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anything but the strength of our people to repel him.”
    “Ninyeva knows something,” Kole said. “She led me like a lamb to the slaughter. If she knew he was back, she should have said so.”
    “You got exactly what you wanted,” Linn said, moving ahead of him. “You can make for the peaks when the Dark Months end, see what there is to see.”
    “She knows what’s happening, or has a guess,” Kole said, following after.
    “Ninyeva always has a guess.”
    Sure enough, Nathen was lounging idly on a leaning trunk, chewing some root or another. He stood when they approached, flashed that quick smile and continued on the path without a backward glance.
    “You’re right about one thing, Linn,” Kole said, unconcerned about Nathen’s presence. Linn stayed quiet, picking her footfalls carefully as the branches grew thicker overhead. “The Dark Kind are getting bolder, the Valley more deadly by the year. We can’t keep waiting at the edge of the World. Either our enemy’s out there or he’s not. It’s time we took control of our destiny rather than waiting for the ghost of a dead king to point us in the wrong direction. He already did it once.”
    “You don’t know that. For all we know, the wider world is completely overrun by the Dark Kind, the Sages dead and gone—all of them.”
    “They’re not gone,” Kole said bitterly. “Powers like that linger.”
    “We need powers like yours to linger here,” Linn said. It was clear she was running out of patience, and Nathen’s nerves seemed about to fray as they reached the darkest parts of the woods that bordered the Untamed Hills. The Dark Kind were the least of their concerns out here.
    “Good as my bow arm might be, Reyna,” Linn said, “it’ll never be able to stop what came through that gate. You and yours are the last Embers born in a generation. Even Ferrahl is someone we can’t afford to lose. Whatever you do, make sure you’re doing it for the right reasons.”
    The conversation stopped there. And the hunt began.
    Despite the early tension, Kole felt lighter after having it out. He could not say he sensed the same from Linn, but the White Crest had been a revered figure in her household as well as in many others among the Emberfolk—a deity of sorts to replace their lost king. He was a Sage who had turned against his own kind, had sheltered the Emberfolk against the Eastern Dark and had even struck out with the King of Ember to bring him down.
    He had failed on that last count. As far as Kole was concerned, he had failed on all counts. Kole had no way of knowing whether or not the White Crest was dead. He had no way of knowing what had been looking at him through those reds. But it had the stink of magic. If one of them openly flirted with the Dark Kind, why wouldn’t the rest?
    The Emberfolk had put the White Crest on a pedestal polished by memory and fear. Kole had no use for idols. His had burned bright, and her flame had died away, leaving only ashes. He would find the truth, and whichever Sage was at the end of it would rue the day.
    Kole tried to leave the choking thoughts behind as they crossed another brook and approached the final tree line before the first glade. Starlight bounced off of the moon and painted the grassy hilltops silver in an approximation of the capped peaks in autumn.
    The Untamed Hills were a place even the Dark Kind avoided. The creatures there grew tall and fierce, and unlike the rest of the Valley game, the prey there did not hide.
    Linn unloosed her bow from around her shoulders as Nathen readied his own, a shorter and thinner band in keeping with the weapons of the Faey. Linn’s eyes were intent on the first rise, where the hint of outlines shifted in the half-light.
    Kole fished through the pack Linn had given him and withdrew a sling. He picked out several tightly rolled balls of sticky pitch and lined them up on the ground before him, shifting beneath the branches to get a better view.
    Linn nocked an arrow