Although we hadn’t done anything yet.
Retracing our steps, we made camp in the same meadow the first evening. I could not help but remember the last time we had been there, all of us defeated and dispirited in the wake of our failure, and me racked with unholy desire, shuddering to the marrow of my bones with it, Jagrati’s predatory face swimming before my eyes.
I was afraid of her, and afraid of myself, too.
In the privacy of the tent I shared with my lady Amrita and Bao, I prayed to Naamah, begging her to have mercy on her errant daughter, begging her to let me keep her gift a blessing, and not a curse.
“I have tried to use it well, brightest of ladies,” I whispered. “I know I have not always been wise or strong, but I have always tried. I am still trying. Please, help me.”
In response, I had a sense of Naamah’s grace enveloping me like a cloak, filled with warmth and love and desire; but there was regret in it, too. Her gift was a double-edged sword that cut both ways. Not even she could make it otherwise.
But there was another offer the bright lady Naamah could make, and I felt it, words rising through my consciousness like bubbles from the eddies of a clear-running stream, each one perfect and glistening.
One by one, the words were strung together to form a single, terrifying query, spoken as clearly to me as Naamah had ever spoken through me.
Do you wish me to take it from you?
I caught my breath, my skin prickling with awe. Tears stung my eyes; and whether they were tears of terror or relief, I couldn’t have said. There was sorrow and curiosity behind the offer, but it was genuine.
Naamah could withdraw her gift from me.
My heart ached at the thought, and my diadh-anam flared in alarm. The Maghuin Dhonn Herself did not wish it so.
Neither did I.
I gazed at Bao, at his familiar face with its high, wide cheekbones, dark eyes glittering above them. And at my lovely lady Amrita, who gazed back at me with worried perplexity. I thought about all the people in my life I had loved and desired, from my lost Cillian slain too soon to my sweet boy Aleksei-and all that lay between them. Even the ill-advised but compelling Raphael de Mereliot with his healer’s hands, and, of course, my beautiful, mercurial lady Jehanne. My valiant princess Snow Tiger, trusting me enough to reveal an unexpected playful streak that had delighted me so.
I could not betray those memories. And for whatever reason Naamah had seen fit to grant her gift to a child of the Maghuin Dhonn when she called my father to my mother, there must be some purpose in it.
“No,” I murmured. “No. Please, do not take it away from me, goddess.”
Naamah did not. I felt her presence fade, leaving her gift intact.
I sighed with profound relief.
“Moirin, who in the world were you talking to?” Bao inquired.
“Naamah,” I said honestly. “I think… I think she offered to take her gift away from me. And I refused.” I swallowed hard. “I hope that was not a very bad mistake.”
Bao came over and put his strong arms around me, holding me hard. I leaned against him, feeling the steady beat of his heart, the bright flame of his diadh-anam entwining with mine. “Moirin without her eternal and perplexing desires would not be Moirin,” he whispered against my hair. “You did the right thing.”
“I think so, too,” Amrita said firmly. “It is never wise to refuse a true gift of the gods. Moirin… do your gods often speak to you?”
“No.” I searched for words, and found there weren’t any big enough. All I could do was clear my throat. “No, my lady. Not like this.”
She smiled a little. “Still, you are quite special to them, I think. I knew it the moment I saw you protecting that girl in the street. You were shaking with fever and you could barely sit up straight in the saddle, but you were not going to let those men harm her. And as sick as you were, you still looked like you’d stepped out of an ancient tale from when gods and goddesses roamed the earth.”
It made me smile, too. “You are very kind, my lady.”
Amrita laid one hand on Bao’s shoulder and leaned in to kiss my cheek. “And you are very frightened, dear one. But you are stronger than you know. You will be strong enough to face Jagrati, I am sure of it.”
I prayed she was right.
All of us slept uneasily that night, the camp on high alert, ringed about with anxious sentries. Bao positioned himself before the flap of the tent and passed the night in a restless doze. Twice, there were shouts in the night that brought him to his feet, his staff at the ready, while I reached desperately for the twilight, flinging it around myself and Amrita. But they were false alarms sounded by our uneasy guards.
There was no attack. Kurugiri, it seemed, had gone on the defensive.
The next day, we passed through the meadow where we had held our parley. As a precaution, Hasan Dar sent a company of scouts ahead to sweep through the spruce copse where our ambush had hidden, but it was empty. We filed past the Sleeping Calf Rock and began to ascend higher into the mountains, the air growing thinner and colder, pockets of snow in the windswept crags.
I breathed the Breath of Embers Glowing to warm myself, and the Breath of Earth’s Pulse to center myself, letting my awareness expand as we navigated the narrow paths. I didn’t sense anyone ahead of us, but I wasn’t certain.
That night, we made camp on an arid plateau where the ground was so hard it took all the men’s strength to pound the tent-pegs in place. Amrita was shivering in the cold, her teeth chattering. Although she didn’t utter a word of complaint, she was unused to such hardship. Beneath thick woolen blankets, I did my best to warm her while Bao slept stretched before the tent-flap.
On the following day, we reached the base of Kurugiri.
The mountain seemed taller and more foreboding than I remembered, jutting into the icy blue sky. The southern face of it was sheer; indeed, only the eastern face with its complicated labyrinth was scalable. We worked our way toward it, feeling the shadow of Kurugiri looming over us. From this perspective, the fortress itself wasn’t even visible, but every one of us knew it was there.
Dusk was falling by the time we passed the hanging cauldron of petition on its endless chain and reached the entrance to the maze, shadows slanting over the fissured slope. There must have been almost a dozen potential paths emerging from the maze, but Bao went unerringly toward the fifth one we encountered.
“Here.” He pointed to a faint mark etched into the stone, as high as a man could reach, then pushed up his right sleeve. The same intricate symbol of curlicues and strokes was tattooed above the crook of his elbow, beginning the zig-zag path. “See?”
Hasan Dar nodded. “We’ll have to camp here as best we can,” he said. “Set out at dawn. You’re sure it can be climbed in a day?”
Bao leaned on his staff. “I’m sure it can be done, yes. Whether or not we can do it is another matter. Depends on what we find in there.”
“I am sure of it,” Amrita said in a decisive tone, shivering. “Anything to get out of this cold!”
It made the guards smile, which I daresay was her intention; and it was the last cause anyone had to smile, for it was a truly miserable night. Due to the rocky terrain, we were unable to erect the tents and had to sleep in the open air, and it was perishing cold. But even worse was the menacing maze stretching above us, filled with possible assassins who might slip through under cover of night. Not wanting to take any chances, Hasan Dar posted sentries along every egress.
Although they were brave and loyal fellows, it was a frightening duty; and the mountain seemed like a living thing in the darkness, determined to heighten our fears. Every time a pebble shifted, someone raised an alarm. All of us slept fitfully, Bao and I with my lady Amrita between us, sharing our warmth with her, feeling horribly exposed and vulnerable all throughout the night.