Xinai scrambled back on all fours, fetching up against a twist of banyan trunks. Her dagger trembled in her hand and she coughed as she drew a deep breath. A few more heartbeats and the gangshi would have drunk down all her pain and fear, and her life with it.
Her vision grayed and she leaned against the tree for strength. Her face was slick with salt and snot and her back burned with phantom wounds.
“It’s gone now,” the woman whispered, turning back to Xinai. And then, even softer, “You’re back. I knew you would come home.” Her voice was wind in leaves, water through river-reeds; the sound sliced through Xinai, deeper than Assari whips could ever reach.
The woman stood over her, watching with lightless eyes. Her hair hung in snarls around her narrow face, her clothes in tatters. Her skin was ashen, paler than the earth beneath her feet. Xinai’s charm bag hummed against her chest.
“I knew you’d come.” The ghost stepped forward and passed through a hanging root. Xinai couldn’t speak as the dead woman knelt before her. Her throat was slashed; the wound gaped when she moved, flashing bone white as pearls amid ruined flesh and crusted blood.
“Don’t you recognize me, child?”
Xinai’s dagger dropped to the dust. Her vision blurred again, glazed with fresh tears.
“Mother—” The word broke on a wet hiccup.
Shaiyung Lin smiled a sad, terrible smile and stretched out a cold gray hand to stroke her daughter’s cheek.
“They showed me—They made me see—” She choked on snot. The gangshi’s trap had undone all her defenses and she could only sob, helpless as she’d been twelve years ago.
“Don’t worry,” Shaiyung whispered, wrapping her icy insubstantial arms around Xinai. “You’re home, and we’re together, and it will be all right. We’ll put things right.”
The sun dipped into afternoon by the time they reached the last landing. Isyllt slumped against the carven cliff-face, trying not to double over from the sharp stitch in her side and the burn in her thighs. Stone benches circled the small platform, but she feared if she sat she’d never stand again. Wind keened around the crags, threatening her hat and tugging at her sweaty clothes.
More wards ringed the upper slopes, different from those along the road. “What do these do?” she asked, moving closer to the nearest post.
“If too much pressure builds inside the mountain, it will erupt,” Asheris said. “These shunt the energy aside, bleed it off into the air.”
“Or let you channel it into the stones.”
“Exactly.”
She reached out, not quite touching the ward-stone. Its magic shivered warm through her fingers. The edges shimmered, like the air around a flame. An intricate spell, cunningly wrought. It would be the envy of half the Arcanost—they prided themselves on being at the forefront of magecraft.
“Ingenious.”
“Thank you,” Asheris said, lips curving. “We are rather proud of the technique. No one has ever done this before, to the best of our knowledge.”
“Be careful, Lady Iskaldur,” the Vicereine called, securing the veil pinned over her hair. “Once he starts talking about his mountain, you’ll be hard-pressed to silence him.”
Asheris chuckled. “Her Excellency has no ear for the music of the mountain. But come, my lady, we aren’t at the top yet. You must see the cauldron.” He gestured toward another narrower stair leading up.
Isyllt sighed and promised herself a long bath when they returned to the city. “Of course I must.”
“And me,” Murai said, springing up from her bench. Isyllt felt even wearier just watching her.
“Of course, little bird. Your Excellency?”
“I’ve seen your mountain often enough,” Shamina said. “Be careful up there, Murai.”
“I always am, Mama.”
“I won’t let her come to harm,” Asheris promised.
He took the lead as they ascended the final stair, Murai walking in the middle, sedate until they were out of sight of her mother. Then she hurried ahead, following on Asheris’s heels.
Sivahra stretched below them, forests and rivers and hills, patchwork fields in the south and buildings like grains of salt scattered on a tablecloth. Isyllt took off her hat, letting the wind unravel her braid and dry her sweaty hair. The air was cooler here, without the jungle’s heat and the river’s damp. Then the wind shifted and she tasted hot stone and ash, the breath of the mountain.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” Asheris called over his shoulder.
“Yes.” She returned his smile, and the honesty of it surprised her.
He offered her a hand and helped her up the last uneven step. The wind buffeted her and she leaned on his arm as she found