Authors: Jaclyn Dolamore
We hovered at the edge of the woods, taking stock of the situation. A guard roamed the side of the building, and perhaps more looked from the darker windows—we had no way of knowing. The guard paced, occasionally glancing up at the moon.
“How do we get past him?” I asked.
“A diversion?” Annalie said.
“Nothing that will attract too much attention,” Keyelle said.
“King Belin invited people from all over the realm to this feast,” Esmon said. “Do you think we could just pretend to be late-comers?”
“Not the way we look!” Keyelle said. “Glamours?”
Esmon shook his head. “No, they’ll be trained to see through them, or what sort of guards would they be?”
“I could divert him with my spirits,” Annalie said. “Diverting one man is easy. If there are more guards watching from the windows, then I can only give you that long. But I might be left behind, and I won’t be able to help you find Erris.”
I shut my eyes a moment, almost in prayer—begging my magic to become a beacon to Erris. Familiar frustration crawled over
me—that I had to study magic on my own, that I had no teacher and few books, that even if I wanted to learn magic in a proper way I would be forbidden from practicing. I had to grope and claw my way through each technique, learning more often from desperation than proper instruction.
The first spell I had ever done had come with my breath. I had learned to move and summon heat and fire, even to warm Erris. I could so imagine how it felt to share my own warmth with him, the warmth of my life. I had touched him then. If only I could connect with him now.
If our hopes proved right, he was alive here. He would have his own warmth and life. Could I feel it? Could I find it?
“Nimira?” Annalie said. “Are you all right? What do you think?”
“I can’t feel him,” I said, feeling as frustrated and angry as the first day I tried to move flame. I kept thinking how the jinn had tracked Erris, and how jinn magic was supposed to come from fire. Of course, he was a jinn, and magic came easily to him, but it maddened me, how my own powers didn’t come to me.
The jinn. I had
felt
his magic once. Could I draw from it? Even if I could just sense him, maybe he would know where Erris was. It was terrifically risky, considering he was the same person we had come to fear, but I needed to take some action. I didn’t want to die, but we were
here
. Something had to be done.
I closed my eyes again, inhaled and exhaled, and reached for Ifra.
THE HALL OF OAK AND ASH, TELMIRRA
Belin pushed open the heavy carved doors.
“Your Majesty? Aren’t you wanted in the dining hall?” the guard said.
“Did my father pay you to ask him questions?” Belin snapped. “I need a moment to speak with my betrothed.” He pulled Violet into the dark room. Ifra followed. Just as before, the room was almost pitch-black with the thick branches of ancient trees blocking the scant light the windows might have provided, and the whispering of leaves was even thicker than the darkness.
“We have to hurry,” Belin said. “I don’t know if I can trust those guards anymore, and as he says, they’ll be wanting me to start the dancing soon enough.”
Violet suddenly clutched Ifra’s hand in the darkness. “What is this place?”
Ifra hoped Belin couldn’t see her hand clutching his. “The Hall of Oak and Ash,” Belin said.
“Can you hear them?” she said, her grip almost painfully tight.
“The trees?”
“Yes. They’re sick. I’ve never heard anything like that,” she said. “Oh no. Please, hurry, where is Erris?” She sounded almost frantic. “It’s awful. They want to die and they can’t die, and we can’t
let
them die.” She sniffed. “Won’t you let Ifra talk now?”
“Not yet,” Belin said, making Ifra feel almost as frantic as Violet. For a moment he’d almost forgotten about Belin lifting the wish, and he subconsciously assumed Belin had too, but apparently not.
“Jinn, can you make a light?” Belin said.
Ifra extracted his hand from Violet’s grip and summoned a flame, casting ghostly shadows along the massive trunks of the trees.
“Follow me.” Belin rushed to the throne, which was at the far end of the room, in front of two of the massive trees. He went around the back—Ifra and Violet following—to the farthest edge near the wall, and started prying up the flagstone to the underground passage. He was having trouble on his own, so Ifra quickly moved to assist with his free arm, the one that wasn’t holding the light.
Just as they moved the stone aside, Ifra had the sensation of someone touching him—or looking over his shoulder.
He turned to look at the shadows behind him, but wherever he turned, he felt the presence just behind him. It wasn’t a body, he realized, but the feather-light touch of a warm spirit. He prodded back.
Nimira. It was Nimira. She was tugging at him from somewhere nearby, with uncertain little magical tugs.
He didn’t know what to do. She could be in danger, wherever
she was, but how would Belin react to her? Of course, Belin was freeing Erris, but Ifra still didn’t quite trust him. Even so, Belin was surely safer than Tamin.
Ifra exhaled sharply, making an alarmed noise to catch Belin’s attention. Belin was climbing into the catacombs. Ifra tapped his shoulder and then ran to the door, tracing Nimira’s spirit.
“Is it Tamin?” Belin was struggling out of the passageway again.
Belin’s question tugged at Ifra, demanding an answer, and yet, Belin hadn’t told him to speak, so Ifra had to leave the request unfulfilled. He ran out into the garden just as Nimira came through the side door that led to the forest, an expression of considerable alarm on her face.
The moment I slipped through the garden gate, I was greeted by the sight of the jinn running up to me, and guards off to the left and right, posted at doors. I could have turned around and dashed back, but obviously I’d already been spotted, so instead I froze, praying Ifra was a friend now.
It was terribly hard to shake the image of him destroying Erris.
He put a finger to his lips and motioned with his hands. Was he asking me to be quiet? I was confused. He’d certainly had no trouble speaking the language before, but now he seemed tonguetied. He motioned for me to follow him, back to the door at my left, set in a wall covered in climbing vines.
“Who is that?” the guard demanded. “What’s going on?”
Ifra opened the door and shoved me into a dark room. He didn’t follow, just shut the door on me.
“Who’s there?” a man called. “Ifra?”
“He’s—he’s still outside.” I reached behind me, finding the door handle, but I didn’t think fleeing would do a bit of good.
“Ifra?” Now, that voice I recognized.
“Violet?”
“Nimira?” I saw a shadow flutter, and Violet threw her arms around me as if we’d been the best of friends. “Why didn’t Ifra come back in?”
“Well, the guards were asking who I was ... Maybe he’s ... taking care of them. What’s going on?”
“Erris is here!” Violet cried. “Under the throne. In the death sleep. We have to help him before Tamin gets back—Tamin’s one of the other princes—and Belin’s the king and he’s going to set Erris free so we can show him to the people, and the trees are dying!”
I was quite confused, but I understood one thing:
Erris
. “Take me to Erris. Please. Now. And why is it so dark in here?”
“Ifra has the light,” Violet said. She gently nudged me aside to open the door and look for him.
“We don’t have time for this!” the man screamed. Was that King Belin? “If the guards know—and Tamin’s coming back ...”
“I don’t understand,” I said. “You want to free Erris?”
“Yes,” Belin said. “My family ... we can never be great rulers as long as we’ve taken the throne by such means.”
I didn’t care for Belin’s tone, but he was willing to help Erris, that was the important thing. “All right,” I said, just as Ifra returned, flicking his fingers to summon a flame. We hurried to Belin’s side, and now I could see a narrow passageway leading underground, and my heart was drumming so hard I could barely breathe.
Belin shimmied down and waved for me to follow.
I couldn’t summon any fire myself. I was too shaken with
anticipation. Was Erris here? I couldn’t see until Ifra came down, and then ...
Erris was lying on the ground, mere inches from my feet. It was absolutely my Erris, through and through, even dressed much as I had first seen him, with stockings and breeches and heeled shoes like someone in an old book. He was pale and dirty and I dropped to my knees and started to shake him.
“Erris! Wake up! How do we get him to wake up?”
“I don’t know!” Belin said. “I always heard people wake up from a death sleep eventually.”
“Eventually!” I cried. “Well, what if this isn’t eventually?”
“There are skeletons in here!” Violet shrieked, once Ifra had helped her down. “Let’s bring him out!”
I couldn’t believe I was really looking at Erris. It was as magical and terrifying as the moment when I’d freed him from being trapped at the piano. I put my hand on his chest and I could feel skin and muscle and bone there; I could feel him breathing. I knew that now, of all moments, I needed to keep it together, just a little longer, but I couldn’t even seem to care that Belin and Violet and Ifra were there. My jaw was trembling, so close to tears. I wanted to touch him, kiss him, whisper in his ear.
“I can wake him,” I said. “Please, I know I can. Just leave me alone for a moment. Please.”
“In the dark with the skeletons?” Violet said.
“Yes.”
“Hurry,” Belin ordered, as if he had any better ideas. Erris was right, these Graweldins were an irritating lot. They all climbed back out, and I blocked out the sound of them talking above me. I blocked out everything except Erris, there before me. I pressed my
forehead to his, pressed my hand to his heart, and felt not the tick of clockwork, but the beating of a heart.
“Erris,” I whispered through tears, running my fingers along his soft hair, brushing away thirty years of dust. “Wake up. Please wake up. This is how fairy tales end.” I kissed his lips—dry with disuse, but alive, so alive—and I flooded him with all the warm magic I could summon.
The lips parted, with a soft crack just audible in the silence. A hand slowly lifted to touch my face.
“Nim?” he croaked, and then he coughed a cloud of dust into my face, which was not very much like a fairy tale at all, but I didn’t even flinch. “Am—am I dead?”
“Oh, no. No. It’s just dark. We’re in the palace of Telmirra—”
“In the catacombs ... under the Hall of Oak and Ash?” he whispered. His hands moved to my neck and my shoulders and then back to my hair, and he clutched me close. “But I must be dreaming. How did you get here?”
“I’ll explain later. King Belin wants to speak to you.”
“Wait a moment, wait a moment.” He held me close.
And then he started to cry.
And I started to cry too.
We’d both tried so many times not to cry, and now it was okay. It was okay.
“You did it,” he said. “You saved me.”
“I had help.”
“But it was you. And you know it. You needed help; it was an impossible task, but
you
saved me. And my heart is beating so fast. I haven’t felt that in so long. I’m really alive.”
I touched his cheek, put my face close. “Kiss me.”
“Kiss you now? No, not yet. I haven’t cleaned my teeth in years and it’s really—Let’s just wait.”
I laughed, with a catch in it, and I kissed him anyway, although not like I’d kiss him later.
At least, once we were safe.
Above us, I heard some muffled shouting, the sudden commotion of an opening door. More shouting.
I helped Erris struggle to his feet on stiff limbs before Prince Tamin could find us.
The door burst open, and there was Tamin with fury in his eyes, and his men behind him, two of them holding a woman dressed in black, the other two holding crossbows. They had Annalie, Ifra realized, after a moment of connection. She looked so serene that the men kept jostling her as if trying to get a reaction.
“What are you doing?” Tamin hissed. “Do you want to put our entire kingdom in jeopardy?”
“I want to free Erris,” Belin said.
“But what does he know? How is he fit to be king? Are you so desperate to go against me that you’re willing to let him have the throne?”
“Tamin, we can’t do this,” Belin said. “We’re making the trees sick. Father did this to us, decades ago, and it hasn’t made us stronger. Only weaker. I agree, Erris may not be fit to rule now. But we could help him.”
“Oh, well, I see. You’re going to make a hero out of yourself
now? Somehow I don’t think you intended to bring Ilsin and me along. I mean, you’ve got your betrothed! She is a Tanharrow! A rightful heir! She would have fixed it all with the old magic and you would have been the one looking to the future, so why bring Erris into it at all? I just don’t understand. I don’t think you’re really doing this for any noble purpose; you’re doing it to spite me.”
“Maybe I am,” Belin said. “In part.” He glanced at Ifra. “But the jinn ... he asked me what sort of king I wanted to be. He told me I could be great ruler. And I thought then, that I would like to be that sort of ruler. But I can’t. None of us can. Because of this.”
As Belin spoke, Erris Tanharrow himself appeared, crawling rather shakily out of the catacombs. He looked like someone recovering from a bad bout of influenza, all pale and wasted, but he was up and alive, and even Belin looked a little startled.
Ifra seemed to sense the danger before he saw it; he looked at Tamin and saw the shock and anger in his eyes, saw his fingers gesture an order, saw the crossbow. He dived to cover Erris, taking the bolt in his side, gasping with pain, unable to cry out.
“Ifra!” Violet screamed.
But it took more than that to kill a jinn. Jinn couldn’t even take their own lives with ease—not that Ifra had tried. But he knew poison, knives to the gut, hanging ropes, and even fire were all useless. The curse of a jinn was not death, but to live at almost any cost.