“He was going to kill you.”
Only plain white teeth filled the sorceress’s mouth now, surrounded by red lips. It was too late to catch the pearls. Nothing blinked. She rubbed her eyes.
The sorceress hugged her tightly, and Nothing leaned in, wrapping herself around her sorceress.
They sank into the stone of the mountain together, falling through granite, held by hard fingers of basalt, and the sorceress’s arms were around her, the sorceress’s breath on her cheek.
Then they were spat out into sunlight again and the sweet-smelling breeze.
“Nothing! Nothing!”
Kirin and Sky called her, and she was surrounded. The sorceress leaned back.
Nothing opened her eyes. She felt… clean. Like she’d run hard or danced fast and all her breath and blood was new. Like she’d laughed herself a new heart.
The mirror lake glittered blue beside them, and the sorceress slumped, one hand pressed to the sand at Nothing’s knee. She stared at Nothing, and Nothing stared back, sort of smiling, sort of dazed.
“You waited for me,” Nothing said, still laughing. Tiny popping giggles bursting into words. “I’m glad you did.”
The feathers withdrew into the sorceress’s skin, leaving only pink and vivid white burns dappling her jaw and neck, streaking down to vanish beneath the tattered, burned remains of her dress. The sorceress’s eyes were massive, her skin almost translucent, bruised.
“What happened?” Kirin demanded.
“Nothing, are you well?” Sky asked, crouching beside her to put a firm hand to her back. It was cool! Sky was always so much warmer than her! He said, “You’re flushed. Are you injured? That’s blood on your dress.”
Nothing tore her gaze from the sorceress and stared at the splatter wonderingly. She touched a finger to it, liking the color contrast.
“Skybreaker is dead,” the sorceress murmured.
“What?” Kirin put one knee on the ground, leaning on the other. “Nothing, what did you do?”
She stared at him, smiling. Her throat felt raw, but good. Or had lava torn up and out of her, spewing into laughter? “He was going to kill the sorceress. And take you.”
“Take me back to the palace, maybe. The sorcerers of the Living Mountains are not our enemies!”
“He was attacking my mountain, Kirin.”
“Your mountain!”
“Kirin,” Sky said in a rumble.
“It is my mountain,” said the sorceress firmly. “And now the others will come, because he’s dead. His familiar is a great spirit, and they will all know. They know you are here, Kirin Dark-Smile.”
“We can defeat them all,” Nothing said.
“What is happening to you?” Sky asked, sliding his cool hand up her neck to her nape. He gripped her skull, turning her head to him.
“I am so hot, there’s magma inside me,” she said, still smiling. Sky would understand!
“What did you do to her?” Kirin demanded of the sorceress.
The sorceress said, “She’s remembering. Her heart is remembering.”
Nothing laughed. “I don’t remember anything. But I like this feeling!” Her laughter forced her eyes closed. She could feel the heat in her cheeks, in her neck and chest, tingling in her fingers! Suddenly the mountain tilted and Nothing gasped, falling back into Sky’s arm. “Oh…” she moaned softly as her stomach turned over. She was close to something magnificent and massive. It was going to break her.
“It’s too much,” the sorceress murmured. “Too fast. She’s not in control and nobody is.”
Keeping her eyes closed was the only way to calm her stomach. She pressed her hands against it, woozy. She swallowed, trying to cool the hot rock in her throat.
“Set us free,” Kirin commanded. “Now. Before she hurts herself. We will return to the palace, to the Empress with the Moon in Her Mouth, and all will know I am safe. You will no longer be a target.”
“I have two more days with her.”
“Is that worth your mountain? It is in danger, Sorceress. You said yourself, they will come.”
Nothing pried her eyes open as the sorceress lowered her chin stubbornly. Her green eye burned greener than anything against the vibrant crimson blood of burst capillaries. “I can hold the mountain.”
“You’re weak and injured,” Kirin said.
Nothing touched a burn blister near the sorceress’s chin, and the sorceress hissed in shock.
She said, “I will heal. I have the power of the Fifth Mountain still.”
“It’s weak too, without its demon.” Kirin grasped the sorceress’s shoulder, digging his fingers in. “Do you want to survive? Can you, against the other Living Mountains and their masters?”
The sorceress looked only at Nothing. “With my demon, I could.”
Nothing’s eyes closed in a wave of dizziness, and she saw fire, flicking distant and blue, like butterflies. Terrible, beautiful blue-fire butterflies. Everything that was left of a volcano heart, pieced out, fluttering desperately away. She needed to collect them again, cup them in her palms and breathe them back into a conflagration.
“Look at her,” Kirin murmured. “Your demon is a barely-seventeen-year-old girl now and doesn’t know how to help without killing herself. Is your pride worth her life?”
Silence.
“Nothing,” said the prince.
She opened her eyes again, but it seemed to take a hundred years.
Kirin stared at her. He didn’t say any more, but Nothing felt the urgency in him, in herself. From the warmth of Sky’s embrace, she met the sorceress’s gaze. She did not want to speak, but she did. She looked at the sorceress. “You have to let us go.”
“I do not.”
“I have to go with Kirin,” Nothing said slowly, through a hundred days.
The sorceress said, “He doesn’t need you to see him safely home.”
“I need it. He’s mine. I need this, and I need my name…,” Nothing said, though this time it took only a hundred hours. The roar of thunder in her ears softened to a hissing. “Let me go. Let the three of us go home.”
“You are home.”
Nothing grinned. It was weak but real. She felt like her skin was solidifying. A hundred heartbeats and she’d be herself again. She was starving. “Not yet. It’s not my home yet. But maybe it will be, if I get to choose it. If I get to choose you.”
The sorceress took a deep breath, and as she released it carefully, the burns on her neck and face faded to pink, then shining scars, and then they were gone. She licked her lips. “Very well. For a price,” she said.
Nothing giggled. Always a bargain. “Of course.”
For a long moment silence ruled the valley. The sun pressed down, warm in the still afternoon. There were no clouds left whatsoever, only harsh blue sky, jagged black peaks, and strangely still alders. Not even their leaves shook.
Sky squeezed his cool fingers around the base of Nothing’s skull.
The sorceress said, “A kiss. You can leave, all three of you, for a kiss.”
Kirin scoffed, but Nothing laughed. A springtime laugh, eager as bumblebees dancing against daisies. “Yes!” she cried.