’m not afraid of them,” River replied. Beneath his confidence was a surge of relief. It wasn’t relief that Sky had found him—it was relief that someone had been looking. River wasn’t used to being noticed, and felt momentarily overwhelmed. And now, he thought happily as he ran to his brother’s side, he would have an entire afternoon alone with Sky.
“I caught something,” River announced proudly, displaying the mangy crow he had been carrying. Its wings were splayed and hardening—it must have died several hours ago. “You won’t have to go hunting today.”
“I see.” Sky’s nose wrinkled slightly. But he added, “Well done. You’ll be catching hares and geese in no time.”
“I’m faster than them.” River’s thoughts were full of his brother’s praise, and he needed to prove himself worthy of it. “Quieter too. I snuck up behind him and snapped his neck. He didn’t see it coming. I’ll bet I could sneak up on a wolf, if I tried. I could sneak up on one of the emperor’s soldiers. They wouldn’t—”
“Don’t speak of that.” Sky’s voice was sharp—it cut through the background murmur of the forest like a knife. “If you see a soldier of the Empire, you will not go near them.”
River was startled. He searched for a way to correct his mistake. “I didn’t—”
“River.” Sky knelt so that he was at River’s eye level. “If you see a soldier—or an explorer, or anyone else of the Empire, you will run. Is that clear?”
River nodded, relieved to have been given a way to make things right. He didn’t point out that Esha bragged about having once killed a soldier. Esha had led him here, and then abandoned him. Esha had once threatened to kill him for following him and his friends. River would do what Sky wanted. It wasn’t even a choice.
The scene changed.
River was still in the forest, crouched on the bank of a lightless stream. He looked down at the water, and I let out a silent gasp at the sight of River’s reflection gazing back at me.
At least, I thought it was silent. River glanced up, his brow furrowing. After a moment, he shrugged and returned to the water.
He was older—fourteen or fifteen, perhaps. It wouldn’t be long before he joined the emperor’s court. Was he thinking about it now? I didn’t know. His mind was like a lightless well. I only knew that he was wrestling with something dark.
Shall we discuss the plan, River? a voice said, and I bit back a scream.
Azar-at stepped out from the shadows, as if it had been there all along, and I felt a moment of déjà vu. River didn’t turn his head, nor did he speak.
You are doubtful, Azar-at said after a pause. There was a question in the creature’s voice that surprised me. I hadn’t thought it capable of uncertainty.
River let the silence drag on another moment. When he spoke, his voice was quiet. “I wouldn’t have traveled to the farthest reaches of the Nightwood in search of your kind, Azar-at, if I had any doubts.”
No doubts. The fire demon’s tail wagged. Looking at Azar-at was eerie. I had just been speaking to the creature on the shore of a northern spring. Fear, then. Fear is strong. I am stronger.
“No.” River launched a pebble into the water, shattering his reflection.
Anger. You are angry.
“Is this part of our contract?” River said. “You will badger me until I confess my every thought? I don’t recall that clause.”
Azar-at cocked its head. Definitely anger.
River let out a short laugh. His mood lightened so abruptly I felt dizzy. “I’m beginning to suspect you have a sense of humor, you strange little monster. That’s something, I suppose.”
He watched the ripples settle on the water. “Do you really want to know what I was thinking?”
Yes, River.
He tossed another pebble. “I don’t want to leave.”
Why? The fire demon’s usually remote tone held an unexpected note of curiosit
y.
River stood, sliding the remaining pebbles from one hand to the other. “Because I’m not sure what will happen to them without me.”
You will make things right, the creature said. You will help family.
River’s eyes drifted away from Azar-at. Curious, I tried to peer into his thoughts, but they were too unsettled; it was like trying to pick out a face in a crowd viewed through dirty glass. I wondered if even he could make sense of them.
Something crashed in the distance. River was on his feet before the first echo died, scanning the forest. Then he plunged into the trees.
Branches slapped his face. River was light on his feet and navigated the twisted woods as skilfully as a deer, seeming to intuit the position of rocks and roots a step in advance. He was soon bursting into a clearing, which was cast in a lurid glow.
A woman crouched in the center of the clearing. She looked up, revealing a thin face framed by graying hair. Her eyes were River’s eyes—one dark, one light, and her skin was heavily freckled. Even if I hadn’t read it in River’s thoughts, I would have known she was his mother.
Around her, the forest was burning. It wasn’t witch fire, but it burned just as fiercely—as River watched, a branch broke from a tree and fell to the ground in an explosion of sparks. Several struck his mother, singeing her hair. Yet she made no move to shield herself. Instead, to my astonishment, she rolled onto her side and lay motionless among the sparks and blown embers.
River darted forward, dodging another branch. The woman looked at him, and in her eyes there was no recognition whatsoever. River dragged her to her feet and swept her up in his arms. She was taller than him, but she weighed as much as a child, being little more than skin and bone.
“Azar-at,” River said, lifting his hand. Obligingly, the fire leaped out of the way, forming a path to safety. River plunged along it, a stray spark striking his temple. I felt it as clearly as if it had struck my own face, heat sharp as a needle. It was soon joined by a familiar pain, difficult to locate but no less sharp, as Azar-at took what it was owed—
I let out a cry. It was not my face that had been burned, it was my hand. I had fallen forward, my palm plunging into the heated water of the spring. I leaped back, burying my hand in the snow.
My head spun. I touched my face, my hair. I was myself again. River was gone—the reflection gazing back at me was my own.
“What was that?” I searched for Azar-at, and found it, unsurprisingly, sitting behind me, slightly too close. My heart was thudding. “You showed me River’s memories?”
I gave you what you asked for, Kamzin. The creature’s voice was unperturbed. As I always do.
“No, I—” I sagged forward as the pain overwhelmed me, a sharp spear. It was the second time I had felt it in as many moments—the first through River’s eyes; the second through my own. For a moment, I could almost see the invisible thread connecting us—a thread made of fire and pain.
There is much more, Azar-at said. Would you like to see? I could show you River’s time as Royal Explorer, his triumphs and failures.
There was a different note in the creature’s voice, an eagerness I had never heard before. It reminded me of how Azar-at had spoken of River before. As if it regretted his leaving. Almost as if it missed him.
“Azar-at,” I said slowly, “do you—do you wish you were still with River?”
Its tail stopped wagging. There was an odd sort of pause.
River was different from the others, it said finally. He did not wither and fade as they did. Eventually, they came to curse me. Then they forgot who I was.
I was shivering. “And River never did.”
River left, Azar-at said.
The creature’s eyes burned, as unreadable as ever. It was madness, I told myself, to imagine that there was anything like sorrow there. To see Azar-at as some sort of dog abandoned by its owner. It might look like a wolf, but it was anything but. It was ancient, its power vast as the darkness beyond a campfire. The creature’s tail was wagging again.
Ragtooth sinuously interposed himself between me and Azar-at, who was still too close. He snapped at Azar-at’s leg. To my astonishment, the fire demon fell back a step. Ragtooth gave a satisfied growl and placed a paw upon my knee.
I can show you more, Kamzin, the fire demon said.
“That isn’t what I want,” I said. “And you know it.” My anger flared and then faded, leaving behind that eerie, cold feeling. My thoughts were full of what I had just seen—it was too much. River’s family, the Nightwood. How his mother had looked at him, as if in that moment she had been unable to recognize her youngest son. With her height and uncanny grace, she would have been a fearsome person to encounter, in another state of mind. As it was, there had been something childlike about her. Childlike and broken.
River had said she had died a year ago. He would have been at the emperor’s court, or roaming the wilderness far from the Nightwood. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to lose someone like that. When my mother had died, I had been with her, along with Lusha and Father. To have been far away, unable to say good-bye—
But why was I wondering about any of this? It didn’t matter what River felt, then or now. What mattered was learning his plans.
Azar-at had vanished. I looked in all directions, but saw not even a hint of its glowing eyes.
I thought of River perched at the edge of the stream. He might have had regrets about what he was doing, but he hadn’t let those regrets interfere with his plans.
I rose. I would load our supplies onto the yak and go over the maps again with Mingma. We had to reach the star first—the Empire would fall if we didn’t. But that thought, over the last few days, had grown increasingly tangled up with something else: a desire to beat River, as if we were back in the Aryas, playing a game of Shadow. I didn’t fully understand it—this wasn’t about me and River. Yet part of me couldn’t stop thinking about how satisfying it would be to reach the star first, and be gone before he even knew I was there.
Motioning to Ragtooth, I turned my back on the water and hurried back to camp.
Thirteen
Mara
FINDING HIS WAY to Jangsa required neither map nor compass. He simply followed the smoke.
The plume towered before him. Sometimes he was breathing it, depending on the direction of the wind, and his throat burned. Witch fire had a peculiar scent—or perhaps it was not the fire itself, but the materials it burned. Things that had no business burning—soil and rock and waterlogged wood. Mara moved quickly, stopping for only a few hours each night to sleep. As he neared the foothills of Mount Zerza, the single black plume became three, then a dozen. More. Mara clambered to the top of a frost-rimed hill, sweating in the midday sun. There he had his first view of the village.
What remained of it.
He had come to survey the damage and offer assistance on his way to the emperor’s court, but Mara guessed there were few left to assist. Before him was a landscape of ash and smoke. He would not have thought there had been a village here, but traces of it lay like a skeleton halfway unearthed. The buildings that dotted the lower slopes of snowcapped Zerza were scorched and roofless. Where once there had been green—grass or crops or the stunted poplars that grew at this altitude—now there was only burned earth. The fires were out, but still the village wept black into the blue purity of the sky.
Mara had never visited Jangsa. Kamzin had described it in almost fantastical terms—a village of old stone huts slowly sinking into the green hillside, where spirits were worshipped obsessively by furtive-eyed villagers. For his part, Mara thought it must have been a lowly place, judging by its size, and no wonder—there could be little industry in an isolated village like this. His father, who had made his fortune in the dye trade, would have thought it a place not even worth marking on a trading route.
The towers of black smoke rising off the ruined village made for such an unearthly sight that Mara’s fingers itched for his charcoal and parchment.
He paused to jot down a few observations, along with a cursory sketch he would tidy later.
“You there,” he said to the first villager he saw, a stocky man with an ash-smeared face dragging a cart of blankets. “I’ve come on an expedition from the Three Cities. The emperor will want a full report of this attack. I wish to speak with your elder—does he live?”
The man stared at him. He seemed to put his full effort into the action, lowering the cart to the ground and facing Mara.
“I’m sorry for your losses,” Mara said, “but I have little time.”
The man continued to stare. After a long, uncomfortable moment, he ducked into one of the scorched dwellings. Two voices murmured within.
Mara waited, but the man didn’t reappear. The thought of entering that collapsing black ruin, which loomed jaggedly like a monster’s maw, put him ill at ease, so he walked on. As he passed the man’s cart, he realized it wasn’t loaded with a jumble of blankets—beneath a sheet of rough cloth was the still body of a woman.
Mara’s hand went to the talismans in his pocket. His magical skills were passable—better than most, in his estimation—but he was out of practice. His thoughts turned to the witches who had abducted him in the Amarin Valley, their feral strength and grace. It was the memory that River had taken from him two years ago, after River had rescued him and revealed his own identity in the process. For two years, Mara had been enspelled, part of his memory suppressed by River.
River. Mara’s hand tightened around the talismans. He had always resented River. How could he not resent someone who, at the age of fifteen, had strolled into the emperor’s court and stolen the title of Royal Explorer, which should have been Mara’s? It was ludicrous how everyone at court had swooned over his every exploit. Mara had never trusted River, not even when he saved Mara’s life, as he had done on several occasions. In fact, looking back, Mara seemed to recall that he had once or twice wondered if River had some connection to the witches. Perhaps he had even confronted River about it, and River had removed those memories too.
One thing was certain: he would enjoy revealing River’s identity to the emperor. He imagined doing it in front of the entire court, their faces paling as they realized the depth of their favorite’s betrayal.
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