Asbera sighed, her brow creased with concern. “At least stay for breakfast,” she said. “Make sure you have all your strength.”
I hesitated. As anxious as I was to get to the Penelope II, I had to admit that Finnur’s breakfast porridge, flecked with sweet flowers and dried ice berries, looked nourishing and warm.
“Fine,” I said. “But just breakfast.”
Asbera scooped me up a bowl of porridge. I ate it mostly in silence, trying hard not to think of last night. When I finished, Asbera walked me up to the deck.
“Come back straight away,” she said. “And take a bit of protection vine. It’s good luck.”
It was more than good luck, even I knew that, but in the morning’s bright glare, Asbera wasn’t willing to talk about the threat of the Mists outright.
So I snapped off a bit of vine. The magic shuddered through me at the moment of breakage, a magic far more powerful than any in my bracelet.
“Thank you,” I told her. “I won’t be gone long.”
“Wait.” She put one hand on my arm. “We have to report what happened to the priests. If the Nalendan can be violated—” She covered her heart like the thought pained her. “When you come back, we can make the trip together.”
“Of course,” I said.
And with that, I was on my way to the Penelope II.
The sun was out, and the air was cold and brittle. People milled around on the docks, hawking cheap, weak-looking protection charms along with the usual salted cod and fishing supplies. I shivered every time I passed one of the charm merchants.
As I walked, I thought about Kolur. That was powerful magic, to stop the Mists the way he did. I wondered what other secrets he’d kept from me and Mama and the rest of the village.
The Penelope II was moored in its usual place. The gangplank was down, so I climbed aboard as if we were back on Kjora. I peeked my head over the railing but didn’t see anyone.
“Hello!” I shouted. “Kolur? I need to speak with you.”
No answer but the rushing sea. I hoisted myself up on deck. The Penelope II was bigger, a proper frigate, with three masts instead of two, and a wider deck. It wasn’t the sort of boat you used just for fishing.
“Kolur!” I shouted. “It’s Hanna! I really need to—”
“Yeah, yeah, I heard you, girl.”
Kolur’s voice came from behind me, as gruff as ever. I whirled around and found him climbing out of the hatchway with a loop of rope draped over his left shoulder.
“What do you want? We’re still heading north, so I don’t got a job for you.”
“All I wanted was to thank you for last night.” I rushed over to him and helped pull him on deck. “I would never have gotten away—”
“The hell are you talking about?” Kolur dropped the rope on the deck. “I spent last night patching the hull. Took me hours, too. That good-for-nothing Pjetur fell asleep at sundown and couldn’t be roused. Sleeps like a man damned, he does.” Kolur kicked at the rope and squinted up at the masts. “Really don’t feel like climbing up there this morning.”
“You don’t have to do this.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “You already told me you were some great wizard. You don’t have to pretend anymore.”
“Ain’t pretending.” He looked over at me, frowning. “Did something happen to you?”
I felt cold. “Yes! I was attacked by the Mists. And I called up my magic but it wasn’t enough, just me. Someone was helping—”
Kolur looked as confused as I felt. Not to mention horrified. “The Mists attacked you?” he said. “Sea and sky, girl, and you got away?”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you! Someone helped me.” That cold feeling grew stronger. “It wasn’t you. Frida, it must have been Frida—”
“Frida was helping me,” Kolur said. “Patching the hull.” He studied me, his eyes sharp and keen. “This some trick? To get back at me?”
That cold, creeping feeling turned my whole body to ice. “Not a trick,” I said softly. “Someone helped me. It wasn’t you. It wasn’t Frida—”
Isolfr? Not that he’d done much to help me in all this time.
Kolur was still staring at me. “If you really did get attacked by the Mists,” he said, “you need to talk to the Tuljan priests.”
“When the Mists attacked,” I said, “they called me friend of Kolur.”
Kolur paused. Then he rubbed his forehead. “Shit. I’m sorry, girl. These repairs are taking longer than I expected, but they shouldn’t be coming after you now that you’re not a part of my crew. You really do need to go to the priests, tell ’em what happened. They’ll get you protected.”
I felt numb. The priests’ magic had failed so spectacularly last night—not just failed, but been desecrated, like Asbera said. Corrupted.
“Thanks,” I mumbled, and I turned and stumbled off the boat.
Kolur called out my name, but I ignored him.
• • •
Asbera and I walked to the temple as soon as I got back to the boarding boats. We wrapped our arms in vines and carried moss in our pockets, Tuljan charms to keep the Mists away. Finnur was too weak to hike to the base of the mountain, so he stayed behind with Benedict and Harald, two friends from the Annika.
I was nervous and on edge. We took a long way through Rilil so as to avoid the place where the Mists had attacked us, walking with the yak herders back to the field of tents, the yaks grunting and shuffling over the hard soil.
“When we arrive at the temple,” Asbera said as we left the edge of the village, “Let me speak to the priests. They’ll recognize my dialect more easily. The priests have all the worst traits of us Tuljans, and they can be terribly distrustful of foreigners.”
I nodded, grateful that I wouldn’t have to say anything. I didn’t have much practice dealing with the holy.
“I do hope they’ll be able to help us,” Asbera said after a pause.
“I’m sure they will,” I told her, although I had my doubts. The Mists had used the Tuljans’ own charms against them—what else could the priests possibly do?
We threaded through the field of tents. Children clumped together when they saw us coming, their eyes big and curious.
“You don’t see fisherfolk so much, living out here,” Asbera said softly. “I remember the first time I saw Finnur. I wasn’t sure he was even human.”
I smiled politely, but I thought of Isolfr.
It took the better part of a day to weave through the tents. The mountain loomed in the distance, its peak shrouded with thin white clouds. We took our lunch in the grass, crouching down and eating the salted fish and crackers that Asbera had prepared. The cold, biting wind whipped my hair into my face as I ate. I would have given anything for a glass of mulled wine, but we wouldn’t be back in the village until nightfall.
After lunch, we continued to walk. We had run out of things to say—and we’d had little to say in the beginning, truth be told, as I fretted over the mystery of my aid last night. I assumed that Asbera was worried about Finnur.
Our thoughts were our true companions that trip.
The tents became more sporadic in the afternoon, and soon they disappeared completely, giving way to an ocean of yellow grass. The mountain didn’t seem any closer.
“It just keeps pulling away from us!” I cried. “We’re as far away as when we started.”
“No, we’re making progress.” Asbera frowned up at the mountain. “It just always looks closer than it is.”
We walked. My legs ached, and my lips cracked from the cold wind. I was ready to give up, to turn around and march back to the village and huddle up on the Cornflower with every protection charm I could buy or cast. But then I saw a curl of white smoke in the distance, drifting up from the rocks of the mountain.
“There.” Asbera sounded relieved. “The temple.”
“All I see are rocks.”
“It’s built into the mountain’s base. You have to look close.” She pointed, and I followed
the arrow of her finger. I couldn’t see anything. And then, with a blink, I could: a stone building jutting out of the ground, the smoke twisting around it like a wraith.
“From here, it’s not much longer,” Asbera said.
We waded through the grass. Now that I had seen the temple, I couldn’t imagine ever not seeing it, and as we approached, the carvings in the stone grew more elaborate. Figures rose out of the rock, the faces of gods and ancestors I didn’t recognize. The same moss that Asbera and I carried in our pockets grew in hollowed-out stones that created a path leading to the temple entrance. Candles flickered among the rocks, the flames golden with magic and ever burning.
Asbera stopped a few paces from the start of the path.
“There are certain rituals,” she said. “Simple ones. Just watch me and you’ll be fine.”
“Understood,” I said. There was a temple in Kjora, in the capital city, but I’d never been there. I’d no idea if it was like this one or not. It certainly wasn’t built into a mountain.
Asbera stepped forward. She stooped and picked up two candles and handed one to me. It was cool to the touch, and no wax dripped down its side.
“Remember,” Asbera whispered to me. “Stay silent. I’ll speak.”
I nodded. She stepped in front of me and we proceeded in single file through the entrance of the temple. It was dark on the other side of the doorway, darker than it ought to be with the wan sun still shining outside. Our candles cast small spheres of golden light, and I barely made out Asbera’s outline ahead of me. She moved slowly, one hand outstretched to the cave’s wall. I wasn’t sure if that was a ritual or not, but I touched the wall just to be sure. It was cold and wet, the rock slimy beneath my fingers.
I couldn’t say how long we walked in the dark. The moments seemed to stretch out and out until I could no longer count them. The only things that kept me from turning around were the sight of Asbera ahead and the sound of her shuffling footsteps.
A light appeared in the distance.
It was bluish white, like a star, not the eerie golden light of our candles. Asbera let out a breath. “We’re here,” she whispered. “Stay alert.”
I nodded before remembering that she couldn’t see me. “Yes, I will.”
We edged forward. The bluish light grew brighter and brighter until it became a doorway, towering several heads above us and carved with the same faces as the exterior. The air smelled of burning cedar.
Asbera stopped in the doorway and spoke, her Tuljan dialect exaggerated. I gathered she was asking permission for us to enter.
When she finished speaking, the silence rang in my ears.
“Yes, Asbera Corra and the Kjoran Hanna Euli. You may enter.”
The voice boomed like an echo. Asbera bowed her head as she walked through the entranceway, and I did the same, keeping my gaze on the back of her feet. She stopped. I stopped. I lifted my head just enough to see that she had lifted hers.
The room was enormous and carved out of rock that glittered and shone in the light of the lanterns drifting through the air, like leaves caught on a pond. Three priests stood in a row before us, wearing the same shaggy gray furs that the Nalendan goat-man wore. At least they didn’t have on masks.
Hanna set her candle down in a grooved indentation in a nearby rock, and I shuffled up beside her to do the same. She bowed.
“Priest-lords of Tulja,” she said, “we bring distressing news.”
Her accent wasn’t as strong now. The priests exchanged glances.
“Of what, child of Tulja?” asked the priest in the middle.
Asbera hesitated. She smoothed her hands along the fabric of her skirt.
“The Mists,” she said. “The Mists perverted the magic of the Nalendan and attacked us two nights ago. They took on the form of the Nalendan and lured us into a false sense of safety by profaning the Nal ritual.”
The priests turned to one another and murmured among themselves, too quiet for me to hear. In the blue light they looked like ghosts.
One of the priests stepped away from the others. His furs dragged along the damp cavern floor as he glided toward us. I shivered and then forced myself to stand still. Asbera kept her gaze on him.
“Yes, we know,” the priest said.
“We sensed the magic crumble,” said one of the others, his voice drifting out of the shadows. His accent was almost too thick for me to understand.
Asbera let out a muffled cry of fear.
“Don’t worry, child of Tulja,” said the priest closest to us. “We drove them out for the time being.” He set one hand on her shoulder, although he looked uncomfortable with the gesture. “When they return, we’ll be prepared.”
Asbera nodded. “Thank you, priest-lords of Tulja.” She bowed and reached out for her candle. But the priest covered her hand, stopping her.
“No. You mustn’t leave yet.”
Asbera froze, and a sharp blade of fear plunged into my belly.
“This one,” the priest said, turning his gaze on me. I gasped at the sight of his eyes, for they had no whites, only a matte silvery blue surrounding a tiny dot of black pupil. “This one helped you escape.”
Asbera blinked, looking confused. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, she saved my life, and the life of my husband, Finnur Corra.”
The priest smiled. It was not a warm smile.
“No,” he said. “Not this one. The north wind.” He pointed up at the ceiling and without thinking, I looked up. I saw nothing but pointed columns winding down from the rocks. “The north wind saved you. This one only helped.”
Behind him, the other two priests murmured.
Asbera kept her back straight. I got the sense it would not be proper for her to turn around.
“Your friend is the reason they are here.” The priest was speaking directly to me now, his cold metal eyes taking me in. “Your friend from Jandanvar.”
I froze, too afraid to move.
“He seeks to destroy their schemes, and they shall stop him however they can.”
The weight of the priest’s gaze made my skin crawl.
“I’m—sorry?” I said.
“However, the north wind would destroy us all.” With that, the priest whirled around and glided back to the others. They murmured to one another. Asbera glanced over at me, her face frightened and pale. She mouthed one word: What?
I shook my head. I knew then I would have to tell her all that I knew about Kolur, although I didn’t understand what Kolur’s choices had to do with me. I no longer served aboard the Penelope. I was just a fisherwoman saving money for the journey home. Even Isolfr had finally offered his aid to Kolur directly, more or less.
I had so many questions but I was too afraid of the priests to ask them.
“Go in peace, child of Tulja,” the priest said. “You have nothing to fear. Our magic will protect you.”
For a moment, I expected Asbera to protest, to demand an explanation. We had walked all this way for nothing.
Although he had mentioned the north wind—a presence on the north wind. I had felt it too. Maybe he was just referring to Frida—maybe that was the real reason why Isolfr was frightened of her.
Asbera picked up her candle and gestured for me to do the same. She bowed deeply in the direction of the priests, holding the candle level with her forehead, before leaving the chamber. I trailed behind her. Our candles guttered in the dark, and the movements cast long, eerie shadows along the wall. I thought I saw the shape of goats and trees and yaks.
When we finally stepped out of the cave, the sky was purple with twilight. Both candles were extinguished at once.
“What were they saying?” Asbera looked at me. “Someone helped you? You know someone from Jandanvar?”
I took a deep breath and set my candle down on a nearby rock. Asbera cursed and shook her head and snatched it up. “We have to drop them in the urn.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“What was all that about?”
“I didn’t un
derstand all of it.” We walked away from the cave, and when we passed an urn carved out of the rocks, Asbera tossed both our candles in. I never heard them hit the bottom. “Kolur, my old captain, trained as a wizard in Jandanvar. He’s trying to win back the love of the Jandanvari queen. That’s why I left him. I thought it was stupid, and I just want to go home.” Tears edged at my eyes. “I don’t have any ties to the Mists, I swear. They’re trying to stop Kolur, and I’m entangled in it now—”
I collapsed on an outcropping of rocks, ignoring the patches of ice and frozen mud. My tears stung hot against my cheeks. “I didn’t even know what he was doing until we landed in Tulja. And now I’m stranded here, and the Mists are attacking, and I don’t know what to do. I keep feeling something in the north wind, and I don’t know why. My magic comes from the south—”
“Oh, sweetheart.” Asbera sat beside me and wrapped her arm around my shoulder and pulled me in for a hug. I wept out all my frustrations.
“It’s not your fault,” she said after a few moments had passed.
“I know, but it just—” I shook my head. “I don’t know why all this is happening to me.”
“Dumb luck.” Asbera smiled. I wiped the last remaining tears away from my eyes. “And it was dumb luck that you happened to run into Finnur when Baltasar had been saying for weeks he was sick of Reynir messing up the winds. Dumb luck that we became friends.”
I smiled at that. I knew we were friends, but it was another thing to hear her say it out loud.
“The priests will keep us safe,” Asbera said. “They always have before. And sooner or later, this Kolur is going to leave for Jandanvar, right?”
“He says the repairs are taking longer than he expected.”
“But all repairs end eventually. See? Soon everything will go back to normal.” She grinned. “Maybe you’ll even marry some Tuljan fisherman and stay here with us.”
I laughed. “Maybe.”
Asbera stood up and pulled me to my feet. The sun was liquid gold on the edge of the horizon.
“Time flows differently inside the temple,” Asbera said. “How would you like to spend the night with the yak herders? I used to be one of them. I’m sure they’ll extend their hospitality.”