Page 58 of All the Wandering Light

I shook my head. Then I dove into the shadow.

It was a strange sensation. The shadow flowed over my skin like wind, but something about it was solid, almost tangible. It felt like a thousand wings brushing past my face.

I wove through the darkness, finding my way to the star. I picked it up, and it was as dull and lifeless as it had been when I first touched it. I plunged back into the darkness, reaching Azar-at’s side just as I heard the cry.

I turned. River had appeared, as had Esha. They stood at the edge of the spur, framed by the stars. They were at the center of the swirl of shadows, which had slowed to a menacing dance. River was clutching his side. He pulled something out, something that gleaned darkly in the starlight.

An obsidian dagger.

“River!” I screamed.

River sank to his knees. Dark blood spilled over his fingers. He gazed at Esha, his expression filled with a hatred so intense it seemed to vibrate through the air. Esha leaned forward and placed his hand on River’s face—a gesture of affection so utterly incongruous that I started. Then he took the dagger from River’s hand and drove it into him a second time. Esha turned away as River fell.

I felt oddly disembodied. For a moment, it was as if I could see through River’s eyes, but it wasn’t because of our connection this time—it was a memory. I was back on Raksha, hunched in the snow, watching as River left me behind, broken and defeated on the summit.

I wasn’t defeated now. I had what I had come here for, and this time, I wasn’t giving it up—no matter what. I choked back the tears that ran down my cheeks and pinged against the rocky ground, already frozen.

Esha turned to look at me, his head cocked—a brief pause, before he unleashed some merciless spell in my direction. River followed his gaze. For a moment, our eyes met. His face was paler than I had ever seen it, and his eyes seemed to struggle to focus on mine.

Azar-at settled at my side, the creature’s smoke-fur melting the snow from my boots.

“Azar-at,” I said as I thought of Lusha and Tem with all my might, “take us to the emperor.”

Part III

The Three Cities

Eighteen

AZAR-AT GAVE NO warning.

The mountain vanished, the snow crumbled underfoot, and the stars went out like snuffed candles. All was black and still, the stillness of dead things and snow-cloaked forests. I was dying but unable to die, to breathe, to move. I felt—something. Countless shapes moving, rustling against my bare skin.

Those were the only impressions I had before I tumbled forward onto the floor of a forest.

I lay on my back, winded, as if I had fallen from a great height. Had I? I had a strange image of myself falling from the peak of that unnamed mountain in the Ashes, into a forest that didn’t exist that far north. But here, it was day, an ordinary afternoon. The light of an overcast sky spilled through the trees.

I pushed myself up onto my elbows, head spinning. Lusha groaned a few feet away. Wind played through the leaves, and it was gentle, almost warm, with none of the sharp edges it had in the north. A stream flowed over a bed of moss.

Where are we?

I didn’t have time to wonder about it. For in that moment, the world dissolved again, obscured by a veil of agony.

Someone was screaming, some distant part of me noted. Everything was distant—it was as if, in that moment, I was reduced to a kernel of pain, every other thought, memory, and sensation stripped mercilessly away. It was a pain that was everywhere, and nowhere, and it went on and on.

Then, without warning, it stopped.

“Kamzin.” Someone was touching me—a hand on my face, another on my shoulder.

I blinked, my eyes coming open. Tem knelt over me, his face pale. With his other hand, he grasped at one of the kinnika, as if readying to cast a spell. But there was no spell that could help me.

The pain was gone, though in its place was a bone-deep weariness. I drew myself half-upright as my vision swam.

“River—”

“It’s all right.” Tem’s voice was low. “He’s not here. What happened? We saw you fall . . .” The way he touched me was strange, his hand light and tense, as if he was torn between restraining and comforting me. Mixed with the concern in his face was something harder, like anger.

I saw River’s face, half in shadow. The blood staining the snow. Something twisted inside me, sharp as a knife. The pain clouded my vision, as sharp one of Azar-at’s spells but somehow deeper.