by Ellie Cypher
But even the thick blanketing of the snows and the raging of winter winds could not dampen the skies. And so, we had stumbled. And now I were seeing lights in the darkness.
Yellow. The color brushing bright against the dark. A light swaying with the lurching gait of the person holdin it. Their face half-hidden by a hood pulled high.
Great spikes of burned and broken buildings erupted from the crimson ash-flecked snow. The holder limping straight toward the center of the ruins, a spark dancing down the spine of the hollowed-out carcass of a town.
I knew it in my bones.
Nocna Mora.
We had made it.
CHAPTER 28 Out of the Mists
Behind the figure struggling down the main street, an empty black mountain loomed ominous and alone. Heads and hoods lowered against the approaching storm, we pressed in after, following close as I dared.
Main street were littered with the shells of burnt-out buildings. Hollowed-out houses, inns, and stores, now little but wooden carcasses jutting from the snow. The sad remnants of a once-prosperous mining community lay silent and broken, bare before the coming storm. At the very end of the road, closest to the mines, only one building still stood tall.
I darted behind the nearest shelter. Heavy winds stirred, eddying the man’s lonesome lantern light. I shifted my legs.
Taking Cody’s hand, I ran forward, ducking in tight behind a rusted-out water tower. Cody pointed downward. Footprints—two sets of footprints—lay all round the water drum. One human. One very far from human. The Rover. It had to be. Cody took a step toward the street.
“Wait.” I put out an arm. “Watch.”
Cody stilled.
At the end of the lane, the trembling light paused on the threshold of the house. For a long moment, the man did naught but stand before the door. Finally he pulled something from his pocket. Only to drop it in the snow. He scrambled round for a long minute, before standing with a grunt. A moment later he lurched forward and rammed the door with his shoulder. Spikes of ice cascaded down over his head. Bashing the dirt and snow from his boots on the step, he shoved the door the rest of the way open.
A shimmer of hot air leaked out around the doorframe. He paused on the threshold. Lips moving, but this far away his voice were nothing but air. Another moment and the man staggered, falling back hard into the snow. The lantern fell to the ground; flame sputtering out against the white. With an obvious effort he righted himself and disappeared inside.
Disbelief washed through me. He were drunk.
In the highest of the house’s first-floor windows a blue light snapped into existence. The light went out. Then back on. Then out. No, not out. Moving. As if it were being dragged, or—
A hand gripped my shoulder. I jerked back.
“Stars, you scared me,” I said, moving a hand to my chest. A familiar warmth curled up my fingers.
“Sorry,” Cody whispered, kneeling at my side.
“We have to get closer, figure out if it’s him.” It had to be, it just did. “And if he’s really alone. We can start with—”
“Jorie,” Cody said urgent.
“What?” My eyes on the house where the blue light had finally stopped.
“Just look!”
“Really, Cody.” I tore my eyes from the house. “This had better be—”
There, stalking silent between the twisted-out ruins of the town, were a sliver of shadow, black mountain mines smooth behind its path. A wolf’s shadow.
The Rover’s Tracer.
The beast’s eyes glowed unnatural gold. Snow began to fall faster. Not a flake landed on it. As if even the storm were afraid.
I bare breathed. My hand stiff on Cody’s. Then the wolf gave a massive shake of its head and turned its path back down the lane. Away from us. A hand brushed down my neck. A whisper of laugher. I glanced over my shoulder. The red night howled, but there were no one there. I scrubbed a hand over my face. Hard enough my skin burned with the contact. Cody’s hand squeezed my arm.
“Alright?” He narrowed his eyes at where I were looking.
“Fine. Never better.”
He raised a brow.
I shrugged him off. Cody frowned, but dropped his hand. Out in the lane the wolf was gone. This was it. We had to get to that house. Now. Before the wolf came back. Before the Rover weren’t alone.
Quick as a snow fox on the hunt, I sprinted from our outpost and across the street. The bastard was not going to get away. Not this time.
CHAPTER 29 Hide Your Fires
The building was snugged up tight to the side of the black mountain, a splinter lodged deep in the otherwise perfect smoothness of the stone.
The place were in better condition than I’d thought. It were also larger. But for all its windows, it mercifully had only the two external doors. Done circling, we slunk careful to the back. I ran my hand over the rusted door, catching on the lock. Icicles cracked under my touch. Broken, they scattered to the ground. I glanced over at Cody. He nodded. He’d wait a minute to make sure no one were coming after, then follow.
Bare breathing, I turned the knob real slow. But the door was not locked and gave easy at my pressure.
Quiet as I could, I pushed it open. And entered into a disaster. Painted cabinet doors hung at all angles off rusted hinges and thick strips of paint curled from the wall like peeling skin.
Dirty pots and pans were stacked high in a cracked stone sink. And what surface weren’t covered with broken things were covered in rubbish.
I stepped into the room. A moment later and Cody were there. Grimy ash-covered floorboards moaned with the pressure of my boots. I cringed. A path wound across the room and through a high molded archway leading into a dim hallway beyond. From which the smell of smoke wafted in eddying bursts of cool air. Someone had smothered a fire. I exchanged a long look with Cody. Recently smothered.
A slow grinding, dull and muted, came from the second floor. Right above where we stood. Cody and I froze, listening hard. But the noise died and didn’t come back. I gestured toward the hallway. Cody nodded.
Pressing tight to the shadows on the walls, we slunk forward. I struggled to keep my breathing smooth. To stay quiet. The hall were warmer than I’d expected. Broken and dusty paintings hung at odd angles, some fallen to the floor so we had to take care to step over the fractured frames.
Three rooms led off the hall. What had once clear been a dining room and two small bedrooms were now all of them empty, save the moldy overturned furniture. That left only one place to go.
Ahead of us at the far end of a hall, a single set of high-railed wooden stairs loomed up and into the darkness of the second floor. Slipping out of the last of the bedrooms, I raised my gun.
“I’m going up,” I whispered. “You can stay down here if you want.” There were no way the Rover had just left. We would’ve seen him.
“No. If you are going, then I am going with you.” His eyes searched the dark ahead.
I nodded grim and took a deep breath. No noise came down from the floor above.
At the top of the stairs, I slunk over the decaying threads of a once-blue-and-green rug. Heels catching in the rotting fabric.
There were four doorways here. A tall window stood dim at the end of the hall. The floor behind me gave a squeal of protest and I whirled, gun raised. But it were only Cody. He came to a stop beside me, his body warm next to mine. We searched the rooms. Like downstairs, there weren’t anyone here.
But unlike downstairs, it were clear there had been. We stood in the last of the rooms, a sitting room. The reek of tobacco and wet dog filled the air. Ash and dirt and long black fur covered the wood floor. Outside, flurries of snow beat against the windows.
“He couldn’t have left,” Cody whispered, peering out at the now near whiteout of the storm outside. “Where could he have even gone? He cannot just have vanished.”
“Not far, that’s for certain.” That wasn’t a real answer. Outside the wind howled. I tried not think on th
e Tracer. I ran an uncertain eye over the room.
It didn’t instill much confidence. I moved to the far side from the door. A broken mahogany table sat under the window. The red flame of the candle at the center of the table sputtered and went out. On its once-ornate surface the remains of a card game—embossed but dog-eared playing cards—littered the wood.
I ran a finger across the silver-and-blue face of the queen of spades, imagining that the heavy paper was still warm. So close. I ground my teeth. The house were impossibly empty.
“We must’ve overlooked something.” I had overlooked something. “Maybe look for a door, a window, something we missed. If this place is like any of the thieves’ dens I’ve heard of, like as not there’s a smugglers tunnel hidden… somewhere.”
There was only one other piece of furniture. A large wardrobe pressed tight against the fireplace. While it rocked heavy full when I kicked it, were itself no hidden door.
Around the fireplace a thick ring of tarnished silver seeped out of the large black river rocks, curving into the stone.
Circle upon circlethe metal inlay spiraled in upon itself. And at the heart of which was a raised wooden carving. Amateur, clear done without an artist’s tools, it was plain enough. A wolf’s head. I pressed a palm to it. The necklace at my throat went cold. And for a moment there were two distinct heartbeats.
Like a flare in the darkness, that second beat roared inside me, thumping steady behind the warm curl of my ribs. The world blurred. Not again. I jerked away from the stones. No, not the stones. From the silver. I took out the chain. What have you left us, Ma?
“The house really is empty,” Cody said.
I snapped the necklace back under my clothes. “Is it?” My voice strange calm. “We need to keep looking.” I glanced at the wardrobe, resisting the urge to press a hand over my chest. The second heartbeat had disappeared.
“Jorie?” Cody looked at me with concern.
“What?” I turned away.
Cody frowned. “I said, have you noticed it?” Cody had picked up the red candle and were pushing the fresh wax about with his fingers, brows furrowed tight.
“Noticed what?” I pushed aside a thick row of moth-eaten furs. A stack of rotting books filled the back of the wardrobe.
“How wrong all of this is, how out of place.” He gestured over the room. “These types of wood—even in the South they are not cheap. And these pieces, they are old. Really old. Like this chair—by the quality of it, it should be in an academy hall, a museum. Not”—he gestured around the room—“wherever this is.”
The room spun.
“You alright?” he asked.
I nodded, pressing a hand to my temple. Focus, Jorie. Don’t get distracted. Must be the cold. Though even as I thought it, I knew I were lying. There was something deeper here, something in Nocna Mora that were more than the lingering strangeness that lived out in the Flats. Unease rolled inside me.
“I’m fine. You’re right.” I scanned the place with a more critical eye. The pieces here did feel misplaced. Heavier. Older. Darker. I stumbled a little, managing to catch myself against the edge of the wardrobe. Which under my weight gave a threatening lurch. Books came crashing out. I froze, my head snapped clear. Cody froze. The air went dead still.
“Merciful stars, I—” A sudden whip of wind snapped my loose hair about my face. I spun round. The distinct reek of whiskey filled the air. All the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Leaning in, I studied the wardrobe and then pulled back. Looking at the fireplace.
“There’s a hole.”
“It’s a fireplace, Jorie, they tend to have holes,” Cody said, coming over to my side.
I gave him the scowl that comment deserved. “That ain’t what I mean.”
A little smile caught at the corner of his lips.
“Look,” I said.
Cody peered into the wardrobe. The breeze stirred again and his eyes went wide. Because at the back of the wardrobe where the books had been, he saw it.
A piece of rusted metal were wedged in tight against the grain, curls of air leaking past its uneven edge. Moving Cody aside, I yanked at it hard. And hissed back a breath. A gaping hole, big enough for a man to crawl through. That were what was behind it.
With the metal sheeting removed, the low whistle of wind filled the room. Bringing with it long trails of hearth ash. Like streaks of sand dragged out by the tide, the swirling ash rushed into the air from the passage beyond. Taking a step back, Cody went and knocked on the stone above the fireplace. We exchanged a look.
Standing up, I pushed my shoulder hard against the heavy wardrobe. I moved it maybe an inch. “Cody, give me a hand.” A narrow way in meant a narrow way out. And without knowing what were on the other side, I wanted the widest way out I could get.
Together we pushed the wardrobe away. And there, rimmed in the same tarnished metal as the fireplace, like a gaping black mouth, were a doorway.
CHAPTER 30 What Lays Buried
We need light.” I whispered, hunched and awkward near the tunnel’s opening.
“Agreed,” Cody said.
We were maybe fifty yards in, and the passage had become unbearable close.
“We could burn this,” Cody suggested. He pulled out the red candle from the Rover’s room.
From my pack, I pulled out the fresh bag of powdered sulfur Dev had given us and rubbed a pinch onto the warm wick. The candle took quick to flame. Which I regretted.
Five feet tall and only two wide, the hand-hewn tunnel walls were propped up with all manner of rough wooden pillars. Insect holes and frost damage plain enough to see.
Cody knocked a hand against the nearest one. Ash and debris filled the air. “These don’t seem too stable.”
“That’s cause they ain’t.” I kicked the base of the one next to me. Dust went everywhere. “See.”
Cody watched wide-eyed as the whole cage of pillars shook. “If you find that reassuring, remind me never to tell you I’m afraid of heights,” he said, finally letting out long breath and pushing his hair back. “Especially if we climb anything taller than a horse.”
“See, who said you weren’t getting cannier?” I said, smiling wide.
“You.” He dusted his shirt off. “I believe it was this morning.”
“Was it now?” In truth I were worried. Mines collapsing weren’t uncommon. But I didn’t want to worry Cody any more than he already were.
Besides, the Rover had gone this way. And so would I. A league or so in I came upon two sets of familiar footprints. Squeezing sideways, I inched us down deeper into the dark.
We must have gone on for a good third of a league before the air changed. The close musty smell of the passage became wetter, thinner. Colder. And in moments it became clear why. This were only a connecting tunnel. Light held out high, I walked down a set of stone stairs out of the Rover’s tunnel and into a much larger one.
Hissing a curse as wax dripped hot down my hand, I missed the last step and landed hard on the rough rocky floor below. A sharp breeze greeted me from the left. Outside. I could even smell the bite of fresh fallen snow. The smugglers’ tunnel weren’t too far from the mine’s working mouth then. Not that it mattered now.
Cody landed lightly at my side. “You alright?”
“Fine,” I grunted.
“What is this place?” Cody asked, awe plain in his voice.
“Abandoned mine,” I said, pointing at the long sets of parallel metal tracks feeding into the distance. Some of which had carts piled high with what suspicious looked like old sticks of dynamite. “We are in the mines of Nocna Mora.” I kicked at a pile of old soot-covered stones.
“I thought you said these mines were dry?” Cody asked, running a hand down the cold rock of the wall behind us.
“They are,” I said, furrowing my brow. The glitter of quartz blooms sparkled in the candlelight. Veins of what looked like metal coursed through the crystal.
The way the crystals clung looked more like buds o
n a vine than layers of lifeless stone.
Cody raised an eyebrow. “They don’t appear to be that way now.”
“They certainly don’t,” I said, turning away. “Least it answers why Rovers would still be here. Leave it to rats to be scavenging at bones.”
Cody thought for a long moment. “The only trouble with that theory, Jorie, is that if these mines aren’t dry now, they were never dry. So if that’s true, if there was still gold to be had, what made the people here abandon it in the first place? What could do that?”
He weren’t wrong. We stared at the dark silence surrounding us.
Cody shook. “It’s not right. I don’t know much about Northerners, but I know no man walks away from treasure like this.” He picked up a piece of quartz that had fallen on the ground.
I blinked. A small line of the precious metal ran through the rock. “Trouble. That’s why. Which I don’t need to be reminding you, we already got.” I snatched the rock from Cody’s hand and replaced it. Only reason a man walked away from a little money were because there were much more money. Somewhere else.
Like say, an entire city of gold, locked away deep in the ice. Cody had named the sagas Aurum et Glacies. Gold and Ice. The clatter of falling rocks echoed from ahead.
“Let’s go,” I said, and pointed ahead where the tracks split. Sets of footprints ran toward them and then stopped. “He must be walking the lines.”
“Seems like it.”
The farther we wound, the higher the tunnels grew, and they just kept going deeper and deeper into the mountainside.
As we moved, strange green lights appeared on the ceiling. Little enough at first that I thought it were my imagination. But soon a bed of neon stars covered the cave.
“Never thought I’d see these this far north.” Cody’s voice a soft whisper at my side. “They usually die in the cold.”