by Beth Alvarez
She eyed him strangely as he straightened his cloak. “I’m sorry.”
“What for? Hitting me?” He waved a hand as if to dismiss it. “I exaggerated. A little. It doesn’t hurt that bad, though that was a pretty angry swing for you.”
“Better mind yourself, or the next time it’ll hurt a lot more,” Firal muttered. “Where have you been? I haven’t seen you since that afternoon in the gardens. You’ve been gone for days. Even Nondar didn’t seem to know where you went.”
“I went home.” He beckoned her as he turned. “Come on, we need to find a place to hide. It’s about to storm.”
She turned her face toward the driving rain. “It’s already storming,” she said, though she followed him. “Where are you going? The temple is in the other direction.”
“Just come on, there’s cover this way. It’ll be safer to wait it out than to try to get back to the temple after it starts. And for your information, this is a drizzle. I could see the worst of the storm from the top of the wall I climbed over, just before you ran into me. Quite literally, might I add.” A hint of teasing colored his words.
Smothering a heavy sigh, Firal drew her saturated cloak closer.
The path Ran picked was difficult for her to follow. He scaled walls and vanished to the corridors on other side before she could find a place to climb, then bounded through thick undergrowth as if it were nothing. Firal struggled to keep up. Even when they walked in a straight line, he moved at a pace that left her lagging behind. Now and then he’d pause and wait for her to close the gap between them.
“I thought you said there was shelter close?” Firal panted, leaning forward and bracing her hands against her knees.
“I said it was closer than the temple,” he corrected.
She held back a complaint when he vanished over the top of another wall and left her to struggle over it on her own. Her fingers ached from clawing at the rock, her nails chipped and fingertips raw. It took some effort to find a foothold and it took more to hold her tongue when she scraped her knees on the way over. She slid into the next corridor behind Ran and sank to the ground with her back against the wall.
Just as she settled, the growl of thunder deepened overhead. Black clouds rolled in from the west, though the rain had tapered to almost nothing. She looked at the sky with a frown and twitched in surprise when Ran appeared in front of her. He offered a hand to help her up and she eyed it with suspicion.
“Hurry up, the weather’s about to get ugly.” His expression softened when she reluctantly took his hand. “Don’t worry, we’re there.”
She perked up at the announcement and pulled herself to her feet with his help. She wasn’t certain where there was, but they’d reached what, at first glance, looked like a dead end. A crumbling stone archway stood at the end of the corridor, to the left. Rust stained the eroding rock where hinges had been, the only remainder of the doors the archway must have held. Lush wildflowers climbed the stone, hanging across the broken arch like a curtain. Firal let go of Ran’s hand and moved closer. Had he led her to an entrance? She swept the dangling flowers back from the stone and yelped.
Beneath the delicate vines, the stone was carved in the shape of a beast’s yawning mouth. A nose and eyes were etched into the top of the broken half-arch, the features worn away by centuries of weather.
Ran brushed up beside her. “Come on.” He caught her arm on his way through the arch and tugged her along. Jagged teeth lined the archway’s jaws and he had to duck to keep those on the top from grazing his head. A handful of slick, grimy stairs led them downward. Firal shuddered. Though it seemed the entrance had once led to the underground, the passage at the back had long since collapsed. She studied the dark stone that blocked the way. From there, her gaze drifted upward. The ceiling was ribbed like the roof of a feline’s mouth, and the dead end did little to make her feel less like she was being devoured.
“Well, this is pleasant.” Firal wrapped her arms around herself to ward off another shudder. “I can’t imagine a better place to suffer through a storm.”
“Oh, hush.” Ran steered her farther into the small cavern and gestured for her to sit. He sat across from her and leaned back against the wall. “Beggars can’t be choosers.”
She sank to her knees in the middle of the floor. Her skirt and cloak pooled around her. The sky opened up as soon as she settled, releasing heavy torrents of rain outside. Streams of water poured down the stairs but diverted at their foot, channeled away by a trough carved along the bottom of the wall behind her. She watched disinterestedly as the water disappeared into a crevice beneath the collapsed stone. Once upon a time, this passage would have taken her where she needed to go. She was only centuries too late to see how deep it led.
“It is a little frightening, isn’t it.” Ran stared at the fissure that swallowed the rainwater, his eyes glazed. “The Underlings seem to have a fascination with structures like this. They’re all over the ruins.”
Firal cocked her head. “You believe the folk tales?”
He raised a brow. “Don’t you?”
“Maybe.” Her cheeks reddened and she hugged her knees. “What do you remember from the stories the Masters used to tell?”
Ran shrugged. “A bit. Whole bunch of nasties that live in the ruins, said to be ruled by a monstrous queen. Plagued the people of the island, stole children. That’s about all there is, I think.”
“That was what started the war that drove them underground, wasn’t it? When they kidnapped a child tied to the crown?” Firal barely recalled that part of the tale, buried in the recesses of memory.
“I think the war was before that, though I’m pretty sure that ended it,” Ran said.
“Do you think that really happened?” she asked.
His eyes snapped to her, his gaze gone hard.
Firal resisted the urge to squirm. “Or did any of it? I always thought they were just stories.”
Ran’s expression softened and he glanced toward the rubble at the back of the tunnel. “I don’t know for certain. But when I’m walking around in a place like this, it’s hard to pretend they’ve never been here, building things most people on this forsaken island will never see.”
She wiggled her feet in her sandals and peered at her toes as they peeked out from under her skirt. “So you’ve seen a lot of cavern openings like this one?” Perhaps not all was lost. If he knew the location of one of the other entrances, maybe she could still find Daemon before she had to return to the temple. She doubted the court mages would speak to her without some evidence of her heritage, but she couldn’t ask them anything if she wasn’t there.
Ran nodded. “Strange mechanical things, too. And some things that look almost like clockwork, though they’re so rusted out now that they’d never work again. Have you ever seen a clock, Firal?” He paused only a moment, then continued in what sounded like disappointment. “No, I don’t suppose you have. Being in the temple your entire life and all. You’ll have to see one when you go to the capital for the solstice.”
“Do they have them there?” Firal asked. Her cheeks colored the moment the question was out. “I’m sorry, of course they do. I’m sure the king has a dozen sitting around his palace. Although I don’t see what’s so spectacular about a handful of wheels and gears that can tell you what time of day it is.”
“It’s not about what it’s made of,” Ran said, “or what it can do. It’s about who made it. About the fact that a person, any person like you or I, could sit down with that handful of wheels and gears, arrange and bend and rearrange them until all of a sudden, there’s a device that could change the entire world.” The glint in his eye made her suspect she’d stumbled on some passion she’d never known about. He motioned toward the storm—or maybe the feeble daylight—outside. “No more guessing, no more sundials. No more depending on a cloudless day to tell the hour. Don’t you have any appreciation for that?”
“Of course I do.” She smoothed her damp skirts out around her and claspe
d her hands atop her knees. “Just not as much as you do, I suppose.”
Ran seemed to be satisfied by the response, for he said nothing else. Firal watched him wordlessly, studied the way he gazed at the rain and the rivulets of water that cascaded down the stairs. Her eyes searched his face and halted on the fine stubble that adorned his chin. It was such a fair color that she would have missed it if he hadn’t been silhouetted by the dim light that shone in from outside.
“Ran...are you a half-blood?”
He started at the question, canting his head to the side and giving her a quizzical look. “What makes you ask something like that?” He sounded patient, but there was a cold intensity in his gaze.
“It would make a lot of sense, that’s all.” Firal feigned indifference. “It would explain why the Masters would make exceptions for you. Why they don’t expect as much from you. Why they would let you pass, even though your training is so erratic that you can’t even focus well enough to light a candle. It would explain the way you look.”
“What about the way I look?” A stormy look filled his eyes.
“I don’t mean it like that,” she said hastily. “I mean, it would explain why you’re so broad through the shoulders. Why your features are harder and your ears aren’t pointed. And why you’ve got that beard you’re pretending you don’t. You look—” She paused to gauge his reaction before she finished. “Well, you look human.”
He sat silent for so long that she started to fear she’d offended him. Then he sighed and turned his blue eyes back to the water that filled the channel in the floor. “Sometimes I think life would be a lot easier if I knew what I was.”
Firal’s brow furrowed. “You mean you don’t know your own heritage?”
“And what does it matter if I do or not?” He crossed his arms and slouched against the wall. “If the king can live without certainty of his own bloodline, then why can’t I?”
“Ran!” she gasped. “How could you say that?” Whether or not he knew the king, a statement like that was sedition.
“It’s a rumor that’s been flying for ages. I’m surprised you haven’t heard it.” His expression softened, but his tone remained sullen. “The claim that the Eldani king isn’t all Eldani has been around for longer than you or I have been alive.”
“Well I’ve never heard anything of the sort.” She moved farther away from him, as if she could physically distance herself from his words.
“Then you can color me surprised.” He laughed dryly. “It’s not a recent thing. They’ve been saying for years that the royal family is tainted with human blood. They say it’s why Kif—I mean, the king—can’t use magic.”
Couldn’t he? Firal tilted her head, trying to recall if she’d felt any hint of magic about the king during their brief encounter. Half-blood mages sometimes struggled with magecraft, but magic was still present within them—unlike humans, who had no Gift at all. The term Giftless most Eldani used for them was born of both condescension and pity. She didn’t remember noticing Kifel’s Gift, but she had been distracted.
“There’s no way to prove it, really,” Ran added, “but they can’t disprove it, either. The problem comes from the royal family’s history of marrying outside of proven pedigrees.”
Firal tucked her chin into her chest. “And what about you? Do you know anything about your family?”
His shoulders slumped. “I don’t know my real parents. I guess in some ways, my story is a lot like yours.”
Likening the two of them threw her off. At the same time, the comparison made it painfully clear why Ran had never spoken of home or family. Firal had spent her entire life within the temple, fostered by teachers who pitied her. It wasn’t uncommon for high-ranking mages to leave children in the temple or the chapter houses, but most of them at least kept contact with their offspring. She’d had no real upbringing, only a different woman each night to make sure her hair had been brushed and that she’d had something to eat before bed. She had lived with the hope that her parents, whom no one seemed to recall, would come back for her. But like with most things, time’s passing had eventually washed that hope away.
Her fingertips brushed her neck, feeling for her missing necklace. She swallowed and forced her hand back down.
“Who raised you?” she asked finally.
Ran hesitated, staring out past the steps and teeth at the front of the cave, watching hailstones fall with the rain.
“Ran?” She leaned forward, trying to catch his eye.
He sighed. “I suppose it wouldn’t surprise you at this point if I said I was raised in the palace. You want to know what makes me so special? There you have it. I have my own room in Ilmenhith’s castle.” Ran waved a hand with the admission and slumped against the stone. “I know I can never replace a blood child, but Kifel has always been a father to me. He’s treated me like I was his own flesh and blood. Being welcome in his house is the only thing that’s ever made me feel like I belong among the Eldani.”
Firal cracked a smile. “That explains why you’re so at ease swinging a sword at him, then. But why...” she trailed off, unsure how to ask.
“Why me?” He quirked a brow and managed a half-hearted grin, though it didn’t stick. “I’ve asked myself that a hundred times.”
The troubled look that came over his face was so out of character that it made Firal’s heart ache. She twisted the hem of her skirt between her fingers. “Now I really know why the Masters give you special treatment.”
Ran snorted. “Members of the royal family aren’t supposed to be trained as mages, you know.”
“But you aren’t part of the royal family, are you?” she asked. “If you’re a foundling, then—”
“Then it’s a gray area, and that makes things more awkward for all of us. But the Masters thought I would be dangerous if I wasn’t taught a little.” He flexed his hand as if to soothe some sort of discomfort. Or maybe he was trying to conjure something to emphasize his point. Firal had not shared many classes with Ran—she didn’t even know his affinity, now that she thought of it—but she had noticed his propensity for gesture in manipulating the flows. No magic sprang from his fingertips, though, and Firal squinted at him in thought. Matters regarding the royal lineage were considered taboo, but now that Ran was talking, she couldn’t help digging.
“How is it Kifel has no children, anyway? Why didn’t he ever take another wife?” She watched his face for signs of secrets, but he’d held these so long without slipping, she wasn’t sure she’d recognize them.
“I don’t know,” Ran said. “He’s never spoken much about...” He made a brushing motion with his fingers. Odd that he would be uncomfortable talking about the king’s family now.
He cleared his throat. “There just aren’t any children. At least, not any now. I think there was one, once, but something happened. From my understanding, that was when the queen abandoned her throne.”
Firal tried not to cringe. That was one of the reasons the king’s familial matters were not discussed in polite company. Everyone knew the tale, but the suggestion the queen had chosen to abandon her kingdom bordered on sedition, as well. Knowing the king had raised him, she supposed she could offer Ran some leniency, but she’d spent her whole life surrounded by Masters who shushed magelings who spoke of the ill-fated royal marriage. The king had been encouraged to remarry many times through the years. He never had.
Ran leaned forward until he was at eye level with her. “Why do you ask, anyway?”
“Well, just a thought,” Firal said. “I find it unlikely a king would simply take in a child. But King Kifelethelas has been without a queen for as long as we’ve been alive. It’s not impossible for there to be an illegitimate heir out there somewhere.”
Ran stroked his unshaven chin. “I’m not sure what you’re trying to hint at, but it sounds ridiculous. I’m pretty sure if I truly was his son, I’d have found out by now. And if there was a living heir to Kifel’s throne, I’d have met them.”
; “Unless the Underlings carried them away,” she teased. “Honestly, Ran, it’s baffling how you can believe there’s some credence to fairy tales, but you don’t believe a king needs a good reason to foster a child.”
“I don’t think Underlings really carry children away,” he muttered. “I think that part of the story is just a bedtime spook-tale for naughty children.”
“Well, I’ll take that with a grain of salt.” she replied coolly.
Ran shrugged and turned back to the weather that raged just outside their shelter. “What are you doing out here, anyway? We’re pretty far into the ruins. It doesn’t look like you were trying to find someplace to sit and study.”
“I ought to ask you the same thing,” Firal said.
“Fastest way to the temple is going through the ruins, not around them.”
Her brow wrinkled.
“Coming back from Ilmenhith,” he clarified. “I’m a fosterling, not a prince. I’d be shamed for wasting the king’s resources if I asked to travel by Gate. What about you?”
She debated how much she should tell him. He could point her in the right direction, perhaps get her close to the underground palace, where she was most likely to encounter Daemon. Then again, the last thing she wanted was for Ran to invite himself along. “I was looking for my journal. I lost it several days ago.”
“Why don’t you just get a new one? Seems like a lot of trouble to go through for a couple class notes.”
“It’s not the journal,” she snapped, though almost immediately, guilt pricked at her and she bridled her annoyance. Ran had been nothing but polite. One unwelcome question did not deserve her temper. “I mean, it is. But not for the notes. I can replace the notes and even the drawings, but my necklace broke, and I put it in the cover to keep it safe. I suppose it wasn’t such a safe place to keep it, after all.”
Ran tilted his head. “I didn’t know you had anything you found that valuable.”