and the monster senses my weakness.
No.
I brace my hand against the filthy wall and close my eyes. I imagine jade columns surrounding me, the cool mosaic of jewels beneath my feet. I imagine emptiness. Quiet. Control. When I reopen my eyes, the night still rages like a whirlwind, but I swat the most persistent ribbons away, collect a handful of threads in my palm, and use them to weave a cloak of shadow around me.
At the eastern edge of the grazing lands, a small brown horse waits beneath a willow tree, as Inkar promised. I mount, throw a blanket of darkness over us both, and dig my heels into her flanks, hoping to outrun the sound of phantom hoofbeats.
I ride for two hours without stopping. The bone-chilling cold of late fall in Ashkar batters me like a snow squall, made more acute by spending so much time in the realm of the Eternal Blue. When I finally reach the boulder field at the base of the Ondor Mountains, my nose is numb and my good and bad legs are howling in unison. Subzero temperatures and saddle sores are not a pleasant combination. The poor horse is lathered in sweat, so I dismount and walk her the rest of the way. Stones the size of houses litter the grasslands this far north—a result of avalanches and rockslides—and the loamy smells of damp earth and silt remind me of a cave.
We decided this would be an ideal rendezvous point, as the boulders provide plenty of cover and no one ventures willingly into these fields. They’re nicknamed the Boneyard for good reason; many people perish in the slides each winter, and as soon as the snow melts, a wash of bones litter the ground. I step gingerly around them, trying not to look into the skulls’ gaping eyes or at the snapped and twisted limbs scattered around like kindling.
Cupping my hands to my mouth, I hoot three times like an owl, and wait for three hoots of response.
They come from a boulder thirty paces to my left, so I leave the horse and weave in that direction. When I’m within five paces, the gravel shifts and a hooded figure emerges from behind the rock. Their face is concealed beneath a deep cowl, but the person is tall and impossibly thin, like Temujin described. I loosen my grip on the night enough to reveal my form but not enough for the stranger to see my face.
“Are you Kartok?” I whisper.
“That depends who’s asking.” The voice is a hoarse rasp, like the hiss of a snake. But I relax a fraction because it’s the exact same thing the Bone Reader said to me in her hut.
“Be humble, for you are made of earth. Be noble, for you are made of stars,” I intone the old desert proverb.
Kartok nods and peels back his hood. “Welcome, Enebish.” His face is gaunt and pale and riddled with dozens of silvery pockmarks. His head is naked, like a monk’s, but where Serik’s is obviously shaved, Kartok’s is smoother than a river rock. Temujin told me he spent half his life in a Zemyan prison camp, enduring unfathomable torture, and I smile at the skeletal man because I see so much of myself in him. We may be scarred on the outside, but we’re fighters within. Whether or not we’re fighting for the same side has yet to be decided.
“It’s brave, what you do,” I say. “Risking your life out here every night when you could be safe in the realm of the Eternal Blue with the others.”
“Someone must shepherd the recruits, and with my unfortunate skin condition, I wouldn’t fare too well in a land of eternal sunshine.” Kartok smiles blandly at his joke. His voice is strange—low and susurrating—but Temujin prepared me for this, too. The Zemyans cut off a portion of his tongue during his imprisonment. They left no part of him unscathed.
“Shall we?” He waves me forward with his reed-thin arm. “The guards will be changing soon.”
As we snake through the boulders, I flutter my fingers to extend my cloak of darkness over Kartok, but the night pushes back, rolling down his brown cape like beads of water. I scowl and push harder. I’m tired from the journey and out of practice, but if I can’t conceal one man, how will I manage an entire group of deserters?
Focus, Enebish.
I clench my fingers tighter, until red crescents stipple my palm. Finally the darkness slips over Kartok, and