by Ellie Cypher
Cody raised a brow. “From you, Jorie, I’ll consider that a compliment.”
“Always did say you’d more brains than wits.” But I were smiling.
Cody’s answering laugh turned quick to a racking cough. I pressed my lips in concern. I rubbed a hand over my eyes and let out a long sigh. Cody were staring at me. A blush crept over his face, and he lowered his eyes. I had the strangest urge to reach over and brush the dew from his long lashes.
“What is this place?” Cody asked, rubbing hard at the muscles of his shoulders.
“We are near the old drift mines, as your friend requested,” Vela said.
I hadn’t seen her come back. As if my surprise pleased her, she smiled and took up her own perch, cross-legged in front a low rock shelf. Her palms resting on exposed knees, eyes closed. In the watery light, her skin glowed. A small ruby beetle scrambled across a patch of moss.
Vela, eyes sudden wide, cocked her head. The insect were trying, but the combination of its short little legs and the slickness of the moss meant it fell as much as it made it forward. Vela’s hand snaked out and plucked it from the green. The beetle scuttled across her palm as she rolled her hand over and over. It were near to helpful as I’d come to expect from her. Right. I cleared my dry throat. If there were one thing this place didn’t lack, it were water.
“Where do you think you are going?” Vela asked, the little beetle cradled in her palm, red in a sea of white.
“Water.”
Vela’s lip ticked into a frown, but she didn’t divert her attention from lurching insect. “Well, do not go too far. It’s dangerous out there alone.” Her eyes snapped sudden to my chest. She stared at me, unblinking. It weren’t an enjoyable look.
I picked my way over to the pool’s edge and kneeled down. The water’s crystal surface shook from the waterfall, blurring my reflection. I dipped my hands in; it were unexpected warm. I took a long drink of the water. In the pool below me, a brave sculpin darted to the surface, biting at the drops of water as they fell from my cupped hands.
Unfed, the fish darted away, disappointed. I took another drink before ripping a strip from the edge of my wool undershirt. Wadding it up, I submerged it in the pool. Like a breath, little bubbles of pressed air escaped from the fibers, bursting where they hit the water’s surface. I let out a long sigh, twisting the fabric till it could hold no more. Soaked the cloth until there was nothing but the smell of stone and water to fill me.
When I returned, Cody were already sleep. I let him rest. Moving slow, I cupped one hand under Bren’s chin. Bren’s eyes fluttered but did not open. Her skin was still too cold. But it weren’t as bad as it had been, back in that catacomb of a room. The farther we got from the heart of the ice, the warmer she became. But it weren’t enough.
“I told you she will not wake,” Vela said. “Water will not change that. No matter the source it comes from.” Her attention flickered to and away from the waterfall.
“Yeah, thanks for that.” I ran my hand over Bren’s forehead, wiping away a stray hair.
Vela let out an uncertain huff, picking up a small red pebble from the floor as she stood. Rollin it smooth through her willowy fingers. Over and over. Falling water swirled in the silence between us, pulsing in the cold. A scattered echo of a slowly beating heart.
“Your necklace, I saw it as you were arguing with your friend.” She gestured toward Cody.
“What of it?” I reached up involuntary.
“An unusual stone.” She tilted her head to side.
“An heirloom. Our Ma’s.”
“Indeed.” Vela gave a wry twist of her lips at that. “I am uncertain how much your friend has told you. Or what it is that you already know.” The pebble rolled across the back of her right hand. Weighing. “I do not like not knowing.”
“And why is that?” My arms ached something fierce. I rubbed at the sore muscles, not meeting her eye.
“Surely that is evident by now.” She tossed an uncaring hand at where Bren lay.
“Try me.”
Vela circled closer. Eyes intent, roaming from Bren to myself, searching. For something I weren’t sure that even she knew. “I loved my family once. As you love your sister. I gave of my heart freely.” Her body had gone perfect still, knuckles white where she gripped the red stone. I hadn’t seen when she had palmed it. “She is your light. You carry that love within you, tucked in tight against the world. I only ask that whatever it is you think of me, that I too have carried that light. And I know what it is to live on when the world around you turns dark.”
Reflexive, I placed a hand on Bren’s shoulder. Vela’s lips twitched.
“In the end, we are all proved too weak. And I too young, too fallible. The light is not what makes you strong. It is what will break you.”
“But they were your family, you loved them.” It were all I could think to say. Her words felt hazardous close to something inside me I didn’t want to see.
Vela gave an unexpected laugh. It was light and sweet. “A mistake I hardly plan to make again.” She looked down at me, her eyes bright. “Once, I think, we may not have been so different, you and I. But that was a long time ago. Another life.” Her chin tilted ever so slight, throwing her already sharp features into piercing relief, a finger tracing a circle across the smooth curve of her throat. Without thinking I raised my hand to the silver chain around my neck. Flushing, I dropped it back to my side. I’d give her nothing to see worth stealing.
A flick of a shrewd smile. “Just remember, Jorie, what is shattered once can hardly be broken again.”
I wanted to object, to say something. Instead I worked hard to keep my face calm. This felt dangerous close to that first crunch under your boots. Right before the ice gave way and the cold swallowed you whole.
Then, smooth as a bird in flight, she turned and strode off into the waiting darkness of the cave. Not a footfall or crunch of heel on stone came back. I shuddered in a breath, and glanced to the rock where she had been standing. To the pebble she’d been playing with.
There weren’t nothing left of it but a scattering of shattered red dust.
CHAPTER 40 A Trick of the Light
Careful, I wiped Brenna’s chin dry, coiling the cloth up in my hand. And slipped the ice-stone pendant from around my neck. I stared down into the jewel. An heirloom, I had told Vela. But it were more that than. It were like a piece of my Ma and of Bren, lying there in my hand. Like dripping silver, I let the chain hang between my fingers. The shine of the metal catching and tossing the crisp blue light of the cavern in long cold slivers over my legs. In the silence the faint glow of the stone swirled in the heat of my palm.
Weighing the stone my hand, I stared at my sister’s face. At the face that looked so much like our Ma’s. Her breathing was shallow but steady. Her heart still beat. Her lungs still worked. There was so much I didn’t know. About all of it. I ran my fingers over the smooth face of the stone. I leaned in close. Close enough that my breath stirred the stray blond hairs on Bren’s cheek.
What if?
Ma had always told us it were special. What if that weren’t just a story? What if? A strange bloom of hope shivered through me, aching desperate in my heart. If all those other stories were real, if Warders and Tracers and even Vydra—for stars sake—were real, why not this? And before I could think better of it, think it false, I slipped the chain over Brenna’s neck.
The stone flashed sudden bright against her skin. I held my breath.
“Come on, work. Fix her.” I cupped my hands over the stone. “Just wake up, Bren. All you have to do is open your eyes. I’m right here.” My words, like my hope, just loud enough to be real.
Bren took a sudden inhale of breath, a shudder running through her. I leaned harder on the stone above her heart, faith flaring my own. But then… nothing. The light faded. And did not come again. Bren didn’t wake. And as quick as it had blazed, belief died away.
“You are a fool, Marjorie Harlow,” I said harsh. “What
did you think were gonna happen? That you’d slip some stone over her head and she would, what, just be alright again?” I scoffed at myself. Even if the world were full of fairy tales, living and breathing and desperate trying to kill us, I certain weren’t one of them. I had no more power in me than did a starless sky. Tucking her coat tightly about her shoulders, I pressed my forehead to my sister’s.
My lashes growing thick with the salt of my tears. But just cause we weren’t stories lost in the night, that didn’t mean I couldn’t use the ones we’d already met to get us out of this. I just had to find them.
When our rest were finally over, we got ready without speaking. Not that there were much to do. Cody took one side of Bren and I took the other. Vela strode away. Mutely, we followed.
Soon the ice of the tunnels took on a more familiar cast. Rock. And ash. Lots and lots of it. We were entering the Nocna Mora mines.
The next time Vela disappeared round a corner ahead of us, I jerked my head toward the side of the path.
“What?” Cody asked.
I nodded again, this time slowing my step as I did. We set Bren down. She had been odd recent. Not awake, not really, but I could feel her growing restless. Little tremors under her skin. It were right worrisome. Because they wasn’t smooth, gentle movements, like someone waking. But sudden and sharp. Like someone struggling.
“You okay?” Cody asked, rubbing his shoulder.
“Yeah,” I said. “But are you?”
Cody winced as he rotated his shoulder. “I think so.”
I eyed the darkness ahead of us. “Cody, there is something I’ve been meaning to tell you.”
From under his lashes, Cody shot a tired look to me. “What is it?” He leaned heavy against the wall, slumping. As if his muscles had simply given out.
“What’s wrong—?”
“We must keep moving.”
I started at the sudden cut of her voice. “Stars, Vela, you startled me.” Again.
Ignoring me as she had done since last night by the reflecting pool, Vela glided to Cody’s side, her face tense. It were like there were two of her. This girl clinging to Cody’s side. And the other. The one I had seen circling ever so slowly below the surface. And why wouldn’t Cody see it too?
“You must get up. No resting. Not when I am this close.” Vela’s cheeks flushed red, her fingers dancing along the neckline of her dress. She shifted her weight back and forth on bare feet.
She were a well of unspent energy. It were troublesome, but that weren’t what was bothering me. Not really. I needed to get us out of here. And do it before Vela decided we weren’t worth her troubles any longer. I were mildly surprised she hadn’t already. I didn’t know what she were, but I’d an idea, a wild one. But what about my life weren’t lost in the wild now? The memory of dripping ice—melting ice—in that chamber had been my first clue.
If something had melted, something had been let free of the ice. And with all those lions and bears and all manner of near to right beasts standing round that ice garden, why could there not have been a girl too? I eyed Vela as she darted out in front of us. It would also explain her story. Prisoner might not have been totally right, but it also might not have been wrong.
“We must keep moving. This is the only true passageway to the outside I am able to follow. If we slow now—”
“Just give us a second,” I said.
“A minute only, then follow.” Vela spun, her shoulders stiff, and strode back out of sight down the tunnel.
I cocked an eyebrow in Cody’s direction, and held out my hand.
“I suppose we should keep going,” he sighed.
Taking his hand, I stood. He pulled away. I held firm, tightening my grip. “Cody, she ain’t right. And you know it.”
Cody’s frown deepened. This time when he yanked his hand, I let it go. He turned to check on Bren. “Jorie?” Cody’s voice hitched on my name.
“What? Is something wrong with Bren?” A tint of panic filled me. I rushed to his side.
“I… no. Well, not anything new.”
“Don’t scare me like that.”
“I—sorry. I wanted to ask you something. Let’s just say that for argument’s sake we make it out of here.”
“And?”
“Jorie, we can’t carry her. You and I, we barely made it ourselves. How can we carry her home like this?”
A spark of fear. I swallowed it. Cause he weren’t wrong. Good thing I’d already thought of that. “I have a plan.”
“Like the last time you had one?” he asked. “When we ran in blind and were almost killed and then burned by the Rover? Or the time before when Bass and her people took us prisoner? For once, Jorie, maybe you let someone else help you.”
“Cody, that ain’t fair.” Hurt roared up in me. I wanted to tell him he were wrong. That he should trust me. But like a sudden weight, leaded and hard, the truth in what he were saying settled heavy on my chest. But it weren’t the only truth.
It were Cody that had shot the ox, Cody that had pulled us from the Rover. I lowered my eyes. But this time I weren’t lying. I had a plan. “Vela may say she knows a lot of things, but she don’t know everything. She don’t know me, and she sure as stars don’t know us. You have to trust me.”
“But we barely made it out there, just us. How are we gonna make it home, carrying a girl who can’t walk on her own?” he repeated.
I bristled. “We will find a way. We always do.” Cause even when the hare had no chance of avoiding the fox’s jaws, she didn’t stop running. Didn’t stop fighting. My skin went sudden hot.
“Will we, Jorie? How can you be so sure? We have nothing left. Even if we get out of these caves, then what? We were barely able to drag ourselves through the Flats, and then with your sister…”
“What are you saying?” Anger, all of it I had held back, that I had forced aside, came flooding back. And that little fissure of doubt, like a wound that ain’t ever healed right, tore. I didn’t need no one. How stupid I had been to think there were some kind of we. There was just Bren and me. “If you want to go with Vela, just say so and be done with it. I won’t stop you. Stars, Cody, I can’t stop you even if I wanted to.”
“That is not what I mean.” But Cody wouldn’t meet my eye.
“Leave then, go on. I thank you for your help, but I don’t need nothing from you anymore. I ain’t never asked you to come in the first place.” My voice burned in the darkness of the tunnel. I were surprised I didn’t glow with it.
A slow creep of a blush brushed across Cody’s cheeks. “That isn’t what I am saying, Jorie, please.”
I kept my lips firm closed.
“I’m sorry. Please, I didn’t mean it like that.” He reached out into the space between us. “I am just so tired and worried.”
“I am too, but you don’t see me giving up, do you?”
His hand fell to his side, untaken. He took a long time to compose himself, fidgeting with his fingers. When he looked back up his eyes were an odd sort of glossy. “I’ve never been brave, not like you. And this has all been, so, well”—he gestured to the space—“awful. And my head, it’s felt so muddled, like I can’t think straight for days. But, Jorie, please. I want to help you and Bren.”
I scoffed, but my anger slipped ever so slight away.
“It is all I want.” His voice trailed off small, quiet. “You are all I have.” He looked up at me then slow, careful. Sincere. My stomach gave a turn, and the tension drained out of me. A tear fell onto his upturned palm.
I knelt down at Cody’s side. I put a hand on his shoulder. And that wound, that space that had opened between us, got a little smaller. Because trust, it were a choice. And I chose it. For once in my life, I would choose. And I chose this boy. For good or bad.
“Then we stick together, Cody,” I said. “We take care of family. Forever. Even when they are pigheaded, spoiled, untested.…”
A small smile flicked at the edge of his lips.
“I know it seems
impossible. Stars, I am pretty sure it is impossible. But we will get home.”
He smiled at that, and my treacherous, stupid heart give a flutter.
“And I can tell you what that don’t mean. It don’t mean that we give up. We ain’t never gonna give up. So we will get us all home. One way or the other, I swear it. I really have a plan this time.”
His eyes found mine. “Then what are we waiting for? Let’s get this team home.”
My heart gave another treasonous beat.
“I’m just tired is all. My head has been so muddled lately. Did I mention that? But I’m better now,” Cody said. “Come on. Let’s get her up.”
We stood and balanced Bren between us. A feeling not unlike comfort welled inside me. And as I glanced at Cody’s profile, I knew it were the scariest thing I’d ever known. And for the first time in my life, I didn’t know how to get rid of it.
Soon, lines of untapped metals began appearing in the rock and ice. Like great beams in the thick white streaks of quartz. All of ’em one contiguous metal. Silver ore.
How would the men who lived here have left them? These were mines, a prospector’s paradise. Solid earth turned to rubble and grime for a man’s profit. So why would these, clear and bright in sweeping lines across the tunnels, still be here? The farther we went, the more frequent and organized they became. Embedded in the stone, they looked near to almost… purposeful. Like bars. They were just like a cage’s bars. So where were the guards? An idea, as unlikely as it could be, struck me.
Ahead of us, Vela had been getting slower and slower, her movements stilted as little pools of wet began to fill her footprints. Now her body sagged, her breath came in deep shaking rattles. Cody and I exchanged a long look.
Vela stood, blocking the way forward. Her silver hair just gently swaying in the breeze of the tunnel before her. And she were shaking.
“Vela?” Cody’s voice was achingly hesitant as he stopped a yard behind her.
She half turned toward us, little ripples of motion rendered up and down her thin frame. She was really shaking. And deep rings of blue, heavy bruises loomed under her eyes. Her hollow cheeks so pale they were nearly clear.