Flare: The Sunless World Book Two

by Rabia Gale

  He’d shoveled half of his bowlful into his face by this time. “I followed you.”

  He had porridge on his chin. Isabella forbore to mention it—yet. “You didn’t need to.”

  “Apparently not,” he agreed. He looked appreciatively around the room. “I never suspected a place like this existed! I thought you’d been dropped out in the middle of a forsaken desert.”

  “I can take care of myself.” Isabella took a dainty bite of the porridge. The taste and texture of it—hearty, sweet, creamy—exploded in her mouth. She hastily dug in for another bite.

  Grandma had disappeared into her scullery. They heard running water and the friendly clatter of dishes. The kitchen door opened as a black cat nosed its way in. A distant whistling followed it—Grampa was at his chores.

  Isabella dabbed at her mouth with a napkin. “How did you get here so quickly?” she cocked an eyebrow at Rafe.

  He said, without pausing in his vicious assault on pancakes with fork and knife, “Borrowed a buggy.”

  That didn’t sound good. “Explain.”

  “Ironheart’s testing out all-terrain ka-powered vehicles,” Rafe explained. “I borrowed one.”

  “You came here all by yourself?”

  “Well, yes,” said Rafe unconcerned. “I didn’t really stop to gather companions. I know you and privacy.”

  “You drove this—buggy—all the way from the Tors Lumena to here. By yourself.”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “Rafe.” No point in being subtle with the man. “You’re blind.”

  “Not completely,” he said defensively. “There’s enough ka to show the way and kyra works pretty well, too. Provided you slow down,” he added as an afterthought.

  Judging the time it had taken him to make the trip, he hadn’t.

  “The Burnt Forest,” said Isabella, “lies between here and the Tower.”

  She didn’t misread his wince. “So I discovered,” he muttered. “Hey, your grandmother makes wonderful porridge. You should eat some.”

  “The Forest,” went on Isabella inexorably, “that is full of the blackened stumps of trees. Stumps that are so hardened, they might as well be stone. And close together. With narrow paths between them.” She put her elbows on the table and cupped her chin in her hands. “So,” she asked, smooth as satin, the way she’d seen Sable do, “how many of them did you run into?”

  Rafe stabbed a pancake with a fork and held it up, dripping syrup. “She makes great pancakes, too. Want one?”

  “I suppose a look at this buggy of yours will give me the answer to that question,” commented Isabella. He grinned at her and she shook her head. “You’re such a… boy, Rafe.”

  “You’re the expert, I suppose,” he teased. “Known that many, have you?”

  “I had a friend who was a boy. Once. We were four.” It had been years since she’d thought of him. His name was Max. Max Pumpkin—a name that struck her as unfortunate more at twenty seven than it had at four. “I wonder what happened to him. I should ask Grandma.”

  “That’s the most you’ve talked about yourself—ever,” said Rafe. “I wouldn’t have thought you’d volunteer that kind of information.”

  “Hmm.” Isabella looked around the kitchen, with the lemon-tinted light striking warm tones in the deep red floor tiles and golden notes in the polished wood of table, chair, and shelves. There was Tom the old cat, mouser extraordinaire and victor of many feline battles, washing himself with an air of unconcern. Bunches of flowers in clear glass bottles and lopsided vases. Grandma’s china shepherdess with the cracks from where she’d been carefully glued back together still visible. Gleaming iron pots up above their heads and the stove all rubbed black.

  “It’s this place,” she said simply.

  “And the people who make it,” added Rafe. “Not what I expected.”

  “Did you think I hatched from an egg?” Isabella was amused.

  “No, but I thought you came from wealth and position. I’d have expected a stately pile, not this—homey place.”

  “I have the stately pile, you know.” Isabella took a bite of warm porridge. It filled her with a golden wellbeing. “On the Rocquespur holdings. Comes with a creepy mine, a silt-filled lake, and grim servitors who’ve been there for centuries, it seems like.”

  “Charming,” commented Rafe. “So these are your mother’s people.”

  Isabella tilted her head and pointed with her spoon at a familiar painting. “That’s my mother.” She let Rafe see through her eyes; he wouldn’t be able to make out details otherwise.

  She wondered what he would make of Mama. Elise Redmont had been pretty rather than beautiful, with warm brown eyes, masses of curls, and dimples in her cheeks. Her charm had lain in her open, simple manners, the kindness of her heart, and her lack of artifice.

  To Hugh Solange, feted and lionized by Oakhaven society and bored with its amusements, she’d been extraordinary indeed.

  Whether he’d have continued to think so years into their marriage was something Isabella couldn’t have known. But Elise Solange hadn’t lived long enough for her husband to fall out of love with her and he’d looked back at their time together as one of unrivalled bliss.

  “She died when I was three. I remember only her voice reading to me, and her hands holding me in her lap, turning pages of books. I came to live here then, until I was five. Then my father took me to the Point to train.” She lifted a shoulder. “Not very exciting, I’m afraid.”

  “I don’t see much of you in her.”

  “I’m told we aren’t much alike. The Solange side tends to dominate.”

  His expression grew thoughtful. “No,” he said. “You’ve gone your own way, that’s all.” He snagged the last piece of toast. “Want any?”

  “No, you take it.”

  His appetite was truly enormous. Sitting there in shabby ill-fitting clothes, he could’ve been a laborer instead of a kayan. His deplorable accessory was propped by his chair. He went hatless these days; probably had fallen out of the habit in the Talar.

  “The thing you did back at Karzov’s headquarters,” she said. “That was extraordinary.”

  “I thought it went rather well,” he said airily. “Just as planned.”

  She didn’t quite believe that, but she let it pass. A quick look through their kyra bond showed that he hadn’t sustained any major injury. The last time he’d dealt with the ka in the Tors, he’d lost his sight.

  Rafe leaned forward, suddenly serious. “That Karzov—he didn’t hurt you, did he?” His intensity pulsed through their shared bond.

  Isabella felt herself flushing—a silly reaction she thought she’d had under control years ago. It’s this place, she thought despairingly. Her iron self-will seemed to dissolve into nothingness when she visited. And she had brought both Rafe and the krin here. She’d been exhausted, in pain, and, yes, afraid—she ruthlessly flung the word at herself—and run home, like a child running to its mother.

  Regret was bitter in her mouth, turning the porridge to soggy cardboard. That, too, could be a dangerous emotion. Deliberately, easily, Isabella pushed it away and drew her armor around herself. Her mental image was that of donning black ice and cloudy quartz—it occluded, deflected, absorbed. Nothing could touch her when she was in it, not fear nor pain, not warmth nor laughter, not joy nor love.

  The transition was so smooth, the armor clicking into place with practiced ease, that Isabella hardly paused before she replied, “I didn’t stay long enough to grant him the pleasure.”

  “I see.” Rafe, too, withdrew. He could hardly help it; Isabella deployed the chill precisely to get others to back off. She had had years of practice.

  “And you brought a friend with you,” continued Rafe.

  “More of a strategic ally,” Isabella said coolly. She took another sip of the porridge she no longer tasted. A body needed food to live, and that was it. Pleasure didn’t need to come into it.

  Pleasure tripped you up, same as p
ain did.

  “I’m sure that’s something you understand,” she added. Like you are to me, was the subtext.

  He looked grim around the mouth. “I do. Sometimes, though, that’s just what you tell yourself as a cover for—something else.”

  The spoon slipped from Isabella’s hand as it dipped towards the porridge. The splash it made was tiny, but the crack in her armor was not a small matter. Thorn, she thought and let him know it.

  Eh, there’s nothing wrong with having friends, he responded the same way. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Tell me what happened at the hideout. Did you discover anything about Karzov’s plans?

  “Yes. The krin were obliging enough to let me know.” She looked at Rafe soberly. “Karzov wants to get to the source of the ka coming up to our world. He plans to go under the disc.”

  Rafe stiffened. For a moment, she thought she’d have to talk him out of his shock.

  Instead, he laughed. Threw his head back and roared.

  Isabella waited. She couldn’t tell quite yet whether it was a healthy coping mechanism or a sign he’d become unhinged.

  Rafe wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “Well,” he said with far more cheer than she’d expected. “He really is audacious, I’ll give him that.” He picked up the fork and turned it idly in his fingers. “Quite the visionary, our Karzov. Training camps for young kayan. Campaigns to collect magical artifacts. An attack on the impregnable Shimmer. Building an air fleet. And now this. We’re just chasing after him, scrambling to keep up.”

  Isabella watched his hands rather than his face, which wore a pleasant expression. His voice was light, but the fork twirled slower and slower. His grip on the handle had tightened.

  “The world runs on ka,” Isabella pointed out. “He who rules the ka, rules the world. It’s the next logical step, after all. If you’re Karzov, the fact that it’s dangerous and difficult doesn’t even enter into it.”

  “Does he really want to do that, you think?” wondered Rafe. “Rule the world? He doesn’t even rule Blackstone and it’s not because he can’t.”

  Isabella shrugged. “If by rule, you mean, ‘Make the rest of us dance like puppets for his entertainment’.”

  “What does your krin friend say?” Rafe abruptly changed the subject. “What do the krin get out of it?”

  The krin inside perked its ears up at this. It was still pretending to be an adorable puppy, something that Isabella thought was distasteful and didn’t bother to hide.

  “It says,” she reported, “that the krin want access to the ka under the disc. It seems very excited about it.”

  “Why?” Rafe asked, frowning. “Is ka food for the krin?”

  “It doesn’t quite know. Its memories are all jumbled up. All it knows is that the krin hunger for ka and can’t get it because it’s poisoned.”

  “So the ka under the disc is pure?” Rafe guessed.

  “The krin certainly believes so.”

  “Pure ka, coming up to our world,” Rafe mused. “So it must mean the source of the poison is down below somewhere. And if we could deal with it—” His face lit up. “It would be the saving of our world!”

  “Perhaps,” said Isabella cautiously.

  “Ask your krin—what’s his name anyway?”

  “Excuse me?” Isabella raised an eyebrow at Rafe.

  Rafe made an “ask-him” gesture with his hands. “The krin’s name. Surely it has one?”

  Isabella consulted the krin. “It thinks it had one once. But it doesn’t remember.” The question made the krin feel worse. Now it projected the attitude of a puppy lost in the Barrens. And covered in frost. With difficulty, Isabella kept herself from rolling her eyes.

  “You should give it one,” said Rafe.

  “Why me? I don’t care if it has a name or not. I don’t plan on conversing much with it, after all.”

  She felt both of them regarding her reproachfully. Cold puppy in the Barrens with a starving wild cat on its trails, she thought.

  A name popped into her head. “Max,” she said firmly. “It can be Max. And that’s my final offer.”

  They both approved. Isabella felt another chunk falling off her armor. Great Sel. I named the creature.

  “Ask Max,” Rafe repeated, “if it knows a way down to the underside of the disc. If it can lead me there.”

  The answer was long in coming, as if the krin were pulling it from the depths of its memory. Isabella transferred it to Rafe via the kyra bond so he could hear it for himself.

  Ask Zacharias the Kayan-Friend, the Melded-Mind. Zacharias will know.

  “She’s a bit dinged up, but she’ll run.” Grampa patted the buggy affectionately, the same way Isabella had seen him do to Molly the pack mule. “Useful little vehicle you have there. Mebbe I should get me one from Ironheart.”

  “Let me know if you want one, and I’ll put a word in Coop’s ear,” said Rafe cheerily. He sat in the buggy’s front seat, behind the steering wheel, looking far more comfortable than a blind man ought to. His walking stick lay in the crack between the front seats. He arched an eyebrow at Isabella. “Want to come? Last chance.”

  “No, thanks.” The contraption with its large treaded wheels, open roof, light body, and no shock absorbency looked like an uncomfortably jolting ride. “I’ll meet you in Oakhaven in three days.”

  “You can admit you’re nervous, Isabella,” Rafe teased. “No one here will hold it against you.”

  Grampa guffawed. He was not a big man, but he had a substantial presence. A deep voice and a hearty laugh, large hands and the frame of a man who lived off his own labor. He held his head high and his gaze direct. Isabella had an inch on him—the Solanges were all tall—but she had never felt bigger. “Go on, then, Bella girl,” he urged. “Try something new for once.”

  Isabella saw Rafe file Bella-girl away for future reference, probably in the same place as Izzy. Don’t even think about it, she warned him. The man didn’t respond; just hummed an annoyingly jaunty show theme as he tinkered with knobs and levers. Isabella recognized it. Sable had played the leading role, and she’d been forced, as the Marquis of Rocquespur, to attend several performances.

  But it seemed that Rafe had regained some of his old, reckless confidence from his magic working and solo trip across the Barrens. He sat easier, taller than he had since his return from the Talar. It was a good sign.

  “I’d rather stay here with you and Grandma,” she said, with perfect truth. “If Rafe’s going to jaunt about in that thing, on his own head be it.”

  Grampa looked both pleased and protesting. Rafe thought to her, I’ve always liked that you aren’t the smothering type. She ignored it and said, before Grampa could marshal an argument why she should go with the kayan, “Got the map?” She’d helped Rafe trace the relevant parts of it in ka; it would stand out to his senses much better than using his monochromatic kyra-sight. “Water and food?” She glanced at the small back of the buggy, crammed full of baskets, bundles, and water-skins, and the woolen blankets on the top. “Never mind. I see Grandma outfitted you with an entire week’s worth of supplies.”

  “Yep.” Rafe didn’t do anything that she could see, but the buggy came to life, shaking itself all over. Show-off, Isabella thought, without heat.

  Better than fumbling through mysterious knobs, he pointed out.

  Vibrations rumbled through the ground. The buggy rolled forward on its large wheels, black rubber crunching the rubble underneath.

  The entrance to Redmont was a narrow serpentine canyon, with the cliffs on either side meeting each other overhead in several places. Its speckled and stippled rock glittered with quartz dust. Cracks in the canyon walls led to a number of caves of varying sizes. The Redmonts’ house was built in the biggest of these under the cheery glow of citrine quartz. Generations of Redmonts had plowed and fertilized and worked the cave floor into orchards, gardens, fields, and hothouses. They’d lived happily and unobtrusively here, along with the other families in neighboring ravines a
nd caverns. For the longest time, this loose confederation had mingled and intermarried, only venturing to Oakhaven and smaller cities once or twice a year to buy and sell.

  The buggy blasted hot air through its exhaust as it crawled up and around ball-sized boulders. Isabella felt the heat against her legs as a warning, a sign of change.

  There was only one entrance to this ravine large enough to admit even a small vehicle the size of the buggy. As Rafe reached it, he threw up his hand in farewell. Grampa returned it with a vigorous wave of his own the kayan could not see.

  Isabella folded her arms and watch the buggy spider-creep through the crack. It’d be slow going for Rafe until he got out of the Stonelands entirely.

  Grampa put a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Whatcha dreaming of, Bella-girl?”

  “I’m thinking that we should blast that entrance,” she answered, eyes narrowed measuringly. With Eya and Voya in tandem, she could do it, she thought.

  Grampa looked in the same direction. “Be hard on the mules to climb the back way if we got rid of the front door. Not impossible, though.” He shifted, and Isabella caught the familiar, comforting smell of pipe smoke, dirt, and goat. “Don’t want your friend to visit again?”

  “I just want you to stay safe,” said Isabella.

  In a world where—if—Karzov ruled, they would need places like this, out of his reach.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Rafe

  ON THE SECOND DAY after leaving Redmont, Rafe arrived home.

  Home. The word sat oddly on his tongue. Halfway up the long bare track to the Grenfeld manor, he turned off the buggy and sat there, contemplating it with ka and kyra-sight, comparing it to his memories from long ago.

  Once, before the Scorching, the lands around Grenfeld had been fertile and loamy, covered in grasses and crops. Now the earth was black and bare and crumbly. It stretched for miles to left and right under Selene’s soft silver glow. It was a little past Bloom, and Selene was high in the sky.

  The big house lay in the distance, dwarfed by all that space. It comprised a central rectangular block of grey stone, with two sprawling wings of brick and a scattering of outbuildings around it. Behind it, the ground dropped away to what had once been river bottoms and was now the entrance to the Grenfeld agri-caves that had been tunneled into the earthen bluffs.