“Join your family.” Beyern nodded to where Maeva and Arras leaned into
each other in the dark. “And put your hood up, fool.”
“Yes, Uncle.” Thomil smiled and drew his hood over his numb ears,
trying not to think that this might be the last time Beyern ever snapped at
him.
Maeva was quiet as Thomil slipped into a crouch at her side. Thomil had
been taller than his older sister for half a decade now, but to him, she would
always be a shelter, a hearth light when all other love had gone from the
world. She met his eyes, then turned meaningfully to the glow beyond the
lake, inviting him to follow her gaze and share her hope.
Everything about the city on the far shore was alien—the buildings taller
than any tree, the spires piercing the sky like teeth, the boom and whir of
machinery. It would never be home, but it was a chance at survival. Magical
shielding glittered around the city of Tiran, forming a dome that stretched
from the sun-eating mountain range in the west to the lower barrows in the
east. That bright work of sorcery protected those inside from Blight, winter,
and everything that had driven the Caldonnae to the brink of extinction.
“Are you ready?” Arras asked because that was the kind of inane question
he liked to ask.
“No.” Thomil tried not to sound exasperated with his sister’s husband, but
really, how ready could a person ever be for near-certain death? And if not
death, then the enormity of the unknown. The plains of the Kwen were the
only mother Thomil had ever known—brutal but comprehensible if one had
the stillness to listen and learn her mysteries. Even as he beheld the city
across the lake, his mind couldn’t reconcile the idea that safety lay in the
incomprehensible sorcery on the other side of that barrier.
Maeva reached over and squeezed Thomil’s hand, her grip as reassuring
as it had been when they were children and he came crying to her with
nightmares of wolves with many mouths. Thomil wanted to slip his
deerskin mitten off and grasp her hand in earnest, in case this was the last
time. But there was a silent agreement among the Caldonnae not to say
goodbye. They had to keep believing, however unlikely it was, that they
would all live to see the sunrise.
“Thomil,” Maeva said with the soft confidence that told him she could see
straight to the doubt seething beneath his composure. “The worthwhile run
is never the short one.” Old hunter’s wisdom, based on the day it could take
to track and hunt the largest prey—followed by the kind of abstract wisdom
