by Halie Fewkes
“I mean he’s what you could be if you actually trained and put some discipline into getting better,” Prince Avalask said, drawing another scowl from Archie. “And I think he might also be Maverick’s son. Tall, wide shoulders, same jaw, and just about the right age… It would certainly explain why he’s powerful enough to protect the whole group.”
Zeen, the shade carrying the pack, made a mocking sound like a squeal of pain, and the other three laughed as more joking words were exchanged in Icilic.
“None of them are more powerful than you,” I insisted.
“No, but the group is. That new brother is their defense, Kit can wreck anything they come across, and Iquis can cripple anyone who tries to stand against them, myself included.”
They set the Escali down for a moment to rest, and I flung an arm out to grip Archie’s shoulder, tight as my fingers could squeeze.
“What?”
“Archie, we know him.” My heart had stopped entirely.
Archie got down beside me to look. “Oh no… It’s Tral,” he said, recognizing the Escali.
“You know his name?”
“They mentioned it several times while you were sleeping,” he replied.
Months ago, two Escalis had been ordered to drag me and Archie down a mountain, but everything had gone wrong and I hadn’t been able to walk. Tral was the one who had ended up carrying me the entire way, out of pure compassion even though he thought I was his enemy.
The Zhauri had captured him.
“Allie, come on, you have to stop,” Archie said, grabbing my sleeve as I dashed into the tunnels on my way to Anna’s old study.
His grip was tight enough to pull me to a halt, and I whirled on him furiously.
“We can’t let this happen,” I said, my voice hoarse with fear. “They’re going to hurt him. Tarace won’t stand for it if he knows — we have to tell him.”
“Allie, Tarace has no authority over the Zhauri,” Archie said.
“Then we can find out where they’re taking him, and we can stop them—”
“Allie!”
When I fell silent, I realized that he just looked hopeless. I was toe to toe with him with my shirtsleeve still clutched tightly in his hand, and he whispered, “We’re just two people.”
“So?”
“So… we can’t fix everything,” he said. I glared angrily, feeling more and more helpless as he gave me a sad, half-hearted shrug. “I wish we could.”
I hissed my heated breath through my teeth and demanded, “What are we supposed to do then? Leave him to the Zhauri?”
“Yes, but not for long. Listen, Sir Avery will do literally anything for us if we can get Ebby home. We can get him out of here that way.”
I fidgeted with my fingers, nearly rubbing the skin off. “And then what about Ebby?”
“I know you want to leave her with Prince Avalask. I really, truly get it. But we can bring Ebby home without the Zhauri and then ask Sir Avery to release Tral. The Zhauri would have no claim to Ebby and no reason left to stay here, so they’d return to the north and we’d all be safer for it.”
“And what about the Dincaran kids?” I asked. “Prince Avalask won’t negotiate to send them home unless he gets to keep Ebby.”
“Either he’ll come around, or we’ll find another way to rescue the kids.” Archie stared hard at me in sincerity. “This is the better way.”
I took a deep breath and tried to remember why I wanted to leave her with Prince Avalask. My reasons felt suddenly distant in light of so many looming threats. “Alright, let’s go find her,” I said.
Archie nodded and said, “Grab everything you might need. We’re not coming back until she’s with us.”
Chapter Fourteen
Allie
Time has a habit of passing fastest when we need it to slow down, which is always horribly inconvenient.
My quick steps resonated around the empty cave walls, making it sound like ten people were dashing up the glass-flecked steps with me, away from the Dincaran kids. I reached the narrow fissure in the ceiling in record time, leaping up to grab two familiar hand holds, straining to pull myself into the tight gap that would lead back to our Tally caves. The rocks cut into my hands, but this jump was a normal part of visiting the Dincaran kids when they returned from their daily labors in the Escali kitchens.
Karissa had donned a disguise last week so she could join Robbiel in the dreamland of bandaging and disinfecting. Archie had come with me twice to see the kids, but I’d been down here mostly by myself as he inquired about Ebby around the city.
Without a faint scent trail, or a lock of hair left in a tree, or a madman claiming to have seen her, we’d made no progress at all in the two weeks we’d been here. A chronic sense of panic had settled into my stomach because the Zhauri’s deadline had been six days ago, and a discouraging voice in my head began suggesting I might want to hide out and avoid going back to the Dragona altogether. Archie seemed to be losing hope as well.
I squeezed myself through the crevice which hadn’t widened one bit since we’d first used it, and I cursed as the sharp rocks dragged me to a stop. I finally had information worthwhile, and getting stuck was absolutely the last thing I needed.
I sighed and tried to slow down despite my excitement. We’d been asking the Dincaran kids for two weeks if they knew anything about our new Epic, but they kept insisting they hadn’t seen her. I would have given up and left to look elsewhere, except for one glaring red flag. Any time we asked about Ebby near Ratuan, the kids would glance at him before answering.
Something about him set me on edge, so I’d taken special care to ask about Ebby when Ratuan was far from us, but the answers had still been the same.
“We haven’t seen her.”
“We don’t know anything.”
“We would tell you if we did.”
I dislodged myself from one of the tighter squeezes in the rocks and pushed into the last stretch toward our fireplace as I heard the scrape of the large marble door opening.
I heard Robbiel ask, “Who won?”
He was answered by a mocking laugh that I recognized as Emery’s. “Go on, tell him the score.”
A sigh that sounded like Archie’s was followed by the admission, “Fourteen to three.”
I dragged myself out of the fireplace to see Archie and Emery both covered in a shiny layer of sweat, wooden practice swords in hand, while Celesta worked on a tedious piece of stitch work and Nessava assaulted her hair with all manner of braids. Robbiel sat against a wall with a book open in his lap and let out a low whistle. “Somebody’s out of practice,” he said, returning his gaze to his reading.
“Yeah, well it’s been months since I’ve been able to spar,” Archie replied as I hopped twice on my left foot to twist out of the cave’s clutches. “Sorry Allie, I spent the rest of the afternoon looking, I swear.”
“Actually, I would hate to see how bad Allie’s gotten lately,” Emery mused, tossing his practice sword to catch it mid spin.
I made a note to scold Emery later, and exclaimed, “Ebby’s been down with the Dincaran kids.”
All attention turned to me as Emery asked, “Is this also based on your weird they-keep-looking-at-Ratuan theory?”
I faked an ugly laugh that clearly told him to knock it off. “It’s more than that,” I said. “The Dincaran kids keep telling us they haven’t seen her. Has anybody thought twice about that?”
I threw my arms wide in epiphany, but my friends just stared at me with varying degrees are you crazy?
“They shouldn’t know to be calling the new Epic her,” I explained with determination. “There hasn’t been any information in or out of those caves in months, but every kid we’ve spoken to knows she’s a girl. We didn’t tell them that. They must have seen her.”
Archie knocked a palm against his forehead as Robbiel glanced sideways at him and muttered, “How did we not notice that…”
“You know who we need to confront about this?” I asked.
“Ratuan,” Archie said immediately. “He’s the first one she’d see. Let me drop my gear off in my room, and we’ll pay him a visit.”
Karissa pulled the door open just in time to pass Archie on his way out, and entered our cavern with a book in hand.
“Robbiel, I stole this from your room,” she said as Archie disappeared down the hall.
“That’s fine, I stole it from the Dragona,” Robbiel replied. He glanced up at her, then closed the book in his hands and held it out to her. “You’ll like this one better though. It’s got blood, gore, drama—”
Karissa quickly traded, then sat beside him and opened to page one.
“You should grab your stuff,” Emery told her. He stooped to snatch the book from her hands, but she jerked it back on reflex. “Allie thinks she’s got a lead on Ebby, and they’re planning another trek down to the Dincaran kids.”
Karissa glanced at me and said, “I could do with another trip down there.”
“They’re going now,” Emery insisted. “Put your hair in that weird style that looks like a butt—”
“It’s a bow,” Karissa said, staring at the book to ignore him.
“Yeah, whatever. Do your hair, grab your poofy sleeved shirt, and go with them.”
Karissa snapped the book closed and looked up at him in greatest dislike. “Why are you trying to get rid of me? What do you have planned that you need me to leave for?”
I’d lost interest in their bickering my first day here, and decided to see what was taking Archie so long. I pushed past the marble door and started down the hallway, passing my own room. I’d barely set foot in my sleeping space since taking on the quest to find Ebby, and under the pressure and stress of the Zhauri’s threats, I’d completely forgotten to pull up the false bottom I’d found in my wooden chest a while back.
But at the same time, a low whistle was drifting from beneath Archie’s closed door, pulling me closer, and whispering that I could check the bottom of my chest later. It was the deepest and saddest movement of the duskflyer song, a song I hadn’t heard him whistle in a while. Archie drew each note so their meaning would echo and last, and a strange stir in my chest startled me, because music… well, music had never caused a feeling like this in me before — a feeling like love, and longing, so deep in the heart that it couldn’t possibly be pried away.
Archie’s melody had a soul, mourning something long lost even though the notes were full and warm. Duskflyers themselves couldn’t sing like this, and the hairs up and down my arm prickled in response.
Archie startled me by pulling his door open, looking a little surprised himself as the whistle came to an abrupt stop.
We locked eyes for a brief moment before Emery destroyed the moment, bolting down the hall toward us, hissing, “Get inside!” He pushed us both into Archie’s room, closing the door with only a crack left open.
“What are you—”
“Hang on,” he whispered, holding both his hands out with a gleeful smile. He motioned frantically for us to come watch the hallway with him, and I exchanged an uncertain glance with Archie before noticing the massive words All Darkness is Only Shadow carved into the wall behind him — Human words spelled with Escali letters. Maybe they had inspired his sad whistling — a reminder of the past.
“I found a snaptree out in the woods,” Emery said, throwing a hand over his mouth to muffle his laughter.
I glanced at the ceiling and said, “You are such a child.”
Emery whispered, “Shut up, old woman. You used to be more fun.”
Karissa strode to her room, and I threw my hands over my ears before she reached her door. As soon as she touched it, a loud cacophony of cracks and snaps rattled the tunnel like pitchy branches in a roaring fire.
“EMERY!” Karissa’s scream echoed over top of them as she jerked her hand back. “Snapping sap?” she exclaimed to the empty tunnel.
Emery barely stifled a laugh as she tried to wipe some of the sticky substance off on the wall, but the friction caused a hundred more deafening snaps to shake three miles of tunnel rock. Even covering my ears couldn’t block it, and Emery’s laughter was the next loudest thing as he hunched forward and lost the ability to breath.
“I’ll kill you for this!”
Karissa lifted one powerful leg to kick open the door across from hers, and Emery suddenly took the situation more seriously as she darted into his room. He fled Archie’s room to bolt after her, and a crash of scattered belongings echoed through the tunnel as the two collided and Karissa shouted, “I GET NESSAVA!”
Nessava and Robbiel had just poked their heads out from behind the marble doors.
“Get out of here before they drag you into it,” Robbiel warned.
And right before she took off to join the fray, Nessava turned to me and Archie with a grin. “It’s good to be home, isn’t it?”
Another crackling chorus of snapping sap made it impossible to reply as we heard multiple items clanging to the ground and Emery shouting, “Robbiel! You’re on my team! HELP!”
I couldn’t help laughing, feeling a little of the toxic worry in my stomach subside. “Actually yeah,” I said. “More than you know.”
The buzz of activity among the Dincaran kids didn’t cease when we reached them. They’d seen me here less than an hour ago, but I hadn’t visited Ratuan’s cell, and we reached it this time to find the door swung open and Ratuan missing.
“You’re back!” Leaf said, his freckled face lighting up. “Your friend Robbiel was here yesterday with his friend Karissa.” He held his freshly bandaged arms wide to show us. “Come in! I swiped some extra food from the kitchens tonight. We’ll share.”
His excitement warmed me so I couldn’t help smiling. “I’ve told you, Leaf, you don’t have to share with us. I’m the one who should be bringing you food.”
He scrunched his face like my response was silly. “You’re my friends. I don’t mind.”
Eric with the angular face said, “Ratuan’s not here. We can tell him you stopped by.”
I crouched to give Leaf a hug as Archie asked, “How about Ebby then? Is she off with Ratuan too?”
Leaf stiffened in my arms and glanced back at the older boys, who also froze in hesitation. The girl in the cell pushed herself silently into the corner and stared at her nails.
Leaf tried to smile up at me through a guilt-ridden face. “Who’s… Ebby?” he asked.
I gave him my best disappointed smile and said, “You know who she is. What’s going on, Leaf?”
Steph, the one who looked the oldest of the group, came to Leaf’s defense with a supportive hand on his shoulder, and said, “There are things we can’t talk about here.”
I narrowed my eyes and asked, “Why? Because Ratuan told you not to?”
Leaf’s hesitation turned into something closer to fear, sending a tingle of unease down my spine.
“Where’s Ratuan?” Archie asked.
Leaf bit his lip before saying, “Ratuan and Ebby—”
“Leaf!” Steph cut him off, but Leaf had grown bold.
“What? They already know she’s here, and they want to help. I could take them to—”
“Leaf, you’ve got to stop,” Eric warned.
“I’ll take them,” Leaf said. “I don’t think Ratuan will be mad.” The older boys gave him looks of pity and disbelief as Leaf said, “Really, I don’t think he will be. Come on.” He glanced at me with a smile and a slight quiver. “I’ll show you where they are.”
Five hallways deeper, the tunnel forked and I began to hear a soft voice speaking ahead. “I think they realized we don’t heal like they do.” The relaxed voice was almost certainly Ratuan’s. “They’ve started pulling us from the kitchens to make sure we’re healthy and figure out which powers we’ve got.” Ratuan fell silent for a moment before saying, “There are two we know of who can speak Human, and I’ve told everyone to keep their powers hidden, but-”
Ratuan fell silent, and excitement sped my pace. Ebby must b
e with him — he was certainly speaking to somebody, somebody who’d warned him of our arrival.
An angled fissure in the wall led to a small dome-cavern, seemingly empty except for a peculiar work of stone art descending from the ceiling like a tangled chandelier. A thousand stone snakes of varying widths twisted around each other with bubbles attached to the entwined spirals and tubes, reaching nearly to the floor.
“Is it a map, Ratuan?” I asked, recognizing a tunnel system with bubbles everywhere the caves opened into caverns.
Ratuan stepped from behind it with his eyes narrowed in distaste, glaring first at Leaf, then at me and Archie.
“I hope the three of you have a very good reason to be here,” he said.
“Well, we know Ebby’s with you,” I said. “Good enough?”
His expression soured even further as I broke a smile and changed to a more gentle tone. “If you care about her, Ratuan, you’ll let us take her home.”
Ratuan fell still, eerily thoughtful for an awkward moment, and then ten moments more. The perturbed look on his face gave away that he was arguing silently with an invisible somebody. He must not want her to show herself.
But a small girl appeared behind him, wearing vomit colored clothes that looked like they’d been torn and mended at least once a day since she’d gone missing. I vaguely remembered seeing her wispy hair and thin frame, although I mostly remembered her screaming and crying as she was ripped away from Ratuan. She gripped his arm now, as though to make up for the separation.
“I can’t go,” Ebby said, her voice even smaller than her gloved hands.
I closed my mouth, and Archie asked in pure shock, “You’d rather stay here?”
I crouched to her level. “Ebby, I know you don’t know us—”
“I’ve been watching you since you got here.” She twisted and stretched her tunic nervously as she added, “I also remember you from before.”
“We’re just here to help,” I said, changing direction. “Your father sent us to find you.”
Fear flashed across her face as she said, “I can’t go. It’s all part of the plan that I...” Ebby stopped mid-sentence and glanced at Ratuan before swallowing and restarting. “What I mean to say is, everybody here needs me. I can’t leave without my friends.”
