by Halie Fewkes
Jalia shot a reproachful glance back at the thin air where Ebby walked. “Yes, it matters. Because assuming that Vack survives to be a grown up, he’ll have to do the same thing his father did and marry somebody he knows will die. That curse is real. Vack’s mother barely made it long enough to have him after marrying into the family.”
Was Vack’s mother the gold one? Ebby asked.
“No. Prince Avalask, Savaul, and Gataan used to have a sister. The whole royal family is known for their black hair, but for some reason Glidria was born with hair like spun gold, and the world called her the Golden Princess. Prince Avalask tells stories about her sometimes, how every Escali alive loved her for more than just her beauty.” Jalia sounded entirely detached as she said, “She was captured and killed long before any of us were born though. I mean, her brothers rescued her first, but she was so sick that all they could do was watch her die. That’s their curse for you.”
Ebby felt sick, and Jalia stopped at the sight of two Escali adults blocking the tunnel ahead.
The Dincaran kids are straight down from here. Jalia thought to her. Just keep walking. You would have to be worthless to miss them.
“Are you lost?” one of the men asked Jalia.
“Of course not,” Jalia replied, and Ebby watched her take a step toward them with fearless curiosity. “I want you to let me in to see the Human kids.”
Neither of them looked particularly irritated, and the first who’d spoken said, “Not right now. We leave them alone for the night hours. Come back tomorrow if you want to meet one.”
Jalia’s eyes widened like she’d been offered an entire devil cake and didn’t have to share. “You’d let me do that?”
The second Escali glanced behind himself and said, “Somebody needs to remind those insolent little monsters where they are. You could probably get away with more than we could, being young yourself.”
Jalia frowned inwardly, but said nothing because she didn’t want to endanger her chance.
“Appreciated,” Jalia said, tipping her head to them both before spinning to walk away.
Ebby stood frozen, like the glass-freckled ground had swallowed her feet and filled her lungs. She just had to walk past those two guards on either side of the tunnel. But what if they heard her? What if they sensed her presence, or smelled her?
Her heart began to beat furiously because there were other kids like her at the bottom of those stairs, and she needed them more than she needed to breathe. She would get down there.
Ratuan was worth the risk.
Chapter Nine
Allie
The Zhauri are at the Dragona,” Archie explained to the three Tallies we’d found in their usual cavern, still awake despite the late hour. We’d left the Dragona as fast as it took me to throw two sets of clothing into my hunting bag.
Robbiel, the one who could run faster than anyone alive, closed a book as soon as he heard the word Zhauri. Nessava, probably the kindest and most energetic of the group, stood from a deep stretch she’d been holding, while Emery, the Tally with the power of fire and cruel sense of humor, glanced at the door behind us as though we might have been followed. “They’re on the hunt for Sir Avery’s daughter, and they’ve told me and Allie that we can either help or suffer the consequences,” Archie said.
The three hadn’t seen us in months, and we’d just thrown their door open to announce it was doomsday, so it was only fair to expect the ensuing stares of shock.
“Sir Avery…” Robbiel said slowly, “had a daughter?”
“Well, he had one,” I said with a hint of a chuckle, an entirely inappropriate attempt at humor, judging by Archie’s distasteful glower, “but Prince Avalask whisked her away at the beginning of summer. It sounds like nobody’s heard from her since.”
Nessava’s brown eyes grew even larger than usual while Emery cocked his head to the side. “But why are the Zhauri after you?” he demanded. “Sir Avery should be the one threatening your lives. It’s his offspring that’s caused this mess.”
I gathered by the sour look that Emery wasn’t fond of children, or maybe just Sir Avery.
“Sir Avery came to us too,” Archie said. “He asked for our help and hired the Zhauri, and the Zhauri gave us a week to find her.”
Robbiel, who was usually one of the calmer Tallies, set his book aside and got to his feet. “You can’t help them,” he said, joining us. “A young Epic has more raw potential than anything else in the world. She can’t fall into their hands.”
“What are you most worried about?” I asked.
Robbiel glanced at Emery, but Nessava was the one who softly said, “Maverick…”
Robbiel nodded slowly. “Maverick is a power-hungry-”
“Monster,” Emery finished for him. “He’s a power-hungry monster, and we need to stay clear of him until he takes his crowd back north where they belong. And they should probably take Sir Shanking Avery with them. Get him out of our lives.”
I could see a few easy alliances to be made, and said, “Sir Avery’s not the only one who approached us.” I shot Archie a sideways look, daring him to interrupt me. “Prince Avalask could keep Ebby safe, and he’s training her with his son right now so the two don’t grow up to be enemies. I say we leave her where she is, and then Prince Avalask can help keep us safe from the Zhauri.”
Archie shot back an irritated scowl and said, “No, we’ll find a way to bring her home that doesn’t involve the Zhauri. Sir Avery happens to be her actual father, and she belongs with him.”
“Yeah, not to mention he’s bribing you,” I said, returning his scowl with a heated one of my own, “With something you won’t speak of.”
Archie sighed at the ceiling as Emery told him, “I would tell you to come live here and get away from her, but Karissa nags the rest of us even worse.”
“I’m not nagging,” I growled. “Prince Avalask is holding onto Ebby with everybody’s wellbeing in mind, not just his own.”
Archie ignored my jab and said, “Either way, we have no idea how to find her. We asked a few people about the captured kids from Dincara on our way in, and it sounds like they’re down in the old dungeons below—”
“Everybody knows they’re down there,” Robbiel said. “But the entrance is guarded… unless…”
Emery huffed a mocking laugh. “You’re not trying to use the old back passages, are you?” he asked, folding his arms as he glanced back to the fireplace. “They were too tight to move in when we were kids.”
“The back way to the kids is through here?” I asked, realizing that Archie probably hadn’t mentioned it because we’d spent our entire trip here passionately discussing the Ebby situation.
Emery rolled his eyes and said, “There are a thousand cracks in the rocks between caves. That doesn’t mean you can fit through them.”
“Shanking life, Emery. Neither of us doubled in weight since the last time we saw you,” Archie said, drawing another jeer from Emery. “It’ll be tight, but we’ll make it work.”
Nessava smiled with her bright, large teeth and said, “Celesta has a hammer and chisel we can borrow if you get stuck. I’m sure she won’t mind us wrecking the second half of the fireplace to prevent you becoming fossils.”
Half of the stones around the fireplace had been ornately carved and then smashed in a game of try-to-kill-your-fellow-Tallies last time we’d been here. We apparently played it often.
Emery leaned back against the wall with a smirk and said, “I will eat my left foot if the two of you fit through there.”
“Deal. You ready?” Archie asked me.
“Yep.”
Every cave-dweller’s fireplace has to vent to the surface, but the dark gap in the rock that led upward also extended to the side in ours. Archie went first with some difficulty, and I followed into the cramped crevice. The fissure was so tight that a large meal could mean the difference between getting through and getting stuck, and then it narrowed even further.
I was forced to stan
d straight while attempting to slip between the jagged stones, and then I had to slouch at strategic angles to accommodate their curvature. Rocks scraped across my front and back as I sidestepped after Archie, wedging myself in further as everything grew impossibly tighter. I didn’t like the lack of breathable air around us, and further disliked each time I gouged my ankles because I couldn’t look down to see the uneven floor.
Archie slowed and finally stopped, laughing softly to himself.
“Emery’s going to be keeping his left foot, isn’t he?” I asked, nearly knocking my teeth against the rocks in front of me.
“No, I’ll make it,” he said. “It opens into a little air pocket after this.” I could hear him wriggling, but couldn’t turn my head to see him. My knees began to protest their position, pressed against the sharp stones while my ankles grew upset with the angle on which my feet were perched.
“Archie... what did Sir Avery offer you?”
I heard him release a deep breath and say, “It’s a long story… and… tough to talk about.”
“Well, we’re stuck,” I said, drawing a chuckle from him. “And Corliss knows, doesn’t she? So why’s it hard to tell me?”
Archie took a moment to gather an answer. “Because for you to truly understand, I would have to tell you everything. Who I am, the things I’ve done… And once you know, it’s going to be the end of us.”
I exhaled a laugh so forcefully that my spit hit the wall in front of me. “Archie. There’s nothing in your past bad enough to end us.” I heard him work himself free of the jam and scrape into a section of easy moving. “You’re a good person. You prove it all the time in the way you help me, and sacrifice for me, and come running straight into danger any time I need you.” It wasn’t news to anyone that he did more for me than I could ever deserve.
“And I appreciate that you think all that of me, more than you know,” he said, “but I’ve really messed up, Allie, and I didn’t exactly learn from my mistakes.” The crevice opened into Archie’s promised air pocket where I could almost extend my arm straight in front of me, and Archie pressed himself into the next narrow section. “I’m not saying Sir Avery can undo what’s been done,” Archie said, “but there are things he can fix, going forward… Things that Prince Avalask can’t fix.”
He looked back and I waited in silence, hoping he would feel obligated to explain further. Archie hesitated and tugged at his hair in deliberation before he finally said, “Allie, please help me bring Ebby home. I promise, I’ll never ask you for anything again.”
I took a second to respond, because I sort of owed him my life several times over. How could I possibly say no?
“Listen,” I said slowly. “Let’s just find her first, alright? Then we can decide what to do, because I want to take your side on this, Archie… I just don’t know if I can.”
“Yeah… It’s a pointless conversation if we never find her, isn’t it?” Archie’s somber demeanor disappeared like he controlled it with a switch, and he said, “We’re here anyway. I think this is the tunnel that leads to the Dincaran kids.”
I widened my eyes. “What do you mean you think—”
Archie stepped through a hole in the floor and lowered himself into an empty cave, so wide that either of us could have laid across it and not been able to touch the sides. I slid down after him and landed on an ancient staircase, covered in small flecks of black glass. Our entryway was just an unnoticeable fracture in the ceiling. I could pass a hundred just like it without a second thought.
Dead silence extended eerily in either direction, and the air grew colder and smelled faintly more like bad breath as we descended the stairs. Sympathy couldn’t describe the shock and sadness I felt when we finally reached the bottom, the entrance to what could only be called a dungeon. A long hall stretched ahead of us with at least twenty small cells on each side and at least five kids nestled together in each one.
“How…” I stuttered as discomfort and guilt attacked. “How are we going to explain how we got here?”
Archie stared down the long hallway and released a deep breath. “It’s not as though they’ve got anyone to tell. Let’s go find Leaf.”
We silenced our footfalls with rolling steps, and the kids slept quietly as we reached the end of the hall without seeing Leaf’s shock of orange hair. The dungeon took a dip and a turn, then led to an even longer corridor of cells. At the end of this hall was another dip in elevation before another stretch of darkness.
“How many kids did they get a hold of?” I whispered, climbing down a fourth turn. I finally saw the orange hair I was looking for.
Leaf was in with three other boys and a girl, and was by far the smallest of them. I knelt to get a closer look and clenched my fingers over my mouth when I saw his arms. Dark, swollen gashes marred his forearms where the unmistakable imprints of teeth had torn in. Two of the other boys had similarly bloody injuries, but Leaf’s were inflamed and fiery red beneath the darkened crust.
I looked up at Archie and mouthed, “We are getting him out of here.”
Archie nodded back with a disbelieving frown, as though offended I might doubt him.
I reached in and lightly held Leaf’s hand, hoping that whatever he was dreaming about, it was far away from the Escali tunnels and a lot better of a world.
Archie nudged my shoulder and breathed, “We’ll get him help.” I let go and pulled my hand reluctantly back through to my side.
“Allie?” Leaf whispered, opening his eyes a fraction.
“Shhhhhh, go back to sleep.”
Leaf rubbed his eyes sleepily to get a better look, cringing just from lifting his hands to meet his face. Archie pulled me to my feet then off to the side, out of his sight. I felt awful as we slipped away, but I was pretty sure Leaf had gone back to sleep because we didn’t hear anything else from him.
I scraped myself through the final stretch of the tight crevice as Archie said, “We will blow our cover trying to get these kids out.”
“Sure, but nobody’s going to be able to charge us with treason after we bring them home,” I said. “I’ve spoken to Prince Avalask about helping us, but we can’t wait around for him. Did you see Leaf’s arms? We have to do something now.”
“We’ll do what we can to help, and then get back to the Dragona and tell Tarace where the kids are,” Archie said. “They’re too important not to rescue.”
He had almost dislodged himself from the fireplace, myself right behind him, and asked our friends, “Where’s Karissa?”
Nessava and Robbiel raised their eyes to Emery, who froze in place looking both guilty and amused. I twisted my left foot to get it unstuck as Archie hardened his gaze and said, “Some of the kids down there are in rough shape. Where is she?”
“Look,” Emery said, raising his arms defensively, “I didn’t know there was going to be a sudden emergency where we’d need her.”
Nessava rolled her eyes and said, “Emery stole her bag and climbed to the top of a tree—”
“She left it unattended!” Emery said. “I had to steal it. I didn’t light the tree on fire though, which I think we can all agree, means I’ve grown as a good, moral person.”
Archie huffed an irritated sigh and told me, “Karissa knows more about medicine than all the Dragona’s healers combined. You could saw yourself in half and light yourself on fire, and Karissa would be able to stitch you back together.”
I looked at Emery and asked, “Where is she? I’ll go—”
“I could help,” Robbiel cut me off. “I’m not Karissa, but I mean, people and animals are essentially the same. How bad is it?”
I found myself fidgeting with the ends of my hair as I shrugged, knowing next to nothing about what made an injury serious. “We were hoping somebody else could tell us.”
Robbiel said, “Let me grab my bag — I’ll be right back.”
“You… help animals?” I asked as he pushed the marble doors open.
Robbiel shrugged. “Just the ones I can c
atch. It’s more or less of a hobby.”
“For when he’s not out stealing books,” Archie said.
Robbiel was already gone, but called over his shoulder, “It’s not stealing if you put them back.”
He disappeared and I found myself twisting my hands together. Waiting is something I’ve never learned to do properly.
“Hear that?” Emery asked. “Robbiel says it’s not stealing if you put it back. The three of you are my witnesses when Karissa gets here.”
Nessava glanced at my nervous hand-wringing and said, “She’s is going to throw a fit when she finds out she missed this.” I glanced up at her, not sure I understood. “Seriously. Karissa’s started chanting stitches, stitches every time somebody does something dangerous. She lives for this stuff.”
I flashed her a small smile, not even sure if it was fake or genuine.
Robbiel returned in less than a minute and handed Archie a large bag to hold while pulling a billowy white shirt over his head.
Archie chuckled quietly and said, “I don’t miss wearing those.”
“They do look ridiculous.” Robbiel grinned, pushing the poofy sleeves up to his elbows. He looked almost perfectly Human without any arm spikes to give him away. “Gets the job done though.”
Robbiel was smaller than either of us, so he went first through the fissure and dragged his bag along behind him as we struggled through it once more. When we reached the kids this time, several were awake in the upper tunnels. I stupidly thought to myself that we might be able to walk past them unnoticed, but that wasn’t about to happen. A small girl was the first to leap to her feet and silently grab the bars on her cell before we could pass. She said nothing, but her eyes asked a million large questions.
“Shhh, it’s alright,” I whispered, hovering a finger over my lips as I bent my knees to speak on her level. “We’re here to help.” She nodded and took a step back to let us continue unhindered. I heard her wake her friends as we disappeared from sight, and a boy in the next tunnel leapt up to gape at us as well.