“Someone’s been this way,” Brin said, examining the brush on the side of the path. A broken fringe of dried fern fronds lay against his palm. “Might be deer,” Havilar said. “Or an owlbear woken up early?”
“It’s too wide a path. This is people, stomping along the trail. Too wide to stick to it.”
Still could be deer, Havilar thought, but didn’t say. “Maybe it’s the Harpers?”
He shook his head. “Could be.” He looked up at her. “Or maybe it’s from the camp.”
Havilar looked up the slope of the mountain, into the thick trees. It might only go up another dozen feet. It might be thousands, right up high enough for the sun to trip over. “I think we ought to start climbing. We’re never going to get there winding around like this. Especially not before something bad happens.”
“It’s not safe,” Brin said, standing and dusting off his breeches. “We haven’t got the tools to climb.”
“We’ll have to eventually.”
“We’ll wait for Lorcan,” Brin said. “If it gets too steep, he can fly us.”
“How about,” Havilar tried again, “we climb until we can’t and then we wait for Lorcan. Otherwise we’re going to be exhausted by the time we even get there.”
“Havi,” he said sternly, “you need to trust-”
“How about you trust me?” Havilar interrupted, her cheeks burning. “I get it-I’m the fool for storming into Farideh’s room without knowing what was in there. But I do know something about tracking and traveling in the woods.” She looked up the mountain’s slope. “Whatever Mehen taught you, he taught me first.”
Brin stood, looking as if he’d been caught between steps, as if the core of him hung off-balance. “I know,” he said.
“Then act like it,” Havilar replied. She started up the slope without him.
Farideh was right, she thought. Whatever hopes she had that she might take back what Farideh’s deal had stolen from her, they were shriveling into nothing. Her glaive might as well be a hoe for all the skill she had wielding it. She couldn’t stop having nightmares that splintered her sleep into spans so short she might as well have been blinking. And Brin thought she was a stupid little girl-a millstone, a nuisance.
She heard him start up the steep path behind her, but she didn’t dare look back.
“I don’t. .” he started. He fell silent for a moment. “I don’t think you were a fool for going into Farideh’s room that night. I just. . I just wish you hadn’t. Or maybe that you’d waited for me.”
Havilar hauled herself over a short wall of rock, up to another plateau. “Then you would have been trapped in the Hells too.”
Brin gave a short, bitter laugh. “Do you think I haven’t been?”
“I think the court of Suzail is a far cry from the Hells.”
“It’s not as far as you think.”
Havilar looked back at him. “Are there devils and lava fields and things?”
“No, but there are assassins and stupid rules and noblewomen who spend their days trying to trick you into marriage so they can be queen, even though that’s not an option.”
Havilar flushed. “Armies of princesses,” she said, ignoring the twist in her stomach. “Got it.” She scrambled up the next bit of slope, crushing moss and sending little stones tumbling down.
“Ye gods,” she heard Brin sigh behind her. “I’m not bragging.”
“Didn’t think you were,” Havilar said, her eyes on her hands and her face on fire.
“Havi,” he called. “Havi, stlarn it, wait!”
She kept climbing, up over another rock wall slick with melt and moss. When she hauled herself up onto the wide ledge beyond, her throat felt as if it would close around her panting breath. You knew this would happen, she thought. Why wouldn’t it? You’re no one.
Brin’s hand grasped the edge of the rock. “Help me up?” he asked. Reluctantly, she grasped his hand, pulling him up the cliff. For a moment, they stood so close, Havilar fancied she could taste the grassy smell of waybread on his breath. She stepped backward. He held onto her hand.
“I know you don’t want to talk about this,” Brin said. “But we’re going to have to. Please-whatever you’re going to say, I’ve imagined it, I promise.” He looked down at her hand in his. “It’s not armies. It’s not bragging. It’s not even pleasant. I could quite frankly be a sparring dummy in fancy clothes, and I’d be just as much of an interest to them. There’s one-this noblewoman-who has actually taken to telling people we have a secret understanding, because once-once mind you-I walked with her. I said four words altogether, and she’s well convinced we’re in love. But you-”
“Have you told her to heave off?” Havilar interrupted, taking her hand back. She walked across the rocky ledge, considering the slope above. It was gentler, and the trees were thinner. She could see, high above between the trees, the edge of the mountain’s peak.
“I’ve been told not to,” Brin said bitterly. “She ought to know, so no need to make a scene.” He turned back the way they came, and Havilar followed his gaze out over the thick forest, the setting sun reflecting off low clouds and staining the sky pink and crimson.
“This must be where he meant,” Brin said. “Or at least, it’s a good spot to make camp. Do you want-”
“You should just say you’re not in love with her,” Havilar said. “That’s not something it’s fair to sit on.”
“I know that.”
“You shouldn’t leave her wondering.”
Brin stared at her for an uncomfortable moment. “Are we talking about Arietta?”
Havilar’s cheeks burned and she turned toward the slope again. “Let’s just make the fire.”
He shook his head, still staring. “Havi, you are killing me-”
A shadow crossed the sun, more than a cloud. Wrong, out of place-old instinct made Havilar leap back, out of reach, under the tree branches. Yank her glaive free of its harness and get it between her and whatever shouldn’t be there. Whatever was making the wind shift as it dived.
“Brin! Duck!” she shouted. At the same moment, a ring of teeth flashed across her field of view, a lamprey with a mouth made for sucking the lifeblood out of dragons. Havilar jumped toward it and slashed with the glaive, catching the fine membrane of its wings. She shoved upward, the skin breaking with a pop that shook her weapon. The monster screeched.
Brin had hit the ground flat and rolled back to his feet as the creature, hissing and spitting, swung its eyeless head toward Havilar. Brin shouted her name, but Havilar only had eyes for the monster.
The wing, the wound-she hit it again, tearing the hole larger, knocking the beast to the ground. The mouth-catch it on the blade, the heavy shaft, twist the head down. Black blood poured out through that ring of teeth. Its whole wing slapped her, hard enough to shake her focus a moment. The mouth flexed, grasping at the space near her.
It screamed. Brin’s sword pinned the narrow point of its triangular body to the ground. The creature lashed and squalled, still trying to find Havilar even as it struggled to pull itself free. Its wing slapped Brin and knocked him off his feet.
Havilar brought the end of her glaive up under its head, driving it up, ready for her next strike to plunge up into its throat. It rolled and slammed her into the rocky ground, driving the air out of her and sending a lightning bolt of pain through her ribs.
Brin cursed a steady stream. Havilar gasped, as the creature loomed over her, mouth grasping toward her. But even as it descended, Havilar pulled her weapon up, tearing into the soft underside of the creature and spraying her with blood and slippery viscera. It jerked back, as if to escape, rolling onto its wounded wing. Havilar swept the glaive toward it, across its belly, spilling more blood out on the frozen ground. The thing screamed and flopped like a fish in the bottom of a boat, and died.