Is he so desperate to get home that he’s forgotten that Yakone is injured? A tiny jolt of anxiety stirred in her belly. I know he’s waited a long time to return to the mountains, but we have to look after our own.

Kallik and Yakone could have stayed by the Melting Sea, but they had chosen to go with Toklo and Lusa along the gigantic river, following the setting sun toward the place where Toklo had been born. Kallik insisted that until each of them found a permanent home, their shared journey was not over. Lusa looked down at Yakone, feverish and in pain, and wondered if now he wished he had stayed with the other white bears at the Melting Sea.

The sun sank behind the mountains, streaking the sky with scarlet, and stars began to appear, but the firesnake never slowed, roaring on into the night. Kallik and Toklo settled down to sleep, but Lusa felt as restless as if ants were crawling through her pelt. She sat beside Yakone, listening to his ragged, raspy breathing. She raised her head and gazed up at the sky, but her vision was so blurred from the wind that she couldn’t distinguish the patterns of the stars. “Are you there, Ujurak?” she called softly. “We need you so much!”

But there was no response from the darkness, and Lusa couldn’t feel the presence of their mysterious, shape-changing friend anywhere around her. Lonely and frightened, she crouched beside Yakone as the firesnake thundered through the darkness.

Eventually Lusa drifted into an uneasy sleep. After a while her friends’ voices roused her and she struggled to her paws again, blinking in bewilderment until she remembered where she was.

“Lusa, the firesnake is slowing down!” Kallik told her excitedly. “We must be getting somewhere.”

“But where?” Toklo asked, scanning the land ahead. “That’s what I’d like to know.”

I thought Toklo knew where we were going! Alarmed, Lusa fought her way back to full wakefulness and looked around. The firesnake was rolling slowly along the SilverPath. The wind had dropped, and she was able to see their surroundings more clearly in the pale, cold light of dawn. The flat plain had given way to ground that sloped upward into rolling foothills. The mountains, which had appeared as purple shadows on the horizon the day before, now loomed up ahead, looking much more solid and real. As the sun rose behind them, casting their shadows forward, Lusa could make out dark forests stretching up the lower slopes of the mountains, and snow still lying thick on the summits.

“Wow!” she exclaimed. “We’re getting really close to the mountains!”

The firesnake slowed down even more; Lusa staggered at the uneven motion, then lost her balance entirely as the firesnake shuddered to a halt. Yakone let out a yelp of pain as the pebbles shifted and pattered against his injured paw.

“Get down!” Toklo snapped. “Flat-faces!”