“First time for everything,” he muttered under his breath.
The muscles in his legs shook as he inched slowly across the bridge. He had to stop himself from running the last few steps, desperate as he was to be off the rickety old bridge before it collapsed. But as he finally set foot on the island, he remembered there were more urgent things to worry about than rotted wood.
Cryven.
Lots and lots of cryven, their unblinking eyes pinning the three intruders to the spot.
“This isn’t creepy at all,” whispered Bo.
“Give me a haunted forest any day,” agreed Selene.
Tam hushed them and took a step into the flock. Bo held his breath, waiting for the birds’ reactions.
Those closest to Tam scuttled out of the way with a disgruntled squawk, squawk, squawk but nothing more. Bo let out his breath.
They crept through the cryven; each step Bo took felt like being in the quagmires again, taking long, careful strides from tuft to tuft to avoid the mud. Which would be a better way to die? he wondered bitterly. Drowned in mud or pecked to death?
“There’s nothing here,” whispered Selene. “Where are we supposed to look?”
A bird next to Bo’s foot opened its wings, and three eyes stared at him. Bo fought back a shiver of revulsion as he quickly looked away. The last key had been in a box, hidden inside a secret drawer. The first . . . perhaps it had been in a box once, discarded by the careless Un-King. But there was nothing on this island to hide a box in, on, or under. Unless the cryven were hiding it? Another bird opened its wings and watched Bo with three golden eyes. Squawk, squawk, squawk.
“What if—” Tam started to say, but a bark cut her off.
Bo whirled around to find that Nix had followed him after all and was turning excited circles at the final step of the bridge, barking loudly.
“Nix! No!”
It was a chain reaction. The cryven closest to Nix flapped their wings in a frenzy, screeching until all the birds around them had joined in, and then the whole island was in turmoil. Bo covered his ears as the screeching grew, the sound ringing in his ears until he was certain they would bleed.
And then the cryven attacked.
They took flight but only high enough to dive-bomb Bo and his friends—again and again they swooped, pecking every piece of exposed flesh they could reach, pounding with their wings.
The air was filled with screeching, wings beating, and his friends’ screaming as they tried to protect their faces from the birds. Bo heard Nix bark, and looked over to see him jumping and weaving, trying to nip at the chaos of feathers and claws and beaks.
With a cry, Selene threw out her hands, and a shimmering blue shield pushed the cryven back, halting the onslaught. Bo was breathing hard, bleeding from so many pecks to his hands, his neck, his face.
“I don’t know how long I can hold them off,” she said through gritted teeth. The birds were attacking the shield, their sharp beaks tearing holes in it. “Find the key.”
Tam began searching, bent low.
The island was covered in molted feathers and blotches of white bird droppings and grass—uneven, scraggy grass that seemed to form some kind of pattern, a spiral pattern . . .
“That’s it!” cried Bo. “I bet anything that from above, that pattern looks like a spiraled snake, just like the second key.” He ran to the center of the island, where the spiral ended. He dropped to his knees and began to dig, dry-retching as he shoveled through the bird-dropping-stained dirt with both hands. Nix ran to him and dug with his paws too.
“Don’t know why you can’t follow a simple instruction, Nix,” said Bo.
Nix barked.
“What do you mean ‘warn me’? Warn about what?” But Bo didn’t hear the answer because his fingers had hit something smooth and hard—a wooden box! He dug around it until he could pry it free and then smashed it against the hard earth, exactly as he had seen Tam do. It took several attempts before the box cracked open and a small copper key tumbled out.
“I’ve got it!” shouted Bo. He held the key aloft, jumping up and down. “I’ve got it!”
“Great!” called Selene. “Do you think we could get out of here now?”
Bo pocketed the key without examining it—there was no time.
As if at the bidding of some secret signal, all the cryven flew away at once, leaving an eerie silence behind them.
Selene dropped her shield, panting.
“We must go,” said Tam.
“Why did—” started Bo, but his words were drowned out by the violent beating of wings, like a bird caught in a trap, fighting to be free. Bo glanced up and saw four shadowy shapes overhead, much, much larger than the cryven.
“No!” hissed Tam, unhooking Redfist from her belt. “Scouts!”
Selene threw another shield up but some kind of dust rained down on it from above. The shield lit up orange before it fizzled out with an acrid stench.
Bo realized the shadowy shapes were birds too, but they were ten times as big as the cryven—large, red-feathered birds with the same three eyes.
All four scouts swooped at once.
“No!” shouted Tam, swishing Redfist back and forth. “Take me—leave the children. They mean no harm. Take me!”
Selene screamed as one of the giant birds swept her up in its claws and lifted her into the air, arms pinned to her sides.
Bo reached for her, but large claws clamped around his waist and suddenly his feet were pedaling air. He heard Nix yelp and looked across to see his friend nipping at the clawed feet of the bird that had grabbed him. He was too high up to see what happened to Tam.
The giant birds swept up through the air, so fast the wind cut against Bo’s skin. When he glanced down, the breath was knocked out of him—they were so high!
When they broke through the cloud cover, Bo’s mouth fell open.
In the sky was a city.
A scattering of trees reached high above the clouds, and in the canopy was a whole city of interlocking nests, hundreds of them. Thousands. Like giant, bulbous sacks, the nests hung from the branches, connected by narrow suspended walkways. Each nest was woven out of gold-red straw; the fading Light rippled across the surface of each of them, shimmering like fire. Bo spied small black dots zipping between the nests, like mud-mygs dancing in the humid air of the swamps. When he got closer, however, Bo realized the dots were Korahku, flying through their city.
“The Golden Aerie!” shouted Selene. “Korahku royal city.”
The giant birds dropped everyone except Tam onto a deck hugging the middle of an enormous egg-shaped nest on the outskirts of the city. Bo rolled to a halt, knocking heads with Selene before nearly tumbling over the edge of the deck.
Bo scrambled back and jumped to his feet, finding himself face-to-thigh with a sour-looking Korahku, his black robe billowing in the wind. “Who are you? And what have you done with Tam? Where is she? Is she okay?”
Nix barked.
Ignoring them, the Korahku lurched forward and grabbed both of Selene’s arms.
“Hey!” she cried as he wrapped a translucent, silvery cuff around her wrists. “Stop that! It burns!”
A sharp pecking in his back sent Bo hurtling forward. He turned and saw that the giant scout birds were behind them, pressing in. Bo, Selene, and Nix were herded into the nest. Inside was a honeycomb of what looked like prison cells. Great. Another prison, thought Bo. His stomach wobbled as he peered over the edge of the hanging walkway that ran through the middle of the nest; he couldn’t even see the bottom, it was such a long way down.
At the end of the walkway, the guard threw them into a cell, sending them tumbling to the floor. “You trespass on Korahku land and consort with a known traitor,” he boomed, seizing Bo’s rucksack. “Once the Dark has passed, you will stand before the King. He will decide your fate.”
Bo scrambled to his feet. “Quick! Blast him, Selene!”
She raised her bound hands but nothing happened. Her face fell.
“I think the cuff is suppressing my magic,” she said.
Nix barked.
With his hand on the cell door, the Korahku paused. His beady black eyes shone with malice. “The punishment for trespass is death, in case you were wondering,” he said.
He slammed the door shut.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Bo picked at the dried blood on his hands and arms from the cryven’s frenzied pecks. His face was scabbed and bruised from the attack. Nix licked his paw, then rubbed it across his bloodied ears and snout, trying to clean them.
When a small tray of food and water was pushed through a steel flap in the cell door, Bo divided it into three. After every last crumb was gone, his stomach still rumbled and his body ached and his mind was bursting with worries. He hugged a whimpering Nix close; the fox’s scar was weeping.
“At least we got the third key,” said Selene.
Bo pulled it out and examined it by flickering candle-Light.
Like the others, it had a strange shape at one end—this time, a wolf’s head. There were carvings, too: another riddle.
Selene leaned over his shoulder and read it out: “‘I have a foot but no legs. I have a peak, but I am not a hat. You can climb me, but I am not a tree. I am tall, and yet I never grow. I am the largest of them all.’”
“It must be a clue telling us where the wolf’s cage is,” Bo guessed. “What can you climb that isn’t a tree?”
Selene shrugged. “How can you be tall but never grow?”
Bo argued back and forth about the riddle with Selene for hours. “It’s a pity we don’t have the Scribe here to give us her cryptic clues,” he said in the end.
Selene snorted. “Or blither-blather about a silly painting of a—oh no, wait!” She sat up straight. “That’s it! A mountain! The answer to the riddle is a mountain. And the tallest of them all is Lindorm. We’re not far from there!” She pumped her bound fists in the air.
Too bad we’re locked up for trespass and the first two keys are missing, thought Bo.
“Let’s get a good night’s sleep,” he said out loud. He folded his cloak into a pillow and lay down on his side, Nix curling into a ball next to him. “We can figure out what to do tomorrow.”
He wanted to be excited about having figured out the third and final clue, but he was too filled with worry and fear and doubt and anger—lots of bubbling, growing anger.
He closed his eyes and willed himself to sleep.
* * *
Outside the cell, the wind churned, battering the curved wall, howling like a wounded wolf. Inside, candles flickered in their iron sconces, casting long shadows.
Bo huddled against the wall made from itchy woven straw, knees hugged to his chest, keeping a careful eye on the jittery shadows. At his feet, Nix dozed, and across the cell, Selene was splayed on the floor, snoring softly.
He hadn’t slept a wink; his mind was too clogged with worries.
What would the Korahku do to them? Where was Tam? What happened to Galvin and the first two keys? Was Mads evil? When would the Shadow Creatures attack next?
With a metallic, high-pitched squawk, the cell door swung open and the black-robed guard barged in.
Selene shot up, startled from sleep. “Is it Shadow Creatures? Is it—” She looked around wildly, blinking.
“Where’s Tam?” Bo scrambled to his feet, eyes on the impassive guard. Nix leapt up beside him and growled. “You tell me now!”
The guard grabbed Selene and Bo by their collars and dragged them out of the nest. Three giant scouts were perched on the railing that bordered the walkway outside. Soft early-morning Light cast a fiery sheen on their feathers. They cawed, stretching their wings wide to stare with all their eyes.
Nix barked, snapping at the Korahku’s feet.
“If you wish for me not to kick your dog over the ledge,” said the Korahku, “perhaps you will tell it to be quiet.”
Bo did as he was told, and reluctantly Nix grew silent.
The scouts took to the air, swooping to clasp each of the prisoners in their claws. Selene screamed as she was lifted up, beating her cuffed hands against the sharp talons. “Get off me, you feathery lump! Let me go!”
The scouts sailed toward the center of the city, sweeping low to zip among the bulbous nests, glistening as though woven from pure gold. The air crackled with Korahku birdcalls—a deep, raw caw, caw, caw that turned Bo’s blood to ice as he dangled from the scout’s grip.
City life streaked by them—open nests filled with bustling markets, clusters of homes, towering nests filled with unknown industry. The nests grew in size the deeper into the city they flew, needing thicker and longer web-like ropes to tie them safely to the branches.
The scouts finally zoomed into the center of the city, revealing the most incredible sight.
A colossal nest hung from a branch, the straw shimmering gold and red and orange. It was a palace—that much was clear—with a collection of smaller, rounded nests clumped on the outside like boils. A wide perch jutted from the palace’s front entry and it was here that the scouts dumped the three prisoners, who rolled until they landed at the feet of waiting guards.
“Take the trespassers to the roost until the King is ready for them,” instructed the black-robed guard, landing smoothly beside them.
Bo was pulled to his feet and shoved through a hatch, and he stumbled into a cavernous entry hall. The walls were straw, stretching far above, farther than Bo could see. Beams of carved wood crisscrossed haphazardly overhead and the curved walls were adorned with ornate tapestries depicting gory battle scenes.
As Bo was pushed through the long hall, he couldn’t help but gawk at the tapestries—most seemed to show Irin slaughtered in battle and, oh. Was that the Irin royal family being beheaded?
“Keep moving, pig-child,” snapped the guard behind him. He shoved Bo between his shoulder blades.
A dead end in front of them was covered with the biggest tapestry of all: a snow-tipped mountain that looked like a monstrous worm curled around and around itself. Lindorm Mountain, Bo guessed with a fluttering of hope. Selene had said it was close by. Perhaps if . . .
But as they were quickly herded past the tapestry and shoved into a small wood-lined room, Bo’s fluttering hope vanished. It didn’t matter how close they were—they were still prisoners.
“You will wait here for the King to see you,” said a guard before slamming the door, the lock rattling into place a second later.
Selene banged on the door with her bound fists. “You can’t boss me around! My mother is the captain of the Queen’s Guard and she’ll have you all arrested!”
“Arrested?” said a voice from the corner of the room. Bo turned to find a familiar set of gold teeth glimmering at him.
Nix growled. Bo squeezed his hands into fists as Galvin advanced on them—that lying, cheating, no-good trollhead!
Galvin’s right eye slid over Selene. “Did I hear correctly, child? Your mother is the captain of the Queen’s Guard?”
“Yes,” snapped Selene in her haughtiest voice. “You did. And if you think you can hurt us, then you’d best be prepared for her to arrest you, too.”
Galvin laughed. “Are you sure? Because I happen to know that the captain of the Queen’s Guard is part Qirachi, part giantess.” He looked her up and down. “You’re rather short for a girl with giant blood in you.”
Selene’s eyes grew wide as she swung around to Bo. “He’s . . . he’s lying,” she spluttered. “I . . .” All the fight left her at once. She fell back against the door and slid to the floor, head in her hands. “Oh, hogsbeard!” she snapped. “He’s right. I lied.”
Bo sucked in a sharp breath as Galvin cackled. More lies? He sat beside his friend, his chest tight with confusion. And hurt.
“The vines came after me, remember?” she said, lifting her head to peek sidelong at Bo. “Because I said my mother and father sent me to be an apprentice with the Sisters. I said they were important people, my mother the captain of th
e Guard and my father the Queen’s chief advisor.” She took a deep, shaky breath. “The truth is my mother died giving birth to me, and my father didn’t want me. He only wanted sons. So he dumped me on the Silent Sisters.” Selene sniffed, rubbing her eyes with the backs of her hands. She shifted around to face Bo. “I’m sorry I lied to you, truly I am. I don’t like admitting that my father didn’t want me and that my mother is . . . is . . .”
She’s just like me, Bo realized. Angry because nobody wanted her. He slid his hand into hers.
“It’s not your fault. What your father did has nothing to do with you,” he said. He was certain he ought to be mad at Selene for lying, but instead he felt a twisty, sticky kind of anger at her father; it clung to every inch of him and wouldn’t let go. Her story reminded him too much of his own mother and father. Of the Moon. Of Mads.
“Do you think he misses me?” asked Selene, eyes wide with hope.
“He’d be a trollhead if he didn’t,” said Bo.
“Yes, yes, very touching.” Galvin clapped his hands together. “But I have more pressing matters to discuss. Such as: Where is the third key? You have it, don’t you? Those blasted Korahku scouts grabbed me before I could reach the river, but I’d wager you’re tricky enough to have gotten that far. Give me, give me, give me!”
Bo scoffed, folding his arms across his chest. “I don’t have it. And even if I did, I wouldn’t give it to you. Why don’t you hand me back my two keys?”
“Tsk, tsk, tsk. My, how rude you’ve become! Such a polite boy when I first met you and now look at you.” Galvin dusted off his ripped and mud-stained trousers. In fact, all his clothes were torn and stained.
“What happened to you?” said Bo.
“Labyrinth of Liars,” mumbled Galvin, picking at a healing sore on his arm. “Never ran so fast in all my life.”
Bo laughed. “Of course the vines would attack you.”
Galvin shook his finger at Bo. “Now, listen here, boy. You give me the third key, the one I know is tucked in your pocket. Now!”
He made to lunge at Bo, but Nix rushed at him, barking wildly, baring his teeth. Galvin jerked back, teetering on his tiptoes. “Argh! Control your dog!”
The Boy, the Wolf, and the Stars Page 19