Obsidian and Stars (Ivory and Bone #2)(44)

I look at Kol. He leans on his spear, taking his weight off his wounded leg. “Could you make it up?” I ask.

“Of course,” he says, so self-assured I know he is trying to be funny. “I’ll carry the dog.”

“Stop it,” I say. “Don’t tease me right now. I need to know if you think you could climb.”

He lifts his drooping head and smiles at me. His smile is still warm, though the usual fire in his eyes has almost gone out. The corners of his lips turn down, despite the smile.

“You’re in pain,” I say.

“I can climb.” And with those three words Kol walks to the foot of the cliff and searches for the first handhold.

Pek bends down and holds a hand out to the dog, who stops howling long enough to sniff him. “I think he’s crying because he can’t get to the girls,” he says. Lifting Black Dog and laying him across his shoulders so he is propped on the pack he carries on his back, Pek follows Seeri and Morsk to the foot of the rock. Seeri starts to climb beside Kol, and Morsk starts up behind her. “I’m not sure I can handle hand-over-hand and carry the dog, too,” Pek says. “But I can try.”

“Be careful!” Seeri calls. I watch as Pek holds the dog’s feet against his chest with one arm and grabs hold of the rock with the other. He digs in a toe and takes his first step up the rock. He rises, establishing a good grip with his one hand before searching for overhangs for his feet. It’s slow going but he makes progress, and seeing that Kol is also managing, I begin to hope we will all make the top. Seeri’s feet are already off the ground the height of two men, though she still has the same distance to go above her.

Kol has managed to pull himself to a spot above my head when I begin to climb behind him. I gain on him quickly, though, and when I perch on a ledge beside him, I stop.

He is seated on a narrow sill of rock, his feet firmly on a wider ledge beneath him. His hands are pulled up into the sleeves of his tunic. “Just resting,” he says. “And trying to warm my hands.”

I can’t blame him. Wind is blowing over the rock, gusting straight down the face. A thin film of water slicks the rock from the spray of the falls, and spots in the shade are so cold it feels as if we’re climbing ice. My chilled fingers sting, and I prop myself opposite Kol. Checking my balance, positioning myself so that my legs hold my weight evenly, I slowly let go and rub my hands together.

“How are the others doing?” Kol asks. “Is Seeri to the top?”

Looking up, I am encouraged to see how far the others have gone. “She’s just about to reach Lees now,” I say. As I watch, she steadies her first knee on the shelf of rock beside the place Noni sits. Pek, even with the added challenge of carrying the dog, is not far behind. “I don’t think Pek wanted to let Morsk get too far away from him,” I say, only half-teasing. Pek is strong and clearly an experienced climber, but even the best climber would struggle to carry both a pack and a dog. “The extra motivation apparently helped. He’s made the top. Seeri’s taking the dog from him now.”

I wait, still looking up at them, willing them each to make the summit safely. When Pek pulls in his feet and disappears from view, I turn back to Kol, expecting a smile or maybe a smart comment about Morsk.

But instead, I find him slumped sideways, his head leaning against the rock, his eyelids lolling shut. “Kol!” His name flies from my lips as I reach to grab his shoulder. But before I can touch him, he slides forward. The front of his tunic grazes my outstretched hands as he slips from the ledge.

I throw off all my cautious thoughts of balance and lunge toward him, grabbing his collar, the laces threading through my fingers and winding around my hand. The hairs of the elk hide dig into the skin under my nails. His weight tugs at my clutching hands, but the Divine holds me balanced, and I hold Kol.

His head jerks up and he snaps awake. As he realizes where he is—as he comes to know that he is about to fall—he grabs the rock with both hands and pulls himself back up.

It happens so quickly, yet I feel every moment, see every detail as if time doesn’t pass at all. I notice the chill of his skin when the backs of my fingers graze his neck. I notice the shifting of his weight, leaning away and then toward me, as his foot underneath him finds a hold again.

And I notice the relief—the ripple of release that rolls from Kol to me and back again like a shared sigh. I notice the breeze that shimmers up from the ground, as if the whole island were sighing in relief along with us.

And I notice the quickness with which the relief we share is snatched away.

My fingers, numb from holding so long on to the cold stone, have slowly lost their grip, even as I stared at Kol and hoped for him to hold on. I look down into the oval surface of the lake straight below, and I see the reflection of two figures—a boy and a girl, clinging to a ledge, white wisps of clouds sweeping across the sky above them. For a long moment only the clouds move, but then my hands are sliding along the rock and I am falling.

And then the surface shatters all around us, and I lose him in the lake’s blackness.

The lake is a world of liquid cold that sinks down into my bones. My eyes open and I see shafts of sunlight stabbing through the surface, illuminating curious fish, a swirl of bubbles, and a figure floating through the water, lying on his back, arms spreading wide as he moves away from me.

Kol.