by Rachel Aaron
With that, the problem of how to spend his imprisonment was decided. Slorn looked away from the bottom of the world and leaned back, settling against the cold stone of the mountain. When he was comfortable, he opened his mouth and, in a quiet voice, began to ask questions. He asked about the demonseeds, about the Dead Mountain, about the clawing hands. He asked about spirits, about humans, where they’d come from, why the Shepherdess had made them, why they were blind. Everything he wanted to know, he asked. No answers came, but Slorn did not stop. He would never stop until the stone replied. Nivel had told him once that he was as stubborn as a mountain. To honor her memory, to give meaning to her death, he was going to prove her right. And so he kept asking questions in the white silence until, far sooner than he expected, the cell door opened.
Miranda lay facedown on the stone floor, her eyes closed against the constant light of the mountain. It did no good. The light bled through her eyelids until even her dreams were suffused in white. She pushed herself up with a groan and stared glumly at the room that had become her world: a white box, ten feet by ten feet by ten feet, no door, no windows, nothing even to mark which wall was which. Twice a day, the wall opened and a Shaper appeared with food, but otherwise she had no outside contact, no company at all. After the stone swallowed her, she’d lost consciousness and woken up here, alone. She hadn’t seen Slorn since the meeting, but worse than that, Gin was missing. His absence bothered her more than her own imprisonment, and since he wasn’t a bound spirit, she couldn’t even feel if he was alive or dead.
After she woke up, Miranda had spent the first dozen hours of her confinement trying to break out. Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem. Again, the Shapers had left her rings, and though the walls of her cell were part of the mountain, they were still stone. Mellinor’s water had broken down larger walls than these, so had Durn’s boulders. But the problem wasn’t the walls; it was her spirits. No matter how she harangued them, they refused to act against the mountain, and every time she asked why, every one of them gave the same answer: They could not raise their strength against a star.
Miranda pressed her cheek against the cold stone. A week ago, she wouldn’t have bought that excuse for a second. Now, after her meeting with the mountain, she understood a little better. Stars were spirits even greater than Great Spirits, chosen and backed by the greatest spirit of them all, the one called the Shepherdess. Spiritualist oath or no, so long as the Shaper Mountain was her jailer, her spirits could do nothing to help her. Not unless she forced them. Revulsion flooded her mind at the thought. She would die here before she Enslaved any spirit, much less her own.
Of course, dying here was looking more and more like her fate. She didn’t even know how long she’d been in her cell. Two days at least, but without a window she couldn’t be sure, and the guard never answered her questions. All she had was the endless, unchanging light and the slow feeling of time crawling over her skin.
Abandoning sleep, Miranda pushed herself up with a frustrated sigh. She walked to the white wall across from where she’d been lying and began running her fingers over the smooth stone. It was a futile effort. She’d already checked the walls hundreds of times. There were no cracks, no weaknesses. Still, she kept looking. She had to keep looking, keep trying for an escape, or she would go mad.
She was standing on tiptoe, running her fingers along the corner where the ceiling met the wall, when she heard the familiar soft grinding of stone. Miranda fell back on her heels and turned just in time to see the stone of the far wall fold in on itself to create a small door. It happened instantly, the flawless stone she’d run her fingers over just a minute before curling away to reveal the stern face and tall, heavy frame of the Shaper who served as her jailer. He was glowering, as usual, and Miranda glowered right back.
She was about to make her traditional demand to be set free when she noticed something was wrong. The man’s scowling face was off, somehow, his dark eyes unfocused and glossy. That was all she saw before he fell forward.
Miranda danced back with an undignified squeal. The Shaper landed face-first on the floor with a hollow thump, his arms flopping beside him in a way that made her stomach twist. She stared at him for several seconds before an infuriating, familiar voice brought her eyes back up.
“Well, well. Still alive?”
Sparrow was leaning on the door to her cell, a smug smile on his thin lips.
Miranda took a step back. “You!”
“Your gallant hero,” he said, spreading his arms with a flourish.
Miranda took another step back, keeping her distance as Sparrow stepped into the cell. He was dressed in the same dull brown he’d worn to chase Eli, and though the color should have stood out like a stain against the pure white walls, she was having a hard time focusing on him. Slowly, subtly, she hid her hands in her pockets and began to wake her spirits, just in case.
“Why are you here?”
“To rescue you, of course,” Sparrow said, his voice all sincerity.
Miranda didn’t buy it for a moment. “If you think I believe that you snuck in here and killed a man to rescue me out of the goodness of your heart—”
“Perish the thought,” Sparrow said. “I’m here because Sara wants you alive and useable, which means not locked up. And I didn’t kill anyone, for your information.” He kicked the downed man with his boot. “It’s a paralytic poison. He’ll wake up in an hour with pins and needles like he’s never felt, but otherwise unharmed. Not to crush your ego, but Sara doesn’t care enough about your rescue to risk angering the mountain by killing a Shaper.”
“But freeing a prisoner is fine?”
Sparrow gave her a withering look. “My patience is very thin today, Spiritualist. If you would rather not be rescued, I can leave you here.”
“No, no,” Miranda said quickly, her shoulders slumping. “I’m in your debt, Sparrow.”
“You don’t know the half of it, dear,” he said, walking farther into the cell. “Shall we be off?”
“No,” Miranda said, shaking her head. “Gin and Slorn are still prisoners. I can’t leave without them.”
“Way ahead of you,” Sparrow said. “I knew you wouldn’t turn down an offer of escape, so I took the liberty of freeing the dog first. As for Slorn, he’s decided to remain in the mountain, so we’ll just have to make do without his sterling company.”
Miranda gave an incredulous snort. “You actually think I believe that?”
“I don’t much care what you believe,” Sparrow said. “But understand that Slorn is worth a lot more to Sara than you are. I would gladly trade you for him if I could, but the bear man said he had unfinished business with the mountain.”
“So you left him?” Miranda said, horrified. “Just like that?”
“Just. Like. That,” Sparrow answered. “I have many jobs, Miss Lyonette. Bear wrestler isn’t one of them. We came to an arrangement of mutual benefit to the reasonable satisfaction of both parties. Let’s leave it at that. Now, we should be going before the Shapers miss our friend here.” He tapped the prone man with his boot again. “Or before your overprotective dog gets nervous and decides to come find you himself.”
Miranda paled. She wouldn’t put it past Gin. “Fine,” she said. “How are we getting out?”
Sparrow smiled and slipped his hand into his pocket. “The Shapers must not think too much of you,” he said, pulling out something small, flat, and dark. “This cell is right up against the mountain’s outer wall, so that’s the way we’re going to go.”
“What?” Miranda said. “Through the wall?”
“A bit flashy, I’ll grant you,” Sparrow said, tossing the small, black object with one hand and catching it in the other. “But thanks to your overly inquisitive and suspicious nature, we don’t exactly have the luxury of time.”
Miranda’s eyes darted to the thing he was tossing between his hands. It was shaped like a teardrop, smooth, dark, and slightly wrinkled, like a peach pit. “What’s that?”
Miranda’s eyes widened, but she obeyed, stepping back to the door to her cell while carefully avoiding the paralyzed guard. Sparrow followed a moment later. In the hall was the small cart that the guard had been pushing before Sparrow had interrupted him. It was loaded with plates of cold prison rations, which Miranda recognized far too well, and a stone pitcher of water, which Sparrow grabbed.
“This should do,” he said, hefting the full pitcher with both hands.
Before Miranda could ask what he meant by that, Sparrow turned and threw the pitcher’s contents across the room. The water flew in an arc, glittering in the mountain’s white light for a moment before splashing down on the peach pit Sparrow had left against the wall.
The moment the water hit, the thing exploded. Miranda jumped back as a sound like a breaking tree cracked her eardrums. She slammed her hands over her ears, but it did no good. The sound was as much spiritual as physical, throwing her spirits into an uproar. Looking up, she saw why.
The peach pit was now a tangle of roots and branches. The wood seethed like a nest of snakes, coiling and shooting in all directions. Roots dug into the white stone of the mountain, crumbling the rock as they pushed their way down. The cell wall came apart in chunks as the growing limbs, now covered with the first growth of new leaves, shot out in search of sunlight. The cluster of wood doubled in seconds. Whole chunks of stone were breaking off the cell walls, falling away as the newborn tree fought to reach the open air. The mountain began to shake under Miranda’s feet, but it was too late. With a final snapping crash, the tree broke through the last layer of stone and golden sunlight streamed into Miranda’s prison.
She stood there gaping for a split second before Sparrow grabbed her hand and yanked her off her feet. They jumped over the paralyzed guard, now dangling from the branches like a caught kite, and ran up the trunk of the newborn tree. Branches were still exploding from the trunk under their feet as great clusters of green raced to catch the newly won sunlight. Sparrow dodged them deftly, pulling Miranda up through the hole in the mountain and into the sun.
“You’ve still got that sea in you, right?” he shouted over the roar of the growing wood.
“What did Sara do to this poor spirit?” Miranda shouted back, nearly slipping when a branch suddenly sprouted under her foot. “This violates—”
“Shut up and answer the question!” Sparrow snapped. “Sea, yes or no?”
“Yes,” Miranda yelled. “Why?”
The tree bucked beneath them as the mountain wind tossed the branches. They were outside, but Miranda could see nothing but the backs of leaves. Sparrow grabbed her hand and pointed it down. “Make a chute of water here.”
Miranda tried to rip her hand away. “What do you—”
A horrible sound of snapping wood cut her off, and she whirled around to see the white stone of the Shaper Mountain chomp down on the hole the tree had broken. The trunk squealed as the rock clamped down, shaking violently as the mountain began to chew through the wood. Miranda grabbed for a branch to steady herself, but Sparrow still had her hand. He yanked her forward until she looked at him. The minute he had her eyes, he made a good luck gesture with his free hand and pushed her off the tree.
For a breathless moment, Miranda felt almost weightless as her feet left the pitching trunk. Then gravity kicked in, and she began to fall. She plummeted through the branches, grabbing for them desperately as she passed, but every one broke in her hand, too new and thin to stop her fall. Sunlight blinded her as she burst through the canopy into the icy air. The mountain towered above her, enormous and blindingly white against the pale morning sky. The freezing wind tossed her as she plummeted in free fall, unable even to turn and see what waited below. It was at this point, hurtling through the air, that her mind finally caught up with her falling body and she began to scream.
The sound was scarcely made before Mellinor answered. Water poured out of her. It flowed through the air, catching her fall in a series of pools. She splashed through each one only to drop to the next, but every pool slowed her fall until, at last, she landed safely in the snow on the mountain’s slope. Sparrow landed beside her and rolled just in time to dodge Mellinor’s water as it hit the ground.
As soon as the water landed, Sparrow was on his feet. “Keep going!” he shouted, pushing her.
Miranda ignored him and looked up. High overhead the enormous tree still clung to the side of the Shaper Mountain. Its branches were still straining toward the sun, but its trunk was a gnawed mess of broken wood where the mountain was clamping down harder and harder as it fought to break through the tree and close the wound. The branches shook one last time before the mountain closed up entirely, cutting the core of the trunk with a final, echoing snap.
“Mellinor,” Miranda said softly as the enormous tree began to fall, the wide green crown flying like a broad arrow straight at their heads. “Get us out of here.”
Water exploded out of her, shooting down the mountain in a torrent. Sparrow jumped in first, and the water swept him away like a twig. Miranda went next, throwing herself into the fast-moving water just before the broken tree crashed into the ledge. The tree screamed as it hit, sending a wave of snow crashing down the mountain, but Miranda was already far away, racing down the icy slope on Mellinor’s water.
It should have been a horrible ride. The mountain was almost vertical below the shelf where they had landed, and the slope was strewn with sharp outcroppings and sudden crags. But Mellinor was adept at keeping her afloat, and the inland sea’s water buoyed her over the roughest bits. Ahead of her, Sparrow seemed to be having a much harder time of things, but she had no time to see why. Less than thirty seconds after picking them up, Mellinor washed them out onto the bridge spanning the ravine between the Shaper Mountain and Knife’s Pass.
Miranda fell coughing and gasping on the cold stone, but before she’d pulled herself together enough to handle more than a simple breath, Mellinor’s voice roared in her ears.
“Keep moving,” he thundered as he drew his water back into her. “The mountain is furious.”
As soon as he said it, Miranda heard it too. A deep roar vibrated through the air, and the whole world began to shake with fury.
“Sparrow!” she shouted, jumping to her feet.
Sparrow was lying on his stomach a dozen feet from her. He rolled over with a groan when she reached him, coughing and clutching his ribs. “Powers,” he muttered. “How do you do that all the time?”
“We have to go,” Miranda said, yanking him up. “The mountain’s destroying the bridge.”
Even as she said it, the stone beneath them started to rock violently back and forth. She pulled Sparrow to his feet and they began to run. The rumbling grew worse with every step, and a new sound began inside the mountain’s furious scream, the sound of stone cracking.
“It’s trying to cut us off,” Sparrow wheezed.
“I know, I know,” Miranda cried, dragging him faster up the arch of the bridge. Cracks spidered under their feet as they ran, spreading like lightning across the smooth stone. Miranda cursed and pushed them faster.
“Come on!” she shouted, dragging Sparrow until she was nearly ripping his arm out of its socket. “Run!”
They ran. They ran as fast as they could, but they could not escape the mountain’s anger. Huge chunks of rock were breaking free all around them, plummeting into the ravine below with small, terrified screams. The cracks under their feet grew larger as the shaking grew more violent until, with a final, echoing crack, the bridge itself broke free.
They weren’t going to make it. The realization hit Miranda like a blow to the face. Already the world was tilting crazily as the bridge, shaken free of its ancient supports, lurched sickeningly sideways. Even so, Miranda kept running. She didn’t know what else to do.
Suddenly, something
white landed on the falling bridge in front of them. At first, Miranda thought it was a pile of snow, but it was too gray for snow, almost silver, and moving in swirls. Then the pile stretched out and began to run. Miranda’s eyes went wide, and she felt the scream leave her throat before she realized she’d made a sound.
“Gin!”
Gin tore down the falling bridge faster than the wind itself, barreling straight at them. Miranda held out her hand and jerked for Sparrow to do the same. Gin reached them a second later, and as he passed, she dug her fingers into his thick, coarse fur. The moment her fist clenched on his coat, she was ripped off her feet by the ghosthound’s momentum. He turned on a pin, claws digging into the crumbling stone, and then he kicked off again, running even faster back toward the pass.
Miranda clung to his side, her legs tangled with Sparrow’s as they fought to hold on. This close, she could feel Gin’s lungs thundering, his legs pumping faster than ever before. But in the seconds since Gin had appeared, they’d already fallen a frightening distance. The wall of the ravine rose above them, sheer and white and impossibly tall, the edge completely out of reach. She felt Gin’s muscles tense as his back legs folded beneath him, and then he sprung, kicking the broken bridge off behind them as he launched into the air.
For a breathless moment, they were flying, soaring up out of the ravine. The jagged edge of the bridge’s broken end hung just above them, ten feet, five feet, nearly in reach. And then, just as quickly, it began to move away. Gin’s legs kicked frantically, and Miranda realized they were falling. It was too far. Gin had missed.
