“Let us hope you are wrong and I am right about the wars to come,” Luna said, moving to open the door. “There are few flames left in the Valley.”
“Then it’s high time we found some more,” Iyana said without hesitation. “Greenfire burns just as brightly as Everwood.”
“Depends on where you’re looking,” Luna said. Kenta made for the stair, but Luna stepped in front of him, nudging him with her hip. “Lucky you,” Luna said without turning. “I’ve changed my mind. You’re free to stay with me.” Kenta dropped his pack as Luna winked at Iyana.
“Where—” Ceth started but Luna was already ahead of him.
“Across the way, you’ll see a well with a missing stone. The home facing that missing gap is empty. It’s small, but plenty large enough for you two.”
Ceth shrugged and shouldered his pack and took the short stair back down to the dirt road below. He had to turn sideways to dodge a clutch of children who must’ve been hiding in a patch nearby. Iyana looked from him back to Luna and Kenta. Kenta was having trouble meeting her eyes, but Luna wore a wide grin that stood out more so because of the way it seemed to clash with her ethereal appearance.
Iyana returned a weaker version of the smile and went to step onto the oak stair, but Luna gripped her by the crook of the arm and pulled her back, leaning down to whisper as Kenta stole into the back of the room and sat with a heavy plop onto the narrow bed.
“Control is what you seek, Iyana,” Luna repeated her earlier remark. “And it’s exactly what you’ll have to relinquish if you want to find something close to it.”
Iyana nodded before she had absorbed the words and Luna gave her a gentle shove onto the stair. “Now, I’ve got a fool of my own to catch up with.” She closed the door and Iyana nearly scrambled away from it, uninterested in hearing what that might entail.
Ceth was waiting for her in the middle of the road. His silver hair shone in the yellow torchlight, so Iyana looked up, finding the stars in a sky that had grown remarkably clear. The black trees that formed the borders of the place made up the edges, shooting up like grasping hands.
“Watch out.” Ceth pulled Iyana closer to him and she nearly slapped his hand away before she saw the stone well she had nearly walked headlong into.
He held on to her longer than was necessary, but she didn’t say anything as a home with yellow light in the windows grew out of the shadows before them. Iyana tried to ignore the curious looks of the few passers-by.
“They must not get many visitors,” Iyana said with a chuckle as Ceth opened the door that hung just above a stone landing.
It was warm inside. Someone had built a fire for them, which still crackled in the corner of the room. Iyana was drawn to it. She sat before it and Ceth moved to lean on the mantle, both seeming to delight in the heat and quiet.
What felt like an instant later, she woke with a start, feeling a heavy weight on her chest. She rose, her eyes working to adjust to the dim chamber. It was late and the fire had all but burned out. The weight she had felt revealed itself as a clutch of thick fur-lined blankets. She felt the cold greet her as she swept them away and went to swing her legs over the side of the bed, searching frantically for Ceth.
Her toes brushed something soft and she looked down to see him rolled onto his side, his ribs moving in a slow, rhythmic pattern.
Iyana thought of waking him, but Ceth was a man used to hard places. She took the top cover and slid it over him, tensing as his breathing froze for a bare second before he sighed himself back into sleep.
She laid back and thought of gentle things and felt better for his near company, though he could have been closer.
Upon closer inspection, the cave city was at once more and less impressive than they had at first thought.
More impressive because it was a wonder to Kole just how many ways a people could find to fashion structures into what had once been moving rock solidified to crusted obsidian and clay. There was a smithy seemingly built out from a growth of stone whose anvil was indistinguishable from the rest of the vast, interconnected chamber. There were hidden stairways around every corner, natural ladders the masons had helped along with hammer and chisel. There were cooking forges and smaller hearths elders warmed themselves by when the winds blew in from the east and threatened to tear the furs from their backs. There were torches held in sconces, each ruddy flame casting myriad reflections over the melted walls and damp, dripping ceilings. There were men, women, children and elders busy over their private tasks—sewing, hammering, eating, drinking, sweeping—but there were not so many of them as Kole had imagined.
And therein lay the less impressive part of the place, and the part of it that had begun to infect Kole with a sense of melancholy for a people he barely knew. He sensed that a great portion of them were gone, and he could guess that the Sages’ war—Balon Rael most directly—had played no small role in that.
“This way here leads up to the sleeping chambers,” Fennick was saying. They had come to the foot of a stairway that was broader than the rest. It was a flight that shot up before darting to the right, where a row of stalagmites hid a walkway that must have been carved from an expanse of solid rock.
“How many does it sleep?” Jenk asked as Misha wandered away from them, touching every outcropping of glittering stone and admiring a place that was alien to anything they had come to know in the Valley. Shifa followed her, sniffing each place she touched. They had reclaimed their armor and weapons, much to the chagrin of Tundra and his Blue Knights, but the queen had raised no complaint and Kole was glad of it, lest he be forced to protect Misha from the collected might of the north.
“Now?” Fennick asked. Jenk only stared, and the gruff soldier’s smile dropped some. “Less than it used to.” He looked up the center stair and waved to a dirty child who sat at the top, peering down at them with forced indifference.
“The way beyond is vast,” Baas said, his voice seeming to emanate from the stone itself. “There are many rooms beyond. Far too many for the folk we’ve seen.” Fennick winced at the remark, but Baas didn’t notice. He looked straight through the little girl, as if his eyes could penetrate the sheer rock wall behind her. He had moved through the glittering network as if in a dream, with each step bringing a new revelation. Kole noticed that his eyes never widened at the new sights, though he would occasionally pause and tilt his head, as if listening.
“Now, then,” Fennick said, turning back to the group. He smiled at Misha as she moved to rejoin them. “Care for some hot food?”
“Never ask Landkist if they’re hungry,” Linn said, which might have been her first words of the day. “The answer will leave your children starved.”
“Embers command an appetite, I can imagine,” Fennick laughed. “Lucky for you, the Blue Knights take their meals in the palace. They don’t bother with salt and gristle, as least not the stuff we cook. Delicate stomachs, I think. But don’t tell them I said so.” He leaned in conspiratorially. “Tundra most of all.”
“That one was more than happy to see us leave the palace this morning,” Kole said.
“He’ll be happier when he sees your backs fade from view across the frozen sea,” Fennick said. He seemed to mean it in jest, but none of them took it that way. He cleared his throat to ease the tension and motioned for them to move to the right of the stair, where a large oaken table had been set with a steaming mound of what Kole could only guess to be some approximation of a hog.
They took their seats along wooden benches, Kole choosing the opposite side, where he could take in a full view of the bright day beyond the yawning cave mouth. He could see the palace glittering beyond the dusted courtyard in the morning light.
“Dark Months are closing fast,” Jenk said, following his gaze. “Probably just a few hours of daylight left.”
“Aye,” Kole said, meeting Linn’s eyes as she sat down across from him. She looked away, trying to make the motion seem nonchalant, but Kole knew when she was uncomfortable.
Kole’s eyes flickered to Linn’s as the captain spoke. She nodded slightly between chews, likely thinking along the same lines. Fennick had been friendly when they met him a few days before, but not this talkative. Kole would have liked to think it was their easy company that had brought it out of him, but he knew people better than that. Fennick was nervous. He was sweating, and Kole hadn’t seen him look toward the yawning gap into the bright morning for more than an hour. His mind was elsewhere, and Kole could guess the direction and at least a part of the reason.
“A lot of industry,” Kole said, tearing a strip from an oily bone. He rocked in his seat, adjusting his tight-fitting armor. Fennick followed the direction of his gaze.
“War makes miners of us all,” the man said. He pulled the cloak he never seemed to take off open to reveal that gray metal-and-leather armor beneath, along with the dull hilt of a broad sword. “Not easy to maintain buckles and loops in a place like this. Sometimes a button will snap just for the strain the cold puts on it in the nights, or the thaw brings out of it in the morning.”
“And you need armor and weapons for all the fighting you’ve been doing,” Kole said. It froze Fennick midchew, and Kole showed him a disarming smile.
“Just because there hasn’t been a big fight in a while doesn’t mean one’s not coming,” Fennick said and Kole inclined his head.
“The Sage of Balon Rael is dead,” Misha said. She didn’t have half the modesty of the others. She straddled the bench facing Jenk, who did his best to ignore her, and she didn’t bother using one of the proffered cloths to wipe the drip from her chin until it had begun to slide toward her neck. “What need have you of all this metal with no one to fight?”
Fennick set his bone down and snatched a used rag of his own. He took a breath before responding. “Lost five of our own just before you came up from the west,” he said. “Including Captain Saphyr, in case you forgot.” Misha shrugged. “Might not seem like an all-out war, but in my experience, they’ve got to start somewhere.”
“The Blue Knights don’t wear leather and iron like you lot,” Jenk said, trying to change the subject to something a bit less inflammatory. “They get all that gold from you?”
“This here is the queen’s mountain,” Fennick said. “Nothing we take from here is truly ours. But to answer your question more directly: no, we aren’t in the business of mining precious gems. The brightest jewels were taken out of this place long before we came down from the passes.”
“Soft stuff when it comes to a fight,” Baas said.
“Gold?” Fennick asked and the Riverman nodded. He didn’t seem fond of the meat, so Jenk did his best to help him with it.
“Felt plenty hard enough to me,” Misha said and Kole had to agree.
Fennick saw his frown and nodded. “That’s because it’s not gold,” he said. “Not truly. It’s an alloy.”
Kole had never heard the word. He looked to Baas, and the Rockbled offered a halfhearted shrug. “A mix, I think he means. Gold and something else.”
“I don’t pretend to know the particulars,” Fennick said. “Just that those gaudy suits have been around long enough to set styles, fall out of them and come into them again ten times over.”
“I think we all know where they sit now,” Linn smiled and Fennick didn’t argue. “Though they look fine resting on top of blue. Not sure we could pull it off, given our complexions.” She raised her arm, which was bare above the leather greaves she wore and below the gray shirt and leather vest. It seemed to Kole that she was getting more and more used to the cold, though she had no Ember blood to warm her apart from their company.
“But then, you lot are from the deserts,” Fennick said, seemingly insulted on their behalf. “No doubt those palaces were more grand than anything you’ll find in the records of the north as far back as any can remember.”
“Your Sage queen might beg to differ,” Misha clipped, but Fennick took it in his stride.
“Beg away,” he said. “Everyone knows those stories. I’ve seen tapestries in the palace—not sure where they’ve got to, now—that show great ivory pillars with red jewels rising out of yellow mountains of sand. Surely you’ve seen the same, even if you’ve grown up in the Valley.”
Kole smiled at the others. “Maybe the Merchant Council’s would-be palace is even farther from the real thing than we thought.” Fennick watched their glances and shrugged before taking a long pull from his cup.
They had all but finished with the meal. Kole hadn’t realized how hungry he was before he had taken what was on offer in the queen’s palace. Tougher, drier stuff than the succulent meat Fennick had just given them. If his stomach hadn’t told him clear enough, seeing the state of himself in the mirror of his too-large guest chamber had done the trick. His muscle was still there. It might even have grown tougher and less yielding over the last month, but he was leaner. His ribs had taken on similar contours to his black armor, and his shoulders had bony spurs he hadn’t seen since he was a child running through thickets and reeds.
Kole had seen something else in the night that had given him pause. He stared at Linn and saw the way her eyes darted away from his once more.
In the night, he had heard voices carry up to his austere balcony. At first, he had given it up as a trick of the wind, perhaps Tundra and his guards on patrol. But then he recognized a familiar voice and crept to the entryway, opening the white wood door with frosted glass. He looked down and saw Linn dressed in little more than sleeping wear and their royal host in even less. She wore a gossamer gown that clung to her in the most immodest ways, and Kole was so taken with the sight of her that he forgot his initial shock at seeing them speaking at such an hour, and in such private company.
They had stayed like that for a time, and Kole had ducked back into the doorway, where he could concentrate on listening without the worry of being caught in the act. His blood was hot and his eyes were fixed on the wrapped bundle of armor and Everwood resting on the black cherrywood chest at the foot of the bed. He only hoped he could get down to them quickly should Linn cry out, but he feared the Sage’s magic would be too quick.
Their voices had begun to fade away, and Kole had crept back out onto the landing. His heart quickened when he saw them disappear beneath the arches and behind the pillars on the northern side of the courtyard. He stood there after they were lost to sight and sound for what seemed an eternity, at war with himself. Ultimately, he had given Linn up to whatever fate awaited her in the bowels of the strange queen’s palace, trusting that she was under no spell but her own, knowing that she was more than capable of defending herself should the need arise.
Even against a Sage.
Still, he wondered what she had learned, or if her moonlit stroll with one of the great and old powers of the world had truly been all chatter and innocence. He had thought of crossing the short hall and rapping on her door when she returned, and had even considered hopping from his balcony to hers, but the thought had made him blush. Whatever Linn had learned of their host, she would tell him. He had to believe that. He had to be patient enough to see it through.
“You seem bothered, Captain,” Linn said, bringing Kole back to the present. She addressed the captain, but her eyes had been on Kole. He gave her a smile that she frowned at. It was a strange look, but he let it drop from his mind as he focused on the host who sat am
ong them. The one he needn’t fear.
Fennick felt the eyes of the Valley company on him and shifted uncomfortably. He didn’t answer for a time, even opened his mouth to speak twice and closed it. Finally, he heaved a heavy sigh and glanced about to ensure that none had ventured too close.
“Our queen does not wish us to venture back out onto the flats,” he said. “Not with her old friend so seemingly close.”
“The Eastern Dark,” Kole reasoned and Fennick nodded.
“You lot said you followed him out of Center. Followed him as far east as east goes. If you didn’t kill Captain Saphyr—and I’ve no doubt you’re telling the truth—surely he was responsible.”
“Seems that way,” Jenk said.
“Bah,” Fennick went to take another drink. Coming up with nothing but an empty swallow, he snatched the cup Baas offered. “Feels wrong, is all. Waiting here, hiding behind walls of Nevermelt or sheltering in caves when something like that’s about.”
“Can you blame her?” Linn asked. She was calm, reasoned, even soothing. “She doesn’t want to see any of her people harmed. The Eastern Dark will come; of that, unfortunately, we have no doubt. Why speed it along, especially on his terms?”
“We’ve had no word from Yana or the Quartz Tower,” Fennick said, his voice rough. It had taken him some effort not to interrupt, and his good humor had blown out for the moment. Seeing their looks, and seeing the way a few passers-by stared at him a moment longer than they might have otherwise, Fennick forced a tight smile onto his face.
“Apologies,” he said. “We were supposed to have a scout in the night. Blasted light’s been quitting on us. Normally, we’d be able to see the tower from here, relay a signal. Boys on the wall say they can’t make it out today. Sun’s not high enough, and Yana hasn’t sent a runner.”
“Runner.” Kole smiled, saying it to himself. He felt a bittersweet swell as he thought of his father, and then a pang of fear as he returned to that familiar, buried worry over what might have befallen him in the deserts. What might have befallen them all. Linn saw his look and reached across the table to grip his hand. He smiled reassuringly and she gave a squeeze before letting it drop. Misha, seeing the exchange, looked from one to the other but kept her mouth shut. She looked sympathetic when she met Kole’s eyes.
The Frostfire Sage (The Landkist Saga Book 4) Page 42