by JA Andrews
The freedom in that moment was liberating. Freedom he hadn’t noticed as a child.
The sensation drained out of his chest and he ached with hollowness in its wake. He gripped Sora’s hand in the darkness of the tunnel and he understood. The tunnel walls stood solid around them, holding off the mountain, holding back the sky. The Sweep and its politics, Killien and his plans, Queensland and its responsibilities, all those things were outside the walls. And in here there was just the silence of endless years of stillness. Nothing rushed, nothing expected.
“Oh,” he breathed.
“Now you see?” Her voice was quiet, low enough that he almost missed them.
“Yes.”
The stood in silence for a breath and Will realized his shoulders were relaxed. He breathed in the stillness of the tunnel.
A jarring question broke through the quiet.
“How did you do that?” He wished he could see Sora’s face. “Your emotions are always so tightly controlled, I can barely find them. How did you make me feel that?”
“I just did what we tried in the rift. I tried to let you feel my emotions.”
“But I wasn’t trying.” He hadn’t been, had he? “I have to…open up to someone. It doesn’t just happen. I have to want to feel them.”
“Maybe you want to know what I’m feeling more than you think you do.” There was a note of amusement in her voice.
“I don’t—that sounds like I’m stalking you.”
Her laughter echoed off the walls, bouncing back on itself into a jumble of sound. “Do you really think that if I were trying to get away from you, you could stalk me?”
“That’s not exactly what I meant.”
“Shall I leave you here in the tunnel and you can try to track me?” Her fingers loosened on his hand.
“No!” He turned and brought both hands to clench hers and she laughed again. He cleared his throat. “I mean, maybe some other time. Right now, I just want to stay here and absorb all this comforting silence you just showed me.”
“Of course you do.” Her fingers wrapped around his hand again. “Because there’s nothing better than being deep in the mountain.”
The stillness of the tunnels became a palpable thing again.
“Living with your people was so bad that you won’t go back? Even for this?”
She didn’t answer. All he heard was the sound of their breath and the silence of the mountain.
“There was another thing my clan believed about me…”
The word trailed away, absorbed by the mountain.
“When I was twelve, Lyelle, the daughter of the holy woman, fell ill. They brought me to her and she recovered. From then on she was allowed to play with me.” A wistfulness crept into her voice. “It wasn’t just that Lyelle was my only friend, she was exactly the sort of girl I would have picked. She was funny and smart and brave.
“The other children never left the cave without adults.” The wistfulness was gone, replaced by something Will couldn’t name. “The mountains are too wild. But she wanted to sneak out with me. We went out twice with no problems, and she grew more eager to do it again.
“The third time we went…” Sora’s voice stopped and her hand trembled. “By the time I sensed the wolves, it was too late. They were too close.”
The horror of the idea stole his breath.
“I climbed up on some boulders.” The words sounded like they were spilling out of their own will. “But Lyelle wasn’t tall enough to get up. And I wasn’t strong enough to pull her…” Sora’s hands clenched his. She drew in a shuddering breath. “It was over so fast. I didn’t…”
They stood in the darkness while she took several breaths. When she began again, a coldness had crept into her words.
“I was too young to understand why the holy woman didn’t blame me.”
The truth of it hit him like a fist in the gut. “She needed the people to believe everything was related to your power.”
He took her silence for agreement.
“She quoted some ancient text claiming to court the friendship of the Serpent Queen was to court death.”
“The next winter I fell sick, and in caring for me, my mother did as well.
“I wasn’t even fully recovered when she died.” The ache in her voice dug into Will’s chest. “Terra told the clan that she’d been a good mother, but it had always been only a matter of time. Because to draw too close to the Serpent Queen brought nothing but death.”
“None of this was you,” Will whispered to her, pulling her hand to his chest. “None of it.”
“I know.” She paused. “At least most of me does. But there’s a part that’s still twelve, watching them take away my mother’s body.” She let out a long breath and her grip loosened. “So no, Will. Not even the tunnels could draw me back. Because the farther I am away from home, the easier it is to remember that I’m not twelve, I have no power, and I’m not cursed to kill everyone I love.
“Or it was. Until Lilit was dying and Killien demanded the same thing from me. I was that girl again.”
She pulled gently on her hand and he let her pull it away from his chest, but didn’t let go of it.
“Killien was desperate,” Will said. “But still, he should have known better.”
Sora didn’t answer him.
“There’s an easy solution to Killien, though.” He felt Sora waiting. “You should curse him.”
She smacked him on the shoulder with her other hand, but he heard her laugh. “If I curse anyone, it’s going to be you.”
Will drew in a breath of the cool tunnel air. “The stories the holy woman told about you aren’t you. She doesn’t have the right to choose your story. She’s stolen some power over you, but if you take it back, there’s nothing she can do to stop you. She’s twisted and controlled the entire clan. What they need is the truth. If you tell them, if you claim your own story and stop letting her control it, you’ll be free of her. And it will loosen her control over your entire clan..”
When Sora didn’t answer, he let the subject drop. “I see what draws you here.” Will’s voice echoed off the wall beside him. “But you forgot to mention the best part.”
She waited in expectant silence.
“This would be a great place for storytelling. Can you hear the little echo? So dramatic. I heard a tale once in Napon about a young woman who was chased by trolls into the hill caves—”
“Will,” Sora interrupted with a laugh, “let’s just enjoy the silence.”
“Right.”
The story pushed at him, begging to be told, but he squeezed his mouth shut.
Next to him Sora shifted. “It’s killing you not telling me, isn’t it?”
A voice interrupted his reply, calling down the echoey tunnel to announce the soup was cooked.
“Of all the reasons to have to go back to the rest of the world,” Sora said, “hot soup is one of the best.” She turned and walked back the direction they’d come, and he fell in beside her, running his free hand along the wall beside him as they turned into brighter and brighter sections of tunnel.
After several turns Sora paused. He could see her clearly now, looking attentively ahead of them. He opened his mouth to start the troll story again, when she tightened her grip on his hand and motioned him to be quiet.
Voices floated down the tunnel.
Evangeline’s voice bounced off the walls, jumbling with itself, “Thank you for coming with Alaric. He’s relieved that you came.”
“Can’t expect the Keeper to get out of any troublesome situations on his own,” Douglon answered. “And I didn’t have anywhere else to be.”
There was a long pause. And Will took a step forward, but Sora stopped him.
“Why are we stopping?” he whispered.
“Don’t interrupt this.” Sora’s voice was firm.
“Interrupt what?”
“Do you hate me?” Evangeline’s words came out in a rush and Will felt a jab of awkwardness.
“I know.” She started backing down the tunnel and Will followed, but he could still hear Evangeline clearly.
“Do you hate me because I’m alive, and I’m the reason she…” She paused. “The reason Ayda isn’t?”
Will’s gut tightened at the question. He set his foot down as quietly as possible, backing away and barely breathed during the silence that followed.
“At first it was hard,” Douglon answered. “But Ayda was exhausted. And with her people gone, she was utterly alone. In a way no one could fix.” The dwarf’s voice stopped and Will held his breath. “In a way I could never have fixed.”
“I’m so sorry.” Evangeline’s words were almost lost in then tunnel.
“I’m luckier than most,” Douglon answered. “When someone you love dies, you usually have nothing but memories. I have something…more.” The stillness of the tunnel waited for him to continue. “Sometimes…when I listen to the trees…I can almost hear what she would say to them.” His voice was soft, but the longing in it caught at Will’s chest. “Almost.”
“Does it make it better? Or worse?”
Douglon let out a long, jagged breath. “Both.”
“I’m grateful for everything, of course, but…” She paused for a moment. When she spoke again it was determined, as though she was forcing out a confession. “Having all the knowledge from Ayda makes me somehow more equal to Alaric. He’s always known so much, and I was just an innkeeper.”
Douglon’s answer was kind. “I don’t think Alaric has ever thought of you as ‘just’ anything. He was ready to tear apart the world to save you. We even had to talk him out of sacrificing himself.”
She murmured something to him, and there was a long, awkward pause. Will and Sora took another step backwards.
“If my cousin’s finally finished cooking,” Douglon said louder, “we should get there before Hal eats our portions.” There was a shuffling noise. “Do you like the cavern?”
“It’s amazing,” Evangeline answered.
Their voices faded away.
Will let out a long breath. “I feel like I just invaded a private conversation.”
“We did.” Sora dropped his hand and walked forward again. “But it was that or interrupt, and she’s been working up the courage to ask that for a very long time.”
“How do you know?”
“We walked together earlier. What do you think we were talking about?”
Will stared at her. “You’ve walked for hours next to me without saying a single word.”
“Maybe,” she said with a smile, stepping out into the cavern, “I was waiting for you to tell me a story.”
Will stopped. “Really?”
“No.” She laughed. “I walked quietly with you because you let me. There’s not a lot of people who will.”
The cavern scattered splinters of reflected firelight across the floor.
“I thought if I talked to you,” he said, “you’d leave.”
“I probably would have.”
“Well, that would have been a shame,” he said. “Seeing as you were about the only person I was sure didn’t want to kill me.”
“Oh,” she said, “there were plenty of times I wanted to kill you.”
The soup was more delicious than a watery concoction of old vegetables had any right to be. Will told the story of the dwarf princess who was as ugly as a rock with a good deal of clarification from Douglon and Patlon. The sparkling cavern echoed with laughter and even though they’d have to wake soon, the fire burned to ashes before anyone settled for the night.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
It felt like Will had barely fallen asleep before the dwarves roused everyone and they headed back into the tunnels. Will paused, taking in the cave again before stepping out of the cavern. After the glittering brilliance, the tunnel was dismal. Only the dwarves and Sora seemed to find any enjoyment in them.
An hour later, a small room opened off the side of the tunnel. Shelves lined the walls again, holding supplies, and a small table almost filled the middle of the room. Will and Sora, put their packs on the table. Sora slung her bow and a thin quiver of arrows across her back.
Douglon looked at Will critically, then offered him a knife. “I’m sure you don’t actually know how to fight with that, Keeper. But maybe you’ll need to cut a rope or something.”
Will took it and put it on his belt.
Patlon went to a wide, flat rock at the far end of the room and after a small click, it shifted and a breeze swirled in. There was a breath of freshness to the air and Rass lifted her face. “I can smell the grass.”
Talen shifted his weight on Will’s shoulder and Will ran a finger down the hawk’s chest. “Almost out.”
“The rift is a short walk southeast.” Patlon set his shoulder against the rock and shoved. Slowly it swung open, revealing a slightly grayer blackness than the tunnels. The wind squeezed through the opening, humming and blustering its way in. “We’ll be watching for you.”
Rass hurried through the gap with Sora, and Hal followed.
Will looked through the opening with a sinking feeling in his gut. The tunnels were dark and close and lifeless. But through that door lay the exposed Sweep. He’d be shoved about by the wind, surrounded by endless nothing and endless Roven.
He turned to Alaric. “If we’re not back in a few hours…”
“We’ll find a way to get you out,” Alaric assured him.
Will nodded and ducked out into the open night.
Huge boulders crowded around him beneath the sky. Wind swirled past him, pushing at his clothes, saturated with the scent of trees and grass. The ground rolled away in front of him, down to the vast Sweep.
A heavy moon sat low over the western horizon, washing out all but the brightest stars and spreading a stark grayness across the grass. A little east of them it turned black where the charred grass began. The wind blew in chilly, fitful gusts, twisting and pushing at the grass, whipping the Sweep into constant motion.
Talen fluttered and shifted his weight. Will pulled the hood off the hawk’s head and Talen shot off his shoulder in a burst of wings.
Will cast out, but the only people he could find were Sora, Hal, and Rass. The tiny elf hurried down the hill toward the edge of the grass, her feet fairly flying across the ground. Sora stood at the end of the boulders and Will stopped next to her.
Hal stood a little away from the rocks, spinning slowly, facing up the slope, taking in the peaks behind, their snowy tops a cold white in the moonlight.
“It’s that way.” He pointed a little to the east. “The back entrance is not far.”
Sora watched him as he headed down the slope. “Do you trust him?” Her voice came quietly through the wind.
Will pulled at the end of his beard, pushing down the fear that had been growing for the last several hours. “I think so. At least he believes he’s going to help us.”
The feeling of exposure the Sweep always caused wrapped around him.
“And if he changes his mind?” she asked.
“Then you’ll have to use your amazing ranger skills and I’ll have to use my amazing magical skills to execute a heroic escape.”
The moonlight traced strands of her braid in silver and caught just the edge of a small smile. It was enough of a smile to draw out a little of his fear and let the wind snatch it away.
“Thank you for coming,” he said. “Thank you actually doesn’t come close to conveying how grateful I am.”
“I don’t trust Hal. And even though he’s not much of a fighter, he could take you easily enough.”
“I’d have been fine,” he protested.
She shot him an incredulous look.
He wiggled his fingers at her. “Keeper.”
She sized him up for a moment, then turned back toward the Sweep, the smile peeking back out. “If it was a Keeper we needed, maybe we should have brought Alaric.”
Will grinned at her. He pulled his eyes away and tried to focus on the blustery motion of the Sweep ahead of them, searching for whatever Hal could be aiming for. “Maybe, but he seems a bit preoccupied with a woman.”
“And you’re not?”
Will snapped his attention back to her, an uncomfortably tight feeling in his chest. “I—” The moonlight etched her amusement in silver and shadows and he tried to meet her eyes, but he couldn’t quite get his own to cooperate. “I’m not…” He trailed off weakly.
She laughed. “She’s your sister, Will. It’s alright. We’ll get her out. But we should move faster.”
Sora sped up, heading down after Hal. Will watched her for a moment, an awkward tangle of emotions smoldering in his chest. He blew out a long breath, hoping to push them away.
Rass waited for them at the edge of the grass. “There’s no one nearby.” She ran her hand across the top of the old brittle grass, then bent down and pulled a new blade of grass through her fingers. “The closest people are near the rift.”
“We don’t need to go that far.” Hal hunched closer to the grass and set out southeast across the Sweep.
It took half an hour to reach a little pile of scrub brush and some rocks piled in the middle of the grass, only stopping once when Rass motioned them all down as a ranger passed by them to the east. They hadn’t quite reached the fireline yet, but it wasn’t far off. The jagged edge of the rift was easy to see here. It was wider than Will had expected, stretching away southeast from them. At the scrub brush, Hal reached under the edge of a large rock and lifted. It hinged open and thumped back with a distinctly unrocklike sound, revealing a black hole beneath.
Rass leaned forward and sniffed the air and drew back. “I’ll wait here and make sure no one comes.”
Hal nodded and climbed down into the hole and Sora followed.
“Be careful,” Rass whispered to Will.