Ashley shivered.
She felt so very small and inconsequential.
She moved away, walking deeper into the cave.
It was surprisingly big. The sounds of her footsteps echoed back to her from somewhere much further inside the mountain. Ashley let her imagination run away with itself and found herself picturing the huge-fisted giant reaching in and scooping out the side of mountain to make the cave network.
It went back and back, twisting and turning into a warren of bigger, deeper caves.
She didn't risk going any further in. The campfire was already a distant glow far behind her. She wandered back towards it.
Blaze had built the fire deep enough into the cave that it could warm them without giving their presence away to the Redpelts. It was also beneath a natural chimney that vented the smoke up into some higher part of the mountain and stopped them from choking to death on it.
She hunkered down beside the fire, fluffing up her satchel to use as a pillow and her duffel coat as a blanket. The broken umbrella lay on the floor, close to the flames. She was tempted to toss it onto the fire. It had served its purpose, after all, and there wasn't a lot she could do with a broken umbrella.
She was asleep before her head hit the patchwork satchel, the weight of both worlds falling away from her shoulders in just a few minutes.
Ashley slept a deep exhausted sleep.
When she woke Blaze was curled up on his side across the dwindling fire. It was cold in the cave. That was what had woken her, she realised. Without thinking about it, she fed the broken umbrella to the embers of the fire, causing it to flare and spit up a shower of sparks that spat and cackled off the cave walls. The canvas quickly shrivelled and burned away to leave the wooden frame, which in turn charred and burned away. There was a sharp crack as the brittle wood succumbed to the heat. Another piece of the handle fell away into the fire exposing more of the silver metal beneath.
Before Ashley could fish it out of the fire the cracks widened as the wood dried out and more of the metal core was exposed.
It wasn't a rod as she'd first thought. There was an edge to it, like a sword.
More of the umbrella burned away, the tines buckling before they broke away from the handle.
Ashley crawled closer to the fire on her hands and knees.
The umbrella's handle was all but gone now, and she could see the coiled wrap of a sword hilt with a single black gemstone set in the pommel, and an incredibly thin blade.
Every sword she'd ever seen had always been a big heavy bulky thing that she couldn't possibly have wielded. This wasn't like that. The metal was incredibly thin but incredibly strong, too. The air around it shimmered, but the heat from the fire was nowhere near intense enough for that to be the cause.
Ashley reached into the fire, retrieving the unlikely weapon.
The metal coil was hot in her hand, but didn't burn into her palm as she closed her hand around it. In fact it didn't hurt in the slightest. As she drew it out of the fire another shower of sparks went up and the last of the wooden casing fell away, leaving Ashley holding a long thin sword in her hand.
"Behold Midnight," a deep voice as old as the stones themselves rumbled through the cave. "The Fae Queen's sword."
Ashley looked around but there was no one there.
Blaze was still asleep beside the campfire.
"Take it. It is yours. It always was." The voice came from above.
She looked up at the cave's ceiling.
A nobbled, gnarled face in the rock looked back down at her.
"So it is true, you live. I had heard the grumblings of the Coribrae and thought those damned birds were just stirring up trouble. They like the sound of their own squawks and nothing more than a good and bloody battlefield to pick over. Ah, but it is a delight to see you, Ashkellion. I had lost all hope of ever seeing Tanaquill's line restored to the Dragon Seats."
Ashley didn't move.
She didn't say a word.
There was nothing she could say to a pile of talking stones.
She wondered for a moment if she were actually still asleep and dreaming. That would have made sense of the fact that the red hot metal hilt of the sword hadn't burned her, and in dreams it wasn't unreasonable for the cave to come to life. In fact there was a curious dream-logic to the whole thing. She'd seen the bus driver and the juggler—who, now she came to think about it, was wearing the same goggles she had retrieved from the bank that wasn't a bank—and subsumed them into her dream world. That was how dreams worked, wasn't it? They were like magpies stealing things from real life and changing them. Even the landscape… these were all the places she'd painted on her wall, places her dad had been telling her stories of since she was old enough to understand them.
But she wasn't asleep.
"Do I know you?" She asked.
"No, but I do," Blackwater Blaze said, before the Rock Troll could. "Grimtooth."
The big stone face grinned at them.
It wasn't a chimney, Ashley realised, as a curl of smoke went up between craggy teeth. It was a mouth. A huge grinning mouth.
"Grimtooth Stonewalker, son of Fissureheart Stonewalker, last of the Granite clan, at your service."
"Ashley Hawthorne. Ash."
"That is not who you are, princess. Even an old stone head like me can see that." The Rock Troll's laughter rumbled all the way down into the belly of the earth. "But what do I know? Me, a mere troll? Head full of rocks. I will tell you what I know: I am the stuff of mountains. Civilisations are built on my body. I am steadfast and true. I am honour to the stone. But I am not wise in the ways of the world, unlike your companion. I can smell the carcasses of two of your kind out there, and I can smell them on you… Tell me, Blackwater Blaze, when did you become a Kinslayer?"
"Haven't you heard? I am a Lone Wolf now. I hunt alone."
"I had heard. Redhart Jax hates you. And I mean truly hates you. It is a sickness that has spread all the way down into the earth. Until now I did not know what you had done to earn his enmity, but now I understand. You have sided with Ashkellion."
"I have."
"So you are a traitor to your king."
"I am loyal to my queen," Blaze countered.
"Ah, the bickering of mortals. It is all the same to me. You are a little more than a gadfly on my immortal body. Irritating for a day or two as you buzz around, but dead and gone soon enough, while I abide."
"A pleasant way of looking at it, if you're not me, I suppose," Blaze said.
The Rock Troll grunted. "You obviously brought Tanaquill's child to my prison for a reason, Wolfen. I am many things, but slow is not one of them. I know that you set your fire inside my mouth to be sure that I awoke. What I do not know is why you are here?"
Ashley didn't really understand what was going on, but it was obvious that their taking shelter in the cave was no coincidence. She looked from the face in the ceiling to the Wolfen to the sword in her hand. The campfire, she realised, had long since burned out. The only light in the cave came from the sword. The metal had taken on a curious glow, like moonlight.
"You said it yourself. This is your prison. I know what the Oracle foretold."
"Ah, this is a test for her? If she really is Ashkellion, daughter of the Fae Queen she can set me free. If she isn't you won't feel bad about delivering her to her death at the King Under the Moon's hands," Grimtooth finished for him. "That is cold even for you, Blaze."
"It's not like that," Blaze said. "If she dies, I die. And I am in no rush to join the Great Pack. I brought her to see you because I wanted you to know hope. She is Tanaquill's daughter. There is no doubt. I need your help, Grimtooth. I know you are trapped within the earth, but I know that land is the one thing that goes on forever, touching every inch of the world, reaching even the most remote Tribe. I need you to spread word that Ashkellion has returned. That is why brought her here, and I know that she is your only hope of ever feeling the moonlight again, that is why I know you will help us."
"
You know a lot," the Rock Troll grumbled.
"But I don't, obviously," Ashley objected. "So could one of you explain what's going on?" Ashley said. She had taken up the sword, Midnight, and held it. Not that she knew how to use it, or was likely to turn it on either of them. She looked at Blaze.
The great rock seemed to shift and sigh all around her. "This is my prison," Grimtooth told her. She still didn't look at him. She stared at Blaze's face. She wasn't sure what she was looking for there, something, a hint, a clue as to what he was thinking. "I cannot leave the rock. Ever. It is my curse."
"I'm sorry."
"Why? It was not you that did this to me."
"No, but that's what you say where I come from. When someone tells you something sad you say I'm sorry."
She felt the rock shift again, a seismic tremor that rippled through the stone all around her. She had come so far from home, but it felt like she'd been running every step of the way. Not once had it felt like she was in control. She needed to be in control, even if it was only in one tiny aspect of her life.
She gripped Midnight tighter.
"It wasn't always this way," Grimtooth said. "Once upon a better day I walked the land. I was the proudest child of the moon because I was the first. The world was made off my back, shaped from my body. Imagine that! I have always been here, Ashkellion. Always. And I will always be here. But I angered the wrong man—though now I know he was no man at all but a sickness that is consuming this place inch by precious wonderful inch—and this was my punishment. I have not felt the moonlight on my cold stone for too long. I miss looking up at the moons."
She didn't need to ask who that man was: the King Under the Moon. Her father.
"What did the Oracle say?"
"Isn't it obvious? She promised that only the Fae Queen could undo what the King Under the Moon had done. She promised that the Fae Queen would have the strength to set me free."
"And… you think that is me?"
"I think it could be. You came wielding Midnight. You have the same flame red hair. You look every inch the Fae Queen I remember from before. But I am old. What do I know? You do not wear the Briar Crown and have never sat in the Dragon Seats, so even if the blood of Titania flows in your veins I do not know how you can free me of my prison yet."
Yet. That word again. "I don't know either. I don't know what to do. I'm just a girl," Ashley said. "A few days ago I hadn't even heard of the Moonlands. But I can promise you this much, I will try."
"That is all I can ask," Grimtooth said.
"She is our only hope," Blaze told the troll. "Spread the word to the furthest of the Tribes, Stonewalker. Let the message rumble through every underground cavern and resonate through every stone and rock, the daughter of Tanaquill has returned and marches on the Shard to face the Usurper. Ashkellion has come to liberate us from the King Under the Moon's tyranny. We must rise up and come to her aid. She needs us. The Kingdoms of the Moon need us!"
"I will carry the message far and wide: she has come and she walks with Midnight in her hand."
TWENTY-FOUR
The Shard
They made their farewells and left Grimtooth's cave at first light. The troll promised to raise her an army. First light wasn't sunrise. It was a confluence of the moons that somehow swelled the red light, making it both brighter and angrier than it had been before. It marked the Warg Moon reaching its zenith. With so many moons, no one celestial body held sway for more than a few nights before the next became dominant and the quality of light changed.
They walked on.
The sheer size of the Shard meant that it was always in view.
Both of them wanted to say things, but neither of them did.
It wasn't a comfortable silence.
Blaze growled occasionally and seemed impatient with their pace. Ashley did her best to ignore the silence, but it only served to allow something to nag away at her: Grimtooth had known things about her, about who she really was. Everyone here did, apart from her. When it came right down to it that was what this was all about: finding out who she was beyond the name Ashley Hawthorne, and finding out who Ashkellion was.
She had a sword called Midnight that once belonged to the Fae Queen. She had a miraculous journal that seemed to know everything about this place, all she had to do was ask it questions, and she had aviator goggles that showed only the truth. She had a locket that contained the portraits of her parents, the King Under the Moon and the Fae Queen, Tanaquill. How could she still be Ashley Hawthorne, aged very nearly 16, student at Regents Park Girls School, best friends with someone as ordinary (even if larger than life) as Melanie Harvey, and, well, when it came right down to it, how could she be so boring?
So this was her quest: find out who she really was.
But how was that any different to growing up normally?
Didn't everyone go on a quest to find out who they were one day?
A twinkle of light caught her eye before she could chase the thought any further. It took Ashley a moment to realise what had caused it, but when she did, she couldn't help but smile. It could only be the Forest of the Lightning Trees. Her dad had told her the story years ago, about how one night there had been a lightning storm so bad that every time a fork of lightning struck the ground it turned the sand to glass and left behind huge spiky 'trees' in its wake, creating a forest of lightning trees.
She started to run, surprising Blaze with the suddenness of it. He chased after Ashley as she raced up to the rise of a shallow hill, but out of his Wolfen form he wasn't as fast. She stopped at the top, rooted to the spot by the incredible sight of hundreds upon hundreds of jagged glass trees catching and coruscating in the moonlight.
It was breathtaking.
There were so many spikes and branches, each one somehow offering a different shade of colour, and like before with the forest of greens, she'd never imagined there could be so many shades of red. Trees made out of glass, forged by the raw elemental power of the world. The trees rolled out as far as she could see; it was an orchard with no fruit. The ground beneath them was glassy and smooth. Once upon a time it had been the closest thing to a desert the Moonlands could claim, now it was yet another miracle in this miraculous place and there appeared to be no end to it. On another day it would be green or blue or silver. What it would never be was ordinary.
They followed the path.
It led them through the Forest of the Lightning Trees.
Ashley saw a number of huge birds settled in the branches of the Lightning Trees as they walked beneath them. She saw them as they really were: Coribrae with their emaciated muscles and twisted frames and sharp beaks. It took her a moment to realise she didn't need the alethioptics to reveal their true form. She assumed that was because on this side of the Moongate they didn't need to disguise their nature, but what had the journal said? She would only need the glasses until she could see the truth for herself? Something had changed in her, she didn't know what, but this was the first manifestation of that change.
The Coribrae watched her every step of the way with their beady little eyes, flitting ahead to carry on watching her approach the tower.
The second thing Ashley noticed about the trees was the sound—they ticked. It was the creepiest sound, until she realised the cause: as the air cooled something inside the trees contracted, causing the glass to emit that sharp crack. Amplify that by thousands upon thousands of glass trees and it became a gunshot-chorus.
It took them hours before they finally emerged on the other side, resting twice along the way, by which time Warg Moon had already begun to cede the sky to one of the two larger blue moons, Aerlion or Aetherion, she didn't know which. The Shard loomed close now. Journey's end.
"I am frightened," She admitted.
"Fear is a good thing," the Wolfen said. His voice was curiously reassuring. "It might keep you alive."
Blaze took her hand.
And for a moment she forgot about being afraid.
The closer they
came to the remarkable tower, the more stunning it was and the less like an actual tower it became. In fact it appeared to be carved from the stuff of the moonlight itself.
From a distance the light of the Warg Moon had soaked into the twisted spire, turning it blood red, but over the final two days of their walk the blue moons rose and the red glow inside the Shard began to shift and fade as the cold blue heart of the Shard emerged.
Every moon would offer its own light as the Shard of the Subluna shifted through the entire spectrum over the course of a month.
It would be a spectacular thing to see, but Ashley had no intention of still being in this place in a month's time. All she wanted to do was go home. She kept looking over her shoulder for the others, hoping to see her mother or Ephram or any of them coming riding over the hill to her rescue, but she was beginning to think they weren't coming.
Her legs ached so badly each new step was one too many. She was thirsty and hungry. She craved normal stuff like a veggie burger and an ice cold Coke to wash it down. There were only so many berries a girl could eat, after all. And, though she didn't want to admit it, there was a bad smell all around them and it wasn't Blaze. She couldn't remember how long ago it had been since she'd had a shower and washed her hair, but it had been a long time since she'd soaked herself in the lake and it felt like she'd walked halfway across the new world since then. In all fairness, it was no wonder she stank to high heaven. She tried not to think about it, but made a point of going for a swim the next time they saw water.
She looked up from the river to see Blaze sitting on a rock, watching her. This time she didn't hide herself as she rose from the water. Blaze looked at her for a moment, but before the river was halfway down her chest he stood and turned his back. "I will hunt," he told her, without turning. And then stalked off into the trees. She heard him running for a while, and then she was alone.
Ashley left the river and walked quickly to her clothes, which still stank of the sweat and the road. She didn't have any soap or perfume but she did have a river, so she took them down to the water and cleaned them as best she could, letting them dry on the rocks before she dressed.
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