Beneath the Citadel

by Destiny Soria

  A few guards raced into the room, pushing people aside, shouting in decidedly uncalm voices for everyone to stay calm. Then the screams stopped, and the woman fell limp.

  “Not again,” murmured the man next to Vesper.

  She didn’t wait to see more. She stumbled through the crowd toward the altar, slipping through the intricate maze of puddling wax. She knocked over a short candelabra with her skirt but didn’t slow down. She went through the door at the back of the nave and into the cool, dark corridors beyond.

  She wound her way through the maze of hallways until she emerged into the crisp air. The sky was velvet black, with only a smattering of stars visible through the clouds. Memorials for the Slain God were always held in the middle of the night, although Vesper had never been entirely sure why. Something about the importance of keeping a vigil, although she suspected the priests and acolytes were probably just guessing on that front. The religion of the Slain God had begun to fade. During the century-long rebellion, the upkeep of many traditions was lost. No one had time to mourn a dead god when hunger and violence stalked the door.

  The memorial service was in the Mirror Keep, which was named not for the surplus of mirrors in its chapel but for its having been built as an exact replica of the keep that was gutted by fire two hundred years past. The left arm of the citadel will burn on the night of the equinox, in the spring that the crops fail to yield. The twenty-second infallible prophecy, and one of the few that dealt directly with the city of Eldra. A year of drought, a negligible harvest, and an unquenchable flame.

  Sometimes Vesper wondered if, in the face of their loss, the citizens had been comforted by the knowledge that the elder seers had foreseen it all. That there was nothing they could have done to prevent it.

  The citadel felt both crowded and vast as she headed for the clerks’ dormitory in the Anchor Keep. The paved streets were arrow-straight, unlike the winding paths of Eldra’s tiered wards, which belted the citadel in concentric circles like a bull’s-eye. The gray stone edifices cast everything in shadow, while their windows caught the dazzling sparks of the street lamps. The streets around the Central Keep, hemmed at four corners by the other keeps, were the oldest parts of the citadel. They had been built even before the fortified walls that separated the five keeps from the rest of Eldra.

  Because it was a memorial night, chapels all over the citadel had been hosting crowds of the reverent. So, despite the hour, the streets were inundated with citizens in their mourning garb, though there was nothing drab about the assortment of black silk and velvet, darkly glinting gemstones, and delicate lace fans that surrounded Vesper as she walked. Most of the elite only visited for the memorial and would soon return to their feather beds in the upper echelon to sleep the day away. Mingled with them were the working citizens of the citadel. An alchemist scurried past in his stained green smock and gloves, muttering to himself. Clerks in their typical black attire, with leather sleeve-protectors and ink-stained fingertips. She passed a couple of senior clerks she recognized and kept her head down. She doubted they had been talking about her, but they definitely fell silent when they saw her. She’d gotten used to it a long time ago. People tended to keep a tight tongue around her. She couldn’t blame them.

  Strictly speaking, she should have gone through a couple of years of training before she was qualified to wear the clerk’s uniform. Children typically started when they were thirteen, their positions bought or traded by families rich or ambitious enough to do so. But Vesper was better connected than most.

  A knot of people made their way toward her, boisterous and laughing. Three women and two men, all dressed simply but expensively. Vesper recognized them before she could make out the gold pins on their lapels designating their skills. The men and one of the women were diviners. The other women were sentients. All were employed by the council, and all ignored her as they neared. She stepped aside to let them pass, eyeing their carefree demeanor with a touch of envy. Then she walked on.

  The castellated roof of the Central Keep was coming into view, a dark fortress against the darker sky. The gas lamps lining the streets winked orange and blue, bathing Vesper in a faint glow. A breeze played across the back of her neck, and she shivered. She’d left her wrap in the chapel. Would they have moved the woman yet? Would they let her husband stay with her?

  It was the first time Vesper had seen someone in that state. She’d heard the rumors, of course, and her uncle had confirmed them for her after the fourth person was struck down. But it was different to hear the screams for herself. To realize how easily it could have been her. Vesper shivered again and walked a little faster.

  EIGHT

  EVANDER

  The first problem with being underground was that you never quite knew where you stood. Literally. Evander had lost track of how far they had come and what direction they were going. Fortunately, the tunnel, which sloped gently downward, offered no options but forward or back. They had only been running for about ten minutes, but he hadn’t had a proper meal or more than a few gulps of water in the past day. He was so exhausted, the minutes were starting to feel like hours.

  Cassa hadn’t said anything about the purpose of the tunnel, which was behind a heavy oak door deep in the dungeons. It was just wide enough for two people to stand side by side and low enough for Evander to touch the ceiling without stretching. He had no idea how Cassa knew about it or where it was supposed to lead. He couldn’t afford to expend energy on anything but moving forward. The only breaks in his strict rhythm of left foot, right foot, breathe in, breathe out were when Cassa handed him the ghost globe or took it back from him. The glass was hollow, but it was already becoming unbearably heavy. Both his shoulders ached so badly that he was close to convincing himself it would be worth it to ditch the globe and continue in the dark. He’d noticed that Cassa’s last turn was much shorter than his, no doubt unconsciously on her part. On another day he would have mocked her relentlessly for that, but tonight it seemed a waste of breath. He kept thinking how stubborn he and Cassa both were for not just asking Newt or Alys to take a turn. He wondered if she was thinking that too. Neither of them said anything.

  The second problem with being underground was that there was no telling what was around the next bend. Cassa was in the lead when the tunnel turned at a sharp angle, and suddenly they weren’t in a tunnel anymore. Cassa skidded to a stop at the edge of a precipice. Evander was so immersed in his contemplation of their joint stubbornness that he barely stopped himself from running into her. Newt wasn’t as quick. He barreled into Evander, who knocked into Cassa, who flew forward. She threw out a hand and caught herself on the wall right before she tumbled down what Evander now saw wasn’t a precipice but a steep flight of stone steps. Cassa kept her grip on the pistol, but the globe crashed to the ground and rolled down a few steps before losing momentum.

  “Sorry,” Newt mumbled, peeling himself off Evander’s back.

  “Seriously, Evander?” Cassa snapped as she recovered her balance. “The kid’s half your size.”

  Even in the blue light, Evander could see that Newt was bright pink. Their eyes met, and Newt quickly looked down, brushing off the knees of his ratty prison-issued trousers as if all they needed to be clean again was a light dusting. Alys, who alone had managed to retain her dignity, moved between them.

  “Be careful with it,” she said, stepping down to retrieve the ghost globe. She was breathing heavily and trying to hide it. “If it breaks, the alchemical reaction with the air can be dangerous.”

  “Dangerous how?” Cassa asked, taking it from her and observing it with new interest. There were no visible cracks in the glass, and the mystifying flame still whirled.

  “It would blind us for starters—maybe only temporarily. Maybe not,” Alys said, slipping into the clinical tone that sounded so much like their mother. “The process to ignite an Alchemist’s Flame can take months, and the combustion is so volatile that only someone who has a bloodbond with glass can capture it i
n the globe.”

  She looked like their mother too, pretty and plump but with eyes that could gut anyone with a glance, though at the moment they were as bright as the Alchemist’s Flame. She never could resist the chance to explain something.

  “I didn’t know a bloodbond with glass was even possible,” Newt said. Bloodbonds typically only worked with pure, liquid elements—usually metals that could be melted down.

  “It’s possible,” Alys said. “Just not very viable.”

  “What does that mean?” Newt asked.

  “It means the person usually dies.” Evander scratched absently at the scar on his arm.

  “If we lose the light, the alchemical reaction won’t be our biggest problem,” Cassa said. She had already drifted away from the conversation and was descending the steps slowly, holding the globe over her head. The stairs were hewn painstakingly into the bedrock, and though they were cracked and crumbling at the edges, they seemed sturdy enough. The steps curved away from them, into the inky darkness beyond the blue light, and Evander realized it was a spiral winding down a massive central pillar.

  He followed Cassa down, with Alys and Newt close behind him. As they descended, the cavern opened up around them, a vast, echoing chamber of shadow and stone. Evander ran his fingertips along the wall to his left. It was smooth but patterned with intricate designs carved deeply into the stone. Whorls and arrows like a forgotten language.

  Deeper and deeper they went, until the ceiling of the cavern was lost in darkness above them. The steps were too steep to risk running, which Evander’s lungs and legs were grateful for, but his ears were pricked for sounds of pursuit. Surely it wouldn’t take long for the guards to realize where they had gone. And if this path led out of the dungeons, shouldn’t they be going up, not down? He stared at the back of Cassa’s head and had the thought, not entirely unprecedented, that she had no idea where she was leading them.

  Finally the stairs ended at another tunnel, but this one felt different than the other. As soon as they entered, the hairs on the back of Evander’s neck and arms stood on end. The ghost globe’s eerie light cast their shadows in distorted shapes against the walls and low ceiling. The walls were composed of stacked slabs, all roughly the same dimension, like building blocks. Evander stopped in front of one and studied it. More strange engravings, delicate and mesmerizing but altogether incomprehensible. The longer he stared, the more he was certain they weren’t just decoration.

  “That’s the language of the first seers.” Alys came up beside him, frowning as she traced a finger along one of the swirling lines.

  “Looks like scribbles to me,” Cassa said. She was waiting impatiently farther down the tunnel. Evander couldn’t help but notice the edge of worry in her tone. Judging from the way Alys had just turned to glare at her, he had a feeling it wasn’t concern about the guards catching up.

  “These are the crypts.” Alys’s voice was sharp and resonant against the stone.

  A chill ran down Evander’s back. The crypts beneath the citadel were where the elder seers were buried. He eyed the stacked rows of slabs stretching into blackness. Not building blocks. Tombs.

  “Shit,” he muttered under his breath, taking a step back. He knocked elbows with Newt, who was peering at the walls with more puzzlement than horror.

  “Of course we’re in the crypts,” Cassa said. “Where else did you think a tunnel in the dungeons would lead? A wine cellar?”

  “You might have mentioned it,” Newt said, not sounding nearly as irritated as he should have at Cassa’s convenient omission.

  “It was the only way out.” There was no hint of apology in her voice.

  “Your idea of an escape from our executions was to take us straight to the place where the executions happen?” Evander asked. “Were you just hoping to save time?”

  “If we make it through the crypts, there’s a path that leads out of the caverns and into Aurelia Valley,” Cassa said.

  “And you know this how?” Alys demanded.

  “Have I ever let you down?”

  “I’m not sure we have time for me to make a list,” Alys said coolly.

  Evander winced. Behind Alys, Newt took a tiny step backward. A hare shying from a confrontation between wolves. He probably had the right idea.

  Cassa was quiet for a few seconds, her dark eyes unyielding. The light washed over her face in waves of blue. With her puckered lower lip, her snub nose, and the faint splash of freckles over her cheeks, she didn’t look particularly fierce. That was an assumption that only people who’d never met her could make though.

  “Unless you want to take your chances in the citadel, this is the only way out,” she said at last.

  “The crypts are a maze,” Alys said, unappeased. “We could get lost in there for days. They won’t have to execute us, just drag our bodies out.”

  “That’s the spirit,” Cassa said with a grim smile. “Now let’s go.”

  “Shouldn’t we at least talk about this?” Evander asked.

  “Talk about it all you want,” Cassa said, “but I’m going this way, and I’m going now.” Without another word, she took off down the passage, taking the ghost globe with her.

  “Insufferable,” Alys muttered into the growing dark.

  “I guess we should follow her,” Newt said.

  “She would come back if we just stayed here,” Alys said.

  “She would,” said Evander, “but we should follow her.”

  Alys sighed but didn’t argue further. The three of them followed the light, which hadn’t slowed at all, as if Cassa really didn’t care what they decided to do. Or she just knew they would decide to follow. Soon enough the passage split into multiple passages. Every direction looked the same to Evander, but Cassa studied the corners one by one until finally she tapped her finger triumphantly against one of the carvings. Three arrows stacked, all indicating the same direction.

  “It’s only a maze if you don’t know the way,” she said with no small hint of self-satisfaction. Evander tried to think of a pithy reply, but before he could, Cassa had launched into a jog. He groaned, then started jogging too. They’d lost too much time to keep walking. There was no telling how far behind them the guards were, unless maybe the guards had decided that there was no way they’d escape the crypts anyway and weren’t giving chase—an oddly comforting but likely vain hope.

  The tombs passed by in a gray blur. Cassa paused only briefly at each fork in the passage to determine the way. Evander was struggling to keep his breathing even, and a stitch was forming in his side. He kept pace with Cassa, though he stayed a few feet behind her. If she was so smug about her possession of the ghost globe, then she could damn well carry it herself for a while. Strangely enough, the feeling of self-righteousness fueled his pace much better than his fear of being dragged back to the dungeons. He was beginning to understand why his sister subsisted on it.

  They navigated the maze in silence for at least another ten minutes. Bare feet slapping on stone and their wheezing were the only sounds in the crypts. Up ahead the passage split left and right. Cassa stopped and studied the walls. Evander dropped his hands to his knees and gulped in a few breaths. The stitch in his side was just starting to fade when he realized how long they had been standing there. He looked to find Cassa still staring at the walls. It didn’t take him long to see what the problem was. The walls of both passages, as far as the light reached, were smooth and bare. No carvings, no arrows.

  “Shit,” Evander said, helpfully.

  NINE

  ALYS

  By the time they stopped, Alys was having trouble remembering what was so terrible about a noble execution. Surely it would be better than being skewered in the back as they ran, with no death rites, covered in sweat and muck and too winded to even catch a proper final breath. Ever since they’d entered the crypts, Cassa and Evander had set the pace, flagging only to check the symbols on the walls. Behind them, Newt’s arms and legs pumped at an infuriatingly steady speed. A
lys lagged several yards behind Newt, far enough that when they took a left or right turn, she would lose sight of them and be plunged into darkness for a few terrible seconds.

  Finally, they reached a split in the passage that gave Cassa pause. Alys knew she should probably be concerned, especially when Evander cursed and Cassa shot him the same glare she always did when she didn’t know what to do and someone had dared to notice. But Alys decided that since Cassa never listened to anyone but herself anyway, she might as well rest. She collapsed flat on her back, even though Newt told her she would have an easier time catching her breath if she were upright. After a few gasping minutes, she finally managed to pull herself into a seated position, her back against the stone wall. It was slick with condensation, and she turned her head to the side, pressing her hot cheek against the blessed coolness. Her inner thighs had begun to chafe annoyingly, and the shapeless, calf-length dress they had given her pinched under her arms, but she didn’t have the energy to adjust it.

  Evander, abandoning Cassa to her contemplation, sat down beside her. He looked tired but not exhausted. Alys wondered if maybe Cassa wasn’t really stuck and they had stopped just for Alys’s own benefit. It wouldn’t be the first time. She was an apothecary—or at least she was trying to be one. She’d spent her life behind a workbench, measuring and mixing and studying. She wasn’t meant for this business of hiding in beer barrels and facing down armed guards and descending barefoot into the bowels of the earth. That world was for Cassa, Evander, and Newt. It always had been.