Her heart ached at the sound of it.
The Song welled within her, a river, an ocean, then it burst forth from her opened mouth. The melody sprang quavering from her lips to blend with the beautiful melody filling her soul, rising keener and broader, louder and stronger, rippling forth in a pattern of dazzling light.
She spread her arms wide. Brightness grew around her, driving the shadows back, until in a blinding flash, the darkness melted away.
Then she gasped, and the Song faded.
She stood, blinking in the red glow of the fire-lit cavern, striving to understand what had just happened. For she had heard a voice speaking to her out of the melody, out of the light. A whisper, not even words, a distinct melody that she somehow understood, forming thoughts out of the notes, grasping the Singer’s intent.
The voice had called her Songkeeper. Child. Beloved.
“Who are you?” Cade looked up at her with awe and terror in his eyes. He swallowed hard, and his gaze shifted to the girl at his side.
Birdie glanced down, and a cry slipped from her lips. The girl was sitting up, staring around her through eyes liquid with tears, but where the arrow had protruded from her chest, nothing remained but a damp blood stain. The arrow . . . the wound . . . were both gone.
Shouts of joy and delight broke out behind her. She spun around. The other injured runners were sitting up, clutching bloodied rips in their clothes where the skin underneath was now new and whole.
The thrill of hope that had spread through her at the first sound of the notes faded, replaced by cold terror.
Who was she?
“How’d you do it?” Ky tugged the bandages from his left hand and held it out, palm up, working his fingers back and forth to display the unbroken skin.
Cade stood. “What are you? Some kind of a sorceress?”
“You don’t understand.” Birdie backed away, shaking her head. “I didn’t do this. This wasn’t me.” She looked to Amos for help, but the peddler refused to meet her gaze.
The Song was dangerous, he claimed. Dangerous because it was powerful. A power she didn’t control, hadn’t asked for, wasn’t even sure she wanted.
No wonder he’d warned her to keep it a secret.
Amos stood. “We’re leavin’. Now.”
Birdie made no attempt to argue. She collected her pack in silence, but left the crossbow where she had dropped it when the tunnel collapsed. Children scattered before her like Madame’s chickens at feeding time. As if they were afraid of her. She didn’t blame them. She was a bit afraid of herself.
She only half listened as Amos instructed Cade to light the ryree packets at the other end of the tunnel they had collapsed to destroy it forever, and to lay low for a while, until things settled down. Then Amos turned in a slow circle. “Ye’ve made some changes since my day. How d’ we get out o’ here?”
“That way.” Ky nodded toward a tunnel opposite them. “Follow me.” He started to walk off, but Amos grabbed him by the collar.
“We can find our own way out. Ye needn’t worry.”
Ky shook himself free. “Sure you can, but I’m going with you.”
“What?” Two voices spoke at once—Amos and the red-headed boy, Paddy.
“You wish to leave us?” Cade folded his arms across his chest, and the glare he directed at Ky would have put Madame to shame.
“No! No, you can’t do that,” Paddy said. “We need you ’ere.”
“I have to.” Desperation tinged Ky’s voice. “I’m sorry, Paddy. I can’t explain now, but there’s something I have to do. It won’t take long. A few days. I’ll come back soon, I promise.” He gripped his friend’s wrist, then looked hesitantly at Cade.
Cade glanced at Amos and something indiscernible flickered in his eyes. Then he slowly turned back to Ky and nodded.
“Ky!” A little brown haired girl dashed out from one of the other tunnels and threw her arms around his waist, sobs muffled in his shirt. “Ky, you cain’t leave! You just cain’t!”
Ky patted her on the back, and turned back toward the others, a look of helplessness on his face. “I’m sorry, Meli. I have to. Just for a little while.”
“No, you have t’ stay here with me!”
Paddy stepped forward and gently pulled Meli away, kneeling so that his head was on her level. “Come ’ere, love. It’ll be just fine. I’ll look after you ’til Ky gets back.”
“Good—Goodbye.” Ky dashed into the tunnel without another word.
Amos paused before following and turned back to Cade, fumbling with the dirk at his belt. His voice, when he spoke, was soft. “Yer father would be proud o’ ye, lad.”
Something passed between them then, an unspoken message that Birdie wished she could understand. Cade’s head lifted, eyes burning with the light of battle, and he seemed to stand straighter than before.
Then Amos ducked into the tunnel, and Birdie could feel the eyes of all the children on her, watching as she trailed behind.
26
A faint breath of air trickled across Ky’s cheek, pulling him up short. To his left, a side tunnel branched off toward the empty stall in the market place. He must have been moving faster than he thought. They had made incredible time through the passages.
He flung up a warning hand. “Stop here.”
Birdie and Amos stumbled to a halt, the former outlaw breathing hard with his hands resting on his knees. Ky felt a smile crack his dry lips. Being short did have some advantages, like not having to run stooped through the tighter tunnels.
Amos puffed a long breath. “Ye goin’ t’ tell us where we’re headed, lad?”
“You wanted to get out of the city, right? I’m going to get you out.” After that, Ky had his own plans to save the Underground. Plans that required a couple minutes of freedom from any watchful eye—even if that watchful eye belonged to Hawkness. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”
He ducked into the tunnel and took off running with Amos’s shouts ringing in his ears.
“Come back! What d’ye think ye’re doin’?”
His thoughts sped in time with the steady fall of his feet down the well-worn track in the center of the tunnel as he struggled to wrap his mind around the situation. If Dizzier had been captured while trying to reach the stall, then he should have had the sword on him, and it would have been reclaimed by the soldiers when he was taken. But there had been no sign of the sword during the struggle in the marketplace.
It just didn’t add up.
His foot struck something, bringing him to a stumbling halt beneath the stall entrance shaft. Hazy light filtered into the tunnel from the cracks surrounding the trap door, but the glow petered out halfway down the wall and didn’t quite reach the floor.
He squatted and groped along the ground. Cloth met his searching fingertips—cloth wrapped around something long and hard. He hefted it in his hand, gauging the weight and balance.
It had to be the sword.
Slowly, the pieces began to fall into place. Dizzier hadn’t been thieving when Hendryk caught him—why stop to pinch trifles when he already had the treasure? No, he must have been caught sneaking into the stall, and somehow managed to toss the sword inside before he was dragged away.
It was a huge risk to take. If the soldiers had arrived a moment sooner, they might have spied the entrance, and Ky gritted his teeth at the thought of what could have happened if the soldiers had attacked before Amos revealed the cavern’s secret defenses.
In any case, it explained Dizzier’s strange behavior in the marketplace and his insistence that Ky go to the stall. Not to escape—that wasn’t Dizzier’s way—but to make sure the sword was found. Why go to all that trouble? Sure Cade was obsessed with collecting weapons for the Underground, but there were plenty of easier ways to acquire them than attacking a party of Khelari.
Ky began to par
t the wrappings, but stopped just shy of revealing the hilt. There was no point to unveiling the sword in the dark. In the end, it didn’t matter why the sword was important. All that mattered was keeping the Underground safe, even if it meant he had to leave the city to do it.
The thought brought a lump to his throat. If this was his best shot at saving the Underground, why did it feel like a betrayal?
With a groan, he pushed to his feet, stuck the sword through his belt, and retraced his steps to the main tunnel. He heard Birdie and Amos long before he reached them. Their hushed whispers rebounded off the floor and walls of the tunnel, magnifying the sound.
“. . . don’t like this. He’s been gone too long. A fine trick, leavin’ us stranded here in the dark whilst he goes scamperin’ off t’ who knows where!”
“He’s coming back, Amos.”
At least someone had faith in him. But there was something in Birdie’s voice that suggested more than a hope that he would return. It was almost as if she knew that he was actually returning at that very moment. Just as she had known that the dark soldiers were in the tunnel.
Ky shuddered. There was something strange about that girl—strange and downright frightening. The song she had sung seemed to pierce right through him. Not to mention the uncanny way she’d healed the injured runners and his hand. What kind of power enabled someone to do that?
He emerged from the tunnel and stopped a few yards away from them. “Ready to keep moving?”
Amos grunted. “O’ course we are, but where were ye?”
Ky’s hand drifted to the cloth-wrapped sword tucked in his belt. “We should go.”
“Where are we headed?” Birdie asked.
“The market.”
To his relief, neither Birdie nor Amos asked any more questions as he led the way down the tunnel and up through the trap door into the bustle of the marketplace. The clamor of hundreds of voices concealed their arrival, allowing them to melt into the crowd.
Unfortunately, Ky’s plan hinged on attracting attention. So when he spied black armor ahead, he pulled the cloth-wrapped sword from his belt, darted toward his target, and smashed the flat of the blade across the back of the soldier’s head.
The soldier collapsed like a felled tree.
Startled cries rippled through the crowd, and Ky fought the urge to disappear. For once, the more of a commotion he made, the better chance he had of succeeding.
He parted the wrappings to reveal the sword’s pommel. Then as the soldier groaned and struggled to rise, he shoved the sword at his throat, forcing the man’s head back so he could get a good look at the weapon.
The action revealed the soldier’s face.
Ky’s hand tightened around the sword hilt. It was Hendryk—Dizzier’s killer. His gaze drifted to the soldier’s unprotected throat. One quick stroke was all it would take—just one—and Dizzier would be avenged.
But he would have failed the Underground.
Right now, that was all that mattered. He stepped back and slid the sword back into his belt, looping the wrappings to conceal the pommel again. Amos’s hands settled on his shoulders, and he allowed himself to be dragged away.
“What d’ ye think ye’re doin’? Are ye tryin’ t’ get us all killed?”
A horn call blared through the marketplace, spreading the alarm.
Just in time.
Ky broke free of Amos’s grip. “Wall-top. Hurry!” Without waiting to see if they would follow, he raced to the steps and up to the battlements, halting before a gap in the layers of stone. “Come on! Over here.”
Amos handed Birdie over the edge, and then dropped down beside her. Ky could hear their feet scraping against the stone as they climbed down. A flash of yellow caught his eye, and the cat—George—appeared out of nowhere and dodged over the side of the wall.
Ky turned to survey the city. Horns blasted from all directions. The baying of hounds mingled with rallying shouts. Below, soldiers shoved through the crowd, while Hendryk raced up the wall-top steps.
Grinning, Ky dusted his hands on the knees of his trousers. Even Cade’s most masterful schemes hadn’t worked this smooth! He hopped up onto the battlements, paused to salute Hendryk, then slipped over the side and scrambled down the wall.
“I’ll be back,” he whispered.
As soon as his feet hit the earth, he took off running after the others, across the field toward the River Adayn and the Westmark Bridge.
Birdie gasped in a ragged breath. Her feet pounded the earth, cold mud splattering her legs, frozen grasses leaving icy trails on her skin. She struggled up the slope at Amos’s heels, with Ky beside her and George dashing at her feet.
The cat seemed to pick the worst time to show up. Apparently he thought so too. A panicked wail spilled from his lips. “We’re doomed . . . doomed . . . doomed . . .”
The rhythm of her feet matched the repetition of the word, and she caught herself thinking it along with George.
Amos crested the slope and turned around to face the city, a scowl creasing his brow. “Hurry!” he barked. “Thanks t’ yer fool stunt, lad, there’s mounted soldiers on our trail.”
“I knew it!” George cried. “Knew we were doomed!”
Birdie pushed herself past him and up to the top of the slope, and then stopped in utter amazement at the sight on the other side.
A torrent of white-capped water rushed through a cleft between two hills. The grassy foot of the slope she stood on dropped just below into the curling arms of the roiling flood. This must be the Adayn, the great river of Leira, at flood stage after the Turning.
Ky grabbed her arm and tugged her forward. Together they skidded down the steep hillside to the brink of the river, where Amos stood with one foot on a swaying wooden bridge that arched the lashing water. The bridge creaked and groaned as the Adayn coiled around the wooden pilings, less than a foot beneath the platform.
Amos started across the bridge, shouting something back over his shoulder, but the roar of the river swept his words away.
Birdie strained to hear.
“Once we cross . . . we’ll be . . . Westmark!”
The words filled her with an incredible longing. This was the end of her journey, the fulfillment of all her hopes. Here, at last, in the Westmark, she would be safe.
Here she would be free.
Still clutching Ky’s hand, Birdie raced out onto the shaking bridge. Beneath her feet, the River Adayn leapt like a bucking horse. Icy water spurted through the slats, coiling around her ankles as if seeking to drag her away.
She glanced back and saw a line of horsemen crest the hill and sweep down toward the river. Ahead, the green shore of the Westmark glimmered through a cloud of mist, only thirty paces away. Everything within her strained to run faster. With each aching breath, she could taste freedom mingled with the spray on the wind. So close, so close!
Close enough she could almost ignore the voice whispering doubt in her ear. Almost, but not quite. The soldiers could cross the bridge as easily as she, and once on the other side, how could she hope to evade a mounted enemy?
“We’re all going to die!” George wailed.
“C’mon! Keep up!” Ky jerked her arm, and she realized her steps had slowed.
She pushed herself to run faster.
Twenty paces now to the other side of the Adayn. Then ten. Amos stumbled onto solid ground and shouted encouragement. Then George was across, a flying blur of yellow streaking up the bank.
The bridge quivered, and Birdie stumbled, Ky’s hand the only thing that kept her from falling. A clatter like the sound of crumbling rocks filled the air. She looked over her shoulder. A dozen soldiers were riding across the bridge, and at the front of the line—her breath caught in her throat—Carhartan, mounted on his massive gray steed.
She reached the end of the bridge and leapt off onto the bank. Ky co
ntinued up the side of the next hill, but Birdie slammed to a stop and wrenched her hand free of his grasp.
“What’re you doing?” Ky demanded.
Even if they managed to escape here, she would never truly be free. She would always be cursed, always hunted. Carhartan would never give up.
Better to face the Khelari with a sword in her hands, than be ridden down and stabbed in the back. She turned to Amos and saw the same determination in his eyes. He drew his dirk and stood before the bridge, but his posture was that of a bent and weary man, not the fierce protector Birdie had come to know.
Birdie planted her feet, drew her sword, and held it upright before her. The soldiers were more than halfway across the bridge now. She could see their faces beneath the shadow of their open helms.
Something thrummed behind her, and hard round objects sliced through the air to pelt the soldiers. Ky was slinging.
She found comfort in that fact. At least she would not die alone. Abandoned.
Then beyond the racket of the approaching hooves, beneath the roar of the river, she heard something else: a low throbbing, deep and haunting. It was the first notes of the Song. And in the Song, a voice called to her. Rich. Strong. Powerful.
It called her by name. Birdie. Songkeeper. Beloved. You are mine.
But she didn’t belong to anyone.
The dark melody boiled to the surface, but something about it had changed. It was enticing, now. Sweet and bitter at the same time, like honey laced with salt, Madame’s frozen smile concealing her acidic tongue.
Be free, it whispered. Free of pursuit. Free of this madness. It fueled her wrath, and strength coursed through her sword arm.
You are mine.
Never before had she felt such a rush of light and opposition. The Song tugged her forward, brightness compelling and drawing her into itself, but at the same time, the dark melody pursued, clutching at her ankles like a quagmire seeking to suck her into the depths.
You are mine.
The words caressed her tongue as she repeated them softly to herself. Who was the speaker who claimed her, an orphan, as their own?
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