“Selfish?” I dropped the wet log I was holding, and the fire gave an angry splutter. “How am I selfish? I’m trying to protect the Empire.”
Tem’s eyes blazed. I had never seen him so angry. “You’re doing this to make a name for yourself. Or maybe it’s to prove you’re better than your sister, I don’t know. That talisman isn’t what’s driving you—admit it.”
I was frozen, stunned. Tem turned away. “You’re just like River.”
“Just like River?” I said, regaining my ability to speak. “What does that mean? River cares about the Empire.”
“He cares more about reaching the summit first,” Tem said. “If you can’t see that, you’re blind. He’s no different from most powerful men, Kamzin. That’s all he cares about—power. Glory.”
“And you think I’m the same?” I said quietly.
Tem rubbed his eyes. The anger seemed to drain from him, and he sat down heavily in the snow, his back to the fire.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean that.”
I shrugged faintly, looking down at my hands. My anger had faded too, leaving a cold, hollow feeling in its place.
“It’s fine.” I sighed. “You’re right about one thing—I didn’t join River’s expedition to protect the Empire. But now—”
I stopped. I didn’t know how I felt now. Yesterday had changed everything. Yesterday I had watched two of my companions die. My desire to beat Lusha, to impress River, to earn the tahrskin chuba worn by the emperor’s explorers—did any of those things matter anymore?
Aimo’s face rose in my mind. I hadn’t watched her die. I hadn’t even seen her fall. Her death had been silent and swift. Perhaps because of that, it cut deeper, shook me harder, than the horror of the fiangul, or anything else we had faced since leaving Azmiri.
Tem touched my arm. “Let’s not talk about it now,” he murmured. “Let’s just make it to the morning, and then we can figure out what comes next.”
I nodded, not trusting my voice to reply. The fire was burning low—too low. I hurriedly rearranged the wood that was smothering it. Tem rose to help, and we worked in silence, slowly coaxing the embers back to life.
Daylight faded quickly, as it always did in the mountains. Tem and I prepared tea and a thin thukpa soup, trying to be careful with what few supplies the yak hadn’t run off with. Tem took some food to River and Dargye. Dargye, he reported, was awake and able to eat, but River was asleep.
“I couldn’t wake him,” he said. “I tried, but he just muttered something and rolled over.”
I wondered at that. Had using his strange powers exhausted River, or was tiredness a by-product of having one’s soul worn away bit by bit, like a stone worn by a stream?
I couldn’t fall asleep. Each time I found my way to the edge of rest, I was startled away by a stab of fear whose source I could not trace. It didn’t help that Tem and I were in River’s tent, as we hadn’t wanted to disturb River or Dargye by moving them. I had one of River’s blankets draped over me. It was woven from some sort of Three Cities wool that felt expensive, paper-thin yet unnaturally warm. It smelled like River, I couldn’t help noticing, like campfire smoke mixed with wildflowers. Not sweet, precisely—a kind of wildflower most dismissed as scentless. I tried to pinpoint what it reminded me of, before I realized what I was doing. I rolled onto my back. River’s tent was large and drafty, and I shivered.
Tem seemed to be having trouble sleeping too, tossing and turning, his body wracked intermittently with coughing. I shuffled across the floor of the tent until I was lying beside him. I lifted up the edge of his blanket and drew it over me, breathing a sigh of relief from the warmth it brought.
“Can’t sleep?” Tem said.
“No.” I nestled against him, burrowing deeper into the blankets. After a hesitant moment, he wrapped his arm around me, and I pulled him closer, so his chin was resting against the back of my head.
“That’s better,” I murmured. It wasn’t just the warmth that comforted me; it was his nearness. The darkness around me felt thicker, heavier somehow that night, and I didn’t want to be alone in it. Tem kissed me just above my temple. His hand moved to stroke my hair.
I closed my eyes slightly. River had touched me like this when he had kissed me on the ledge. His mouth had tasted like the heady liquor we had drunk, and though his hand against my face had been cool, it had brought a heat to my skin that spread from my face across my entire body.
I turned slightly, my face tilting toward Tem’s. His hair brushed against my face, and it brought me back to myself. River’s presence was all around me—and, apparently, in my thoughts—but it was Tem lying beside me, Tem leaning in to kiss me. I felt a stab of guilt, and stiffened.
“Sorry,” Tem said, drawing back.
“No, I’m sorry.” I pressed my fingers against my eyes. “I don’t know what I’m doing right now.”
Tem let out a long sigh. “This isn’t easy, you being this close.”
I rolled over, putting several inches of space between us. “I shouldn’t have—”
“No—I don’t mean this,” he said. “I mean all of it. Going to sleep every night with you only a few feet away.”
“Tem . . .” I paused. “I know what you mean. But it’s because it brings back memories, of when we were together. It’s not real.”
“I thought that was true,” Tem said quietly. His expression was wistful, almost sad. “Now I’m not sure.”
I didn’t know what to say. I knew how Tem felt about me—and I knew I didn’t, and couldn’t, feel the same. We had been friends for so long—a friendship that could make me feel at home even here, stranded in a vast and terrifying wilderness. I couldn’t bear the thought of risking something like that, of trying to twist it into a shape it would never perfectly fit.
“I’ll move,” I said after a long silence.
“No.” He sighed again. “You’re shivering. Come here.”
He wrapped the blankets more securely around my shoulders, then folded his arm over them, and me, so that we were still touching, but with a shield of blankets between us. I could feel his breath against my head, but he did not move to kiss me again.
I felt uncomfortable at first. But soon, Tem’s breathing turned into snores, dissipating the tension in the air. I closed my eyes and drifted into an uneasy sleep.
SEVENTEEN
I AWOKE TO the piercing call of a goose. I lay still for a moment, listening as the flock passed overhead, my mind a comforting blank. It was nice to lie there in my nest of blankets. Beyond the safety of my tent, there was a world filled with monsters—Norbu was one of those monsters now, a man I had shared food and stories with. And somewhere below our sheltered camp was a crevasse that held Aimo’s broken body.