As it was now, he had to risk it. The possibility kept him dancing on the edge of a knife, scanning every shadow and freezing at the sight of every spirit. If they looked even slightly aggressive, he would have to run for his life, dropping a crystal flask as a distraction.

As the night stretched on, his vigilance scraped his nerves clean, until his eyes felt frozen wide and his ears seemed to tremble at every sound. He didn’t know how many hours he’d spent out here alone in the cold and wind, but it felt like days, and as he staggered forward with every step he lost a little more feeling in his legs.

Finally, on the jagged slope overlooking a natural chasm, he stopped. He’d been wandering around on vague instructions the whole night, every once in a while calling out Yerin’s name and hoping she heard it before a Remnant did. He knew how unlikely it was to work, and had long since resigned himself to as many nights of this as he could physically survive.

But now, new breath filled his lungs as he realized: he recognized this place. This was where he’d seen Yerin in the first place, in Suriel’s vision. The chasm was only about twenty feet deep, with a flat bottom covered in snow. The girl in black and red had been backed up against the end of the chasm, defending herself from Heaven’s Glory disciples.

Looking around, he saw some evidence of the battle—a discarded sword, partially revealed beneath a pile of snow, gleaming where it had fallen. A bloody cloth wrapped around a tree’s branch. A mirror-smooth stretch of rock where a stone had been sliced clean through.

It felt strange to see this in person. He had never really doubted Suriel’s visions, but without confirmation they remained unreal, like particularly vivid dreams. Now he had proof in front of his own eyes.

The sight strengthened his flagging spirit, and he scanned for a way down. It wasn’t easy, unless he meant to backtrack almost a half a mile to check and see if there was a smoother entrance. He certainly wasn’t going to jump twenty feet down onto ground covered in snow; as far as he knew, there were jagged weapons coating the ground down there, and he would land right on a rusty spearhead.

He finally decided to climb down, but before he did, he called as loud as he dared into the chasm. “Yerin.”

No one answered him. There wasn’t any room down there for anyone to hide anyway, not unless she had buried herself in the snow, but he had to look. Maybe he would find…something. Just finding this place had been a major encouragement, so even a piece of her robe would be welcome.

He gripped cold stone in both hands and climbed down slowly and gingerly, favoring his ribs. When he finally reached the bottom, he discovered…nothing. The chasm was even smaller than it had looked from above, and he could see the whole thing in one glance. It did cut the wind nicely, and he spent a moment huddled in his own arms, enjoying the relative warmth.

Yerin clearly wasn’t here, and he had wasted most of the night already. On top of which, he was now faced with a twenty-foot climb back up.

Well, although Suriel had promised him great opportunities outside of Sacred Valley, she had never said they would be easy. A great sacred artist wouldn’t complain about something like this, he reminded himself, and steeled his body for the climb.

A cold point pressed against the underside of his chin, and he dropped his pack onto the snow. “I’d bet my soul against a rat’s tail that I never told you my name,” a girl said.

He’d never heard an accent like hers before, which was further proof that she was really from beyond Sacred Valley. Though he had a sword at his throat, Lindon still felt relief. He’d actually found her. “Yerin?”

“Your elders never asked my name, and I’d contend that you and I never crossed eyes before now. How do you know me?”

Lindon had considered several lies on the way here, but he needed Yerin to guide him voluntarily. He needed her on his side. Which meant he had to rely on the truth, such as it was.

“The heavens showed me,” he said.

The wind whistled over the chasm until the quiet became painful. Finally, she leaned around to get a peek at his face, though he couldn’t see much of an expression through her black hair.

“…you chipped in the head?”

“It sounds like I’m spinning you a story, I understand that. We don’t know each other, you’ve never met me. You don’t trust me, and that’s wise. Why should you?”

He took a risk and started to turn, but stopped when the point stuck deeper into his skin. Lindon swallowed. Nothing like a sword to the neck to keep a man honest. “Let me tell you why you should. How else did I know you? How did I know you were here? If I were trying to kill you, would I come out here shouting your name? A name the school elders don’t even know, so how would I get it? It’s impossible.”

She didn’t say anything and she didn’t kill him, so he took that as encouragement. “An immortal descended from heaven and told me your name, showed me this place. You were backed up against the wall, fighting a group of Heaven’s Glory Irons.”

Yerin’s sword ran lightly down his throat to the silk around his neck. It tugged upwards, drawing his badge out of his clothes. “So you were with the last bunch that tracked me down. That’s a pill I can swallow. They never made it to this place, but there was a group of Strikers in the back that I never…”

The badge emerged, but instead of an iron arrow, it displayed a single character carved in wood.

“Unsouled?”

“See? Not a Striker.” Lindon took a moment to slide away from the sword, which was now pointed at his chest.

“Did you whittle a fake badge just to pull this trick on me?” She didn’t sound convinced, and Lindon took the risk of letting out a small laugh.

“I tried to carve a fake badge once. It’s harder than you think. I cut my thumb so deep they had to stitch it closed.”

The sword moved away from his chest, and Lindon slowly turned around. For the second time that night, he was hit with the cold-water shock of coming face-to-face with something that Suriel had shown him.

Yerin was just as he’d seen her in the vision—a ragged warrior with shredded black robes and blade-straight hair. This close, he could see the hair-thin scars crossing her face, the threads in the blood-red rope tied around her waist like a thick belt. She held a long sword as though she’d forgotten it was in her hand.

All the details were the same, but she looked like a girl on the edge of death. Her eyes were wide and bloodshot, her lips cracked, her cheeks purpled with bruises, her robes caked with dirt. Her sword was steady, but her knuckles were white on the hilt, as though she strained with her entire being to keep from dropping it.

She looked, in short, like a young woman who had spent the last weeks on the run in the wilderness. He should have expected it, but she had seemed healthy in the vision, and nothing in her voice had led him to expect this.

Something in his gaze must have given him away, because she tilted her sword up. “I’m not so weak I can’t kill a man on his own, even if you are a Jade.”

Lindon spread his palms, showing them empty. “You could be fast asleep and kill me. I have no strength to hide.” He glanced up at the sky over the chasm, where Samara’s ring had begun to fade. “They’ll be sending more disciples after you today, and this time I think they’re finally done underestimating you. Let’s work together.”