“Thanks for your help.”
“It’s the least I could do. Anyway, you’re much better than you think. Now that I’ve seen you climb, I think you could’ve done it yourself,” he whispers back.
“I guess all those years climbing the walls of the turret are coming in handy.” As I say it, I know that’s only part of the truth. I’m stronger than before because I carry Eamon’s strength within me.
Jasper glances over at me, perhaps surprised by the image of an Aerie Maiden scaling the walls of her home, even though he’s seen me climb far higher ice walls out here. I sneak a smile at him.
“Do I hear talking behind me?” The elder Scout calls back.
“No, sir,” Jasper answers.
“Good. I better not.”
Jasper and I clamp our mouths shut. Being beside him is the most normal I’ve felt since I spotted him in the Taiga and we exchanged … what? A look? Happiness? Relief? For a brief tick, I want to push my doubts about him away and pretend that I’m an innocent Maiden again and Jasper and I are just strolling home from our School day. But I know I can’t.
And then we reach camp.
Most of the Testors have arrived and they are busy establishing their home bases. Lopsided and crumbling igloos litter the clearing—only William’s igloo looks halfway decent, and he’s the son of the Keeper of Buildings—and I want to laugh aloud at the clumsy efforts. How silly they were to refuse to choose Boundary Companions who could easily teach them the art of igluksaq.
But I don’t laugh. The Testors pause, regarding us, their eyes filled with jealousy and loathing. Especially Aleksandr and Neil. And even if a tick ago I had wanted to pretend everything was normal, I am reminded that I can’t. I am reminded that my wish to be a Testor—and not just a Maiden—has come true. I know the price. This is a competition, and right now, I’m a threat.
XXI: Aprilus 9 and 10 Year 242, A.H.
I can barely sleep, and not just because I can feel the other Testors seething through my perfectly formed igloo walls. The puzzle of how to reach the shadow buried in the crevasse—without killing myself in the process—torments me.
My mind spins with all of Lukas’s advice. I think through his instructions on snow, on climbing, on handling my huskies, on reading the icescape, on hunting and foraging in this barren land. But with the Descent, he reached the limits of his knowledge. His expertise lies in surviving beyond the Ring, not unearthing artifacts. Only Eamon can aid me now.
I pull Eamon’s journal from its tattered, frozen hiding place in one of my bags. His words have haunted me since I left the Aerie, but I’ve had no time to revisit the pages. Carefully, I crack open the book; you never know what havoc the cold might wreak on its delicate paper. As before, the first sight of my brother’s handwriting fills me with a strange mix of hope and sadness.
The book falls open to one of his last entries, one I’ve read and re-read. It’s particularly confounding.
Must we truly risk our lives in the Testing in order to be worthy of the Archon Laurels? Our lives are so precious and so few. Sometimes, I put aside my concerns, and I let myself imagine a victorious return to the Aerie. Standing on the town dais with the Archon Laurels in my hands, I see my parents smiling up at me from the crowd. I watch Eva gaze at me with pride. The image dissolves, and I am left wondering. If I do indeed win, will they still love me when I do what I must?
What did he mean? What in the Gods did my brother plan on doing? What could he have possibly done that would have jeopardized my love for him? Didn’t he know that nothing in the world could shake me free? Eamon was—and is—a part of me.
I push down the sadness and confusion, and flip back toward the beginning, where he inserted diagrams of ice excavations. I had no knowledge of this diary, but I remember well when Eamon worked on these sketches, a memory that embarrasses me now. The winter before the Commitment, he had spent the entire season poring through the Archives of past Testings, assembling a huge collection of summaries of past excavations, complete with renderings of Sites and details of the landscape conditions. When I complained that all this work left him with no bells for me—and that no other rumored Testor was wasting his time with useless drawings anyway—he got angry with me for the first and only time I can recall. He yelled, “Can’t you see that this project might save my life?”
I didn’t see then. But I see now.
Eamon and I made up, thank the Gods; I can’t imagine if he had died with the weight of our one fight still hanging between us. Still, the irony hits me hard. That project I complained about—with such harshness and pettiness—might just help me survive. Even win.
I don’t give in to the tears welling in my eyes. I remind myself for the thousandth time that right now I have to be a Testor first and a Maiden second; I can’t afford the luxury of sensitive emotions—ever in need of Gallant protection—that should define me. Instead, I study the inserts. I pray to the Gods to find something resembling my Claim. Eamon included countless excavation scenarios—digs undertaken in trenches, ice caves, underwater, icebergs, and of course, the dreaded crevasses—but nothing looks familiar.
I’m about to close the journal when the last drawing captures my attention. At first, I had disregarded this page—entitled “the Johansen Site”—because the excavation took place in a subterranean ice cave, not a crevasse. How could it possibly bear on my dig? But when I examine the sketch more closely the second time around, I see that the Johansen Site is remarkably like my own.
Eamon wrote:
Johansen saw the black shadow of the remedies bag deep within the wall of ice. He knew he needed to extricate his rare find—undoubtedly filled with Tylenols and Ambiens and Prozacs—and show it to the chosen of New North in all its wickedness. But how could he remove it without causing the roof and supporting walls of the ice cave to collapse upon him? After praying to the Gods, a solution came to him. Johansen would slowly melt the ice by means of a small fire, siphon the water outside the cave, and then allow the walls to harden overnight so they would not fall down upon him—with the frame of a wooden scaffold underneath the ice for support.
That’s exactly what I would have to do. Johansen came up with an ingenious solution, and Eamon copied his explicit diagrams. Johansen must have been successful, because he was named Archon his year.
I thank the Gods … and Eamon.
Grabbing the grid I’d mapped out earlier that sinik, I spend the remaining bells of the night coming up with a design based on Johansen’s plan. It will take extra ticks and extra effort, but I think it will work. I just hope that the artifact within the grey shadow is worth it. A worthy Relic.
By morning, I’m prepared. After I’ve eaten and dressed, I spend a little time with my dogs; I don’t want our bond to weaken. I rub each one down, and then feed and water them before hitching them to their ropes. Watching the other Testors rush to form a line before the first horn, I feel their apprehension to reach the Site. So do their dog teams; their huskies are barking and nipping at one another.
I need to be on the southernmost end of the line, so I’m in no hurry to fall in with the other Testors. In fact, I need to join the line last to secure the perfect spot. My hesitation seems to make the other Testors even more anxious; they keep looking over at me, mystified that I’m not dashing over to them. When it appears as though all nine Testors who reached the camp have entered the line—I haven’t seen Tristan and Anders yet, and I counted only ten igloos—I pull my sled into formation.