“Yog.” Zu’s baritone resonated in Yechvan’s mind.

  Dorin Sen melted away, as did Grask. Then Yechvan was nude, on display in the center of town. A hundred hundred voices rose as one, demanding to be heard. Lightning struck. The chanting stopped.

  Zu’s face loomed above him, dark skin and darker eyes, the fire behind him ringing his head in a halo.

  “Koruzan’s hair, was I asleep?” Yechvan wondered, his voice thick as honey. His dreams had been so vivid since Gard Pass that he had trouble distinguishing them from reality. Was he still dreaming? His throat was raw. Had he been screaming?

  “You are awake now, and safe,” Zu said.

  Ulula turned over in her bedroll beside Yechvan. Her warmth was comforting in the chill breeze. As Yechvan sat up, the mountainside gave way to the town center. He was surrounded once more by all the people in the world, by fire and drums and chanting.

  “Yog?” Zu said, snapping Yechvan out of his dream state. “What were you dreaming?”

  “I dreamt of Grask…and Dorin Sen.”

  Zu shifted uncomfortably at the mention of Dorin Sen’s name. “About what?”

  “I’m not sure. It felt so real. But when I think back, all I remember is a hazy grey.”

  Yechvan wrapped his fur cloak tight to ward off the cold. With difficulty, he scooted to the bottom of the bedroll to be nearer the campfire, warming his hands with Frynd’s fiery touch. As he stared into the flames, Grask swirled in the smoke. The boy said he was playing Thrice with Yechvan’s spirits. Had that happened?

  “Gods be damned,” Yechvan groaned.

  Zu plopped down on the stones beside him. “Here, have something to drink.” He passed Yechvan a skin filled with sweet mead.

  Yechvan drank to slake his unending thirst. “Where are we?”

  “I told you this was a bad idea,” Ulula grumbled over her shoulder.

  “We are on our way up the mountain to pay our respects to the fallen,” Zu explained.

  “Right, we’re going to the…the…”

  “The cairns,” Zu finished.

  “Right.”

  In the brightening eastern sky, the clouds blushed a bruised dark pink and purple. The wind coaxed tears from the corners of Yechvan’s eyes as he marveled at the majestic scene.

  Ulula, having given up on sleep, sat up beside him and draped her blanket around their shoulders. Zu stoked the fire and handed Yechvan a handful of dried apricots.

  “Would you two stop mothering me?” Yechvan snapped.

  “Oh, off with you,” Ulula replied, dismissing his anger with uncharacteristic calm. “You’ll just need to get used to this for now. Neither of us is going anywhere.”

  The apricots burst with sour-sweetness as he drowned them with mead; the scent of lightning on the wind was divine; the fire comforted him; the sunrise was to die for; his friends smothered him with unrelenting support. Why, then, did Yechvan feel such melancholy? Since he’d awoken in the shaman’s hut, he’d been prone to various ailments: dizziness, fatigue, anger, confusion—but now an oppressive gloom threatened to pull him under. It was unwelcome, and resolute.

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  Yechvan had no recollection of their journey from Go’hai. Yet sure as Solonia rose in the east and set in the west, there were four horses tied to a nearby tree. He wondered if he should say something to Ulula or Zu, if he should be more concerned himself, but decided against giving them another reason to worry over him.

  “Shall we be off?” Zu asked. He bounced up from his seat to stuff supplies into the packhorse’s bags.

  Yechvan and Ulula rose, gathering their bedrolls and what little else remained. In a matter of minutes, they had scuttled the fire and were on their way. The ride up the mountain was cold but pleasant, quiet but peaceful, short but wearying. They reached the cairns before midday.

  Scores of men and women milled about the area. The stones were piled thoughtfully, beautifully arranged in lines. The Perysh had been laid to rest on the western edge of the pass, their graves visited by a few dozen humans wearing the colorless Perysh garb of mourning. Their simple white robes and long shirts covered thick undercoats to protect against the elements. The area had transformed from raging battlefield to somber resting place, though some traces took longer to disappear. The two sides didn’t intermingle, but showed respect from across the open field.

  The Perysh soldiers had chosen this location for their campsite because they’d believed the outcropping on the east and the sheer cliff on the west to be impassable. Confident that their plan had remained undiscovered, they’d left only a few on guard. Overconfidence had nearly been Yechvan’s downfall. If not for the opportune parley, the timing of Dür Grasca, he might have failed his people. For Telu Myrrh and hers, overconfidence had proven the single chink in her glorious armor.

  Yechvan walked to the center of the clearing, tracing the scars of the battlefield with heavy feet. Though patches of dirt had been overturned to conceal the bloody truth of war, the remnants told a story for those who might listen. Bruised was Ex’ala by the deep footprints left by men and women digging in with all their strength. She was gashed where shields had been planted, battered by hoof prints on the flanks, battened by the dead weight of bodies and stiffened by the frozen blood that had seeped into her pores. Fresh soil covered broken arrows and chunks of metal, lost in the loose pages of history.

  In an instant, darkness raced across the pass on the swift wings of dragons, swallowing the cairns and the mourners. The cacophony of battle overtook the tranquil scene. The rip of a blade split Yechvan’s forearm. Slick blood cascaded over his wrist. The power of his enemy’s shield on his forced him back a step. He pushed against the metal. His blade met resistance, skin and muscle and bone and then none at all. He grunted in pain as he received another blow, then swung his weapon wide and—

  “Yog!” Ulula roared.

  The clamor—of blade on blade, of shield on shield, of the injured and defeated and triumphant—died away, replaced by Ulula’s shining face. Crooked tusks rising and falling in time with her heavy breathing, in time with his own. Radiant golden irises. The pale, scarred flesh of her nose. Reddish cheeks on an olive-green canvas.

  Ulula sighed in relief and pressed cracked lips to Yechvan’s sweaty brow before releasing her grip on his shoulders. He sank to his knees under his own crushing weight, clenched fists crashing into the dirt to prevent him from falling face-first. His hair tumbled over his neck in clumps. Sweat trickled down his cheeks and nose, through his scraggly beard.

  After several deep, steadying breaths, Yechvan pushed himself to his feet, every stare on him. “Problem?” he shouted, turning to catch the eye of as many as he could. He wiped the perspiration from his face, leaving a gritty streak of mud in its wake.

  Ulula wrapped her good arm around his shoulders, the other placed gingerly back in her sling, and steered him toward the edge of the outcropping overlooking the rocky mountainside, the lush green foothills, a canopy of cedars and spruces. Solyn’s breeze, cool and constant, dried the sticky sweat on Yechvan’s skin, sending a shiver through him. He breathed in the thin air, letting it calm him as it flowed through his lungs, as it cleansed him. He closed his eyes and wished he could fly. Up and away from the memories, from the pain, from the responsibility.

  Zu approached after paying his respects. “Alright?” he asked.

  Ulula answered with a grunt.

  “Then let us be gone from this place,” he said, sparing one last look for the fallen.

  “Where shall we go from here?” Yechvan asked, though he could anticipate Zu’s answer.

  Zu smiled, broad and genuine, as he inserted himself between Yechvan and Ulula, wrapping one massive arm around each of their shoulders. “Why, Madame Sho’s, of course.”