But I won’t. Not for a pile of stones.
The ground shakes and, from somewhere high above, a boulder slams into our path. Hyla lets out a string of Paradyian curses, and behind me, Kyn’s hands tighten hard around the seat. My braid catches in his grip and hair is yanked from my head. I fight every flight instinct I have, refusing to crank the wheel hard to the left—a jackknifed trailer will be impossible to right. I slam my foot to the brake and the tank tread skids, the steering wheel useless in my fisted hands.
The trailer slips left and right, but before it can really get swinging, we stop. It’s the incline that saves us, the climb working alongside the brakes to slow our deceleration. If we’d been any heavier . . .
I kick my door open and jump onto the highway, my boots slipping on the ice.
Two of my thumbs! That’s all there is between the massive, frosted boulder and the Sylver Dragon’s grill. Two of my skinny little thumbs.
THE SMUGGLER WANTS A FIGHT, Winter hisses. SHALL I GIVE IT TO HIM?
My legs shake and I have to brace myself against the boulder. Our path is blocked. The highway, impassable. Our only option is to take the byway to the right. The broken road that leads to the Kerce Memorial.
Kyn’s next to me now, a high whistle gliding across his tongue. “Mars said you were good, but—”
“Mars did this,” I say, stomping around the truck, pulling myself back into the driver’s seat.
“You’re wasting time,” Mars says, his fingers drumming hard on his knees. “Make the turn.”
“You could have killed us,” I say.
“You could have stopped me. You could have stopped the boulder.”
“You could have KILLED US!”
“You could have killed us.”
“You’re crazy.”
“I am a force of nature. Like Winter. Like the Shiv who were carved from these mountains. Treating my commands as suggestions, as if the danger I present is negligible, will certainly result in someone’s death.”
“I could make the same threat,” I say.
“I wish you would. Now, make the turn.”
“Should we wait for your man or leave him to the Shiv?” I ask.
By way of answer, Mars turns his face to the window and watches as Kyn nudges the boulder with his boot and then his shoulder. It stays put. He whacks it with the butt of Drypp’s gun, then strides back to the rig, a dark smudge against the churning onslaught of snow.
“It’s coming down hard now,” he says, climbing back inside, his head and arms iced white.
“I keep a spare coat in the back,” I say.
“You know you’re small, yeah?”
“It’s an old one of Drypp’s.”
“I’m fine,” he says, “but it looks like the storm’s driven the Shiv inside.”
“Would it drive you inside?” I ask, genuinely curious despite my irritation. Winter’s different for the Shiv. Not so cold, not so damaging to their flesh. It’s the stone maybe—though Mystra Dyfan says it’s the heat of Begynd working from within. They’re so impervious, a gift I’ve envied more than once.
“Ah, yeah. I hate being cold.”
“You get cold then?”
“Not as fast as you do, sure. But up there it’s the driving wind that’ll have them running for cover. Hell on the eyes and what’s the point if you can’t see?”
I was wondering the same thing.
PLEASE, Winter begs. IT’S NOT SAFE.
But snow is blustering about the cliffs, stealing visibility and there is no point sitting here stewing. I crank the wheel to the right and ease off the brake slowly. Despite Winter’s warning burning hot in my bones, we take the road toward the Kerce Memorial.
CHAPTER 6
The monument is tall and precarious—stone stacked upon stone—large rocks perched on smaller ones, balancing, almost tipping, but holding firm. It makes no sense, really, how they stand, how they face Winter so valiantly. Some three hundred years ago, the Kerce fashioned this tower. After all this time it should be nothing but a pile of frozen rubble. But for reasons that are all her own, Winter’s left the memorial untouched. The shine has worn away but the stones are still brightly colored like the mountain buried beneath its Ryme coat. Green and blue and red and orange, various shapes and sizes, all with ribbons of kol marbled through them.
Some say it’s Kerce magic that keeps the monument upright, the kol asserting its dominance over Winter and gravity alike. Others say it’s nothing more than ingenious engineering.
I don’t have any idea how the tower has remained standing for so long. I didn’t pay near enough attention to Mystra Dyfan to have the details of Kerce mythology memorized.
What I do remember is that long ago, on this very spot, Winter made a deal with the Kerce Queen. Here, at High Pass, Winter taught a dying sovereign to speak her own tongue so they could strike an accord—words that would eventually come to be known as the Kerce language. The people’s original dialect was lost to antiquity and replaced with the whispers of a bartering power.
Sad, but likely a fairy story. And I’ve heard plenty of those. Sometimes they flatter the Shiv, sometimes they flatter the Kerce. But they’re always whispered. You wouldn’t want the Majority to hear you speaking of the past.
I won’t deny there’s something different about High Pass. But did Winter really take advantage of a dying queen here? It feels desperate, the Kerce and Shiv doing their best to explain things they weren’t meant to understand. Some days I see the wisdom in the Majority’s laws.
There is no yesterday, they say, only a thousand tomorrows.
It’s a maxim they teach every child, a message they scrawl on their buildings.
And while I’m no fan of the Majority, I know this: We have to keep moving forward. Sifting through myth and legend looking for actual history requires too much stationary contemplation. In these mountains, only an impervious monument could afford such a thing. We’d freeze to death if we stood still long enough to figure out where we’ve been.
Mars stands beneath the monument now, a thin shadow against the whiteness. His head is bowed low, his hands stitched together behind his back. Despite Winter’s flailing winds, not a hair on his head moves. Snowflakes hover in the small circle around the rock tower. They don’t fall; they don’t bluster.
It would be easy to attribute the stillness around him to the kol racing through his veins, to the words sitting so lightly on his tongue, but I’ve been here before.
High Pass is just different.
Hyla and Kyn stand some distance away, giving Mars a bit of privacy, but they’ve forfeited their comfort in doing so. Hyla flips up the hood on her red parka, holds it in place with both hands, her goggles frosting over. Holstered to each thigh is a handgun, flashing gold in the dimming light.
Kyn stands next to her, his legs shoulder-width apart, fighting to keep himself upright. The wind is ferocious, tugging at the strap of the shotgun draped around his neck. He’s wearing a coat now—his own, not the one I offered—pulled from an oversize duffle they’ve stowed beneath the bench seat.
Kyn’s coat is a dark green utilitarian thing, lots of pockets, very little down. The hood is lined with brown fur—maybe mink—and it billows in the wind. Snow collects in his tight curls as he squints at the storm.