So I did. I told him about my mother—her frequent absences, her laughter, her ability to rivet the attention of a room with one of her stories. I told him about Father’s desire for me to be a great shaman, my years of miserable lessons with Chirri. I told him about Tem, and how I was always dragging him along on my adventures.
River, in turn, told me stories about life in the emperor’s court. He told me about a dinner at the palace, when the emperor’s niece had mistaken a carelessly placed dish of dragon treats—dried beetles and kitchen scraps—for an appetizer, and no one had the courage to correct her. I was soon snorting into my pillow as he described the looks on the courtiers’ faces when they realized they would have to go along with the mistake. He told me about the strangest expeditions he had undertaken, such as his visit to the Ajnia Lakes, ringed by mountains, where the villagers lived in floating huts and rarely set foot on land. I asked him question after question, and he answered them all.
We talked for hours. Eventually, we fell silent again. The gentle rustle of the string against his hands formed a soothing backdrop to the crackle of the fire. I closed my eyes, intending to rest only briefly. But when I opened them again, the fire was out, and River was gone.
I sat up, rubbing my eyes. “River?”
The snow we had packed over the door to the cave was still in place, apart from a narrow gap just wide enough for a body to slip through. I looked around. Azar-at was gone too. River’s pack was still there, leaning against the cave wall.
A strange sensation passed over me—a sort of echoed foreboding, as if something I had been dreading had at last come to pass. I clambered to my feet, my injured knee protesting the unexpected effort.
Something had woken me, I was sure of it. I listened hard, but all I could hear was the wind sweeping over the mountainside. But then there came another sound—faint, almost impossible to distinguish.
Whispering.
I woke Ragtooth, who protested sleepily, burrowed down among my blankets. Once he saw me pull my boots on, however, he stirred and stretched. He hopped onto my shoulder as I stood up and nestled himself in his customary place between my hood and neck.
The whispering came again. It was definitely coming from outside, but whether it was beside the cave, or halfway down the mountainside, I couldn’t tell. The wind carried sound over long distances sometimes. I wasn’t afraid—River and I were the only ones on the mountain, so what was there to be afraid of? I was only curious.
With Ragtooth secure around my shoulders, I stepped out into the night.
It was cold, so cold. The winds had died down, but even a gentle breeze was fierce at that altitude—it funneled through me, draining away the warmth that clung to me from the cave. The pale slope of the mountain stretched before me like a gray canvas, and snow gleamed dully on the nearby peaks. The sky was thick with stars, their cold light blazing more brightly than I had ever seen. The Winter Tree constellation hung directly in front of me, its many branches reaching up to ensnare the Dancing Dragons. Nothing moved, apart from the loose snow sweeping over the mountain like fog.
“River?” I called. I could just make out his tracks in the snow, leading off to the right. The whispering came again—from the opposite direction.
I wandered toward it. The wind was against me, whipping my hair back from my face. I called River’s name again, and thought I heard someone reply.
I stopped in my tracks. A figure stood before me. A young man—tall and broad-shouldered, with an imperious tilt to his head. His skin glowed with a sheen like fish scales, and he wore a long chuba edged in gold thread and cut in an old-fashioned style. It rippled around him in a way that seemed oddly familiar.
I stared, openmouthed. Ragtooth let out a long, low hiss. He leaped to the ground, placing himself between me and the stranger, his fur standing on end.
“Who are you?” I said when I finally found my voice.
“Never mind that.” The young man’s voice was cold and strange. It reminded me of chimes moving in the wind. “You must come with us.”
“What?” Something moved out of the corner of my eye. I screamed.
A head—a head—floated through the air toward me. Its cheeks were sallow and sunken, giving it a skull-like appearance, and its eyes were wide and staring.
I staggered back, still screaming, and collided with the man—who was not a man at all, judging by the iciness of his skin and the strange softness of his body, which felt like a wall made of wind.
“Take her,” the ghost said, and suddenly I was surrounded. Ghosts stretched their pale arms toward me, gaped their hideous mouths. Cold hands closed around my arms and legs, and I was borne away, screaming all the while.
TWENTY-ONE
I SCREAMED UNTIL my throat was raw. The ghosts traveled terribly fast, leaping over chasms and snowdrifts as if they were nothing. As they moved, they swirled together to become indistinguishable, so that I felt as if I were being transported by a chill fog with many viselike hands. I did not touch the ground, and no matter how much I struggled and screamed, I couldn’t loose myself from their grasp.
A rock wall loomed before us, craggy and thick with shadow. We seemed to be heading right for it. I squeezed my eyes shut, but rather than striking hard stone, we passed into a cave, much larger than the one River and I had sheltered in. The faint glow of the ghosts illuminated a tunnel of sorts, broad enough for several men to walk abreast, sloping down toward the heart of the mountain. The ghost cloud bore me along, not taking any care to prevent me from bumping against the rubbly boulders that lined the tunnel, evidence of previous cave-ins. These obstacles did not hinder the ghosts—they raced on, whispering together too quietly for me to interpret what they were saying. I caught only the occasional word. Girl. Others. City. Witch. Demon. Stardust. Coming. It was a meaningless jumble.
Finally, the ghosts slowed and began to drift apart again. We had come to a vast cavern—at least, I guessed it was vast; the roof was hidden in shadow. Dark holes in the rock wall hinted at passages leading to yet more rooms of stone. I barely had a chance to look around, however, because suddenly the ghosts released me, and to my horror, I was falling.
I hit the ground hard, my arm bent painfully beneath me. The ghosts moved away, all but the terrible, drifting head, which leaned over me, baring its teeth. I rolled away from the thing desperately, overwhelmed by terror and repugnance.
“What’s the matter, girl?” the ghost said, widening its bloodshot eyes. “Not regretting your decision to come to our mountain, are you? To sneak around like a thief in places you don’t belong?”
“Quiet, Orti,” said the first ghost. He was young, or had been when he died. His large eyes gave him an almost girlish look, or would have, if not for his dark, brooding brow. He had an aristocratic bearing, his back unnaturally straight and his head held high, as if there was a hook in his scalp drawing him up. I couldn’t help thinking that he looked familiar somehow, but the memory darted away like a silverfish. He appeared to be wearing a tahrskin chuba.