by Serena Chase
Riding Stanza across the Veetrish countryside.
Swimming with the enikkas.
Julien, pressing the first of his notes into my hand.
Dots receded from my vision as my breathing calmed. I wiped as much of the slippery clay as I could from my fingers onto my pants and carefully, so very carefully, pulled the Remedy out from under my shirt.
But it slipped!
“No!” With a gasp, I lurched left to grasp it back from where it seemed destined to slip off the tips of my fingers. The Remedy bobbled on my slick hand. As I slapped the other on top of it, my right foot slid in the opposite direction and the majority of my weight was redistributed to my left hip and shoulder.
Using every muscle in my abdomen and legs, I jammed the Remedy against my neck for support, and wrenched myself back to an upright, more supported position.
When my blood slowed to an almost normal velocity, I lifted the Remedy above my head and pressed it against the rock wall. Carefully, I lifted it up. . . and up . . . until gravity pulled the “loaf” into the tunnel entrance. I cringed as precious flour sloughed off into my eyes, but I gave it one good shove and sent it farther into the tunnel.
I let out a sigh and smiled. The Remedy was safe. If I didn’t return, Julien would come down the tunnel to find me. And though he would see the chasm, guess my fate, and grieve, he would recognize the Remedy for what it was and ferry it back to our people.
Yes, the Remedy was safe.
But I was stuck.
From the other side of the tipping rock, a sudden glow appeared as enikkas swarmed to a space just a handsbreadth beneath my feet. The rock stayed firm where it supported me, but just below my feet it grew slick again and so bright with enikkas that it hurt my eyes. Still, I couldn’t look away, as curious as I was to see what the sweet creatures would do next.
Brighter and hotter they glowed until sweat dripped down my back and all I saw was light, with blackness ringing around it. Slicker and slicker the clay grew until the light itself seemed to be sliding on it, arching down and out. My body contracted with the pressure of the rock until my knees, which had been almost extended as they braced against the rock, were bent so severely that they were level to my chin.
The enikkas moved away.
As my eyes readjusted to the dimness, my gaze caught upon a shelf of sorts jutting out beneath my feet—a ledge I could use as leverage to turn and face the tunnel entrance, and hopefully, pull myself inside.
If I never again had to perform the contortions my body was forced to execute in order to do as the enikkas desired, it would be too soon, but somehow I managed to turn around. With the pumice of the tunnel digging into my fingers, I shoved off the tilting rock and used the strength of my arms to pull my body up and into the tunnel’s mouth.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Once inside the tunnel, I cringed at the trail of white that had been left behind when I had shoved the Remedy across the sharp, porous surface. Mindful of what a precious substance I was transporting, I used an immense amount of care, lifting the Remedy and moving it forward, before wriggling behind it a little at a time. I did not want to risk losing any more of the priceless “flour” when I knew so many people were in need of its healing properties.
My torch from Tirandov was still on my back belt loop, but the tunnel was also illumined by the enikkas clinging to my hair and clothing. They kept me company and kept me warm, lighting the long trek back to my friends.
Finally, the sound of the waterfall bubbled over my ears. By the time that gleaming ribbon was in sight, my cheeks ached from the breadth of the smile that lit my face. Joy poured out of my mind, and rather than censuring or saving it, I set its course with a specific destination in mind.
Just inside the mouth of the tunnel, still behind the waterfall, I paused, closed my eyes, and pictured my father’s face. As soon as I made the connection I let my colors fly without the need for words. My joy soared beyond Mount Shireya and north through the mountain’s northern foothills to the King.
When I opened my eyes I felt more alive than I had since the night I met the enikkas for the first time in Tirandov’s bay. I stuck my head through the tunnel entrance that now, thankfully, also served as an exit.
I could sense my friends beyond the waterfall and knew they were as of yet unaware of my return. I’m back! I sent the words to Dyfnel and Edru, who were less likely to be shocked to find my voice in their heads. I have the Remedy!
A moment later, Julien’s head appeared in the tunnel entrance.
“Thank Rynloeft, you’re alive!” Julien reached over the Remedy and pressed his palm to the side of my face. “I feared . . .” he trailed off and closed his eyes. “There are no words, Rynnaia.”
“I know of three that would soothe my ears.”
His brow constricted in concern. “Does your ear still pain you?”
“No.” The admission surprised me. In light of what Cobeld’s direct curse had inflicted upon me, I had nearly forgotten about the injuries I’d sustained while freeing Drinius and Gladiel. I took a moment to mentally examine myself and then grinned. “In fact, I believe it’s been healed!”
It appeared the Remedy had worked on both curses I’d received.
He blinked. “Your face,” he said, reaching in to run a hand over my cheek. “I was so happy to see you that I didn’t notice it at first, but your bruises from the yellowhock are . . . gone.”
I could only thank The First and the Remedy he had provided. There was no other explanation.
“Take this.” I lifted the Remedy and set it in his hands. “And be careful, please.” I winked and coated my words with the thickest version of a Veetrish brogue I could conjure. “That’s precious cargo, it is!”
“I’ll be right back.” He grinned, took the Remedy, and disappeared.
I twisted a bit, but the tunnel was too narrow to allow me to turn around. In this headfirst position, getting out was going to be . . . interesting, even with help.
I had just about decided to follow the path of the waterfall and hope there weren’t rocks below—or some strange force that wanted to drown me again—when Julien reappeared.
“I thought you might want a little help, Story Girl.”
“Story Girl?”
“You’re covered in enikkas, sparkling like a fairy princess.”
“Well, you’re half-right.”
He chuckled. “That’s why I called you Story Girl. You look like something out of a Veetrish tale.”
“Thank you. But this not-fairy-princess could use a little help,” I said. “I don’t know how to get out of here.”
He examined the tunnel, the ledge on which he stood, and the waterfall behind him. “This isn’t going to be easy. But first, about those three words you mentioned?”
Something warm and delicious stirred in me when he held up the palm of the hand where he’d kept my kiss back at Holiday Palace. I placed my hand, the one he’d kissed again only days ago, to his.
“I love you, Rynnaia.”
“That was four words,” I said, quirking a grin. “But since I love you, I’ll forgive your rotten arithmetic.”
With his guidance, I stretched my arms. He leaned in so I could latch them around his neck. As our faces neared, it was as if an uncharted sense of destiny pulled our lips closer to each other.
Our noses brushed and Julien turned his head so that our cheeks pressed tightly against one another rather than our lips. I couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed, but all things considered, especially his precarious balance on the ledge, it was probably best.
“Careful, now,” he said, his voice low and rough. “Slowly, slowly . . .” He inched down the ledge. “Now curl your upper body to wrap around me.” I did. He inched another step and—
“Julien, wait. My boot’s caught on something.” I wiggled my foot. “Okay, try again.”
He took another step to the side, but my boot caught again.
“Errgh,” I growled and ya
nked my leg. The pumice loosed its hold on my boot, but I knocked Julien off balance. He started to fall backward into the waterfall. I reached for him and caught the edge of his tunic, but when he couldn’t regain his balance, we both fell. Before we hit the water, his arms surrounded me.
Always my knight, he never let go. In fact, he pushed me to the surface of the pool a second before his own face met the air.
“Some men will do anything for the chance to hold the princess in their arms, won’t they?” Kinley’s dry comment was followed by a laugh and an offer of his hand. “Here you go now, Princess. Up and out.”
For some unknown reason that I could only blame on growing up in Veetri, I took hold of Kinley’s offered hand and pulled him into the water.
Erielle burst out laughing. Soon everyone else did, too—and we laughed even harder when Kinley came up sputtering.
“I can’t believe you did that!”
“I can’t believe you fell for it!” I treaded water, laughing. “But what are little sisters for?”
“Little sisters,” he said with a grin, “are for dunking, I think.”
“Oh, no you don’t!”
His lip twitched and when he moved forward, I knew what was coming, having experienced the same thing at Rowlen’s hands many, many times.
I took a deep breath and dove out of the way. When I came up on the other side of the pool, he laughed. I looked up and caught the eye of Julien’s brother. His shoulders shook.
“Gerrias, what is the punishment for dunking a princess, do you think?”
“A regular princess?” he asked. “Or the Ryn?”
“The Ryn, of course.”
“Hmm. Beheading, I think. Yes, most definitely beheading.”
I grinned at Kinley. “Well, then.”
“Indeed,” he said with a chuckle. He turned to Gerrias. “She goes and finds a little rock we’ve searched centuries for, and all of a sudden she’s too good for a dunking.”
I caught Erielle’s eye. She gave the slightest nod toward Kinley, who now had his back to me. I ducked under the water and opened my eyes. As soon as I was right behind him, I sprang up. Latching my fingers together on the top of his head, I pushed him under. Swift as I could, I swam to the edge, took Gerrias’s offered hand, and let him pull me out of the water.
“Well done, Princess,” Erielle said, giving me a quick hug. “You’ve made little sisters around the world very proud today.”
“So,” I said after the moment of levity passed and Gerrias had pulled both Julien and Kinley out of the pool. “How do we get out of this mountain?”
“It’s surprisingly easy, from here,” Gerrias said. “At least as far as the chamber of the three doors. From there it’s anybody’s guess.”
“Well, what are we waiting for?” I pushed to my feet. “Let’s go!”
“Wait.” Dyfnel put a hand on my shoulder. “We should contact your parents.”
“I already contacted my father,” I said, looking around the group. “He is within half a day’s ride of the mountain. Do you mind if I take a minute to try and speak with my mother?”
I moved to the side of the room, took a deep breath, and closed my eyes. “Mother.”
My mind raced to Tirandov Isle and deep into the castle where she slept.
But she did not awaken.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
The Remedy was safely stowed in Dyfnel’s larger pack. After I bid farewell to the enikkas, we waded back down the stream and toward our exit route.
“Oh, one thing,” Gerrias paused just before the passageway he and Edru had discovered during my absence. “Remember how we chose the one tunnel from the three? The one that took us to Halo’s Rim?”
“Yes.” I nodded, remembering Risson’s proclamation. “Silence was dimmed by sound. Julien said it sounded like hail was falling in that one passage.”
“Exactly. But it wasn’t hail.”
Gerrias had carried me through that passage and my mind had gone so quickly to Dwons, to help rescue Drinius and Gladiel, that I had never learned what had made the sound. With all that had followed after, I hadn’t thought to ask. It hadn’t seemed important.
Now, however, it seemed . . . ominous.
“If it wasn’t hail,” I asked, “what was it?”
“Bats.”
“Bats?”
“Yes. And there are more of them in this particular tunnel.”
The reassuring way Gerrias smiled made it seem like it was nothing, but my mind flew directly to his bandaged arm and the memory of what had given him that injury. Bat rhymed with cat. Were the bats in Shireya as different from elsewhere as the cats were?
“Are they regular bats?” I asked. “Or some insanely large and scary version that wants to eat us?”
Gerrias laughed. “Just bats. Little brown bats. They’re a bit more active than what I’ve seen elsewhere, scuttling between nooks and crannies about the walls and ceilings and such, but they seem content to keep their distance. I don’t think you have anything to fear, but they do get a bit noisy in places and their droppings make the floor rather slippery in spots. I just thought I should warn you because I didn’t think you’d noted them in that other passage.”
I hadn’t. And I was glad. I took a deep breath and nodded. “Lead on,” I said and tried not to think about just how “active” bats must be to sound like hail inside a mountain.
At first there was little sound but for our footsteps. Edru took the opportunity to question me while the memory of my time away from them was still fresh.
As the official scribe of our quest, Edru was responsible for recording our journey for historical accuracy. Although I knew I would have to repeat the story of my encounter with Cobeld many times, there were some more delicate, regrettable bits of the tale I wished I could leave out. For the sake of truth, however, I couldn’t. Therefore, it was with disjointed phrases and halting words that I recounted my tale.
Although everyone in our group was curious for details, Julien asked one question and one question only.
“You would have married Cobeld?”
My throat, already constricted with the regret of what I had just admitted, nearly closed at the sense of betrayal—my betrayal—in his tone. It took every bit of strength within me to meet his eyes.
“I thought he was the Remedy, Julien. Had I been convinced of his interpretation of the prophecy, of it being necessary for E’veria and required by The First, then yes. I would have married him.”
The words came out in a steadier cadence than I expected, but still, nausea threatened to send me to my knees. I pulled more gray around my thoughts to keep them hidden from Edru and Dyfnel, as well as to keep my emotion from spilling out onto my friends. That I’d allowed Cobeld to twist the words of the prophecy so much that I had believed, even for a moment, that I was to be bonded with him in marriage, made me sick. But whatever the damage to my future with Julien, I could not, in good conscience, lie. And to gloss over the truth to make it easier on him would be no better than a lie.
“I love you,” I said after a long pause in which he had looked away. And it was then my voice failed me and I had to swallow several times before continuing. “But I am the Ryn. The good of the Kingdom must be placed before my own heart.”
Julien nodded, but without meeting my eyes. An uncomfortable silence descended on our group and Julien gradually retreated to the end of the line, as if distance could lessen the pain of my betrayal.
Could I blame him, really? While my heart well knew the grief I had experienced, thinking I was destined to marry the golden knight rather than the man I loved, I had not, nor could I, put those emotions into words. As with the rest of our group, all Julien likely heard in the tale—if he was able to process anything after the sting of my betrayal—was a broadly defined sense of regret and shame.
But what did his heart hear about the nature of my love, that I would so easily abandon him for another?
Sudden sound and movement up and to
my left caused me to turn and lift my torch.
“Ugh.” I squirmed in my skin. Part of the wall seemed as if it was crawling up onto the ceiling. A furry brown part of the wall.
Kinley turned around. “They’re more afraid of you than you are of them,” he said. But that was the most anyone said for a while. The farther we went, the louder the scritching, scratching, and tapping the bats’ tiny claws became.
I concentrated on watching Kinley’s back rather than the creeping creatures to either side of the tunnel, but from the rear of our group, thick colors of betrayal fell off Julien like waves bearing my name. Even had the bats decided to attack, the intensity of his colors would have rendered me mute to scream.
I longed to speak into his thoughts, to try and discern if it would be possible for him to forgive me for my near betrayal, but something inside me said that he needed time to process this on his own. The constant barrage of his pain, however, was more than I could take. I reached into myself, pulling more gray around my mind with which to insulate my heart from his reaction to what I had almost done.
As I had answered Edru’s questions, I’d sensed some shock from the others at how Cobeld had twisted the prophecy’s words, and even a bit at how I had almost fallen for his lies. But if they hadn’t already accepted my words and forgiven my near-calamitous mistake, they would in time. To Julien, however, it was a much more personal injury. Would he forgive me? Could he?
I could hardly blame him if he didn’t. I had come so close to rejecting him. Rejecting us. Even though truth had prevailed in the end and the Kingdom’s future might soon be secured, the sting of what might have been could prove fatal to his ability to trust in my love.
As we walked on through the bat-domed corridors of the tunnel, my chest ached and throbbed. Not from any injury sustained to my person or from a Cobeld curse, but from having to accept that, by telling the truth, I may have lost Julien.
Misery clawed at my heart and I was forced to pull a bit more gray to my thoughts to keep that toxic emotion from leaking to my friends.