Ilvani stood up and looked over the side of the wagon into a cold white vastness. Snow blanketed the ground, and the horses shook white flakes from their manes. The wind had died. Silence and stillness reigned across the plain. In the distance, she beheld a vertical stone marker and a beaten down, muddied path that wound to the east.
It was the trade route, the Golden Way.
A murmur of excitement threaded through the caravan as the crew saw the marker. They’d finally reached the trade route, and they would have a measure of civilization and security, at least until they started the climb into the Sunrise Mountains.
Climbing down from the wagon, Ilvani shook the snow from her hair and pulled up the hood of her cloak. She’d thought they were just going to rest here, but she noticed that the caravan was already setting up a camp. The cook grumbled about trying to light a fire in the snow, and the passengers stood in groups, shivering and stomping their feet.
There was a small pinewood just off the trade route to the west. Trees grew alongside the road in sparse patches, their snow-crusted needles bowing close to the ground. She remembered Tatigan, the merchant, describing the trees to Ashok and naming them. Mixed in with these were a few bare deciduous trees, but they were small and stunted.
She walked over to where Ashok, Skagi, and Cree were tethering their horses to these trees. “Why are we making camp here?” she asked.
Skagi looked at her with some surprise, as if he hadn’t expected her to ask such a direct question. Had she never done that before? Or had they never understood her questions? She scowled at not knowing the answer to this riddle of herself.
Ashok answered her. “Tuva thinks the wind’s going to pick up in the next day or two and make us snow blind. Tatigan wants to make a quick expedition into Uzbeg and back before nightfall to avoid the weather, so we’re stopping here while he and a few others take goods into the village.”
“Are you going with them?” Ilvani asked, looking at the three of them.
This time even Ashok looked a little perplexed. “No. Vlahna wants us here to hunt in the woods and guard the caravan.”
“Too bad Tatigan won’t take the Beshabans into Uzbeg with him,” Cree said. “Your friend Mareyn’s going, though,” he told Ilvani.
“Would you like to come into the woods with us?” Ashok said. “We’re going on foot. It won’t be far.”
Ilvani looked toward the dense pines. She nodded. “I’ll come.”
When they’d secured the camp and placed watch guards about the perimeter, the four of them set off for the woods. Their boots crunched in the snow and brittle brown needles scattered about the ground. Ilvani bent and picked up a large cylindrical cone that had fallen from one of the trees. She ran her fingers along its scales and listened to the sound her nails made on the woody ridges. The stillness magnified every footstep and breath. When snow slid off a bowed branch and fell to the ground, they heard the impact.
Cree kneeled to examine a set of closely spaced tracks. “Rabbit,” he said, indicating the two-inch-long depressions in the snow.
“Have to catch a lot of those to make a decent meal for everyone,” Skagi said.
“If we could find another deer herd, we’d have enough fresh meat for days,” Ashok said.
Curious, Ilvani followed the rabbit tracks. They cut a twisting path through the trees, unhurried, as if the small creature had been foraging.
“Don’t stray too far, Ilvani,” Ashok called to her.
Ilvani raised a hand to show she’d heard him, but she didn’t take her eyes off the tracks. They led deeper into the woods, where the trees grew tall enough to block much of the dim sunlight penetrating the cloud cover. At last they stopped near a small hole at the base of a tree. Ilvani paused to listen for the sound of the rabbit. She kneeled and pressed her ear to the earth, but she heard only the silence. The snow rabbit slept, just as the earth slept.
Above her, she heard the sudden rush of flapping wings. Ilvani lifted her head and saw a bird’s wing. Though she couldn’t see it clearly, she had an impression of light brown plumage and darker spots on the animal’s body. It landed in the tree above the rabbit’s den. Ilvani lay on her back on the pine needles so that she could see the bird clearly.
It was an owl-a brown-plumed owl with eyes like garnets. The bird turned on its perch and surveyed the area. When it saw the shadar-kai woman sprawled across its hunting ground, the bird cocked its head, questioning, Ilvani thought. What was this thing, this spot in the snow? How did it come to be here? How long will it stay?
Ilvani closed her eyes. She didn’t know the answer to any of those questions. Then she heard again the swish of wings, and when she opened her eyes, there were two more owls perched beside the first. She stared up at the sky and saw the shadows of more birds circling. They glided down in a slow spiral and landed in the pine tree, five, six, ten owls all looking down at her. She’d never seen such beautiful feathers.
“Ilvani?”
The sound of Ashok’s voice broke the stillness and made the birds tense. Ilvani expected them to fly away, but they stayed on their branches, silent watchers in the snow.
Ashok’s face came into view above her, blocking out the birds and the pale sun. His long gray hair hung about his face in tangles, and his black eyes watched her with the same questions swimming in them as in the owls’.
“I don’t know the answers,” she said.
He sat down next to her. “Aren’t you cold, lying on the ground?”
She thought about it and discovered she was actually very cold. Until he said it, she hadn’t noticed.
He took his cloak off and held it out to her. The gesture, so vivid an echo of another time he’d done this, made Ilvani’s breath catch in her throat. Hearing her soft gasp, Ashok stiffened. He realized it, too, but it was too late now to take it back. Cautiously, Ilvani reached out and took the cloak. She spread it over herself. Her body warmed immediately from the latent heat of his, but now she felt a different kind of cold, a remoteness that made her want to retreat into her mind.
The owls made her stay. Their beautiful feathers and calm eyes-there was no threat here. If there were, the owls would cry out in warning and fly away. She was safe here, as safe as any person could be.
She looked at Ashok. He sat quietly waiting, expecting nothing from her. He was the only one who did that, now that Natan was gone. She wondered, if she said nothing, just lay there in the snow, would he stay beside her until the snow covered them both?
“It’s not a good idea. We’d have to dig ourselves out eventually,” she said, resigned.
He smiled faintly. “You were making much more sense earlier,” he said. “I knew it couldn’t last.”
“My fault. It’s because I say only half of what I think and half of what I see,” Ilvani said. “You can’t see the owls, can you?”
He tilted his head. “Did you see some in the trees?” He looked around at the wood. “I’d like to see what one looks like outside the Shadowfell.”
Ilvani glanced up. There were thirteen owls now. “So would I,” she said.
“Do you want to go back to the camp?” Ashok asked.
She shook her head. “I’m fine. I’m not afraid to dream,” she said.
That got his attention. “The woman from your dreams-she’s gone?”
“Not gone. But she’s different. She’s not being hunted. She’s at peace, so I can be at peace.”
“The nightmare hasn’t reacted to you the way he did on the Shadowfell plain,” Ashok said. He made a gesture toward her as if to lift the cloak, but he stopped himself and let his hand rest on the spiked chain hanging from his belt. “Your arms are healing?” he asked.
“Yes,” Ilvani said. “But there will be scars, and I won’t know what they mean.”
“The symbols,” Ashok said. “Don’t worry, when we get to Rashemen, the witches will explain why you were seeing them in your dreams. Or maybe …”
“What?”
“Couldn’t you ask … Him? Surely Tempus could give you some hint as to what the dreams mean?”
Ilvani sighed. “He might, but I haven’t talked to Him since that night-you know when.”
“I know.”
She scowled. “I’m not afraid. But I haven’t decided what I think or feel about Him.”
