Michelle Sagara (16 page)

“You might as well tell her,” Serian said. “It won’t mean much to her anyway.”

“We’re going to the heart,” Gaedin said, in a much grimmer voice than he’d yet used, “of the green.”

Chapter 13

“How are we going to get to the heart of the green by walking in long caves?”

They both stared at her for that little bit too long.

“Does the Lord of the West March know where we’re going?”

“Given the events of this evening, he will.” Gaedin started to walk.

Serian, however, knelt in front of Kaylin. “Get on my back. I will disgrace my family for the next century—in the best case—if you don’t.”

Kaylin climbed on. “How?”

“I’ll knock you out and carry you.”

“Are you allowed to knock the harmoniste out?”

“I believe intent counts.”

“We do not, however, wish to test that theory.” Gaedin’s voice was clipped. The tunnel branched ten yards ahead; he chose the path to the right, moving at a fast jog. Serian, encumbered by Kaylin, paced him.

“I thought the green would be—I don’t know. Grass. Trees.”

“You were not wrong. But the routes to the heart of the green are many; some are ancient.”

“Tunnels?”

“They weren’t carved by my kin,” Serian replied. “They were carved by underground rivers. These tunnels are ancient. They existed before we arrived in the West March. They will exist long after we are gone.”

“Do they exist beneath all the buildings in the West March?”

“They are seldom carefully explored.” The tone of her voice made clear this was all the answer Kaylin’s question was going to get; to underline that, she’d switched to High Barrani. “But it is difficult to reach the tunnels, which is why—in emergencies—they are used. There are reputed to be many entrances; there is only one exit.”

“And if we’re trapped here by the Ferals?”

She shook her head. “The Ferals—as you call them—will find no way to enter these tunnels. There is, however, a danger that we will not be able to leave.”

“And that?”

“The judgment of the green.”

“The judgment of the green?”

“There is a reason the tunnels are generally considered safe. A risk is always taken when one chooses to enter them.”

“Could I find them, if you weren’t here?”

“It is our belief that you could not—but you wear the blood of the green. It is possible that the heart of the green would allow it.”

“And the small dragon?”

Serian said nothing. The dragon squawked.

* * *

Kaylin didn’t like dark enclosed spaces. She particularly disliked the way those spaces narrowed without warning—and with no guarantee they would widen again. During these stretches, Serian would set her down; Gaedin couldn’t move through them quickly, so Kaylin’s hobbling had no consequences.

She was afraid to speak to Nightshade, Lirienne or Severn. Even Ynpharion’s sullen and unending rage had banked; there was no time for hating on Kaylin when he was fighting for his life. Humiliation at her existence wasn’t enough to make him give up.

“Serian,” she said, when they had scraped their way through a gap that would have made a small child squeamish. “No one talks about the lost children. Do you know their names?”

Silence.

“Serian?”

“Yes. Only one is spoken.”

“Teela.”

Serian nodded. She slowed as Gaedin stopped; the tunnel had once again branched.

“If there’s only one way out, why does the tunnel branch? This isn’t the first time.”

“There is only one way out,” Gaedin replied. “There is no guarantee that we will reach it. The tunnels are a test.”

“Like the test of name.”

“Entirely unlike the test of name,” was his curt reply. “We are the people of the green. It is expected that we will be able to find our way to its heart.”

“And if we can’t?”

“We will die here.”

“Does every citizen of the green have to take
this
test?”

Silence.

“Is there
any
Barrani culture that doesn’t involve tests where failure is death?”

“It would hardly be a test,” Serian replied, “if failure had no consequences.”

Barrani. “Is there anyone, anywhere, who would tell me the names of the other eleven children?”

Gaedin and Serian exchanged a glance. “There is almost no one you would not offend were you to ask,” Serian finally replied. “Do not ask Lord Avonelle. Do not ask Lord Evarrim. Do not—”

“A list of people I
could
ask would be more useful.”

“You could, in my opinion, ask An’Teela.”

“She won’t answer.”

“Yes. But she will also refrain from plotting your death.”

“She trusts me to get myself killed,” Kaylin replied.

“I begin to understand why. The lost children are not mentioned because even mention draws attention. They have no names, Lord Kaylin. Your kind is accustomed to this. You have no names. Your life—and your death—your freedom and the coercion you face from the more powerful, are not a matter of name. Even if you believe in souls, as so many humans do, your souls are not controlled and contested in the same way; at the heart of all your stories is choice, and the folly of choice.”

“Serian.” Gaedin’s voice was weary.

“You are not certain?”

“No.” He stepped back.

“Not certain about what?” Kaylin asked, as Serian set her down. The small dragon squawked. “The direction to take?”

They exchanged another glance, which was distinctly more familiar to Kaylin, she’d seen it in the Halls so often.

“You are wearing the blood of the green,” Gaedin finally said. “I believe the choice of path must be yours.”

“How did you choose so far?”

He didn’t answer.

She turned to Serian. “You’ve done this before. You’ve both done this before.”

“Yes. But the path alters, Lord Kaylin. It is not—it is never—the same. It is taken when the alternatives are more immediately dire.”

“And have people been lost here? I mean, people you actually knew?”

Gaedin said nothing. Serian, however, said, “Three. One does not seek the protection of the green for trivialities.”

“So—we could just take a wrong turn and never find our way out?”

“Indeed.”

“So we could have
already
taken a wrong turn?”

“Yes.” Gaedin exhaled and added, “We have not, yet.”

“How do you know?”

“I know. This juncture, however, is not clear to me. It is not, before you ask, clear to Serian, either.”

And it was supposed to be clear to Kaylin? There wasn’t much in the way of signs. There were no distinguishing marks on the floor or walls that gave any clues.

Lord Kaylin,
kyuthe
, where are you?

Apparently? In a maze of tunnels. You’re safe?

She felt amusement, anger, and the sharp tang of grief.
No. We are not yet done. You were correct; your rooms were not safe.

Where are the eagles?

The dreams of Alsanis are with the Consort.

Kaylin froze.
She isn’t with you?

No.
She felt his fear, and the deepening of his fury, and she fell silent. She
was
safe. Days would turn safety into a slow death by starvation if they made the wrong choice here, but safety was like that, in the end. There was no certain safety. Kaylin, of all people, should know that.

She couldn’t touch the Consort the way she could her brother. She couldn’t know—because he didn’t—whether or not the Consort was safe.

She did know that Terrano had been willing to allow the Barrani to pass if they left the Consort to him. Did he want to destroy his former people? Did he want something else from the Consort?

And if he did—

“Right,” she said. She pushed past Gaedin, her ankle throbbing, her visceral fear greater than pain. The ankle wasn’t broken. “Go right.”

* * *

Give the Barrani this, they didn’t question her. Having dumped the responsibility squarely in her lap, they followed. She couldn’t tell them what she now feared, in part because she was afraid to name it herself, and in part because she’d have to explain how she knew.

But it was fear in the driver’s seat. Fear, and a sense of helplessness. She couldn’t find the Consort, she couldn’t help her, if she was trapped beneath the ground in a series of stupid and unpredictable tunnels. She didn’t doubt what Gaedin and Serian had told her: there was only one right way, only one true path.

Standing and staring in the near dark while waiting, while knowing—and she touched Nightshade, she touched Lirienne, she even borrowed Ynpharion’s viewpoint—that there might still
be
time, that there might be something she
could
do was impossible. She couldn’t do anything from these tunnels. The possibility of being trapped here with no way out became vastly less terrifying, because by the time they were certain they couldn’t leave, it would be way too late.

Speed was of the essence.

Waiting, trying to make the
right
choice just guaranteed that making the right choice would also be pointless. It would be too late.

She cursed her ankle, and stopped. She couldn’t hobble like this, and she couldn’t depend on Serian’s strength to see her through—not when she had other options. The small dragon squawked.

“I know, I know—I’m going as fast as I can.” But she wasn’t. She inhaled, exhaled, and then looked at her foot—from the inside. From the same mental space she occupied when she healed anyone else. Her body hadn’t been born with a bad ankle; in a few weeks, it would be as good as new. Probably.

But she didn’t have to wait a few weeks. She almost never healed herself. Why? Why was that?

It didn’t matter. Barrani didn’t like to be healed because too much was revealed in the process, but Kaylin
was
herself. What was there to see that she didn’t already know?

The glyphs on her arms and legs began to warm, but it wasn’t the heated pain that proximity to magic caused, and the heat, instead of scorching, soothed. It sank beneath her skin—maybe because she let it—and traveled down her limbs, settling at last in the ankle she could suddenly feel. She was used to thinking of this as “sight,” although she did it with her eyes closed. But she could sense the torn ligaments, the stretched muscles, and the bruising; she knew what parts of the ankle made walking painful, and she knew how to change the shape of those things, channeling warmth and heat and magic into the shape of what it would become with time and rest.

Rest. Hah.

She stepped, firmly, on the ankle. It held her weight without a twinge. Beyond that, she didn’t think; she began to move, and the Barrani followed in silence. If Serian had questions about her previous injury, she kept them to herself.

* * *

Gaedin’s light was steady; it illuminated the tunnel in front of Kaylin, and it didn’t bobble or waver as he ran. She came to two more junctions; she jogged right at the first and left at the second. It was arbitrary; she didn’t feel that one way was the right way, and one wrong. The dragon made the occasional noise, but settled into a more relaxed sprawl on her shoulders. It shouldn’t have brought comfort, but it did.

When they exited the tunnels, she’d expected to feel relief. And she did, but it lasted a handful of seconds. As tunnels sometimes did—at least in story—these ended in a large cavern. The height couldn’t be seen; the light that had served to make a run through the tunnels safe didn’t reach that far.

Serian touched her arm and drew her around. “You have never entered this maze,” she said, voice low, breath completely even. “This is where we must be, Lord Kaylin. You’ve done well.”

“It’s a cavern,” was her flat reply. She’d been jogging along the wall, heading right, and there was no sign of any other tunnels. It was like a giant dead end, unless there were stairs somewhere beyond the periphery of her vision.

Gaedin surprised Kaylin; he chuckled. “It is,” he told her, “and it is not. The walls will tell you nothing; it is now the center that we want.” He took the lead, drawing the light away and forcing Kaylin to follow; he moved quickly.

Kaylin, after the first stubbed toe, was grateful for his speed.

* * *

In the center of the cavern were two things that were immediately obvious. The first was the bottom end of a tree, or what Kaylin assumed was the bottom; there were roots. There were a
lot
of roots. As she’d spent a week stubbing her toes or tripping over smaller versions of the same, she recognized them.

The second was a river. The tree was planted in the river, and the roots, anchored to stone on either side of its current. Water rushed over them, and it seemed to Kaylin, watching, that the river sloped down. She had no desire to jump in to see where it went. Instead, she glanced at her companions, and headed—with care—toward the widest part of the tree she could reach. Reaching involved a fair amount of climbing, but Kaylin was good at that, wide skirts and trailing sleeves notwithstanding.

The small dragon squawked. He batted her face with a wing. This time, Kaylin adjusted the angle of her face and looked through it. She saw a lot of bark. But the bark was faintly luminescent; Gaedin’s magical light had nothing to do with the uniform, silver glow. She continued to climb, letting her hands fall away from wing until she’d reached a stable slope; the dragon stretched his wing again when she came to a stop.

This time, she could see a more concentrated silver; it was to her left, and about six feet above where she was standing. The interweave of roots could just reach that light; it would certainly bring her close enough that she might be able to see its source. When she slid, Gaedin caught her and heaved her up, and she navigated footholds in the rough, but sloped root. There was dirt beneath her fingernails and in the creases of her palms; she didn’t even want to look at what was on the dress, but of the two—Kaylin or dress—she knew which was more important.

She didn’t even swear when she reached the source of the light and saw it was a ward. A door ward.

* * *

“I don’t have to bleed on this, do I?”

Silence. After a pause, Serian said, “on the tree?”

“On the ward.”

The glance that passed between the Barrani might as well have been a shout.