Page 11 of All the Wandering Light

“She’s no more his slave than I was,” River snapped.

“I think I know what this is about.” Thorn peered at River as if he were slowly coming into focus. “I told you he hadn’t changed, Esha.”

Thorn’s tone made his meaning clear. Scorn replaced the shock in Esha’s gaze. “Is that it? You had a relationship with a human?”

River almost laughed, and not because he saw any humor in the situation. There was no point in attempting to explain himself to his brothers. Let them think he had baser feelings for Malay. It was certainly simpler than explaining his true motivations, which he wasn’t sure he could even explain to himself.

“I thought that you might have matured in the years you spent in the Empire’s service,” Esha said. He clearly had taken River’s silence for an admission of guilt. “But I see now that you’re the same irresponsible child you were when you left.”

Esha came forward into the light, though he didn’t leave the shadows behind; they swirled at his back like a cloak. River suppressed the urge to lean away. Esha’s magic smelled of soot and things that grew in dank places.

“You’ve given the others a very good reason to distrust you,” Esha said. “As if they needed the encouragement. I don’t know if I’ll be able to protect you forever.”

Now it was River’s turn to stare at Esha. “Protect me?”

“As it turns out, I need you.” Esha turned away. “A star fell in the Ash Mountains two days ago. Several witnessed it.”

River watched him, perplexed. He couldn’t fathom why Esha was bringing this up now. “And?”

“I want you to retrieve it for me.”

For a moment, River was too surprised to reply. “You want me to—”

“Retrieve the star, yes.” Esha watched him. “You can do it? You are a celebrated explorer, after all.”

River looked from Esha to Thorn, whose expression showed no surprise whatsoever. He knew little about fallen stars—he knew that the emperor sought them, and that they possessed an ancient magic. He didn’t know what kind. The shamans of the Three Cities told stories about them, all fantastical and contradictory. Some said they killed any who touched them. Others that they could level cities.

“Why?” he said.

Esha began to pace again. “There are barely three hundred of us left alive. Do you know how many soldiers Lozong has at his command? How many shamans? Their numbers are in the thousands. We can’t destroy the Empire as we are. We need the star. They say there is nothing more powerful.”

River felt a surge of frustration. Esha would never be dissuaded from attacking the Empire. Like most witches, he had breathed fantasies of revenge his entire life. Yet River knew it went beyond that for his brother. Esha finally had what he had always dreamed of: authority. The chance to be a leader. He now needed to prove what he had always believed to be true: that he, not Sky, was the one who deserved the title of emperor.

“So that’s your plan?” River said. “Find the star, then attack the Empire? You don’t even know what powers it will give you.”

The corner of Esha’s mouth quirked in something that wasn’t a smile. Though he wasn’t afraid of Esha anymore, as he had been as a child, that look still gave River a chill. He had seen Esha wear it before he tore people apart. Literally. River had witnessed what he had done to a group of Empire traders who had strayed into the Amarin Valley.

“The attack has already begun,” Esha said. “I’ve sent raiding parties to the border villages of the Empire. We will lure the emperor’s armies away, spread them thin. Then, with the star, we’ll invade the Three Cities and reduce them to ash.”

River didn’t know why Esha’s words would fill him with an odd, cold feeling. Perhaps because it was such a brazen plan that it was difficult to imagine it actually working. He eyed Esha with distaste. It shouldn’t surprise him that his brother had already constructed an elaborate plot to destroy the Empire. Esha had always been the cleverest among them, and plotting was his specialty—one of his least appealing traits, in River’s opinion. He wondered what other plans Esha had laid, for surely there were others. Esha’s plots were like loose threads in a tapestry—pull at one, and three more tumbled free.

River flicked a speck off his chuba. “So you need me, do you? I thought I was just a child.”

Esha’s eyes narrowed. “We can reach the Ashes in three days. We’ll take a small party, to travel as quickly as possible.”

“My mistake,” River said. “An irresponsible child.”

“Can you do it?” Thorn said, anger cutting through his customary coolness. Esha placed a hand on his shoulder, surprisingly gentle. But then, Esha had always been gentle with Thorn, as he was with all his hangers-on. It was all the more startling given the purity of his viciousness toward his enemies. Despite himself, River felt a twinge of jealousy.

He leaned back into the throne. “Fallen stars are almost impossible to catch. They don’t stay earthbound for long—a few days, at most. The emperor sent me after a star shortly after I was named Royal Explorer.” He recalled the long journey to the unexplored lands south of Dawa Lake, days tearing through hot, dense forest and nights of torrential rains that flooded his tent. Even Azar-at had seemed fed up. When they reached the place the royal seers had described, all they found was an empty crater. “It wasn’t my most successful expedition.”

“You have your powers now,” Esha said.

River pondered it. Absently, he twined one of the shadows about his fingers, pooling it in his palms as he had before. He had to admit, the idea intrigued him. It irritated him that he had never succeeded in catching a star, something other explorers deemed impossible. Wouldn’t it be enjoyable to test the limits of his powers, to watch the impossible shatter like ice beneath his boot?

“You helped Lozong,” Esha murmured. “Yet you won’t help us? The Empire killed Mother. They killed Sky. Have you forgotten?”

“No.” River’s anger flared. He saw his mother, hair tangled with dirt and twigs, raging. Sky had been the only person who could steady her, but there were times when even he couldn’t guide her through the wilderness of her imaginings. The binding spell had affected all witches differently—most felt it like a weight that accompanied their every movement. But for others, it was a mental, not a physical one. Some broke under that weight. His mother had been one of them.