“What you should be thinking about is your lessons with Chirri,” Tem said. “Not impressing some noble from the Three Cities.”
“And where will that get me?” I felt my temper rise. “Tem, I’m seventeen years old, and I’m still only a junior apprentice. Chirri refuses to make me her assistant, and you know what? I don’t blame her. I hate magic—I’m terrible at it. You know I can’t do this for the rest of my life, no matter what my father says.”
“You’re terrible at magic because you don’t try,” Tem said, giving me an exasperated look. “Anyone can do magic. You get better the more you work at it. It’s like any skill—weaving, or running, or anything else.”
What Tem said was true enough, to a point. Anyone could do magic, provided they had the right talismans and knew the incantations. But there were some who, for whatever reason, took to it more naturally than others. Who possessed an affinity no amount of training could match. That was Tem—it would never be me.
“You know I’m no good at running,” I pointed out. “My legs are too short. I always finished last when we used to race each other. It’s like that with magic—there’s a part of me that’s too short, or too small, and nothing is ever going to change that.”
“You’ve improved since I started helping—”
I turned away. “You’re not listening.”
“I always listen to you,” he said. “I doubt you’ll be able to say the same for River Shara. He’s known for many things, but listening isn’t one of them.”
I scowled. I knew River Shara’s dark reputation—everyone did. Stories of his merciless assassinations of barbarian chieftains, his intolerance of weakness in his traveling companions. He was said to have stranded men and women who had proven too weak to keep up with him, and not all of them made it back to the Three Cities.
I also knew that most stories were like the shadows painted by the late-afternoon sun: deceptive and exaggerated. I wasn’t going to be afraid of stories.
Tem gazed at me for a long moment. Then he sighed. “What do you want me to do?”
I leaped into his arms, wrapping him in a tight hug. “I knew I could count on you.”
He pushed me away, trying and failing to hide the blush spreading across his cheeks. “Have I ever told you how crazy you are?”
“A few times,” I said. “Look on the bright side—if I become a famous explorer, I’ll take you on my expeditions.”
“So I can traipse around in the wilderness, sleeping on rocks and roots and half freezing to death?” Tem snorted. “I’d rather herd yaks.”
“No, you’d rather be Chirri’s apprentice.” I regretted it instantly. A shadow crossed Tem’s face, and he ducked behind his curtain of hair.
“Anyway,” I said, “I’m going to talk to Lusha. Maybe she’ll know what this is about.”
“She’s Lusha,” Tem said. “She knows everything. Whether she’ll be in a sharing mood is another question.”
TWO
“OF COURSE I knew River was coming,” Lusha said. “He sets out for the North in two days. I’m going with him.”
I stared at my sister. She ignored me, calmly tapping the excess ink from her brush. She bowed her head again over the star chart, which was so long and wide it needed eight stones to pin it to the table. I glared at the side of Lusha’s head, contemplating grabbing one of the inksticks and grinding it into her careful drawings. Biter, one of Lusha’s ravens, gave me a warning crrrk from his perch on the windowsill.
“You’re going with him,” I repeated.
Lusha made no reply. The paper rustled as she shifted position.
“You didn’t say a word to me.” I kept my tone even through sheer force of will.
“There was no reason to.”
I shot Tem a look, but he only shook his head. He was hovering by the open door frame of the observatory, as if ready to dart away at a moment’s notice.
My sister glanced at me, her large eyes narrowing, as if she couldn’t comprehend what I was still doing here. Lusha wasn’t beautiful in the traditional sense, or even particularly pretty, with her thin face and ears that stuck out like the handles of a vase. But she was tall, with limbs like willow boughs, and eyes that flashed when she smiled. Her thick hair swirled to her shoulders like liquid night, appearing to be in motion even when there was no wind to stir it. Every week it seemed there was a new man falling tragically in love with her. Tragic for them—Lusha never seemed to take much notice of anything apart from astronomy. Plotting the courses of the moon and stars, tracking the constellations, and predicting future events based on their movements—it was a rare gift, more intuition than power. She had been even more obsessive about it recently, sometimes staying up all night and appearing late at the breakfast table with shadowed eyes and ink-stained hands. Whenever I remarked on her behavior, I was just met with a blank look, or, more commonly, a pointed comment about my own indulgent sleeping habits.
I wrapped my arms around my body, chilled even in my heavy chuba. The seer’s observatory, perched high above the village, beyond even the goatherds’ huts, was lined with windows with neither curtains nor shutters. There was a large square hole at the highest point in the roof, through which the wind whistled perpetually. The salt candleholders lining the table somehow only increased the feeling of cold as their small flames shivered in the breeze, permeating the air with a sharp, briny taste.
“Why would he need you?” The question just slipped out, harsher than I meant it.
Lusha gave me a stern look. She was only two years older than me, but it often felt like more.
“Because I can help him,” she said.
“With what?”
She seemed not to hear me. “I was honored that he would seek my assistance. We should all be honored. If the expedition goes well, Azmiri will win favor with the emperor.”
“Well, you will, anyway,” I muttered. It was typical of Lusha to assume that her own triumphs would somehow improve the world. Perhaps knowing from birth that you were destined to become an elder had something to do with it.
I edged closer, trying to get a glimpse of her worktable. But I saw no maps there, nothing that could give me a clue about this mysterious expedition. Only endless star charts—piles and piles of them. There were more scattered around the observatory, furled and leaning against walls, or hanging from nails hammered between the stonework.
“What are you doing?” I said. “Counting every star in the sky?”
Lusha’s brow furrowed as she traced a constellation with an inky finger. “I’m trying to work something out,” she muttered into the table.
I blew out my breath. I was used to my sister’s vagueness, but this was too much. “Lusha, why is River here? What does he want with you?”
She was quiet for so long I thought she was not going to answer. “I’m going to lead him to Mount Raksha.”
There was a loud clatter. Tem had knocked over one of Lusha’s wooden telescope stands. He stared at her, his eyes round as coins. I knew that my own expression was a mirror of his.
“Raksha?” I could barely get the word out. “He wants to climb Raksha?”
“Yes.”