by Amy Miles
“Don’t—” My voice cracked as I threw myself into his arms, burying my face in his chest.
“Hey.” He waited for me to dry my tears before he lifted my chin and tried to smile, but it fell flat. “I’m a good fighter. I’ll come back to ya. I swear it.”
We both knew that no fate was certain, especially not in the Hollow Lands. The barren earth was riddled with dangers, many of which I could only imagine. My own da fought in skirmishes during his time and returned home a broken man.
“I love you, Ryn. Never forget that.” Eivin tightened his embrace. He lingered a moment longer before turning and grabbing his pack and sword. I hadn’t thought anything of it when I saw it, but now I saw a bed roll added to the bundle.
“May we meet again soon,” he called over his shoulder.
Hiking his leg, he pushed over the half wall and was gone. I could tell by the movement in his shoulders that he was crying. When he left in the morning, I knew I’d never see him again.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
TARYN
A LIGHT DRIZZLE HOVERED over the city like an oppressive blanket, threadbare in places and in others too thick to make out a single brick. The ground-cover glowed with the light of flickering street lamps, all lit early today for the king and queen’s departure. They would lead the reapers to the edge of town to bid them farewell on their journey to the Wall.
The streets were abuzz with activity. I could hear the murmurs from below but didn’t care to join in. I needed to be alone, but I had to see Eivin off. I owed him that much, even though I knew it would rip a hole in my chest to watch.
He wouldn’t be able to see me perched on top of the old mill roof, but he would know I was here, somewhere. Wrapping my arms around myself, I sank down onto the peak and threw my legs over either side to steady myself.
The thatched roof boasted a hint of warmth from the sun trapped behind the wall of mist that had fallen over the city. I leaned over the edge to peer down at the streets below. This street led past my house and directly up the hill to the front gates of the castle. Tris always whined about how lucky I was to live so close to the royals. She had this harebrained idea that living near the castle was somehow the same as living within its stone walls.
It truth, the ancient stone surrounding Dunleary Castle was high and nearly as thick as a man. It allowed zero line of sight into the grounds unless you happened to walk by when a guard wasn’t stationed there staring back at you. From time to time, you could spy a manicured bush or the sparkling glint of water off the fountain within, but no one ever got to see anything more than that. I might live near the castle, but there was absolutely nothing exciting about that.
I looked up when the great black wrought iron gates at the top of the hill swept open with a thundering clatter that I felt in my chest. A procession of horses emerged first. Each stallion in the royal guard was chosen for its exquisite breeding, standing no less than eighteen hands high. Their manes were shiny and black as ink, woven with tiny silver bells and ribbons. The knights who followed clanged loudly in their heavy metal armor. The surfaces were polished so that the flickering torchlight sent brilliant colours reflecting into the faces of those grappling to reach the front row along the road.
Handkerchiefs and scarves waved in the air, creating a mass of colour as the procession moved forward to reveal a round carriage. Its wheels were inlaid with the finest bronze; its doors intricately carved and stained a rich cherry. Two knights perched on a bench at the front of the carriage, each wearing a plume of scarlet feathers on their helmets.
I stared at the queen, begrudgingly admiring the waves of fire that spilled down over her shoulders. Her smile was as wide as the Bannow Sea and dripped with poisoned honey. Despite her beauty, all I saw when I looked at her were lies, deceit, and cover-ups that had now forced Eivin into an impossible situation.
It should have been me who was punished. I rubbed a thumb along the scar on my face and sighed, feeling like my wounds weren’t nearly enough to equal Eivin’s lot.
King Baylor sat beside his wife, waving with a regal air. His face looked drawn and his hair far more gray than I remembered the last time I saw him. That had been two years ago. The day Prince Aed was given control of Hollow Earth on his eighteenth name day. The entire realm came to see him off, with a battalion of reapers standing behind.
I looked closer, no longer at the royals but at the guards who came after. Those men were on foot, dressed in black boiled leathers. Their boots were worn and their faces grim. Strong hands clasped sword hilts as they marched forward. There was no fanfare or regal suits of armor for these men.
There, in the middle of the group of nearly twenty reapers, I spied Eivin. His tangle of blond hair was easily seen among the ruggedly groomed men. He did not look up at where I sat as he passed by. He remained focused, his gaze intent only on the back of the carriage.
Pride swelled in my chest at the sight of him. The royals didn’t deserve him.
It would be a hard walk, taking nearly three full days to reach the borders of the Hollow Lands where the great Wall rose high enough to disappear into the clouds.
I looked away as the parade weaved around the corner, trailing beyond the docks towards the northernmost city gate. The light of their torches was lost to me. The townspeople lowered their scarves and returned to their work days, most untouched by the loss of these great men.
The soldiers would be remembered for a time, longer by family members, but even that would fade. Wiping tears from my eyes, I vowed to never stop hoping that Eivin would return. He was a strong fighter, cunning, and swift on his feet. If anyone could survive the hells of Hollow Earth, it would be him.
Looking out across the town, I felt loneliness press in on me and my thoughts returned to Devlin. Was this how he felt after his sister passed? I had seen humans mourn before, but had never felt the touch of death personally. Though Eivin was alive, with each step he took away from me, he might as well have already been dead.
Wiping tears from my eyes, I knew I had duties elsewhere. Alana would need to be collected after her final processing. Then she would be assigned to her boat and her journey to the City of Finals would begin. I owed that to her and now to Devlin. He was the only one who in that very moment understood the pain I felt. And whether Eivin would like it or not, I felt a kinship to the human.
I slid down the roofline and leapt onto a lower wall. Holding my hands out on either side of me, I ran the short distance to the fence and shimmied to the ground.
The remainder of my afternoon was spent filing paperwork, preparing Alana for her passage across the turbulent Bannow Sea, and finally, I waved goodbye. Watching her smile as she bounced on her toes with excitement as she moved into line, I felt the hollow ache in my chest and wished I too could have the sadness in my heart wiped clean.
As the sun began to set, I walked along the shore of the sea, moving farther away from the city to find a solitary place to be alone. I watched the great silvery sails begin to rise along the birch mast of a boat, whipped by the rising winds, and turned away. I wondered if she was on that one. There were so many in line. She might have been delayed.
Taking to a narrow path that led farther along the shore, I walked with no destination in mind beyond just getting away. The sea was turbulent. Violet-tinted clouds hung low over the water as I reached the end of the inlet and moved around the end, where the sea spread out wide before me. I could smell rain in the air and wrapped my cloak tighter around my shoulders. Streaks of lightning licked the mountaintops on the horizon, sparking against granite rocks. That was where the Hollow Lands lay, and the closest point I had ever come to the forsaken lands.
Spreading my arms wide, I leaned into the rising gusts, savoring the salty spray against my face and wiping away my tears. I closed my eyes and listened to the waves crashing against the rocks below.
I loved it here. There was something about the raging torrent of these waters that called to my soul. Curling my arms inwa
rds, I sank down onto the rock, its surface smoothed from years of shifting tides. I tucked my knees into my chest and waited for Alan’s boat to appear.
A tempest approached from the west as I waited. Thunder rolled across the darkening sky. On a calm day, you could hear the screams of the Lorcan rising against the winds across the channel. Nothing could be heard over the winds today.
The first droplets of rain pattered against my head just moments after I spotted the front of the ship. Its bow was a brilliant white against the darkness that fell over the sea. Beads of water slid down the ridge of my neck and I drew my hood up over my head. I knew I should leave before I was trapped in the coming deluge, but I needed to see her off.
The love between the siblings was unbreakable, even by death. I admired that. I also envied such a love. I had experienced great joy with Eivin, but what Devlin and Alana shared surpassed that.
“I knew I’d find ya here.” I turned at the voice. Through the constant drizzle of rain, I spied Tris emerging from the narrow pass. “This has been your hiding spot since we were wee little things.”
“Did Ma send you?”
“Course she did. Can’t have you out here moping in the rain, now can we?” She planted her hands on her hips.
Not even the shapeless cloak could conceal her beauty and I felt a moment of annoyance. If she spent half as much time paying attention to what was happening around her as she did with primping in the mirror maybe she’d realise I had every right to be out here alone.
“You need to be coming along now, Taryn.”
“I need to be alone for a while.”
Tris lowered her gaze. “I heard about Eivin. Ya shoulda told me. I would’ve gone with ya.”
“I know.” I swallowed hard. “I had to say goodbye in my own way.”
She moved closer, her cloak swaying over her filthy shoes. “Do ya want to talk about it?”
“No.”
“Come home, Taryn. Be with your family.”
I stare out over the water. “I’m not ready to face Ma’s shite today.”
“Aw, she’s not as bad as you make her out to be,” Tris says. “She means well and that’s more than most can say.”
“Meaning well doesn’t mean she understands me.”
It also didn’t mean Tris did either, even though I knew she was trying. I could have told her right then that my need for solitude wasn’t just about escaping my ma’s insane scheming, or even about missing Eivin. I could have told her about Alana, about the brave girl I saw so much of myself in, who was being sent away before I even had a chance to get to know her, but I didn’t. Tris could never understand my fascination with a human. Just as she could never know about my ability to be seen by Devlin.
“So how’d she get ya to come all the way out here then?” I asked and looked at the waves. Alana’s boat had fully appeared, though it would soon be veiled behind sheets of rain.
“You really didn’t pick your eyes up off the ground when you headed out here, did ya?” She settled onto a rock beside me. When I showed no expression she shook her head. “The town was all a flutter when the royals returned. There’s to be a big announcement from the castle soon. Your ma sent me to retrieve ya so we could be there when it’s made.”
“No, thank you. I’m in better company right here.”
Tris ducked her head low to look under my hood. “Even you must be a little curious. A sudden announcement from the castle? Doesn’t happen every day, ya know?”
I would rather swallow a pail of nails than to admit any hint of curiosity, especially if it was something that had put a bee in my ma’s bonnet. “I canna go.”
“You can and you will. Your ma won’t be taking no for an answer and you know it.” She drew herself up. “We could be standing on the precipice of history right now and there’s no way missin’ it.”
“Precipice?” My eyebrows hiked with humor at her choice of wording. “It’s a distraction to keep people looking the other way. Dangle some shiny thing in front of people’s eyes and look at how excited they get.”
Tris snorted when I jabbed a finger playfully into her side. “Well, some of us like a bit of good news from time to time.”
I tucked my hands under my cloak as the back end of Alana’s boat slipped into the storm and disappeared. I sighed and looked away, feeling desperately alone even though my best friend sat beside me.
“Come on. You used to know how to have fun too. I know losing Eivin hurts, but it would do you some good to think about something else instead of sitting out here, depressed and in the rain. We can go back to town, hear the announcement, and then sneak out for some rum. I know a guy who can get us some.”
I gave her a wry smile. “Rum? Since when do you drink?”
“Since you became a mopey bugger.”
“Fine.” I laughed. Maybe she was right. It wouldn’t kill me to have an hour away from worrying or plotting. The hole in my heart left from Eivin’s leaving would still be there later.
“Really?” She turned on the rock to look at me. “Just like that?”
“Sure. You’re right. Maybe it will be good for me.”
A chill had begun to sink in through the thick layers of my cloak. With any luck at all I’d catch a cold on the return trip and be too ill with fever to participate whenever this ploy decided to play itself out. At least then I could remind Tris that I tried.
Rising from the rock, I brushed droplets of rain off and leapt to the ground. Tris joined me and worked hard to keep things lighthearted on the return trip. It warmed my heart that she worked so hard to lift my spirits. She knew how much losing Eivin hurt.
My ma, true to her nature, met us at the docks and I couldn’t help but notice how busy the port was. Ships lined up in the harbor, sitting low in the water and waiting to unload their wares. Eimear had always been a bustling place, but today there seemed to be a great deal more activity than usual.
“What’s going on?” I asked a man as he reached overhead to steady a barrel of fish as it was lowered from a ship’s hold.
“Seems to be some big high to do up at the castle,” he said through a wide gap in his two front teeth. “The whole town ’as gone mental, if ya ask me.”
That was what I was afraid of as I fell in line behind Ma and my sisters as they rapidly marched through the city streets. I couldn’t remember the last time I had seen such a spring in my ma’s step. Her hair was drawn back from her face with a bright red ribbon, making her cheeks look rosy. Her eyes danced with excitement.
That didn’t bode well for me.
Although I didn’t have Eivin’s good looks, I was, at least, blessed not to have inherited my ma’s ample backside or the gobs of freckles that spread across her nose and high cheekbones. They made her look far younger than her eighty years. In human years she might have passed as thirty-five, but we aged differently. I had ancestors who were pushing five hundred and didn’t look a day over sixty.
Ma and Da started a bit late in life having children, but I couldn’t blame them. With my da away to war for so much of their early years, children weren’t a possibility.
Glancing at my sisters as they danced just ahead of me, with Tris’ arm looped through theirs, I thought about how I wasn’t blessed with Iona’s sun-kissed hair. Instead, I’m been given a washed out dirty dishwater sort of blond that made my pale skin look nearly transparent in the wrong lighting. I didn’t have Kyna’s full hips or ample curves either. My twin sisters’ eyes were the same cornflower blue, but mine was a vivid teal with flecks the same colour of the mists of the Netherworld.
Tris used to joke about how freaky my eyes looked, but I liked them. They made me different than everyone else.
Ma always said I took after my da’s nature: willing to speak my mind no matter the cost and had a rebellious vein that ran through me, even from my earliest days. While I was the thorn in her side, she doted on my sisters. In her mind, they were the most beautiful, sweet, and obedient children on our street. They we
re also the most rotten scoundrels you’d ever meet. Only when Ma wasn’t looking, of course.
As I passed rows of shops and homes, I stared up at brightly coloured banners being hung out of second-floor windows. Here and there I spied freshly arranged floral bouquets that had been set out on door stoops or fence posts. What was even more surprising was that the stone pavers of the market had been scrubbed. There wasn’t a single chicken to be found underfoot and every ounce of horse muck had been removed.
It was as if the entire town had forgotten that only hours before our men walked through the city gates with a death wish. Whatever this was, I was sure it was nothing more than a distraction. Like a master magician, the king was adept at sleight of hand.
When we reached the top of the hill, I looked back behind me and saw people emerging from their homes and hurrying towards the town centre. Each one looked fresh faced with eagerness.
“We canna be late,” Ma called back over her shoulder and kicked it into high gear, despite the steep incline we were on.
I dug my feet into the pavement and felt the burn in my calves, cursing anything that popped it my head for adding to this day’s misery. Even the humans had cars for rushing about while I got stuck walking. What more could possibly go wrong?
“Watch it,” I called out as a pair of giggling girls nearly ran me over when they burst from their house. They swerved to avoid me then gathered their skirts and rushed ahead towards the town centre.
In the distance, I heard the sound of trumpets.
“We’re going to miss it, Ma,” Iona grumbled and shot a withering glance back at me.
“Don’t let me slow ya down.” I smiled back and slowed my pace.
Kyna stuck out her tongue at me. I swear that girl would never really grow up.
“Step to it, girls.” Ma’s breath came out in a huff. This was more exercise than she’d had in years. “Tris, run on ahead, would ya?”
“Sure thing.”
I watched as Tris gathered her skirts and sprinted forward, knowing that it had been killing her to remain back with us while the announcement was being made without her. Iona and Kyna broke free of each other and scrambled to follow behind.