“It can’t be a forest fire,” Saoud said when I drew near. “There aren’t any trees up there.”
“Is it a dragon?” Arwa said, her voice very small in the dark depth of the night.
“No,” Tariq said. “Dragon fire can’t burn stone without some kindling to start it, and there’s none up there. It’s phoenix fire.”
Saoud and I had told the others about the sprite we’d seen in the glade, of course. Tariq’s eyes had gleamed when we’d described it, but the Little Rose had looked sad.
“Does it want us to stay?” she asked. “Is it trying to warn us about something?”
“I don’t know,” Tariq said. “Phoenix fire is very rare.”
“Wonderful,” said Saoud. “Maybe it would like to fly to the Maker King’s son and tell him exactly where we are.”
“Saoud,” Arwa chastened him. By the dim light of the campfire, I could tell he was abashed.
“Phoenix fire means a good start in most of the stories,” Tariq said.
“What does it mean in the rest of them?” I asked. If I had known how useful Tariq’s father’s tales would be, I might have paid them more attention. As it was, I had no problems relying on Tariq, and listening better to what he said now.
“A good end,” said the Little Rose.
“I suppose we shall be happy with either,” Saoud said. It was as close to an apology as we, or the phoenix, were likely to get. He smiled at me across the fire, and I knew that whatever trouble had been between us, he had decided to let it go. Perhaps that wasn’t the beginning or ending the phoenix had intended, but I would take it.
“Come on,” I said. “I’ll watch first, but the rest of you should sleep.”
The noises of the night never changed, even though the phoenix-fire glow above us didn’t dim as the night drew on. No other animals were disturbed by it, and I hoped against hope that it meant the sight of the fire had been for us alone.
WE WALKED FOR TWO DAYS across the heathered slopes of Kharuf without seeing so much as a sheep on the horizon, but we took no chances. We set up camp at night in whatever concealment we could find, digging the fire pit as deep as we could and burying it again as soon as we were done cooking. Even the Little Rose took her turn at watch now, though she didn’t usually watch for very long. She still didn’t trust herself with the blanket on her own, and it was too cold for her to sit up without it. She usually took the first turn, as a result, but it spared us all a couple of hours to reorder our thoughts after a long day’s march.
Saoud’s father had told us that there was more to trekking than simply taking the steps. You had to plan food and water, which were both easy enough for now, and you could only move as fast as your slowest companion. Usually that was Arwa, who absolutely hated the idea of us slowing our pace to match hers, but with the Little Rose’s gift for stamina, it was complicated. She could, as we had seen, walk farther than anyone should be able to, but it cost her to do it. Saoud talked with her, reminding her that we must reach the desert fit to keep going, if we had to, and she conceded the point. Though it chafed her more than it chafed Arwa, she called a halt when she needed it, and it was she who set our pace across Kharuf.
On the second day, just after we set out, Tariq stopped in his tracks and put his hand to his chest. I reached for my water skin, sure he would need a drink after he had finished coughing, but then I realized he wasn’t coughing. None of us were. I still had a tickle in the back of my throat, but that was all. Saoud walked back to us, and I saw the question in his eyes.
“We’re all right,” I said. Then, again: “We’re all right.”
“How is that possible?” Tariq said. “The first time we came into Kharuf, I nearly left a lung on the riverbank. Arwa?”
“I’m fine too,” she said, breathing deeply to confirm it.
“What’s different this time?” Saoud said.
“We ate food from the gnome’s garden,” Tariq said. “But I don’t think that’s it.”
“Could it be because the princess has started to make things?” Saoud asked. We all flinched away from the implication that her making could ease our illness.
“No,” said Tariq. “That doesn’t feel right, either.”
“Feel right?” Saoud said.
“No, Tariq, think,” I said. “Or don’t think. However you figure things out, no matter how strange it seems, follow the thread of it.”
“Our parents got sick, but they weren’t immediately incapacitated,” he said, speaking slowly. “They were able to hang on for months before they had to leave.”
Once I would have interrupted him with an angry remark about King Qasim, but now I knew better, and held my tongue.
“They didn’t have the gnome’s food, and Zahrah wasn’t making anything,” he continued. “But she was there.”