But Inari couldn’t remember where she was in the maze separating the main areas of habitation from the doors set in the mountain’s side. Her hands touched air. She hesitated at the intersection.
Which way now, right or left? How many rights and lefts did I take already? It doesn’t matter. I need to get out of here. And following the wall around this bend then down that tunnel moved her away from the voice.
Inari pulled off her boots and stuffed them into her basket. Now she could feel the cold stone under her feet. If I’m wrong, I’ll backtrack. I’ll just go slow and feel my way to avoid traps, sudden drops and whatever else the Litherians left behind.
The correct path through the maze covered about a mile because it looped around obstacles instead of boring through them. I can do this. I’ve been this way plenty of times before. Then, she’d used a lumir stone to light her path but after what had happened, she dared not risk any light at all. So she shuffled forward into the pitch darkness, clinging to the wall.
“Come, sinner, thy time is nigh.”
No. Call someone else.
“He has light. Get him!”
The crowd was gaining. Sarn put on a burst of speed. He must get around that next bend.
“Sarn, wait for me!” Saveen shouted from somewhere behind.
“Papa, slow down.”
“I can’t, or they’ll catch us. I’m sorry.”
If he stopped, the mob might tear his precious son to pieces to get to him. So Sarn held Ran tight and hurried around another bend, but the left branch was blocked by a rockfall.
“What now?”
“We keep going. I’ll find some way to lose them.”
“What about Saveen?”
Sarn shook his head and ran on. His map became suddenly opaque, and Sarn tripped over the rubble strewn in his path. Ahead, another crowd approached but it was breaking apart as if something forced a path through it. What the hell is happening?
Sarn stumbled to a halt. His chest constricted with fear. He was surrounded. Ahead, another mob was coalescing and hurrying this way—so was the one behind him. Run before they get you. But there was nowhere to run. His only escape was blocked.
Panic froze Sarn. Shadows closed in on him, reaching for the light pouring out of his eyes.
Give us your light.
Light-bringer!
Kindle us!
“Look, Papa, it's a rat. Is it Rat Woman’s?”
“I don't—"
Kindle us! Kindle us! Kindle us. Give us your light.
No. Sarn shut his eyes, but the voices kept screaming inside his mind.
“Why’d you close your eyes? I don’t like the dark. Make light Papa.” Ran’s cool fingers touched his closed eyes.
“No, they’ll see. They’ll know.”
“Sarn? Is that you? I still need to talk to you,” Jersten shouted. “Damn candles, they snuff out so easily.”
Oh no, what did that conman want now? Hearing the miner-turned-con artist’s voice galvanized Sarn. He backed away wanting nothing to do with Jersten or his schemes. But he was trapped between two mobs.
“Wait, I need to talk to you. You blew me off earlier, so you owe me a chat.”
“I can’t right now.” Sarn turned on his heel and almost ran into Saveen.
Jersten laughed. “You’re Indentured. You’re not allowed to go anywhere. Sarn? Sarn!”
But Sarn was already running in the opposite direction—this time with his traitorous eyes closed. He passed Saveen, who called after him.
“Where are we going now?”
Sarn didn't answer. He wove around several collapsed columns and crashed into a wall of bodies. Where did they come from? Did they see my eyes?
Sarn knocked several people down before the crush stopped his headlong dash. He was surrounded, and Jersten was still shouting his name. His pulse raced, and his breaths shortened. Just keep your damned eyes closed and maybe you’ll pass for normal.
Except Ran’s life hung on that maybe and so did Saveen’s. Sarn squeezed his luminous eyes closed and hoped no light leaked out to give him away. He hugged his son tight against his racing heart, and Ran wrapped his arms around his neck. Saveen clung to his waist as many hands latched onto Sarn and shoved him deeper into the crowd.
“Where is it? I saw a green light ahead,” a woman shouted at Sarn, but he was too stunned to answer.
Didn’t they know he was the light? Weren’t they here to kill him and collect the bounty on his head? Possession of magic was a capital offense—one punishable by death.
“Well? Can’t you speak?”
Sarn said nothing, he just held his son tight and tried to cut through the crowd, but it refused to part. Saveen stayed with him, but he remained quiet too.
“Search him. He must have the light we saw.”
That voice—it was familiar. Sarn tried to place it as he dodged the hands plucking at his clothes. Was the man a former Foundling? In the almost seven years he'd lived on and off with them, many had come and gone. And some had despised him.
“Leave us alone.” Ran batted at the hands pulling the arms holding him. There were tears in his voice.
“Don’t touch my son.” Magic uncurled inside Sarn and rolled over his skin.
Oh, Fate, please don’t glow, Sarn begged his magic as it wrapped around Ran. His cloak also shifted so it covered most of his son's body. It blocked the hands still groping for pockets. Safe now, Ran buried his face in Sarn’s chest. I won't let them take you away from me. Sarn hugged his son tight, and a tear dampened his collar.
“Please leave us alone. We don’t have any light,” Saveen lied.
The truth rose inside Sarn and fought to leap off his tongue to correct his friend, but Sarn bit down hard on it and tasted blood.
“There’s a guy with a candle back there. It went out, but I’m sure you can relight it.” Saveen’s arm brushed Sarn’s as he pointed to where he’d last heard Jersten.
“I still say we should search him. Candles don’t give off green light.”
“This one did. Go see for yourselves,” lied Saveen, and Sarn wanted to hug him because it took all his concentration to keep the truth from spilling out.
“Let’s go. There must be some light. The whole mountain can't go dark. Our rich masters would never allow it.”
“She's right. Some lumir crystals must still be glowing somewhere under this mountain.”
“Everyone stay close together. Anything could be hiding in the dark,” said that familiar male voice, but Sarn still couldn’t place him.
As the crowd moved off, Sarn and Saveen wove through the press of bodies until they reached a wall.
“I’m so sorry. Everything’s—” Sarn started to say, ‘okay now,’ but the words twisted on his tongue, putting the lie to the reassurance he wanted so badly to say. Everything was not okay.
Judging by what he'd overheard, the crowd wasn’t hunting for him yet. But they would. It was only a matter of time.
“They’re after you ‘cause you can make things glow.” Ran whispered into his good ear.
“Yes, but they might not know that yet. So keep that to yourself.”
“It’s a secret?” Ran perked up at that news.
Sarn nodded.
“I won’t tell anyone. Your secret’s safe with me.” Ran fidgeted, no doubt crossing his heart. What a treasure he was.
“And me,” Saveen squeezed Sarn’s bicep.
“Thanks.”
How many people had heard their whispered conference? Hopefully, not many since they were at the edge of the crowd and the people passing them were engaged in their own conversations.
How long before they discover I can relight the spent lumir crystals?
The Rangers knew and so did the Foundlings, Jersten, and quite a few miners. How long before one of them tells someone? If the lumir crystals were out all over Mount Eredren, it wouldn’t be long before everyone was hunting for him.
Sarn swallowed the rising fear before it c
ould incapacitate him again. “We’d better go.”
Find Him
Find him, he says. Ragnes huffed. Find a friggin’ mage? How? Being a shade of his former self, Ragnes could move as swift as thought but only if he had a destination. Where are you, freak?
Ragnes ghosted through the tunnels moving so fast the people also using this tunnel blurred and screamed as his cold essence knifed through them. It did no lasting harm other than to give them a fright.
Idiots milled about in his wake certain they’d felt the brush of something unnatural, but he was already gone when the shouts and punches flew. They were cattle so easily spooked by a flyby here and a feel copped there.
Stupid mortals, was I ever like you?
A memory flowered, but he crushed it. Yeah, I was just as scared of my own shadow as they are.
The thought should have made him let up on the abuse, but instead, it angered him. Ragnes tore through another tunnel and another knocking the people traversing them down like pins in that game Dirk liked to play. Though there were many, many more than nine pins moaning on the ground.
Some people succeeded in avoiding his attention. Like the sheep they were, they turned tail and ran. He didn’t give chase because they weren’t his quarry and all this people-bowling had netted him nothing, not even a frigging clue.
While you’re futzing around, Chris is in danger. Pull your head out of your ass and think. Where’s that freak Sarn most likely to be?
He had no idea. Other than the time he’d run into the jerk in the storeroom, he hadn’t seen hide nor hair of that lout in the last four weeks. Something about that incident stuck in his craw. Ragnes kicked a rock, but it didn’t budge. He’d spent all his frustration and had nothing left to throw at that stupid stone, so he glared at it. It was small and round like a child’s fist—or the balls Sarn’s brat had lobbed at his friends. Sarn’s brat—Beku’s son—Ragnes smiled. It was time he paid the Foundlings a visit.
Picturing their cave, Ragnes closed his eyes and rematerialized inside it. Candles burned on stalagmites, but their feeble light did little to dispel the shadows—his new friends. They called to him from the corners.
Snuff out the light, begged the shadows creeping toward Ragnes. We hate it. It hurts us. Snuff out the light, shadow-friend.
Maybe I will. Ragnes ran his hand over the flame and watched it gutter. Then he blinked at the curtains strung up to partition the large cave into rooms. Their circular designs, once bright and exploding with color, were muted and grimy from time. But the stones under his feet, they remembered the little boy he’d been.
Laughter echoed. Was it real or a memory of happier days ghosting back to haunt him? Ragnes pulled his hand out of the fire. This isn’t me. I’m not a villain.
A cherubic child peered at him from behind one of those curtains.
“Can you see me?”
The boy nodded. He couldn’t be more than eight or nine. “What do you want?”
“Dane, who are you talking to?” asked a woman right before she whisked another curtain aside.
For a moment, Ragnes just stared at her. That face—she had Beku’s eyes, lips, and full figure. Quite a rack pushed her corset’s top out, and her breasts jiggled when she moved.
Gah, she might be Beku’s daughter. Stop staring at her. Ragnes tried to look away, but she looked like Dirk.
This wasn’t the time to investigate her paternity. Beku is dead, and Sarn will pay for that.
“I’m looking for Sarn. I’m a friend of—” Ragnes paused. He’d almost said, ‘your mother’ but instead he finished with, “of Beku’s.”
“He doesn’t live here anymore,” the child, Dane, said. He folded his arms over his narrow chest and looked quite upset about that.
“Right, but do you know where he is? It’s very important I find him.” More than that, anger was bubbling up. Soon it would explode, and he’d break something.
“If you knew Beku, then how come I’ve never seen you before?” asked the teenage girl. Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Who did you say you are? Come into the light so I can see you.” She gestured to the black candle on the stalagmite behind her.
“Tell me where he is.”
“Or you’ll do what?”
This. Ragnes punched the stalagmite and it crumbled, dropping the candle to the ground. A discarded garment smoked as tongues of fire licked it.
“I’ve had a bad day. Just tell me what I want to know, and I’ll leave.”
“We don’t know where he is,” shouted another boy, this one was at least a teenager. He snuffed out the fire by stomping on it. “Sarn never tells us anything.”
Was that the truth?
Touch him and find out, suggested the shadows moving in to take back the ground from the extinguished light.
Ragnes cocked his head to one side, considering. What did he have to lose? He’d already wasted so much time on his tantrum. Why not?
Ragnes reached out and touched the teen. His name was Bevik and in a heartbeat, he’d sifted through the last hour of memories. The boy was right. Sarn hadn’t said, but he also hadn’t left all that long ago. How far could he go on foot in that time?
Ragnes withdrew his hand and Bevik’s eyes rolled up in his head as he crumpled.
“Bevik!” The girl dropped to her knees by his side and tried to bring him around by slapping his cheeks. “What did you do to him?”
Ragnes didn’t answer. He was already ghosting out of the cave. Where are you, Sarn? You can’t have gone far, not with the populace down here so stirred up. He listened hard then picked a direction. I’ll find you freak, and when I do, you’ll wish you’d never been born.
Something wicked this way comes, said his magic, startling Sarn.
“Papa, what’s wrong?” Ran squirmed in his arms to get a better view of what had spooked him.
What wicked thing is coming? Sarn asked his magic. Please tell me it’s not another mob.
Instead of answering, a symbol appeared on the backs of his eyelids—a black diamond with three red rays shooting out of it. His map shattered as something dark and malevolent brushed against his senses.
More people packed into this tunnel, jostling Sarn. Move, but he couldn’t. That dark presence reminded him of Vail—Shade’s demonic passenger. Were there more demons? He wanted to open his eyes and look, but the crowd might turn on him if he did.
“Papa, what is it?” Ran poked Sarn in the chest. “What did you see?”
“How did you know I saw something?”
“You got very tense and quiet. What did it show you?” Ran poked him again. Thank Fate, his son hadn’t said the ‘m-word.’ There were too many people around to risk bandying about that term.
Sarn shook his head and held his son so anything else Ran said was muffled by his shoulder just in case the ‘m-word’ slipped out. “It showed me a symbol, but it’s not one I recognize.”
Someone bumped Sarn reminding him to move. He was blocking the flow of traffic.
Freeing a hand, Sarn felt for Saveen and pushed the youth in front of him. “You’d better precede me. I need you to be my eyes.”
“Okay, but tell me why you must hide. They’re just looking for light, and you can provide that.”
Sarn blew out a frustrated breath. He was grateful Saveen had kept his voice down, but this was one conversation he shouldn’t be having while surrounded by so many potential threats. Still, it was a valid question.
“Because centuries ago, this guy, the Usurper, killed everyone and took the throne. To prevent his chief rival from dethroning him, he passed a law condemning anyone with magic in their blood to death. Then he sent a bunch of bounty hunters to kill his rival and his entourage and their families. He didn’t want to face any avenging relatives down the line, so he got rid of them all on the Bloody Ides—the Ides of March.”
The same day, centuries later, Ran was born. Thankfully Ran didn’t connect the Ides of March with his birthday.
“That law is still
in place?”
“Yes, and it’s still enforced.”
“So that’s why you’re Indentured.”
“No, I indentured myself to pay for my brother’s education.” Thank Fate, Miren was still in school where it was safe.
“Don’t do that for me. I don’t want to go to school. I want to go on ad-ven-tures with you.” Ran folded his arms and likely wore a matching scowl.
“We’ll see when you’re older. You might change your mind.”
“I won't.”
Sarn let the subject drop. If an opportunity arose, he’d send his son to school. Ran would love it too.
“But why is it still enforced?” Saveen asked as he wove through the crowd with Sarn at his heels.
“Because people hate and fear what they don’t understand. They’d rather destroy someone who’s different rather than try to understand him.”
“Not me. I loved you. I wanted to be beautiful, so you’d love me,” Shade said, and his deceased friend appeared in memory, veiled as always, holding out a gloved hand.
After a breathless moment, Shade vanished back into the recesses of his mind, where his friend lived on as an unanswered question. I’m losing my mind. Shade’s dead because of Dirk, and I lost track of that jerk after he released a monster earlier.
Or did I? A vague memory ghosted by. In it, he flew with a gray-eyed woman. Her lips shaped two words over and over: 'remember me’ while he dangled from her cold, cold hand. Below them, Dirk’s symbol moved through the enchanted forest with two black upside-down pentacles—one superimposed over the other.
Sovvan.
As her name echoed in the caverns of his mind, he felt her at his side. Her wing brushed his arm. With a jolt, he remembered his out-of-body jaunt and their conversation.
Forget. Stay away, whispered the Queen of All Trees in his mind.
No. My sister died so I could live. I won't let her down.
Determination blazed inside Sarn giving him a destination—the enchanted forest and the Queen of All Trees. At least he knew why he’d blacked out. He'd seen something she didn't want him to see. Well, that's too bad. I need to know what's happening, and she knows.
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