Flare: The Sunless World Book Two

by Rabia Gale

  “None taken,” said Rafe, while Theo nodded his agreement.

  “And Ironheart won’t give up the Tors Lumena, either,” warned Coop.

  “We won’t expect you to,” Theo said. “Self-sufficiency is important to every state.”

  “Which leads us back again to the question.” Coop leaned forward, elbows on the table, punctuating his words with jabs of his fingers. “What are we willing to offer Oakhaven that they will accept? What do we give up in order to make this alliance happen?”

  It was Rafe who answered. “Me.” All heads swiveled towards him. “You give me up to Oakhaven.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Rafe

  THEY HADN’T WANTED TO let him go.

  The uproar that followed Rafe’s words failed to change his mind. Then he compounded the problem by asking to be taken to—and left in—Shaleshine Valley. This narrow gorge cut through an offshoot of the Black Mountains, with shorter valleys branching out from it. The whole place was littered with boulders and riddled with caves and other hidey-holes.

  It was also the territory of the bandit White Oak, who’d claimed that entire country for himself. There were no large quartz veins or deposits of ore or coal to make this area attractive, so the Oakhaven government had decided to ignore the audacious Shaleshine “King”. For now.

  “I hope you know what you’re doing, Rafe,” Coop had said, in a way that strongly suggested he thought the answer was no. Theo had said nothing to this, though he had been particularly set against Rafe giving himself up to their uncle’s mercies. Rafe had never seen his older brother oppose something so vociferously before.

  Perhaps Theo, too, suspected the reason for Rafe’s jaunt to Shaleshine Valley. But neither brother spoke of it. The hope of what Rafe would discover was too faint and fragile to be put into words.

  Charlie Broom had accompanied Rafe in the much-abused buggy. His reluctance to let Rafe go down into Shaleshine had been palpable.

  “You sure, sir?” he’d asked about a hundred or so times. Rafe strove to keep the curtness from his voice. He’d been a government agent and a military man before this. No one had ever implied that his duties were too dangerous; he’d been expected to carry them out to the best of his abilities and give his life up in the process if need be.

  “I’ll be all right. I expect to be back within a day, so stay here with the buggy. Keep it hidden.”

  “And if you’re not, sir?”

  “Then return to Grenfeld and tell them the incompetent idiot is a lost cause. You may choose to be as diplomatic about it as you please.”

  “Yes, sir.” The joke did nothing to ease the worry between Broom’s eyebrows. Rafe wondered gloomily if the man had volunteered for the task, or if Theo had chosen someone to play nursemaid to his little brother.

  Rafe’s descent into Shaleshine was, of necessity, slow and arduous. Selene was dipping behind the canyon walls by the time he reached the bottom. He walked around, probing with both kyra-sight and ka senses. Even bandits needed quartz. There had been few reports of food raids, which meant they were making do with whatever quartz they could find here.

  It didn’t take long for him to pick up the faint traces of ka. He followed the trail, stumbling over gravel as he did so. The river lay like a drowsy snake, green-black to his kyra. Wide and shallow, it oozed rather than trickled over its muddy bed. Rafe splashed across it, kicking up as much water as he could.

  He wanted them to hear him coming.

  Boots crunched on pebbles as he climbed up the opposite bank.

  “Halt.” The voice was male, low and fierce. Rafe promptly did so, hands spread in the universal gesture of unarmed good will.

  “Who goes there? What do you want?” the voice continued.

  “To speak to White Oak,” answered Rafe evenly. “I have news for him.”

  There were two of them, one the spokesman, the other a silent backup. Rafe felt both tense. There was a click, the sound of a pistol cocking.

  Rafe waited.

  “Put down the stick,” grated the first voice. Rafe complied, carefully lowering it to the ground. He sensed the silent partner swoop down to pick it up.

  A hand gripped him by the upper arm and turned him around. His captors were dressed in dark clothes and hooded. Any more he could not tell, for he was marched along at such a rapid pace, his kyra-sight had a hard time keeping up. Rafe caught his foot in a hollow, then stumbled over a loose pebble.

  After about the fifth time Rafe missed his footing and was shoved along, he said tersely, “You do realize that I can’t see, right?”

  An indrawn breath was his only answer. Rafe guessed it meant no.

  But they were gentler after. They led him into the shadow of the canyon wall. Their pace slowed as they went along it, nearly pressed against the granite. The faint traces of ka grew stronger; he was being taken to the hideout where the quartz was.

  It was a long way away from the main valley. They led him down a gully and into a twisting maze. Glimmers of moonlight barely showed them the way. Mud squelched under their boots.

  Finally, he was jerked to a stop. One of his captors pulled him against a rock-face, while the other inserted himself into a crack and disappeared. Rafe’s kyra-sight had a chance to catch up. The rock face was cut in angles; it looked to be an old quarry of some sort. His captor was a silent shadow beside him. He could make out no features besides a humanoid shape. Male, youngish, with hard hands and a fighter’s bearing. Either well-trained or not a mere laborer to begin with.

  Two men emerged from the crack. One swore and spoke in a fierce undertone to the other. Rafe heard the defensive response, “He’s blind.”

  “So he says. Rules is still rules.”

  “Gentlemen, please,” Rafe said appeasingly. “I will comply with your conditions as long as I meet with White Oak. You may blindfold me. It’ll make no difference.”

  The rule-stickler tied a rough cloth around Rafe’s eyes. It was scratchy and smelled of sweat—probably someone’s neckerchief. Rafe submitted to the indignity without protest.

  The things I do for my country, he said to himself wryly as he was taken into utter darkness.

  Kyra-sight was no help here. Rafe reached for the ka instead, sparse fronds of it waving in the distance.

  He walked into a wall, smashing his face into rock. One of his captors tried—unsuccessfully—to turn his snigger into a cough.

  Right. Straight line to ka would not work unless he could mist into rock like a krin.

  The path snaked in darkness for a while. Rafe’s ears caught the sound of dripping water and the distant ring of hammers. Then they rounded a bend and an orange glow relieved the pitch-black. All four men took in deep breaths of the fresher air.

  They came into a mining tunnel, wider and lit with lamps. Rafe caught a slight scent of perfume from the burning oil, and his eyebrows raised of their own accord.

  The bandits had expensive taste.

  There was the sound of hurrying footsteps. “I got word you found someone,” called a new voice, whose impatience could not quite hide its cultured tones. Rafe recognized it and smiled to himself.

  So. He was right.

  His escorts started to talk, but Rafe raised both his head and his voice. “I wish to speak to White Oak.”

  Blinded, blindfolded, he still managed to look directly at the newcomer, the one who obviously outranked the others.

  He imagined it was an eerie sight. Yet another party trick to spook people with.

  “Now, wait a minute,” began the one who’d insisted on blindfolding him. He was truculent and hard to impress—a good, solid Oakhavenite. “You can’t just mince in here like a dandy and announce—”

  “No, he has a point,” said his superior, cutting across him with hardly a sign he’d heard any of his speech. His voice was distant, as if he were not sure quite what to make of the situation. “Come with me. You others, stay back.”

  “Can I have my walking stick?” Rafe asked,
not moving,

  “Yes, yes. Return it to the man, then.” Now the upper-class accent was clear, in the unconscious unthinking exercise of authority. The silent escort handed it over while the rule-follower pointedly said nothing. Rafe pulled off the blindfold and handed it back. Then he tucked the stick under his arm and followed the leader into a series of interconnected caverns.

  A door, guarded by two alert men, had been placed in the entrance of one. It opened to reveal a meeting chamber, with a table in the center and boxes and stools around it. A chart hung on the wall. Rafe could make out that it was a map, but the details eluded him.

  “Wait here,” said the young nobleman when the door closed behind them. He crossed to the other side and opened yet another door.

  Rafe dropped onto a box, leaned his stick by his side, spread his arms on the table, and put his head down. Sel, he was tired. He’d gone from the Tors Lumena to Redmont to Oakhaven to Shaleshine in mere days, thanks to Ironheart’s new invention. But unlike the buggy, his own body ran on food and rest, not ka. That was the unsolved paradox of the kayan: why they could not indefinitely enhance their own bodies with magic.

  He pondered the problem in an airy way, while his kyra listened in at the door. He could not hear much beyond the rumble of voices, but he picked out the ones he knew right away. The tone of the discussion was agitated and questioning. Rafe could’ve made himself and his intentions known any time, but it was more amusing this way.

  “It’s stupid to blabber on about this while he’s waiting right outside this door.” One impatient voice overruled the rest, grew louder as it approached. Its owner opened the door with unnecessary vigor. The slam of it reverberated in Rafe’s ears as if he’d been standing right next to it—which, in a way, was true.

  His kyra fled back to him. Rafe lifted his head and regarded the man who came and stood across the table from him, legs apart, fists planted on his hips. A white domino mask covered his face from eyebrows to mouth. Tousled pale hair stood in spikes above it. Both chin and mouth were firmer than Rafe remembered, and the eyes glittered in the holes in the mask.

  On the whole, he cut quite the dashing figure with his daredevil grin and rakish air.

  Rafe smiled. “Hullo, Tristan. Been a while, hasn’t it?”

  Tristan laughed. He peeled off his scrap of a mask and tossed it on the table. “Knew I couldn’t fool you, Rafe! Back at last, huh?”

  Rafe sat up and stretched his arms above his head. “You didn’t really expect me to forget the year you made me play “The Great Hero White Oak” with you? As I recall, you took the titular role for yourself, while I rotated through a number of supporting roles like Loyal General and Court Kayan—even the villain on a couple of occasions.”

  “I remember.” Tristan’s mouth still smiled, and a reminiscing tone touched his voice. “You must’ve been perishingly bored. You were six years older and more interested in fencing and boxing than role play with a child.”

  “It wasn’t so bad,” said Rafe with a chuckle.

  “And then you ran away from Grenfeld soon after you returned home,” Tristan mused. “You know, for many months after I thought it was my fault. Since I pestered you so much on your visit.”

  Rafe stared. “You can’t be serious.”

  Tristan shrugged. “Hey. I was a kid back then, remember? And a spoiled one at that. Of course I thought I was the center of everything. Never mind, Rafe. I was an idiot.”

  Rafe opened his mouth to pursue the point, then thought better of it. “So was I, for that matter. We grow out of it. Eventually.”

  Tristan flung himself down onto a box. “Sel, it is good to see you. You know Lourvey, of course.” He indicated the man who had taken charge of Rafe and brought him here. Lourvey leaned against the wall next to the door. He nodded laconically at Rafe when his name was mentioned.

  Rafe couldn’t make out the nuances of his expression, but he thought Lourvey’s body language expressed reservation.

  “How’s Aunt Amanthea?” he asked. His great-aunt was also Lourvey’s grandmother. Though Amanthea herself had always been welcome at Grenfeld, his family had not had much to do with hers. There had always been this unspoken agreement that Amanthea had married down. Her daughter’s alliance into the Lourveys, a solid noble family, hadn’t changed the Grenfeld mindset much.

  “Well, last I heard,” said Lourvey. Rafe’s ears confirmed what he could not see—the young man’s tone was guarded and wary. “She’s still in Oakhaven, and her connection to Leo Grenfeld keeps her safe and comfortable. For now.”

  He delivered the last two words with foreboding finality. Rafe doubted he would get much more out of him.

  “And Mahalia, too,” Tristan gestured the girl forward.

  “I remember,” said Rafe, trying not to display his interested surprise. Mahalia was the anti-machinist zealot whose good looks and passionate convictions had drawn Tris into his brief and disastrous flirtation with that movement.

  But there was none of the puppy-dog adoration in Tris’ demeanor now. He flashed her a smile, a flick of meaning that Rafe could not decipher, then focused his attention on Rafe. Mahalia sat down at the table, on the same side as Tristan, but removed a few seats away from the men. She leveled an intense gaze at Rafe, as if sizing him up. Gone were the dramatic eye-rolling and head-tossing.

  Like Tristan, it looked like Mahalia, too, had grown up.

  Rafe didn’t need to baby his cousin any more.

  “Tristan,” he said, leaning forward. “What happened in Oakhaven two years ago?”

  Tristan’s face blanked for a moment. Then, “You favor the blunt style, eh, coz?”

  “I didn’t come here to chitchat,” said Rafe. “That isn’t the world we live in anymore, Tristan.”

  Tristan nodded, a firm agreeing jerk of his head. “No, a little more than two years ago, all I was worried about was the Machine. Never thought I’d be sitting in a cave in Shaleshine Valley, leading a gang of outlaws.” He paused.

  Rafe waited.

  Tristan looked beyond him, as if gathering memories and struggling to turn impressions and images and sharp shocking emotions into coherent words. Rafe understood. He’d been there. How many times had he held mental conversations explaining himself to his loved ones, only to fail with even those figments?

  “Truth is, Rafe,” said Tristan, “I don’t really know what happened. I was in my room, under house arrest, when everything went sour. There were armed guards at my door who brought in water and food and took away the dirty dishes twice a day. I didn’t even know them—they weren’t Guarda Royale. I saw Mother once—she was all white-faced and trembling and called me her baby and patted my cheek. But she wasn’t really hearing me or seeing me. She acted like I was already dead. It was creepy—terrifying actually. So I asked her not to come again.”

  He swallowed. Mahalia got up and went to a corner. Rafe heard the soft splash of liquid being poured into glasses.

  Tristan went on. “Father didn’t come at all. There was a lot of shouting and rushing about outside. I asked the guards what was going on, if you’d been caught, but they looked at me as if I were a trained lap dog and wouldn’t answer.”

  He said in a rush, now looking at Rafe. “By the way, I’m sorry I was such an ass back then. What I said after Wil brought us back to the palace. I was scared… and stupid… and just thinking about my own hide.”

  “Never mind it,” said Rafe, his voice rough with emotion. “I don’t.”

  Tristan nodded. Mahalia quietly put mugs next to them both, then retreated to her seat.

  Tristan took a swig. Rafe ignored the drink, too absorbed in his cousin’s story.

  “After that first day, the fear receded. And I got bored. Funny, there I was with the headman’s axe hanging over my head—or so I thought—and all I could think of was that there were no books to read, no games to play, nothing to do. I’m afraid I whined at the guards a lot.” Tristan grimaced at this. Lourvey shifted behind him; Rafe thought h
e heard the man give a snort of amusement.

  “I know the feeling,” said Rafe. “A lot of adventurous life is like that—periods of interminable boredom punctuated by bursts of frenzied energy.”

  “I was lying on my bed, reading anti-machinist tracts for the umpteenth time, hoping to stoke the fires of righteous passion. But all I could think of was, ‘This? I threw away Father’s trust for this tripe?’” Tristan thrust a hand through his unruly hair. “Sel, I was so stupid.”

  “And then?” Rafe prompted.

  “Then I heard the explosions,” said Tristan simply. “The gunfire and shouting and sirens ringing and doors clanging all over the place. I banged on the door and yelled at my guards, but got no reply. I heard one leave, then sometime later, the other.

  “I was scared out of my wits. I thought assassins had come for me. It was the spoiled brat in me taking charge, of course. It wasn’t me they wanted.”

  “Who’s they?” prodded Rafe, gently.

  “Blackstone agents,” Tris half-whispered, hunching his shoulders. “It was about the same time they attacked Shimmer. They didn’t want to take over, you know. They were just there to wreak havoc.”

  He swallowed hard. “You must’ve heard the stupid rumors that F-father was killed by the Machine. No, it was a suicide mission by a Blackstone agent. He shot Father and the Machine hunted him down and electrocuted him.”

  “You’re sure of this?”

  “I am,” said Tristan bleakly. “I was there.”

  Rafe’s teeth snapped together. Mahalia reached across and put her hand on Tristan’s shoulder.

  Tristan sat, head bowed, hand over his eyes for a long moment. He gave a shuddering sigh, then straightened. His head lifted, a defiant smile curved his lips. He clasped Mahalia’s hand for a moment, then gently removed it from his shoulder.

  “I should back up,” he said. “When the guards left me locked in my room, I fetched a pin they’d overlooked in their search for weapon-like objects. I picked the lock.”

  “Good man,” said Rafe. “So that lesson took.”

  “White Oak did spend a lot of time breaking out of prison that time you visited,” agreed Tristan. “And then, because I knew no one else would tell me anything, I went down to the Machine Room. To Father.