White Road

and drinking around the fire as the moon rose overhead. During the day there was little to do but talk and hunt. And if their escort was anything to go by, the Bôkthersans were a friendly, easygoing people, though most of them remained a bit leery of Sebrahn.

    Smuggler’s Pass was a narrow track between two towering stone faces, barely two horses wide in places.
    “What did you smuggle through here anyway? Snakes and candles?” Micum grumbled, sweating in his heavy coat and hauling on his horse’s reins to get her through one of the narrower spots. Sebrahn was perched on the saddle, holding on to the pommel with both hands as Alec had taught him. Given his nature, the rhekaro would cling there until Alec told him otherwise.
    “Leather goods, swords, and horses, mostly,” Seregil replied, walking just ahead of him.
    “What happened if you were caught?”
    “This is our fai’thast. No one has authority here but the khirnari, and my father turned a blind eye. We did have to watch out for other clans near the coast—and pirates.”
    They emerged at last onto a high plateau strewn with boulders and scattered, wind-twisted pines. If there was a trail, it was covered with snow, but Seregil knew the way, using boulders of different shapes as way markers. The peaks in the distance were stark against the cloudy sky, and the only life they saw here were the flocks of small ravens, which circled them now and then, calling out in their croaking voices.
    It was much colder now, and the wind cut through their clothing. Their skin chapped and Mydri handed around a vial of beeswax and goat fat salve to keep their lips from splitting and bleeding when they smiled or yawned too widely. Alec kept Sebrahn bundled under his own cloak; the rhekaro might not feel the cold, but it was possible that he could freeze.
    They made camp that night in a circle of huge boulders Seregil referred to jokingly as the Sky Inn. As they carried their gear in from the horses, Alec saw that there were names, short messages, and crescents of Aura scratched all over the face of the rocks, from the snow line to as high as a man could reach. Seregil showed him his own name there, and Akaien’s, etched close together. From the difference in height, Seregil had been a child when these marks weremade. Alec added his name near Akaien’s and had Seregil put his there, too.
    Alec went around reading more, and saw dates that went back centuries. Suddenly his toe caught on something and he went sprawling, arms sinking up to the elbows in snow, filling his mittens.
    “Ah, I see you’ve found the woodpile!” said Seregil.
    While Alec and Micum dug out the pile of twisted pine branches and small logs, some of the others dug down through the snow at the center of the circle and uncovered a large stone fire pit. The haunches of venison they’d brought on one of the packhorses were frozen solid, so they shaved off thin slices with their knives and either cooked them over the fire on a stick or, like Alec, just ate them raw. They passed around the dwindling bags of hazelnuts and dried apples, and boiled snow for water, since the last of the tea had been used up. As always, Alec found a moment away from the others to feed Sebrahn and trim his hair.
    Even in their heavy clothing, the cold sapped strength away. They bedded down early around the fire on cloaks spread across packed snow, and everyone shared blankets with someone.
    Alec lay awake for some time, looking up at the night sky. The stars looked as big as half-sester pieces up here, so bright they cast shadows among the boulders. That, and the crackle of the smoky fire, made him think of his father again, and the winters they’d spent trapping in the Ironheart Mountains. When he fell asleep, he dreamed of his father—a tall, taciturn figure striding confidently on his long snow-shoes, the varnished rawhide webbing leaving a pattern like serpent skin for Alec to follow. In the dream his father never turned around, but Alec knew him by the ragged blond hair sticking out under his fur hat. Sometimes they’d gone on like that in silence for hours—or all day, if the traps were empty. Then the vision he’d had of his parents and his mother’s death crept into the dream, and he saw his father through his mother’s eyes—a handsome young hunter whose dark blue eyes were filled with anguish. In this dream, his mother turned into a dragon and flew away, only to be brought downby the arrows of her own