Carson Rae

The Shattered Mountain

Dedication

FOR JILL MYLES, WHO REFUSED TO GIVE UP ON ME

1

MARA wakes in the predawn chill. She did not stoke the fire in her tiny bedroom the night before, knowing the cold would rouse her early. She will need the darkness and solitude for her deception.

She swings her legs over the cot and places bare feet on the earthen floor. The chill creeps through the soles of her feet, into her legs, as she fumbles across the tree stump she uses as a nightstand for flint, steel, and tinder.

A spark, a wisp of smoke. She touches a candle wick to the tinder, and the sudden glow makes her feel warmer than she actually is. Or maybe it’s just the thought of escape.

She places the candle on the floor so she can find stockings and boots, and the light flickers across her toes. Even more than the candle, more than the thought of getting away, a memory wraps her with warmth and light and love—Julio’s fingers tracing her toes with callused but gentle fingers, almost but not quite tickling. She always thought her toes too long and thin, to accommodate her too-long, too-thin body. But thinking about Julio makes her wonder if her toes might be a little bit beautiful, too.

From the common room come the rustling of parchment and the clink of a mug set upon the table. Mara’s blood freezes, even as her heart pounds out the aching rhythm—No, no, no, not this morning of all mornings.

Papá is awake.

She could try to bluff her way past him, but not even the prospect of meeting Julio in the meadow makes her brave enough. She should go back to sleep and try again later. Julio will wait for her. He’ll worry, but he’ll wait.

Heart sinking, Mara starts to pull her feet back under the quilt, but she kicks the candlestick and sends it soaring. It clatters against the wall, snuffing the flame.

Her hand flies to her mouth to stifle a gasp, but it’s too late.

“Mara?” comes the gruff voice. “Is that you?”

No help for it now. She shoves her feet into her boots—too dark to find the stockings—saying, “Yes, Pá. I startled awake.”

Leaving the boots unlaced, she pads toward the doorway. Her stomach clenches as she pushes aside the doeskin that separates her bedroom from the common area. “Sorry to disturb you,” she says, keeping her voice mild.

Papá sits on a large cushion at a low table. Parchment and scrolls are strewn before him, seeming to writhe in red-orange shadows cast by a flickering candelabra. He stares at her, quill poised in the air, black ink marring his gray beard. The candlelight shades his eyes and his cheekbones; for a moment he looks as gaunt and alien and cruel as an animagus, one of the enemy sorcerers that have been prowling their hills in recent months.

The irony of this comparison is not lost on her.

“I rarely see you up at this hour,” she says, trying to sound offhand as she strides toward the adobe hearth. Their huta is the largest in the village, with four rooms and a common area large enough for many guests. Her father is the village priest, after all, and very nearly wealthy.

“I’m holding services tomorrow,” he says. “With the Inviernos coming closer and closer every day, and the king unwilling to send troops, our people need a call to hope and faith.”

As if hope and faith could stop the weapons and sorcery of the Inviernos. “So this will be an important sermon, then?” she say, just to fill the cold air with something besides her own dread. She swings the iron arm holding the kettle over the fire to reheat the water. It squeals; if this were not her last morning in the huta, she would oil the joint.

“The most important I have ever given,” he says with gravitas and conviction that make her squirm with guilt. He is a good man in so many ways, a devoted shepherd to his flock of people. For the thousandth time, she wishes his kindness extended to her.

If he was up all night working on his sermon, he must sleep soon. Which gives her an idea.

“Would you like some tea, Pá?” Just the tiniest amount of duerma leaf would do it. He’s already exhausted. And Mara is the best cook in the village—she can disguise or enhance any flavor. He would never know.

“Yes, thank you.”

His quill scritch-scritches against parchment as she sorts through the shelves, gathering herbs for her cheesecloth. Hopefully, she is now forgotten, invisible. Carefully, surreptitiously, she reaches behind a bundle of dried mint for the packet of duerma leaf.

“Are you tending the sheep again today?” he asks, louder this time, and she almost drops it. Of course she is tending the sheep. He only asks to remind her how much he hates letting her out of his sight, out of his control.

“Yes,” she says, not turning to face him.

“You’re not meeting that boy again, are you?”

“Of course not,” she lies.

She doesn’t hear him move, but suddenly her forearm is in an iron grip. His thumb presses into the flesh above her wrist so hard that tears spring to her eyes. But she knows better than to gasp or wince. Or drop the duerma leaf. Mara blinks rapidly to clear her eyes, then turns to face her father.

His smile is too brittle to fool anyone save by the most meager candlelight. “Is that why you’re up so early, Mara?” he says, almost crooning. “Because you can’t resist the desires of the flesh?”

She straightens and holds her head high. She shouldn’t, because she’s taller than he is now, and feeling small makes him mean. But she does it anyway. “I startled awake,” she says softly. “But since I did, I might as well head to the meadow early. I spotted a stand of sage yesterday, so I’m bringing my spice satchel. I could gather enough to keep us in savory scones until spring. If you’d rather I didn’t go, just say the word.”

The only thing Papá enjoys more than sermonizing from the Scriptura Sancta is the money she earns at the market with her baking. She has trapped him neatly.

“I don’t like you going alone,” he murmurs. “It’s not safe.”

He’s right. It’s not. Which is why she and Julio must make their escape before the Inviernos have blocked all the roads. But she doubts her safety is his true concern. “Come with me,” she coaxes.

His thumb digs so deep that it takes all her control not to cry out, and for a terrifying moment, Mara fears he’ll call her bluff.

All at once he releases her. Warm blood rushes into her hand, and she stumbles backward, hitting the shelves.

“Add a few pine needles to the tea,” he says, settling back down on his cushion. “I need something tart to keep me awake a while longer.”

“Yes, Pá,” she says, still clutching the duerma leaf.

2

IT takes almost an hour for Papá to collapse onto the table. She nudges his shoulder gently, but he does not stir. He will know at once what she has done when he does finally wake. Mara will be long gone by then.

She gathers her bow and quiver, her spice satchel and water skin, and leaves through the back door. A dry wash runs behind their huta. It’s overgrown with yucca and mesquite this time of year, perfect for making a quick escape from the village. Not that anyone would question seeing her on her way to the sheep pens at this hour, but she can’t lose the niggling worry that Papá will wake up after all. She imagines him barreling out the door toward her, fist raised to strike.

But the day is so beautiful, and the sheep bleat with such delight at seeing her, that the worry fades as she herds them up the mountain. Mara has always loved early mornings—the clarity of the air, the chirping rock wrens, the waking lizards, the freedom and solitude. She especially loves the way light edges the teeth of the Sierra Sangre, reminding her that not even the mighty mountains can hold back the dawn.

Her bow doubles as a walking staff; it clicks against the rocky trail as she guides them between red-orange buttes and through a gully wash. A quiver of arrows slung across her back rattles with each stride. She’s been practicing ever since her father gave her the bow. Last week she bagged two rabbits, and yesterday she scared off a coyote that had prowled too close. But she wouldn’t want to test her amateur skill against an Invierno.

Still, growing the flock is the smartest thing she’s done in her seventeen years, because duty forces her to leave the village—and her father—almost every day to graze them. Unfortunately, the surrounding area will soon be grazed out, and they’ll have to move farther afield. Her father will never allow it, especially now that the foothills are lousy with enemy scouts.

After today, though, it will no longer be her problem. “I’m sorry I have to leave you,” she whispers. Her sheep are the one thing about this life she’ll miss. They are too relentlessly stupid and sweet to hurt her on purpose.

Her path opens into a drying meadow surrounded by swirling sandstone outcroppings, edged in thirsty cottonwoods. A seasonal creek bed, barely trickling with last week’s fall storm, winds through the grass. One of the younger ewes leaps into the air, tail spinning, and takes off across the meadow in an exuberant gallop. Mara understands how she feels.

Her breath catches when arms snake around her waist and a warm body presses against her back. Julio’s lips nuzzle her neck. He whispers, “Good morning.”

She spins in his arms, pulls his head down, and presses her lips to his. She kisses him deeply, hungrily, until he breaks away, laughing.

But he sobers when he sees her face. The skin around his eyes is prematurely crinkled from days spent on the trap lines, or maybe from too much smiling. It’s one of the things she likes best about his face. He scans her from top to bottom. “Did he hurt you?”

Mara looks down, her bruised forearm suddenly screaming with pain.

“Every time he hurts you, I want to kill him,” he says. “It’s wrong of me, but I can’t help it.”

It makes her stomach turn to think that Julio might be capable of the same rage as her father. She releases his hands, hides her arms behind her back. “I put a bit of duerma leaf in his tea. He should sleep all afternoon.”

His eyes dance. “You didn’t!”

It never would have occurred to Mara to be amused were it not for him, and she finds herself smiling back. “I did.”

“I hope he wakes with a massive headache.”

She glances around the meadow. Julio’s pack of supplies is propped up against a cottonwood. “Where is Adán?” she asks. Julio’s little brother has been their co-conspirator. Today is his turn to check the trap line, but he agreed to ditch his duties and instead bring his horse for them. After they leave, Adán will herd the sheep back to safety.

Julio rolls his eyes. “Mamá caught him stealing pomegranate jelly from the cellar. She’s making him muck out stalls this morning. He’ll be here soon enough.”

Mara nods, relieved. Julio’s mother won’t keep Adán long. His parents are aware of their plan, or at the very least suspect something. For Deliverance Day this year, they gave Julio a brand-new traveling cloak lined with fur. Julio said that when they draped it over him to gauge the fit, his father wrapped him in his arms and held him long enough for Julio to feel awkward.

What must it be like to have loving parents, who encourage you to follow your dreams, even when they don’t exactly approve? Even when they might be dangerous?

“I’m worried about the Inviernos,” Mara admits. “A man who bought scones from me the other day said they’re harassing traders along the northern road now. What if the way west is blocked?”

Julio plunks onto the ground and crosses his legs. He sifts through the grass with his fingers, saying, “Then we join the rebellion.”

She snorts. “The rebellion. What a sorry bunch of—”

“What’s the king doing to protect us? Nothing! If it weren’t for the rebels—”

“You shouldn’t say such things so loud!” She sinks to the ground beside him.

Julio yanks a blade of grass and starts chewing on it. “Yes, the sheep might declare me seditious.” More seriously, he adds, “Whatever we do, it’s only for a year. Once we’re married—and your Pá has cooled off—we’ll be back.”

Papá’s temper never cools. It only simmers, hidden, until an explosion brings it to the surface. But it would be cruel to ask Julio to leave his family forever, so instead of protesting, she sprawls out and lays her head in his lap. “So,” she says, gazing up at the brightening sky, “we go west as planned, but if the way is blocked, we join the rebellion.” She silently considers that her hostile feelings toward the rebellion might have more to do with Belén, the boy who wooed her, then ignored her, then left to join the rebels. “I suppose even sedition is better than asking my father for permission to marry.”

“Frankly, I can’t decide which is more fraught with adventure and peril.”

She laughs giddily, thinking, Oh, Pá, you are so wrong. It’s not the desires of the flesh I can’t resist. It’s this. The sharing of dreams. The hope.

His fingers trace her cheek, her neck, her collarbone. She closes her eyes, wanting to savor every sensation, treasuring them up in her memory box so she can take them out for admiring later.

But then her eyes fly open. “I smell smoke. Not a cook fire.”

His fingers freeze. “You’re sure?”

The scent is off. Not green wood, not firewood. More like rushes, or maybe wool. “My cook’s nose is never wrong.” She sits up and scans the horizon.

“Stay here.” He launches to his feet and dashes toward the nearest outcropping. Despite the dread curling in her throat, she can’t help but admire the way he scrambles up the rock, the strong hands that have learned every bit of her body clutching handholds with swift assuredness as he pulls himself to the peak.

He gazes off in the direction of the village, and his mouth drops open in horror.

Julio scrambles back down—more falling than climbing in his rush, and she’s shaking her head against what he’ll say long before he reaches her.

“The village,” he pants. “Burning. All of it.”

“The Inviernos,” she whispers.

He cups her face in his hands. “We could run,” he says.

Hope sparks in her gut, so shining and sharp that it hurts. But she stuffs it away.

“No. My pá. Your little brother . . .”

“Adán!” he gasps, his face frozen with guilty shock. “How could I not think . . . he could be trapped in the stable!” And then he’s off running.

“Oh, God,” she whispers at his back. “The duerma leaf.”

Mara sprints after him.

3

THEY slow as they approach, fearful of stumbling upon the enemy. The village lies in a small canyon at the base of a mountain. It’s usually impossible to see until one is at the edge of the ridge, looking down at it. But today its existence is brutally marked by a beacon of brown-black smoke choking the sky.

They hear the Invierno before they see him—his anklet of bones rattling, the thwack of a longbow releasing its arrow, the victory yell. Mara barely holds in a whimper. The Inviernos are up here on the ridge, shooting the people she grew up with like they’re sheep penned for slaughter.

They crouch behind a manzanita bush. Julio slides a knife from his boot. He pantomimes creeping through the scrub and taking the Invierno by surprise. She shakes her head in protest, but he grabs her hand, brings her knuckles to his lips. His eyes are dark with intensity, and she hopes he’s not saying good-bye.

He’s on his feet in a swift, silent movement, and he disappears into the scrub brush.

Mara claws the dirt as fury washes over her. She will not let Julio die. Or young Adán. Or even her papá. She won’t.

She reaches behind her back and quietly slides an arrow from her quiver.

Mara steps forward in a half crouch even as she notches the arrow against her bowstring. With luck and no wind, she can hit a rabbit at fifteen paces. Can she kill a human at five?

Julio is nowhere to be seen, but the back of the Invierno’s head is barely visible through the high scrub. Never has she seen such hair—pale yellow-brown, like aged oak. As she creeps toward him, his longbow comes up. He pulls an arrow, draws, sights something—or someone—in the village below.

Mara abandons stealth. The underbrush stabs her ribs, slices her face as she charges through, yelling. His shot flies wide, and he whirls to face her.

She breaks through the manzanita as he pulls a dagger. She draws her bow. Focus, breathe. He lunges, and his eyes—blue as the spring sky—are so startling that her elbow shakes as she lets fly.

The arrow grazes his shoulder with enough impact to twist him around. He rights himself and stumbles toward her. She pulls another arrow from her quiver, tries to notch it, misses, tries again. He is nearly upon her.

He freezes, back arched, eyes wide. Mara sidesteps as he topples forward to reveal Julio standing behind him, holding the blood-soaked skinning knife.

“Are you all right?” he says.

She nods. Her heart races, her hands shake, and something wet and warm slips down her cheek, but she feels neither pain nor exhaustion. That happens sometimes, when her father raises a hand to her. It might be hours before she understands whether or not she is hurt.

She steps over the body of the Invierno, trying to ignore how human it looks, and together they look down into the burning village.

The blacksmith’s stall has burned to the ground, with the attached stable soon to follow. Horses neigh in panic. Villagers scurry everywhere. Most try to flee, but volleys of arrows from the south ridge keep them penned toward the center. Papá’s huta is intact for now, but it’s only a matter of time before the roof catches.

Her breath hitches. The dry wash behind their huta! It’s overgrown, invisible to outsiders. It hasn’t caught fire yet, and she doesn’t see any arrows coming from the ridge above it.

Her people could use it to escape, if someone showed them the way.

“Do you see Adán?” Julio says, panic edging his voice.

“Maybe he got away.” The lie feels heavy on her tongue.

Julio starts forward. “I have to find—”

Mara grabs his arm. “Look. The east ridge.” She points to the tall figure silhouetted against the sky—one of the dreaded animagi. Wind whips his robes taut against his gaunt body and sends his eerie white hair streaming behind him.

He lifts his hand. Something dangles from it, something that shimmers in the morning light. A white-hot firebolt spews from the shimmering thing and explodes against a nearby rooftop. The roof collapses, shooting flames and smoke into the sky.

Mara lurches back, her heel skidding in gravel, as Julio whispers, “Oh, my God.”

Her heart hammers with fear and rage. “If I were a little closer, I could shoot him.”

“If you miss your first shot, you’re dead. I can try with my sling.”

“A sling is even more useless long range!”

“We have to do something.”

Julio pulls her down, out of sight, and Mara is struck breathless by how stupid they were to stand there gaping, right out in the open.

“No one will get out of the village unless the Inviernos are distracted,” Julio says.

“The gully behind my father’s huta is still clear, but probably not for long. If you . . .” She swallows hard against what she is about to suggest. “If you distract them, attack the animagus from behind, I can get them out. I can show them the way.”

“It’s not just the animagus we have to worry about!”

“It’s smoky, and most of the archers are concentrated on the south ridge.” She reaches up and cups his cheek. “I’ll find your little brother.”

The knob of his throat bobs as he swallows. “I’ll just have to make a big enough distraction.”

“We’ll meet afterward.”

“Where?”

“The meadow. No, wait.” They would be going from one sheep pen into another. “The cave. Where we first . . .” Tears prick at her eyes. Where they first made love.

He’s shaking his head. “That’s halfway up the Shattermount!”

“It’s safe. Invisible from the outside. We could see anyone coming.”

Something crashes below. Smoke billows into the sky.

“Julio, there’s no more time! We have to—”

He takes her face in his hands, kisses her once, hard. “I love you, Mara.” And he melts into the brush.

4

MARA slips down the gravelly slope. The manzanita tears at her skin and clothes, but it also hides her descent. The smoke is thicker here. Not much time before she won’t be able to breathe.

She lands on the valley floor between the stables and the tanner’s huta and pauses. Adán first, because she promised. Then Papá.

Mara creeps down the alley until she reaches the front of the buildings. Before she can think, before she can be afraid, she bursts from cover and sprints across the plaza, past the stone well, into the market. An arrow zings by her ear, but she keeps pumping arms and legs as fast as she can. She scoots behind a burning market stall. It won’t provide a real barrier, but the smoke and flames might make her hard to spot from the ridge.

Gasping for breath, she peers through the gloom. There must be survivors . There must be.

Movement, just to her left. A shape materializes. “Mara!”

“Reynaldo!” A boy from one of the surrounding farmsteads. She has never been so glad to see anyone in her life. Ash-gray tears streak the boy’s face.

”Have you seen Adán?”

The market stall behind her collapses on itself. She darts forward, into the cover of smoke, grabbing the boy’s arm. Her lungs sting and grit fills her eyes.

“This way,” he says, but the smoke is too much. The hutas are thickest here, and all of them burn. She pulls him to the ground, where the air is a little clearer, and together they crawl forward through an alley.

More shapes ahead. Children. Huddled on the ground, clutching one another in the lee of the cliff wall. Out of range and sight of the Inviernos, but they will burn soon enough. If they don’t suffocate first.

Mara scrambles toward them. There are five, all different ages, and she almost sobs with relief to see Adán. He and Reynaldo are the oldest, almost young men. Adán holds the littlest in his lap, a tiny girl of three or four.

“I know how to escape,” Mara says without preamble. “There’s a gully behind my papá’s house. We can use it to sneak out.”

Adán hitches the little girl to his chest. “They’ll shoot us!” he says.

“Better than burning alive,” Reynaldo counters.

Mara meets Adán’s gaze. “Julio is providing a distraction. We’ll go carefully, try to stay out of sight, but we have to do it now.”

The children exchange terrified glances. “Now!” Mara yells. “On your feet or I will thrash you!” She’s not above threats if it means saving lives.

They all jump to their feet.

“Crouch low to avoid smoke. Put up your shirts, like this.” She lifts the collar of her blouse over her mouth and nose, and they copy her, eyes wide with hope and fear. “Follow close, and don’t look back. Reynaldo, can you take up the rear? Make sure no one straggles.”

They set off, and Mara moves as fast as she dares. She keeps between the back walls of the hutas and the looming cliff face. It provides the best cover from shooters on the ridge, but the smoke huddles here, and within moments most of the children are coughing.

A smoking pile of rubble marks the end of the hutas, and Adán lets a small sob escape. It’s Julio’s family home.

Mara grabs the hand of the nearest child, to absorb comfort as much as to give it, and says to them all, “We wait for a break in the arrows, then we run, as fast as we can, to my father’s house. Understood?”

Their sooty faces bob up and down.

“Reynaldo, are you strong enough to carry the little one?” She’d do it herself, but she might need her hands free for her bow.

“I . . . yes.”

“Good. Wait for my signal.” She peers out of the smoke, into the clearer plaza. Large blackened lumps pepper the paver stones. They steam and smoke, and bright red peeks through cracks in their charred surfaces. Maybe, with all the smoke and the chaos, the children won’t recognize them for bodies.

Arrows rain down toward the smithy. Is someone trapped there?

Shouts sound from the ridge, and the arrows cease to fall. Thank you, Julio.

“Now!” she shouts, and the children burst from cover into the plaza. Adán leads, and Mara yearns to sprint after him, but she takes up the rear, yelling, “Go, go, go, almost there!”

Her father’s huta is in decent shape compared to the others; only the back wall burns. But that means the fire will soon spread to the gully.

Mara guides them around it to the gravelly slope. “Everyone, into the ditch. It’s steep—grab the bushes as you slide down . . . that’s it.”

The tiny girl is the last of the children to go down. Mara lifts her and lowers her into Reynaldo’s waiting arms.

“Keep your heads down,” Mara orders. “Follow the gully until you reach the stand of cottonwoods. Hide there. If the Inviernos come, run. If I’m not back by the time the sun touches the earth, run.”

“You’re not coming?” Adán says, his voice coarse with coughing.

“I need to find my pá. And any other survivors. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“Maybe you can find my sister,” a boy says.

“And Mamá,” says a girl of about ten. “She made me go, and then the roof . . .”

“Muffin, my goat,” says the tiny girl.

Oh, God. She can’t possibly save them all. “I’ll do my best,” Mara says. “Now go! Be brave, be smart. Reynaldo is in charge until I get back.” And she steps away before she can change her mind or hear any more about lost loved ones.

Mara enters Papá’s huta. Smoke fills the common room; she can barely see an arm’s length in front of her. “Papá? Are you here?” A dagger of guilt twists in her chest. If he’s dead, it’s her fault. “Papá?”

She shuffles around blindly, feeling with feet and hands. Her shins knock the table, and she works around it, searching for a body. She doubles over with coughing. Her lungs are on fire, and dizziness wavers her vision. She drops to the floor and breathes deep of the clearer air before moving forward on hands and knees.

Mara finds the settee that her father loves to offer to guests, the prayer table where he burns candles to God, the shelf where he keeps his manuscripts. She does a complete circle of the room, ending up at the kitchen area—but there is no sign of Papá.

At the edge of the hearth is her father’s travel bag, the one he uses when he leaves the village to do God’s work.

Supplies. They left Julio’s pack in the meadow, but they’ll need something to get them to the next village.

It is a good thing she has practiced sneaking out during so many dark mornings, because she can find everything she needs, even sightless. She grabs the tinderbox, her favorite skinning knife, a cooking pot, a round of cheese, a package of deer jerky, last night’s bread loaf, a small pot of honey, a half-empty flour sack, an extra quiver of precious arrows.

Her father’s bag barely holds everything. Despair almost consumes her right then. She has enough to feed five children for only a day. Two if they ration. But the nearest village is almost a week away.

Maybe they can supplement their food on the way. She’ll assign the littlest ones to watch out for certain plants as they go. They’ll make it somehow, even though Mara is not a very good hunter.

Papá presented the bow to her as a Deliverance Day gift, as a show of wealth more than anything. See? My daughter doesn’t use a sling like the rest of you. Only a pine bow will do. She took it up only because it was an efficient way to scare predators from her sheep, not because she expected to hunt regularly.

The sheep! Her sweet, stupid sheep. Abandoned in the meadow without a moment’s hesitation.

She slips the bag’s strap over her shoulder. “Papá? Where are you? We need to—”

Something crashes into her back, knocking her to the floor. A huge weight pins her down, and she fights to breathe.

“You wicked girl!” her father rages. A fist crashes into her shoulder blade. “You brought this down upon us! With your sin. And now you steal from me? Before leaving me to die?”

She squirms out from beneath him, but he catches her ankle. “No, Pá! I came back to find you. I was worried—”

He reaches for her face, misses, grabs a chunk of hair instead, ripping it from her scalp.

Blackness edges her vision. She knows what will happen next. Her mind will go away. To a place where there is no pain, where she can watch, detached, as he pummels her.

Not this time. The children need her. She claws her way back from the edge of consciousness, to where grit from the floor grinds into her raw, damaged scalp and unrelenting fingers dig into her lower leg. She tries to yank her ankle away, but his grip is firm.

Terror builds inside her, becomes fury, becomes strength. She channels it all into a single, tremendous kick to Papá’s face.

He releases her ankle.

She scrambles back toward him. “Pá? Papá?” She shakes his limp body. “We have to go! Please . . .”

Blood oozes from his nose, soaks his beard. Did she kill him? She reaches for his neck to check his pulse, but the back wall of the huta collapses. Sparks shoot into the gully where the children are fleeing.

Mara grabs the travel bag and darts outside, leaving her father behind.

5

SHE pauses at the edge, about to plunge into the gully, but movement catches her eye. There, by the smithy. A dark shape in the smoke.

Mara can’t tell if it’s a person or a horse, but either one is worth the risk. She dashes toward it. Arrows rain down around her, and her greatest fear roils in her heart like a black cloud. If the Inviernos are shooting again, it means Julio no longer distracts them.

She plunges into the cover of smoke, choking and coughing. “Hello!” she calls. “Anyone here?”

“Here,” comes a tiny voice.

She drops to her knees and crawls toward it. It’s Carella, the smith’s wife. She huddles against the stall, clutching her small daughter in her lap.

“Barto is dead,” the woman moans. “Dead, dead, dead.”

Mara should feel sympathy, but all she can muster is panic. “On your feet, woman! Or your child dies too.”

Carella blinks up at her. Tears streak her ash-dusted face.

“There’s a group of survivors waiting for us,” Mara says. “We’re making a run to the next village.”

Carella whimpers, clutching tighter to her daughter.

Mara slaps the woman across the face, but then she chokes out a sob, shocked at herself.

But Carella is getting to her feet. “Which way?” she says wearily, then doubles over with coughing.

“Let me,” Mara says, grabbing the child from Carella’s arms. The girl is about five or six, too big to carry easily, but her mother’s movements are slow and staggered, as if she’s badly injured. Or maybe she has breathed too much smoke.

Carella steps from the cover of the smithy into the plaza.

“Wait!” Mara calls. “This way; we must stick to cover.”

Carella looks over her shoulder. “Take her. Keep her safe.” She hobbles forward, into the light, clear air, revealing the blood soaking the back of her skirt, streaming down her right ankle. She reaches her arms to the sky as if summoning heaven itself. “Go, Mara! Now!”

Mara freezes.

A firebolt streams through the sky and plunges into Carella’s torso. She stumbles but does not fall, even as her blouse and hair catch flame, turning her into a fiery goddess. “Go!” she screams.

A second firebolt sends her crashing to the ground.

Mara hitches the child tight to her chest and flees.

6

THE children are waiting right where she told them to. The tiniest girl’s chin and blouse are soaked with red-tinged phlegm. At Mara’s questioning look, Reynaldo says, “She’s been coughing up blood.”

Oh, God. If she has internal injuries, there is nothing they can do.

Reynaldo’s eyes flash when he notices Mara’s patchy hair and her bruised eye—her bruised eye . . . when did that happen?—but his gaze slides over it like water, a veil clouds his face, and her injuries are suddenly invisible to him. She’s seen it happen dozens of times before. The villagers always turned a blind eye to this, the handiwork of her father.

“We need to get away,” Mara says. She doesn’t want to scare the children more than necessary, but she can’t bring herself to lie either. “The gully behind me is starting to catch fire, and the Inviernos could have scouts in the area. So we move fast and quietly. There will be no talking unless it’s to call out a warning. Understood?”

They nod in unison.

“What about my brother?” Adán asks. “Did you see Julio?”

“He’ll meet us on the Shattermount.”

As they exchange fearful glances and murmur among themselves, Mara considers that lying might have been better after all.

“Mamá says I’m not allowed on the Shattermount,” says one little girl.

The boy beside her nods solemnly. “There are bears.”

“Flash floods!” says Adán.

Mara sighs, knowing there is no safe way to lead them. “Yes, there might be bears. And flash floods. And even ghosts,” she says. “But do you know what the Shattermount doesn’t have?”

The children shake their heads.

“It doesn’t have Inviernos. It’s too frightening a place for them. Only Joyans are brave enough for the Shattermount.”

“I’m not afraid,” says Adán. A chorus of “Me neither” follows.

Thank you, Adán.

“Will we climb the slope or stick to the fault?” Reynaldo asks.

“The fault. It’s out of sight.” Julio’s family maintained a trap line on the Shattermount, as did a few other villagers. No one has seen signs of Inviernos there. Yet. But it’s better to be cautious. No one had seen them in the village either, before this morning. “We’ll keep an eye on the sky.” Rain, even a day’s journey away, could mean a flash flood.

Reynaldo nods agreement, and she suddenly wants to hug his gangly form, just for being almost grown up, someone who can help make decisions and look out for the little ones.

They set off, quietly as promised. They walk for hours, and Mara’s thighs burn with effort, for the Shattermount is a steep, wide-based monolith that marks the transition from desert foothills to the mighty slopes of the Sierra Sangre. In its upper reaches, the desert scrub gives way to pine, the gravel to granite, the rain to snow. A thousand years ago, or maybe more, a great cataclysm opened a huge fault line right down the center. This shattering resulted in a mountain with a deep groove and twin peaks. Julio always compared them to the horns of a mighty goat. Mara preferred to think of them as the ears of a great lynx.

The sun is low at their backs, sweat is stinging Mara’s ruined scalp, and a few of the children are beginning to stumble from exhaustion when they walk right into a campsite.

The children rush forward, recognizing a few friends. Four more survivors—three children and one badly injured adult. Two horses. A pack full of supplies. A cheery fire sending smoke tendrils into the sky.

Mara sizes it up quickly, but as everyone hugs and cries and laughs with delight, she hangs back, her relief at seeing others turning to despair. Because she made a mistake, one that could have gotten them killed. She should have scouted ahead. What if this had been an Invierno camp?

No more mistakes. She strides over to the campfire and kicks dirt and gravel onto it. When the flames are low enough, she stomps it out.

“What are you doing?” asks a young boy, his face furious.

She whirls on him. “Have you lost your mind? Do you want to bring the Inviernos down on us? You might as well send them a letter. ‘Here we are! Survivors for you to come kill!’ I can’t believe you all were so stupid.” Her face reddens as the words leave her mouth.

Joy dissipates from the camp like a drop of water poured on scorched earth. Some stare guiltily at her. Others glare.

With a resigned voice, Reynaldo says, “Mara’s right. No fires. Not until it’s safe.”

Mara knows she should say something encouraging. Something optimistic. But she doesn’t know what. She has never been good with people. A bit withdrawn, Julio tells her. Due to a lifetime of hiding her bruises and scars—the ones on her body and on her soul.

She looks to the one adult in the group for support. He sits slumped over by the now-dead fire, clutching his side. He raises his head briefly, and she finally recognizes him—it’s Marón, owner of the Cranky Camel and the richest man in the village. His skin is corpse-white, his eyes glazed. The two horses belong to him. With a start, she realizes that he didn’t lead the children here. He is too far gone. They rescued him.

And suddenly Mara knows what to say.

“You are all very brave for making it this far, and I’m proud of you.”

7

THERE are not enough blankets to stave off the cold night. Mara and Reynaldo organize the children into groups and tell them to huddle close for sleep. “We’ll have a fire when we get to the cave,” Mara promises them.

Mara lies down, with Carella’s daughter and the tiny coughing girl tucked into the crook of her curved body. And when bright morning sun batters her eyelids awake, she is surprised to find that she slept long and hard.

But Marón, the tavern owner, died during the night. Mara enlists Adán’s help to drag his stiffening body into the brush and cover it with deadfall—quickly, before all the children wake. When they do, she tells them the truth. One little girl collapses to the ground, crying. His daughter.

As they break camp and prepare for the day’s journey, she overhears them talking about loved ones. So many friends and family members that they left behind. Some are known to be dead. But most were simply separated sometime during the chaos of the attack. Most, they hope, might still be alive.

But Mara saw too many bodies, blackened and oozing, for there to be many survivors. And suddenly she wonders if she should have let the children see Marón’s body. Maybe a large, single dose of pain now is better than the slow, burning pain of withering hope. Maybe seeing death up close is an important part of saying good-bye.

Right before they set off, Mara takes stock of their provisions. In addition to the supplies in Pá’s bag, Reynaldo and two others thought to grab jerky and water skins. The pack on Marón’s horse holds cooking utensils, a bag of dates, two blankets, a knife, a spongy onion, and a round of bread. It’s so much better than nothing, but they’ll need to find food fast. The nearest village is a week’s journey, but Mara isn’t sure it’s the safe choice. It might suffer the same fate as her own village. Maybe when they get close, she and Reynaldo can scout ahead.

But first, the cave—and Julio. Please be all right, Julio. Please be safe. She has purposely not allowed herself to consider the way the rain of arrows started again just as suddenly as it stopped. As if the distraction Julio provided had vanished like smoke.

They hike all day to reach the cave. The climb is steep, and the little ones tire quickly. She and Julio reached it in half that time, on that precious, precious day months ago.

It’s exactly the way she remembered, with a sun-soaked ledge outside the crooked opening. The air is drenched with a clean, sharp scent from the juniper surrounding the ledge, keeping the cave invisible from below. What she doesn’t see is any sign of life. No campfire. No footprints. No Julio.

She helps the tiny, coughing girl onto the ledge, then Mara abandons the children to rush inside the cave. “Julio?” she calls, and her voice echoes back with emptiness. “Julio?” she repeats, as if calling louder will summon him.

Someone comes to stand beside her. “He’s not here, is he?” Adán says.

“He will come,” Mara says, though her gut twists. She takes a deep breath. “All right, everyone. Let’s get settled. Reynaldo, if you build that fire, I’ll make a soup tonight.”

The cavern already boasts a fire pit in its center. It’s a narrow but long chamber, with a ceiling high enough that only she and Reynaldo must hunch over. She knows from experience that cracks in the ceiling provide an outlet for smoke. There is plenty of room for all nine of them during the day, but a shortage of level floor space will make sleeping a challenge. There might be space for everyone if she, Adán, and Reynaldo sleep outside on the ledge, rotating watches.

Mara throws together a thin soup of jerky with onions and garlic. As they take turns spooning it from her cooking pot, she sizes up the group. She is the oldest, at seventeen. Reynaldo is fifteen, Adán fourteen. Everyone else is younger, down to the tiny girl, who can’t be more than four. Mara is glad to note that her coughing has subsided, and it no longer turns up blood. Maybe something will go right for them after all.

She doesn’t know all their names. Her village isn’t that large, but skirmishes with the Inviernos have caused a lot of migration among the hill folk, and when the animagus burned her village, it was half full of strangers.

She could ask their names. She should ask their names. But she’s suddenly overcome with the sense that she might learn who they are only to see them die.

Later. She’ll ask later. She wants to be silent and alone with her thoughts a little bit longer.

Looking into their ash-covered faces, their eyes filled with both hope and terror, Mara marvels at how two such opposite-seeming emotions can exist inside her. She wants to save them. But bitterness grinds away at her heart too. These are the children of the people who turned blind eyes to her pain. They bought her pastries and her wool quick enough, but never in her life did anyone ask, “Mara, how are you really?” Until Julio.

Once Julio arrives, she won’t have to be in charge anymore. He’ll be the oldest of their group, at nineteen. He’s confident and outgoing, well liked by everyone. He’ll know how to deal with the children. Julio likes taking care of people. He’ll relish the responsibility.

Mara is about to go out to the ledge to take the first watch, but the tiny girl toddles over. Mara sits as still as a statue as the girl climbs into her lap. She grabs a fistful of Mara’s shirt and snuggles in tight. Then Carella’s daughter sidles up, lays her head on Mara’s thigh, and falls fast asleep.

After a moment, Mara’s shoulders relax. She wraps one arm around the tiny girl and lets her other hand rest on Carella’s daughter’s silky head.

8

THE next morning, Julio still has not come. Adán stands on the ledge, gazing down the mountain. He is a lot like his brother—the same long limbs, the same straight black hair bleached red at the temples. His hands are as big as paddles, hinting that he might be even taller than Julio someday.

Mara steps up beside him, squinting against the morning sun.

“He’s coming, right, Mara?” Adán says.

“He’s coming.”

“And then what are we going to do?”

She shrugs. “Julio will know. He’ll probably lead us to the nearest village. Some of these children might have family there.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” says a voice at her back, and she turns.

Reynaldo’s curly hair is sleep mussed, and his wide-spaced eyes blink against the sun. Mara has always thought him young looking for his age, with his round cheeks and open gaze. But there is something old and weary about him now. Perhaps they’ve all aged years in the last day.

“What do you mean?” Mara probes.

“Our village isn’t the only thing that burned.”

As he stares out into the empty expanse of sky, something in his face prompts Mara to say, “Your farmstead. Is that why you were in the village yesterday?”

He nods. “They killed everyone. All the livestock. Burned our . . . I ran to the village to warn everyone. But I was too late. And I’ve seen smoke on the horizon.”

Gently, Mara says, “You helped me save these children. You weren’t too late for that.”

He swallows hard and nods, but he says nothing.

Mara crosses her arms and hugs her shoulders tight. She wishes Marón had lived. He was a smart businessman, and his tavern was a cornerstone of their community. He would have known what to do. “So you think the nearest village suffered the same fate?”

“All of them, Mara. All of them within two weeks’ journey. It’s war, now. Full out.”

Adán whirls on him, tears in his eyes. “We have to go somewhere!”

“We don’t have enough supplies to stay here forever,” Mara agrees. “We hardly have enough to get us through the next two days.”

Reynaldo says, “Maybe we could hunt—”

“Game is scarce,” Mara interrupts. “The fires will have driven most of it away.”

Reynaldo looks down, scuffs the toe of his leather boots against the rock ledge. “I know of a place, but . . .”

Mara and Adán regard him expectantly. “But . . . ?” Mara prompts.

“It’s a secret. I’m not supposed to tell.”

Mara inhales sharply. “The rebel camp. You know where it is.” Julio was always so sure it existed, that the rumors were true. A safe, hidden place, somewhere west of here in the scrub desert, where an oasis provides good grazing and even some farming.

Reynaldo says, “My cousins Humberto and Cosmé went there last year. I visited once. They invited me to join, but my Pá needs . . . needed me.”

The tiny hope sparking in Mara’s heart is all the more precious for how fragile and weak it is. “Would they take us in, do you think? Could you show us the way?”

“I can. But it’s on the other side of the Shattermount, where the hills start to become true desert. A week away. We should leave right now. Before our food runs out.”

“No!” Adán says.

Mara nods at the boy. “We’ll wait for Julio.”

Reynaldo sighs. “What if he doesn’t come?”

“We’ll wait,” she repeats.

“But, Mara . . .”

“Two days. Give us two days.”

Reynaldo nods once, sharply. “Two days.”

9

TWO days later, the children are restless and hungry, the shallow, hastily dug latrine is full, and there is no sign of Julio. There is no sign of anyone else, either. Reynaldo and Adán scouted back toward the village to no avail. Mara searched the area around the cave but found only flood-tumbled boulders and dried brush. Though she says soothing words to the children, she has come to believe they are all who remain.

Overlooked, because they were the smallest and most helpless.

Mara goes through the motions of heating up leftover soup, breaking camp, and packing—all without speaking. She will do what she can to get the children to safety, because it is a purpose, something to focus her thoughts on. But after? She doesn’t know what comes after.

One little boy tugs on her shirt and asks, “Are we leaving today, Mara?” She can only nod wordlessly. She is an overfilled water skin, her sides stretched too thin from the pressure, and if she opens her mouth everything will come bursting out—grief, rage, despair.

They made their food stretch longer than they anticipated. Adán bagged two jerboas the previous day with his sling, and Mara made a stew of the tiny rodents. She made sure no one was looking when she slipped the hearts, livers, and even the wobbly stomachs into her pot. She made the children wash down their stew with a brisk juniper tea, and everyone went to sleep with full bellies.

Now she worries about water. The trickle running down the Shattermount’s giant fault will be dry in a day or so. They need another storm. But a storm on the Shattermount almost invariably means a flood.

“Which way?” Reynaldo asks as they gather on the ledge before setting off. “Do we stick to the ridge or climb down through the ravine?”

The mountain is not lush like its brothers farther east. It is a lone monolith, too near the desert. “We would be exposed on the ridge,” Mara says. “Visible to any Inviernos still in the area.” And the Inviernos are practiced archers—far more skilled than she is. They come from a place where wood is plentiful, and their beautiful bows are sturdy and tall, meant for long-range. “They wouldn’t even have to get close to take us apart.”

“If it rains . . .”

“We’ll climb out at the first sign.”

Reynaldo nods agreement.

They give Adán a head start. Like his older brother, he has spent days in the wilderness, and of all of them is most suited to scouting ahead in stealth. After Mara warns the rest of the group to silence, they set off after him.

They will travel down the fault line, then circle the base of the mountain until they reach the desert side. From there, Reynaldo will guide them through the warren of buttes and fissures that make up the scrub desert to the secret rebel camp. It’s a good plan, the best one they have. But Mara plods along by rote, putting one foot in front of the other in numb silence.

She and Reynaldo carry the tiny girl in shifts, and they’re about to do a handoff so Mara can navigate a boulder in their path when she hears something.

The cracking of a branch. The rustle of leaves. Coming from behind.

Mara shoves the tiny girl at Reynaldo, swings her bow around her shoulder, reaches back, and draws an arrow from her quiver.

The scuff of a boot. Definitely not a deer or a fox.

Mara notches her arrow. “Get behind me,” she whispers, fast and low. “Now!” The children scurry to obey.

She glares at the path they just traveled, trying to parse a face or figure among the dead windfalls and scattered boulders. A manzanita bush waves violently. Mara draws her bow until the fletching rests against her cheek.

A face materializes. Streaked with sweat and blood. Wild-eyed.

“Julio!” She may have screamed it. Mara drops her bow and sprints forward, reaching him just as he topples forward into her arms.

His sudden weight almost drives her to her knees, but she holds firm. His back is sticky and wet, his skin fevered. She drags him to level ground, then gently lays him down, instinctively stretching him out on his stomach.

Sure enough, the broken shaft of an arrow protrudes from his lower back. He gasps, his cheek grinding into the dirt, as she peels back his shirt to expose the wound.

The skin around it is swollen and oozing. The arrowhead is not deep, but it might be lodged in a rib. At least it missed his vital organs. They could have treated it easily two days ago. But infection has set in, and now streaks of sickly black zigzag across his skin.

“Oh, Julio.”

“Mara,” he whispers. “You shouldn’t have waited for me.”

If he is clearheaded enough to have made it to their cave, read the signs of recent occupation, and tracked them here, then there is hope for him yet.

Hope. Such a dangerous thing.

She traces his cheek with a forefinger. “I need to get this arrow out,” she says.

“I know.”

“I’ll have to scrape out the infection. It will hurt.”

“I know.”

The children crowd around. They stare at his oozing wound with a mix of delight and revulsion. “That’s gross,” says one boy, peering closer.

“I have duerma leaf in my satchel,” Mara says. “I can at least make sure you sleep before and after.”

Julio murmurs something that she takes to be assent. She bends over and plants a quick kiss on his hot forehead, then leaps to her feet. “Reynaldo, go find Adán. I’ll get a fire going to heat up my knife.”

“But the fire . . . the smoke . . .”

“We have to get that arrow out.”

Reynaldo frowns, then disappears down the ravine.

She floats through her preparations, a grin occasionally turning up the corners of her lips. Julio is alive. Alive, alive, alive. She steals glances at him as she rims a fire pit, gathers firewood, kindles a tiny spark into a bright flame.

Mara heats up the last of their water. She uses a cupful to make a tea of the duerma leaf, which Julio sips slowly from his awkward position on his stomach. She will need the remainder for cleaning the wound.

She doesn’t want to let the arrowhead fester inside Julio’s body a moment more, but she needs Adán and Reynaldo to hold him down while she works. So she sits by the fire, one hand trailing in Julio’s matted hair, the other holding her blade over the flames.

“My brother?” Julio mutters. “Is he . . .”

“Adán is safe. He’s scouting ahead. I sent someone to fetch him.”

Julio wilts against the ground, as if his body is finally able to let go an excess of air. “Thank you, Mara,” he breathes. “God, that’s a relief. And your pá? Did you find him?”

Mara can’t meet his eyes. “I found him.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

She pokes at a glowing branch with her knife, sending sparks flying. She whispers, “I found him alive.”

Julio says nothing. Mara feels his eyes on her as he waits patiently. He could draw secrets from a rock this way, by letting the empty silence stretch on until the rock has no choice but to fill it with words. It’s how he got Mara to tell him all the things her pá had done.

Mara doesn’t mind. Because Julio—unlike everyone else she has ever known—truly wants to listen.

“He tried to hurt me,” she says finally. “Even though I came back to help. He thought I was stealing. I think he was crazed from smoke, maybe from the duerma leaf I gave him. So I kicked at him to get away, and I . . . I think I killed him. Either way, I left him to die.” She turns a defiant gaze on him. “I know I should feel guilty. But I don’t. Not at all.”

She watches carefully as the shock on his face fades to acceptance.

“You’re free of him,” he says finally.

She nods, unable to speak. Free of him, yes. But she doesn’t feel free. Maybe when Julio recovers. Maybe then.

With the rustle of dry brush, Adán and Reynaldo return. Adán barrels forward, tears streaming down his face, and drops to his knees beside his brother. He reaches down to hug him, but Mara says, “Easy. Don’t jostle the wound.”

“Hello, Adán,” Julio breathes. Mara hopes it’s the duerma-leaf tea making him sound even weaker than before. “I hope you’ve been keeping an eye on my girl for me?”

Adán nods, swiping at his cheeks with the back of his hand. “Even though you’re too ugly for her.”

“True,” Julio says. “I hope . . .” His voice devolves into a cough. “I hope she likes scars. This one is going to be huge.”

“I love scars,” Mara says, but her voice trembles. Coughing is a bad, bad sign.

Her blade glows red. It’s now or never.

“We’re getting this arrow out. Reynaldo, take his shoulders. Adán, his legs. He’ll try to throw you off. He won’t be able to help himself. You must hold him down. Do you understand?”

“I can help,” says Carella’s daughter. “I’m a good helper!”

Mara almost snaps at her to go away, but changes her mind. “Could you . . .” She searches her mind for a task to keep the girl busy and out of her way. “Hold his feet? That would be a big help.”

The girl nods solemnly. Everyone gets into position.

Reynaldo reaches for a twisted bundle of mesquite and snaps off a large twig. He slides it into Julio’s mouth and encourages him to bite down. “Don’t want you biting off your own tongue,” he says.

Mara hesitates. She has treated all sorts of minor wounds, for their village had no doctor. But she has never removed an arrow. What if she makes it worse? “Everyone ready?” she asks, knife poised.

They nod, eyes wide.

Mara touches the burning knife to Julio’s back. He hisses as it sizzles his skin, but he doesn’t move. She shoves the blade down alongside the arrow shaft. He screams.

She works fast, abandoning finesse. There is so much pus, and the flesh is so swollen that it’s hard to see. He grunts horribly, over and over like a hungry pig, and his body thrashes around. “Hold him!” Mara yells.

Adán squeezes his eyes tight, and tears leak from them as he strains to hold his brother down.

Mara cuts away dead flesh, sopping up viscous, red-tinged fluid as she goes. Finally she exposes the arrowhead enough to get a grip on it. It’s lodged in his rib. You will not vomit, you will not vomit, you will not vomit.

She slows down to dig at the bone with the point of her blade. Too much pressure and she’ll crack it. Julio yells one last time and goes limp. She breathes relief.

Once the arrowhead is loosened a bit, she wraps her hands around it. Before she can think too hard, she gives it a powerful jerk, and it comes free. Blood pours from the wound.

While her knife reheats in the fire, she cleans the wound as best as she can, using the last of the boiled water. Cleaning helps her see that most of the blood is coming from one tiny spot. So she lays the blade against his flesh and cauterizes it. She gags on the scent. She’s not the only one; Reynaldo lurches to the side of the ravine and vomits into the mesquite.

Mara sits back on her heels, wiping sweat from her forehead with a sleeve. “It is done,” she says to no one in particular. Her hands are soaked with Julio’s blood.

“Aren’t you going to stitch it up?” Adán says.

“I’m going to let it drain,” she says. “Might help the infection.” She’s guessing about that. All she has are guesses—that draining the wound is the right thing to do. That Inviernos won’t patrol the Shattermount’s fault. That there is indeed a secret haven where these children will be safe.

She feels a hand on her shoulder and turns to find Reynaldo standing above her. His face is pale, but he’s steady now. “We can’t stay here,” he says. “Especially with a fire.”

Julio shouldn’t be moved. Not for days. But Reynaldo is right. Staying in one place will just bring the Inviernos down on top of them. There is also the small matter of provisions. They will use the last of their food tonight. Nothing but a bread round and a handful of dates shared among eleven people will ensure they all wake with aching, empty bellies.

“We’ll move at first light,” Mara says. “I’ll strap him to one of the horses if I have to.”

“I’ll hunt tonight,” Reynaldo says. “Maybe I can turn up a rabbit.”

Mara nods. “Just be careful. This mountain might be crawling with Invierno scouts.”

10

REYNALDO does not find a rabbit. He does, however, encounter a burned-down farmstead with a cellar. In the cellar, he finds three musty turnips, a jar of pomegranate jelly, a side of bacon, and two frightened boys.

He brings them back to their campsite, and Mara is both delighted and dismayed to see them. Two more survivors. Two more mouths to feed.

The boys themselves, ten and thirteen, are so happy to see everyone that they burst into tears. Mara hugs them tight, even though they might be a bit old for hugging, and assures them that they are safe.

When did she become such a liar?

She gets everyone organized for sleep—small children with older ones, two or three to a blanket—then lies down beside Julio, who still sleeps soundly. She yearns to wrap her arms around him but doesn’t dare jostle the wound. She is chilled, her shoulder aches from the hard ground, and her stomach rumbles with hunger, so it is hours before she finally drifts off into restless sleep.

In the morning, her first conscious thought is for Julio. She puts a hand on his shoulder, terrified that she won’t feel the rise and fall of his breathing. But she does. It’s steady and even. Almost healthy. The tiny spark of hope inside her burns hot and bright.

His eyelids flutter at her touch, and when he opens his eyes and sees her, he smiles.

“How do you feel?” she asks, reaching for his bandages. They are soaked with brownish drainage.

He winces as she peels them back. “I feel wonderful,” he says. “Like I could fight the Inviernos, carry Adán over my shoulder, and dance a jig all at the same time.”

Her lips twitch. “Well, I’m glad to hear it. Because it turns out we’re running away together to join the rebellion after all.”

He reaches for her hand and gives it a weak squeeze. “I saw this going differently in my head.”

She sighs. “Me too. But . . . as long as we’re together, right?”

He frowns. “No.”

Something unpleasant curls in her belly. “What do you mean?” she asks carefully.

He lifts his head. “Mara. Love. Don’t pin all your hopes on me. You are so much more than that. Instead of saying ‘as long as we’re together,’ I’d much rather you say, ‘as long as I’m alive.’”

She squeezes his hand. “I can’t imagine life without you. I don’t want to.”

“I don’t want to imagine a life without you either. But I do worry . . . sometimes . . . that you only think you love me. That you’ve had so little kindness in your life that . . .” His voice breaks off at the horror on her face. “Oh, Mara, I’m not saying this well. That damn arrow has addled my mind. . . .”

Mara brushes dark hair away from his forehead. “I do love you. And you know it.”

He lets his head fall back to the earth and closes his eyes. “I just need . . . a little more rest.”

“Sleep,” Mara orders. “I’ll rouse you when we’re ready to go.”

He does not respond, and Mara waits to see him breathe before stepping away.

11

AFTER a quick breakfast of cold bacon, Mara cleans Julio’s wound and gives him fresh bandages. Not clean bandages, alas. The best she can do is tear a strip from one of the blankets. After letting the wound drain all night, she really should stitch it now. But she has no needle. Tonight, if it has worsened, she’ll have to cauterize the whole thing.

With Reynaldo’s and Adán’s help, she gets Julio on one of the two packhorses. He can barely hold himself up, preferring to drape against the horse’s neck. They may have to tie him down soon.

The sun shines bright and warm as they set off, but smoke has diffused into the air, coating the earth with a brownish haze. The thin trickle of water winding through their ravine is nearly dry. It pools in occasional shady puddles, warm and brackish. Mara will let the children drink from the stagnant water as a last resort, but it’s bound to make their bellies ache.

After a few hours, the tiny girl says, “I’m hungry.”

At least she’s no longer coughing.

“Me too,” says one of the new boys.

Mara sighs. She knew it was coming. But their food is in such short supply that she can’t feed them until they make camp tonight. “Keep an eye out for greens,” she orders the children. “Winter cress, aloe, nopales. We might still find some juniper berries. If you get too hungry, you can chew on white-pine needles.”

At worst, the task will busy the children enough to keep them from complaining. At best, a few succulents might keep their thirst at bay. Once they leave the mountain to drop into the desert, food will be in even scarcer supply. She decides not to think about that just yet.

They travel in silence. Mara can’t remember ever seeing such a silent group of children. There is only the sound of their footfalls displacing pebbles, the clop-clop of hooves, the squeal of an occasional raptor. And farther away, hollow and distant, the clap of thunder.

“Stop! Everyone, stop.” Mara turns in place, neck craning to view the sky. There is not a cloud to be seen. The storm must be on the desert side of the mountain. If so, it would be a rarity. Something that only happens in late fall.

Of course, it is late fall.

The sky cracks again, closer this time.

“That was thunder,” Reynaldo says.

“I don’t see clouds,” says Adán.

“What is it?” calls Julio from his horse. “What’s going on?”

Mara eyes the ravine wall. Steep, but climbable. For her, at least. The littler ones might struggle.

“If we climb up to the ridge, anyone can see us,” Reynaldo says.

“If we don’t, we could be caught in a flood,” says Adán.

“Maybe the storm is far away.”

“What if it’s not?”

Mara looks back and forth between them. They’re both right. What should she do? She hates having to be the one to decide.

“We’ll go a little farther,” she says at last. “Look for a better place to climb up.” Julio and the horses might not make it up the side without an easier incline.

Thunder rolls again as she beckons them forward. The air temperature takes a sudden drop; it happens so fast that she looks up at the ridge, half expecting to see an animagus who has wrought the change through magic.

“Everyone look for a place to climb up,” she orders. The wind is gaining strength, and she must shout to be heard. She prays there are no enemy scouts nearby.

One of the little boys begins to cry. Carella’s daughter sidles over and grabs his hand, and together they wind down the ravine, Mara not far behind.

“The walls are getting steeper,” Reynaldo observes.

Her heart sinks. She was hoping that she was imagining it. “Keep moving,” she urges.

The wind lifts her hair from her neck, and she looks back toward the mountain peaks. Sure enough, blue-black clouds are rumbling toward them, shrouding the mountaintop in darkness. Lightning flashes somewhere inside the cloud bank, turning the edges a sickly green for the briefest moment.

“Hurry!” Mara says, sweeping up the tiny girl in her arms and darting forward. “Does anyone see a way up? Anything at all?”

But there is nothing. The walls are nearly sheer now, interrupted by clumps of mesquite. She could climb it. Reynaldo and Adán could too. But the little ones wouldn’t stand a chance, and Julio’s horse would never make it.

The ground trembles. A jackrabbit bounces across their path, then two more. They fly up the steep bank and disappear into a tiny hole.

“Did you see that?” Adán calls out.

Mara’s heart races with the implication. If the animals are fleeing . . .

“Run!” she screams. “Everybody run! Climb up as soon as you can.”

The trickle of water they’ve been following widens to a tiny stream, pushing detritus along with it. They splash through, always looking upward toward the ridge, and Mara dreads seeing one of them go down with a sprained ankle.

“There!” calls out the boy who had been crying only moments before. Mara follows the direction of his pointing finger and doesn’t see anything, but a few more steps forward and she does. It’s a drainage ditch, cutting through the hill—hardly more than a slight seam in the earth. Water pours down it already, into their ravine, but at a gentle enough slope that with some coaxing and pushing, the little ones might make it up.

“Julio, you go first,” she orders. “Quickly!” It’s steep and uneven, but a good mountain pony should be able to make it.

Julio clucks to the mare, and she plods forward into the adjoining ravine. His body lists to the right; he’s barely holding his seat. Mara almost steps forward to help him, but she can’t leave the little ones.

The earth trembles again. “Go! Hurry!” she yells, gesturing the others to follow Julio. Which is when she sees her mistake. By insisting that Julio get to safety first, she has blocked their narrow path. No one can pass the careful mountain pony. No one can hurry.

“You!” she yells to the nearest boy. “Go whack that horse on the rump. Now!” As he scrambles up the drainage ditch after Julio, Mara looks for a place to deposit the tiny girl—a ledge, a bush with a big enough trunk, anything that might be high enough to avoid the quickly rising water. But there is nothing.

Mara’s feet are ankle-deep now, and the gusting wind kicks up spray and dust, making it hard to see. Carella’s daughter stands at Mara’s side, helping her direct the others.

“Now you!” the little girl yells to a much older boy. “Careful of that branch. All right, your turn.” One by one the children climb up into the ditch, until only Mara, Carella’s daughter, and the tiny girl remain. The water reaches Mara’s knees, which means it’s to the girl’s waist. They won’t be able to stand against the current much longer.

“Go now,” Mara says to Carella’s daughter. “I’ll be right behind you.” Mara hitches the tiny girl higher on her hip. Somehow, she’ll have to make the climb one-handed.

The girl has barely started to climb when a rumbling noise makes her pause. She and Mara look toward the sound. It’s a wall of churning, muddy water, tumbling down the mountain toward them.

Mara launches past Carella’s daughter up into the ditch. She scrambles over mud and stones, through skin-ripping branches, still looking for a place to tuck the tiny girl.

A head peeks down from around a boulder. It’s Reynaldo. “Hand her to me!” he hollers, reaching for her. Mara braces against the side of the ditch so she can lift the tiny girl with both hands. Reynaldo plucks her from Mara’s grasp, and Mara darts back down the way she came.

“Mara!” Reynaldo calls.

Below her, Carella’s daughter has slipped in the mud to her belly, arms and legs splayed. Her wide eyes are a startling white contrast to her muddy face and hair. “Help!” she cries.

The wall of water is upon them, and Mara has no time to be gentle. She grabs a nearby manzanita branch with one hand; with the other she lunges down, grabs the girl’s cold, slick arm, and gives it a tremendous yank.

The girl screams, but the sound is cut off by water filling her mouth and nose.

Mara’s arms threaten to rip from her sockets as water sucks the girl down, but she refuses to let go, pulling with all her might. Gradually, the girl’s soaked head breaks through the whitewater, then her shoulders. One final tug, and the girl’s body is more on the bank than in the water. She lies perfectly still. Blood pours from a gash on the side of her head.

The water level is still rising. Mara stretches farther, hooks the girl’s armpit, and drags her up even higher, until only her toes trail in the water. One foot is now bare.

Mara collapses on her back. Her arms are rubbery, and her temples have a sharp, squeezed pain from so much effort. She turns her head to regard the girl beside her, half expecting her to be limp and dead.

The girl convulses once, hard. Then she coughs, and something that is half floodwater, half vomit dribbles from her mouth.

Joy surges in Mara’s chest, as brilliant as a rising summer sun. She digs her heels into the mud bank for leverage, then helps the girl sit up. “That’s it,” she murmurs as the girl continues to heave. “Just cough it all out.”

“Is she all right?” It’s Reynaldo. He lowers himself to their position, using rocks and scrub for purchase.

“I think so. She has a bad gash on her head. And I may have hurt her when I pulled her out. But . . . I think so.” I saved her. The truth of this marvelous fact fills her limbs with tingling warmth. Maybe she can save them all.

“We should get moving,” Reynaldo warns. “The water is still rising.”

The sky chooses that moment to dump vicious streamers of rain, and Mara blinks water from her eyes. “The others? Did they . . .”

“All safe on the ridge.”

She breathes relief. “Let’s go, then.” To Carella’s daughter, she says, “Can you climb?”

The girl coughs one more time, but she nods, and Mara marvels at her bravery. She can’t be more than five or six, but she stayed behind to help everyone else. Now her lungs must be on fire, her head pounding, her shoulder stinging, but instead of fear or pain in her eyes, Mara sees only determination.

“What’s your name?” Mara asks.

“Teena.”

“All right, Teena. Let’s get up on that ridge, then we’ll let you rest.”

12

THE tiny girl’s name is Marlín. The brothers Reynaldo discovered in the cellar are Benito and Hando. There are also Alessa, Quintoro, Rosa, Marco, and Jaime. They sit huddled on the ridge, shivering in the rain, while Mara checks everyone over. The gash on Teena’s head is not deep, so Mara tears a strip from Julio’s saddle blanket and uses it to stanch the flow of blood.

“I’m not sure what to do about your shoes,” she says to the girl.

Teena shrugs. “I don’t need shoes,” she says, kicking off her remaining one. Then her face freezes. Her chin trembles.

“What is it?” Mara says. “Are you hurt somewhere else?”

She shakes her head, staring at the discarded shoe. It lies on its side, a leather tassel dragging in the mud. It is worn through at the heel. She has been walking in near-useless shoes the whole time. “Mamá and me, we went to the tanner to get my feet measured. Because I’m so big now. But the bad men came.”

“We’ll get you some new shoes. It might take a while, but we’ll do it.” Even as she says it, Mara knows it won’t be enough. It’s not the shoes that Teena misses.

“She let herself die on purpose,” Teena says, still staring at the shoes. “So we could get away.”

Mara’s throat tightens. “She loved you very much.” She can hardly get the words out. What must it be like to have parents who would sacrifice their own lives for you?

Little Marco has an ugly gash just below his knee. The others seem to be in relatively good shape, though they huddle together in shivering groups, waiting for the rain to stop. Mara grimaces. It’s safe enough to have a fire, now that clouds choke the sky. But unless they find shelter, the driving rain makes it impossible.

Quintoro wraps an arm around his little sister, Rosa, who has been quietly crying ever since they escaped the flood. Adán digs at the earth with a stick, poking and shoving in frustrated bursts. Julio sits propped against the trunk of a small cottonwood, eyes closed, his beautiful face raised to the rain. His breathing is shallow, his face pale.

“Everybody up,” Mara orders, getting to her feet. “It’s too cold to sit still.” And too depressing.

“We need rest,” Reynaldo says. “The little ones are exhausted.”

Mara shakes her head. “We’re exposed up here on the ridge. Once the storm is over, we’ll be visible to anyone within half a day’s travel. So we move now and rest when we find shelter.”

Everyone grumbles as they get to their feet. After she helps Julio stand, he wraps his arms around her and leans against her. His skin is feverish, and she can feel the pulse at his neck—fast and fluttery like butterfly wings. “I love you,” he says.

“Prove it by getting well,” she answers.

She and Adán help him mount the horse. “You should tie me down,” Julio says, even as he lists to the right.

Mara swallows hard. Then she mounts up behind him and puts an arm around his waist. He winces at the contact. “I’ll hold you” Mara says.

They set off down the mountain. There is no trail, so they must go carefully, slipping through mud and navigating outcroppings and stunted trees. Below them, the fault has become a churning river, thick with mud and detritus. Above, the sky continues to dump rain. Mara wonders if she’ll ever be warm and dry again.

She holds Julio close to keep him upright, feeling his heartbeat against her chest. There is no way to avoid the wound on his lower back, and though he is bravely stoic, the occasional jostling step of their mount makes him gasp. She buries her face between his shoulder blades and breathes his scent, wishing she could somehow send her own warmth and vitality into his body.

They walk for hours, until Alessa plunks onto the ground and bursts into tears.

Reynaldo hurries over to her.

“What is it?” Mara calls.

“Her feet,” Reynaldo says. “She’s been walking with blisters. Now her feet are ripped to shreds.”

“My feet hurt too,” says Rosa.

“Mine too,” says Hando.

Mara takes a deep breath. “Everyone’s feet hurt,” she says. “But we have to be brave. Alessa, if you promise to hold on to Julio and keep him from falling, you can trade places with me.”

Alessa brightens. “I can do that.”

The saddle isn’t big enough for two adults anyway, and the edge had been digging into Mara’s rear. She plants a kiss behind Julio’s ear and dismounts, then helps Alessa up behind him.

“Can I ride the horse too?” someone asks.

“Me too!” says another.

Mara is careful to keep her voice calm and patient. “When Alessa’s feet are better, everyone can take turns helping Julio.”

Hando eyes the other packhorse, but he says nothing. Mara will let the children ride the second horse if she has to, but she’s not sure the rest of them are up to carrying the supplies. Not without more food to give them strength.

She takes the lead this time, keeping an eye out for shelter as she goes, but her heart is sinking. She wants to save them. Every single one. She hoped a flash flood would be the worst they encountered. But maybe it will be something little that eventually kills them all. Something insignificant. Like blistered feet.

The clouds are beginning to break and the sun is low on the horizon when Mara spots a large overhang of layered sandstone. The ground beneath is not entirely dry, but it’s flat and littered with deadfall that has been trapped there by the wind. Some of it might be dry enough for a fire.

She sets the children to work collecting wood while she and Adán quickly line a pit. Within an hour, they are crowded around a cheery fire. Several peel off outer clothing layers and drape them on nearby rocks to dry. As the sun edges behind the shattered peak, Mara finds a bit of gladness inside herself, for they are nearly to the bottom of the mountain and will soon move into the desert.

Her flour sack is soaked, and the remaining flour will turn moldy and useless for baking, so she scoops out a bunch of the sticky stuff and stirs it into a potful of boiling water. At least water is no longer in short supply.

She adds bits of bacon and a few of her precious spices. The result is disgusting—more paste than soup, with a gritty texture that sticks in her teeth. But it’s nourishing, and even though the children wince and swallow quickly, they don’t complain. Everyone goes to sleep without the empty ache of hunger.

They wake to morning sun and screaming.

Mara launches upward, reaching for her bow and seeking the source of danger even before her mind is fully awake. Deep in the overhang, pressed against the sandstone wall, little Hando sobs, clutching his right arm to his stomach.

Rosa stands beside him, looking down in horror. She’s the one who is screaming.

“What is it?” Mara demands. “What’s wro—”

Something behind Hando moves. No, writhes. Several somethings. Twisting and sliding and . . .

Vipers.

“Be very, very still,” she says, though she knows it’s too late for him. “Everyone else get back. Now!”

As they hasten to comply, something black and hot clouds Mara’s vision. She led them here. She made them take shelter beside a vipers’ nest. She should have scouted the site thoroughly before bedding down.

Mara creeps toward Hando, who is as still as a stone though tears leak from his pleading eyes. “That’s it, Hando. You’re doing fine.” Behind him, the vipers mix and tumble like giant worms. She hears the hiss of a rattle.

“I’m going to reach down and snatch you up,” she says. “Ready?”

He nods.

Before her pounding heart can become paralyzing terror, she grabs his arms and yanks him backward. His feet drag as she darts from the overhang into a clear blue day.

They need to get farther away. Snakes can move with astonishing speed if they want to. But she only has moments left to save Hando. She compromises, dragging him only a few steps more.

“Show me the bite,” she orders. “Everyone else, keep an eye on those snakes! Grab some rocks in case they move toward us.”

Hando pushes up his sleeve, revealing a red, swollen spot with two tiny puncture marks just below the elbow. A small snake, then. Maybe he didn’t take much venom.

She grabs her knife from her belt, unsheathes it. “This is going to hurt, but I have to do it now. Understand?”

He nods, lower lip quivering.

Hando hisses as she sweeps her blade across the bite. The skin parts, and blood wells. She gives a quick thought to possible cavities in her teeth but decides it doesn’t matter; her larger body can handle the venom much better than his anyway.

She places her lips on his filthy arm, sealing the wound. Closing her eyes against revulsion, she sucks a mouthful of blood. Coppery tanginess bursts warm across her tongue as she turns her head to spit. She sucks again. Spits again.

Hando whimpers as she works. “Kill as many as you can!” someone yells. “But don’t get too close.” Rocks pound the ground nearby, and she almost looks up to see what’s happening, but she forces herself to keep sucking and spitting. The urge to swallow is almost unbearable, even though the taste is revolting.

At last she moves her head away. “Water!” she yells, and a water skin is placed in her hand as if by magic. She rinses and spits several times. Finally she lets herself swallow.

She pours the rest of the water over Hando’s arm, then pokes around the wound, encouraging the cleansing blood to flow.

Hando asks in a trembling voice, “Am I going to die?”

Yes, probably. She reaches down to cup his chin and looks him directly in the eye. “If the bite wasn’t deep, if the venom was close to the skin, then maybe not. But it will hurt badly for about an hour. It will be the worst hurt you’ve ever had.” Of its own accord, her thumb sweeps along his jawline. “When the pain starts to go away, you’ll get sick. I’ll need you to be very brave.”

He nods up at her. Already his face is sallow and his breath comes fast. He says, “Thank you, Mara.”

She gives his chin a gentle squeeze and lets it go. Hando is such a beautiful boy, with a delicate cast to cheek and chin, and eyelashes so thick that his eyes seemed rimmed with kohl. He will break many hearts someday, if he has a chance to grow up.

“We got us some snake meat,” Reynaldo says at her shoulder.

She turns to find him holding up a limp viper, its scaled white belly glistening in the sunshine, and she flinches back.

“How many did you kill?”

He grins. “Five.”

Heat spreads across her neck and shoulders, and she can’t seem to get enough air. Some venom got inside her after all. Or maybe her body is merely rebelling against the fact that these children risked their lives so they could eat well tonight.

13

MARA unloads the second packhorse and distributes everything among the remaining healthy children to carry. Then she helps Hando mount, hoping and praying that no one else becomes injured, for they are out of horses.

By nightfall, his arm has swollen to twice its size. Everyone else feasts on roasted snake, but Hando can’t keep anything down. He thrashes on the ground, moaning, only half conscious.

She checks Alessa’s feet. They are badly blistered, but the blisters seem to have drained well, and Alessa claims they only hurt when she walks. Mara orders her to keep them clean.

Next she settles beside Julio. He lies on his side by the fire, unable to sit up. “Hello, beautiful,” he whispers weakly.

She traces his lips with her forefinger. “I have to check your back.”

He nods.

Carefully, she unwraps the bandages. The entry site has puffed out like a cauliflower, and something that is part blood, part pus leaks from the gash. It’s badly infected, in spite of her earlier efforts. If they don’t get help soon, he’ll die.

“How bad is it?” he says between gritted teeth.

Mara is glad the dark hides her tears. “I think it’s getting better.”

“Liar.”

She rewraps the wound. There is nothing she can do for it.

He says, “If I don’t make it, promise me—”

“You’ll make it!” Her voice comes out angrier than she intends.

“Mara. Love. This is a bad wound. A death wound. I need to know you’ll look out for Adán.”

“I . . . of course.” Then she reaches over to flick his nose. “But I’m not giving up yet, you idiot.”

He grins. Then his eyes flutter closed, and she hopes with all the hope in her heart that it’s a natural sleep and not a sickly one.

14

IT rains again the next day, but Mara orders them up and moving anyway.

“A day’s rest wouldn’t hurt,” Adán says, as she fills her water skin with brown runoff water.

“We’re exhausted,” Reynaldo agrees. “And the little ones had a big fright with those snakes.”

Mara shakes her head. “We have to find help soon,” she says. “If we don’t travel, Julio and Hando will die. Maybe all of us.”

Adán and Reynaldo exchange a look, but they say nothing more.

Within an hour, they are covered in mud and chilled to the bone. Rosa complains again that her feet hurt. Quintoro is hungry. Tiny Marlín, toddling barefoot beside her, begins to cry softly.

Mara looks down and frowns. “Marlín? What’s the matter?” Of all of them, she is the one who has complained the least. But somewhere along the way, she lost her shoes. Or maybe she never had any. Not every child in the village had good shoes.

The little girl sniffs. “Muffin was not bad.”

“Muffin . . . Oh. Your goat?”

Marlín nods. “Mamá said she was a bad goat. Because she ate our carrots. But she wasn’t bad. Just hungry. Like me. She had to be outside in the mud a lot. Do you think her feet hurt all the time? If I have another goat, I will make shoes for her.”

Mara sighs. “Would you like me to carry you for a while?”

Marlín reaches chubby arms up, and Mara hoists her onto her hip. They’ve gone several steps when Marlín says quietly, “She screamed.”

“Who?”

“Muffin. When the fire came.”

“Oh.” Mara snugs her a bit closer. “I know you miss Muffin, but I need you to be brave for just a little while longer, all right?”

“All right.”

Such an ordinarily simple task lies before them—get from one place to another. But they are in bad shape. She catalogs their injuries: Julio’s arrow wound, Hando’s bite, the gash on Teena’s head, Alessa’s badly blistered feet, and now this tiny girl who has been walking barefoot through mud and mesquite for who knows how long. How will she keep them all going?

Mercifully, the slope levels off a bit as they near the desert floor, and Mara lets her eyes rove the jagged desolation below them. It’s a warren of buttes and gullies that glow coppery red in the sun, almost as far as the eye can see. Beyond it lies the deeper desert, a sea of sand, but at this distance it is only a yellowish haze on the horizon.

The place is as barren as it is beautiful, yet the nomads of Joya d’Arena make their home here. And she will, too, if they’re to have any chance of surviving this war.

“I should lead from here,” Reynaldo says.

“It’s a maze down there,” Mara says. “No wonder the rebels chose this for their hideout.”

“Someone should hang back and make sure we’re not followed,” he adds. “The perimeter watch won’t let us pass if there is any chance we’ve led the Inviernos to their camp.”

The back of her neck prickles. She had not considered that their enemy might follow them unseen. “Any volunteers?” she asks.

“I’ll do it,” says Adán.

“No!” She needs him nearby and safe, for Julio’s sake. “I . . . er . . . I may need help carrying the little ones, and you’re the strongest.”

“I can do it,” says another boy. He is the next oldest after Adán, a quiet one who prefers whittling with his knife to conversation.

She searches her memory for his name and snags it. “Thank you, Benito. Don’t hang back too far—it will be easy to get lost once we’re down there.”

His lips turn up in a cocky half smile. “I’ll be fine,” he says, and then he disappears into the brush.

Reynaldo leads them west, away from the Shattermount’s flooded fault line. The sky is still drizzly and gray, their journey slippery with mud. Marlín grows heavy in her arms.

Late in the afternoon, the sun breaks through the clouds, sending streamers of gold onto the earth and causing a bright rainbow that stretches the length of two days’ journey. They exchange relieved smiles and pick up the pace. They will rue the relentless desert sun soon enough, but for now they glory in the way it steams away the soaked terrain.

Reynaldo calls a halt. At Mara’s questioning look, he says, “Did you hear something?”

Mara orders everyone to silence. Quietly, she lowers Marlín to the ground, then stretches her aching arms as she listens for anything unusual.

“Mara!” comes the voice, faintly. “Help!”

“Is that Benito?” Adán asks, but Mara is already sprinting back the way they came, swinging her bow from her shoulder.

She hears the sounds of struggle before she finds them—crunching gravel, a grunt, a sharp yell of pain. She nearly trips on them as they roll around in a tangle of hair and limbs. Yellow hair snarled with black, pale skin against dark. The Invierno’s anklet bones rattle as they wrestle in the mud.

There’s no way she’ll get a clean shot. Her hand flies to the knife at her belt, but their grappling bodies move so fast, and she doesn’t trust herself not to stab Benito by mistake.

The Invierno’s yellow braid whips around, and she sees her chance. She lunges into the fray, grabs the end of the braid, yanks it hard. He yelps, his head snapping back. Benito takes advantage and sends a fist into his stomach, then another. He rolls the Invierno onto his back and starts to pound at his face. Something crunches.

“Benito, that’s enough.” Mara’s belly squirms with wrongness.

But the boy is blind with fear and rage, and he sends his fist crashing into the enemy’s jaw, his ear, his eye.

“Benito!” she yells.

A shape blurs past her. It’s Adán. With a roar, he plunges his skinning knife into the Invierno’s chest. Mara senses the other children coming up behind her, even as Adán wrenches his blade from the Invierno’s bloody chest and raises it to strike again.

“No!” Mara darts forward, grabs Adán’s arm. “Stop!”

Adán lashes out blindly with his other hand. His knuckles crack against her cheek, and she tumbles backward, landing hard on her rear.

Red spots dance in her vision as her eye socket blossoms with pain.

“Oh, God. Mara, I’m so sorry. I . . . oh, God.” Adán throws his knife away from himself and stares at his hands as though they belong to a stranger. Spatters of blood cover his shirt.

Mara gets shakily to her feet. “Adán and Benito,” she says, her voice like thunder. “You are responsible for this, therefore you will dispose of this body.”

“He surprised me!” Benito says. “We stumbled onto each other, and all of a sudden, he was on top of me, and I—”

She holds up a silencing hand. “If more scouts discover him, they will know we passed this way. So you will bury him thoroughly and clean up any blood. The rest of us will set up camp and wait for you.”

Soft crying trickles up to her ears, and Mara looks down to see Marlín at her elbow, the girl’s horrified gaze fixed on the bloody corpse of the Invierno. Mara bends over and picks her up. “I need you to be brave for me, Marlín,” she says.

Marlín sniffs. “You say that a lot.”

“Only because it’s the truest thing I know right now.”

“No fire tonight,” Reynaldo says. “There could be more scouts nearby.”

“Did he track us, do you think?” Mara asks. They haven’t even bothered to disguise their trail.

“I doubt it,” Reynaldo says. “But after we break camp tomorrow, we should get rid of any footprints, cover the site with brush. Try to make it look like we were never here.”

“Good thinking.” To Benito and Adán, she says, “No shallow grave. We don’t want coyotes digging him up.”

“You’re punishing us,” Benito says. “Even though he is the enemy!”

Mara stares him down. “You and Adán were not wrong to kill. This is war, after all. But you were wrong to lose control. Join us in camp only when you’re certain you have it back again.”

Mara has survived this long only by remaining in control. If she is going to keep these children alive, they will have to learn it too.

15

THEY haven’t eaten in two days. They have all thinned noticeably, no one more so than Julio. His cheeks are gaunt, and his eyes are dark, sunken shadows in his otherwise pallid face. At least once per hour, someone complains about hunger.

Mara begins to practice with her bow in the evenings and early mornings. Several of the others have slings, and she makes them train together. She tells them they all need to practice so they can hunt as they go. But really, she needs something to distract them from their aching, empty bellies.

And she knows that if they encounter another Invierno scout, she’ll need more skill with the bow to protect them. She practices a quick draw and notch, over and over. Next, she’ll teach herself to hit a moving target.

“Where did you get that bow?” Reynaldo asks her one morning. They have stepped away from the campsite while the others linger over hot tea. Mara used some of the precious herbs from her satchel to make it. Anything to fool their stomachs for a little while.

“Pá got it for me as a Deliverance Day gift,” she says, as she sights a withered pinecone that she placed atop a boulder.

“It must have been expensive,” he says wonderingly. “It’s beautiful wood. Someone would have had to go high into the Sierra Sangre for that quality of pine.”

She lets her arrow fly. It misses the target by a handspan at least, and she frowns. “Arrows don’t come cheap either. I think that’s why he got it. He didn’t actually like the idea of me using it. He just wanted to show off his wealth at a time when all the village children were practicing with their slings.”

Reynaldo studies her thoughtfully. “I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but . . .”

Mara raises an eyebrow at him. “A dead priest, no less.”

His gaze is slightly shifted, as if he can’t quite bring himself to look her in the eye. It’s the scar on the corner of her eyelid he’s avoiding, the one her father gave her when she was ten years old. “But he was not a good man, was he?” he says.

“No, he was not.”

Reynaldo winds up with his sling and throws. His loosed pebble arcs toward the pinecone, but drops too soon and thunks against the boulder instead. “One time my má was sick,” he says, seeming not to notice how badly he just missed. “Bad sick. And your pá rode hard all night to get to our farmstead in time to sit the death watch. He tended her himself. Forced her to sip her tea, changed out wet cloths for her forehead. And come morning, her fever broke and she was fine.”

Mara clenches her jaw, not sure how to respond. Yes, her father was known for acts of tremendous kindness. She came to see them as pretense. Little deceptions meant to cover up the truth of their lives.

But hearing Reynaldo talk about it, she can’t help but wonder if they were genuine after all. In the same way that the best lies have an element of truth, maybe evil is made all the more powerful when it is accompanied by the startling presence of grace. She says, “He was a good man too. In some ways. That’s what made him so terrifying.”

Reynaldo stares openly now, as if seeing her scar for the first time. Mara always thought it made her look perpetually sad, or at least tired. Until Julio assured her it gave her a sultry air, like she had just been thoroughly kissed. What does Reynaldo see?

“Mara!” someone calls out. “Come quick!” The voice is edged with panic.

She sprints back toward the campsite without a moment’s hesitation, Reynaldo at her heels.

The children are gathered around something. Mara leaps over the fire pit and elbows them out of the way, demanding, “What is it? What’s wro . . .”

It’s Julio. He has fallen over, and his cheek grinds into the earth as he gasps for breath. Beside him, a wooden bowl lies overturned in a tiny, muddy puddle of sage tea.

Mara drops to the ground beside him. “Julio?” She places her fingertips at his neck and is relieved to find a weak, scattered pulse.

“He started shaking,” Alessa says, tears in her voice. “Then he dropped his bowl and fell over, but he wouldn’t stop twitching, and then—” Someone shushes her.

Julio’s eyelids flutter open. “Mara,” he whispers. “My Mara.”

“Is it the pain? I’ll make you some more tea. We need to make sure you’re getting enough to drink. Then I’ll—”

His hand traps hers, brings it against his chest with surprising strength. His skin is as hot and dry as the desert sun. “No. Just . . . sit with me, please.”

She blinks rapidly. “Don’t you dare give up. Don’t you dare.”

He sighs. “Promise me you’ll—”

“Yes. Adán. I know. But you have to promise not to give up.”

Julio tries to speak but can’t. He takes a few breaths. Tries again. “Not him. You. Promise me you won’t hate the world.”

She shakes her head. “I . . . Oh, Julio.”

He smiles. “You burn so bright, Mara.”

He’s too weak to say anything else. They sit there for a moment, staring into each other’s eyes. She doesn’t see the Julio in front of her—only the Julio from the meadow, carefree and confident, full of exuberant words and all kinds of plans. Her only plan, her only hope, was him.

Then his hand drops away, plops onto the ground where it lies limply. His head rolls to the side. The light fades from his eyes.

“Julio?” She grabs his limp hand and squeezes. “No, no, no, no.” She kisses his knuckles, over and over again. Her tears make muddy streaks on his skin. “Julio, you have to fight. Don’t give up. Please, I need—”

A hand settles on her shoulder. “He’s gone, Mara,” Reynaldo says.

But Julio’s hand is still warm. How can he be dead when his hand is still warm? It’s like her insides are splitting open. No, no, no, no.

“Mara?” The voice comes from far away. Another world. Another life.

She stretches out beside Julio, rubs her hands up and down his arm, gazes upon his beautiful but colorless face.

“Mara!”

“Go,” she says, not taking her eyes off of Julio. “Just go.”

“He wouldn’t want you to be like this.” Adán’s voice this time.

“I don’t care.”

“Didn’t you promise to take care of me?” His voice turns plaintive and high, like he’s a small boy instead of nearly a man. “You promised. I know you did.”

She looks up. His face is wet with tears, and he is half bent over with a pain of his own.

Mara did promise. And she meant it, so she ought to make good. But she feels as though a chunk of her own self has been cruelly excised, leaving only pain. “I don’t know how . . .” she sobs out. “I can’t . . .” Maybe part of her died with Julio, and the rest longs to follow.

Arms wraps around her. Then more, and still more, until she is at the hot, heavy center of a dozen pairs of embracing limbs.

“We’ll carry you for a bit,” Reynaldo says. “It’s our turn.”

And they do. Reynaldo and Adán heave Julio’s body across the packhorse and tie him down. Then they brace Mara—one under each arm—and lift her from the ground.

Tiny Marlín plants herself in their path. She reaches up and pats Mara’s hip. Pat, pat. Patpatpat. Her face is a mask of solemnity.

She says, “I need you to be a brave girl for me, Mara.”

Mara doesn’t know how to respond. Marlín steps aside, and Reynaldo and Adán hold Mara up. She hangs limp between them.

They’re about to step forward, but Mara says, “Wait.”

They wait.

Mara gathers her feet beneath her. She leans over and gives Reynaldo a kiss on the cheek, then does the same to Adán. “Thank you,” she says, straightening. “But I can walk on my own.”

16

THE next day, Reynaldo says they have gone as far as he can take them. Now all they can do is wander around until the perimeter guard finds them.

There is no indication that anyone is near, no sign of life or habitation, but one moment they’re skirting a huge butte of layered sandstone, and the next, two young men materialize as if by magic in their path.

“Who are you?” one demands, his hand on the hilt of a hunting knife at his belt.

Reynaldo whispers, “We’ve made it.”

“Refugees,” Mara tells them. “Our village was destroyed by Inviernos.”

The boys eye them warily. Their collective gaze roves over Julio’s body, draped over the packhorse, but their expression gives away nothing.

Reynaldo steps forward. “I am cousin to Humberto and Cosmé. I have a standing invitation to join your cause, and these are my companions.”

“Were you followed?”

Reynaldo doesn’t even blink. “We were. But we took care of it.”

The boys exchange a glance. One nods at the other and says, “I’ll take a look. Tell the others we need to extend the perimeter for a few days.

As he melts back into the scrub, the remaining boy says, “This way. Keep quiet.”

They are led through a maze of twisting ravines and choking bramble. Mara considers that the boy might be leading them in a roundabout way on purpose. If so, it’s a smart plan, because she is well and truly lost in moments. Marlín’s tiny hand slips into hers, and she gives it a reassuring squeeze. “Do you need me to carry you?” she whispers down to the girl.

“No. I’m a big girl now,” she says.

The ravine opens into a small vale. Figures appear on the ridge above, surrounding them, just like the Inviernos who attacked their village. Mara has a moment’s panic.

But instead of attacking, they pour down the slope. Some smile in greeting. Only a few have weapons—all sheathed. They are children, mostly. Clean, well-fed, healthy.

These perfect strangers take their hands, murmur words of welcome. One young man lodges himself under Hando’s good shoulder and supports him the rest of the way.

A beautiful girl with short, curly hair takes charge. She lifts the corner of the blanket covering Julio’s body and says, “Too late for this one. Take him to the other side of the butte.” Someone grabs the reins to the packhorse and leads it away. Mara swallows hard, but does not protest.

“This one needs an amputation immediately,” the beautiful girl says when she sees Hando’s black-streaked forearm. “Head gash here will need stitches,” she says of Teena. “Too late to treat your burn,” she tells Marco. “But maybe some salve will help.” Mara hadn’t realized Marco had been burned; he never complained.

One by one she goes through each member of their party, directing others to action, until finally she reaches Mara. “You’ve been though a lot,” she says, her head cocked quizzically.

Mara shrugs. “It’s war.”

The girl nods. “I’m Cosmé. Welcome to our camp. If you betray us, I’ll kill you.”

“If you betray me or these children, I’ll kill you first.”

Cosmé flashes a grin. She indicates a general direction with her head. “Head over to the cavern if you want some hot stew.” And then she’s off, tending to the wounded.

An old man with a missing arm approaches next. “You are Mara, the leader of this group, yes?”

“I guess.”

He reaches up and clutches her shoulder. “I am Father Alentín, priest to these wayward miscreants, and you, dear girl, are most welcome. Come, I’ll show you the way.”

As they head up the slope together, Mara says, “Everyone here seems so . . . healthy.”

“Compared to recent refugees, I suppose,” he says with a sad smile. “We’re managing. Lots of wounded, though. We lose someone almost every day. But!” His grin becomes enormous. “This war may have just taken a turn for the better.”

They crest the rise, and Mara looks out on a small but beautiful village of adobe hutas built into the side of an enormous butte. Just beyond, the butte curves inward, resulting in a massive half cavern that is open to the sky but sheltered from the worst of wind and rain.

“What do you mean by a turn for the better?” she asks. Looking at this bright, warm place, she can almost believe it.

“We found the bearer, you see,” he says. “God’s chosen one. There.”

Mara follows the direction of his pointing finger and sees two people standing on the highest point of the ridge—a boy with wild hair, and a plump girl with a thick braid. The boy doesn’t look like anything special. Intelligent and sturdy, maybe, with a roundness to his features that gives him an air of perpetual surprise.

As Mara and the priest approach, he leans over and whispers, “Her name is Elisa. She is a princess of Orovalle, and we stole her right out from under the nose of His Majesty King Alejandro, may sweet wisdom drop from his lips as honey from the comb.”

The chosen one is a girl? Mara peers closer.

She can’t be more than sixteen years old, and she seems out of place in this harsh desert. Her limbs are too soft, her gaze too wide with horror and shock. But her pretty brown eyes spark, and there’s a stubborn set to her lips that makes Mara wonder.

The princess stares as they come face-to-face. Stares hard and with keen interest, the way Julio always did. And just like with Julio, she is compelled to fill the silence. “I’m Mara,” she says. She’s not sure what makes her add, “Thank you for coming.”

Mara feels the girl’s eyes on her back as she heads into the half cavern. Somehow, in this moment, Mara knows that nothing about her will go unnoticed ever again.

17

SHE has barely gone from sunshine to shadow when Teena thrusts a bowl of stew at her. Mara is stunned for a moment as she breathes in the scent of venison. It’s so thick, with huge chunks of meat. Even carrots. And suddenly Mara’s lips are on the side of the bowl and warm, generous stuff is sliding down her throat, filling her stomach. It leaks past her mouth, smears her cheeks and chin, but she doesn’t care.

“That’s what I did!” Teena says, laughing. “But then my belly hurt.”

Mara forces herself to stop and take a breath. Stew drips from her chin to the ground. She looks around to find the other children slurping with equal abandon, especially tiny Marlín, who sits cuddling her bowl, her eyes closed in perfect ecstasy. For the first time in days, Mara smiles.

“They’ve already assigned huts to us so we can rest,” Teena says brightly. “You get to share with me. They even gave us some blankets. Do you want me to take you there?”

A hut. Rest. Blankets. Words that feel like home.

Mara takes another, less hurried sip of stew. Across the cavern, the beautiful girl Cosmé is tending to Hando’s arm, preparing it for amputation. Belén, the boy she briefly loved before she met Julio, interviews the children, trying to find matches with friends or relatives who might already be in their camp. Mara was relieved when he left the village last year, but she’s surprised at how glad she is to see him now.

Even the princess is busy, carrying buckets of water from the pool to the infirmary area.

These rebels are people of accord. Of purpose.

Mara throws back her shoulders, as if by doing so she can shake off their long journey, her father’s abuse, Julio’s death. It’s not enough. The memories will cling stubbornly, maybe forever, but she finds that she can stand under their weight after all.

Teena peers at her questioningly, for she has been silent too long.

She takes a deep, cleansing breath. Her hope can’t come from Julio anymore. She must nurture it inside herself, and she must fill it with purpose. Mara says, “Thank you, Teena, but not just yet. Do you know where the kitchen area is? I want to get to work right away.”

Excerpt from The Crown of Embers

Read on for a preview of Elisa’s and Mara’s

continued adventures,

in book two of Rae Carson’s epic trilogy!

1

MY entourage of guards struggles to keep pace as I fly down the corridors of my palace. Servants in starched frocks and shined shoes line the way, bowing like dominoes as I pass. From far away comes a low thrum, filtering even through walls of stone and mortar, steady as falling water, hollow as distant thunder. It’s the crowd outside, chanting my name.

I barrel around a corner and collide with a gleaming breastplate. Firm hands grasp my shoulders, saving me from tumbling backward. My crown is not so lucky. The monstrous thing clatters to the ground, yanking strands of hair painfully with it.

He releases my shoulders and rubs at red spot on his neck. “That crown of yours is a mighty weapon,” says Lord-Commander Hector of the Royal Guard.

“Sorry,” I say, blinking up at him. He and the other guards shaved their mustaches to mark our recent victory, and I’ve yet to adjust to this new, younger-looking Hector.

Ximena, my gray-haired nurse, bends to retrieve the crown and brushes it off. It’s thick with gold and inlaid with a single cabochon ruby. No dainty queen’s diadem for me. By tradition, I wear the crown of a fully empowered monarch.

“I expected you an hour ago,” he says as I take his offered arm. We travel the corridor at a bruising pace.

“General Luz-Manuel kept me. He wanted to change the parade route again.”

He stops cold, and I nearly trip. “Again?”

“He wants to avoid the bottleneck where the Avenida de la Serpiente crosses the merchant’s alley. He says a stranger in the crowd could spear me too easily.”

Ximena takes advantage of our stillness to reposition the crown on my head. I grimace as she shoves hairpins through the velvet loops to hold it in place.

Hector is shaking his head. “But the rooftops are low in that area. You’ll be safer from arrows, which is the greater danger.”

“Exactly what I said. He was . . . displeased.” I tug on his arm to keep us moving.

“He should know better.”

“I may have told him as much.”

“I’m sure he appreciated that,” he says dryly.

“I’ve no idea what advantage he thought to gain by it,” I say. “Whatever it was, I was not going to give it to him.”

Hector glances around at the people lining the corridors, then adds in a lowered voice, “Elisa, as your personal defender, I must beg you one last time to reconsider. The whole world knows you bear the Godstone.”

I sigh against the truth of his words. Yes, I’m now the target of religious fanatics, Invierne spies, even black market gem traders. But my birthday parade is the one day each year when everyone—from laundress to stable boy to weather-worn sailor—can glimpse their ruling monarch. It’s a national holiday, one they’ve been looking forward to for months. I won’t deny them the opportunity.

And I refuse to be governed by fear. The life stretching before me is that of a queen. It’s a life I chose. Fought for, even. I cannot—will not—squander it on dread.

“Hector, I won’t hide in the sand like a frightened jerboa.”

“Sometimes,” Ximena cuts in, with her soft but deliberate voice, “protecting Elisa means protecting her interests. Elisa must show herself publicly. These early months are important as she consolidates her power. We’ll keep her safe, you and I. And God. She has a great destiny. . . .”

I turn a deaf ear to her words. So much has happened in the last year, but I feel no closer to my appointment with destiny than I did when God first lodged his stone in my navel seventeen years ago. It still pulses with power, warms in response to my prayers, reminds me that I have not done enough, that God has plans for me yet.

And I am sick to death of hearing about it.

“I understand, my lady,” Hector is saying. “But it would be safer—”

“Hector!” I snap. “I’ve made up my mind.”

He stiffens. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

Shame tightens my throat. Why did I snap at Hector? Ximena is the one I’m frustrated with.

Moments later we reach the carriage house, which reeks of steaming manure and moldy straw on this especially hot day. My open carriage awaits, a marvel of polished mahogany and swirling bronze scrollwork. Banners of royal blue stream from the posts. The door panels display my royal crest—a ruby crown resting on a bed of sacrament roses.

Fernando, my best archer, stands on the rear platform, bow slung over his shoulder. He bows from the waist, his face grave. Four horses flick their tails and dance in their jeweled traces. I eye them warily while Hector helps me up.

Then he offers a hand to Ximena, and in spite of their recent disagreement, a look of fierce understanding passes between them. They are a formidable team, my guard and my guardian. Sometimes it’s as though they plot my safety behind my back.

Hector gives the order, my driver whips the reins, and the carriage lurches forward. My Royal Guard, in its gleaming ceremonial armor, falls in around us. They march a deep one-two-one-two as we leave the shade of the carriage house for desert sunshine.

The moment we turn onto the Colonnade, the air erupts with cheering.

Thousands line the way, packed shoulder to shoulder, waving their hands, flags, tattered linens. Children sit on shoulders, tossing birdseed and rose petals into the air. A banner stretches the length of six people and reads, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO HER MAJESTY QUEEN LUCERO-ELISA!

“Oh,” I breathe.

Ximena grasps my hand and squeezes. “You’re a war hero, remember?”

But I’m also a foreigner queen, ruling by an accident of marriage and war. Warmth and pride blossom in my chest, to see my people accepting me with their whole hearts.

Then Ximena’s face sobers, and she leans over and whispers, “Remember this moment and treasure it, my sky. No sovereign remains popular forever.”

I nod from respectful habit, but I can’t keep the frown from creeping onto my face. My people are giving me a gift, and she takes it away so soon.

The steep Colonnade is lined on either side by decadent three-story townhomes. Their sculpted sandstone cornices sparkle in the sun, and silk standards swing from flat garden rooftops. But as we descend from the height of the city, cheered all the way, the townhomes gradually become less stately, until finally we reach the city’s outer circle, where only a few humble buildings rise from the war rubble.

I ignore the destruction as long as I can, gazing instead at the city’s great wall. It rises the height of several men, protecting us from the swirling desert beyond. I crane my neck and glimpse the soldiers posted between the wall’s crenellations, bows held at the ready.

The main gate stands open for daytime commerce. Framed by the barbed portcullis is our cobbled highway. Beyond it are the sweeping dunes of my beautiful desert, wind smoothed and deceptively soft in the yellow light of midday. My gaze lingers too long on the sand as we turn onto the Avenida de la Serpiente.

When I can avoid it no longer, I finally take in the view that twists my heart. For Brisadulce’s outer circle is a scar on the face of the world, blackened and crumbled and reeking of wet char. This is where the Invierne army broke through our gate, where their sorcerous animagi burned everything in sight with the blue-hot fire of their Godstone amulets.

A ceiling beam catches my eye, toppled across a pile of adobe rubble. At one end the wood grain shows pristine, but it blackens along its length, shrinking and shriveling until it ends in a ragged stump glowing red with embers. A wisp of smoke curls into the air.

The outer ring is rife with these glowing reminders of the war we won at such a cost. Months later, we still cannot wholly quench their fire. Father Nicandro, my head priest, says that since magic caused these fires, only magic can cool them. Either magic or time.

My city may burn for a hundred years.

So I smile and wave. I do it with ferocity, like my life depends on it, as if a whole glorious future lies before us and these sorcerous embers are not worth a passing irritation.

The crowd loves me for it. They scream and cheer, and it is like magic, a good magic, how after a while they win me over to hope, and my smile becomes genuine.

The street narrows, and the crowd presses in as we push forward. Hector’s hand goes to his scabbard as he inches nearer to the carriage. I tell myself that I don’t mind their proximity, that I love their smiling faces, their unrestrained energy.

But as we approach the massive amphitheater with its stone columns, I sense a subtle shift, a dampening of spirits—as if everyone has become distracted. The guards scan the crowd with suspicion.

“Something isn’t right,” Ximena whispers.

I glance at her with alarm. From long habit, my fingertips find the Godstone, seeking a clue; it heats up around friends and becomes ice when my life is in peril. Do I imagine that it is cooler than usual?

The theater is shaped like a giant horseshoe, its massive ends running perpendicular to the avenida. As we near it, movement draws my gaze upward. High above the crowd stands a man in a white wind-whipped robe.

My Godstone freezes—unhelpfully—and ice shoots through my limbs as I note his hair: lightest yellow, almost white, streaming to his waist. Sunlight catches on something embedded in the top of his wooden staff. Oh, God.

I’m too shocked to cry out, and by the time Hector notices the white figure, it’s too late: My carriage is within range. The crowd is eerily silent, as if all the air has gotten sucked away, for everyone has heard descriptions of the animagi, Invierne’s sorcerers.

The top of the animagus’ staff begins to glow Godstone blue.

My terror is like the thick muck of a dream as I struggle to find my voice. “Fernando!” I yell. “Shoot him! Shoot to kill!”

An arrow whizzes toward the animagus in blurred relief against the crystal sky.

The animagus whips his staff toward it. A stream of blue-hot fire erupts from the tip, collides with the arrow, explodes it into a shower of splinters and sparks.

People scream. Hector gestures at the guards, barking orders. Half tighten formation around me; the rest sprint away to flank the sorcerer. But the crowd is panicked and thrashing, and my guards are trapped in a mill of bodies.

“Archers!” Hector yells. “Fire!”

Hundreds of arrows let fly in a giant whoosh.

The animagus spins in a circle, staff outstretched. The air around him bends to his will, and I catch the barest glimpse of a barrier forming—like glass, like a wavering desert mirage—before Ximena leaps across the bench and covers me with her own body.

“To the queen!” comes Hector’s voice. “We must retreat!” But the carriage doesn’t budge, for the milling crowd has hemmed us in.

“Queen Lucero-Elisa,” comes a sibilant voice, magnified by the peculiar nature of the amphitheater. “Bearer of the only living Godstone, you belong to us, to us, to us.”

He’s coming down the stairway. I know he is. He’s coming for me. He’ll blaze a path through my people and—

“You think you’ve beaten us back, but we are as numerous as the desert sands. Next time we’ll come at you like ghosts in a dream. And you will know the gate of your enemy!”

In the corner of my eye I catch the gleam of Hector’s sword as he raises it high, and my stomach thuds with the realization that he’ll cut through our own people if that’s what it takes to whisk me away.

“Ximena!” I gasp. “Get off. Hector . . . he’ll do anything. We can’t let him—”

She understands instantly. “Stay down,” she orders as she launches against the door and tumbles into the street.

Heart pounding, I peek over the edge of the carriage. The animagus stares at me hungrily as he descends the great stair, like I am a juicy mouse caught in his trap. My Godstone’s icy warning is relentless.

He could have killed me by now if he wanted to; we’ve no way to stop his fire. So why doesn’t he? Eyeing him carefully, I stand up in the carriage.

“Elisa, no!” cries Hector. Ximena has trapped his sword arm, but he flings her off and rushes toward me. He jerks to a stop midstride, and his face puckers with strain: The animagus has frozen him with magic.

But Hector is the strongest man I know. Fight it, Hector.

Shivering with bone-deep cold, I force myself to step from the carriage. I am what the sorcerer wants, so maybe I can distract him, buy enough time for my guards to flank him, give Hector a chance to break free.

Sun glints off a bit of armor creeping up on the animagus from above, so I keep my gaze steady, and my voice is steel when I say, “I burned your brothers to dust. I will do the same to you.” The lie weighs heavy on my tongue. I’ve harnessed the power of my stone only once, and I’m not sure how.

The animagus’ answering grin is feral and slick. “Surrender yourself. If you do, we will spare your people.”

A guard is within range now. The animagus has not noticed him. The solider quietly feeds an arrow into his bow, aims.

Look strong, Elisa. Do not flinch. Hold his gaze.

The arrow zings through the air. The sorcerer whirls at the sound, but it is too late; the arrowhead buries itself in his ribs.

The animagus wobbles. He turns back to me, eyes flared with pain or zeal, one shoulder hanging lower than the other. Crimson spreads like spilled ink across his robe. “Watch closely, my queen,” he says, and his voice is liquid with drowning. “This is what will happen to everyone in Joya d’Arena if you do not present yourself as a willing sacrifice.”

Hector reaches me at last, grabs my shoulders, and starts to pull me away, even as the guards rush the animagus. But his Godstone already glows like a tiny sun; they will not capture him in time. I expect fire to shoot toward us, to turn my people into craters of melt and char, and suddenly I’m grappling for purchase at the joints of Hector’s armor, at his sword belt, pushing him along, for I can’t bear to see another friend burn.

But the animagus turns the fire on himself.

He screams, “It is God’s will!” He raises his arms to the sky, and his lips move as if in prayer while the conflagration melts his skin, blackens his hair, turns him into a living torch for the whole city to see.

The scent of burning flesh fills the air as the remaining crowd scatters. The horses rear and plunge away, trampling everyone in their path, the carriage rattling behind.

“To the queen!” Hector yells above my head.

A wind gusts through the amphitheater, extinguishing the biggest flames and flinging bits of hair and robe into the sky. The animagus’ charred body topples off the stair and plunges to the ground, trailing smoke and sparks.

I turn to rest my forehead against Hector’s breastplate and close my eyes as the chaos around us gradually dissipates. The chill of my Godstone fades, and I breathe deep of warm desert air and of relief.

Hector says, “We must get you back to the palace.”

“Yes, of course,” I say, pulling away from him and standing tall. “Let’s go.” Maybe if I pretend hard enough, I will feel strong in truth.

My guards form a wedge of clanking armor and drawn swords. As we begin the long, steep trek home, a bit of white robe, edged with glowing cinders, flutters to the ground at my feet.

About the Author

Rae Carson is the author of The Girl of Fire and Thorns and The Crown of Embers. Locus, the premier magazine for science fiction and fantasy, proclaimed, “Carson joins the ranks of writers like Kristin Cashore, Megan Whalen Turner, and Tamora Pierce as one of YA’s best writers of high fantasy.” The Girl of Fire and Thorns was a finalist for the Morris YA Debut Award, and one of ALA’s Top Ten Best Fiction for Young Adults. Rae Carson has dabbled in many things, from teaching to corporate sales to customer service, before becoming a full-time writer. She lives with her family in Columbus, Ohio. You can follow her on Twitter.

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Copyright

This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used to advance the fictional narrative. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.

The Shattered Mountain

Copyright © 2013 by Rae Carson

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HarperCollins Canada

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Toronto, ON, M4W, 1A8, Canada

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New Zealand

HarperCollins Publishers (New Zealand) Limited

P.O. Box 1

Auckland, New Zealand

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United Kingdom

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

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London, W6 8JB, UK

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United States

HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

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New York, NY 10022

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Content

Carson Rae The Shattered Mountain

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Excerpt from The Crown of Embers

About the Author