We walked in silence for a long time, moving up the mountain in slow switchbacks. In some spots, the trail was so narrow that I could do little more than cling to the mountainside, take tiny, shuffling steps, and hope the Saints were kind. Around noon, we descended the first slope and started up the second, which was, to my misery, even steeper and taller than the first.
I stared at the trail in front of me, putting one foot in front of the other, trying to shake my sense of hopelessness. The more I thought about it, the more I worried that Mal might be right. I couldn’t lose the feeling that I’d doomed both of us. The Darkling needed me alive, but what might he do to Mal? I’d been so focused on my own fear and my own future that I hadn’t given much thought to what Mal had done or what he’d chosen to give up. He could never go back to the army, to his friends, to being a decorated tracker. Worse, he was guilty of desertion, maybe of treason, and the penalty for that was death.
By dusk, we’d climbed high enough that the few scraggling trees had all but disappeared and winter frost still lay on the ground in places. We ate a meager dinner of hard cheese and stringy dried beef. Mal still didn’t think it was safe to build a fire, so we huddled beneath the blanket in silence, shivering against the howling wind, our shoulders barely touching.
I had almost dozed off when Mal suddenly said, “I’m taking us north tomorrow.”
My eyes flew open. “North?”
“To Tsibeya.”
“You want to go after the stag?” I said in disbelief.
“I know I can find it.”
“If the Darkling hasn’t found it already!”
“No,” he said, and I felt him shake his head. “He’s still out there. I can feel it.”
His words reminded me eerily of what the Darkling had said on the path to Baghra’s cottage. The stag was meant for you, Alina. I can feel it.
“And what if the Darkling finds us first?” I asked.
“You can’t spend the rest of your life running, Alina. You said the stag could make you powerful. Powerful enough to fight him?”
“Maybe.”
“Then we have to do it.”
“If he catches us, he’ll kill you.”
“I know.”
“All Saints, Mal. Why did you come after me? What were you thinking?”
He sighed and scrubbed a hand over his short hair. “I didn’t think. We were halfway back to Tsibeya when we got orders to turn back around and hunt you. So that’s what I did. The hard part was leading the others away from you, especially after you basically announced yourself in Ryevost.”
“And now you’re a deserter.”
“Yes.”
“Because of me.”
“Yes.”
My throat ached with unshed tears, but I managed to keep my voice from shaking. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”
“I’m not afraid to die, Alina,” he said in that cold, steady voice that seemed so alien to me. “But I’d like to give us a fighting chance. We have to go after the stag.”
I thought about what he said for a long while. At last, I whispered, “Okay.”
All I got back was a snore. Mal was already asleep.
HE KEPT A BRUTAL PACE over the next few days but my pride, and maybe my fear, wouldn’t let me ask him to slow down. We saw an occasional goat skittering down the slopes above us and spent one night camped by a brilliant blue mountain lake, but those were rare breaks in the monotony of leaden rock and sullen sky.
Mal’s grim silences didn’t help. I wanted to know how he’d ended up tracking the stag for the Darkling and what his life had been like for the last five months, but my questions were met with terse one-word replies, and sometimes he just ignored me completely. When I was feeling particularly tired or hungry, I’d glare resentfully at his back and think about giving him a good whack over the head to get his attention. Most of the time, I just worried. I worried that Mal regretted his decision to come after me. I worried about the impossibility of finding the stag in the vastness of Tsibeya. But more than anything, I worried about what the Darkling might do to Mal if we were captured.
When we finally began the northwest descent out of the Petrazoi, I was thrilled to leave the barren mountains and their cold winds behind. My heart lifted as we descended below the tree line and into a welcoming wood. After days of scrabbling over hard ground, it was a pleasure to walk on soft beds of pine needles, to hear the rustle of animals in the underbrush and breathe air dense with the smell of sap.
We camped by a burbling creek, and when Mal began gathering twigs for a fire, I nearly broke out in song. I summoned a tiny, concentrated shaft of light to start the flames, but Mal didn’t seem particularly impressed. He disappeared into the woods and brought back a rabbit that we cleaned and roasted for dinner. With a bemused expression, he watched as I gobbled down my portion and then sighed, still hungry.
“You’d be a lot easier to feed if you hadn’t developed an appetite,” he groused, finishing his food and stretching out on his back, his head pillowed on his arm.
I ignored him. I was warm for the first time since I’d left the Little Palace, and nothing could spoil that bliss. Not even Mal’s snores.
WE NEEDED TO RESTOCK our supplies before we headed farther north into Tsibeya, but it took us another day and a half to find a hunting trail that led us to one of the villages that lay on the northwest side of the Petrazoi. The closer we got to civilization, the more nervous Mal got. He would disappear for long stretches, scouting ahead, keeping us moving parallel to the town’s main road. Early in the afternoon, he appeared wearing an ugly brown coat and a brown squirrel hat.
“Where did you find those?” I asked.
“I grabbed them from an unlocked house,” he said guiltily. “But I left a few coins. It’s eerie, though—the houses are all empty. I didn’t see anyone on the road either.”