Untethered

by KayLynn Flanders

  I swallowed and kicked at the sand. The one time I’d tried to do something big, to be seen, I’d dragged everyone I loved into a death trap.

  Redalia, Brownlok, and the crew walked behind us, an ever-present threat. The Black Library loomed somewhere ahead.

  By the time we reached the mountains, the setting sun washed the landscape in an extra rinse of shimmering orange.

  “We continue on,” Redalia said in her calm, smooth voice. The crewmen shifted their packs, but not one uttered a word of dissent.

  Huge chunks of rocks protruded from the earth like a hastily erected wall, a dry streambed the only narrow opening at their base. Ren and Mari led us into the gorge, a massive canyon through impossibly steep mountains. The land around us churned, the layers of exposed rock tilting at strange angles. They were different colors—reds and yellows, grays and browns, and even a little green, like they’d been mixed and tossed by a cook—and faded like they’d been blasted by the sun.

  Pyramids of sand and rubble from fallen rock acted as buttresses to the sheer walls. The entire place was crumbling bit by bit, and we were walking straight into it.

  When the sun fully set, a chill seeped into the landscape faster than I’d thought possible. My breath fogged in the night.

  “I can’t see the direction any longer,” Ren called out. His voice sounded stronger than it had earlier.

  “We must halt here!” the captain called from the back. Redalia snarled something at him, but the man actually showed some backbone and responded—something about the heavy packs and his men needing rest.

  We stopped, circling close together in a wide part of the path. As we settled in, my stomach tight from hunger and my throat aching with thirst, I kept my head down, hoping the mages wouldn’t change the situation. We had the key; we had Mari.

  Ren brushed his hand against my arm. “You okay?”

  The rasp of a sword being drawn silenced any reply. Brownlok held the blade at Enzo’s neck. “I will hold the key for safekeeping,” he said to Ren.

  I tugged Mari closer as Ren tossed him the key. Brownlok shoved Enzo to the ground and stalked back to Redalia.

  We were together, safe for now. But how long would that last? The mages would kill us now, or kill us later. A tiny part of me hoped they took me first, because I didn’t think I could watch anyone else die.

  Ren knelt, slowly, achingly, and sprawled on the ground, too tired to even smooth out a patch of sand to sleep on.

  Jenna, Enzo, Mari, and I curled up close. Mari chattered with Jenna until Redalia snarled at her to cease. I didn’t know exactly why, but Redalia needed the Black Library. She wouldn’t take these risks, otherwise.

  I tried to stay awake, to figure out something, anything, to get us away, to keep us from the fate we were marching toward. But any way I tried to spin it, I didn’t have the skills we’d need to make it out alive. I wasn’t strong enough.

  I was only good at helping the mages get what they wanted.

  Stars shone bright against the black walls of rock jutting into the sky’s domain. Ren shifted closer to me. Was he asleep? Or had he moved closer intentionally?

  Jenna curled into Enzo’s side. It was so cold, but I couldn’t reach out to any of them. It was my fault we were all here. I should never have left the palace.

  Ren

  I’d never particularly liked sand, but whatever this red dust was, was atrocious. Last night, I’d tried to stay awake and think of a way to get the keys back from Brownlok. Sleep had claimed me too soon. When I woke, I felt more tired, more drained than when I’d gone to sleep. Jenna looked marginally better than I felt. Even Redalia and Brownlok looked worse for wear.

  Chiara had been distant yesterday, and while I was grateful to Mari for lending me her strength—and that she wasn’t anywhere near Brownlok—I kind of wished it had been Chiara who had taken my hand, magic or no.

  Mari had woken before us and was already next to Brownlok, chatting as he pulled food from a pack for her.

  I rubbed my hands over my face, brushing as much sand away as I could. Barely any magic, no knife, no way to protect any of them. And what Chiara said had stuck in my head—why would Redalia be so insistent about finding the Black Library?

  Brownlok had said his life force had been tied to Graymere’s. Maybe Redalia’s had been, too. She’d managed to ensnare an entire kingdom within a few months; I shuddered to think of the damage she could do at full strength.

  We continued our march, me at the front, Brownlok by Mari’s side, Redalia watching us all from behind. I imagined the point of her blade digging into my back with every step.

  And then, subtly, the landscape shifted. Instead of crumbling ledges and lines, everything softened. Rounded. The blood on the key dried, and I nicked the side of my finger again. A small cut, yet it didn’t heal. Not for a long time.

  Chiara stayed at the back of our group of four, with Enzo. She’d gotten quiet again. Like she’d been at the palace. And I didn’t know how to fix it.

  “What is this place?” I whispered to Jenna, who trudged a step behind me. More red stone giants rose around us, like those by the stairs at the cliff, with bulbous heads and misshapen rocks stacked one on top of the other. No life grew here. No scurrying animals. The hard layer of earth underneath the red sand was cracked like a loaf baking too long. The key shifted to the left, and I followed it up a narrow incline, two huge stone formations on either side.

  Jenna glanced at the mages behind us. “I don’t know. But it’s only affecting those with magic. Chiara and the crew don’t seem to feel it.”

  I licked my lips and pulled myself up the last bit of rock, the sand staining my fingertips red. “But you feel it, too, right?”

  She laughed mirthlessly. “I feel it, though less than you probably.” Her finger with the ring fluttered.

  My brow furrowed. “It’s magic that’s draining our magic?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know, but you look awful, and I know I don’t feel as bad as you look.”

  I chuckled. “Aw, thanks.”

  “Hafa taught me about a balance in the land,” she continued. “That the Wild was created inadvertently because of the magic Kais used to enchant the borders of the Ice Deserts. Perhaps this place is to balance out both those lands—a land of no magic, a land that drains it.”

  Balance.

  The Medallion, connected to the ring as it was, didn’t work like it used to. Or maybe it couldn’t work like that here—maybe all it could do was point, and only with the strength of my blood to aid it.

  Either way, I really hated this place.

  “Any idea why Redalia would be so insistent on finding the Black Library?” Jenna asked, brushing her hair over her shoulder.

  “A few. But I hope I’m wrong.”

  She rubbed her temple. “What are you thinking?”

  I sighed and kicked a small rock out of our path. “Brownlok told me his life force had been tied to Graymere’s, and that his threads of existence started snapping when you killed Graymere.”

  She spun her ring around her finger. “So you think Redalia’s not at full power? That some of her magic left with Graymere?”

  “Yes.” I turned slightly right, following the key’s arrow through two bushes too small to offer any shade. “If Graymere’s artifact carries his power, and he had a piece of her power, she’d want it back. But it’s more than that. If Graymere tied their lives together…what if the Black Mage did as well? What if, by obtaining the crystal staff, Redalia would not only regain her full power but also that of the Black and Gray Mages?”

  “Glaciers,” she muttered. “We can’t let her get that staff.”

  “Or the sword,” I muttered back.

  The land sloped down, then back up in the distance, like a huge bowl. A bowl filled with twisting red monsters turned to ston
e. If I looked at them straight on, they didn’t move, but from the corner of my eye, as we walked the path the key marked, they seemed to shift and turn.

  “Look!” one of the crewmen shouted. “Water!” A clear pond shimmered to the right of the path. The man broke off from the group.

  “Wait!” his captain called, but the man didn’t heed him.

  He sprinted behind one of the formations. I froze. He didn’t appear again. He should have been right there, but he was just…gone.

  “Stay on the path,” Jenna murmured, rubbing her stomach. We edged a little closer to each other.

  “We need food,” the captain said to Redalia. What he didn’t say—our need for water—screamed loud in the silence. “We’ve followed you through this forsaken land long enough. You promised us magic.”

  “Your reward is coming,” she said. She looked like she’d rather send us each down a different path to see which of us didn’t die. “We may rest for a moment.”

  The crew grumbled, but I didn’t catch more than the occasional magic, treasure, worth it.

  Redalia studied Brownlok and Mari much too closely.

  Brownlok wouldn’t be able to hide Mari’s ability much longer. He looked half-dead as it was. When Redalia found out about what Mari could do, would she kill Brownlok and use Mari to amplify her magic? Or help Brownlok create his artifact?

  Assuming we weren’t all already dead, maybe we could make a move if the mages fought with each other.

  The crewmen opened their packs and pulled out their rations, passing some to the mages. My stomach cramped, and my fingers could barely grip the artifact.

  “Oy,” I called. “We can’t march with nothing but red dust in our bellies.”

  The captain threw us a few strips of jerky, which landed in the dirt. Chiara’s hand on my arm kept me from retaliating. She picked up the jerky and blew the dirt off them, then handed one to Jenna and Enzo to share. She tore our strip in two and handed me a portion.

  As she tore off a chunk of her meat with her teeth, Chiara said, “We need more time. A plan. Something.”

  I ate the gamy strip of what I suspected was actually salted leather, not meat. I coughed—too salty.

  Jenna spit sand from her mouth. “We can’t leave the path. Can’t go on a fake path.”

  Enzo tapped his fingers against his leg. “Could we overpower them?”

  I shook my head. “Tried that.”

  “We can’t just let them into the library,” Enzo said with a frown.

  I shook my head again, harder. Redalia would win, even if she wasn’t at full power.

  “Enough,” Redalia said, her arms folded under her cloak despite the heat. Didn’t she feel it? Wasn’t her magic draining into the cracks in the earth like mine?

  “Once we get to the library, find a way to get Mari away from Brownlok, and keep her away,” I said, standing.

  “And don’t let them get Graymere’s sword or the Black Mage’s crystal staff,” Jenna whispered.

  She whispered to Enzo and Chiara what she and I had talked about as we started forward again, winding around the red, twisted soldiers guarding the invisible path, all the way up the other edge of the bowl.

  I kept my eyes down, my mind empty. An empty mind meant no panic. No arches, no tombs.

  This couldn’t be the end.

  Jenna grabbed my arm. “What are you—” I started, but the sight before me cut off what little air I had to spare.

  A massive mountain of red rock stood before us, its top flat as though it’d been lopped off with a sword. Massive, intricately carved doors nestled in the mountain’s face stood at least ten times as tall as me. Two rows of sand monsters in two straight lines guarded the path to the doors, sentinels long forgotten, their faces and limbs washed away with time.

  The Black Library.

  For centuries, the legend had grown and shifted among my people. And now, here I was, standing in front of it. A desert stretched between us and the doors, empty of life, of tree or bush or animal, preserved perfectly in its barrenness.

  We wouldn’t win this. There wouldn’t be a last-minute escape. No way to charm or cheat our way out, no way to avoid the crash at the bottom of the free fall.

  Chiara climbed up next to me. “You’re doing it again,” she whispered.

  “Doing what?” I asked, dragging my gaze from the doors to her.

  “Taking responsibility for other peoples’ actions. Stop it.” She stared straight ahead, shoulder to shoulder with me. “Chin up,” she whispered.

  Hearing her echo my own words, words I’d never said to her but I’d said to Jenna countless times, hit me hard. We were close, but not dead yet.

  I grinned. It was fake. She knew it. I knew it. But if she needed me to smile, I would. And if there was any way to keep her alive, to keep them all alive, I would.

  The captain pulled his sword and pointed it at Redalia. Like he meant to attack her with it. His men set down their packs and pulled their weapons.

  Surely…surely they weren’t that ice-headed to think they stood a chance against Redalia and Brownlok?

  The captain sneered at her. “You stay here. I don’t trust you not to knife us in the back while we collect our treasure.”

  Redalia held her hands out in submission. “You may take whatever you want. Just remember—the staff is mine.”

  Jenna and I exchanged a glace. She did want the staff.

  Brownlok rolled his eyes at her show, and I was inclined to follow his lead. But the captain, blinded by thirst or the heat or a massive amount of stupidity, shouted, “We’ve made it! Come on, men, our reward awaits!”

  And with that, he and his men, all covered in a thin layer of red dust that stuck to their sweaty faces, took off running toward the massive doors.

  “Wait!” Enzo bellowed, but the men kept running. “Come back!”

  Redalia folded her arms, her eyes gleaming under her cowl. Brownlok watched her, not the men, and my stomach sank. I racked my mind, but couldn’t figure out why Redalia would be pleased these ruffians were about to invade—

  Chiara grabbed my arm and squeezed, muttering a line from the poem. “ ‘You will find what you seek behind the falling door.’ ”

  The waterfall but also—

  Oh, glaciers.

  A loud rumble shook the earth, and a great crack rent the air. The two massive red doors, with all their intricate details, tipped forward as if a giant invisible hand had flicked them. The crewmen skidded to a halt. They tried to scramble away, but the rows of red rocks moved, blocking their path to the sides.

  I wanted to divert my gaze but couldn’t. Chiara pressed her face into my shoulder. I wrapped my arms around her.

  Their screams were cut off. Silenced with the crash of the doors onto the desert. A great gust of wind, with biting grains of sand, whirled into us, knocking me back a step.

  I coughed and wiped the sand from my face as the dust settled. My stomach rolled and churned. I wished I’d closed my eyes.

  “I didn’t realize it was magic,” Enzo muttered. “I’ve never seen so much of it before. I thought”—he coughed and wiped at the sand coating his face—“I thought it was the heat shimmering in the air.”

  Jenna held his arm. “They wouldn’t have listened to your warning anyway.”

  No wonder the mages had kept the crew with us—to carry supplies and test the enchantments around the library.

  “Excellent,” Redalia said gleefully. “We are weeding out the weak and useless quite a bit today, then, aren’t we?” She looked us over. “Who’s next, I wonder?”

  Where the doors had been, smooth rock now mocked us. At the base, a smaller door was cut into the rock. Normal-sized, with no adornment or etchings, from what I could tell from this distance.

  “He can see magic.” Brownlok nodd
ed toward Enzo. Mari trembled next to him, her hands over her eyes.

  I glared at Brownlok, and he stared back at me. He’d helped when I was outnumbered. Been kind to Mari. His lips twisted to the side, and he rested a hand on Mari’s shoulder. She immediately threw her arms around him and pressed her face into his side.

  Brownlok startled at the contact, frowning at Mari, but patted her back gently.

  Redalia raised one perfectly shaped brow and studied Enzo like the next specimen she was about to gut. “Then perhaps he can get through the enchantments.”

  My voice stuck in my throat. I couldn’t watch Enzo fall victim to whatever traps had been laid centuries ago. Chiara had nearly drowned in sand.

  Jenna stepped forward. “I can get through the enchantments,” she said with a frown, her fists pressed against her legs. She swallowed. “The artifact my father gave me—the sword—protects me from magic because I’m an heir of Hálendi.”

  My eyes fell to the ground and I held Chiara closer. Jenna was lying. It was the ring that protected her. Redalia studied her, and the air seemed to solidify as we waited. Would she believe Jenna? Would she give her back her sword?

  Finally, with a great exhale, she nodded to Brownlok, who unsheathed Jenna’s sword and handed it to her.

  “Wait,” Redalia said. “Are there more enchantments between the door and here?” she asked Enzo.

  “Yes.” He studied the land, hands on his hips. “Surrounding the rock towers.”

  Redalia adjusted her cloak. “Then we all go to the door.”

  I went to squeeze between Jenna and the mages, but she shook her head and tapped the finger with the ring against her leg. I stepped up to the front instead, letting her stay between us and the mages, and held my hand out for Chiara.

  As Brownlok moved to follow, Redalia snatched Mari from him, her fingers digging into Mari’s upper arm. Mari yelled and tried to pull away. Redalia jerked her sharply.

  “Be still,” she commanded. Mari whimpered in her grip. “You’re an amplifier, aren’t you?” she said with a scary, slow smile.