by Sara Holland
“And what are your goals?” I force my hands to be still, to stop fidgeting with the jacket. “You told me your official business. So what’s your unofficial business? And what about the Prince?”
“My business is the same as yours, I bet.” His smile kindles back to life. “To stop the soul trade.”
“And the Prince’s?” I press.
Nahteran hesitates for a second. “This is a place of trade,” he says at length, glancing at the door, like he wants to check that we’re still alone. “There are many things the Silver Prince wants. My job is to get them for him—”
That’s the moment when my walkie-talkie crackles to life. My heart speeds up, and all my muscles snap to attention.
Nahteran looks down at the noise, looking confused as I dig the device out from under my cloak and press the button to listen. Graylin’s voice, staticky and muffled, issues from the receiver.
“Maddie, come to the vault. We’ve found it.”
14
“Graylin?” I stab at the walkie-talkie with my finger while Nahteran stands up, silent, with quizzical eyes. “Graylin, what vault? Where are you?”
But only another burst of static answers me. I wait, my heart in my throat, but there’s nothing further. The device falls silent. For a long moment, Nahteran and I stand there in the silence. My body trembles, on alert.
We found it.
“What is it you’re looking for?” Nahteran asks quietly.
“A suit of armor.” The words spill from my mouth, as if expelled by the growing bubble of panic taking up residence in my chest. “A suit of armor made of phoenix flame. It’s a metal that creates—creates tears, holes—”
I’m not explaining this well at all. I pull up my sleeve, showing the gauntlet, its gold pattern shimmering against my skin. “It lets people travel between the worlds, the Realms, but it damages the barrier. We think that’s how Cadius has been getting souls in and out of Winterkill. It’s Mom’s actually. She and Cadius have a past.”
Nahteran’s eyes widen as he looks at the gauntlet, seeming to process this new information. Then he raises his eyes to mine. “I know where the vault is.”
My breath catches. “Really?”
“I think so. At least, I know the general direction.”
Nahteran straightens his jacket and strides toward the door, suddenly all movement and purpose. I slip out after him, keeping pace with three steps for every two of his.
My head is spinning. Just a few minutes ago, I was holding the trade records in my hands, starting to put together who S.P. was. I was positive that my brother really was lost, that after everything, ten years of numbness and a few weeks of wild hope, I would never see him again. But now he’s walking ahead of me, moving with a purpose and a certainty that I’ve scarcely seen, even in adults. For the first time I notice the slender, leather-sheathed sword hanging from his waist.
The party is raging on, everyone seeming louder and drunker and more awful than they did when we arrived. I’m not sure if it’s because of the night wearing on or because my brain has overloaded its processing capacity. But even staggering, yelling, howling with laughter, the guests draw back to make way for Nahteran. He cuts through the crowd like a knife, and I follow, keeping one hand on the walkie-talkie.
Ever since I entered Cadius’s office, I’ve scarcely spared a thought for Brekken or Graylin, even though we were supposed to stay together. Everything else flew out of my mind when I read my brother’s name, and then saw the real him. I hope they’re okay. I hope …
Nahteran leads us down to the lower levels of the estate, whereas earlier Brekken and Cadius had led me up. Here the ornamentation in the halls doesn’t just get simpler, it disappears entirely. The light too. The oil lamps get fewer and farther between and then cease altogether. I move up beside Nahteran and pull out a flashlight, another of the useful things Marcus made us pack. It’s too dark to see Nahteran’s face, but he makes a surprised noise, almost a laugh.
“What is it?” I whisper, my frayed nerves making every stray sound and movement feel ten times more conspicuous than it probably is.
“I haven’t seen one of those in so long,” Nahteran says. “Can I hold it?”
The simple wonder at such a mundane object makes a quick shot of pain jolt through my heart. Wordlessly, I pass the flashlight over to him. I want to ask him so many things—what he missed most about our world, about us—but now isn’t the time.
“Where is everyone?” I ask, making sure to keep my voice to a whisper, as the hall narrows on either side of us. “It seems like Winterkill should have guards everywhere.”
“It does seem that way, doesn’t it?” Nahteran laughs again, but this time it’s a cold, sharp sound, empty of humor. “But no. It’s been like this every time I’ve come here. Cadius is careless, but it says more about this world than about him, doesn’t it?”
I look up toward my brother, wishing I could make out his expression. Fiorden eyes can see in the dark, probably, but all I can make out is the vague shape of Nahteran beside me, and the circle of dirty stone floor ahead of us illuminated with the flashlight.
“What do you mean? I’m not following.”
“Cadius doesn’t feel threatened,” Nahteran says. “All these guests coming through the doors, the fact that almost anyone could get in—Cadius allows that because he doesn’t feel there’s a risk to his enterprise. And he’s right, there isn’t.”
As the anger grows in Nahteran’s voice, so too does his Oasis accent, I note with unease. The way he phrases things, the calm that prevails no matter what he’s talking about—it’s hard to put my finger on why, but it all reminds me of the Silver Prince.
“No one cares,” Nahteran says, the end of the last word escaping in a hiss through his teeth. “No one will stop him. They all know about the soul trade, and they let it continue because of the profit it brings them.”
My blood quickens to finally, finally feel my rage echoed in another. I know Marcus hates the soul trade, as does Graylin and the Heiress, and everyone I know working to stop it. Yet … maybe it’s because they’ve been fighting the fight for so long, but sometimes it feels like their anger is blunted. Logically, I know it makes sense to take steps to protect Havenfall from the Silver Prince before going off to chase the traders. Isolated as we are on our mountaintop, we can’t help anyone if the Silver Prince overruns us. But the thought of doing nothing while people are suffering still rankles. Especially once I knew one of them might be my brother. Nate. Nahteran.
“We’ll finish it,” I promise him. “You and I.”
It’s still dark, but I think I catch the flash of teeth as he smiles.
Soon, though, the quiet dissipates into a distant, muted clatter of shouts and clangs. It’s the sound of a fight. My heart leaps into my throat, and I quicken my steps, breaking into a half run, Nahteran at my heels.
“Left,” he hisses at a fork in the hallway, and I veer left.
The flashlight beam bobs and jerks erratically in Nahteran’s hand, and I can hardly see. I think the hallway is narrowing, but I don’t care. The faint noise gets louder and louder until I spot a rectangle of murky grayish-blue light, an open door, ahead.
I run faster, but just as I’m about to hurtle over the threshold, Nahteran grabs me across the waist, stopping me short. I wheeze, the wind knocked out of me, confused and indignant until my eyes adjust to the light and I see what’s ahead of me. A thin wooden railing, just a couple of feet past the door, not sturdy and magnificent like everything else here, but spindly, studded with rough wood planks sharpened to points at the top.
Beyond that—a drop-off. A drop-off I surely would have gone over if Nahteran hadn’t caught me.
He lets me go, and I fill my lungs and step forward, more cautious now. The light in here is strange, not gas lamps and torches like upstairs, but not natural either. It’s pale and diffuse. I can’t tell where it’s coming from. But more important is what it reveals.
We’ve
emerged into one of the middle levels of a great, cylindrical room. Unlike the tawdry opulence upstairs, the walls here are built of rough-hewn bricks of dark stone, fitted roughly together with some kind of concrete that swells from the cracks. It stretches far up above our heads, and down even farther. It’s ringed with narrow, precariously constructed walkways of wooden planks, like the one Nahteran and I are standing on now, dividing the space into circular levels. And every floor is lined with openings, panopticon-style. Doorways. Some of which have doors—some which have nothing at all, just holes full of darkness—and some which have silver objects spilling out of them as from the mouth of a dragon’s cave, magic hoards gleaming strangely in the unnatural light.
The noise is coming from the ground level, where maybe a dozen people—it’s too dim and far away to make out more details—are fighting. They are crammed too close together to discern between the groups of foes, but I hear Graylin’s voice floating up and Brekken’s. My heart clenches. Before I can think, I’m running, circling the walkway until I find a rickety staircase. Nahteran behind me, I run as fast as I can without tumbling down.
Outnumbered, is all I can think. They’re outnumbered.
On the ground floor, Brekken and Graylin are fighting with their backs to a strange stone pillar in the center of the room. Or rather—Brekken is fighting, his sword weaving a net of silver lightning that holds off the three Winterkill guards; while Graylin runs his hands frantically over the pillar, as if searching for something on its surface. It’s maybe fifteen feet tall, with a pointed top, almost like an obelisk. It’s carved of a darker stone than the floor around it, too dark to see anything that might be inscribed on its sides. What is Graylin doing?
I see Brekken notice me in the midst of his fight—notice both Nahteran and me. Brekken’s eyes go wide, and his head jerks marginally toward us. But he doesn’t stop fighting for a second. Not even as Nahteran steps in front of me, drawing his sword and dispatching one of the guards with one fluid motion. The Fiorden man in his green coat yelps sharply and hits the ground with limbs askew.
For a moment, I can’t move. I scarcely even saw Nahteran draw his sword. And in the seconds that follow, the tables turned, Brekken’s sword crosses the throat of the second guard. The third turns and runs, vanishing through one of the dark doorways that encircle the room. Nahteran takes a step after him, but then stops and pivots toward the pillar, toward Graylin.
I’m dizzy and torn between two thoughts: numb disbelief that two people are dead on the floor who were alive twenty seconds ago. And damn, I need to learn how to fight.
“Who are you?” Brekken calls out.
I look up, confused. It takes me a moment to understand he’s talking to Nahteran. Brekken’s sword is down at his side, but still held tight. His face confused. He looks between me and my brother. Graylin has turned around too. All eyes are on Nahteran.
I walk toward them, stepping carefully over the black puddles of blood on the ground, trying to figure out what to say, how to explain, but my brother beats me to it.
“My name is Nahteran.” He steps forward to Brekken, his bloodied sword loose at his side, right hand extended.
Graylin’s mouth drops open and Brekken’s eyes widen.
It’s clear Brekken remembers the name. He was the one who first figured out that Taya’s Terran was my Nate. Brekken looks at me for confirmation, and I nod.
“Well.” Brekken’s voice is uncertain, but he steps forward and shakes Nahteran’s hand. “I’m Brekken.”
“A pleasure to meet you.” Nahteran’s voice is even, placid, like he didn’t just run across a castle and take down a trained guard.
By contrast, standing in the shadows, I feel as though I can’t get my heartbeat under control. Like it might bust out of my chest. I try to tell it that the danger has passed, but no dice.
Then Nahteran turns to Graylin, and I see the surprise and recognition spread over Nahteran’s face again, same as when he saw me.
“Do you remember me?” Graylin asks softly.
Nahteran nods, lips parting like he’s trying to think of something to say. He drifts toward Graylin. A smile breaks across Graylin’s face, and his arms rise slightly, ready for the hug. But Nahteran doesn’t go in for it. Instead, he produces something from inside his cloak. A small, flat golden object, strangely shaped, like a many-pointed star.
“This might help,” he says, pointing at the pillar. “With that.”
Graylin takes the star, and for a second he looks as confused as I feel. Then comprehension clicks in. He turns and paces around the pillar, stopping on the far side, and fits the star into what seems to be an indentation in the stone. I realize—it’s an oddly shaped key.
I glance at him, confused. He didn’t make it sound like he’d been to the vault before, just that he knew about where it was.
“What is that? Where did you get it?” I demand.
Nahteran seems not to hear me, but before I can repeat the question, a ponderous creak splits the room’s silence. Then a deep, muffled crack. The stone pillar shudders and cleaves in two. I can see light through the middle of it. For a moment, the halves of the pillar stay upright … then they crash to the ground with a thud that makes my ears ring.
There in the nothingness where they stood, something shines.
At first, I think it’s a body, or a skeleton. There are arms and legs and a torso, elegant gold lines I can’t make sense of, like a rib cage dipped in gold. Then I realize with a shock.
Armor.
It’s not a knight’s full-coverage suit of armor, more like a series of curved golden ribs held together by gold chains. The corset is shaped like a person’s torso, and there’s one gauntlet that matches the one I’m wearing now. Suddenly, I realize something else. It glows. The light all around us seems to brighten. Somehow the armor had been lighting the room, even encased by stone; and now that it’s been freed, the phoenix flame shines even brighter.
The armor sits on a wooden stand almost as high as the pillar. Almost too high to reach, but Graylin is able to unhook it with a sword. His eyes are wide. Everyone is silent.
It’s clear that the armor holds power; I can feel it in the air. If we’re right, this is how Cadius has been creating openings between the worlds.
I expect something to happen when he lifts it down. Like the sand cave in the movie Aladdin, collapsing around him as soon as he took the magic lamp. But nothing happens. The room is utterly still—just we four, the armor, and Winterkill’s guards, who will never draw blades again.
Graylin uses his sword to set the armor down carefully, separating the pieces. He unzips one of the duffel bags we brought. I’d been so focused on finding the armor, I didn’t think about how we’d get it out of the castle. Luckily, Graylin did.
Then I feel something beneath my feet. Something so subtle, I probably wouldn’t have known had I not grown up at Havenfall, eager for every speck and thread of magic, attuned to anything out of the ordinary. I’ve felt this before, and I know I’m not imagining it. The floor is ever so slightly trembling.
I look down, instinctive fear making my mouth dry. We’ve already gone so far down below the main floor of the estate, I wouldn’t have thought there could be anything else beneath us. But the tremor is growing, like something enormous far beneath us is clawing its way up. In the bright light from the armor, the floor is more visible. I can see the scratched and weathered flagstones, the Winterkill guards’ blood collecting in the cracks.
Then the floor shimmers. Like water after a single stone is dropped in. I back to the wall, looking up to see that Graylin and Brekken have done the same. Only Nahteran has stayed where he is, gazing down at the armor.
“Nahteran!” I call.
His eyes snap over to meet mine, wide and a little wild. I point at the floor, which is now undeniably shifting and rippling. But he doesn’t move.
“A doorway is opening,” he says quietly. He looks at me and beckons. “Come here.”
&nbs
p; I follow his gaze to a pool of darkness spreading out from the armor like spilled ink. A yawning stretch of darkness. A darkness that doesn’t make sense. The faint scary compulsion I always feel at the edge of cliffs, to step forward and see if I’ll fly or fall.
I’ve always ignored that sensation. Obviously. But now it’s like something has taken over my body. I step forward, feeling hypnotized, fully expecting the strange, transparent, shimmering ground to give way beneath my feet. I am unable to stop.
I flinch when I put my foot down. I don’t fall, but it’s like stepping onto the back of some great living thing. It gives slightly under my feet and shifts and trembles, making me stagger. But I manage to get to Nahteran’s side.
“The gauntlet,” he yells.
A deep, roaring rumble is rising up from below our feet. Brekken and Graylin are fighting their way forward, but the floor is heaving too much now for them to get close. The whole circle of the floor is pitching like a ship in a storm, with Nahteran, me, and the armor on an island of relative stillness in the center of it.
Nahteran reaches for my hand, his fingers moving toward the gauntlet’s buckle over my wrist. He looks up at me, like he’s asking for permission. Behind me Brekken shouts something, but I don’t listen. He’s my brother. I trust him. I look Nahteran in the eyes and nod.
He smiles faintly and unbuckles the gauntlet with brisk fingers, lifting it off my arm.
Dizziness descends right away, dizziness and lightheadedness and a deep, deep cold. I grab Nahteran’s arm for support, trying to focus as he lays the gauntlet beside the rest of the armor, a shining pile of gold. But then Nahteran grabs my arm and pulls it out in front of me.
“Hold still,” he says.
Utterly confused, I try to tug away, but he’s too strong. There’s the flash of a knife and a stinging, shallow pain across my arm. I yelp as Nahteran drops my arm and drops of blood—my blood—spatter the floor.
