I stopped, brushing the hair from my sweaty face. The landscape of broken scree sloped up and up to the snow-streaked mountains, which hovered in the sky like locked doors. There was no sign whatsoever of a way through. And yet, somehow, I knew it was there.
“I’m sure of it,” I said, meeting his gaze. I didn’t know how to make him believe me. I didn’t know if I believed myself.
“What does Mingma’s map say?” Dargye said.
“It doesn’t,” I replied. Mingma’s only note about Winding Pass was “inadvisable.” By now, I was becoming used to the dead explorer’s dry understatements. He had similarly labeled a cluster of caves inhabited by ravenous bears as “nuisance—avoid.”
“You can trust her,” Tem said. “Kamzin’s the best navigator in the village. She sees past the obvious, notices details that others miss.”
“We should turn back, dyonpo,” Dargye said, and I had to resist the now-familiar urge to smack him. “We passed the mouth of a valley, I’m sure of it—”
“No,” I said. “That’s a dead end. Look, everyone thought my mother was lost when she led us here, but she wasn’t. There’s something about this place—it’s like you can only find it if you already know the way.”
“Some strange magic at work?” Norbu said. “Yet I sense nothing unusual in the air.”
Tem and I exchanged looks.
“Kamzin,” River said with a slight smile, as if this were a debate over dinner settings, “lead the way.”
I swallowed. The others gazed at me with varying degrees of skepticism and worry on their faces.
All right, I thought. I can do this.
The landscape rose steadily, alternating between short, steep slopes and gradual inclines. The terrain offered a buffer from the wind, which was still rising. Another hour’s walk brought us to a crest of land, and suddenly there was Winding Pass, right in front of us—a narrow channel of snowy terrain that flowed like a river, broken with jagged boulders that reared up out of the ice, between two towering mountains. Songri’s twin peaks gleamed in the sunlight, framed by blue sky and a few tendrils of cloud. But Mount Zerza was lost in the storm.
“Oh,” I murmured.
Lightning darted from the swelling darkness like the flick of a viper’s tongue. The clouds did not seem to be advancing so much as roiling, like shapeless entities engaged in a violent dance.
“Good job, Kamzin,” River said as he caught up to me. “You were right—some magic conceals this place from anyone who doesn’t already know the way. As you stepped over that rise, I saw it blink into existence. I could never have found my way without your help.”
“River—” I began, but he was already walking away.
“Guess I owe you an apology,” Dargye said.
“What?”
“About the pass,” he said slowly, as if I were stupid.
I was barely listening to him. “We need to turn around.”
“Why?” He glanced at the sky. “It’s just a summer storm. We can take shelter if it moves our way.”
“It’s not just a storm,” I murmured. “I’ve seen this before.”
Dargye gave me an odd look and tugged the yak’s lead. I let him, Norbu, and Aimo pass me, and waited for Tem. He had been lagging behind all day, red-faced and breathing hard. He smiled when he saw me waiting, but I could see that behind it, he was hurting. I felt a pang of guilt for the punishing pace I was setting.
“Can you do anything about the storm?” I said, my voice low.
“I was trying. Norbu ordered me to stop. He said I was disrupting his incantations.”
“Forget about Norbu,” I said. “Keep trying. Please, Tem. And keep an eye on that black bell. If it so much as whispers . . .”
He gazed at me, my own thoughts reflected in his eyes. If Chirri was right, the black bell would only sound in the presence of someone who wished to harm us. “It’s bad, isn’t it?”
I swallowed. I heard my mother shouting at me through the chaos of the storm, heard the shamans’ screams, felt the scratch of inhuman fingers against my shoulder. “I don’t know.”
Tem reached into his pocket and pulled out the kinnika. “I’ll do my best.”
As we neared the pass, it began to snow. Lightly at first—small flakes that eddied around us like insects. The wind picked up, blasting us with a chill that took my breath away. River, walking ahead, held his arm up to block the onslaught.
“Tem?” I said.
“I’m shielding us as much as I can,” he replied, his voice low and distant. “But there’s something strange about this storm. It’s like it’s—fighting me. I’ve never felt anything like this.”
He removed one of the bells and rang it sharply four times. The sound, deep as a gong, echoed off the mountains. The snow lessened, and the wind dropped. I could still hear it howling, but it was as if it was separated from us by a wall.
Tem folded forward, pressing his hands against his knees as another coughing fit overtook him. “I don’t know,” he said between coughs, “how much longer I can do this.”
“Just a little longer—please.” We were in the pass now, but I hadn’t seen any sign of the caves indicated on the maps. I clambered up an enormous boulder, squinting into the distance. But I could barely see twenty yards away—beyond that point, Tem’s shield weakened, and the world was hail and wind and darkness.
“Kamzin?” It was River. He stood at the base of the boulder, his expression inscrutable. His tahrskin chuba was white today, and he could have been part of the snow. “What are you doing?”
“Looking for somewhere we can wait out this storm.” I almost had to shout to be heard over the wind.
“We’re not stopping.” He held out a hand. “Come down.”
There was something in his tone that forbade argument. I took his hand and let him help me off the rock. But I gripped it, hard, when he moved away.
“River, please listen to me,” I said, meeting his eyes. His face was only inches from mine; I could count the snowflakes tangled in his lashes. “This is no ordinary storm—I’ve seen it before. We have to turn back.”
“That would give Mara the advantage,” he said. “They already have a head start.”
I stared at him. I couldn’t believe that he was worrying about Mara at a time like this. “River, please listen to me.”
River held my gaze. I couldn’t tell if he was considering what I had said or lost in his own thoughts. Then he stepped away, pulling up his hood so that his face was shrouded. He turned and strode back into the snow. Norbu followed, and then Dargye and Aimo with the yak.
I felt close to tears. Biting them back, I turned to Tem. His shoulders shook with another fit. “Are you all right?”
He nodded tersely, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. His lips moved silently through the incantations, his hand clutching the kinnika. I looped my arm through his, and led him on.
We continued for an indeterminate time—it was still day, but the pass was so dark and turbulent that it was impossible to guess the hour. Tem grew quieter and quieter, his mouth barely moving as he murmured the incantations. We followed the dragonlight. The others were barely visible.