Narrowing her eyes, Nothing remained quiet.
The girl held a tray with steaming pot and tea bowls, dark bread, and another bowl covered with a cloth. The ceramic of the teapot and bowls was delicate and thin, painted with tiny people farming. One little orange cow stared off into a distance of rolling hills. The cow blinked, and Nothing’s eyes flew back to the girl.
“I’m Spring,” the girl said, stepping into the room though it crowded Nothing. As she entered, the light brightened from this wintery, watery blue into sunnier candlelight. Spring set the tray upon the red desk and poured pale-green liquid into the bowls. With both in hand, she turned back and offered one.
Nothing glared. “Where is the warrior with whom I arrived? Where is Kirin Dark-Smile? Who are you?”
“In that order?” Spring smiled prettily. “The warrior is sleeping under a spell, the prince below us, and I told you, I am Spring.”
“Below us? In the mountain? Is he alive? Will Sky live?”
“These are questions for the sorceress.”
“Then bring me to her!”
“She would like to have dinner with you tonight,” Spring said, again offering the tea.
“What will this do to me?” Nothing took the bowl. She covered the little orange cow with her thumb.
“Warm you?” Spring sipped her own, then plucked the bowl from Nothing’s cold fingers and traded.
Nothing responded with a long-suffering sigh to cover her anxiety. She drank the hot tea in a single swallow. It tasted of grass and a richer, soothing darkness. Something familiar she could not trace. Like the flower on the knob. “What sort of spell has she put upon Sky?”
“She holds him asleep while he heals.”
“Why is she helping him?”
“The river asked her to.”
Giving back the empty tea bowl, Nothing studied this girl. She was slightly taller than Nothing, with white skin and softly waving black hair loosely braided with trailing pink flowers. They seemed like miniature orchids. Spring’s up-tilted eyes were the color of honey and sunlight and seemed quietly content to hold Nothing’s gaze, as if with no secrets to hide.
A strange breathlessness caught Nothing, and she parted her lips to gasp a little air. Spring’s pretty eyes dropped to Nothing’s mouth and so Nothing glanced at the other girl’s too. Those lips were pink and soft-looking as the tongues of the orchids in her hair.
Nothing swallowed and stepped away.
“Does the Sorceress Who Eats Girls always do what the river asks?” she demanded.
Spring shrugged and moved to the trunks across the room. Her slippers were pale-pink silk and silent against the obsidian floor. “You’ve been bathed. Would you like to dress?”
Startled, Nothing glanced down at herself. She hadn’t thought about how she’d become clean, only vaguely realized she felt so. Her hair slid around her face as she looked, gleaming and trimmed. A creamy linen shift softer than anything she’d worn before covered her to the knees. Its hem was embroidered in such detail it should have belonged to a queen. “I need to pee,” she said with a surge of anger.
Where had anger come from?
Nothing clenched her jaw. She was unused to fluctuations of emotion. She was not supposed to attract attention.
Spring pointed to the curve of obsidian wall behind the nest. A lidded stone bowl settled in a short tiled stand. “There is cloth in the basket beside, and everything will be taken care of for you.”
Huffing, Nothing went to the chamber pot and used it. The other girl widened her eyes as if surprised at Nothing’s lack of modesty.
“Now my mouth? My teeth are furry.”
Spring pointed again, and Nothing, flushed with an unfamiliar mingling of anger and triumph, cleaned her teeth, too.
When she finished, Spring glanced at her over her shoulder, holding a beautiful expanse of red silk across herself as if she’d been measuring the size. “Ready?”
Nothing took an angry breath and nodded. She strode to Spring, trying to seem larger and more powerful than she was. The other girl watched her, admiration in her honey gaze. Nothing liked and disliked the expression: she both wanted this girl to admire her and wanted this girl to fear her. Or dismiss her. “I want to see Sky, and Kirin.”
“I will take you to the warrior,” Spring said, holding the red cloth up to Nothing’s face, eyes all for fashion. “But not to the prince.”
“Why?”
“Ask the sorceress at dinner.”
Nothing pursed her lips. “Red is too harsh for me.”
Spring laughed. “You think you need pastels?”
“I don’t care,” Nothing amended. “Put me in something and take me to Sky.”
The other girl smiled in amusement and dropped the red silk at Nothing’s feet. She returned to the trunks and pulled out a light-blue robe and a deep-purple long vest with curved black-horn clasps. The robe wrapped tight to Nothing’s waist, looser as it fell to her calves. Spring’s hands worked quickly and with certainty, nudging Nothing’s hip, then batting her hand away to tie the robe. She helped Nothing into the vest, buttoning it swiftly. She stood so near that Nothing found herself holding her breath.
Spring’s lashes were long and a brighter brown than the rich black of her hair. They barely curled at all. Nothing wished to touch them. To feel them against her cheek.
Nothing frowned. What was wrong with her? This strangely intense focus on details, on Spring, the surge of anger, and breathlessness. “What are you?” she whispered.
Spring lifted her eyes. She was so very near. Nothing could see individual flecks and swirls in her honey-brown eyes. They seemed familiar too. Nothing shuddered, fighting the urge to back away. Why was everything here familiar?
“What are you?” she asked again.
“A girl,” Spring said. “Like you.”
“Did she take your heart? Why are you here?”
“I like it here.” Spring touched the overlapping collar of her beautiful silk robe. She pulled it down, revealing smooth white skin, the slight swell of breasts, and a thin, almost invisible scar between them. It was jagged, dark pink, not very old.
Nothing thrust away.
Spring smiled sadly and remained silent.
Covering her face, Nothing tried not to think. She tried not to listen or feel. She was nothing. She was Nothing. Nothing could escape the Fifth Mountain. Nothing could rescue Kirin. It would be all right. She threw her hands down and glared. “Take me to Sky.”
“Slippers are—”
“No, take me.”
Spring turned and gestured for Nothing to follow. She did, barefoot on the cold, smooth obsidian.
The red-and-pink flower door opened out into a maze of narrow corridors carved into the mountain. Nothing reached to trail her fingers against the wall. They’d left obsidian behind and walked through glimmering granite. When she noticed the glimmer, she wondered how she could see: no lanterns nor candles gave light; no tunnels to the surface nor alcoves held natural sunlight. It was as if the air itself simply was light. Nothing wondered how deep within the mountain they were. It felt comforting, as if she belonged here. When she realized that, Nothing was a little bit afraid.
She kept track of their turns and the distance they went, passing forks and offshoots of the corridor, doors carved of dark wood, some painted merrily like hers, others blending into the walls. Nothing was good at internal maps, having spent her life in the pocket-rooms and smoke ways of the palace. They climbed a staircase, and soon Spring opened a door carved in waves and painted blue. Brilliant light fell out as if they’d come into a happy afternoon.
Nothing hurried in: it was a chamber with a vaulted ceiling that glittered with hundreds of crystals pointed down like frozen rain. In the center a slab of crystal rose like an altar, and upon it was Sky.
She grasped his hand. It was folded with the other over his chest. A long blue cloth covered him from waist down, spilling off the foot of the altar and to either side. His head
rested on a thin pillow. Nothing waited, staring, until she saw the slow rise of his stomach.
Relief closed her eyes, and she leaned over to rest her cheek against their layered hands. “Sky,” she said.
Standing again, she moved to his head, skimming her fingers over his shoulder and jaw to cup his face. “Sky,” she said again, soft and cajoling. He did not twitch. His copper skin seemed healthy, the blue-violet tinge of his hair and streaks of vivid blue normal. No blood remained dried to his skin, but there were cloudy bruises dark as ink on his left forearm and just peeking up from the blanket along his right ribs. “Is he all right?”
She turned, but she was alone. Spring was gone.
Nothing huffed to herself. “Hello?” she called.
Her voice echoed dully. She glanced up at the winking crystal ceiling. She hadn’t even had a chance to ask Spring more questions. What was she supposed to do now?
Nothing leaned over Sky and kissed his cheek. “Get better. I’m going to find him,” she said.
With that, Nothing left the crystal room.
She’d come from the left, so she turned right. “Hello?” she called again. Her voice flowed before her as if drawn by the dark stone walls.
For a while Nothing walked. She touched the wall, noticing as the type of rock changed, rippling into obsidian at times, or rough as granite, coined into huge crystals in others, and there were sometimes steps of octagonal basalt. Pink quartz speared out of the ceiling sometimes, glowing softly, and in other places threads of gold sliced through the granite. When Nothing came to a door, she opened it. None were locked: some swung into empty, dusty rooms. Sometimes she found a nest like the one in which she’d awoken, unused, or a single desk, or shelves covered in glittering crystal dust. She found a library, she found a room with only candles and mirrors, and she found a long oval room with a rain forest carved into the walls and clouds in the ceiling. She found a room filled with crumbling carcasses of dead dawn sprites.
She did not find Kirin.
There was no sign of Spring, nor spirits nor demons.
Nothing stopped along the bed of a granite corridor and put her hands flat to the cool stone. “Demon,” she whispered, in the same tone she used to speak with the great demon of the palace. “Demon, I know you are here. You are the Fifth Mountain. I am Nothing, and a friend to demons.”
Quieting herself, Nothing listened. She evened her breath, went still. “Demon,” she whispered.
There came no response. No word, no vibration of a snore or laughter. It did not wish to speak with her.
Curling her hands into fists, she pushed back and then with all her might screamed, “Sorceress!”
The cry cut away, and then the mountain shivered.
Nothing heard a huge heartbeat; it knocked her off her feet. She landed on her knees.
Then all was silent again.
She panted, and in between her frantic breathing, she heard something come into focus, as if she’d removed a stoppage from her ears: that heartbeat pulse, soft and slow.
Nothing stretched out on the ground, palms flat, cheek and breasts and belly and thighs pressing down, her knees, too, and the tops of her feet. She listened to the heartbeat. It was too slow to be human. Too slow to even align her breath with easily.
It couldn’t be the demon. Demons had no life, and thus no heart. But what if it was Spring’s heart? What if the sorceress took the hearts of maidens and set them somehow into her mountain to fuel… what? Her power? Was it her bargain with the demon? A greater demon shouldn’t need such a thing, but perhaps a demon and a sorceress together liked to augment their strength.
If the demon wouldn’t talk to her, how could she convince it to help her?
Frustrated, Nothing squeezed her eyes shut.
“Where is Kirin?” she whispered.
She had no idea what to do.
For much of her life, she’d been idle. With no daily work other than entertaining the prince or suffering at his side as his tutor attempted to teach, or learning the smoke ways or gathering gossip to trade, or tickling the great demon of the palace. When she hadn’t known what to do, on the rare occasion she needed to do anything, Kirin told her.
All her life, Nothing had known the rules.
In the Fifth Mountain, she didn’t know where the smoke ways could be found or what gossip was worth. She didn’t know where to go, what was safe. She didn’t know much at all.
Turning over, Nothing stared at the arched ceiling. These walls were narrow and low, shot through with quartz. But where she’d sprawled, several corridors came together and their crossing place climbed into a dome. At the peak of the dome was a carving like the one on her doorknob: a many-petaled flower, like a chrysanthemum or a rose with pointed oval petals.
Suddenly Nothing recognized it.
It was the same flower as on the silk she’d been wrapped in as a baby. The same as the burn scarred into her flesh.
Nothing’s hands flew to her chest, fingers finding the point even through layers of clothing. She pressed on her scar. It didn’t hurt. But as she stared up, her entire body warmed.
She’d not recognized the carved version of the flower. The colorless lines of its dimensions, bent around a knob. But there, at the height of the dome, it was shaped flat.
Nothing stared, feeling like her whole heart gasped. What did it mean?
Was she from here? From the Fifth Mountain?
Flinging to her feet, Nothing ran back down the corridor the way she’d come, saying, “I want my room,” again and again.
She found it much too soon for magic to not be involved: the door carved with red and pink flowers and its knob the many-petaled flower.
Nothing opened it, dashing in.
Snoring on the chair behind the desk was an extremely old woman.
Nothing stopped abruptly and made a little noise of surprise. “Hello?” she said. “Sorceress?”
With a snort, the old woman opened her eyes. They were pink from exhaustion, and teary, but the color was dark brown. The eyes were like tiny black beetles in the wrinkled white landscape of her face. Her steel-gray and black hair was twisted into three topknots pinned in place with long-toothed crystal combs, and she wore thick, quilted robes in bright brown and bloodred. They were embroidered thickly in black and silver in patterns Nothing had never seen before. It all coordinated. No contrast: she might’ve been made of earth and wood but for those silver flashes of starlight embroidery. “Hardly,” the old woman grumbled.
“Um,” Nothing said. “Are you the great demon of the Fifth Mountain?”
“Pour me some tea, girl.”
Reacting to the crotchety command, Nothing hopped to action, unsurprised to find the teapot Spring had left some time ago still hot and still full. Nothing poured both bowls and brought one to the old woman. She handed it over wordlessly, then waited for the old woman to drink first.
She did, closing her eyes. Her thin lips were possibly more wrinkled than the rest of her. When she finished, she put the bowl down and stared at Nothing until Nothing hurriedly finished her own bowl.
“Now, girl, are you ready to dress for dinner?”
“But who are you?”
The old woman got up from the chair, moving with ease despite her appearance. She was a little fat, though it hung from her bones with dragging age, and her back bent like a grandmother’s grandmother. “You may call me Insistent Tide. What color shall we use as your base? Do you have perfume?”
“Um. I don’t care. And—no. I don’t need perfume.” Nothing trailed behind the old woman, shocked because she recognized the name, and when the old woman pushed up the lid of the largest trunk, Nothing reached out and touched her shoulder. “Do you mean Queen-Before Insistent Tide?”
“Yes, yes, I was part of the tribute sent by the Emperor with the Moon in His Mouth to the great demon of the Fifth Mountain after the mountain died.”
“But that was more than a hundred years ago!”
But Insiste
nt Tide was humming to herself, spotty and off-key, as she pulled through dresses and robes and underthings, sashes and veils and clothing Nothing had no idea what to call.
“Insistent Tide,” Nothing said urgently, and the old woman turned. Nothing bowed her head politely. “You’re still alive.”
“This is a sorceress’s mountain.”
“But—”
Insistent Tide made an impatient face. “What else do you want to know?”
Nothing opened her mouth, still shocked.
The old woman said, “Yes, I volunteered for this, you know, as I hadn’t left the palace in decades. I wanted adventure, and here I am, losing track of the aches and pains and what to call my own age.”
“Do you—do you know Kirin?”
“Is that the maiden with the heart she wants?”
“Maybe,” Nothing whispered. She could not imagine the sorceress wanting a heart and not getting it. “Why hasn’t she taken it yet?”
“Why does she do anything?” Insistent Tide grumbled. “Now, orange or blue?”
“Um, orange?”
The old woman eyed Nothing. “Blue.”
Nothing crossed her arms, annoyed at being asked then dismissed. “Is Kirin well?”
Insistent Tide shrugged and began undressing her, with none of the gentleness of Spring’s hands. She stripped Nothing, put her in a new shift and underclothes, knotted her hair out of the way with a wide sash, then began layering a thin, spider-silk delicate gown onto Nothing.
Without doubt, it was the most beautiful thing she’d ever worn, and Nothing could not even see her full reflection in any of the small mirrors. It shifted against her with whispers like a winter breeze, slipping along her slender body, hiding her lack of curves in a way that made Nothing want to touch her hips, her belly, her breasts to make certain they were there. Instead, she touched her tongue to the back of her teeth, wondering if that was the point. She was being dressed for temptation. For the sorceress.
Maybe she could trade her heart for Kirin.
Insistent Tide pressed her down onto the stool before the table with all the makeup, and the old woman began to fuss with her hair. Nothing stared in the spotty mirror. The collar of the gown rose to her neck, pulling straight along her shoulders to fall down her back, and her throat was a touch too dark or not dark enough to contrast perfectly with the pale silk. Nothing shivered at the touch of Insistent Tide’s hands in her hair. She clenched her jaw against the urge to tear free: only Kirin had touched her hair in years. Ever.
Night Shine Page 8
