Book One – Chapter 17

The shaman went in first. The two travellers followed. Then Estingar.

Tirran stayed. So did Imbiad.

So did Yu.

The omira stood just beneath the sheltering curve of stone that framed the grand double doors. The wizard had not moved from the far edge of the platform. His cloak flared in the wind.

Yu had not moved either. Not because he wanted to stay, but because the part of him that controlled his legs could no longer tell which direction was safer. Or less deadly. At the same time, he could not stomach to stay a second longer. It was not just his stomach. Every part of him ached to be elsewhere.

He did not shiver. He did not cry. The terror was deeper than that. Not the surface kind. Not the visible tremor of someone startled or chilled, but real damage from within. Something inside his understanding of the world had been bent the wrong way and had not sprung back. The shaman had corrupted it. Or the thing that wore her skin. That harbinger of Mountain King hunger.

Yu could not do anything about the bent and broken mess in his mind, not here, not now, but he could do something about his body. He had to move. Get out of the storm. Get to where it was warm. There was fire inside. There were things that made sense. Things that looked like safety. Normal things. Towels. Mugs. Food. Walls. Doors with locks. A place to sit, to breathe, to pretend for ten seconds that the world had not turned sideways.

So he moved. Yu pushed himself off the wall and took a first step.

“I’ll just…,” he wrestled his beak to open. “I’ll go too. Inside, I mean.”

“Wait until Estingar is back,” Tirran said.

“What? Why?” Yu raised his arm to shield his face from the storm and looked up at him.

Tirran’s wild eyes remained unfixed, but his posture was quiet, nearly deferential. “We guard the west entrance in pairs,” he said. “Whenever circumstances allow.”

There was no force in his tone and no edge to the words, as if he truly meant to say that Yu’s presence made a difference.

“He returns the staff,” Tirran added. “He will not be long.”

There was no trace of the Is it? voice.

Yu managed a Yes. He forced it out. Then he had to look away. It had been horrible to see what Tirran really was. But that was not the worst of it. The worst part was not seeing it anymore, but knowing it was there.