Page 28 of The High Mountain Court

He had said her name again, the second time in a matter of seconds. She didn’t know what that meant, that new familiarity. It cracked her open in a way that she despised. Why did he have to speak to her like a friend and treat her like an enemy?

One day she would see the ocean. One day she’d feel as mighty as those giant waves. The full moon followed her along the trail as she swallowed the tears threatening to destroy her.

* * *

Remy wasn’t sure when she had fallen asleep. The dim firelight flickered and cast shadows about the cabin. Someone must have fed it while she slept. The night wasn’t as cold now that they had skirted past the harbor into the Southern Court.

Groggily sitting up, Remy rubbed her eyes. She wiped away their blurriness and scanned the cabin that had become their campsite. Two lumps slept on either side of her, Heather and Fenrin. Fenrin’s snores shook the floorboards under her. He had come down with some sort of cold during their travels, turning his normal soft snores into loud honks.

Three bodies slept lined against the far wall: the Twin Eagles and Carys. And one in front of the doorway, Hale. It was a strategic position to guard against any unwelcome guests. Remy wondered if the witch hunters had spooked him.

The light of the full moon illuminated the open doorway. The door had long been ripped off its hinges, leaving the cabin open to the elements.

Bright moonlight beamed into the room. The harvest moon. Curses, she forgot. Heather and Fenrin had invited her to light candles when they arrived at the cabin, but Remy had been so tired she had all but collapsed on her bedroll.

She crept on bare feet to the door, careful not to wake Hale lying across the threshold. Her injured feet had healed. Of course, now she had a swollen lip from the witch hunter’s punch that stung every time she moved it. A bruise spread from her brow to her jawline where that boot had collided with her face. Her right ear still had a high-pitched ringing, and it popped every time she swallowed.

She reached into the outer pocket of her hiking pack and blindly found the longer of two candles. Her fingers skimmed over the stubbier red wax candle. Every time she touched it, she wondered if she would ever use it. She stealthily tiptoed over Hale’s sleeping body. She paused, but he did not stir, his breathing slow and steady.

As she stepped out into the night, she braced for the chill, but it was still temperate in these parts. The South was indeed warmer than the West.

She stayed close and found a spot below the window where the moonlight kissed the ground. She knelt, pressing one finger into the earth. Remy dug a little hole to hold her candle straight.

With a rock and flint from her totem bag, she struck a spark to light the candle, whispering, “Mother Moon, bless me this night.”

Remy took totems from her bag: a fledgling raven’s feather, a piece of red string, a snail shell, a stick of cinnamon, and a pressed white flower. She laid them out in front of the candle. The moonlight bathed her totems in gleaming white light.

Remy looked into the blue base of the flame. She wondered if the souls of her ancestors listened through the witch candle of this harvest moon. What would she say to her parents if they could hear her? Pressing her lips together, tears filled her eyes.

“I almost died yesterday,” she whispered to the flame. A tear slipped down her cheek and fell off her chin. “I thought of you. I wondered if I’d see you in the afterlife. I wondered what you’d say to me.”

She took a ragged breath as more tears fell.

“I don’t think you’d be very proud of me. I have amounted to little in this life. I’ve just been a hiding coward.”

She spoke the words Hale had called her around the campfire those nights before. It was true. All she had ever done was hide.

“I’m going after the Shil-de ring and the amulet,” she said, one side of her mouth pulling up. “A quest like the ones you used to tell me as I fell asleep at night. I’ve made some friends too. I think you’d like them.” Remy imagined her father laughing along with the Twin Eagles, swapping battle stories, and her mother trading tales with Carys. “A prince saved me yesterday. Just like in those stories. I think you might like him too,” Remy added, afraid even in the darkness to invoke Hale’s name. She wondered what her parents would tell her, what advice they would have, which direction they would steer her.

Her eyes welled with another bout of tears. “I miss you.”

She moved the pressed flower from her totems and swapped it for a small red leaf nearby. The leaf would be her totem for the next moon cycle.

She waited for Mother Moon’s wisdom, for something to whisper into her mind, an intention for the month ahead. The flame bobbed in the windless night.

Something murmured in her mind, but it was not the moon. She knew that warm, soulful voice. It was her mother. A flicker of memory spoke from the flame: “Never let anyone else tell you who you are, Remy, not even me. No one decides how bright you shine but you.”

Remy’s heart cracked open at that. She remembered the night her mother had spoken those words to her. Bundled in blankets, they had looked up at the night’s sky in Yexshire. It had been a harvest moon, like this one. The light snow had dusted their eyelashes and headscarves. She remembered looking out over the twinkling lights of the city, how they mirrored the stars above. Her mother had woken her simply to look at the moon. Her older brothers and younger sister still slept, but Remy and her mother had taken in that night’s sky, just the two of them. She still felt her mother’s warm arms around her, pulling her into the warmth of her embrace. What she wouldn’t give to have her mother’s arms around her again.

Remy relived that moment for a long time, savoring that memory. She took one last deep breath.

“Thank you,” she whispered to the candle. Then she said the last words, rolling in a chant off her tongue, “This or something better now manifests for the highest good of all.”

Blowing out the candle, she collected her totems and put them back in her bag with care. She wiped the last of her tears on her rough tunic sleeve.

As she walked up the steps, there was no lump sleeping across the threshold.

Scanning the room, Remy found Hale sitting in a far shadowed corner. It was too dark to see more than his outline, and yet she was sure his eyes watched her. Careful not to disturb her sleeping companions, she made her way over to him. Her bare feet made it easier to pad silently across the wood floor. Remy wondered if his fae ears had heard what she said to the candle. She prayed the crackling of the fire had covered the sound of her words.

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