“Never mind that,” said Juniper. They reached the cave’s entryway, and Juniper studied it carefully. The space was wide and well-traveled, the ground tracked with the pale greenish-white of trampled sweetcrystal powder. The very air gave off a rich, sweet scent, as if begging to be harvested and shaped into a confection.
Then Juniper cocked her head. “Do you hear something?”
“Footsteps,” Cyril said. “Coming from . . . inside, I should wager.”
A moment later, two pale-crusted figures emerged, blinking, from within the dark mountainside.
“Zetta!” Cyril hissed, making it sound like a rude word.
Juniper felt much the same, though she kept her voice neutral as she called, “Greetings, fellow candidate!”
Zetta looked up, narrowed her eyes, then relaxed—apparently seeing that Juniper had yet to start mining. For her part, Zetta hefted a large, cloth-wrapped bundle. Her muscular companion lugged one twice as big. Zetta gave a cursory nod and moved right past them on the path, heading back in the direction of the village with evident satisfaction at a job done well and early.
Juniper scowled. So Zetta had a jump on her. A big jump.
Still, sunset was hours off yet, and they had all the way till sunrise tomorrow to complete the task. There was plenty of time, and now they knew they were in the right spot. Juniper pulled her unlit torch out of her back and turned toward the cave.
Zetta paused in her walking. Leaning in to exchange a few words with her companion, she set down her bundle of sweetcrystal and scrambled across the rough ground to where they stood. “How fare you in your task?” she asked, with a grudging sort of concern.
Juniper tamped down her suspicions—why was Zetta acting friendly all of a sudden?—and answered honestly. It was no big secret, given the state of them. “We’re well beat, if you must know. But we’re here. The task to come won’t be easy, but it’s at hand and ready to be polished off. Not much more can be said than that!” She forced her lips into a smile. “Well done on your quick completion.”
Zetta smiled wryly. “Gathering sweetcrystal is something I have much experience with. When I was younger, some of us used to sneak out of a night and turn this very mine into a feasting hall. No provisions needed—all you could want for snacking to be found along the walls.” She grinned, and even Cyril smiled in response. “You haven’t really kicked up your dancing heels till you’ve done so in a mineshaft with the lights full out.”
Stretching out her arms, she glanced back at her companion, who stood watching them, stone-faced. Zetta reached into her bag and pulled out a rounded, crystalline object. “Would you like to use this lamp?” Her mouth twisted as she spoke, as though two sides of her nature were fighting for control. “I don’t know how much you know of the mines, but carrying an open flame in there is . . . not a good idea. There have been accidents, some deadly. Pockets of gas and so on.”
Juniper and Cyril exchanged a glance.
“What do you mean?”
Zetta gestured toward Juniper’s unlit torch. “I don’t know all the specifics. Only that the chemical composition of the sweetcrystal—or the air within the mine, perhaps—does not mesh well with open flame. We only tried it the once . . .” She brought her hands together in a short, sharp clap. “Boom!”
Juniper jumped.
Zetta placed the lamp in her hands. “I have no great love for you, Juniper Torrence, but you are a worthy competitor, and a blood sister besides. I would not lose your life to ignorance. Nor your companion’s.” She pointed to a narrow opening in the lamp’s underside. “There is a wick inside here—light it before entering the mines. The light is not bright, but it burns steady and true. And most important: It’s covered.”
“Th-thank you,” stammered Juniper. How close had they come to a fatal accident?
Zetta nodded and turned to go. At the last minute, she swung back around. “Also, I wouldn’t bother with this mine here—we’ve harvested everything in easy reach, and this is our tribe’s main gathering spot, so it’s well picked over. There’s another mine entrance not a league back that way.” She pointed in the direction of the bridge.
Cyril glared. “You’re being strangely nice, all of a sudden. How do we know you’re—”
“What you do is of no concern to me,” Zetta snapped, apparently regretting this brief moment of helpfulness. “Explore this cave, take all the sweetcrystal you are able to find, and welcome to it.” She lifted her nose and stalked away.
Juniper jabbed Cyril in the ribs, and he had the grace to look apologetic.
For her part, Juniper looked at the cave’s opening, so deliciously near.
“We can’t take her word for it,” Cyril pointed out.
Juniper had been thinking the same thing. “Let’s give it a look, then.” But the rocklight Zetta had given them weighed heavy in her grasp, and with it, the vision of what could have happened had the other girl not interfered.
It didn’t take long to see that Zetta’s advice appeared right on target. The first space they reached, after a steep and painful climb, showed walls pocked with empty craters, barely glinting in the dull lamplight.
“We could push in further,” Cyril suggested. “There must be more rooms like this one—they can’t all be this empty.”
But Juniper shook her head. How much more time would they lose investigating this cave? Zetta’s help had been sound till now. What’s more, the cave she’d mentioned was printed right in Erick’s book, and wasn’t far off at all. Juniper squinted back toward the narrow daylit opening.
“We’d best get moving,” she said. “The sweet stuff’s not going to come to us.”
15
THEY REACHED THE NEW MINE AFTER ONE league’s walk that felt like a dozen. Even with that accidental nap earlier, Juniper felt exhausted down to her core. To her annoyance, Cyril showed no signs of tiredness at all. What had happened to the sweaty, woebegone Cyril of this morning? Juniper wanted that boy back; this one made her look bad and feel worse.
All she could do was grind her teeth and struggle on.
But at last they arrived and stood blinking into the darkness of the new cave’s entry. Just as with the last one, chalky sweetcrystal powder dotted the dirt leading in—though much less of it showed here—and the air held the same bewitching scent. So they were clearly in the right spot. This opening was narrower, though, and dropped in much more steeply.
Cyril relit Zetta’s lamp and led the way, the flicker of light bobbing around him. Juniper watched the orange glow play across his features and off the rocky walls. She thought of the orange lights Jessamyn had seen around the horse thieves, which had so terrified her all those weeks ago; she looked again at the little orange lamp.
Well, that was another mystery solved.
She didn’t have long to mull this over, for a minute later she heard Cyril call out, “Hello, sweetcrystal!” She followed him down a sharp incline and rounded a corner into a huge, wide-open space. In the dim light, the walls gleamed like the night sky, all pocked with shiny dabs of sweetcrystal. Juniper ran her hand over the nearest wall. There were dozens, hundreds, more little buttons of rocky sweetness than she could have numbered in a year of counting. But each one was pressed deep into the wall, like so many precious eyeballs tucked in so many dark sockets.
How were they going to get the crystals out? They might take a fortnight to extract the amount of sweet rock she’d seen Zetta and her companion carrying.
“Over here,” Cyril called, and she turned from the wall toward the center of the room, where—Juniper gasped as Cyril’s lamp shifted to illuminate a giant column squatting in the middle space.
It seemed to be made of solid sweetcrystal.
“Shall we dig in here, then, little cousin?” he said, with a smirk.
To her surprise, Juniper found she was enjoying the flare of kinship springing up
between Cyril and herself. Nothing like a common challenge to nudge rivals toward a tolerant acceptance, she mused. Sometime over the last few hours, they really had become a “we.”
“Let’s,” she said with relish.
They set to work.
And then . . . they stopped.
It took only a few minutes to realize that their methods were not proving successful. Juniper tried hacking at the wall with a variety of sharp stones, tried prodding it with a long sharp branch, even took a turn digging at the craggy surface with her fingers. Cyril alternated a slew of his own methods, with exactly the same level of success.
None.
Juniper’s palm smarted under its bandage, still tender from the ceremonial slice. But the real problem was simply this: The sweetcrystal was the wrong consistency. It was gummy and slightly tacky, and while this should have made it easier to pry the crystals out, instead it made it harder. When Juniper managed to get any piece of it loose, the mass would crumble into a fine, sticky powder. Cyril finally spread out the cloth of their portable shelter to catch these drifts, but Juniper shook her head in frustration.
“It’s no use,” she said. “The Anju aren’t going to spend the next year eating this mucky paste, all mixed up as it is with dirt and sweat. We need chunky crystal, masses of it. What’s wrong with this stuff? Do you think Zetta steered us wrong?”
“It is uncommonly toasty in here,” Cyril noted.
It was warm. Juniper had already shed her cloak, and now she loosened the collar of her overdress. She placed both hands on the pillar. “Is it coming from inside here, all the heat?”
“It could be from anywhere—some of these caves must lead down to the heart of the mountain. There are volcanic elements below the Hourglass, I know that for certain.”
Juniper kicked at the wall. “Well, we need a way to get this stuff loose. Or the whole game is up.” She stopped and glanced back at Cyril, who had a calculating look on his face. “What? What are you thinking? I can tell some sticky idea’s oozing through your mind. Spit it out.”
“Some spectacular sticky idea,” Cyril corrected modestly. “Now, pay attention. We need a great heap of sweetcrystal, yes?”
Juniper nodded.
He waved a hand at the column. “Here we have just that. One enormous deposit of it. At our disposal—only waiting to be shaken loose. Only waiting for the right incentive.”
“Incentive?”
Grinning wickedly, Cyril reached into his bag and pulled out his flint stones.
Juniper gasped. “You’re jesting!”
“Not at all. I can’t guarantee it would be a safe solution, but I do think it would work. Sensitive to gases, that Anju said? Awaiting a spark to shake them loose? Well. I say we create that spark. Break this block to bits, then we can take all that we need with ease.”
“That’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard!” Juniper sputtered.
“Only think on it.” Cyril pointed toward the roof. “This is no support column. See that ruddy gap up there before the roof? And the walls around us are far as can be. We create just the smallest flame, nestle it up against the base of this pillar, and what happens? I’ll tell you: a tidy little BOOM. A satisfying bite carved out of this great sugarloaf, and into our knapsacks it all goes. Challenge complete!”
“But—but—” This was still the worst idea she’d ever heard. But it was also their only idea. Was she actually considering it? She clawed again at the pillar. Nothing. She rubbed her hands on her skirts.
May the best prevail. Did she have what it took to be the best? Juniper closed her eyes. She pictured Odessa’s face, her father’s, her mother’s. She opened her eyes and saw Cyril, studying her with a challenge in his gaze. Now let’s see what you’re made of, he seemed to be saying. I bet you’ll not go for this wild-hare idea. And then you’ll fail.
Love of country and pride of heritage were well and good, but sometimes it just came down to wiping the smirk off your nearest rival’s face.
“We’ll have to take every safety precaution,” she said, her voice clipped. “All the sweetcrystal in the world won’t be any use if we’re scattered about missing our arms and legs.”
• • •
The trick was getting the flame inside the cave without risking a too-soon triggering of the explosion in this enclosed space, wide though it was. (Though the very word explosion itself made Juniper shudder, bringing to mind as it did the images of distant flashes they’d seen on the far horizon during the first days of the Monsians’ invasion of Torr.)
In the end, they just had to go for it.
They gathered up dry grass and twigs, layered them onto Cyril’s neckerchief—almost too sweaty to use, but just functional—and set the whole thing atop a flat rock a safe distance from the cave. Then Juniper got busy kindling. Once the flame was thumb-high and burning stoutly, Cyril tied the kerchief’s edges together tight enough so no heat would escape, but loose enough not to quash the little blaze.
From here, the fire would either catch, or it would suffocate and go out within seconds. It stubbornly did the latter; three times Juniper and Cyril jog-dashed it inside the cave only to find the flame had snuffed all the way out. The fourth time, though, after adding slightly larger twigs—and perhaps due to the drying out of Cyril’s damp neckerchief—they got the bundle all the way inside and could see the faint orange glow still purring beneath the cloth.
“Now we run,” said Cyril. He nudged the smoldering mass up against the column’s base, turned, and sprinted for the entryway.
Juniper waited only a moment longer. The kerchief’s knotted top grew dark as the flame inside chewed through its barrier. The smell of burnt cloth and charred body odor began to seep out.
She turned and ran.
She’d reached the cave’s opening when the promised boom shook the floor. It wasn’t as large as she’d feared—she fell only to her knees, despite being barely out of the mine. But Cyril looked satisfied. Though that may have had as much to do with her fall as the explosion.
“I’d call that a success,” he said. “And well worth the sacrifice of my favorite scarf. Now, let us go inspect the goods.”
They crept in together. Reaching the main room, Cyril held up the rocklight while Juniper scanned the thick, cloying air for the pillar. Her mouth dropped open. “It worked!”
It had worked—even better than they’d hoped, and far more than she’d expected from the low sound they’d heard from outside. They’d taken no mere chunk from the center pillar. Instead, the thing had crumbled in its entirety. The column was nothing but a rubble pile of sweetcrystal.
But something wasn’t right.
“The ground!” Cyril yelped. “It’s wet—and hot!”
Then Juniper saw liquid bubbling up out of the jagged stump where the pillar used to be. It was like they’d blown the cap off a bottle of ale, and now the contents were frothing up and slopping out everywhere.
“Oh, gads,” said Cyril. “We’d best collect our prize and get out of here, quickit.”
Juniper couldn’t agree more. The floor was wet and edging toward swampy, so she draped the lean-to sheet across Cyril’s outstretched arms and set to grabbing up every loose chunk she could find, until the tarp was piled high with tacky but still-solid sweetcrystal. While Cyril lugged his burden outside, she looped her cloak over her arm and kept on filling. The stuff was everywhere! When the bundle bulged nearly to the floor, she drew the edges tight shut. She tottered up the incline and out of the cave.
“Well, that’s that,” she said. She met Cyril’s eye and saw his look mirror what she felt herself: the raw, uncut pride of accomplishment that comes from pushing yourself harder than you’d thought you could—and succeeding. In the next instant, though, the pride seeped right out of her, leaving behind a gas cloud of pure exhaustion.
A trickle of opaque liquid licked out of t
he cave behind them. Juniper looked up at the moon gleaming overhead. They had hours still until dawn, but the walk would be long and the bundles burdensome.
Juniper and Cyril set off, the weight of their success heavy on their backs.
16
“IT IS TIME FOR YOUR SECOND TASK!” ODESSA’S voice was sharp as the crack of dawn in Juniper’s ears. She and Cyril had staggered into camp barely two hours before, depositing their loads next to Zetta’s and Libba’s, both of whom had come in hours earlier and were presumably enjoying a restful night’s sleep in their rooms. Juniper noticed that Cyril’s and her sweetcrystal pile held more than triple the other candidates’. If only the contest were being judged by volume, she’d have been the clear winner of this round.
Alas, the extra amount had earned only a pursed-lip scowl from Odessa and muttering from the Elders. They buzzed among themselves and motioned Juniper over, apparently wanting to question her on something or other. But Juniper was dead on her feet. Brushing the worst residue off her sticky cloak, she smiled and made her polite excuses, then slid away to the common area. There she collapsed across a lounge seat without even making it back to her room, blacking solidly out until dawn broke, what seemed like moments later.
Now they were gathered in the clearing, the three remaining candidates and their seconds. For the word was now official: Tania had not made it back in time, and a search party had just been dispatched to locate and rescue her from any trouble she might have met with on her way.
“More likely she is lurking in the bushes somewhere, all scruff-matted and nursing her lost pride,” said Zetta smugly, casting a meaningful look at Juniper’s disheveled figure.
Juniper looked at her rival, who had had enough leisure time to bathe and comb her long silvery hair into four practical braids, which were now bound up tight on top of her head. Her leather britches were fresh, and her pale fur wraps mud-free.
Princess Juniper of the Anju Page 13