Havenfall

by Sara Holland

  My blood’s frozen. Coldness ripples through my body. I feel every bit as afraid as when I faced off with the Solarian in the woods. More than that. I want to run, I want to flee, because something is obviously deeply, deeply wrong. But I can’t leave her here. My blood roars.

  It takes me too long to realize why her head snaps up, why her gaze focuses on something behind me and her eyes widen. Too long for the clomp of footsteps on the stairs to register. By the time it sinks in and I whip around, the strange man is already there, blocking my way out as he stares thoughtfully at me.

  He is chalk-pale—Byrnisian, I realize with a shock, the faint pattern of scales ridging his forehead. I expected a human or even a Solarian. But no matter what, I know he’s not a friend.

  I launch myself toward him. I don’t know what else to do, I just know that if a strange man gets you in his basement, you might as well kiss the world goodbye. But he just raises his hands and a wind bursts into existence, crashing through the small room, knocking me off my feet.

  I sail past the girl and hit the wall hard. Pain explodes through the back of my head as I fall in a heap to the floor. The world spins and pulses around me, and I try to get up. But then the man is there, ripping the sleeve off my shirt in one violent motion and tying it around to gag my mouth. I swing my fists weakly, but they don’t connect with anything. Another moment, and there’s the ripping sound of duct tape tearing off a roll. And I’m attached to the radiator too.

  Fear is a distant thing. I can’t focus on the man as he walks away. His movements are too fast, so I look at the girl. Crouching in the opposite corner, looking at me with those big dark eyes. Eyes that seem familiar somehow.

  But I only have a moment to consider it. Because then the door at the top of the stairs slams shut, and my consciousness swims away with the light.

  20

  The world comes back to me slowly. The first thing I’m aware of is a murmur of distant voices. One of them familiar. The second thing is a strange light, glowing through my closed eyelids.

  I force my eyes open. It hurts. Something’s crusted them shut so that opening them tugs at my lashes, and more—my head aches, aches like the worst sinus headache I’ve ever had and then some. My body hurts, too, like I’ve been beaten up, and a sick feeling of fear pervades everything and for a moment I can’t remember why.

  Then all at once I do.

  I try to bring my hand up to clear the gunk out of my eyes, but pain stops me. My wrists are duct-taped together, connected to a chain that clanks against something else metal when I move. I force my eyes open anyway and the cellar beneath the antique shop swims into view. The bare bulb on the ceiling, still off. The cold, useless radiator I’m chained to. And the girl. The light is coming from her, or rather, something she’s holding.

  A spoon?

  That doesn’t make sense. But that’s what it is. She’s holding a silver spoon, round end up like a torch, and it’s throwing off a faint pale light—enough so that I can tell she’s crouching as close to me as her chain will allow, concern scrunching her little face.

  Great. She can’t reach me, and I can’t speak.

  “Neru galtiya?” she asks, tripping slightly over the words, a tentative whisper.

  I shake my head, racking my brain for what language that could be. It doesn’t sound like Byrnisian or any of the Fiordenkill languages I know of. Something about her presence is unnerving. It might be that I’m not used to being around kids, that they remind me too much of myself and Nate, of things I want to forget.

  “Sura,” the girl says, pointing to herself.

  I try to respond with my name, but the gag makes it impossible.

  We regard each other for a long moment. I make a questioning sound through the gag, but she just shakes her head and points up at the ceiling, warningly. Her hands are free, though it hasn’t seemed to help her much.

  The voices, though. One, a woman’s, is so familiar. My mind is sluggish and fickle, curling up like a snail in its shell whenever I try to think about anything too hard. But that female voice. Aristocratic now, haughty, but I remember it being gentle, careful, even when it was telling me hard things.

  The Heiress. I came here to help her, to save her, and now I’m captive and she’s in as much danger as ever. The old guilt stampedes through me all at once. No matter what I do, I can’t save anyone.

  I try to yell. The gag vibrates between my teeth. And maybe it filters through, because it seems like the conversation upstairs falters for a second. But then something happens to the air in the room. All at once, it seems to vanish, as well as the air in my lungs.

  I can’t breathe, and panic spills through me. I yank at my bindings, but only succeed in making the radiator clank. Then the air rushes in. I fall back, stunned and terrified, and I swear I hear a male voice above murmur something about old pipes.

  Sura reaches out with the glowing spoon, apparently to catch my attention. She holds my gaze and then lifts her other hand in the air, making a swirling motion like she’s gathering cotton candy from a machine. Soft light seems to stream from her skin, and a slight wind ghosts over my face, a threatening echo of the breath-stealing Byrn magic from a moment ago.

  A shiver races through me. What is this?

  She tips her hand, seeming to pour the light over the spoon, and it glows brighter for a moment. Suddenly, I remember the note I found in the Solarian wing, the note and the bracelet given to my great-great-grandmother.

  Keep this safe; a part of me is bound to it.

  Cold sweeps down my spine, and I want to yell at her to stop, but the cloth in my mouth muffles my voice. Sura grips the spoon tight, her knuckles white in the dark. When the glow is gone, she tips back against the wall, her eyes fluttering shut like whatever magic she just performed has drained her. I get the eerie feeling that the light was a part of her, that she’s just given up something important. This magic feels cruel.

  Then she opens her eyes and holds my gaze as she tosses the spoon gently in my direction.

  Confused, I scoot toward it, because it’s clear that’s what she means me to do. In a weird way, I’m grateful for the puzzle; it keeps the sick terror at bay, letting me forget the fact that I’m tied up in a basement and no one in the world, except for this girl, knows where I am. But now a different, quieter, stranger fear is building, deep in my bones.

  I reach out awkwardly with my bound hands and pick up the spoon. It’s hot, almost too hot to touch. It thrums under my fingers in the same way the bangle did—the bangle I’m still wearing—but this time it’s too strong for me to be imagining it. The faintest breeze stirs the fine hairs on my arms. There’s nowhere for it to be coming from, except—

  Magic. This girl harnessed our captor’s Byrnisian wind-magic and bound it to this spoon.

  Which means …

  My body gets the message before my brain does. My head snaps up, and I scramble backward until my bruised shoulders hit the wall, sending pain radiating down my back. My breath comes fast, my heart hammering all over again. Sura watches me steadily, her face unreadable.

  They’re shapeshifters. They can look human.

  The girl—the Solarian—continues to watch me, and as the moments pass, her face falls and grows sad. Instinctive sympathy twists my insides. But no, she’s not human, maybe not even a child. My mind is spinning as I try to see past her eyes, see what lies beneath.

  She doesn’t look like a monster.

  Think.

  The monster that killed Nate, what did it look like? I only caught glimpses from my hiding place. I try to wind my memory back to what happened before the moment when Mom shoved me in the cupboard and shut the door.

  A memory of old terror creeps in. Another time when I had my back pressed against the wall. The front door to our old house, shuddering and bulging as something pounded on the other side. A bitter taste floods my mouth.

  The Silver Prince said that Marcus invited the Solarian into our home. Why then would it have had t
o break in? Whether it looked human or had claws and fangs, I must have seen it. Heard it. Why are my memories so jumbled, so full of shadows?

  Sura looks away from me, her jaw tight, and something in the gesture reminds me forcefully of Taya. My chest clamps, and words bubble up in my throat, some apology or explanation. The girl across from me is a Solarian. Yet she’s a captive, too, and a child. There’s something alien about her, but I can’t keep looking at her and remain afraid. She is so small. The feeling presses down on me that I’m missing something crucial, the key that will fit into all these mysteries and pull them together. A tear, then another, snakes down my cheek. I’m on the edge of something, understanding hovering just out of my grasp, but chances are I won’t live long enough to reach it.

  Right on cue, the cellar door opens and heavy footsteps descend. My stomach drops. There are no more voices from upstairs; the Heiress must be gone.

  I missed my chance, I think distantly as the Byrnisian wind-wielder comes into view, Whit at his heels. The blond man startles when he sees me.

  I slip the spoon up my remaining sleeve as the Byrnisian man nods and tells Whit, “Kill her.”

  It’s not those words that ignite my fear again, but the idea that I’ll die and then no one will know the Solarian girl, Sura, is here. That she’ll stay a captive in this dark, cold space forever and it’ll be my fault. My fault, my fault, my fault.

  I lash out, but maybe I hit my head harder than I thought earlier, because my limbs don’t go where I tell them to. It’s more of a weak flail than a blow. The Byrnisian catches my wrists easily and hauls me upright.

  The last thing I see as they drag me from the room is the little girl’s eyes, wide and sad.

  I expect to panic, but instead something in me goes numb, leaving my head clear and calm as Mirror Lake.

  As Whit took me from the antique store, it was like I was hovering outside my body, witnessing everything that happened from some distance. Whit dragging me up the stairs, the awkward negotiation of space as he tried to steer me through the antique shop’s narrow aisles. In a moment of surging spite, I slammed my shoulder into a shelf full of antique dinnerware, sending a cascade of rose-patterned plates and teacups and crystal to the ground in a crash. That earned me a bunch of oozing, stinging cuts on my calves from the scattering porcelain and Whit’s sweaty hand clamped down on the back of my neck. But it made me feel momentarily better.

  Now, Whit doesn’t speak as he propels me out the back entrance, past my bike and toward that dingy tan station wagon. No one is around but a cow, watching curiously from the adjacent field. I want to try to yell anyway, but Whit has a jackknife. He holds it open, close to his waist, semi-concealed but ready to strike. He’s visibly nervous, sweaty, his eyes shifting ceaselessly around.

  If my hands were free, I could take him, maybe. At least I’d have a chance. But there’s no give to the duct tape. Maybe I could try to bash my head against his, but that sounds like a good way to get stabbed—and then, shitshitshit, he’s opening the trunk, shoving me in. Pain blasts through me as I land hard on my side. I find my voice, scream through the gag, but the lid has already slammed shut and closed me in hot darkness.

  Mixed sweat and tears trickle down my face, burning my eyes, as somewhere another door slams and the car vibrates to life. Where is he taking me? He has instructions to kill me, so why didn’t he do it there in the antique shop? Will Marcus, the Heiress, Brekken, Taya—will anyone ever learn what happened to me? And the kid, Sura, in the cellar. Does anyone else know she’s there? Or will I doom her too when I die?

  I can’t measure time by the dark and the heat and the rumble of the road. I can tell the car is climbing; I feel the slope of the mountain, the popping in my ears. We must be getting closer to Havenfall; that’s the only place higher up than Haven. Maybe the guy has had an attack of conscience. Maybe he’s taking me home. A slim hope, but I have to take what I can get.

  When the trunk opens, though, I don’t see the inn, just blue sky and the tops of mountains and trees. It takes a minute for my eyes to adjust to the light, but when they do and I realize where we are, horror fills me all over again.

  The lake. The station wagon is backed up onto the bridge. Whit faces me, an arm’s length away, his knife held up to my throat.

  He’s still sweating, some kind of battle going on in his eyes. His gaze keeps flicking between me and the knife. If I could speak, I would beg him to let me go. But I can’t, and if the bad angel wins, I don’t want his face to be the last thing I see.

  Instead, I turn my head and look at Havenfall across the water.

  All the chaos inside hasn’t touched the place’s beauty. It stands tall, proud, wood and slate and glass gleaming in the summer sun. Too far away to see in the windows, but I hope that inside, peace and safety will eventually return. I visited Marcus this morning and he looked better, his skin seeming to glow with health. He’ll wake up. He’ll get things back up and running, and even if it takes the Silver Prince’s guiding hand in the meantime, that won’t matter as long as everyone is safe.

  And I guess this isn’t the worst place to die.

  “Goddamnit,” Whit mumbles.

  I dare a glance at him. Try to find the humanity in his shaking hands, shifting eyes. It occurs to me, calmly and distantly, that I’ve thought about things the wrong way. The difference between monsters and people—it’s not a divide between Solarians and humans, or anything like that. It’s what we do. And this guy is toeing the line. I widen my eyes, trying to speak to him that way. Trying to keep him on this side of the light, because I have to.

  “I can’t do this,” he mutters, and pushes me into the lake.

  21

  I hit the water face-first, pain, shock, and cold enveloping me in an instant. Panic fills me up, pressing at the inside of my skin as water presses from outside, pushing the air out in a cascade of bubbles tumbling upward, a useless scream. I should have taken a breath before. I didn’t. I twist around and the sunlight spirals around me, growing fainter and fainter.

  Don’t let the scary thoughts in, Dad says in my head. I feel small again, automatically trusting the words of anyone who’s bigger than me. Dad, Marcus, the Silver Prince, Mom, Nate.

  Nate most of all, Nate who would still be alive if I had been braver.

  I’m sorry, I tell him, and water spills into my mouth. His gaze in my head softens. Forgive me.

  But then his face dissolves and resolves, the little boy gone and replaced with someone nineteen, gorgeous, scowling. Taya. Something about her has always reminded me of Nate, I realize. The fire they both share. It’s not your fault, dumbass. Nate would want you to live. So live. Fight.

  And suddenly there’s something else there under the panic. Rage, blossoming like a mushroom cloud, sending heat down my limbs into my numb fingers and toes. The water erupts into bubbles all around me, suddenly hot like fury spilling out of my skin. A burning feeling races through me, echoing the heat in my lungs as my air runs out, and suddenly the duct tape around my wrists and ankles comes free. Before I even realize it, I’m kicking, tearing the gag out of my mouth. The water around me is churning, swirling like the mouth of a volcano. I’m out of air, and the vacuum of my chest aches, screaming at me to open my mouth and inhale, water be damned. My vision is warped, white lights dancing across my eyes, but I attack the water, following the direction of the bubbles, until my head breaks the surface.

  Sunlight and air scald my face, my eyes. I drag the air down, coughing and spitting in my effort to get as much in my lungs as will fit. Above the wild drumbeat of my heart in my ears, I hear the growl of a motor, and I turn around in time to see the station wagon disappear over the crest of the road, gravel spraying in its wake. The sky above, framed by treetops and ice-capped mountains, has never looked so blue or so beautiful.

  I tread water for a minute to make sure he’s gone, and then swim for shore, my teeth chattering as the remnants of terror and adrenaline work their way through me. I crawl
up the gravel slope, under the bridge where no one will see me, and pull my legs to my chest, trying to breathe, trying to think. The lake and the woods are calm and quiet, ill suited to the storm of fear and rage and confusion rampaging inside me.

  The Solarian girl. The Byrnisian man. Whit, shoving me off the bridge like a sack of unwanted kittens. The knowledge that if I were underwater for a minute longer, I would have passed out, I would be dead.

  My arms still smart from whatever happened in the water. I push my remaining sleeve up and look down at my skin, expecting to see redness and burns. But instead it’s pale, covered in goose bumps, unharmed except for a blossoming bruise around my wrists from pulling against the tape. The tape itself is gone. My phone is gone, somewhere at the bottom of the lake probably. But something else presses into my bicep from underneath the rolled-up sleeve. I reach in and extract it.

  A spoon. The one the girl in the antique shop gave me.

  It’s still warm, almost hot in my hands. I can feel the thrum of magic still within it. I didn’t use it all to escape my binds. I think back to Sura crouching over it. Wait …

  Another chill, one that has less to do with the cold, rips through me, my teeth clattering together. She looked so human. But if I’m right, only one people have binding magic. Solarians.

  I left her there. Left her in that cellar. I remember how her eyes drooped, how she shuddered when she enchanted the spoon, like it took all her strength. Like it took something out of her.

  Not the enemy, something in me whispers.

  Solarians are cunning, I remind myself. They were members of the summit, until they weren’t. I shouldn’t feel pity for one. But she gave me the spoon. The spoon that somehow ignited underwater and tore through my bindings.