I sounded the bell with all my strength.
River fell. He struck an overhang, which broke free with a terrible crack. And then he was gone, tumbling into shadow and out of sight.
THIRTY
A SOB ESCAPED me. I pressed my face into the mountain. My cheeks were wet with tears that dripped from my chin and onto the rock, where they froze instantly, glistening.
Keep going, some small part of me said. You’re not finished. But I couldn’t keep going. I could barely breathe.
My foot slipped, and the pain in my ankle wrenched me back to myself. I remembered where I was—at the summit of Mount Raksha, in a city of shadow.
Stay calm, the voice said. Just a little longer. Then you can fall apart. Then you can rest.
The tears didn’t stop, but they slowed—enough for me to see my way. Because of my ankle, I was forced to climb with a sort of hopping motion, as dangerous as it was tiring. The rock was nowhere near as high as anything I had recently climbed—if it had been back in Azmiri, I would have laughed at it. But by the time I reached the top, I was so exhausted I could barely stand.
I wiped my face—the tears had partially frozen, covering my cheeks in a lacework of ice. I reattached the witch bell to the string of kinnika and dropped them in the snow. I couldn’t look at them—I couldn’t think about what I had done.
River was gone, but that didn’t mean the danger was past. The binding spell would break, if not today, then tomorrow, or a year from now. It made no difference. When it broke, the Empire would surely fall, and Azmiri with it.
I had to find the witch king’s bones.
The shadow tower loomed before me, wavering ever so slightly in the breeze. It was hard to believe it had ever had a practical function, even when it wasn’t terrifyingly shapeless—it was windowless, and barely broad enough for a person to stand in. Perhaps a monument?
But a monument to what? I scanned the ledge. In front of me, it sloped down, toward a sheer drop of thousands of feet. I could see Raksha’s neighboring mountain, which River and I had named Aimo, ensconced in cloud—it was higher than Azmiri, but below where I stood now. The land fell away, crumbling, its decay hastened by endless cycles of wind and snow. Jutting out from the rocky earth was the edge of a box.
A coffin.
I staggered forward, ignoring the dangerous slope and the expanse beyond it. I tried to pull on it—the wood was so ancient that it seemed to splinter in my hands, and the box remained stubbornly stuck in the mountainside. Changing tacks, I scrabbled at the frozen ground, managing to pry up a sheet of ice that held the box locked in place. Finally, the soil shifted, and I pulled the coffin free.
I stared at it, hardly daring to move. Inside were the bones of an ancient witch king. How could I think about touching them? How could I even think about opening his coffin?
As I sat there, the wind seemed to whisper in my ears. The shadow tower—had it moved? Was it closer to me now?
I shook off my fears. I was here, at long last, and I had to do this. Still, a strange sorrow tugged at me, at the notion of disturbing the rest of an ancient king, witch or no. River’s ancestor.
“Forgive me,” I whispered, and wrenched the heavy lid back.
It skidded sideways, landing in the snow with a dull thud. Swallowing, I gazed down at the skeleton.
It was paler than moonlight, and so fragile it looked liable to turn to dust if touched. Any clothes it had worn had long since disintegrated. The bones had a faint sheen, a glow that seemed to emanate from within.
Apart from this, there was nothing to identify it as a witch. The skeleton could have belonged to an ordinary man, if ordinary men received burials in shadow cities thousands of feet in the sky.
I was pondering what to do next when I heard the black bell sound. I turned slowly, my heart heavy with dread.
Behind me, close enough I could reach out to touch its smoke fur, stood Azar-at, tail wagging, a doggish grin on its face. Clutched in its jaws was the string of kinnika. The black bell swayed back and forth, though there was no wind to move it.
Ching, ching, ching.
“Azar-at,” I said hoarsely, “give those to me.”
Should not abandon power, brave one, the fire demon said. Should keep it close, keep it safe, or others will come and claim.
I lunged after the creature, but it retreated toward the mountainside—with every step, just out of my reach. I finally stopped, gasping, my ankle throbbing.
Suddenly, Ragtooth was there, a growling, spitting bundle of fur. He launched himself at the fire demon. Azar-at, startled by his ferocity, fell back a step, dropping the kinnika in the snow. The fox nipped at the creature’s toes, forcing it back another step.
“Ragtooth!” I shouted. “Get back!”
But Ragtooth was impervious to my commands. And Azar-at, to my horror, seemed to be quite over its surprise at the attack. Its form wavered, dissolving, and for a moment it became a smoke cloud with only the hint of a hideous, grinning face.
Ragtooth darted toward the kinnika, ignoring my shouts. They were inches from his grasp when the fire demon shifted position again, appearing at the fox’s side. Ragtooth reared, teeth bared, but Azar-at was faster. The creature snatched Ragtooth in its mouth, shaking him from side to side like a ragdoll. Then it threw him against the mountainside, so hard a piece of rock shattered into a cloud of dust. The fox tumbled into the snow, his back bent at a strange angle, and was still.
Ragtooth.
It was impossible to comprehend it. I fell to my knees. Any moment now, Ragtooth would sit up and shake himself. He was hurt, that was all. He would rise again, and everything would be fine.
But he didn’t move.
A guttural sound tore from my throat. Something was choking me, something inside me that clawed its way to my chest. I couldn’t look away from Ragtooth’s motionless form. In some distant corner of my awareness, I knew that Azar-at had taken up the kinnika again, and was gliding away, toward some dark shape that appeared at the edge of my sight.
“We’ll take it from here, Kamzin,” River said.
I whirled around and screamed.
River was an image from a nightmare. Blood soaked one side of his head, running in rivulets down his face. His right arm was angled oddly. The bone stuck out above his elbow, piercing his chuba. I felt sick.
“River—” I choked out.
“Concerned?” Despite his state, his expression was still eerily cold. “Don’t worry, I’ll heal soon enough. As soon as I have my rightful powers—which won’t be long now. Ah—thank you, Azar-at.”
The fire demon dropped the kinnika into his hand. Wincing as the witch bell sang out, River turned and flung them over the side of the mountain.
I let out a wordless cry. River didn’t even pause. He bent over the bones of the witch king.