Nomi smiled back. “It's only just begun.”

“How high can it be?” Ramin asked.

“Do we have enough climbing gear? Enough rope?” Noon said.

“Let's camp and eat.” Beko's voice was calm and assured. “Around the fire, we can talk about these things. And I'm sure Mam Hyden, if she knows more than she has let on thus far, will have plenty to say.” He smiled again, but this time his eyes held a glint of something cool.

He doesn't trust me, Nomi thought. But after what I've done to Ramus, it's hardly surprising. And she realized, looking south at the shadow of the edge of the world, that whatever there was between her and the captain could never be more than it was now.

NOON AND RAMIN unloaded the packhorses and started going through their climbing equipment. Beko watched with half an eye, but most of his attention was directed southward, at the darkening stain that marked the edge of the world they knew. Nomi felt the draw. It called her, inviting her from the camp to bathe in its gloom, and she wondered what could possibly grow there at the base of that great cliff, a place the sun rarely touched. Mystery lured her, and the unknown, but something pushed her as well. Ramus. And the thought that he could get there before her.

I should send two Serians ahead, she thought. Get them to patrol the base of the Divide, try to stop Ramus from starting his climb. But Konrad's fate hung around her neck like a rock, and she had no desire to be the cause of more deaths. Ramus had something powerful and remarkable, and had shown that he was not averse to using it.

“He took no climbing gear,” Beko said. He stood beside her where she leaned against the standing stone, both of them looking south even though the gloom of dusk meant that they saw little.

“I've thought of that,” Nomi replied. “But he's determined. He and Lulah will climb nonetheless.”

“With no ropes? No pitons? No slings? One slip and they're both dead.”

“Maybe,” Nomi said. “But that won't hold him back.”

“Why should it?” Beko said quietly.

Nomi glanced sideways at him but he did not meet her gaze. “Why indeed?” she said. “He's dying anyway. But Lulah isn't.”

“She may be dead already,” Beko said. “Ramus is obviously . . . not of his own mind. Whatever he has—whatever knowledge can do that to a man—can't have come without a cost.”

“He's no killer,” Nomi said, realizing as she spoke how ridiculous that sounded.

But Beko understood. “Konrad threatened him, I know. But maybe Lulah has as well.”

“Serians are loyal.”

“Yes, but not to madness.”

“You think Ramus is mad?”

Beko touched Nomi's back casually, then slipped his arm around her waist and leaned into her. “There was something mad about him the day we met.”

“My fault,” she said, and Beko's arm brought her no warmth. “I gave him that sickness, so Konrad is my fault, and—”