She didn’t bother trying to sound hopeful.Sideways and downmeant crab-climbing between one forced handhold and another, trusting their fingers, the pitons, and the rock to all hold, with a drop waiting that even a Sentinel’s healing likely wouldn’t let her survive. Vivian had learned the basics of mountain climbing in her training. She’d never used them since.
Odds were that she’d blend well into the red grass when she fell. That was convenient.
“This is a strange question, I realize,” said Olvir, the thoughtful frown still crinkling his brow, “but can Ulamir tell what kind of rock this is?”
A wise question, I would say, though I know not where he wants it to lead. It lived, once. It is the bones of small swimming creatures from a great gulf of years. Limestone, I deem it, in your language,he added, with the air of one forced to speak in small words and short sentences.
“Probably limestone, in essence,” she translated. “Why?”
“I have an idea. How much wine do we have left?”
* * *
Flames roared against the base of the rock, licking up from the pine branches placed around it. The air was fragrant with the smoke. Now and again, the fire would pop as the flame hit a pocket of sap, or a pinecone would explode.
“It’s getting there,” Vivian said. She stood in a small bare spot on the left side of the boulder, one hand resting on its surface. The sight made Olvir’s own palms ache, but Vivian didn’t seem at all disturbed, merely alert both to the boulder’s temperature and to any stray sparks that could set her clothing ablaze.
Sentinels were unnerving that way, even to him.
Vivian was more than unnerving. Surrounded by smoke, with her eyes and the tears on her cheeks glowing, she could have been a spirit of the fire itself or modeled for an icon of Letar, whose element it was. Watching, Olvir was torn between worry for her safety, concern that his plan wouldn’t work, and the impulse simply to engrave every detail of the image into his memory.
“Where did you learn about this?” she asked.
They’d been too busy earlier to talk, first cutting limbs from the trees and then building the fire, but now they had leisure while they waited for the rock to heat.
“One of the grooms for Lord Farren—the first knight I served—was the son of a copper miner. He was an old man. He liked to tell stories, as old men do, especially on the winter evenings when he was teaching me how to mend saddles. They do this to open veins, he said.”
“We can only hope it doesn’t end up opening ours,” Vivian joked.
Olvir made a face at her. He knew there was no use in volunteering for the next step. Vivian would have said it was nonsensical. Given her blessing and the Sentinels’ rapid healing, she’d have been right, so Olvir kept the offer to himself.
“We’ve likely done all we can with this fire,” Vivian said after consulting with Ulamir. “Next step, please.”
Promptly, if reluctantly, Olvir handed her an open wineskin.
Vivian turned her head away and upended the leather flask over the rock.
Cold wine, nearly vinegar, met heated limestone. A froth of white bubbles foamed up. As they died down, they revealed a webwork of cracks and pits.
“One more,” said Vivian, and Olvir complied.
Another wave of fluid hissed and bubbled down, sending up more steam from the fire. This time, the cracking sound that followed was far larger. Vivian and Olvir both sprang back just before part of the rock’s face sheared completely off.
Stone fell into fire with a crash that shook the trail, and sparks flew upward. So did a flaming branch, which flipped end over end in the sky, then landed in front of Vivian. She stamped it out without looking down: her attention was fixed on the remaining boulder and the mountains on either side.
Finally, she spoke. “No avalanche, Ulamir says.” Vivian’s voice was hoarse from the smoke, and the rapid rise and fall of her breasts beneath the tunic showed her exertion, as well as drawing Olvir’s eyes. “And we’ve made enough cracks to give ourselves plenty of hand- and footholds. Are you all right?”
“Me? I’m perfectly fine. You were standing closer. Are you hurt at all?”
“Not significantly.” A thin red line ran down Vivian’s jaw, probably the result of a flying chip of stone, and a series of scratches laddered her wrists from the same source.
Nothing else had touched her. The heated stone, which would’ve blistered the skin of any normal person, hadn’t so much as reddened hers from what Olvir could tell.
“I’m very glad you’re the one who came along,” he said and, when he noticed the slight upward tilt of her lips, added, “and this is only the latest reason.”
* * *
They scooped dirt over the remaining fire, not a particularly hard task given the amount of debris that they’d shaken loose from the boulder. Vivian watched gray dust stream down from her cupped hands, smothering the flames on a small branch, and felt her heartbeat returning to normal.
