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They make camp south of Narshe in the lee of a low hill, the closest thing to high ground that Terra had seen since leaving the mountains behind. It blocks them from sight, and it almost blocks the wind that blows southward across the plain, sweeping heavy snowflakes with it. There isn't much other shelter to be found, and not much to burn, either, except for a few scrubby, snow-dampened bushes that Locke considers and dismisses with a wave of his hand.
"That stuff will smoke like a factory tower," he says, "and that'll be a clear sign to anyone looking," and she doesn't argue. She doesn't want to be found either.
At first, it doesn't even seem like something to worry about; to her, the cold is far away, a harmless sensation on the edge of her awareness - but she isn't the only person she needs to concern herself with any longer, and she can see Locke shivering inside his coat, rubbing his fingers together and stamping his feet for warmth. He seems to curl inward against the chill, like someone might from pain or fear, and in that moment he seems curiously fragile, for someone who says he means to protect her. Too much cold, like too much heat, can hurt him, even when it isn't enough to kill.
It's hard to say whether it bothers her or not, the thought of him being hurt. He means little to her, beyond an anchor in an unknown world and someone who claims without proof to mean her well, but - they are allies here, for the time being. And surely it should be the stronger one, doing the protecting?
Yes, that seems right.
Locke needs fire. A simple problem. She carries fire with her, and it doesn't take much to find it, feel it flicker up again at her call, and then to turn it outward - not as she had against the soldiers in the mine, in a searing torrent, but quieter and more controlled. It radiates out from her chest, along the river of her blood and up through networks of tiny vessels, until her entire body is only a conduit for heat and light, and when she opens her eyes, there's fire cradled in her cupped hands, burning hot and smokeless. She sets it down in the shelter of the hill, wills the flames to leap a little higher, then steps back and lets it burn on its own.
Locke stares numbly for a moment, but only a moment, before he pulls his gloves off and holds his hands to the fire with a sigh of relief.
"That's incredible," he says. "How long can you keep that up?" There's no calculation in his voice or his face, nothing like a man testing the heft of a weapon, only the traces of an emotion she doesn't know how to name - something that seems almost like fear and isn't. He doesn't really know her, she realizes, any more than she knows him. He has no reason to trust her. It seems that he does, regardless.
"As long as I have to," she says. She isn't sure of that, but she knows she can make it last through the night, until they can get moving again.
"Terra," he says, and then his voice falls away, leaves him looking as lost as she feels. But he rallies quickly, with the same grin he'd given to the old man in Narshe, and to the Imperials before they died. "Thanks, kid, I owe you one."
"There's no need for that," she says, and means it. It's only practical to ensure that an ally stays in good fighting condition, and as little as she wants to admit any weakness, she needs his help. And that's all there is to it: a transaction, nothing that merits gratitude. But after a moment she moves closer to the fire, leans toward the heat she doesn't need like she imagines an ordinary person would, and something in the set of Locke's shoulders relaxes, his smile softening into something almost contemplative. He feels safe with her, or at least he's very good at pretending.
He is safe with her, even with the clouds rolling in overhead and the Empire on their trail. She's adrift in this world, but she can still call up fire and loose it on their enemies, turn ice to steam and scorch the ground beneath; she has the strength to defend him.
Why that matters so much, it's hard to say. But if Locke is a stranger, she's certain at least that he's no enemy, and the warmth that thought kindles has nothing to do with fire or magic or any kind of power. And how long it will last, she can't guess; the storm will pass, and they'll continue their journey, and when they reach the end of it, there's no saying whether Locke's Returners will be only the Empire in a new cloak. But until the morning, she's not a weapon, and he's not a soldier, just two fugitives in this empty place, alone together, waiting for the dawn to come.