The wind shifted. The scent of smoke and mountain stone curled around them as Davi guided them through the final slope, his voice low and almost awed.
"If she hadn't been with us," Kael said once, glancing toward Yshari, "we would've passed right by."
No torches marked the way. No guards. Just a jagged crease in the cliffside, lost in brush and shadow. It didn't look like a home. But as they entered, the land opened.
A vast cavern stretched out beneath the rock, glowing with warm fires. Tents and stone dwellings, animals penned in carved-out corners, people huddled together against the cold. Their heads turned at the sound of hooves. Silence rolled like fog.
Then—
"She came with the storm," a child's voice rang out. "Just like I told you."
All eyes snapped to a raised platform. A girl stood barefoot, long dark hair falling over her blind eyes, her small fingers curled around a carved staff. She was barely seven.
Yshari froze. She didn't know her. Had never seen her. But something strange clawed at her chest. Recognition without memory.
Then—
"Yshari?"
A boy stumbled forward from the crowd. Gangly, twelve, with the same fierce brows and sun-browned skin as their father. His bottom lip trembled.
"You grew up," she whispered, her voice catching.
He crashed into her, arms around her waist, hugging too tight. She dropped to her knees, clinging to him as if she'd never let go. Her heart cracked open.
"I thought you were dead," he said, voice muffled in her shoulder. "Mama said you'd come back. But I stopped believing…"
Tears streamed down her face. "I tried, I tried—I missed you every day."
And then her mother was there. Taller than she remembered, wearier, but still regal. Her arms wrapped around both of them. "My storm-born girl," she whispered, voice shaking. "I knew you'd find us."
Yshari wanted to weep.
But her eyes kept drifting back to the girl.
The child stood motionless, blind eyes fixed toward her like she could see after all. There was no fear, no confusion. Only a calm that felt too old for her tiny body.
"She's your sister," her mother said softly. "Born after. I swear to the gods—Yshari, I was faithful. But she came anyway. I don't know how."
Yshari stared. Something twisted in her gut. This girl had her eyes. Her stillness. A kind of eerie echo that wasn't normal. But she didn't hate her. She couldn't.
The girl smiled. "You came with the fire," she said, tilting her head. "The wolves follow you. The sky listens when you scream."
Yshari blinked hard.