Oh, what have I done? Please, please, don’t be dead. Cassie tried to sit. She could not seem to get enough air. Please, live. Live, damn you.
Blackness swam up in her eyes as she moved. She vomited. Sharp pain sliced through her body as she heaved. She brought her hand, shaking, up to her mouth. And she saw the blood. She spread her fingers. Neon scarlet blood. It was all she could see. It consumed her world.
She was vomiting blood.
Cassie closed her eyes. Still saw red. She shuddered. She knew what it meant, alone and hurt. She had not only killed her baby. She had killed herself.
PART 3
At the Back of the North Wind
CHAPTER 27
Latitude 63° 48’ 11” N
Longitude 126° 02’ 38” W
Altitude 1108 ft.
Cassie was drowning. She clawed at her throat. She was a beached fish, drowning in air. She saw a shadow cross over her. Fighting, she focused on it.
It looked like a young Inuit man.
But that didn’t make any sense. She was alone, dying alone. Just her and her unborn, never-to-be-born child. “I’m sorry, sorry, sorry,” she whispered. She squeezed her eyes shut.
When she opened them again, the man was waiting silently on the rocks above her. Suddenly, she understood: He was waiting for her to die. “Munaqsri,” she rasped.
Startled, he lost his footing on the rocks. He skidded down a few feet before catching himself. Pebbles rolled into Cassie, and she flinched.
“You can see me! I thought you were…,” he said. “You know what I am?”
Yes, she knew. He was the human munaqsri. He was here to take her soul. Well, she wasn’t going to let him. He was a munaqsri; he could manipulate molecules. He could save her! “Heal me,” she demanded. She coughed. Blood speckled his pants leg.
He frowned at the blood and then at her. “If you know what I am, then you know I’m not here to heal you.”
She batted his ankle with a weak hand. “You can,” she said. He had the power. “Do it.”
Gently, he said, “I’m sorry, but you’re dying.”
“Not dying.” Not while he could save her. Straining to reach for him, she spat blood.
Leaning down, he touched her neck, feeling her pulse. “You must be especially determined.” He released her. “You need to let go. Your body is too damaged to heal itself, and you must be in tremendous pain.” He sounded almost kind. “I must take your soul now.”
She closed her eyes for the briefest of instants and then opened them again. She concentrated on his words as if they were bubbles she had to catch. Her vision swam. “Can’t have it.”
“Hey, now, we don’t want it drifting off beyond the ends of the earth.”
She thought of the polar bears, their unclaimed souls drifting off beyond the ends of the earth unless—she remembered the owl and the hare—unless another took them. Could she tempt the human munaqsri? “Know twenty-five thousand,” Cassie said.
He squatted on the rocks beside her. “What was that?”
More strongly, she said, “Twenty-five thousand unclaimed souls.” The effort made her gasp. She choked on air and started to shake.
Catching her shoulders, he steadied her. “Unclaimed? Did you say ‘unclaimed’? As in without a munaqsri?” She could hear the excitement in his voice.
She closed her eyes. “Can’t talk,” she whispered. “Dying.” Please, let this work!
“Twenty-five thousand souls.” He was almost shouting. “You said twenty-five thousand! Where? Who?”
She took a breath as if to speak, but then shuddered—the shudder was not feigned. Heal me! she silently begged.
She heard him swear, and then pain shot through her as he pressed down on her rib cage. Her torso tightened and her ribs squeezed. She felt as if the ceiling of the sky were collapsing inward and the earth were ripping upward. She screamed. And then suddenly, the pain was gone.
Surprised, Cassie cut off midscream. She sat up on the blood-soaked rocks. She felt as light as helium. She practiced breathing. Her ribs expanded and contracted evenly. She prodded them. She did not even feel bruised. She looked at herself, bloody and healthy. She ran her hands over her stomach. “Is my baby…”
“Of course,” he said, sounding offended. “I am a professional.”
A wave of relief rolled over her with an intensity that shocked her. Tears flooded her eyes, and she examined her skin so he wouldn’t notice. Thin pink lines showed where the rocks had pierced her. She flaked the dried blood off them. “Impressive work,” she said, struggling to sound calm. “Thank you.”
“We are not supposed to make exceptions, but for twenty-five thousand… With that many souls, I would never have another stillbirth.” She heard wonder in his voice.
She looked up at him for the first time without the haze of pain. The munaqsri was a thin Inuit man with a caterpillar-fuzz mustache. He looked young—maybe Jeremy’s age—but that didn’t mean anything with munaqsri. He had shaved his hair so short that his scalp was visible. He should have transplanted it to his upper lip instead, she thought. His sparse mustache (plus the khakis, shirt, and tie) made him look more like a kid at his first job interview than a caretaker of the human race.
“The souls,” he prompted. “Where are they?”
He had to be a new munaqsri. That would explain why he’d miscalculated and let her see him. She thought of stories of people who saw angels before they died. Perhaps more people saw munaqsri than anyone knew. “I can’t promise the souls will be unclaimed forever,” she cautioned. “Their munaqsri is out of his region, but he could come back at any time.”
“Is it likely?” he asked.
She grinned. “I have been told it’s impossible.” It was as impossible as a talking bear, as impossible as running hundreds of miles in minutes, as impossible as her being alive, as impossible as birth. Cassie hugged her stomach. “Ever heard of a castle that’s east of the sun and west of the moon?”
He shrugged. “If it were anyone’s region, it would be mine. I’m assigned all the obscure locations.”
Oh, wow, had she finally had a stroke of good luck? Cassie felt like singing.
“But it won’t become my region until a human has been born or has died there.” He scanned the trees. “Now that I think of it, this is the first time I have ever been here. Very nice.”
“Mmm,” she said noncommittally. If she had her way, she was never going to see another tree as long as she lived. “So you can’t go east of the sun now?” It had been too much to hope for. Not being dead was enough of a gift. Besides, it didn’t matter that he couldn’t reach the troll castle. Her grandfather could. The munaqsri helped her stand, and she dusted herself off. Dirt stuck to the caking blood. She looked like she had been in a train wreck, but she felt like she could race up a mountain. “Do you know the North Wind?”
“What does he have to do with the souls?”
“Do you know him?” she pressed.
“Only in passing.” He frowned, clearly unhappy with her change of subject.
“Could I get his attention from a mountain?”
“Twenty-five thousand souls, you said.”
Cassie took a deep breath and said in a rush, “Take me to a mountain, and I’ll tell you which species is missing its munaqsri.” She knew she was asking a lot. After all, he had already saved her life.
He scowled. “You’re trying to trick me.”
Cassie shook her head vehemently. “I promise I’ll tell you at the mountain.”
“You promised before.”
She glanced up at a gathering horde of chattering squirrels. Were they spies? “I’ve learned to be meticulous about promises to munaqsri. You assumed.”