“What’s that?” she whispered to Wielaf. “Is the monster doing it?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. I’ve never—”
The door behind them flew open so hard, it ripped off its hinges. Anya grabbed Wielaf and Alfhercht and shoved them away, all of them diving to the floor as the door blasted past them and a huge, armored person charged into the room.
Water spattered all over the floor as Ilya crashed through the low wall of the balcony, a club stretched out in front of him as he soared through the air.
Anya gaped at him as he sped past. How had he known where they were? How had he gotten through the water lock? He was soaking wet, leaving water in a splattering trail behind him. He had realized they were missing, he had followed them, and he had swum the flooded cavern.
He’d said he was a good swimmer, hadn’t he?
Anya scrambled up in time to see Ilya drop toward the creature, the club up over his head, poised for what would surely be a fatal blow.
Fatal for a non-skeleton-monster, maybe.
Ilya brought the club down, cutting through the air, and the creature swung an arm back.
Ilya stopped in midair. His club jerked out of his fingers and flew across the room.
The creature turned its head to look at Ilya, copper eyes burning. It threw Ilya like a half-full sack of flour. He crashed into the edge of the balcony, slamming his head against the stone and dropping to the floor. He didn’t get up.
As Ilya fell, the creature grabbed Ivan’s hair and flung him away. Håkon scrambled backwards, but the creature reached him anyway. It held him in place and advanced until they were face-to-face.
Anya didn’t realize she was running until she was around the edge of the balcony. The creature loomed over Håkon, one ragged fingernail stretched out toward him. It slashed at his arm, splitting his skin.
Håkon cried out and tried to grab for the gash in his arm, but the creature twisted his hand away. Past his skin, red blood welled and glittered. Impossibly, it didn’t run down his arm. It just stayed inside the gash, sparkling like—
Like rubies.
His human skin had been torn away. His dragon scales were under. Shining through.
Håkon struggled against the creature, but it held him in place, so close that it was on the verge of enveloping Håkon in the cloud swirling around it.
Anya looked up. Ilya was climbing unsteadily to his feet, but he looked too groggy to be of help. Ivan was shakily raising himself up. Neither of them looked like they could do much.
So it was up to her.
In the back of her mind, Sigurd roared with cruel laughter.
No magical dagger to save you this time. You can watch the dragon die now.
He was right about the first part. She didn’t have a magical dagger. Or her bow and arrows. She didn’t have any magic. She just had herself. What could she do against a monster like the one below her?
Then Babulya’s voice cut in.
Pray with your feet, Annushka.
Anya’s lips parted a little. Yes. That was it.
She backed up to the wall, then ran as fast as she could. At the broken balcony edge, she leaped as far and as forcefully as she could, feet first. She pointed her toes up and jutted her heels down, praying this didn’t break her ankles.
The creature held Håkon by the throat with one hand, and with the other he continued peeling Håkon’s skin off his arm, revealing even more scales. Håkon screamed in pain, struggling, clawing at the creature holding him down.
Anya hit the creature with her heels. Its head snapped to the side, neck broken. Anya felt more than heard the wet crunch of his bones under her feet, and she would have gagged if she hadn’t hit the ground just then, tangling up in the creature’s ragged rubakha, then flying clear, her momentum shooting her across the floor. She scraped every exposed inch of her skin, and her dress tore as she rolled.
She looked up, head spinning. Håkon clutched at his arm near the creature, which lay motionless. Ivan was farther away, where the creature had thrown him. Ilya was—
Oh no.
Ilya stood, staggering toward the creature. If he got too close, he’d see Håkon’s scales. He’d see that Håkon wasn’t a normal human boy. He’d kill him. Anya clawed her way to her feet, limping and hobbling to where Håkon knelt on the floor, holding his arm and moaning with pain.
She dropped to her knees in front of Håkon, frantic to hide his scales from the approaching bogatyr.
“M-m-my arm.” Håkon’s voice was shrill and hoarse. He lifted his hand up for a second. The scales under his human skin were wet with blood. He moaned again. “It burns!”
Anya tore a strip off the bottom of her dress and wrapped it around Håkon’s wound. She wasn’t sure if it would help his pain, but it would make it harder for Ilya to see what was under Håkon’s skin.
Håkon watched her wrap his arm between nervous glances at the creature. “Did you kill it?”
“I don’t think it can die,” Anya said. “Especially not by someone like me.”
The creature shuddered, as if agreeing with her. It moved one arm, and then the other.
Ilya stopped a few feet away from it, then held his hands up, plucking at threads. They glowed golden, shining, and he wrapped them into a ball as radiant as a fiery angel.
Anya stared. Light magic. That’s what it had to be, right? It looked like Ilya held a tiny sun in his hand.
From the other side of the arena, Ivan yelled, “Gospodin, wait!”
They all looked up. Ivan limped toward them. He was scraped up and bleeding. Ivan’s nose and chin were caked with blood, as was the front of his shirt. He still walked like he was half-asleep.
“It can steal magic!” Anya finished for Ivan. “If you use magic against it, it will take it away from you.”
Ilya stared down at the creature, which was still trying to get up. Its head hung, floppy, on its broken neck. Dark liquid rolled off its head and spread into a puddle on the floor. Anya felt a deep sickness in her gut. No one could touch that puddle and live.
Ilya looked like he was going to use his magic anyway, lifting his glowing hands into the air.
Then the light vanished, and he ran to Anya and Håkon. He grabbed Anya and lifted her up, practically flinging her onto the balcony.
“Get that other boy out of here,” Ilya said. “I’ve got your friends. We’ll be right behind you.”
Anya nodded. She hurried to where Wielaf and Alfhercht watched by the broken balcony wall. Wielaf held Anya’s bundle of bones. She took it from him as Alfhercht got him to his feet, and the three of them limped out of the arena, scrambling into the long, dark hallway.
Chapter Thirty-Two
The darkness meant they went slowly, carefully feeling along the walls, until brightness began to rise up behind them. They paused and turned. The golden glow grew brighter and brighter, and then Ilya appeared with his light magic held out in front of him again. Ivan and Håkon were behind him.
“Go!” he snapped, and they did.
The light skipped ahead in the air in front of Ilya. It trembled, and then an avalanche of rage made the cavern walls shudder and dust drop from the ceiling.
“The creature,” Anya mumbled.
“It’s up!” Ilya shouted. He came to a halt and waved everyone else in front of him. “Go ahead of me! I’ll stop it if it catches up!”
They obeyed and ran until they reached the water, where they stopped long enough for Ivan to tear a canyon in it. Ilya stared at it, then sighed.
“Well,” he said, “I swam this when I came through this way. If only I had water magic, I could have walked it.”
Ivan gawped. “You swam this?”
Ilya nodded. “I told you I’m a good swimmer.”
“I’ll say,” Ivan mumbled, still shocked.
“Let’s go!” Ilya said, herding them into the dry spot between the walls of water. Ivan went in front, and Alfhercht followed at the rear. Anya caught him pulling thread
s behind Ilya’s back, expanding Ivan’s bubble to fit them all.
They weren’t far into the water at all—the top of the bubble was still open to the air—when the walls began to shake. More dust fell, and smaller stones. A crack splintered the wall, and a huge slice of rock slid out, crashing to the floor.
“It’s pulling down the caves,” Wielaf said, his voice barely above a whisper. “It knows it’s losing us.”
The cavern shook again. More stones fell; more cracks spread up the walls. Alfhercht pulled the bubble top shut, blocking out the falling dust and rocks, and the group went as fast as they could with their various injuries.
The cavern shook under them. The water around them sloshed, pressing against the water magic holding it back. Ivan strained, clenching his teeth and groaning with effort as a particularly strong wave hit his magic. A bucket-size spear of water shot through the bubble and hit Ilya’s shirt, splashing over all of them.
“Ivan,” Anya whispered, not wanting to distract him from keeping them safe.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Alfhercht reach out a hand and hook his finger in the air, drawing down and out. The bubble near Ivan bowed out, reinforced, and Ivan shot Alfhercht a grateful glance.
The floor under them shifted.
“Faster!” Ilya said.
Ivan went faster. He splayed out his hands, pushing the water apart as the wet floor under them cracked. Water squirted up through the cracks, tiny geysers until Alfhercht could press them back down. But doing that took his attention away from Ivan at the front. He left the geysers then, and they waded through water up to their ankles, then calves, then knees.
Over them, the ceiling of rock shook loose and fell. One huge rock bounced against the water magic, then smashed through. Water poured in around it, and they all screamed until Ivan patched the hole.
His chest was heaving. The blood that had dried around his nose was wet again; with water or with new blood, Anya couldn’t tell.
A strand of Anya’s hair floated in front of her face, singularly annoying. She swept her finger, trying to clear it away.
It caught on her finger, and Ivan groaned. He collapsed to his knees, his head and shoulders just clearing the water.
Everyone stopped. Ilya grabbed Ivan’s shoulders. “Ivan! What’s wrong?”
Ivan shuddered. “We’re going to die in here!”
Another strand of hair floated in front of Anya as she realized what it actually was.
Not hair.
Magic.
It wound out of Ivan’s chest, reaching its other end toward her.
“We’re not!” Ilya said. “Get up! We can make it.”
Ilya had the threads too. From his chest. His face. All reaching toward Anya.
Ivan shook his head, hugging himself. “No. No, this is the end. I . . . I don’t want to die down here.” The threads multiplied, jutting out from him.
“Then don’t!” Ilya bellowed. Water rushed in. Alfhercht was doing his best, but it wasn’t enough.
There were threads everywhere, clogging up the bubble. Everywhere. Coming out of everyone. Even her.
She put her finger on one of the threads coming out of her own chest, and that barest touch brought a flood of terror into her mind. They would drown. The creature would catch them. Håkon would die. Ilya would kill Håkon. Alfhercht would kill them all.
They would drown.
They would drown.
Sigurd laughed from the water sloshing around them.
Anya grabbed the thread and drew her fingers along it. Rolled it gently, willing it to go away. It softened under her fingertips, and the fear softened too. The thread faded, fraying away, until it was gone. She didn’t know how she knew how to do it. She just did.
The water was up to Anya’s waist.
Anya reached out, grabbed the threads coming out of Ivan’s chest, and frayed them. His shoulders un-bunched. His tears stopped. He blinked, surprised, and then he looked up at her. His eyes widened as he watched her roll his fear away, and he stood.
“Did you just—”
Her chest felt tight with excitement, even with everyone staring at her. “Maybe.”
“Anya!” he yelled, and another jet of water blasted through the bubble.
“No time!” Anya said, pushing him back toward the front of the rapidly diminishing bubble.
Ivan trudged forward, moving his arms through the magic like he was treading the water that slowly filled the bubble. Alfhercht was at the rear, trying to push water out so they could move faster. But it was like bailing water out of a boat with a hole in the bottom. Sooner or later, the water would win, and the boat would sink.
Anya did what she could, still stunned at the threads all around. She frayed them away, one by one, and everyone moved faster and more purposefully.
Wielaf struggled to wade through, so Håkon hoisted him up and nearly carried him through the water, with Wielaf barely supporting himself on weak legs. Ilya’s light shone out through the turbulent water around them, and Anya searched for the end of the tunnel. Dark rock stretched as far as she could see.
More rumbling, more cracks beneath them, more rocks from above. The cavern was coming down.
Håkon grabbed Anya’s hand and pulled her to him. “Take him.”
He meant Wielaf. She shook her head. “But what are you—”
“If that monster can peel my skin off and . . .” He glanced at Ilya and lowered his voice. “If he can make me a dragon, then I can do the same to myself. If I peel my human skin off, I can use magic. I can save you all.”
“That’s insane!” Anya hissed. “Ilya would kill you!”
“We’re going to die anyway,” Håkon said.
Wielaf stared at him, eyes wide. “A dragon?”
“Mind your own business,” Håkon snapped.
“I’m not letting you do that,” Anya said. “No way.”
Håkon pulled the bandage down his arm, exposing his scales. “It’s not your decision to make.” He grabbed a piece of skin at the edge of the wound and pulled it up in a strip, sucking in a pained breath as he did.
“Stop!” Anya knocked his hand away and pulled the bandage up again. “No. I won’t let you!”
“It’s not up to you!” Håkon argued.
“It is so!” she snapped, tears burning her eyes. “I brought us here! This is my fault! I came here to get back someone I love, not to lose someone else. And I’m probably not going to get Papa, so if you disappear, I’ll—” She bit her lip to keep it steady, but it didn’t work, so she said nothing else.
Wielaf looked back and forth between them both, then grabbed Håkon’s unbandaged arm. “Hold me up. I’m going to fall. So hold me up.”
Håkon didn’t right away, but Wielaf didn’t wait for him. He pulled threads, pushing the water out and down. He almost immediately crumpled downward, the effort of the magic draining him of any strength he had left. Håkon caught him and hoisted him up. Wielaf’s eyes closed, but he kept plucking strings.
Anya breathed out in relief. “I thought that monster had taken your magic, Wielaf.”
He grimaced. In a voice like rustling leaves, he said, “Just the one that matters.”
Wielaf pushed the water away around their feet, and Ivan could wade more easily. He tunneled through the watery darkness, and then the rock above them vanished. Ivan slammed the tunnel upward, and fresh air rushed over them.
They had made it.
They scrambled out of the water as the roof of the tunnel finally gave out and collapsed. It sent a wave crashing up on Anya’s legs where she stood on the shore. She watched the water rise and listened to the cracking and booming of caverns collapsing.
The bundle of bones in her arms seemed lighter. Like they knew they were free and were celebrating.
“We’re out,” Ivan whispered. He dropped to his knees, exhausted, and made the sign of the cross. “We’re alive.” He kissed his knuckles as he clasped his hands to his lips and prayed.
&nb
sp; Håkon tried to set Wielaf down, but the elf’s legs buckled beneath him and he hit the floor. Alfhercht dashed to him and held him up, cradling him in his arms.
In Alfhercht’s trembling embrace, Wielaf’s arms dropped and his eyes shut. He went limp.
Alfhercht gasped harsh breaths as he shook Wielaf gently, trying to rouse him. He looked up at Anya in panic.
Then he slipped his hands under Wielaf’s shoulders and dragged him toward the mouth of the cave.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Ivan was the first to follow Alfhercht. He helped him carry Wielaf out of the cavern and into the purple twilight. Anya, Håkon, and Ilya followed. Ivan tried to stop outside the cavern, but Alfhercht kept going, into the woods.
“Wait!” Ilya called. “We can take him to the castle infirmary!”
Anya winced. Even if Alfhercht could hear what Ilya said, she knew the elf would never allow his brother to be taken into the city, let alone the castle.
He didn’t go far into the woods. He set Wielaf down against a tree, turning Wielaf’s head so the skin of his cheek touched the tree’s bark. He set Wielaf’s palm against the tree as well and held it there, watching Wielaf’s face.
Anya stood next to Ivan and Håkon at a distance as threads laced around Alfhercht, a cocoon of fear. Ilya stepped up beside the three of them and murmured, “What’s he doing?”
Anya had no idea, so she said nothing. The four of them watched the elves in silence, not quite knowing what to expect.
Nothing happened.
Just the one that matters.
Anya stepped forward and knelt by Wielaf, still crumpled against the tree. Alfhercht was frantic, pushing his brother’s hand harder against the tree’s bark, like something was supposed to happen.
Anya put her hand on Wielaf’s shoulder. It rose and fell with shallow breaths. She looked at Alfhercht’s panicking face and said, “It took his magic.”
Alfhercht watched her speak, then shook his head. He pressed Wielaf’s hand harder. Nothing. He was smashing his brother’s hand against the tree’s bark, so Anya put her fingers on top of his and pulled them back. She set Wielaf’s hand in his lap and said to Alfhercht, “I’m sorry.”
Anya and the Nightingale Page 20