Pursuit of Shadows (The Keeper Chronicles Book 2)

by JA Andrews

  Rass crossed her arms. “No more tunnels.”

  Will crouched in front of her. “The rest of us can’t slip through the grass unseen like you can. There are too many Roven for a group as strange as ours to get home safely.” He tried to keep the disappointment out of his voice and added. “If you don’t want to come, I’ll understand.”

  She frowned. “I do want to come. It’s just too long away from the grass.”

  “It’s easy enough to take some with us.” Douglon studied the grass she stood on. “But that’s too tall.”

  He climbed uphill to a little patch of short mountain grass. Taking a small shovel, he began to dig. In a few minutes he’d dug up a square of earth and grass an arm’s length on each side. He rolled it up and tied it to his pack. “That should stay alive long enough to get us through the tunnels.”

  Rass reached her hand up and ran her fingers along the bundle, knocking loose a shower of tiny bits of dirt. “You’re very smart, Douglon.”

  Douglon winked at her. “There are caves that get sunlight, you know. And water. Deep in Duncave there’s a garden with a floor of grass. Every bit of it got in there rolled on a dwarf’s back.”

  Unlike Rass, Sini was unabashedly excited about the idea of dwarven tunnels, and so Rett followed along perfectly happy as well. Ilsa balked only a few moments before Sora assured her she would walk with her.

  Will followed behind them with Talen. A thousand questions swirled in his head to ask Ilsa, but he felt oddly nervous at the idea of asking them. Sora and Ilsa talked for a bit before Ilsa turned to him. “What’s our mother like?”

  In the dim glimmer moss, her face mirrored his own nervousness.

  “She looks exactly like you.” At her surprise, he continued, “I’ve been afraid for years that I might walk past you and never know it. But anyone who’s met our mother would know you instantly.”

  She hesitated. “And our father? I heard you tell the Torch…”

  Will answered before the emotions had time to make him hesitate. “He was killed the night you were taken.”

  Ilsa turned away for a few steps. “I think I knew that. I don’t remember it, exactly, but I’ve never thought my father was alive.” She glanced back at Will again. “Do you remember much of me?”

  Will launched into every memory he could remember of her as a baby. Learning to walk, chasing the goat, dragging her ugly doll behind her wherever she went. Then he continued on with stories about their village, their mother, their father.

  Ilsa turned out to have a subtle, dry wit and he found a hint of comfortableness growing. Not an ease, exactly, but the awkwardness began to smooth away. She didn’t talk about herself, and he bit back the countless questions he had for her.

  Ahead of them, Alaric and Sini walked together, peppering each other with questions, Douglon and Patlon hummed rhythmic, deep dwarfish tunes that echoed along the tunnel, blending back into themselves, creating their complex thrumming song. It took a couple of hours to reach the same dull cavern they’d slept in the night before. With no chimney to allow a fire, they gathered the glimmer moss together and sat around it eating a cold meal.

  Douglon spread out the little square of grass, and Rass settled into it with a contented sigh.

  “You’re growing soft in your old age, cousin,” Patlon said.

  “Are you really cousins?” Rass asked.

  “Patlon’s father is my uncle,” Douglon answered, sitting down next to her grass. “But most Dwarves call each other cousin, to remember we’re all related.”

  “I like it,” Rass said. “I’ve never had a cousin.”

  “You’re too little to be a cousin,” Patlon said. “You’re a nibling.”

  Rass giggled. “Sounds like nibble.”

  “It’s like a niece,” Douglon explained. “Or a nephew.”

  Rass considered the idea. “Well then, thank you Uncle Douglon, for the grass.” She stood and wrapped her little arms around his neck.

  Douglon’s eyebrows shot up, but he patted her back awkwardly. “You’re welcome, wee snip.”

  With a contented sigh, Rass settled back down on her grass.

  Ilsa, Sini, and Rett sat along one side. A thin divide of air and uncertainty formed between the three of them and the others.

  Will wanted to feel celebratory, but mostly he felt exhausted. He felt a responsibility to fix the awkwardness in the group, but it was hard enough just to keep his eyes open and eat the dried meat and cheese the dwarves passed out. Will added avak to the meager meal, and everyone who hadn’t tasted it before was suitably impressed with it. The fruit perked his mind up for a few minutes, but even that couldn’t dull his exhaustion.

  With all the humans and the small elf worn out, the dwarves carried the evening, telling tale after tale of the pranks they’d played on High Dwarf Horgoth. Douglon, it turned out, was such a close relative to Horgoth that until the High Dwarf had some children, the case could be made that Douglon was next in line for the throne—an honor he was decidedly unhappy about.

  The dwarves entertained them, until one by one they fell asleep to long, slow echoes of dwarven songs.

  The next day Will walked with Alaric through the darkness. Ahead of them, Sora, Ilsa, and Evangeline chatted animatedly. There was something subtle, but almost masterful, about the way Evangeline drew the other two out. Sora’s laugh was as light and easy as it had been when she’d found him after the fire. And Ilsa joined in the conversation more and more as the hours passed.

  Will and Alaric continued to fill in gaps for each other from the past year.

  “When we reach the Stronghold,” Alaric said, “I’ll put Ayda’s memory of the elves into the Wellstone. But I think you should be the one to write those down. The elves deserve to have the story told right.”

  “I can’t believe they’re all gone. I can’t believe Ayda’s gone.”

  They walked in silence.

  “Where’s her body?”

  “Douglon took it to the Elder Grove in the Greenwood.”

  “She really is gone, right?” Will asked. “I mean, it sounds like Evangeline was essentially dead, and you brought her back. Could Ayda…?”

  Alaric shook his head. “I’ve asked myself that every day. But she isn’t like Evangeline. Ayda gave up everything. There’s no life left in her at all. Although”—he paused, as though reluctant to continue—“she did put a lot of herself into Evangeline, and into Douglon once when he was dying. And into the Elder Grove itself. I can’t find anything in particularly unique about the vitalle, but maybe you could feel something else?”

  They reached the Cavern of Sea and Sky at the end of a long day of walking. The air in the cavern glowed blue with the sunlight that trickled its way in. Glints of orange flashed across every surface from their glimmer moss. A reverent silence muted the group, both from those who’d seen it before, and those who hadn’t.

  Patlon and Rass made a fire, roasting some yams and onions, scattering countless glints of light across the cave. Ilsa, Sini, and Rett explored the cavern. Will took off Talen’s hood, and the hawk flew in circles around the cavern.

  Alaric drew Douglon and Evangeline aside and explained Will’s talent. “There’s a chance that he can sense what Ayda put in you better than I can.”

  Evangeline looked at Will sharply. “Do you think there’s a chance that it’s part of her? That we could somehow get her back?”

  “I don’t know,” Will said. “That’s what I’d try to find out.”

  He opened up to Evangeline. A rush of gratitude and unworthiness filled him, laced with guilt and something that felt like a desperate, clinging sort of…greed. Alaric squeezed her hand and what had felt like greed settled into what it really was—a tight bundle of joy and desire and friendship and fear, all wrapped so tightly together there was no name for it except love.

  Will took a breath and opened up toward Douglon. A gnawing ache flowed into him. Grief. Still new enough to be eroding everything else. Every experience
of grief Will had had surged to the surface in his own emotions, resonating with Douglon’s pain. The sheer weight of it threatened to overwhelm him.

  There was something similar in them, but there was too much chaos to figure out what.

  Sora shifted, watching them with interest. That’s what he needed, Sora’s calm.

  “Could you help me?”

  She stepped closer. “Anything.”

  “I need to feel what you feel.” He reached out and took her hand.

  A flood of emotions crashed into him. Admiration, curiosity, excitement, sympathy, and over it all, a warm, glowing blanket of eagerness, pulling him toward her, wrapping around him. His stomach twisted into a knot of nerves and he couldn’t breathe.

  He closed his eyes and drew in a breath. “That’s very distracting.”

  A snag of hurt pulled her emotions back and she loosened her hand.

  His eyes flew open. “No!” He tightened his grip. “It’s nice—very, very nice. I like it a lot. But what I need from you is that eerie calm you have.” He gave her an apologetic smile. “Just for now. There’s so much here, I can’t concentrate.”

  She laughed a self-conscious little laugh. “Oh…I’ll try.” She closed her eyes and he felt her emotions recede a little. She cracked one eye open. “It’s harder around you than it used to be.” She closed her eyes and her brow drew down in concentration. Slowly her feelings drained away until he felt a deep calmness, giving him room to sort through everything.

  “Thank you.”

  Will started with Evangeline, pushing past the tangle of emotions. Below everything something tranquil caught his attention.

  He squeezed his eyes shut. Serenity. The peace that infused forests and mountains and storm clouds. The kind that endured for eons and stretched across the heavens at night.

  It did remind him of Ayda. But it wasn’t the elf exactly. It was more like an echo.

  He felt a twang of his own disappointment and realized he’d been hoping that he’d find something recognizably her. That somehow the elf was still alive.

  What Evangeline carried wasn’t just emotions, though. There was something like vitalle about it. He could feel it sitting like a bubble of energy inside the intangible swirl of feelings.

  Will focused on Douglon, reaching past the grief. There it was, the same serenity that Evangeline had, part emotion, part vitalle. Instead of sitting below everything, Douglon’s was completely surrounded by grief and a desperate sort of possessiveness.

  Will pulled at it the way he would pull at vitalle, and felt it draw closer to him.

  If he wanted, he realized, he could pull it out. Which was interesting, but not necessarily useful. He lingered for a moment, trying to claim a hint of the peace. But there was nothing in himself that was like it enough. The serenity of it was foreign. He could recognize it, but it didn’t resonate with anything inside of him.

  “It’s not Ayda,” he said quietly. “It’s just…elfishness. I don’t think there’s anything of her left.”

  A flash of disappointment flashed through Douglon’s emotions, but his face stayed impassive. “That’s what I thought.”

  Will closed himself off from both of them, the ache of loss from Douglon still ringing in his own chest. The dwarf walked over to the fire, and Evangeline and Alaric moved away together, talking somberly.

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Sora, still holding Will’s hand, pulled him toward a side tunnel. They turned down it, and the ethereal blue of the cavern began to darken. The tunnels felt different than they had the first time she’d brought him here. The fear of them had disappeared, replaced with the feeling of being cocooned in something safe. The disappointment of not finding Ayda couldn’t quite follow him in here. It fell off somewhere in the darkening tunnel leaving just himself and Sora and the mountain.

  “I’m glad you snuck into my room that first night,” he said.

  Sora laughed and led the way around another turn. The tunnel darkened to a deep grey. “You didn’t always feel that way.”

  “True. You were too frightening for me to be glad.” He thought back to that night. “When you said, ‘I see you,’ it was the most terrifying thing I’d ever heard. Because I knew you saw more than I wanted you too.” The fear of her felt foreign now. “I’m not sure when it turned from terrifying to freeing.”

  “Somewhere on the Sweep for me.” She slowed. “At first it was just frustrating that you seemed to understand me. But it kept drawing me back.”

  “Flibbet the Peddler has a rule that says, It is a terrifying thing to be truly seen—but it is infinitely worse not to be. I don’t think I really understood what he meant before I met you.” He laughed. “You managed to teach me both parts.”

  She turned toward him and he could just make out her face in the dark. She smiled, but there was a hesitation in her face. “How much past Kollman Pass is your home and Queenstown?”

  “Are you in a hurry?”

  She paused. “I told Sini and Ilsa that I’d see them to their homes, so I will, but then I need to leave.”

  “What?” He clenched her hand. “Why?”

  “I need to go back home.” There was an ache in her voice. “You were right. The holy woman from my clan took what was my story, and I’ve let her control it for too long. She controls who I am, who the clan is. I have to go back and stand up to her, tell them all the truth. Or they’ll never be free of her…I’ll never be free.”

  “I’ll come with you.” Her fingers felt cold. “I love telling people the truth.”

  She let out a little laugh and leaned against him, laying her head on his shoulder. He ran his free hand down her braid, his fingers finally tracing the plaits of copper like they’d wanted to for…how long had he wanted to do this?

  “This isn’t something an outsider can be a part of, Will. Especially one that would be chasing after me wanting to record my every word.”

  “Oh, this should definitely be written down.” He cleared his throat. “The Huntress and the Holy Woman: A tale of corruption and truth.”

  She breathed out another laugh and leaned into him.

  He ran the end of her braid through his fingers. “When do you have to go?”

  “Not yet. There’s a ceremony on midsummer that I always played a main role in. She won’t be able to stop me from taking that position. If I want to talk to my people, that will be the moment. But I have a couple weeks to help get Sini, Rett, and Ilsa to their homes.”

  “Let me come with you,” he pleaded.

  She shook her head against his shoulder. “You have things you need to do. Like prepare for a dragon attack.”

  Will wrapped his arm around her. She melted against him and he stood there absorbing the feel of her. He caught a scent of leather just like the first night she’d appeared in his room and terrified him. “Would it help if I begged? Or cried like a baby?”

  “It might.”

  When she started to pull back, he tightened his arms, an ache in his chest. “What if I can’t let go?”

  She looked up in his face for a breath, her brow drawing down in concentration, until a rush of longing and resolve and warmth burst into him, all wrapped in a sort of grasping need and desperate hope that caught his breath.

  She leaned up and pressed her lips against his, and he opened up to her, letting everything else she felt swirl in. He pushed as much of his own emotions back into her as he could, until it was impossible to tell the yearning and eagerness and hope and heartache apart. It churned around them, a tangle of things beginning and ending in the same moment.

  She pulled away and it felt like she tore something out of him. “I’m not leaving until everyone gets home. And it won’t be forever. If we’ve learned anything, it’s that you’re incredibly easy to track.”

  “You’ll come find me?” He sounded desperate. “When you’re done?”

  She nodded and he pulled her back against him.

  “You won’t even have to track me. I’m ver
y famous and important in Queensland. Just ask anyone and they’ll point you in the right direction.”

  He could almost feel her eye roll.

  Calls that food was ready echoed down the tunnel and Sora pulled away. “Food is still one of the only reasons to leave a tunnel.”

  They walked slowly back to the cavern. The sun must have set because the cave had dimmed to a blackness sparkling with the orange glints of firelight.

  “I’ve talked to Douglon,” Alaric said, as they drew near, “and he has an exit from the tunnels that will put us less than half a day from the Greenwood. We can get to the Elder Grove and bury Ayda.” He glanced at the group. “Unless everyone’s in a big hurry to get to their homes.”

  “We could see the Greenwood?” Sini asked excitedly.

  “I haven’t seen many forests,” Ilsa agreed.

  “I’m definitely not in a hurry.” Will gave Sora a small smile. “Let’s take the scenic route.”

  The group settled down around the fire and the split happened again. Sini, Rett, and Ilsa sat a bit apart. It wasn’t as pronounced as the night before, but it was still there.

  Will waited for a lull in the conversation before clearing his throat. “The night I was rescued from the rift”—he gave Rass a little bow and she beamed at him —“Killien had demanded a story from me, and I was planning to tell the story of Sable.”

  Alaric made an approving noise. “I haven’t heard that one in years.”

  “If we’re to have a story, we need wine.” Patlon pulled a wineskin from his bag, and Douglon pulled out another. “The Roven just left these lying around. Everyone seemed too tired last night to enjoy them.”

  The dwarves passed the wineskins and Will pulled out the bag of avak. He took a bite of the fruit, letting the freshness wake up a little hope that the gap between them all could be closed. Passing it to Alaric, he began.

  “Sable was still small enough to crawl through the broken plaster wall that led under the floor of the abandoned warehouse. And she was still small enough that finding such a place to spend the night was a necessity. Dirt, pebbles, and broken shells jabbed into her hands and bare knees as she scooted in. It was dusty and lonesome, but it was quiet and safe.”