← Back to overview

Lirith and Lythia

The Ghost of the High Pass

The air at fourteen thousand feet was thin enough to make a normal person’s lungs scream, but to Lirith, it tasted like sanctuary. It was crisp, devoid of the scent of woodsmoke or the cloying, sweaty smell of humanity. Up here, the only sounds were the rhythmic snap of Lythia’s wings and the whistling of the wind through the jagged granite needles known as the Weaver’s Peaks.

Lirith adjusted her grip on the harness, her legs locked around Lythia’s powerful flanks. Below them, the world was a messy tapestry of green and brown, but up here, everything was stark white and deep, bruised purple.

"Lower, Lyth," Lirith murmured, leaning forward so her lips were near the Callifly’s tufted ear. "That crevice near the overhang. I saw a flash of blue."

Lythia tilted her wings, catching a crosswind that would have sent a lesser bird spiraling. They descended in a silent, predatory glide. The Callifly didn't need to vocalize to communicate; Lirith felt a wave of cautious curiosity wash over her through their bond. It was a mental hum, a vibration that told her Lythia had spotted the blue, too.

They touched down on a narrow shelf of stone, tucked beneath a natural stone archway. Lirith hopped off before Lythia had even fully folded her wings. She moved with a strange, liquid grace—the result of years spent mimicking the movements of mountain cats and avoiding the clumsy footfalls of the surveyors who occasionally tried to track her.

She knelt by a patch of frozen moss. There, caught in the ice, was a cluster of Sapphire Root. It was a rare medicinal herb, prized by the healers in the lower valleys for its ability to break even the most stubborn fevers. To Lirith, it was currency. Not that she wanted gold—gold was heavy and attracted thieves—but the root could be traded for salt, steel, or the thick wool she couldn't weave herself.

"Good eye," Lirith said, pulling a small, serrated trowel from her belt.

Lythia let out a soft trill, her blue-grey tail-tip twitching with pride. The Callifly began to pace the perimeter of the ledge, her paws making no sound on the frost. Suddenly, Lythia froze, her wings half-unfurling in a defensive posture.

Lirith didn't ask what was wrong. She dropped the trowel and hand-reached for the bone-handled knife at her thigh. She stayed low, pressing her back against the cold stone of the archway.

"Talk to me, Lyth," she whispered.

A sensation of *wrongness* flooded her mind. Not the sharp, immediate fear of a predator, but a dull, lingering ache. Lythia projected an image: a flickering light, far below their current position but climbing. It wasn't the orange of a campfire. It was a rhythmic, artificial blink.

"A signal," Lirith hissed, her eyes narrowing. "They’re using mirrors or lanterns. They aren't just surveying anymore, are they? They’re hunting."

She looked down at the Sapphire Root. She had only harvested three small nodules. It wasn't enough to justify the risk, but the stubborn streak that had kept her alive at five years old flared up. She wouldn't let some city-dwelling scholars drive her off her mountain before she got what she came for.

"Change the path, Lythia. Give us ten minutes."

The Callifly focused. Her blue-grey eyes shimmered with a pale, internal light. Lirith felt the familiar tug of the imagination lore—the way the world seemed to ripple like water under a stone. Behind them, the narrow goat path that led up to their ledge began to shift. To a casual observer, the path didn't disappear, but the shadows grew longer, deeper, and the angle of the stones seemed to turn inward, creating a visual illusion of a sheer, impassable cliff.

It was a small change—altering the recent history of the light hitting the rocks—but it was enough to baffle anyone without a mythic beast of their own.

Lirith worked quickly, her frozen fingers digging into the permafrost. She managed to pry four more roots loose before the feeling in her head changed from a hum to a sharp, stinging prickle.

"They're closer than you thought," Lirith muttered, shoving the roots into her satchel.

She stood up, but as she turned to leap back onto Lythia’s harness, a voice drifted up through the thin air. It wasn't the gruff shout of a mountain man or the refined call of a scholar. It was a cry of pain.

"Help! Please... is anyone...?"

Lirith froze. Her first instinct was to ignore it. In the mountains, a voice was often a trap—a lure used by bandits or simply the wind playing tricks on a lonely mind. But the voice was young. It sounded small. It sounded like a girl who had run out of broth in a cold cottage.

Lythia let out a low, warning growl. She sent Lirith a flurry of images: a boy, no older than twelve, trapped in a chimney-crack a hundred feet below. He was wearing the fine, impractical silks of a merchant’s son, and his leg was pinned under a fallen boulder.

"He's a distraction," Lirith said, her voice hard. "If we go down there, the others will see us. The ones with the signal lights."

Lythia tilted her head, her intelligent eyes searching Lirith’s face. Through the bond, the Callifly didn't offer an opinion. She offered a memory: Emilis, pushing a bowl of soup across a wooden table.

Lirith flinched as if she’d been struck. "That's low, Lyth. Really low."

The boy cried out again, a ragged, sobbing sound that echoed off the canyon walls.

"Fine," Lirith snapped, though there was no one to hear her but the wind and the cat. "But if this is a trap, I’m leaving him to the vultures. And I’m blaming you."

She vaulted onto Lythia’s back. "Go. Quietly."

They dropped like a stone, the wind screaming past Lirith’s ears. Lythia flared her wings at the last possible second, landing with the delicacy of a snowflake on a precarious outcropping just above the crevice.

The boy was there, wedged into a narrow split in the rock. He was pale, his face streaked with dirt and tears. His left leg was crushed beneath a slab of granite that must have shifted during the recent spring thaw.

When he saw them, his eyes went wide—not with relief, but with terror. To a boy from the lowlands, a girl with hair like dried blood and a giant, winged cat must have looked like a demon from a nursery rhyme.

"Don't... don't eat me," he whimpered.

Lirith slid off Lythia and approached him, her knife still in her hand. She didn't put it away; she used it to point at his leg. "If I wanted to eat you, I wouldn't wait for you to season yourself with fear. Shut up and stay still."

She looked at the boulder. It was massive. Even with her strength, she couldn't budge it. She looked at Lythia.

"Can you alter it?" Lirith asked. "Make it lighter? Or make the space beneath it larger?"

Lythia stepped forward, sniffing the boy’s hair. He let out a strangled gasp but didn't move. The Callifly closed her eyes. The air grew heavy, the scent of ozone filling the crevice. Lirith felt the drain on her own energy—the price of the keeper’s bond.

Slowly, the granite boulder didn't move, but the *reality* of it softened. The edges became porous, almost like pumice stone.

"Now," Lirith commanded.

She shoved her shoulder against the rock. It should have been impossible, but under the influence of the imagination lore, the boulder groaned and rolled back just a few inches—enough for the boy to drag his mangled leg clear.

The boy screamed as the blood rushed back into his limb. Lirith immediately clamped a hand over his mouth.

"Do you want to die?" she hissed, her brown eyes flashing. "The men with the lights are coming. If they find me, they’ll kill me to get to her. And if they find you, they’ll probably just leave you here for being a nuisance."

The boy nodded frantically, his eyes darting to Lythia’s shimmering wings. Lirith let go of his mouth and pulled a strip of clean linen from her pack, wrapping his leg with clinical efficiency.

"Why are you out here?" she asked, her voice a low rasp. "Nobody comes to the Weaver’s Peaks for fun."

"My father," the boy wheezed. "He’s a merchant from Oakhaven. He heard the stories... about the white cat. He promised the Governor he’d bring back proof. A wing, or a pelt."

Lirith’s grip tightened on the bandage, making the boy wince. "A pelt?"

"I didn't want to come!" the boy cried softly. "I told him it was bad luck to hunt ghosts. But he made me. He said I needed to be a man."

Lirith looked at the boy—small, scared, and abandoned by the very person who was supposed to protect him. A cold, familiar anger settled in her gut. It was the same anger she felt when she thought about the village of Yonder, where people watched a family starve and did nothing but sign "Elsewhere" posters.

"Your father is a fool," Lirith said. She stood up and whistled low. Lythia trotted over, her wings rustling. "And you’re lucky my cat has a bleeding heart."

"You're... you're the Ghost Girl," the boy whispered. "The one from the legends. They say you died in the famine and came back as a spirit."

Lirith felt a sarcastic retort bubbling up, but she suppressed it. "I didn't die. I just grew up. There's a difference."

She turned to Lythia. "He can't walk. If we leave him, his father’s men will find him eventually, but the mountain lions will find him first."

Lythia sent a feeling of resolution. She knelt down, inviting the boy to climb onto her back behind the harness.

"Get on," Lirith ordered. "We’re taking you to the lower pass. From there, you can crawl to the main trail. If you tell anyone about this—if you tell them what she looks like or where we are—I will find you. And I don't use lore to make things disappear. I use steel."

The boy scrambled onto the Callifly’s back, clutching the fur of her neck with trembling hands. Lirith mounted in front of him, her body a shield between the boy and the world.

They took off, but this time, Lythia didn't soar. She stayed low, weaving through the shadows of the canyons to avoid the searching beams of the lanterns. Lirith could see them now—a dozen men with climbing gear and crossbows, picking their way up the western face.

"They’re right there," the boy whispered, terrified.

"They see what we want them to see," Lirith replied.

She closed her eyes, tapping into the bond. She imagined the air around them not as clear, but as a thick, swirling mist. She imagined the sound of their flight not as the beat of wings, but as the distant moan of the wind.

The lore responded. Below them, a surveyor looked directly up. Lirith held her breath, her hand on her knife. The man squinted, rubbed his eyes, and turned away. To him, they were nothing but a patch of fog drifting across the moon.

They reached the lower pass ten minutes later. It was a flat, sheltered area where the merchant’s main camp was visible in the distance. Lirith slid off Lythia and helped the boy down. He collapsed onto the soft pine needles, his face pale but his breathing steady.

"Go on," Lirith said, pointing toward the campfires. "Start screaming. They’ll hear you."

The boy looked at her, then at Lythia. The Callifly leaned down and nudged the boy’s shoulder with her nose, making a small, wooden toy soldier appear in his hand. It was a crude thing, but it looked exactly like the ones sold in the markets of Oakhaven.

The boy’s eyes filled with tears. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me," Lirith said, her voice regaining its sharp edge. "Just stay off my mountain."

She vaulted onto Lythia, and within seconds, they were back in the sky. They didn't stop until they reached the highest, most inaccessible peak in the range—a place where the snow never melted and the stars felt close enough to touch.

Lirith dismounted and began to set up their camp in a shallow cave. She was exhausted; using that much lore to hide three people took a toll on her mind. Her head throbbed, and her limbs felt like lead.

Lythia wandered over and dropped something at Lirith’s feet. It was the satchel of Sapphire Root. In the chaos, Lirith had forgotten she was even carrying it.

"Yeah, yeah," Lirith muttered, leaning her head against Lythia’s warm side. "We got the roots. We saved a brat. Are you happy now?"

Lythia purred, a deep, vibrating thrum that echoed in Lirith’s chest. The Callifly spread one of her great wings, draping it over Lirith like a blanket.

Lirith pulled the carved wooden lily out of her tunic and turned it over in her fingers. She thought about the boy’s father, hunting for a pelt to impress a Governor. She thought about the surveyors, searching for a myth to put in a book.

"They’ll never stop looking, will they?" Lirith asked softly.

Lythia sent a feeling of vastness. A sense that the mountains were big, the sky was bigger, and they were the smallest, fastest things in between.

"I suppose not," Lirith sighed. She closed her eyes, the scent of Lythia’s fur—like ozone and dried lavender—lulling her toward sleep. "But they have to catch us first. And we’re very good at being ghosts."

As she drifted off, Lirith didn't dream of the famine or the empty bowls. She dreamed of the Weaver’s Peaks, of the way the light hit the sapphire roots, and of a red-haired girl who had given her everything so that she could one day own the sky.

In the silence of the high peaks, Lirith wasn't alone. She was exactly where she was meant to be.