Even the Darkest Stars by Heather Fawcett

Author:Heather Fawcett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2017-06-27T04:00:00+00:00

FIFTEEN

I WAS UP early the next morning, lighting the fire and starting breakfast. It wasn’t my turn, but I needed something to occupy my thoughts. My sleep had been poor—I kept starting awake, each time convinced I had heard the fire demon lurking outside my tent.

I put spices, momo, and dried vegetables into the pot of boiling water. I had seen Aunt Behe make mothuk soup often enough, though I’d rarely paid attention to the process. Still, after leaning over to inhale the smell, I thought I’d come close.

Dargye and Aimo rose soon after, their weariness evident in their slouched shoulders and shadowed eyes. As I stirred the soup, Aimo touched me on the shoulder and motioned me away with her kind smile. I grudgingly sat and watched Dargye tend to the yak. He brushed out her long hair with quick, sharp strokes, while the beast grunted with pleasure. A few minutes later, Aimo handed me my breakfast. It was not as good as Aunt Behe’s, and had an odd aftertaste resulting from a bad guess on the spices, but it wasn’t likely to turn anybody’s stomach. I wolfed down the meal in ten seconds. I hadn’t lost as much weight as Tem or Aimo, but my clothes were not as snug as they had been. At this rate, by the time I returned to Azmiri, I would be as thin as Lusha.

I squinted down at my broad thighs. Perhaps not quite that thin.

Tem sat beside me. “Looks like someone’s taken an interest in you,” he said, his voice low.

I turned. The fire demon, Azar-at, was crouched by River’s tent, tail thumping against the ground. In the morning light, it was barely visible, a plume of wolfish smoke. But its hot-coal eyes glittered like sequins stitched to the wind, and they were fixed on me.

“River isn’t asking it to hide anymore,” I noted. My voice was flat.

“No need, is there?”

River himself emerged soon after, rubbing his hand through his hair. He muttered something to Azar-at, and the fire demon finally turned its eyes away from me.

“Where’s Norbu?” River said. His expression was distracted, and he kept glancing at the horizon, where a line of clouds was massing.

Tem and I regarded him in stony silence. Dargye scurried to fetch his breakfast, moving so quickly he could have been treading on hot coals. Aimo, warming her hands by the fire, not-so-subtly maneuvered herself so she was standing as far from River as possible. River, as usual, seemed oblivious to the effect of his presence on others.

The kinnika around Tem’s neck gave a whisper. I stared. It was the black bell, I was certain of it—as well as the one closest to it, which was small and cracked with age. The metal was unevenly tarnished, as if by fire.

“What’s that?” I said.

“I don’t know.” Tem coughed, his forehead creasing with nervousness. “But it’s not the first time it’s sounded. Chirri said she didn’t know what it was for.”

The bells tinkled again. The fire demon sniffed the air, as if it could smell the notes.

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