by Hanna Howard
But Milla had grown suspicious. “I daresay that’s why you’re turning out so uncivilized. Befriending gardeners? Siria, they are servants. Don’t humiliate yourself at school by treating the servants like friends, or you’ll disgrace your father and me as well as yourself.”
I resented her for talking about Yarrow and Linden that way, but I was also afraid my bad habits would prove unforgivable to her. I nodded.
My father was waiting beside the carriage in black gloves and one of his fine tail coats. He barely glanced my way as the footman handed me in after my mother. We didn’t speak much during the short trip to Gildenbrook; I often had the impression my parents didn’t know what to say to me.
The headmistress welcomed us when we arrived, greeting my mother like an old friend and leading us into the grand entrance hall with a sweep of her lace-swathed arm. Phipps and Milla became even loftier in her presence, and when it was time for them to leave, they each gave me a sugary smile and patted my shoulder. Milla hugged me briefly, her fleeting embrace like birds’ wings, and as she released me, I threw my arms impulsively around Phipps.
I realized my stupidity at once. I had wanted a hug from Yarrow, whose hugs were strong and tight and made me feel brave. Yarrow, who always approved of me, no matter what I did or how I looked.
Phipps flinched when I seized him around the middle, and then pried my arms loose with his gloved hands as if I might soil his clothes. “Now, don’t embarrass me, child,” he said with his false smile, smoothing wrinkles from his doublet. He chucked me under the chin, and then they were gone.
“Siria?”
I looked up at the headmistress, who had spoken with Linden’s voice.
“Siria, wake up!”
14
CHAPTER
Someone shook me, and with a groan I opened my eyes to a dark Umbraz alley. I was not twelve, I was not at Gildenbrook, and Phipps and Milla Nightingale were not my parents.
“She is weak,” sneered a throaty female voice.
“She just used her powers for the first time without access to their source.” Linden’s voice snapped. “Personally, I’d call that strength. Could you do that without passing out, Merrall?”
Merrall snorted, and Linden shifted me in his arms so I could sit up.
“Do you think you can walk, Weedy?” His voice was gentle. “We need to keep moving.”
I nodded, though my head felt like a boulder. “How long was I unconscious?”
“Just a few minutes. We’ll rest as soon as we can, I promise.” Linden’s usually wild hair was plastered all over his face, streaming water into his eyes as he peered down at me. He was so cold I could see the veins beneath his skin, with bluish lips and purple shadows standing out beneath his green eyes. I was sure it was getting colder, but why?
“H-how?” I said through chattering teeth. “How d-did I access my powers? If Yarrow’s m-magic is b-blocked?”
“It’s a different kind, like Merrall’s and mine.” Linden still looked worried as he helped me stand, and he grabbed fistfuls of my skirt to wring out some water. “Elemental nymph magic. Not conducted magic like Yarrow’s.”
I didn’t know any of this, of course, and I didn’t want to know it. It made me feel like I had become everything I’d ever been taught to fear. I massaged my temples, trying to hide some of my misery until I knew what to do with it.
“Why is it so m-much c-colder now than it was b-before? Is it b-because of my disloyalty?”
Linden gave me a bewildered look. “I expect she’s thickening the Darkness, trying to hem you in. That means less power for her heat-filtration system. Good riddance, in my opinion. Her version of warmth is like sweaty palms.”
I didn’t know what he meant, and I didn’t have the energy to try and work it out right now. We started off again, and I held on to Linden’s arm for support.
“Does anyone live out here?” I whispered through numb lips as we crept into the shadow of an ancient-looking stone wall that was beginning to crack and fracture in places. We had reached the edge of the city.
“Vagrants,” muttered Linden. “And people doomed to actually earn their own living.”
The cynicism in his voice was pronounced, and it filled me with guilt. In my sixteen years, I had believed there were only three kinds of people: rich ones like my parents and me and everyone at Gildenbrook, vocational servants like Yarrow and Linden, and nymph servants like Merrall. And if I was honest, some deep, unacknowledged part of me had believed the second two types existed to help people like me.
Shame nagged at me. Everyone at Gildenbrook thought that way too, but when had I decided that everyone at Gildenbrook was right? There had been a time when I believed just the opposite, when I didn’t even want to go to boarding school.
“The Skeleton Trees aren’t far,” said Linden, rubbing his wet arms. “Just through that break in the wall, and then a quick sprint northeast. Let’s hurry.”
As silently as we could, we made our way through the gap in the crumbling city wall and into the Wasteland—which let in no light, green or otherwise. The Darkness pressed against my eyes, and when I shut them, there was no difference. We moved through the void like waders through a bog—all three clutching hands—and I expected to hear a chink of armor in the gloom, or a slither of iron as a sword was drawn. But the Wasteland remained silent.
After what seemed hours, Linden pulled us to a stop, though I had no idea how he knew where we were. He lifted my hand to something solid and scratchy, and I released him to run my fingers over the unmistakable roughness of a tree trunk. We had reached the Skeleton Trees.
Yarrow had not arrived, so I clung to the tree, sagging against the bark. Frozen, damp, and exhausted, I slid down the trunk and curled against it on the ground, ignoring the bracken and small rocks pressing into the side of my face as I shivered. A small fragment of the light in my chest remained, but the Darkness continued to push against me. And worry for Yarrow seared like an open wound.
A thousand horrible fates paraded like ghastly marionettes through my imagination, and I felt equally sure, by degrees, that each one had befallen him. I thought of the insults and accusations I had shouted at him in the carriage today; he had left before I could tell him I still loved him.
Eventually I pulled myself off the ground and felt my way through the trees to peer in the direction I thought the city walls must be. There was only uninterrupted blackness, everywhere, and Linden and Merrall’s quiet breathing was all the indication I had of where they stood.
The minutes slipped by and stacked into piles. I was shaking harder than before, though from worry or cold or exhaustion, I couldn’t tell. No one spoke. I wondered how soon they would tell me we had to leave.
Please, I thought desperately. Please let Yarrow be alive.
And then there was a trembling beneath my feet. The ground of the Wasteland shuddered like the crawling skin of a massive beast, and the fortress war horn of the Black Castle gave a deep, echoing moan. It rolled through the city and into the Wasteland, shaking the very trees around us. Somewhere nearby, a limb snapped and crashed to the ground. The second time the sound was even louder, vibrating with such depth that I could feel it inside me, rattling my bones. A chorus of smaller horns echoed the sound within the city like fighters taking up a commander’s battle cry, and I knew they were for us.
For me.
I don’t want this, I thought, cold dread making me clammy. I don’t want any of it.
Suddenly a shower of silver mist appeared directly in front of me, and Linden’s hand snatched mine up as if he had known just where it would be.
“Those aren’t party horns, you know!” growled Yarrow Ash as he appeared out of the mist, just visible in its dissipating glow. “They’re coming—the whole lot of them. Get moving!”
15
CHAPTER
I didn’t think I had the strength for any more outright running, so I was relieved when Yarrow set the pace at a brisk walk, holding his faintly
glowing Runepiece aloft for us to follow. But when he veered off at a sharp angle toward the sounds of rushing water, I began to feel worried again. If running was hard, swimming would be impossible.
As we approached the riverbank, however, I realized that only Merrall would be equipped to cross it without drowning. The Elderwind was a massive, churning force, far too wide and powerful for even Linden to swim. How, then . . . ?
But before I could ask for an explanation, Yarrow bent to place his Runepiece on the ground, where it expanded and broadened, ever darkening in color. A moment later, the pale disc had become a long, narrow glimmer on the riverbank.
A boat.
For a moment I stood in sluggish confusion, weariness dulling my wits. While I could tell the action was nothing extraordinary to Yarrow, I also knew that crafting boats would never have made it onto a Gildenbrook list of things mages did with their magic. And suddenly I found myself wondering what other things Yarrow might do with the Runepiece I had deemed so evil.
Remove a nymph’s obsidian band, perhaps? I thought, thinking of how Merrall’s powers had already saved my life twice.
“Merrall, please guide us to the east bank near Beq’s,” Yarrow said, nudging me into the boat as he pushed it down the bank.
The naiad’s shadowy form disappeared in the direction of the river, and I clambered after Linden as he sloshed into a hull that was wide enough for three or four people to lie down inside.
Which, I realized, was exactly its purpose.
“Lie flat, you two,” said Yarrow, following me. “Cloaks over you completely. The Darkness should help us for once, but I’m not taking any chances.”
My turquoise gown was the brightest fabric between us, and I had to take my sodden cloak off and drape it fully over myself in order to cover it all. When I pulled the hood up to hide my face, I felt like a corpse being sealed into a shroud.
But I didn’t contemplate the idea long. Lying down was all the encouragement my body needed to sleep, and next thing I knew Yarrow’s voice was jarring me awake, telling me to sit up and get out of the boat because we had reached the shore.
A crunching sound came from beneath us as the boat rumbled into the shallows, and Linden splashed out to help Merrall guide us closer to the bank.
“We’re still dangerously close to the city, and she’ll have trackers after us,” Yarrow said once we were all standing on the bank and his Runepiece had returned to a disc inside his pocket. “Don’t leave any footprints. Hoods up. Let’s go.”
The bank’s rocky slope gave way to a sweep of short, brittle weeds that might once have indicated the beginning of a field. This quickly progressed into the kind of moor country I had grown up exploring: spongy bog disrupted by tough tangles of thicket, patches of hard dirt, and spikes of resilient weed. I could see none of this with my eyes, of course; I recognized it all by sound and feel, familiar as I was with the uneven squelch of peat underfoot.
It had to be nearly midday, I guessed, but Iyzabel’s Darkness was outdoing itself in honor of my escape. We lit no lanterns. Even so, Yarrow seemed to have some way of discerning our route: his footsteps plodded steadily on, never swerving or hesitating.
As he had once explained it, the Darkness was like a long swathe of fabric covering our island kingdom. It was thickest above Umbraz—much like a new, tightly woven wool blanket—but as it stretched out toward the coasts, and especially as it spread north, its density thinned. Eventually it became like a shirt you’d worn so much and washed so many times that the weave loosened and thinned, and could be looked straight through. But even in those places the sun could not be fully seen; its light was allowed through only for the sake of the crops, which could not be grown without it. Iyzabel had made certain there was no place in her kingdom the sun might shine its naked face.
Gildenbrook told a different story. According to my teachers, the Darkness had been a necessary measure to save us all from the increasing power of the sun, which had swelled over the centuries due to the sunchildren’s reckless magic. Queen Iyzabel had come as the much-needed savior, and her Darkness now shielded the kingdom while the rest of the world burned. But its power weakened with disloyalty, which was why the temperate climate dissipated in the north, and also why those who lived in that part of the kingdom had been made to work as farmers for the kingdom. Left to their own devices, they would have formed rebel groups to plague the true followers of the Darkness, whose fealty kept the Light at bay.
Because the Light was “dangerous and destructive.” Or so I had thought.
After fifteen years, there were many people who had never seen the sun at all. Even though I had been a year old when the Darkness arrived, I had no memories from that time. Everything I thought I knew was a mishmash of conflicting information from Yarrow and Gildenbrook, and I was beginning to understand just how much work I would have to do to sort one from the other. I scowled. Even though I was beginning to see the truth now—about Queen Iyzabel as well as myself, Linden, and Yarrow—I still felt the old longing to belong in her world, like the sensation of a phantom arm. I barely even knew what sunchildren were, and everything I had experienced since the ball felt like playacting at best and a nightmare at worst. It certainly didn’t feel like me.
But what did feel like me? “Me” was a person I barely knew anymore.
We walked for more than two hours before Yarrow’s footsteps turned off toward even denser darkness.
“Watch your step,” he warned from just ahead. “Once we’re in the trees, we’ll have to use a little light or we’ll never find the place. Siria, grab hold of my cloak, please. And you two. I’m going to feel my way forward and I don’t want us getting separated.”
Light flared a short while later and I flinched away from it. As soon as I could look again, I saw Yarrow shining his Runepiece over the bracken-covered forest floor. Tree trunks rose around us like shadowy pillars, but the light illuminated only a small patch of forest; the rest was black and featureless.
“Here,” said Yarrow.
I saw his figure crouch. There was a rumbling sound, like logs being shifted, and then he peered straight down at the ground and beckoned us forward. A second light shone now, faintly illuminating his face. He extinguished his Runepiece.
By the time I reached him, Yarrow appeared to have sunk halfway into the ground. But then I saw a flight of steep, earthen steps and a warm golden glow drifting up from below. We had arrived at someone’s home, and Yarrow had been relocating whatever served as the door.
The stairs were short, and at the bottom I found myself blinking into the main room of a wide, lamp-lit burrow, full of aromas that made me dizzy with hunger. A squat wooden table set for four was in the middle of the room, and many pots sat steaming on a range that vented straight up through the packed dirt ceiling.
“Oh, Yarrow! I’ve been so worried. I thought you wouldn’t come!” A plump, long-haired dwarf woman bustled through a door from an adjoining chamber, wearing an apron and wringing her hands. “I expected you hours ago! I’ve kept the food hot just in case—oh, I hope nothing’s happened!”
Yarrow stepped off the stairs behind me and propped his Runepiece—which had become a cane to aid his descent—against the wall. “Our plans went slightly awry,” he said. “Thank you, Beq. And thank you for taking us in on short notice.”
“Not at all!” Beq waved away his thanks. “Sit down. I’ll put the kettle on and have the food out in two shakes. Please rest! You’re all faded as old parchment. Well.” She stopped suddenly. “Most of you.”
Beq’s eyes had fallen on me, and she looked slightly dazzled as she took in my hair and face. I felt my cheeks growing hot.
“I saw a sunchild once before. Before the overthrow, you know. And I remember thinking then that it wouldn’t matter if I had one holed up in my house to look at every day, I’d never be used to the sight. You’re like a living flame, child.”
I could think of absolutely no reply to this. Yarrow cleared his throat as
if there was something lodged in it, and I had the sudden strange impression he was trying not to look at me.
“Where’s your boy, Beq?” he asked, squeezing into one of the small wooden chairs at the table. “I thought he’d be here.”
The dwarf woman turned away and started bustling with the teapot and ladling food into tureens. “He wanted to be but couldn’t make it. Called away. Urgent family business.”
Yarrow massaged his neck. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
Merrall joined Yarrow at the table, and I turned to follow. But as I caught sight of Linden in the first decent light we had been in since the carriage, I stopped dead.
A livid burn that had certainly not been there a few hours ago spanned the left side of his neck and lower part of his jaw. Though broken in places, the mottled, blistered mahogany patch was several inches across at its widest, with five thin, branching burns spreading out from it across his wan brown skin. The shape was familiar, though in my shock I couldn’t immediately say what it reminded me of.
“Linden!” I gasped, and he spun to the sound of my voice. “What happened to you? Your neck!”
His alarm vanished, and he darted a look at Yarrow as if for help. There was hesitation and guilt in his expression, and then I saw his eyes flicker down, as if by reflex, to his hands. Before he could hide them behind his back, I glimpsed the palms: blistered raw, just like his neck.
Hands. That was what the burn on Linden’s neck reminded me of: a handprint. For a moment I felt dizzy and violently ill, though I did not know why—
And then I remembered the canal: Linden running at me, pushing me back into the water as I hung in the air like a burning torch; and me, scrabbling for a grip on anything that would keep me steady, including Linden himself.
I had left the mark on Linden’s neck.
16
CHAPTER
I swayed and reached out for the earthen wall.
I was a monster.
It was almost the only thought I had room for, it seemed so big and unwieldy. I am a monster. That was why I was intrinsically different from the other girls at Gildenbrook, and why Phipps and Milla never really cared for me. Perhaps they hadn’t known exactly what I was, but they could clearly sense my monstrosity in abstract ways, which was the reason I always failed to meet their expectations.
