Chapter 11
For a while, we just sit in the boat in silence.
Kira breaks it. She turns to me, offers me her sword, and says, “If I hold my hair up, will you chop it off?”
I gape at her. “You … don’t want it anymore?”
She sighs. “No, I do. My hair’s my favorite part of myself, really.” She spits out a lock that blows into her face from the breeze, her few braids now almost completely loose. “But it’s getting fucking annoying.”
Right. I don’t know how to do this, how to be friendly, how to be a friend … I’m out of practice.
But I remember how Kira wiped the blood from my face with her scarf, without question. “Here,” I say, hesitantly. “Before you choose to cut it, let me help you.” I lift my hands, motioning for her to turn around.
Kira brightens. “Really?”
Before I can nod, she’s settling in front of me, legs folded in front of her, sword across her lap.
Gently, I begin to undo the braids, before starting over. She tenses with even the slightest pull, so I take my time. We have plenty out here, in the middle of this river.
Zane just stares at us, reaching into the basket, taking out a flower-speckled muffin from Xara’s inn, and taking a bite.
“So,” Kira says, nodding toward him. “Why are you here?”
Zane just takes another bite of the muffin. Chews. Swallows. “For the magic, obviously.”
She tilts her head, my fingers slipping through her hair, making me lose my place.
I start again. “You’re from a Great House.
You live in paradise compared to the rest of us.
Can’t have been easy to leave everyone behind, hike down that mountain, and get east to the platform.
” She juts her chin forward. “So why? Why risk your life for this? And don’t just say the magic. ”
Even though Kira’s tone is slightly accusatory … I’ve been wondering the same thing. I finish one side of the braid, before moving on to the other.
Zane just leans against the side of the boat, then stretches his long legs out in front of him, feet nearly reaching us.
Finally, he says, “On a clear day, at the top of our mountain, I could see the glimmer of the gates. But never anything past them. There was … a fog, wiping everything from view.” He lifts a shoulder.
“I just wanted to see what was on the other side.”
Kira snorts. “You’re risking dying brutally at the hands of creatures or immortals … for curiosity?”
He shrugs again. “The mountain is paradise, as you say, but it’s cut off from the rest of the world.
I’ve known the same small group of people my entire life.
There’s no advancement. No changes. Just everything we’ve done for centuries.
Our resources will one day dry up. Everyone tries to deny it, but we’ve all seen the signs.
The Helmhawks leaving. The mines producing less and less.
I’m not the eldest. There are four brothers ahead of me in line.
My life will never mean anything. Unless—”
Unless.
Zane’s mountain could be transformed with magic. His motivation might not be the same as Kira’s, or mine, but it doesn’t make it any less true. He’s trying to save his people. Even if their suffering isn’t imminent, if it’s anything like the rest of Stormside, it is inevitable.
He sighs, leaning back. “And I think everyone should go on a wild, transformative journey at least once in their lives.”
He’s probably right. “So now that you’re here, what do you think of the world?” I say over Kira’s shoulder as I finish the second braid, then begin weaving them together. “The world outside of your mountain?”
He shakes his head. “I’m thinking I probably should have stayed put.”
I laugh first. Kira joins in. Then all three of us are shaking with laughter and perhaps a bit of regret.
“You know what? I’m not scared of dying. I’m scared of not having lived in the first place,” Kira declares.
Something in me awakens at that—a foolish shred that mourns the life I might have lived, if I wasn’t rushing into my almost certain death.
So I decide that I’m going to drink up all the wonder of this place, while I can.
As I work to finish Kira’s hair, I look around, watching as the forest along the bank changes.
It becomes lusher, full of trees I’ve only seen the skeletons of, in the bare woods of Stormside.
Pines, covered in needles. Willows, hunched forever in mourning.
Birches, with their curls of peeling bark.
I wonder what kind of creatures lurk within these woods—and if they’re watching us back.
The braid is done. I curl it up and slip it through the gap made by the two braids, just like I do for myself, again and again, until nothing else hangs down.
Then I slip one pin from my own hair and use it to secure Kira’s.
I’m finished. She turns and beams at me, reaching up to touch my work.
“I look like you now, don’t I? Wonderful. How’d you get so good at this?”
“I had a sister. Once,” I say, surprised by the words spilling out of me. Just like when I told her where I’m from, seconds after meeting.
I guess I just want someone to know. Because if I stop talking about where I’m from, and who I lived there with, then that’s when they’ll all be truly dead.
Her grin fades. She knows about what happened to my village. Everyone knows about the place that was burned down by the wrath of the gods. It was used as a warning. People whispered that we must have done something wrong to invite their fury.
“You’re the only one that survived, aren’t you?” she says.
“Yes.”
She squeezes my hand. “If you survived that … you can survive anything,” she says, nodding, like she’s already decided my fate.
If she knew who I was hoping to go up against, I don’t think she’d be so sure of that. But I nod back anyway.
“Here.” Zane looks like he doesn’t really know what to say, so he reaches into the basket and shoves meat pies and muffins at us. “You should … you should both eat.”
Kira smiles wryly at him. “You don’t have sisters, do you?”
“Only brothers.”
She laughs loudly. “Now, look at you. Stuck with both of us.” She takes a bite out of the meat pie, then says, mouth full, “Holy gods, I want a magical kitchen.”
I crack a smile. “I’m sure a few drops of claimed magic would do it.”
It’s not why she’s on this journey. We both know it. But for a few moments, it’s nice to pretend that the greatest thing we need is food prepared at our every whim.
Kira hums. She leans back in the boat, lying beside Zane’s legs.
“Now that I’m thinking, I could also use a magical goblet that refills with wine whenever I want.
Good wine.” She looks over at Zane. “Like the type you drink up in your fancy mountain.” He rolls his eyes, and she nudges against him.
“What ridiculous dreams will you use drops of magic on, Sterling?”
Zane shifts. His expression is serious. But his voice is light as he says, “A magically refilling bath would be nice.”
Kira groans in agreement. “A bath at all would be heavenly! One that would stay warm the whole time. Can you imagine?”
Zane grunts.
“How about you?” Kira asks, propping her head up to look over at me. “What ridiculous dream are you harboring inside, Aris?”
Several. None of which are possible. I chew my lip.
“Magic in the forge would be nice,” I say.
“Something to mute the hammering. Make metals easier to carry … or keep the floors magically clean.” I open my mouth, then close it, realizing that even if I somehow survive confronting the gods, I’ll never be working in that forge again—at least not with Stellan.
“Maybe after this, you won’t have to work in a forge at all,” Kira says, her words light.
I swallow past the lump in my throat and take a bite of the muffin to keep from having to say anything else. The sugar is sour on my tongue, as I try to imagine a future beyond this journey, back on Stormside … but I can’t. There’s nothing left for me there.
There’s nothing left for me anywhere.
Something hits me square on the head, and I startle, the muffin slipping from my fingers. I look up, only for another drop of water to land between my eyebrows.
Rain.
I haven’t felt it in far too long, and this water … it’s clear. It’s cold, and clean.
I part my lips in wonder—then the rain falls in earnest, a faucet turned all the way on. Shit. I pick up the muffin and shove the rest of it in my mouth to keep it from crumbling. Zane rushes to cover the pack.
Kira just sits up, staring up at the sky, filling her hands and drinking from them, even though she has a full canteen of water by her hip. Her sword is still in her lap, rain dripping tears down its silver.
Wind blows my hair back, and this isn’t just rain. It’s turning into a storm. “We—”
The boat lurches to the side, and Zane nearly falls over. I grip the edge of the boat to keep still.
“Fuck. Hold on,” Zane says. He’s facing the front.
The blood drains from my face at the sight of surging whitecaps just ahead.
Before we even reach them, the boat hits a rock, shredding its bottom, and my head jerks down painfully, teeth clashing together. Then the prow rises, taking us all up—before we land roughly back against the water.
Xara said the boat never flips. I hope she’s fucking right, as we jolt to the side, everything sliding.
I barely keep my hold on its edge, fingers cramping and slipping against the wood.
It hits another rock, turning sharply in the other direction, and for a moment, I’m weightless.
Time seems to stand still as I watch all of us and our belongings lift—then fall again.
We don’t have a single moment to prepare before the next current hits, sending us all flying. The basket opens midair, spilling food. The canteens soar.
But I’m not looking at them. I’m looking at my pack, which slips off my shoulder—
Right into the river.
No. Everything I worked so hard to save up for. My soap. My canteen. My bandages. My fabric. All of it but the coin in my pocket … gone.