Creatures of Light, Book 3

by Emily B. Martin

  “What?” Mona’s gaze jumped from the map to me. “How many folk know about this?”

  “Very few,” I said. “Probably no one outside my mother’s team.”

  Ellamae frowned at the parchment. “Lumen Lake’s not on the map.”

  “It was just a guess at the time,” I said. “An educated one, but an unproven one—until now. My mother’s team started encountering flooded passages and lakes, and some of the farthest ones had freshwater mussels in them. Based on geography, it only seemed logical that they’d reached the very western reaches of Lumen Lake. I just used their findings and added some of my own—mainly the reappearance of living creatures, and the changes in mineral growth in the cave system.”

  “And you just hoped we’d find a way out?” Celeno cut in.

  I looked at him, his eyes shadowed in his pale face. His expression was different than it had been throughout our journey—not frustration, but resolute anger.

  “I made the best decisions I could,” I said, conscious of everyone’s eyes on me. “We crossed a threshold in that . . . room.” I couldn’t bring myself to tell the others about the petroglyphs yet—that would only sidetrack the discussion we needed to have now. Time to discuss the Prophecy could only be won by halting the threat of war. “The biological environment, the mineral makeup—it was different in that passage. And knowing what we did about things happening back home . . . I had to try.”

  Valien took his knuckles away from his lips where they’d been resting. “He didn’t know you were coming here?”

  I tried to break my gaze away from Celeno’s and found I couldn’t. “I didn’t tell him,” I said softly.

  “You lied,” Celeno supplied. “You lied to me from the moment you appeared in my room. You’ve been lying for days—for weeks now. Or has it been longer?”

  “No,” I said, my face burning. “I . . . I tried not to lie to you, Celeno—really I did.”

  “You lied about the way being marked. You lied about where we were going.”

  I swallowed. “Yes, I did lie about that. I’m sorry.”

  “Did your mother know?” he asked. “Was she in on it, too?”

  “No,” I said. “I didn’t tell her. She’d never have agreed to leave us if she thought we were going to the passages they’d barely explored. I needed her to go back, not come through with us.”

  He settled back against his pillow, the lines of his face tense and furious. “Well. At least I wasn’t the only one, then.”

  “It seems Gemma made the best decisions with the options she had,” Mona said coolly, and her subtle approval of me tricking my husband only made things worse. I dropped my gaze to the floor, wishing I could sink into it. “And it’s bought us a significant opportunity—to all sit down and discuss, face-to-face, the present and futures of our countries.” She glanced at Celeno. “That is, if we’re all ready to attempt a civil discourse.”

  Before I could respond, he lifted his gaze to hers. “Don’t antagonize me, Queen Mona—I’m tired of it. We tried civil discourse. I was not the reason it failed.”

  “You were the reason it was necessary,” she said stiffly. “And if I recall, it quickly became uncivil.”

  “I was not the one to blow up a ship!” he said angrily.

  “I was referring to you murdering a civilian,” she shot back.

  “Stop,” I said, putting out a hand to both of them. “Please, stop. There were many mistakes, and Alcoro made most of them. I recognize that. But we were not the only country involved, and if this is going to work, we can’t allow ourselves to devolve into arguing about blame and guilt.” I looked at Celeno, his eyes glittering with anger. “You have to accept the catastrophe we caused here in Lumen Lake, and in Cyprien.” I turned to Mona. “And you have to understand that there was more than just Celeno’s hand at work, or mine. I’m not rejecting responsibility for it, but that movement was set in motion well before Celeno was king.” I gestured between them. “We already have very little time to make decisions. Our folk won’t be sitting idly in Alcoro—they’ll be scouring the country for us, and continuing their campaign in Cyprien. Can we please, for the sake of our countries—for our people—try to stay rational?”

  Mona drew in a sharp breath, but before she could reply, Celeno cut through the silence, his voice sharp.

  “I’d like to speak to my wife,” he said. “Alone.”

  Mona half-turned. “We’ve only just gotten started . . .”

  “Alone,” he repeated.

  Ellamae uncrossed her legs with a sweep of her fringed boots and hopped off the bed stand. “It’s probably best for you both to get some rest and eat something hot before we go any farther.” She set down the mug she’d been stirring next to Celeno’s shoulder. “Drink that.”

  “What is it?” he asked testily.

  “Valerian and boneset,” she said. “A little bit of sweet birch, and some sassafras for good measure.”

  “Valerian doesn’t work,” he said. “I told you I take poppy.”

  “And I told you, that’s a ludicrous, reckless practice. It’s one the reasons you’re in the shape you’re in—which is awful, in case you weren’t sure. So drink up. I’ll go figure out what’s become of your broth.” She clapped Mona on the back, who twitched forward, scandalized. “Come on, quit glaring. Don’t we get breakfast on the solstice, or am I missing some Lumeni custom?”

  Valien feigned a cough to hide his smile, rising to his feet and following his wife out of the room. Mona drew herself up, clearly brimming with frustration as the others rose from their seats. She seemed about to call after Ellamae, when Rou gently took her hand and pressed her fingers to his lips. She turned a steely eye on him. I had to give him credit—he dared a very small smile.

  She let out her breath. “I’ll throw you in the lake with the rest of them,” she said.

  “It’ll make for gruesome pearl diving,” he replied. He landed another kiss on her fingers before dropping her hand and following in her wake as she stalked to the door. He gave my elbow a little bump as he passed me.

  Colm was the only one left. He uncurled his hands from his arms and stood from the windowsill.

  “I read your thesis,” he said.

  Celeno looked over at him, brow creased.

  “That telescope you developed,” Colm said. “Did it correct for color aberration, or just spherical aberration?”

  Celeno stared at him for a moment. Something stirred deep inside me—I remembered that telescope. He’d spent months with the engineers. The night they’d made the breakthrough, he didn’t sleep a wink, homing in on what felt like every star in the sky, giddy with their new appearance through the more powerful lens. He’d only stopped to take a break as dawn neared and I had almost dropped off to sleep. I’d woken to find him on his knees in front of me, breathlessly asking me to marry him.

  “It corrected for both,” Celeno finally said. “It was achromatic.”

  “I thought so,” Colm said. He nodded minutely at me. “That’s what it looked like from the illustrations.”

  I’d done the illustrations.

  We both stared at him as he passed the bed and made for the door. He set one hand on the knob.

  “Wait,” I said. “Colm—we should talk.”

  He nodded again. “We will. You talk first.”

  He stepped out into the hall and closed the door behind him.

  Silence hung between us for a moment, and that warm memory of the night in Celeno’s star patio slipped slowly back into the cold knot of dread in my stomach. With great effort I turned from the door back to him.

  He was still staring after Colm.

  “That’s Mona’s brother?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “One of the two.”

  “He seems . . .” He shook his head. “A lot different from her.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Why did you send them all away, Celeno?”

  He shook himself, as if remembering that he’d done so. He turned back to
me, his fists tightening on the coverlet. “You really have to ask? Gemma, what are we doing in Lumen Lake? Why did you bring us here?”

  “We needed time, Celeno,” I said. “Time to think about the Prophecy, and space to make decisions without the Prelate or the council or a slew of dissenters trying to drag us in all directions—which are both things we don’t have back in Alcoro. Even if we can remove Shaula, it could be weeks, months more likely, before our forces can be withdrawn from Cyprien and their progress toward Paroa. And with this new alliance, even if we could rush the order to stand down, it might not happen before our neighboring countries march against us. We need to stall the fighting on both sides, and we never could have done that from Callais, or even Cyprien.”

  He put a hand to his eyes. “So your choice was Lumen Lake? The place we annexed, only to lose in a coup to a battalion of divers armed with woodworking tools? The place where Queen Mona Alastaire”—he waved agitatedly to the door—“would probably very much like to put my head on a pike on her tallest turret? This is hardly friendly territory!”

  “Mona offered me sanctuary here while we were in Cyprien,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “I couldn’t take it until I knew I could bring you with me. But I didn’t know how I would get us here until my mother mentioned the caves came all the way to the lake. Getting here was only a dream while I was in the Retreat. And then . . . suddenly I had a chance to make it a reality.”

  He was shaking his head, his forehead in his hand. “Right, a dream—a dream drenched in lies. You lied, lied, lied the whole time, while I risked everything to try to figure out how not to hang you.”

  I flushed with hurt and anger. “I took my own risks, too, Celeno. I’m sorry I thought you’d signed the death warrant, but I’d heard it from Shaula and had no reason to believe it wasn’t true. You were angry enough at me that I thought it plausible. So I tried to act as best as I could, working in Alcoro’s interest while knowing you wanted me dead.”

  He was silent for a long time, his forehead still in his hand. Finally, without looking up, he said, “The mules.”

  “The mules?”

  “The ones we rode up the mountain—they’re going to starve and die in that paddock. Did that cross your mind?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I left the gate partway open. My hope is that they make their way back down the mountain.”

  He blew out his breath, and then held out his hand. “Let me see the map.”

  Struggling against the burn of guilt I’d been carrying with me since the petroglyph room, I handed him my mother’s map. He spread it over his lap, his gaze locking immediately on the petroglyph chamber.

  “You drew in an additional passage,” he said, eyeing my charcoal line where no path had been drawn before.

  “In case you asked to see the map.”

  “I don’t know why I didn’t. I shouldn’t have trusted you. But I suppose that didn’t occur to me.” He traced my betrayal with his finger. “You put the blazes on the walls.”

  My fingers tightened on my knees. “Yes.”

  He shook his head. “Gemma, we could have died down there—what if there hadn’t been an exit?”

  “I knew there must be,” I said. “The Arachnocampa were back.”

  “Tiny bugs could crawl in anywhere!” he said. “A crack in a mountaintop could suffice!”

  “They need the right elevation,” I persisted. “And water that’s not sterile, it only made sense—”

  “No, Gemma, it made no sense. No amount of biological theorizing can force this to make sense.” He flicked the map away from him, the creases back in his brow. “In the end, all you wanted was the same thing everyone else wants from me—the validation of my title. All you wanted was for me to scribble my signature on a few of Queen Mona’s documents.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Tell me how it’s different!” he said. “Tell me how it’s different from a dissenter wanting the king’s validation on a fake Prophecy, or how a councilor wants the king’s approval on their particular agenda? How is it different?”

  I took in a breath, stung. “I suppose I thought we were still working toward the same goals. Peace for Alcoro. Peace for ourselves. You . . . and me.”

  “You’re just being vague, Gemma!” His hands rose partway to his face in frustration, his fingers gnarled on the air. “You’re speaking in generalizations and abstractions. If I was critiquing your thesis, I’d think I was reading some fresh student’s first attempt. Peace, diplomacy, civil discourse—give me something absolute!” He rubbed his face hard with both hands. “Shaula told me you couldn’t be trusted anymore—I should have listened.”

  “How can you possibly say that?” I said, straightening angrily. “I think we’ve both found enough evidence that Shaula herself can’t be trusted.”

  “But you didn’t know that at the time!” His head shot up from his hand. “You had no idea she’d forged my signature. You had no idea she’d put out the order for your execution! You didn’t know those things when you started! You’re still lying to me, Gemma! What am I missing?”

  I drew in a breath just as there was a knock on the door. Celeno let his head fall back against his pillow, his face a contortion of creases and furrows. “Come in!”

  Ellamae pushed the door open with her hip, a laden food tray rattling in her hands. She crossed the room and set it down on the bedside table, and then frowned at the still-full mug cooling at his elbow. “I told you to drink that.”

  “I don’t know what’s in it,” Celeno said, his eyes still tightly closed.

  “I told you what’s in it!” She yanked open the healer’s bag and slammed down a little bottle of dark liquid, making his eyes pop open. “Valerian—to sleep.” She withdrew a packet of crushed leaves. “Boneset—for your stomach.” Next, a bottle of powdered bark. “Sweet birch—for your head. And sassafras”— a bottle of dried buds—“to make the daggum thing taste good. Look, they’re all labeled. Just because your lot tried to poison me doesn’t mean we all do it. Drink the damn tincture. And then drink that.” She dropped a little pot of dark, fragrant broth next to the mug. “I know we’re all supposed to hate each other, but I’m not wild about the idea of somebody dying if I can do something about it. Drink. And then rest. Then, if we all still hate each other, we can find a civilized way to kill each other.” She shook her head in frustration. “Come on, Gemma, I’ve got a different vat of poison for you.” She stormed to the adjoining door, carrying the food tray.

  I hesitated at Celeno’s bedside. He glowered at the cups on his side table.

  “Please,” I said softly. “Drink them.”

  With no reply from him, I crossed to the door and slipped back into my room.

  Ellamae was unloading her tray onto my own bedside table—a bowl of soup, a half loaf of grainy bread, and a boiled egg. My stomach growled. But before I could reach the table, she turned to me.

  “Gemma, listen. There’s something I need to tell you.”

  I stopped short of the food. “What?”

  “Your petroglyphs—the prophecy, or whatever. Colm thinks there are more, here in Lumen Lake.”

  “Down here? At the lake?”

  “Well, not down here. Up on the Palisades, about halfway to the ridge. They’re in a little overhang called Scribble Cave. That’s what was in the letter we tried to send you—he didn’t think a message could make it through Cyprien, so he decided to send it over the mountains and into Paroa. But I guess it never got to you.”

  “No.” There was no telling where that letter was. My heart pounded. “How long would it take to get to them?”

  “If you rode a horse to where the scout path splits from the main road, about three hours, one way.”

  “And you’re sure,” I said breathlessly. “Sure that they’re the same? Have you compared them to a copy of the ones in Callais? Have you made transcriptions?”

  Her dark brown gaze darted around the room. “To be honest, I wouldn’t
have known. Colm spotted it. We spent a night in that cave in May when we were crossing the mountains. After Mona took back the lake, he found your prophecy written in a bunch of your folk’s writings and recognized some of it. I think he’s acting so flighty and odd now because he doesn’t want Mona to know.”

  “That’s probably wise,” I said.

  She shook her head. “I’m not so sure. If it really is another prophecy, it changes everything your folk believe. She won’t appreciate being kept in the dark on that. I don’t know what Colm’s so afraid of.”

  I could hazard a guess. “Can you take me to see them?” I asked. “As soon as possible?”

  “It’ll be hard to come up with an excuse Mona will believe, and it might take longer than usual with the ice on the Palisades.” She blew out a breath. “But, yes, I think the sooner you can see them, the better. Colm should come.”

  “And Celeno?”

  “I’m not convinced he can make the trip.”

  “He made it this far,” I said. “And I’ve already kept too much information from him. He should come.”

  She puffed out a breath. “If he drinks what I give him, he can come. But give him at least a day or two to rest.”

  A day or two felt like an eternity, but I doubted there would be any arguing with her. I nodded. “I’ll try to get him to drink the tincture.” Though at this point, he’d probably prefer to drink actual poison rather than give in to either Ellamae or me.

  Which reminded me . . .

  “Ellamae,” I said. “Do you have any experience with cyanic acid?”

  Her fingers paused on the last mug on the tray. “Uh . . .”

  “I’m not insinuating anything,” I said quickly. “I just didn’t know—if you’re familiar with herbs—if you’d ever treated anyone who’d accidentally ingested it.”

  “I can’t see how they would,” she said, setting the mug down. “It’s not a common drug—I’m not even sure where it comes from, or how to distill it. Some seeds have it, don’t they?”

  “Some, but I’m thinking particularly of the kind released by millipedes.”

  “Millipedes?”