Untethered

by KayLynn Flanders

  “Not alone, you won’t,” Chiara said.

  I lay back down. “It’s too dangerous. There are too many things that could go wrong.”

  She stood so regally, despite the trousers and dirt and her hair in two crumpled braids. “Do you trust me?” she asked quietly.

  “Yes.” I didn’t even need to think on it.

  She swallowed. “Then I’m coming. Luc and Cynthia and Aleksa can get my father to the cliffs. They can hide in the cave while they find passage to Turia. You’re still healing. You can’t do this alone. And I have the clue.” She tapped the book, which was back in her pocket.

  The Medallion warmed against my chest, not in warning but in confirmation. I almost sighed with relief. I didn’t want her to get hurt, but I was so tired of carrying everything on my own. So tired.

  “The ancient vineyards are west of the city,” Aleksa said slowly. “You follow the cliffs along the shore. You won’t miss them.” She shrugged and tucked her chin down. “I can show Luc to the cave.”

  Luc studied us, then gave me a slight nod. “We can let King Marko rest through the morning, then get him to the cliffs during the ceremony, then find passage. You get the key, and come back to the cliffs. If we’re not there, we’ll meet you in Turia—”

  “At Lessia’s inn, at the western crossing,” Chiara said. It was a good choice—Dora and her sister would protect Marko’s identity until soldiers could be summoned to escort him home. And maybe, by some miracle, Yesilia would still be there and be able to help him.

  I exhaled and slowly sat up enough to hold out my hand to Chiara to shake in their custom. “Okay, then. We’ll leave early tomorrow, before dawn. We’re going to find the last key to the Black Library.”

  A small smile bloomed on her dirty face and she put her hand in mine, shaking it once. If something happened to her, I wasn’t sure I’d survive the aftermath.

  I’d just make sure nothing happened to her.

  Redalia

  Redalia had dreamed of him last night, of Kais and all that could have been.

  The young Hálendian king had more fortitude than she’d expected. Atháren’s time was up. She’d take his loyalty—willingly or not. And then she’d control Riiga and Hálendi. Turia would fall next.

  “Excuse me, Your Highness.”

  The girl whispered so softly that Redalia almost missed what she said as the servant behind her brushed her hair again and again until it shone.

  She’d awoken in a foul mood—she always did when she dreamed of Kais. “What is it?” she asked with a yawn.

  “Um, there’s been a development that Lord Koranth would like to speak with you about.” The girl’s eyes stayed fixed on the floor, her hands clasped tight.

  Redalia stood, ignoring the fluttering maid who stepped forward with a long silk robe. “What sort of disturbance would require my attention on my wedding day?”

  The girl swallowed, looked to the other maid for help, then plunged ahead. “I was told to tell you that Lord Koranth has an early wedding present for you, and that it would be worth your time, even today.”

  Redalia batted away the robe and held out her hand. “I will need to be dressed to meet Koranth,” she said, a slight frown marring her perfect face. The servant brought forward a beautiful green dress with a train and gold embroidery. But Redalia shook her head. “No, I will wear red today.”

  Chiara

  The words of the poem had been burned into my memory since I found the clue ten days ago. I replayed them as Ren and I crept through the city toward its northeastern border. The only things moving on the streets this early were cats foraging for food.

  The wind chased after us and tugged at my cap. My scalp itched and I wished I could pull my hair down from under it. Soon I’d get to leave off the wretched disguise. I hadn’t painted on my eyebrows today, but I’d kept the trousers.

  “I expected more…life out here,” Ren whispered, leaning around the corner.

  We’d slept only a few hours under threadbare blankets. I’d shivered until drifting off—had Ren been able to rest and heal? I’d thought about scooting closer, but hadn’t dared.

  Aleksa had kept watch over my father so Luc could sleep. They’d make it to the cave. They’d be okay.

  I swallowed and glanced behind us, but no one was there. “Do you feel like we’re being watched?”

  Ren started across the street and I scurried after him. “Yes,” he whispered as we climbed the path, which led us around a shop. “I think we are definitely being watched. But I don’t know if those watching are allies or foe.”

  In my pocket, the book Jenna had given me so long ago pressed against my leg. Silly as it was, it helped me feel safe. Redalia was in the palace getting ready for her wedding, Koranth with her. Brownlok was last seen in Turia. We could do this. Find the key, get out.

  The main buildings of the city ended, and scrubby trees marked a path out of the city. We passed the cave we’d hidden in, and the meadow with the stairway I could barely make out, even knowing it was there. Then the path turned upward. The land dropped away on our right, a sheer drop into the ocean crashing against the rocks below, the steep hillside to the left the only path forward.

  Short trees flanked the path, their leaves edged in orange and turning brown. The dirt trail turned sharply, and we had to scramble to keep our footing. Soon, the trees ended, and we were exposed on a hillside so steep only tall yellow grass could survive.

  All my focus centered on getting enough air in my lungs for the sudden ascent and stepping carefully so I didn’t slip off the narrow trail. Ahead of me, Ren stopped.

  “Look,” he said, and pointed. I arched my back, clicks and pops running down my spine. What I saw made me forget my aches.

  Water, so deeply blue it was almost green, stretched out across a space far more vast than I’d ever seen. The sun hadn’t crested the water’s edge yet, but it flung purple and orange and pinks across the sky. My fingers itched to paint the scene, to capture the beauty—the endless sea and sky, the force of the crashing waves so powerful I could hear the roar even up here.

  I leaned closer to Ren’s shoulder, and our breaths matched up for a brief moment as we watched the first curve of the sun step into the sky. Salt hung in the air and tasted like life and freedom and power rolled into one. The wind beat against us, flattening the long grass and pulling my cap free from my head.

  “Oh no!” I yelped, reaching out.

  Ren’s arm went around my waist and pulled me from the sharp drop. I stood with my back against his chest, watching my cap tumble out of sight. “It’s just a cap,” he said, and slowly released me. “Please don’t go near the edge.”

  I’d said something similar to him at the top of the cliffs. Did he remember? It seemed like it’d been months ago. We’d come so far. And we still had so far to go.

  I twisted and found my face closer to his than I expected. The heat from his back soaked into me, clashing with the biting wind. “I’ll be careful.” My voice came out hoarse and breathy at the same time. The wind tossed his hair around until I itched to smooth it back.

  He leaned closer and the wind snatched my breath away. And then the view behind him caught my eye.

  “Ren, look!” I gasped. He spun around, hand going for the sword that wasn’t on his belt anymore. I stepped around him and scrambled uphill to get a better vantage.

  Before us, paths crisscrossed the cliff face, each a few feet above the last. And between the paths, thick, gnarled vines grew from the ground and stretched along fences, wide golden leaves catching the morning light. The grapes had all been harvested, but the vineyard rose up into the sky.

  “ ‘Vineyards that touch the sky,’ ” I said, repeating the line from the clue.

  “Let’s walk while we talk,” Ren said. “Tell me the poem again?”

  “ �
�Three keys to find the library black,’ ” I started.

  “We have that figured out—the Medallion, the ring, and the third key.” He breathed heavily—he wasn’t as healed as he let on.

  I slowed my pace and nodded. “ ‘One in snow, the heart of attack’—the Medallion. ‘Another within the heart, and surrounding it, too, a ring of flax, of brown and blue’—the ring Brownlok stole.”

  He climbed over an outcropping of rocks and turned to help me up. “Within the heart,” he muttered.

  “Turia.” A rock slipped out from under my foot, and I stumbled under Ren’s scrutiny. “Because Turia is the heart of the Plateau?”

  “What else have you already figured out?” he asked, tilting his head.

  “Maybe the brown and blue is a symbol of the keys uniting the kingdoms?”

  A slow smile spread across his lips. I swallowed and continued on, brushing by him. Focus on the key. Focus on getting my father out of Riiga, finding Mari. There’d be time later to think about whatever was happening between Ren and me.

  The path began winding down again, and I went slowly, keeping to the heels of my too-big boots.

  “And then there’s ‘the final key, not a key at all: behind the falling door, that gives life, but takes it more.” Those lines weren’t part of the clue in my book—they had been in the book about the vineyards. And I’d forgotten until now: it had also mentioned blood.

  I didn’t look back at Ren, but his footsteps followed mine. Whenever I could, I glanced over at the ocean, at the orange sun burning its way through the horizon. “I don’t like the sound of a falling door,” I said, wavering.

  “And ‘where neither snow nor heart can find.’ That could mean it’s not in Hálendi or Turia?”

  I held on to a branch to keep from sliding down the steep trail. “Riiga wasn’t a kingdom yet. And while the land here technically belonged to Turia, it was never claimed. Too hard to travel and communicate.” We walked a little longer, my calves burning, until the trees had risen tall enough to obscure our view of everything except the vineyards on the cliffside ahead.

  But eventually even the vineyards were obscured. Until a bend in the path, when the trees dropped away, when everything dropped away.

  A tiny stream of water cascaded from the top of the cliff all the way down to a pool of water below, where waves crashed against the rocks. The waterfall created a tiny bay, and a rope bridge with wood planks lining the bottom stretched from our side of the path to the far side of the bay, where the trail continued.

  The bridge looked sturdy enough, and Ren started to continue on, but I held his arm. “Wait,” I said, unable to look away from the water. “What if…‘Behind the falling door, that gives life—’ ”

  “ ‘But takes it more’?” He stared at the waterfall, then at me. “You think…this?”

  I shrugged and waved my hand. “If there’s a cave behind it, it could be a falling door.”

  “And water gives life.”

  I stared at the waterfall with a shiver, thinking of how wet we’d get, how cold. “We should at least look.”

  Ren stepped off the path, beating a new trail in the yellowed grass. We had to backtrack when we came across rocks too large to climb and brush too thick to pass through. But eventually we made it to the edge of the pool and the little rock shelf that circled it.

  Morning light touched the boulders below the surface of the clear blue water, the bottom fading the deeper it went. We edged along the rock shelf, getting wet with spray the closer we came to the thin falls.

  I’d imagined us passing through the water to find the cave, but once we’d made our way to it, there were several feet of space behind the fall. Even so, we might as well have gone directly under. Ren’s shirt clung to him and his hair was plastered against his scalp. The outline of the Medallion stood out against his chest. I forced my eyes away.

  My shirt wasn’t as finely made or as transparent as his, but I had never been more glad for the strips binding my chest than I was now.

  Ren glanced down at his shirt, then at mine, then immediately away, his cheeks turning pink despite the freezing water.

  But there was nothing here except solid wet rock.

  I pushed against it, digging my fingers into the cracks. “Maybe if we—”

  My foot slipped on a patch of moss. My heart stopped, but Ren grabbed me, steadied me. “If you fall in, the waterfall will trap you at the bottom of the pool.”

  I nodded. A door that gives life but also takes it.

  We crossed through the other side of the waterfall and made for the trail, into the sunshine.

  “Keep looking?” Ren asked as he stared at the path ahead.

  “Keep looking.”

  * * *

  We searched every fall we came to as the sun rose higher. Doubts marched through my head as we hiked. Had my father made it to the cave? Maybe I should have stayed with him instead of chasing some clue deeper into Riiga.

  Ren stopped in a patch of shade. His shoulders drooped—he should be resting, not traipsing along the coast. And I’d never been closer to so much water, yet unable to drink any of it. He wouldn’t say we had to go back. Just like he wouldn’t tell me how truly exhausted he was.

  “Maybe we should turn around,” I said.

  He started walking again. “We haven’t found—”

  “There’s too much coast to search.” I stayed, and Ren faced me. “We shouldn’t have come. Let’s go get my father out of Riiga. Find Mari.”

  He studied me, his hair whipping around him, blue eyes matching the sky and sea. “One more. Let’s find one more waterfall. If it’s not there, we turn back.”

  I licked my dry lips. “One.”

  He led, me trudging several paces behind. The sun rose until it hung in the center of the sky, but still we marched on, the vineyards to the left, sea on the right. Slowly, so gradually I hardly noticed, a loud rushing overtook the crashing waves. But what—

  We’d reached the bottom of the trail. Ahead of us, huge cliffs rose straight into the sky, too straight and steep for even vineyards to grow on. The cliffs jutted up, forming an alcove sheltered from the buffeting wind, and a massive waterfall cascaded from the top all the way to the bay below. The roar was louder than anything I’d ever heard, and white foam billowed up from where the water hit the waiting pool beneath.

  Droplets of water caught on the wind and speckled my face like tiny pricks of ice.

  “Whoa,” Ren whispered.

  “Yeah,” I whispered back, our shoulders touching. The pool rippled outward from the falls, and the water flowed into the ocean, churning where tides collided.

  One more.

  Ren held his hand out to me. “This will be slippery.”

  I put my hand in his, but not because I was worried I’d fall.

  The closer we got to the falls, the clearer it became: there was nothing hidden behind the water. And with the amount of water covering us—and every surface—if there were a key, it would have been destroyed from the water by now.

  But Ren led me along anyway, taking each step carefully. And when we were completely behind the fall, a fissure in the rock appeared, wide enough to edge through. We stared at it for a moment.

  “Do we go in?” Ren shouted to be heard over the water.

  I stared at the black crack and shrugged. The chances of finding a key to the Black Library that had been hidden for so long were infinitesimal.

  Ren went first, and I followed, glad he kept my hand in his. Rock scraped against my back and chest, pulling at my hair and wet clothes. It felt like we’d been sliding through the rock for ages, but then it was over. We spilled into a tiny cave, my feet sinking up to my ankles in sand.

  Light filtered in from higher up in the crack, casting an eerie glow that waved and danced like the falling water be
yond. The roar of the falls was lost in here, and it felt like we were somehow breathing underwater.

  But the cave was empty.

  I edged around the walls, where the sand didn’t seem quite as deep, looking for markings or anything that might hint we were in the right place. Ren started from the other side, bending low and searching high. This was our last chance. The longer we were in Riiga, the greater the likelihood of being caught and thrown in the cell that my father had occupied for too long. Or worse, that my father wouldn’t make it.

  I ran my fingers along the walls, searching every groove and edge and plane, but when we met in the middle, I couldn’t help resting my forehead against the rock.

  “It’s not here,” I whispered. I slammed my palm against the rock with a grunt. “I need it to be here.”

  Ren’s arm slipped around my shoulders. “Hey,” he said, turning me to face him. He touched his chest and adjusted the chain at his neck. “Let’s look again. Maybe we missed—”

  “We don’t have time. We don’t know if we’re reading the clue right. Or if it’s even important. What if it was some old scholar making random notes?” A tear leaked from the corner of my eye and I marched through the center of the cave.

  My first step away from Ren, my foot sank into the sand. But not just to my ankle—my whole leg. I let out a strangled gasp as I lost my balance and fell forward, my other leg and one hand also sinking in.

  “Ren!” I called as the sand pulled at me and rose to my chest and neck as though it were swallowing me. How was this possible? How—

  “Don’t move!” Ren scrambled along the side of the cave, staying at the edge and reaching out for me. I reached with the hand that hadn’t been submerged toward him, but our fingertips didn’t even brush. Too far away. Still sinking. I lifted my chin. Sucked in as much air as I could.

  Ren jumped in after me.

  “No!” I yelled, but he didn’t sink. His boots stayed on top of the sand, even as the granules tickled my cheeks. Some force pulled me deeper, squeezing around me. I closed my eyes as sand filled my ears and covered my head.