couldn’t tell whether he was looking at her or at his scar.
Ren reached up and touched his serious brow, then let her hand, human once more, trail down his rough cheek and neck to rest on his shoulder. He flinched as she strayed over the wounds of the mavka, but when she tried to pull away, he reached up and closed his own scarred hand over hers.
“Why do you want me to kill the Dragon?” she asked.
His expression changed. In a split second, it became unreadable and hard. He got to his feet.
“The sun is up,” he said. “We should go.”
Ren followed. She was inexplicably embarrassed. She folded her arms.
“Where?” she asked. “Did you find the way to the Mountain?”
He backed away, avoiding her eye.
“If we go now,” he said, “we’ll make it by nightfall.”
Ren’s hand closed on the hilt of the glass sword. Seventeen years of horror. Seventeen years of hiding in a dark castle, running from golden flames, fighting a war that seemed unwinnable.
Seventeen years, and they could end it today.
39
LUKASZ AND REN PASSED UNDER the wooden gate, its dragon skull swaying gently in the breeze. For seventeen years, it had swayed exactly like this, over an empty town. Any—or all—or none—of his brothers might have come here. In another world, he might even have lived here.
Not that it mattered anymore. Not that any of it mattered.
He was getting sicker. For the first time, he couldn’t climb on Król’s back alone, and the big horse knelt down to help him get astride. Ren watched without speaking. He had never seen her look so unguarded. Her slyness was gone, and he could read her so easily now. Everything seemed written so clearly in those sharp green eyes and that perfect, thin curve of her mouth—
In that other life, he realized, he would not have met her.
They started up the new path, with new mountains surrounding them and Król easily finding his way through the foothills. Behind them, Hala Smoków was empty, except for the occasional snowdrift that swirled in on the silent wind, dusted the hollow streets, and disappeared again.
Up in the lodge, the halls would still be warm. It would have been good to die in those halls. It would not have been lonely, to lie down among the ghosts, domowiki watching from the rafters. To leave the only body in that hollow town. Something at least substantial, more than those poor domowiki, so fragile that one day a sharp blast of wind might come down and obliterate them for good.
They trekked upward for most of the day. Król was tireless, but Lukasz was not. He tried not to speak, only telling Ren where to direct Król when a fork arose in the path. The Mountains watched them. Lukasz could feel them. They were as alive, as watchful, as her forest. They were like a living thing. Waiting for nightfall.
He would have liked to die in Hala Smoków.
We shall be buried in the shadow of the Mountains, Tadeusz had once told him. Beneath the blessings of wolves.
In that other life, he would have died there. He would have walked those warm hallways in dragon fur and leather, arguing with his brothers, fighting with his father. He would have learned to chart the Mountains properly. He would have learned to read. The Wolf-Lords would have lived on for a thousand more years, oblivious to what the world thought of them.
He would not have met her.
No one outside of these Mountains would have known his name. No whispers. No rumors. His knee wouldn’t hurt all the damn time. He wouldn’t be as good with a rifle. His picture would never have appeared in a Miasto newspaper, the Saint Magdalena Faustian would still be devouring milkmaids, Micha? and Eliasz would still be handsome, and the rest of them would still be alive—
And he would not have met her.
“I can smell smoke,” said Ren suddenly. “There is someone here.”
I know, he thought, but he suddenly felt too tired to answer aloud.
They had reached a meadowed valley, squarely between two mountains. There was no snow here. Instead, purple flowers carpeted the grass, and the air was filled with the smell of baking bread. In the distance, a log cabin seemed to await them. Smoke curled from its chimney, washing fluttered in the wind, and the sound of barking dogs echoed faintly in the valley.
Ren slipped easily off Król’s back. She put a hand on Lukasz’s knee and looked from him to the cabin.