River heaved a noisy sigh. The fire demon poked its snout through the flaps, and Dargye recoiled.
“Spirits protect us!” He made a warding gesture.
“Stop that,” River said. The fire demon slithered out of the tent and stood by his side. Its mouth was half-open, its tongue lolling out. “As I assured Kamzin, Azar-at is harmless.”
“It’s been following us?” I said. I didn’t like looking at the creature. All I could think of was my dream. The witch. The forest. The hungry fire demon, creeping toward me, and no protection to be found anywhere.
“Yes, he always travels with me.” River scratched the creature’s ears. “I asked him to stay out of sight, of course, but I didn’t count on you being such a light sleeper. You’ve almost stumbled upon him more than once.”
“You’ve bound yourself to him, then?” Tem said. His voice made me jump—I hadn’t noticed that he had come to stand beside me. He fixed River with a hard, scrutinizing look.
“He’s mine, if that’s what you’re asking.” River’s eyes narrowed as he held Tem’s gaze. I was suddenly conscious of a heat crackling between them, cooler than anger but more intense. Perhaps it had always been there, just beneath the surface, but I had not noticed it.
“So the answer is yes.” Tem’s tone was flat. I knew as well as he did what this meant. River had made a contract with a fire demon. It was a rare feat, and an immensely dangerous one. In the old days, some of the more powerful shamans would form such bonds, but I knew of none in recent memory who had risked doing so. A fire demon could amplify a shaman’s spells, combine them with its own powers, but the creatures were unpredictable, impulsive. The only way to ensure a fire demon’s loyalty was to form a magical contract with it, which bound you together for a fixed length of time. In exchange for power, the shaman would feed it. But a fire demon didn’t consume ordinary food. It drew its sustenance from the shaman’s soul—or, more specifically, small scraps of it, broken off piecemeal like crumbs of bread.
Who is this one, River? The fire demon was gazing at Tem. He smells of salt and starlight. Such power for one so young.
River muttered something, and Azar-at sat back on its haunches. It didn’t take its eyes off Tem.
River, on the other hand, was looking at me. “I’m sorry I had to keep this from you. I thought it would be for the best.”
“It’s fine.” I turned. I felt an overwhelming urge to be away from River, as far away as possible. “I’m sorry I ambushed you like that. I thought—well, it doesn’t matter.”
I thought that you were in danger. It seemed so stupid now, looking back on it. River wasn’t in danger.
If anything, the opposite was true.
I glanced back at the fire demon. It panted lightly, its belly moving in and out, its tongue lolling, looking for all the world like a large gray wolf, but for the eerie hunger in its gaze. It was no ordinary, animal hunger. It was something very different.
“Well, since you clearly don’t need any help,” I said, “I guess I’ll go back to bed.”
River tried to catch my eye. “Kamzin—”
But I was already walking away. Dargye hovered for a moment, but soon disappeared into his tent. I heard him muttering to Aimo.
Tem watched me as I climbed back under my blankets. He started to speak, but I cut him off.
“You don’t have to say it.” I rolled onto my back, so that I was staring up at the tent rather than at Tem. “You were right not to trust him. All right?”
“I was a long way from right. I can barely believe it. A fire demon—how could he be so stupid?”
“I don’t know.”
“At least I understand what I felt now, when he cast that spell in Winding Pass.” Tem coughed, shaking his head. “Fire demons don’t require talismans—their magic is of an entirely different kind. Elemental magic. Wild magic.”
I was barely listening to him.
Tem let out his breath. “This changes everything.”
“Maybe not,” I said. “The fire demon is bound to River. That means it can only do his bidding. It can’t hurt us, or disrupt the expedition.”
“Unless River wants to disrupt the expedition. Have you considered that? What if he wants to do something that puts us all in danger?”
“Like what?” I let out a humorless laugh. “We’re already in danger.”
He muttered something.
“What did you say?”
Tem blew out his breath. “I said, you’re still defending him. How long are you going to keep doing that?”
I made no reply. After a moment, I heard Tem settle back into his blankets. There was a pause, longer than usual, and then finally, there came the faint sound of his snores. That was when I allowed the tears to slide down my cheeks.
I wasn’t sure why I was crying. So River had lied to me. So he had concealed something so enormous, so frightening, that it would make any sane person recoil from him if they found out. I could understand lying in a situation like that.
But I didn’t think I could forgive it.
It wasn’t just that he had invited an unpredictable creature of unfathomable power along with us. It was that he was the danger. He had made himself that way, by his own choosing. That was the unforgivable part.
I shuddered. How much of his soul had River already given the fire demon? How much more would it take before he went mad? For that was the only outcome I knew of, for people who bound themselves to such creatures. They became powerful—frighteningly powerful—but only for a time. Until the fire demon took everything from them, and left behind something that was not quite human anymore.
My tears had stopped. They had not been many, after all—I was too overwhelmed to cry. My thoughts were in such a jumble that I didn’t think I would ever fall asleep. Eventually, I gave up trying, and simply listened to the moan of the wind.
FIFTEEN
I WAS UP early the next morning, lighting the fire and starting breakfast. It wasn’t my turn, but I needed something to occupy my thoughts. My sleep had been poor—I kept starting awake, each time convinced I had heard the fire demon lurking outside my tent.
I put spices, momo, and dried vegetables into the pot of boiling water. I had seen Aunt Behe make mothuk soup often enough, though I’d rarely paid attention to the process. Still, after leaning over to inhale the smell, I thought I’d come close.