"These belts seem to take care of hiding us from them rather well."

"From a distance. We may have to fight our way across the tundra if the patrols are heavy enough."

"I don't see anything wrong with that at all," she said in a dreadfully eager tone.

"Me either," he agreed with a single nod.

Moving at a slow walk, they continued down the mountain valleys. They camped early that night in a small cave, then set out again well after sunrise. Peeks of the tundra appeared between mountains and hills as they continued a zig-zagging descent down the valleys. About noon that day, they reached the pass that split the mountains in two, and the tundra opened beneath them as they stood at the pinnacle of the pass and looked down. A featureless white plain, unbroken snow, as far as the eye could see. Almost unconsciously, Tarin looked northeast, to where the pyramid of Gora Umadar stood beyond the horizon, their ultimate destination.

They moved about halfway down the pass, and then Tarrin stopped them when he saw a rather large cave mouth yawning just along the edge of the pass wall, a perfect place to stop and rest and prepare for the trek across the featureless tundra.

"You know, the snow's thinning out," Jesmind noticed as she pointed to a snowbank by the cave entrance. "It can't be more than a span or so deep."

"The mountains block the weather," he said distantly. "All the snow is forced to fall on the other side and in the mountains. That means the snowstorms that make it over here don't have much left. I doubt there's more than a span of snow on the tundra."

"How long will we camp here?"

"A day," he answered. "We have five days to get there, and I'm giving us four to cross the tundra. We can come down onto the tundra tomorrow and run to make up the time to get down, and then from there we'll just have to see how fast we go."

"I hate this," she growled as they stepped into the cave. "I hate having to go slow."

"I do too, but it's necessary," he said. "Let's set things up and get some dinner started. I'm hungy."

It was a tense layover for both of them. Jesmind was nearly in a fever pitch, but Tarrin was too distracted to notice. Things were nearly over and done with. In just a few days, it would all be over. Jasana would be safe in just a few days. She just had to hang on for five more days. He still had no sense of her inside the void, but he still just knew that she was alive and well. He didn't know how he knew, but he did. Val had not harmed her, at least not yet, because he knew of the terrible retribution the Were-cat would exact against him if he did so. He wouldn't be free to harm Jasana until after he got the Firestaff. Tarrin held in his paws a means to forever deny Val the chance to free himself of his prison, and they both knew it. That gave Tarrin a power over Val that not even the bound god could deny. Val was indeed marching to Tarrin's drum, and the Were-cat knew he had to keep playing as long as he possibly could.

Jesmind stormed around, muttering, cursing, throwing rocks at the walls, and venting on him for her own impatience. Tarrin simply sat there and endured it with a look of disengaged concentration on his face, as he struggled to master his own impatience, tried not to act the same way as his mate. She got worse and worse as the sun set and the moonless night took hold over the land, as the light of their small fire cast warm yellow and red hues across the red-tinged walls of the cave.

"Jesmind," he finally said, opening his eyes after something whizzed by his face so closely that he felt the air it displaced flutter against him. "Sit."

"Don't you dare order me around!" she raged at him. "Doesn't it bother you in the slightest? How can you just sit there!?"

"I sit here to keep from acting like you," he told her, looking up at her with hooded eyes. "If you want a distraction, I'll be happy to give you one."

She looked at him, then her eyebrows rose in surprise when she caught the change in his scent. "How can you think about that at a time like this?" she demanded.

"Because this will be the last chance we have," he answered calmly. "I want one more night with you before we both march off into the face of insanity. And if anything, it will calm you down. I'll get you in bed just to make you stop pacing."

Jesmind snorted loudly, but the invitation was there, and he knew his mate. Even if she knew she was being manipulated, she couldn't pass it up.

"That's low, my mate," she growled, but she had already grabbed the tail of her thick fur-lined shirt.

"I'm sure you'll enjoy the indignity," he said dryly as she shrugged out of her shirt, then sidled onto his lap and started kissing him.

It had been their last night spent together before all was said and done.

Tarrin lay with her in his arms as the light of the morning spilled into the opening of the cave, the fire long died away and the cave cold and unpleasant, but the thick fur under which they lay kept them both comfortably warm. Jesmind was sleeping, and it was times like that, when sleep softened her features, that she was at her loveliest. He could stare down at her for hours, never growing tired of the sight of her. He couldn't see her face now, but he knew exactly how it would look, with her cheek resting against his shoulder, her arms tucked in around him, embracing him even in her slumber, that heart-stealing expression of peaceful contentment that made her so incredibly beautiful. He knew he wouldn't see that expression again until after it was all over, if he ever saw it again, but the memory of it was enough to make him content.

Four days. Four days until they got back their daughter. Four days until the armies of the gods fell on the armies of Val and destroyed his hopes to conquer and rule. He was nearly sick with anxiety over the idea of having to wait another four days, but there was no help for it. And there would be no secure snuggling out on the tundra. Their every waking moment would be spent in wary alertness, ensuring no enemies snuck up on them. They would not sleep together again, as one of them would always be awake from that point onward. So this was truly their last chance to be together, and Tarrin was not going to let it be squandered. It meant too much to him for him to waste it.

But they couldn't lounge around all day. They had a schedule to keep. It was going to take them half a day to get down onto the tundra, and then they would have to run to make up some time. After that, it would be an exercise in careful pacing to try to reach the pyramid at the exact moment he wanted to be there.

But that didn't mean that they had to leave right now. He was content to enjoy it as long as he could, the feel and smell and nearness of his beloved mate, revelling in the love he had for her. Any time they lost now they could make up on the flat board of the tundra below, where their speed would become unhindered by having to ascend or descend.

He did just that for quite a while, as the sun's angle changed in the sky, though it barely managed to clear the horizon. They would only have about five hours of what could be called daylight, and alot of that was when the sun was below the horizon. The winter solstice had come come and gone, and every day now would have just a little more light. Though it really made no difference now.

Jesmind finally stirred, making an adorably cute growling sound in her throat as her claws unconsciously hooked lightly into him. "Morning," she said, raising her head to look at him. "What time is it?"

"Daytime," he said absently, then he smiled when he saw the look in her eyes. "Still indignant?"

She giggled almost girlishly. "A little, but I can't for the life of me say I'm unhappy with the reason for it," she told him, leaning up and kissing him intimately. "You play dirty, my mate."