Varia stutters once, her foot catching in the deep snow on a sharp incline, and I bend my knee and motion to my back. “Hop on, Your Highness.” I smirk. “Zera’s carriage service, at your, well, service.”

“I can get there on my own two feet,” she snaps, her d’Malvane pride raising its quills in defense.

“With all your energy intact?” I lilt. Her brows furrow, and after a glare from her, I feel her pressure on my back, and I lace my arms around her knees. Despite being physically older than me, she’s not anywhere near as heavy as I am. It could be the prospect of the Tree being so close, or it could be the way I can feel her heart—or is it mine in the bag?—beating against my spine, but no matter how tiring it is, I manage to haul her up the incline. My legs ache, my fingers and toes starting to lose all feeling, but instantly I sense Varia’s magic healing me of the frostbite.

“Hey,” I demand. “Cut it out. Save your energy.”

“As if I have a choice,” she scoffs down at me.

“Why did you bring just me?” I ask. “What about Gavik? He could protect you, too. You’re so far away from him—he’s probably screaming in the middle of Vetris somewhere right now.”

“Gavik is superfluous,” she says. “I need only you to find the Tree.”

“I’m flattered,” I grunt. The sweat beading down my neck feels like a trail of ice, my skin prickling as the wind howls louder and rips faster across the snow the higher we go. My ears are open for anything condor- or bonemoth-sounding, so when the blistering crack of ice happens, I brace myself immediately and turn my head. Yet there’s nothing at all—not in the sky, not on the ground. We are the only ones in this lonely white space. But I swear I heard—

“Why are we stopping?” Varia presses, nudging me with her knees. “Hurry up—it’s just over that rise.”

I can feel her five years of want burning through her blood and into mine. I peer over the stony edge of the peak and to the abyss below us—there, standing tall against the snow, is the web of bridge-connected towers. The scholar-city of Breych, Yorl had called it. But with the way I saw the Bone Tree in my memory, I was looking down on the city from a much higher angle. Steeling my thighs, I carve up and through the mountain snow as fast as I can without dislodging Varia.

The farther up I climb, the stronger the wind howls. The flying snow goes from kissing my cheeks to stinging them ferociously, each flake like a blade of ice. And then suddenly my feet find a flat expanse of rock, and I blink away the frost from my eyelashes.