“All right, get up and eat quick. There’s a Release tonight.”
“What’s a—”
“Just hurry up and go eat before all the food is gone,” Naomi said, collecting her burlap sack and jogging back up the narrow steps towards the castle.
Ferne collapsed on the ground, spread her arms and stared up into the sky. “That was intense,” she said as her sister flopped down next to her.
Arabel didn’t feel up to climbing the stairs just yet, even though Naomi had just shouted at them to hurry up and eat, so she sat down next to them, propping herself up on her elbows and staring up at the first few stars appearing in the sky. Alistair had already disappeared, like a shadow himself.
Avery was following Naomi up the steps, but Ferne called out to her. “Hey, join us?”
“No thanks; I don’t want to be late.” She didn’t even turn around.
“Late for what?” Ferne mused.
Charlotte sniffed. “Man, she is way too uptight.” Her demeanor changed suddenly, and she glanced at Ferne.
“Um,” Ferne said. Arabel waited to hear whatever it was. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
Charlotte blushed. “You saved our lives yesterday.”
Arabel was about to point out that it was only Charlotte who had wanted to get to the demon, but Ferne shook her head and she stopped herself. “I didn’t do anything.”
“No; you put yourself in its path,” Ferne said. “It…It wanted us for some reason.” Her sister visibly relaxed as Ferne said this. “You stopped it. If you hadn’t, we would have been dead before Oswald got there.”
Arabel shrugged uncomfortably. “Alistair and Avery helped, too. We all just did what we could.”
Ferne and Charlotte glanced at each other. “Well, thank you.”
Arabel shifted, looking away and feeling her face warm. It was a strange feeling, to be appreciated like that, and she found herself tensing, waiting for the other shoe to drop. But several seconds passed and it didn’t.
The air was cooling rapidly now that the sun was gone. That snow in the mountains wasn’t far away. By mutual assent, the three of them gathered their strength and climbed the steps up to the castle.
13
Arabel inhaled her food without talking to anyone and then went to change into clothes with fewer grass stains and tears on them.
She pulled open the door to find Avery sitting on her bed, her hands pressing into the mattress on either side of her, staring out the window. She shook herself as Arabel came in, leaping up and turning away, picking up a small clay statue on her bookshelf.
“Oh, hey,” she said. There was a small catch in her voice.
This was the first time she’d seen Avery alone, and she wanted to ask her why she’d lied for her, and if she planned on keeping Arabel’s secret. But something was clearly wrong. “You OK?” Arabel asked hesitantly.
“Yes, of course. I’m fine,” Avery said.
“You sure?” Was this guilt at having talked to Oswald?
“Yeah.”
Avery replaced the statue, then pulled out some boot oil and began meticulously oiling her leather boots. Part of Arabel wanted to take that at face value and move on to other, more important subjects. She frowned. Avery could take care of herself. She didn’t need help, least of all from Arabel. She stood for a moment, looking at Avery, slim and pale and bent over her boot, scrubbing at it with the stained cloth.
Gently, she took the boot from her hands and set it at the foot of the bed.
“You don’t have to talk to me if you don’t want to, but I can tell something is wrong.”
Arabel dropped onto the bed next to her, her hands resting on her knees.
Avery stared at her, then swallowed. “I can’t do this.”
Arabel’s stomach twisted. “Do what?” Lie for her?
“Fight eidolons.”
Arabel frowned, but her stomach unclenched. “What are you talking about? You were better than me. Also, we’ve had one lesson.”
A wry smile flitted across Avery’s face, and she waved a hand. “Yeah, I know, but I can tell. I—” she swallowed. “I couldn’t even tell it was there. Yes, I could resist it, but only because Naomi coached me. I—I can’t feel them at all.”
Arabel shrugged. “So? Sounds nicer to me. You saw I passed out, right?”
“Yeah, but at least you could sense them. You can’t fight what you can’t see.”
“You can’t fight things if you’re unconscious, either.”
“It’s probably easier to get better at not being unconscious than it is to sense something you can’t.”
“Why?”
Avery opened her mouth, then shut it again. “I guess maybe you have a point. But the test is in a week. I don’t think I can pass it.” Her jaw tightened and she clenched her fists, taking a deep breath and looking out the window.
“So? If you don’t pass, you just go do something else, right?”
“I don’t want to do something else. This… this is what I said I would do. I promised him. He was dying and I promised him.”
“Well, they said it was just a formality. I’m sure you’ll pass.”
Avery’s eyes hardened. “I’ll try.” The tense determination in her slim frame took Arabel aback.
She really didn’t know what to make of the fierce, pale girl sitting next to her. But she seemed to be feeling better, at least. Now was as good a time as any to ask her. “So…” Arabel started. “About last night…”
Avery glanced at her sharply. “Why didn’t I tell anyone?”
“Yeah.”
Avery waved a hand absently. “I know you didn’t break into Oswald’s office.”
“Um… how?” Unless Avery was the one who had broken into his office. Had she gotten back just moments before Arabel? Maybe it was actually Avery that wanted an excuse. That was insane, though. Arabel couldn’t imagine Avery breaking into a tea cupboard, let alone someone’s office.
“Well, OK… I don’t really know,” Avery said. She looked at Arabel. “But you didn’t, right?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think so.” Avery’s fingers twisted together in her lap, and she looked down at them. “When we first got here, they asked me to… tell them what you do.”
Arabel leaned back. “What?”
“Ferne told me you tried to run away, that you didn’t know you were coming here. I’ve heard… stories… about your father.” Avery was still looking down at her hands. “It must be terrible. You don’t really want to be here. You didn’t choose to be here. And on top of that no one trusts you. And even despite that you sacrificed yourself to save Charlotte.”
“Oh.” When she put it that way, it almost made Arabel feel sorry for herself. This was better than being locked in her room, though. Or at least more interesting.
Avery turned to her. Her eyes were still red-rimmed. “Sorry. I don’t mean to be assuming all these things about you.” She swallowed. “I didn’t like them asking me to… spy on you. I don’t like lying.”
“But… you lied to Oswald. You said I was with you.”
“It was either lie to them or lie to you.” Avery smoothed the bedcovers. “And you hadn’t asked me to do anything dishonest. And as far as I can tell, you’re just caught up in something that’s between other people.”
Arabel tried to wrap her mind around this. Nowhere in there could she see any form of self-interest on Avery’s part. In fact, if anyone found out, she was likely to be punished at the very least. “If they find out you lied to them, they could kick you out,” Arabel said.
“That’s true,” Avery said.
For someone who had been crying about that prospect only minutes earlier, she was surprisingly calm.
Avery seemed to have read Arabel’s mind. She laughed. “Of course I don’t want to get kicked out. But if I get kicked out for doing the right thing, I’m OK with that. If I get kicked out because I suck, I’m not OK with that.”
&nbs
p; “Right.” Arabel digested this. “Well, thanks.”
“You’re welcome. But you don’t have to thank me.”
It occurred to Arabel that probably no one deserved to be here more than Avery.
A knock at the door interrupted her thoughts. Without a moment’s pause, it was thrown open and Charlotte poked her head in. “Hey! Weirdos! Let’s go!”
She pushed the door open further, standing there in a flowing black gown with dark eye liner and a black cloak. Arabel looked down at her shirt. No time to change now.
“Right,” Avery said, rising and adjusting her perfectly clean clothes.
“Did Naomi tell you what’s supposed to be happening tonight?” Arabel asked.
“Yes,” Charlotte said.
“Well?”
“Oh, I forget. Like, a funeral for a sword or something?”
Ferne appeared, weaving around Charlotte and tucking her arm through Arabel’s elbow as they followed Avery out and down the hall. “This reminds me of the last funeral we went to at home,” she commented as they joined the large, black-robed crowd in the plaza. Chairs had been set up, and they found seats in the back row.
“That one was worse,” Charlotte said.
“Yes, never go to a funeral for someone that people think you’ve murdered,” Ferne said.
“What?” That seemed like solid advice, but also not the kind of advice anyone should have to give anyone else. “Who did you murder?”
“I just said ‘think you’ve murdered’,” Ferne chided. “We didn’t actually murder him. Although we didn’t correct anyone either.”
The crowd had gone silent and they were still whispering. Arabel sank lower in her seat. She already had a bad enough reputation; she didn’t need to be the rude person talking at the funeral. Or whatever this was.
Charlotte continued the story, whispering it quickly. “Ferne’s last suitor. Had a heart attack while he was with her. Everyone knew we didn’t want to get married. People suspected we’d murdered him. We let them think that. There was no proof. So of course they couldn’t hang us. It was a lot easier to convince our parents to let us go after that.” She smiled.
“Luckily for Marcus,” Ferne said.
“Who?” Charlotte asked.
“Your last suitor?”
Charlotte’s brow furrowed.
The door to the vault was beginning to open.
“Shh. They’re starting,” Avery whispered.
It was fully dark in the courtyard now, with the exception of the oil lamps hanging in strings around the edges. They were a dark purplish blue; an eerie, somber color. Oswald pushed out through the vault door, a blaze of soft white light silhouetting him from behind. He raised his hands and began to intone what sounded like a prayer, listing names of guardians who had gone before, none of which sounded familiar to Arabel. When he finished, a drumbeat sounded, rising to a crescendo, and a guardian strode down the middle aisle carrying a soul blade. This blade was chipped and worn, darkened with smears of black, like it had been burned. Its two ends were dull and dark.
He reached the steps of the vault and knelt, lifting the blade on upraised palms, presenting it to the archguard.
Oswald pressed his palms together, bowed and then took the blade in both hands, holding it gently, reverently.
“Arym Goldin, we thank you for performing the highest service there is for a guardian to perform. Consider your duty to be more than complete and know that we will remember you forever. We will never forget your sacrifices, in life and in death.” He pulled a scroll out with a flourish.
“Arym Goldin, in the name of the four guardians you served, we thank you. Lear Hendall. Ean Sharpe. Lula Crawe. And of course, most recently, Marl Gibbon.” A few scattered sighs, sniffs, and a single choked sob rose from the crowd.
Oswald sank to his knees, holding the blade aloft. Red light flared from his hands, concentrating around a spot in the middle of the blade. Then he stood swiftly, cracking the shaft across his knee so that it split in half where the light had collected. Something white and silvery spilled out of the two halves, merging into a misty cloud in the space between. Oswald bowed deeply again and moved aside, leaving a clear path between the cloud and the vault door. The mist hung there, motionless, and Arabel thought for a moment she saw a face in those depths, felt a deep sense of relief and joy before the mist flowed away through the open door and into the vault and through the great stone gate just visible at the far end.
In unison, the guardians bowed their heads. “Go in peace. Always whole,” they intoned in unison.
Oswald bowed again, returned to the vault, and closed the door. People began standing up, moving off or milling about.
“What the… what was that?” Arabel asked. Avery looked moved.
“That was a guardian. The soul of a guardian. Returning to the Deep.”
Soul blades. Arabel realized with a jolt of horror why they were called that. “There are… souls… in there?”
Avery nodded solemnly. “How else would you trap a demon? They’re attracted to souls. A soul blade is simply a soul, divided in two. One half in each end.”
Arabel shuddered. “How long do the guardians stay that way?”
“Naomi said a few hundred years, usually, depending.”
“On what?”
“On how strong the soul is.”
“Do all guardians do that?” If so, there was no way she was sticking around.
“No.”
“I wonder what that feels like,” Charlotte mused.
“Your soul’s in two pieces and demons are eating it. For hundreds of years,” Ferne commented. “I’d imagine not that great.”
“You’d think there would be some other way to do that,” Charlotte said.
Avery was staring at the closed vault door, lost in thought.
14
That night Arabel awoke gasping for breath, her face numb and tingling, blue spots dancing in front of her vision. She sat bolt upright and Archie leapt to the foot of her bed, twitching his tail in annoyance. Arabel grimaced, massaging her cheeks and trying to get feeling back into her face again.
“Were you sleeping on my face?” she hissed at him, thinking maybe Naomi was wrong that he’d never tried to kill anyone. He hopped off her bed and sauntered away through the solid wood door. Arabel flopped back down, rearranging her pillow and staring up at the ceiling. She let her mind drift, hoping she’d fall back asleep quickly. She was listening to Avery’s deep, even breaths, and thinking about the guardians when a soft creak interrupted her thoughts. That definitely wasn’t Archie. She listened for a moment. Nothing. Then it came again, slightly louder and more insistent. A door opening nearby. Maybe there was a reason Archie had woken her up after all.
Arabel slipped out of bed—sleeping fully clothed was so practical—pulled on her boots, buckled her sword to her belt, and threw her cloak over her shoulder.
She bent her head to the crack in the door, listening as someone moved carefully past. She waited until the footsteps had receded, then gently pulled the door open. Someone had broken into Oswald’s office the other night and it wasn’t her. If they were going to blame her for it, she was going to find out who it really was.
Peering around the door, she saw only the empty landing. Closing the door softly behind her, she slipped down the steps, boots silent on the stones under her feet. She paused near the bottom, caught the smallest click of a door handle as whoever it was left the dining hall.
Arabel picked up her pace, jogging through the hall, scanning it briefly before pulling the door to the courtyard open an inch and peeking out. She caught a glimpse of a hooded figure moving down the stairs on the side of the plaza, towards the main gate. Leaving the door cracked behind her, as she had no desire to be locked out again, Arabel ran after the figure as quietly as she could.
She paused at the top of the steps, caught sight of the figure at the main gate. She ducked down, but whoever it was didn’t turn around. They opened the gat
e and left, pulling it closed behind them. Arabel ran full-tilt down the stairs, skipping the last six in a long jump, landing with knees bent. Without waiting, she pulled the gate open and stuck her head out. Whoever it was didn’t seem to be worried about anyone following them.
To her surprise, they hadn’t continued down the road in either direction. She could hear them crashing through the brush on the far side of the road. Arabel dove into the woods after whoever it was, cringing as she heard the gate slam shut and realized she had no way back in.
The moon was waning now, smaller and dimmer than it had been a few weeks ago. Whoever it was carried no light, but she was able to follow them by sound. She was by no means silent herself, but she kept as far back as she could without losing them, and they didn’t seemed to have noticed her.
The sounds ahead ceased, and Arabel crouched down. For several minutes she squinted into the darkness, trying to figure out who was in front of her. She could see only a dark outline of a hood; the rest was obscured by leaves and darkness. Finally, now that she was no longer actively doing something, her mind started to catch up to what was going on. What was this person doing? Were they meeting someone? Had they heard her and stopped? Were they listening, waiting for her to give herself away?
An hour passed, and Arabel started to get bored. She considered confronting whoever it was. A chase or a fight would be a lot more interesting than sitting here waiting for whatever it was they were waiting for. Then she might never figure out what was happening, though. Her curiosity warred with her boredom for another hour.
She noticed it first as an annoying tickle in the back of her mind. The tickle grew to sense of unease. Into her mind popped her father, and Naomi. What right did either of them have to tell her what to do? The hatred rose like bile in her throat. She felt so angry she barely noticed the light shafting through the trees ahead, the approaching red glow. Whoever it was ahead of her shifted. A twig snapped, and Arabel shook herself. She was filled with hatred but was dimly aware it wasn’t her own. She had plenty of her own; she didn’t need more. Dimly, her mind began to clear as the great, glowing, winged beast stalked into view.
The Eidolons of Myrefall Page 9
