They didn't stop until they had put many miles between them and Kesuk Lake. Anyu wanted to continue on until sundown, but Tavra couldn't go any further. They'd hastily bandaged the long gash in his leg, but the wound still bled heavily, quickly soaking through the rags. It was dangerous to stop too early, but if not they'd be putting Tavra at risk.

The peaks of the mountains had appeared in the distance once they'd cleared the lake's mist, and they were drawing closer. The ground around them had grown rocky and less monotonous as they approached the foothills, giving more opportunities for shelter from the wind. When a large crooked rock provided an ideal place to stop, they gratefully set up shelter against it.

Anyu knew enough about treating injuries to take care of Tavra's, although he wasn't making it any easier.

"I'm fine," He muttered, gritting his teeth through the pain. Anyu didn't know whether he was trying to be proud or simply didn't trust her, but either way she ignored his repeated protests and continued cleaning the wound.

Anyu pulled out a piece of Kanajuk's claw that must have broken off when he attacked and Tavra hissed at her, revealing a pair of sharpened canines.

"There," She said with a tone of finality. "The worst part is over. Now I just need to wrap it." Tavra pouted and glared but didn't interfere as she wrapped a proper bandage around his leg.

"Yes, got it!"

The two of them looked over to where Kano had been trying- and failing- to start a fire with the meager kindling they could find. Anyu had been the one to start the fire during their past couple weeks of travel, but Kano had insisted he'd start it this time while Anyu saw to Tavra's wounds. He'd looked so determined to be useful that she couldn't say no. It appeared he'd finally managed to do it.

The flames assisted the stars and moon in illuminating the night. The mountains were still visible to the north, a clear reminder that their destination was growing ever closer. Yahal, the summer indwellers' prison, was somewhere through those mountains. And beyond that, two days to the north, was Anyu's way home.

They ate the last of the food that Denigi had provided them, Shesh braying mournfully as he finished off his feed. Anyu patted his back reassuringly but internally her mind wandered to a familiar place: calculating how much game they would have to bring in to avoid starvation. Unfortunately, the odds were not particularly optimistic. Tavra, their biggest advantage for hunting, was injured, and there wasn't likely to be much game in the mountains anyway. The tallest of them were so high that the clouds completely obscured their peaks. It was a wonder if anything could survive up there.

A soft snore drew Anyu's gaze back from the mountains. Tavra had fallen asleep on his back and seemed completely passed out. Anyu glanced at his leg. The wound should be healed soon, but even the slightest injury could be disastrous trekking up these mountains. He'd have to recover quickly.

"Don't worry about him," Kano spoke up from across the fire. "The bleeding's stopped. We indwellers are fast healers."

"Of course you are," Anyu sighed, sitting back on the ground. She tossed a piece of kindling into the fire and watched as it slowly caught flame and began to burn. The silence between them stretched on. When Anyu finally lifted her gaze from the flames she was startled to see Kano staring at her intently, as if he was trying to figure out a difficult puzzle.

"What are you doing?" She asked flatly, not enjoying being the subject of such scrutiny. She was supposed to be the normal one here, after all. Unlike her companions, she didn't have anything to hide.

"Thinking," He replied without hesitation.

"About?"

Now he hesitated. It didn't do anything to help Anyu's already frustrated mood.

"Look, I've figured it out already," She said, and watched his eyebrows shoot up in surprise. "You have weird magical powers that you can give away to other people. I don't know why you didn't tell me or why you hid them until now, but I don't care- its your business."

Even if it might have been quite useful during our earlier troubles, she added brusquely in her mind. She thought back to when Nanuk had attacked them, and Kano had hung helplessly in his grasp. Why hadn't he used his powers then?

Kano was silent for a minute more. He'd looked away from her and now seemed to be nervously deciding on what to say next.

"I wasn't hiding it," He finally spoke, although every word seemed touched by uncertainty. "The chains that you freed me from when you found me- they'd been sealing off my inua. I'd been imprisoned for a long time. It's only just returning to me."

Anyu recognized the word inua, the soul, the breath of life that every living being possessed, but she didn't understand what Kano meant by it.

"Sealing your inua?" she repeated. "But... you can't lose your soul and live."

Kano shook his head.

"That is one of the differences between us and humans. Our inua are much stronger and brighter. They give us powers that humans cannot achieve."

"Oh," Anyu said, unsure of how to respond. She could tell that Kano had not meant to sound arrogant, but Anyu disliked the implied impression that humans were somehow lesser beings than indwellers. The whole philosophy of inua was that all were equal in spirit, from the wisest shaman to the most mindless of animals. But she had no interest in fighting him over semantics and religion at the moment. "Well, then I was wrong about you hiding it."

"Yes," He said. "And you were wrong about the nature of my inua too."

Anyu gave a confused look, indicating for him to explain.

"I don't really have any power," He mumbled. "It's more like... When other people are around me, they become more powerful. I can't give any of my inua away. I just magnify it in others." He paused and gave her a meaningful look, waiting for his words to sink in.

Anyu just blinked, uncomprehending.

"What are you trying to say?"

Kano groaned and dragged his hands over his face in exasperation.

"I'm saying," He said. "That the melting the ice thing- that was all you."

Anyu froze. She looked down at her own hands, still covered in her mittens, wondering at them. She half expected them to suddenly burst into flames.

"That's impossible," She replied swiftly. "I'm a human. We don't have powers like you."

"Are you sure?" He said, frowning and leaning forward. "Because I was thinking, it would make sense if the humans had somehow developed their inua since the time they separated from Adlivun and-"

"We haven't," Anyu cut him off. "Not at all."

"No?" Kano sounded both disappointed and even more confused. "Well then... The only other possibility I can think of is-"

"Wait!" Anyu said, suddenly remembering. She dug through her bag until she found what she was searching for. "This!" She said triumphantly, holding Sedna's hair in her outstretched hand. "This is a tamga of Sedna, isn't it? And I already have Siku's tamga." She grasped her necklace to emphasize its presence. It made much more sense that the tamgas were the cause of all this strangeness. But the dismissive expression on Kano's face quickly deflated her hopes.

"They're powerful, yes, but they're not capable of melting ice," He insisted. "That's not their domain. This was something else."

"What are you saying?" Anyu repeated once again. She had to hear him say it to prove to herself that she wasn't simply jumping to wild assumptions.

"Anyu," He said carefully. "Do you know with absolute certainty that your parents were both... human?"

There. He'd said it.

The answer to his question was no, she couldn't prove it with absolute certainty. Both of them were dead, her father falling sick when she was very little and her mother having been killed in an avalanche a few years later. How could she vouch for their humanity when she hardly even remembered them? Almost everything she knew about her parents was from her grandmother's account, a wild old woman on the verge of senility. It wasn't much to go by.

"I don't know," She replied softly. She was beginning to think that getting lost and arriving in this strange place had not been as much of a coincidence as she'd imagined.

Kano seemed more certain of his suspicions with every passing moment that Anyu did not offer up any evidence disputing them.

"Then you're an indweller," He said as if he'd just come to the conclusion. "Or at least part indweller... And," He continued, looking up at her. "A summer one at that." He shook his head. "Nanuk. I thought I saw his fur steaming and blackening, but I'd been nearly unconscious and brushed it off. But that wasn't the tamga either, was it?"

Anyu was beginning to get a headache. How could that word, summer, something fantastical and impossible that she'd never even dreamed of until coming to Adlivun, possibly apply to her in any way? Her home was the cold and the snows. She'd endured it her whole life, accepting it as reality, only to now discover that it was the wrong place for her, was never supposed to be her home at all. Her feelings of anger and doubt were a swift slap in the face. She felt betrayed.

"I've never been able to heat or- or burn anything before coming here," She said. "Maybe it was the spirits helping me. Maybe it was something else." Anything else.

"Maybe." Kano remained unconvinced. "Why don't you try to do it now?"

It was a fair suggestion, one that would answer their question once and for all. Anyu removed the mitten from her right hand and held it in front of her face, unsure of how to proceed. She flipped it over, watched the blue veins snaking down her wrist, searching for any indication that something was different. But it was the same as ever. Of course it was. None of this would be that easy.

She tried to concentrate as she had on the lake. She thought of warmth and heat and sun, but she didn't feel the same pull as before. The fire was still burning low in front of her, and she tried to let its smoky warmth wash over her. She placed her palm on the snow. It didn't melt beneath her touch, at least not any more so than was normal when warm human skin touched snowflakes.

Kano exhaled through his nose and leaned back. He was bad at hiding his disappointment.

"It's alright," He sighed. "You can try again tomorrow and-"

Without waiting for him to finish, Anyu slid a step forward and thrust her hand into the dying flames. She'd seen her grandmother perform all sorts of illusions and marvels with fire for her rituals, touching it, tasting it, all without getting burned. Her trick was to skim her fingers along the edge of the flames, only occasionally dipping hands into the true heart of the fire. If done correctly, the dance with fire wasn't deadly. So if Kano seemed startled by her sudden action, Anyu wasn't too concerned. It would only take a split second for her to know.

There was pain, but it was something mild, like the pinpricks she got when her hand fell asleep. Otherwise, her hand seemed content to sit in the fire for as long as she liked. Indeed, her previously numb fingers had become completely cozy and warm. Slowly, she withdrew her hand from the flames. The tongues clung to her fingers as they separated from the fire's main body, but were quickly extinguished in the frigid air.

The fire finally died, the ashy twigs giving one last cough before flickering out. For the first time, the absence of warmth made Anyu feel empty.