From Under the Mountain

by Cait Spivey

“What nonsense,” Eva said under her breath.

  Every head in the room snapped to her.

  Lisyne growled. “What did you say?”

  Evadine paled, but did not retract her statement.

  “It’s a lie,” she said. “It must be. Fiona and Thiymen clan are responsible for everything that has been happening!”

  “Eva!” Guerline hissed. How can she become so angry so quickly?

  Morgana rose with her fists clenched. “What’s your proof, Malise?”

  “Think about it! All sides of the country have been beset by disaster, except the East. We’ve heard nothing from the East!” Eva shouted, rising herself. Her cheeks flushed red and her eyes grew wild. “And then the witches stopped showing up! Thiymen dropped all its duties to prepare for an attack on us. You all saw the dead rising and tearing the living limb from limb. Who controls the dead? Thiymen clan!”

  As she spoke, her voice jumped to a high shriek. She stood in the center of their circle and spun around, staring at them all madly. She turned to Guerline and pointed at her. Guerline stood and held her hands in a gesture of surrender.

  “Eva, please, this isn’t you,” she said. She recognized the mania she’d seen in court, when Eva snapped at her. Though her expression didn’t change, tears filled Eva’s eyes and broke Guerline’s heart. It wasn’t enough—loving each other wasn’t enough to stop this fundamental opposition. Guerline felt more afraid of magic than ever, that was true . . . but still, she could not leap to the accusations now spewing from her lover’s mouth. Please, she begged silently, over and over. But Eva’s eyes dimmed, and she turned away from Guerline.

  “And the dragons! You remember that man Brynn, who came and said the dragons were attacking Giarda? The dragons have gone wild! They flew here and attacked the palace grounds!” Eva said.

  Desmond scoffed. “Eva, the dragons were attacking the undead—”

  She spun again to face Guerline. “Do you remember your parents? Do you remember how they died, Lina?”

  The room got very quiet. Evadine advanced. Guerline stood straight-backed in front of her throne, not flinching as Eva approached and bent down until they were practically nose to nose. Guerline fought her impulse to gather Eva into her arms for a moment, straining for decorum, then decided it was stupid to prioritize her imperial persona over the woman she loved. Eva’s hand trembled so close to Guerline’s that she could feel it. She grabbed that trembling hand in both of hers and held it tight, then opened her mouth to speak—

  Alcander leaned out from behind Eva, and Guerline’s words died on her tongue. He wrapped his one grey arm around Eva’s shoulders, pressed his forearm against her throat. He seemed bigger than he had before, taller than Eva, as he hadn’t been in life; he rested his chin on her head and his black, sludge-like blood dripped onto Eva’s cheeks. She didn’t seem to notice. Her wild grey eyes danced over Guerline’s face.

  “They rotted while they were still alive,” Eva hissed.

  The words sounded distant to Guerline’s ears. Her focus was on Alcander, not on Eva. His arm slid across Eva’s throat until his hand wrapped around it. His fingers applied gentle pressure, and Eva spoke again.

  “Who else could possibly conceive of such a terrible curse than poor, mad, bitter Fiona?”

  Guerline’s eyes widened. Was Alcander . . . controlling Eva? Was he more than just a figment of her imagination? Alcander grinned, as if he could tell what she was thinking. He reached for her. Guerline stepped back and opened her mouth to reveal his presence to the others, but before she could, Evadine disappeared before her eyes. Guerline blinked a few times and realized that Eva had been snatched up by Lisyne, who now held her aloft by the throat in the center of the circle. The claws of her left hand were extended and her bared teeth were elongated, and she was snarling up at Evadine with murder in her eyes. Eva went ash-pale and clutched at Lisyne’s hand. She tore at it with her nails, and kicked fruitlessly in an attempt to get free.

  Alcander was gone.

  “No, wait!” Guerline ran over. She took hold of Lisyne’s left arm. The shapeshifter turned to look and snarled at her, but Guerline held her ground. She swallowed her fear and looked directly into Lisyne’s burning golden eyes.

  “She’s not herself. Her words mean nothing. She’s been infected—”

  “Her words have infected the country. Her words are the reason Fiona did not communicate with the crown, and why you have now been caught unaware by all of this,” Lisyne said.

  “The poor girl has been driven mad by her grief,” Aradia said. “Please, Lisyne. You can hear it in her voice, and see it in her face. Have mercy on her.”

  “Grief?” Morgana sneered.

  “For her lover, the dead prince,” Desmond said.

  “No! It is Alcander, but not like that!” Guerline said quickly. “He’s here, he’s—”

  The shapeshifter barked a laugh.

  “Damn it, listen to me! These words are Alcander’s, not Eva’s!” Guerline roared.

  Lisyne paused for a moment, appearing to consider their words. She loosened her grip ever so slightly on Evadine’s throat, and the young noblewoman gasped for air. Color flooded back into her face; her eyelashes fluttered as she teetered back from the edge of unconsciousness. Guerline held her own breath, waiting to see what the shapeshifter would decide. Her heart jumped when Lisyne lowered her arm.

  “You are all fools,” Lisyne said.

  And she pulled back and threw Evadine across the room.

  Eva hit high on the wall with a sickening thud that echoed against the stone, then crumpled in a heap on the floor. Guerline screamed and ran toward her until something solid caught her in the chest and knocked the wind out of her. She gasped for breath and realized that Lisyne was in front of her, holding her back.

  “Let me go,” Guerline wheezed.

  Lisyne grinned at her. “Heart of Gwanen, does the lady live?” She twisted, and Guerline was able to see Aradia kneeling next to Eva. The witch stood and shook her head.

  “I’m so sorry, Your Majesty,” she said.

  The empress stared at Eva’s motionless form. No one spoke. Lisyne just continued to stare at Guerline, that amber gaze like a fire lapping at her cheek. Finally, the heat became too much to ignore and she looked back at the shifter.

  “You . . . lunatic,” Guerline breathed. Anger quivered in her limbs, the tension of it the only thing keeping her from collapsing there in front of all of them. Underneath that force, her insides were jelly, as though her bones were gone. Her nascent confidence shattered along with Eva’s skull. How could she rule, how could she lord over the empire when she was so utterly incapable of matching the beings before her? When she couldn’t even save her best friend and lover?

  No doubt Lisyne would have found such a sentiment laughable; indeed, it seemed she could tell. She smirked at the empress, then leaned in and whispered in her ear:

  “She knew he thought of you . . . and that he would come to you. She said nothing.”

  Cold sweat slid down her spine. Guerline looked back at her, mouth slack; then she turned and walked back to her seat. Desmond reached for her shaking hand when she sat down, but she waved him away. Her heart was completely detached from its place in her chest, and she was only just holding herself together. She could find no comfort in the hand of someone who simply stood by and watched.

  “Perhaps you find me cruel, little empress,” Lisyne said. “But I have done you a favor.”

  She too turned and walked back to her seat. She settled down in the chair and pulled her legs up, leaning one knee on the armrest and draping her other leg over the other. She rested her elbow against the propped-up knee and leaned her chin upon her hand.

  “Now then,” Lisyne began. Then she paused again, as though a thought had struck her. “What was all that she was saying about the dragons?”

  Silence hung in the air as Guerline stared at Eva’s body. Something wet dripped onto her breast; her trembling hands floated to her fac
e and ineffectually wiped at the cascading tears.

  Desmond leaned in and whispered. “Lina, please! There’s nothing you can do for her now.”

  Aradia rose from her seat. “Perhaps we should take a short recess . . .”

  Guerline shook her head to rouse herself and clear her thoughts. Her chest ached, and her mind spun with warring desires, one to retreat into herself and one to do whatever she could to put a swift end to all of this. A recess would mean having to come back after a few minutes, to these powerful people who had sat by and let Lisyne murder a girl. Guerline wanted nothing more than to be far away from all of them. At least if they said what they needed to say and were done with it, she would have the whole night before her. She made her decision, and looked away from Eva. Just give me a few minutes, love.

  “We had . . . an emissary from Giarda come and say the dragons had been attacking villages across the mountains,” she said.

  “Strange. Is he still here?” Seryne asked.

  “Yes,” Guerline said.

  “Have him fetched,” Lisyne said.

  Guerline nodded. She began to rise, but Desmond put a hand on hers and shook his head. He got up and crossed over to the throne room doors, poking his head out and passing the order on to the guards.

  “Yes, right. As I was saying,” Lisyne continued, “it seems to be about time we all shared our information. I think we’re all fairly well briefed on the disasters of each region. Famine in the south, sandstorms in the west, hell-hounds loose in the forests of the north, and so on. But it seems that some interesting things have been taking place in the capital. Would you care to enlighten us all, Empress?”

  Guerline’s upper lip curled ever so slightly. She couldn’t tell whether or not she was being taunted. Not that it would serve her any purpose to wonder about it, since she was hardly in a position to demand respect from a four-thousand-year-old shapeshifter. So instead, she cleared her throat and addressed the room, doing her best to keep her voice steady.

  “The first strange thing, other than the deaths of my family, was the Giardan emissary you’ve just heard about. After that, we learned that the Thiymen witches had stopped coming to collect the souls of the dead. People gathered outside the palace with the corpses of their loved ones. We buried them on the palace green until such time as we could get in touch with Thiymen and discover why they had abandoned their duties,” she reported. Her voice came out in a sullen monotone.

  “We can answer that,” Olivia said. “Fiona first sealed the creature in the world under the mountain six days ago. In order to repair the damage done to the barrier, she forbade crossings. Therefore, the witches could not come to escort the souls.”

  Guerline glared at Olivia. “Well, that is good to know. It would have been better to know at the time that decision was made . . . but that is a discussion to have with the new Heart of Thiymen.”

  Any one of them could have sent her a message about the prohibited crossings. Hadn’t it occurred to them that it was something of which the humans ought to be made aware?

  Desmond coughed. “Today, before the dead rose, Evadine went out and came back with those carts loaded with coils of stored dead energy.”

  “Yes, let us talk about those carts!” Lisyne said.

  “Where would she have gotten any dead energy, let alone two whole carts full?” Aradia asked.

  “I believe it came from the Maravilla twins,” Desmond explained. All three sisters nodded in recognition.

  “So that’s what they’ve been doing; that is still their goal,” Olivia said. “They must have been traveling into the underworld and binding up the energy. That explains the tears Thiymen has been dealing with. But why would the twins risk such danger?”

  “I think you mean, why are they so stupid? Dead energy is not workable,” Morgana said. “It taints everything, and shortens the life of a spell.”

  “Perhaps they were trying to refine it,” Aradia said.

  Morgana scoffed. “For what? To increase their own power? They were always trying to speed their own growth. It’s a wonder they haven’t killed themselves with their ambition.”

  “Was Evadine working with the twins?” Olivia asked.

  “I don’t know,” Desmond said. He looked at Guerline, who only stared back at him. “The undead attacked us before she could explain where or how she’d found the coils. And now, of course . . .”

  They all looked rather reluctantly at Evadine’s body.

  “Sorry,” Lisyne said, not sounding sorry at all.

  “We’ll find out where they were hiding. It can’t be far from the palace. Evadine hates—hated the outer city,” Guerline said.

  “I believe I know that, as well. The old jail tower. I had . . . an associate investigating it,” Desmond said.

  Lisyne looked from Tirosyne to Seryne. The two shapeshifters nodded, rose, and left the room. Guerline watched them go with an ominous feeling. Had Evadine really been working against her? She couldn’t believe it. She’d trusted Eva more than anyone, loved her more than anyone else, and Eva had trusted her. Eva had been ready to tell her about the coils when the dead came. She wouldn’t have done that if she was involved in a plot against Guerline or the witches.

  Yet—

  She knew.

  It was difficult to tamp down, even as she acknowledged the voice in the back of her mind telling her to be wary of reacting before she had proof. She took a deep breath and tried to push the thoughts of Evadine away. This impromptu council needed to get back on track, and condemning the dead was not going to help them.

  But their interruptions were not over. A guard entered and stood at attention.

  “Your Majesty. The Giardan is nowhere to be found. We’re searching the palace for him now,” he said.

  Stunned, Guerline stared for a moment. “Thank you. Excellent work.” She dismissed him, and he bowed and left.

  “My belief is that you will not find him,” Lisyne said, watching the guard go. “Now please, continue. What happened next?”

  Guerline furrowed her eyebrows in confusion at Lisyne’s comment, but brushed it aside. “After Evadine showed us the coils, the dead rose out of the earth and began attacking everyone . . . and that’s where you came in. You, and the dragons,” she said, looking to Lisyne.

  “Speaking of the dragons, where have they gone?” Morgana asked.

  “I told them to track down and dispose of any remaining undead,” Lisyne said. She looked back at Guerline. “Thank you for telling us what’s happened. I shall now share with you what I told the Kavanagh sisters before bringing them here.”

  She settled down into her chair and folded her hands over her chest.

  “The world under the mountain did not form naturally. It was made. It was created to hold the chaos of the world,” she said. “Four thousand years ago, a dark thing made itself known in the world. Death was always part of life, and we all knew that; but death came at the hands of predators. Death came at the end of long, long life. There was no sickness. There was no evil in it. There was only the obligation of prey to predator and to the earth that had brought us all forth.

  “But then the dark thing came, and the babies grew sick and died, and the weak fell ill and died, and the strong went mad and died. All for no reason, for no purpose. They died neither to nourish a body nor to nourish the earth. Such pointless deaths are the worst evil.” Lisyne snarled. “We, the shapeshifters, took it upon ourselves to expel it. We drew it out, and it took sentient form. But we could not destroy it. So we threw it deep, deep into the mountains and bound it there with all the magic we possessed.”

  A hush filled the room. Guerline thought of her parents rotting away while they still lived, dying with no explanation or justification—of Eva, murdered on a psychopath’s whim. Guerline’s fists clenched. Lisyne was right. Such deaths were truly evil. But what about Alcander? Alcander had been eaten by a wildcat. He died to nourish a body. Their parents’ death must have been planned by this conscious, dark
thing—that much seemed clear—but Guerline could only assume that Alcander’s death was natural and right in the order of things, a simple matter of tragic timing rather than malicious design.

  But then, why was he appearing in her nightmares? How had he manifested before her just a few minutes ago? How had he manipulated Evadine, forcing her to speak with a madness that got her killed?

  “And this is what Aunt Fiona has been struggling with all this time? And Petra before her?” Desmond asked.

  “Yes. Only Thiymen has ever been aware of its presence, and they are charged with keeping it bound,” Lisyne said. “They escort human souls to the safe parts of the world we created, away from the thing, and they keep the boundary we made strong.”

  “That’s why the actions of the Maravilla twins are so dangerous,” Olivia said.

  “The damage they’re doing gave this thing the chance it had to push through and weaken the barrier,” Morgana frowned.

  “And it became too much for Fiona,” Aradia said quietly. “We abandoned her, because we never knew what she was facing.”

  “It was always her nature not to ask for help,” Olivia said.

  Aradia nodded and took a deep breath to steady herself. Guerline watched, frowning. So much in the world was kept secret. There were things the witches didn’t tell her, that she didn’t tell the people, that the witches didn’t tell each other, that the shapeshifters didn’t tell the witches! How could they work together when they didn’t all have the same information? How could they work together when one person or a group of people felt enough authority to decide that another person or group didn’t deserve to know about something, or need to know, or wouldn’t understand? This situation had come about because of one presumption after another. Well. Never again. When this is over, our dialogue will be changed. There will be no more secrets.

  “Do you think the thing has broken free now that Fiona is dead?” Guerline asked.

  “I do,” Lisyne said. “I know. I felt the barrier fall. It happened right before the dead rose.”

  “So what must we do now?” Guerline asked her.

  Lisyne did not answer. Instead, she cocked her head to one side and looked at Guerline.