Nico took a deep breath. After this, there was no turning back. “Sted has Nivel’s demonseed inside him. We can find it easily if we go to the place where all demonseed are connected.”
Josef gave her a guarded look. “Where?”
“The Dead Mountain.”
Josef sucked in a breath, but Eli’s eyes flashed at the possibility.
“Step into the demon hive itself,” he said thoughtfully. “Find the bear by finding the bait.” His eyebrows arched. “Sounds brilliant.”
“Sounds dangerous,” Josef said, staring at Nico. “Can you even go there?”
“No,” Nico said, her voice thick and halting. It had never been spoken, but she knew deep in her soul that if she ever set foot on that black slope, she would never leave it again. “But I can take you to the edge.”
“And we can take it from there,” Eli said, grinning. “I’ve always wanted to know what was on the demon’s mountain. If even a tenth of the stories are true, it’s bound to be a macabre wonder of the world. And let’s not forget the thrill of breaking into a place even the League won’t go.”
“That had better not be what this is about,” Josef growled.
“Of course not!” Eli looked hurt. “But you can’t fault me for seeing the many side benefits of Nico’s delightful plan, which solves our problem at no cost to ourselves.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Josef said. “I don’t know much about these things, but I don’t think the Dead Mountain is a place you just walk into.”
“Neither was the fortress of Gaol,” Eli said with a smile. “That’s the whole point of walking in.”
The swordsman gave him a dirty look. “Don’t turn this into one of your stunts. You’re still not off the hook.”
Eli’s face grew deathly serious. “I didn’t imagine I would be. Are you in on this, or are you going to be difficult?”
Josef put a hand on the Heart of War’s hilt. “That depends on her,” he said, and turned his stony glare to Nico. “If you want to do this, Nico, I’m behind you, but only if you really want to. Don’t let Eli make this about him.”
Eli harrumphed at that. Nico and Josef ignored him. “I want to help,” Nico said. “I owe Slorn a greater debt than any of us.”
Josef nodded. “Then lead on.”
Nico closed her eyes, opening her soul to the nagging pull in her bones she’d been ignoring all the way north. Her feet turned of their own accord, and when she opened her eyes again, she was facing north and west. Though she could not see it yet, and wouldn’t for a long time, she knew she was pointed directly at the Dead Mountain.
As she stepped forward, she tried to marshal the feeling that she was doing the right thing. That she was helping Eli and Josef instead of being a burden for once. But every step left an ashy taste on her tongue and a dull pain in her legs. Deep inside her mind, scraping the bottom of her thoughts, she could feel the voice smiling. That alone chilled her more than the cold wind, and no matter how tight she pulled her coat, she could not get warm again.
CHAPTER
8
They climbed for three days, moving ever higher into the sharp, gray mountains. The trees vanished on the second day, replaced by thorny shrubs, and then nothing, just endless slopes of bare stone and snow. At night, great gusts blew in icy sheets across their meager campsite, leaving tracks of frost on the path that Josef had to break up with his boots before they could move on. Still, despite none of them being dressed for mountain weather, they made good time, mostly thanks to Karon, Eli’s lava spirit.
As soon as the cold became uncomfortable, Eli had opened his shirt and had a nice long chat with the burn on his chest. Karon was happy to help them stick it to the ice and wind spirits, and he cheerfully kept the air around Eli as warm and dry as a smokehouse.
“I only wish it didn’t reek of sulfur,” Josef said, pressing up the mountainside. “I’d almost rather deal with the cold.”
“Well, don’t let me stop you,” Eli huffed, though even he looked a little green. “Who am I to stand between a man and his frostbite?”
Nico would have chuckled at that, but even a smile felt out of place on the gray slopes. They were getting close. Though she kept her hood down and her eyes on the path, it did little good. She could see the mountain all the time now, even when she closed her eyes, which she did as little as possible. It only made her more aware that she was never alone. The voice sat like a lump in her mind, rarely speaking but ever present, a constant weight that could not be removed or ignored.
“Nico?”
She jumped at her name and looked to see Eli staring at her.
“You stopped. Are you all right?”
Nico swallowed. She didn’t remember stopping. “I’m fine,” she said softly.
Eli gave her a look of superb disbelief, and she hurried forward, scurrying up the mountain until she was at the edge of Karon’s warmth.
If you embraced what you were there would be no need for these charades, the voice tsked. If the thief and the swordsman are so important to you, why bother fighting this fight we both know you’re going to lose? What do you hope to gain? Admit it, everyone would be so much happier if you just accepted your fate.
Nico clenched her jaw and focused on pulling herself up the slope. Eli followed behind her, watching her back with a cautious, closed expression.
Josef reached the top of the slope first. He’d taken to pushing forward, plowing through the snow to make a path for the others before falling back to the circle of Karon’s heat to warm up again. This time he waited for them, standing impatiently at the peak while Nico and Eli trudged the last fifty icy feet. The top of the slope was not the top of the mountain, however. Instead, they came out in a short, narrow pass between two peaks. It was a forbidding place, a wide alley of stone paved with sharp, icy rocks and crusted snow, but it was sheltered from the wind and that was enough to make it feel almost homey.
“At last,” Eli said. “I thought we’d be climbing forever.”
“We may not be done yet,” Josef answered, picking his way down the pass. “Don’t get too cozy.”
Eli’s mouth twitched, but he said nothing. Though they were speaking mostly as usual, Nico was keenly aware that Josef and Eli still weren’t looking directly at each other. It made sense, of course. No matter how close the friendship, the things they’d said outside the bear’s cave couldn’t be forgotten as easily as that. Still, Nico couldn’t even look at them together without feeling a horrible pang of guilt. She had to find Slorn as soon as possible, she thought, hurrying down the pass after Josef. The sooner the pressure was lifted and the problem was resolved, the sooner they could all go back to how they were before.
She caught up to Josef quickly, not because she was moving so quickly but because the swordsman had stopped. He was standing at the other end of the sheltered pass, staring out at the white landscape beyond with a hard look on his face. She didn’t have to ask him what he saw; she could feel it waiting out there, beyond the snow.
“We’re here, aren’t we?” Josef said softly.
Nico could only nod, forcing her foot to take the last, terrified step to stand beside him and look out on their final destination.
The pass between the mountains let out on a steep, snow-covered slope that plunged down into a little valley. Snow blew in sheets across it, hiding everything else behind a blanket of pure white, but here and there the wall of snow thinned, allowing a fleeting glimpse of the mountain at the other end of the valley. It towered above the other peaks, twice as high as any of the lesser mountains that ringed it, its cold, black stone showing through the blowing snow like dark water under ice.
“There’s no snow on its slopes,” Josef said, squinting against the white storm.
