But opposite us, a higher peak towered.

To be sure, I had seen higher; snow-capped peaks wreathed in mist. But those had been the Abode of the Gods, and no one human had dared set foot there, let alone dwell there. This, this was different.

I forced my gaze to focus. Hidden in the high peaks and crags was a man-made structure, towers and crenellations challenging the sky. Humans dwelled there. The steep slope that led to the eyrie was a complex labyrinth of fissures and moraines, unnavigable to the eye at a distance, and doubtless even more confusing at close range. I remembered picking our way through the Stone Forest in Ch’in, and how we would have been hopelessly lost without the dragon’s guidance. This looked much, much worse-and infinitely more dangerous.

Nonetheless, my diadh-anam blazed in exultation.

“Bao!” I whispered.

“So it’s true,” a neutral voice remarked. Manil Datar had come alongside me without my realizing it. When I reached for the twilight in unthinking panic, he raised one hand in a peaceable gesture. “Do not curse me. I mean no harm. You are god-touched. I did not know, or I would not have taken you as a passenger.”

I was confused. “Why?”

He shrugged. “It is bad business when gods fight.” He jerked his chin at the distant peak. “Kurugiri, eh?”

I echoed the word. “Kurugiri.”

Manil Datar glanced at me sidelong. “You mean to pit your magic against hers, Lady Dakini?” He made the term a subtle insult. “Against the Spider Queen Jagrati?”

I shrugged, too. “Maybe.”

His mouth hardened. “Bad luck for you. You have some tricks, yes. She has powerful magic.”

“What do you know of her?” I asked him. I didn’t want to be beholden to the man, but all knowledge was worth having.

Datar gestured. “She comes from the south, far south. She has stolen a great treasure there, and come to the one place where no one dares take it from her. With this treasure, she has bewitched the Falconer into marrying her even though it is forbidden, bewitched the men who serve him.”

“What is this treasure?”

He lowered his voice. “It is the kaalahiira that Lord Shiva made from the ashes of Kamadeva.”

“What is kaalahiira and kamadeva?” I knew Lord Shiva was one of the many gods of Bhodistan, but I didn’t know the other words.

Manil Datar gave me a disgusted look. “You do not know the story? How can your gods send someone so ignorant?”

I touched his sleeve. “Please?”

He snorted, but he relented. “Kamadeva is the god of desire. When he disturbed Lord Shiva at his meditation, Lord Shiva burned him to ashes with his third eye. When Lord Shiva heard the grieving of Kamadeva’s widow, Rati, and learned that Kamadeva was trying to awaken him to fight against a demon, he squeezed the ashes, so.” He made a fist. “To make a hiiraka, the gem-stone that shines like ice. Only it was black because of the ashes, so it is called a kaalahiira.”

“A diamond,” I murmured to myself. “A black diamond.”

“It makes desire come, very strong desire.” Datar pointed toward the peak of Kurugiri. “So. The Falconer rules his nest, but the Spider Queen rules him.” He shook his head. “You are beautiful, yes, but no match for the kaalahiira of Kamadeva.”

To be sure, I didn’t feel like it in my current state. “How did Jagrati steal it?”

Manil Datar turned his head and spat. “She was nobody, a no-caste nothing, a collector of night-soil. One night, she profaned the temple where the kaalahiira was kept and took it. I do not know how.”

Shivering beneath the bright sun, I stared at the stronghold. It was a harsh place, and I couldn’t imagine much grew there. “How do they live up there?”

He shrugged. “I do not know. The Falconer demands tribute for the services of his assassins.” He pointed again. “You cannot see it from so far, but there is a great pot that hangs on a chain from that plateau. People who wish to hire his falcons to kill someone put messages and tributes in it. So.” He gave me a mirthless smile. “Do you wish to go to Kurugiri? I will show you the way. You can send the Falconer a message or try your luck in his maze.”

“No.” I shivered again. If I were a great heroine from the days of yore like Phèdre nó Delaunay, that was likely exactly what I would do; but I was too scared and miserable to attempt it on my own. “I will go to Bhaktipur to ask the Rani for help.”

Datar raised his brows. “In eleven years, she has not found a way to defeat the Falconer and the Spider Queen. I do not see why one sickly dakini will change anything.”

A coughing fit took me, loose phlegm rattling in my chest. I doubled over in the saddle, swallowing hard against the pain in my throat when the fit ended. “Well,” I said in a hoarse voice. “We will see.”

“Why?” There was a rare note of genuine curiosity in Manil Datar’s voice. “Why do you care?”

I touched my aching chest, where my diadh-anam called futilely to Bao’s-so near, and yet so far. “Someone I love is there.”

“Bad luck for him,” Datar said wryly. “Or maybe not. Maybe he is happy there.”

I shook my head, setting off another wave of dizziness, steadied myself against the pommel, and sneezed. “No. He’s not.”

Manil Datar nudged his mount, moving away from me. “Bad luck for both of you,” he said over his shoulder. “Come, we are losing time.”

Rounding the shoulder of the mountain, we began the long, perilous process of making our descent. By the end of the day, we were back below the treeline and the peak of Kurugiri was behind us. In our camp, I gazed at its silhouette surrounded by a nimbus of gold and crimson, the heights catching the light of the setting sun long after shadows had settled on the long, low slope we travelled.

“I will find a way, Bao,” I murmured. “I promise.”

FIFTY-SIX

Sanjiv had called my ailment the mountain-sickness, and I’d hoped that as we left the mountains, I’d leave my sickness behind.

Not so.

It had sunk its claws too deep into me to let go that easily. Downward and downward we proceeded, travelling on a steep decline toward the valley that held the tiny kingdom of Bhaktipur. My eardrums strained and popped. Over and over, I swallowed against the pressure, even though it still hurt to swallow.

The pockets of snow dwindled.

The air grew thick and moist, and it seemed my head thickened with it. I could no longer breathe the Five Styles, forced to breathe through my mouth only.

If not for my illness and the persistent yearning of my diadh-anam, I would have been glad. We were venturing into inhabited territory, and after the rigors of the mountains, I was pleased to see stone houses with thatched roofs, fields of reddish soil planted with sorghum and millet, farmers working in the fields. For once in my life, I’d had a surfeit of wilderness.

As we worked our way downward, spruces and cedars gave way to more exotic flora, plants and trees I’d only seen growing in the glass pavilion in Terre d’Ange: poinsettias, oleander, towering ferns. There were forests of rhododendrons growing taller than I ever imagined they could. When they were in bloom, it must be a spectacular sight. Even on the verge of winter, the sense of lush greenery was overwhelming after the stark rigors of the mountains. There were unfamiliar gnarled trees with roots that crawled like great serpents above the ground, trees with thoughts as slow and ancient as any I’d encountered save Elua’s Oak.

Birds with bright plumage flashed amid the branches, and agile little monkeys with ancient wise-man’s faces chattered at us.

After so long in the heights, the kingdom of Bhaktipur seemed like a fairy-tale place, a charming city nestled in a green valley. I gazed around in wonder as we entered the narrow, bustling streets. Here and there, cows wandered untended, seemingly free to roam the city. The architecture was a mix of pagoda-style buildings familiar from Ch’in, and domes, arches, and minarets I guessed was a more traditional Bhodistani style. Folk clad in brightly colored garb made way for our caravan as we pushed through the crowded streets. We arrived at midday, and it was warm enough that I was sweltering in my thick woolen Tufani attire.