Rafe gathered the Keys back into their drawstring bag. They were warm from the contact with the ground. “Isabella doesn’t like you. Why?”
Bryony examined the sky and replied in a lazy drawl. “Isabella doesn’t like
any
one. I hardly think it’s personal.”
Rafe just looked at her.
“Well, all right.” Bryony sat up and crossed her legs. “She’s had you wrapped around her little finger, doing what
she
wants, and she doesn’t want anyone else with half a mind or one independent thought jumping in and spoiling things.”
“That’s hardly a flattering image of me,” Rafe replied drily.
Bryony smiled at him fondly. “You’re a dear, Rafe, but you’ve hardly known women. You have no idea how manipulative we can be. We’re juggling several intrigues at any one time, and planning for many more. And as for not doing what dear Isabella wants, you’re
here
, aren’t you? Traveling on her train, outfitted by her people, guarded by her daggers. She’s got the coin, and she’s got the weapons.
She
scouts,
she
watches. I’m lucky I get to be the camp cook, and then she’s hovering over me to make sure I’m not poisoning the stew.”
“I wanted to be here,” Rafe pointed out.
“Like this? Without Oakhaven’s support? Without a military unit for backup? Indebted to someone else?” Bryony leaned toward him, eyes dark and intense. “Who framed you, Rafe? Who
wanted
you powerless or dead or just out of the way?”
“I don’t know. I
will
find out, but this comes first. This is important.”
Bryony let out her breath on a sigh. It misted in the chilly air. “Duty and country first with you, as always. I’m glad I’m here to watch your back, Rafe. And to side with you against whatever schemes Isabella has in mind.”
“Side with me? What happened to independence of thought?” teased Rafe.
“Provided, of course, that you think in a rational, Bryony-approved manner,” she amended. Then, “Oh, look, is that the Flying Horse?”
They pointed out constellations to each other for several moments. Bryony knew only a couple on sight; Rafe, who could name most of the brighter stars, did most of the talking.
“I can’t believe I’ve never asked you to take me out here before. It’s so calm and peaceful, after all the noise and demands of the city. I can almost say that Karzov fellow did me a favor when he had me kidnapped.” Bryony’s tone was light but Rafe felt a tremor go through her body. He squeezed her hand. Then he reached to his belt and removed the holster with the handgun he’d appropriated from the Rocquespur train.
“Here.”
“What’s this?” Bryony raised her eyebrows.
Rafe pressed the handgun into her hand. “I don’t want you to be defenseless. You’re can’t win in unarmed combat with a man and you can’t fight against numbers, but this might equalize things a little. Next time.”
“You think there will be a next time?”
He wouldn’t lie to her. “Probably.”
Bryony pulled out the gun. Steel glinted in her eyes. “Then show me how this works.”
When he had finished her tutorial, they lay back to watch the stars. Neither wanted to return to the shelter just yet.
The Barrens would never be beautiful the way the agri-caves were, but there was something striking about the agelessness of rock and stars. The way the silences stretched out like vast coverlets, measured in miles. The quiet fall of snowflakes, the way they dissolved into the warm ground. The silhouettes of the hills, the rise and fall of the land, like a frozen sea, with its star-spangled shroud thrown overhead. The constellations rotated in slow grand turns, cycle after endless cycle, the mountains seemed changeless. It was like a picture—or a map…
“That’s it.” Rafe sat up. He grabbed the drawstring bag.
“What is?” asked Bryony.
The Keys tumbled out into his hand, and spilled onto rock. “These
are
part of a puzzle, only not the kind I thought it was. I’ve been trying to put them together in a sequence, hoping to line them up right, so they’ll show us the way to the Tower. Only they’re not a sequence, but part of a
map
.” The Keys buzzed against his fingers, a slight sound. The friendly touch reassured him.
He arranged the Keys once more, this time as symbols for the agri-caves they represented. If Shimmer was over
here,
then the Oakhaven agri-caves were over
there
. The Keys thrummed as he moved them around and the knot of ka inside them changed, subtly. One color burned brighter than the rest—orange.
Holding his breath, Rafe teased out the orange in each Key, and fed it into the patterns on their surfaces. The patterns shifted and changed, projecting speckled light into the air above the Keys. Slivers of sky. Constellations. Star maps.
They weren’t in the right order, though. Rafe muttered to himself as he moved the Keys around, “No, the Knife is never next to the Horn. Oh, Sarana goes here, between Dirgo and the Horse.” As he placed the pieces in a circle, the Keys hummed happily. Metal prongs slid from their sides, attaching Key to Key.
Rafe examined the shapes on the Keys themselves. They resolved into silhouettes of mountains, at least one of which was distinctive shape. “Bubble Mountain,” he breathed. “I’ve been there.”
“So, all we have to do is traipse along in its vicinity and hope to stumble across the Tower?” said Bryony, leaning in, peering over his shoulder.
“No.” Rafe turned the ring around so that it mirrored the night sky above, miniature Sarana blinking right under the gaze of the real one. He grinned. “Look.” Numbers appeared at the bottom of each Key. “Coordinates.”
“You can read them.” Isabella spoke from behind them. Bryony started, put a hand on Rafe’s shoulder.
Rafe craned his neck and spoke over his shoulder. “Yes.”
“How far from here?” asked Isabella.
“Not long. A day or two at most. Look, you can see Bubble from here. We just need to move counterwards from here, to put all these landforms in their right spots.”
“And when all the mountains are in the right position…” said Bryony, eyes widening.
Rafe grinned. “…then we’re standing right on top of the Tors Lumena.”
“We’ll get moving by Seed tomorrow,” said Isabella. She shifted her gaze to Bryony. “You can stay at the shelter if you’d like.”
“No, I wouldn’t like, actually. I’m coming with you.” Bryony smiled sweetly, but her eyes held no mirth.
Isabella shrugged. “As you wish. Your feet are going to hurt like a nestful of angry bees tomorrow, but it’s your business. Remember, if you can’t keep up, you stay where you are.”
“No one’s being left behind,” interjected Rafe. “We’re in this together, right? Traipsing about in the Barrens alone is a bad idea. We stick together.”
“Speak for yourself.” And Isabella melted back into darkness.
Bryony rolled her eyes. She didn’t have to say that Isabella would do exactly as she said.
The next day, Rafe caught up with Isabella as they scrambled into the valley Rafe hoped to find the Tower in. Bryony had kept pace with them all day, face set with determination, but she’d started to lag. She crept down the slope of broken rock, setting her feet down with a wince she could not quite hide.
“What is between you and Bryony?” he asked, letting his stride lengthen to match her effortless lope. “You’ve been rude to her this whole time, you barely let us get breakfast this morning, and you’re rushing us along as if the Dragon himself were after us.”
“If she can’t keep up, she shouldn’t have come,” snapped Isabella. “This isn’t a pleasure jaunt, it’s about making the most important discovery in centuries. This is about ensuring that humanity even
has
a future this side of the Divide. If she couldn’t keep up, she should’ve stayed behind.”
“She didn’t have a choice in the matter. Not since Karzov kidnapped her. On my account.” He pulled Isabella to a stop and turned them both around. “I need to catch my breath,” he told her, daring her to contradict him.
She didn’t. “She could’ve stayed with Sable on the train,” argued Isabella. “Or she could have gone home.”
“Thanks to me, she doesn’t have one,” said Rafe. “Oakhaven would interrogate her if she went back; Karzov would gladly get his hands on her again just to flex his own muscles; and Sable—like the two of us—is a wanted woman. Nowhere is
safe
for Bryony anymore. She didn’t ask for all this, but I haven’t heard her say a word against me for destroying the life she’d begun to build for herself.”
“And so she
deserves
to come on this adventure. Is that it, Rafe? Because life was not
fair
? Sel, Rafe! She’s a burden, a liability! She can’t walk, she can’t carry, she can’t fight worth anything. Look at this place!” Isabella swung her pocket magelight. Sel was a sliver just past her zenith and gave little illumination. “It’s dark, Rafe. Dark. You know what that means? And I’m supposed to protect both of you?”
“Funny. You never complained about guarding all of Oakhaven.” Rafe crossed his arms. This Isabella, unbalanced, cracking, was different from the one he’d known, but she’d been edgy ever since Shimmer.
Isabella stared at him. She opened her mouth to say something, then shook her head. “Never mind. You’re right, of course.” She made a gathering motion, as if she took up all the emotion that had gushed out of her, folded it small, and tucked it inside her. “One thing you can be sure of is that I’ll handle my end of things.” Her smile was brittle.
“Are we there yet?” Bryony called. Her cheeks were pink from cold and exertion.
Isabella looked at Rafe, who said, “We’re in the right area, but the opening could be anywhere. Furin—that’s the Blackstone surveyor who found the Tower, Bryony— would not have had a machine, and a big opening would’ve been spotted before.”
“But if he had been here,” commented Bryony, “he might have wanted to leave a mark of some sort, to help him find his way back to the Tower again. Say, like an arrow with his initial under it?”
“Yes, he could’ve.” Rafe cocked his head at her.
Bryony jerked her chin toward the rock Isabella and Rafe had stood arguing beside. “Like that arrow right there?”
The other two stared at the faint etching of an arrow.
“Well done, Bryony!”
“Yes, good eyesight,” said Isabella. “We could’ve searched for hours otherwise.”
The unexpected praise made Bryony’s cheeks turn pinker. As Rafe started down the way the arrow pointed towards, he heard Isabella say, off-handedly, “I missed breakfast today. I hear you made particularly delicious oatmeal cakes. May I have one?”
And Bryony’s immediate, “Yes, of course!”
He smiled, his spirits lifting even higher.
Once they knew what they were looking for, they came upon the opening quickly. Rafe was glad he was not relying on his ka-senses because he felt nothing but the lack of it, and his own aching emptiness, as if he’d lost a limb.
When he mentioned it to Isabella, she nodded. “A Tower like this would’ve been a beacon to all the kayan for miles around. It’s probably been shielded.” Isabella gave a wry smile. “Yet another part of the kayan’s knowledge we’ve lost.”
They inserted themselves into the narrow crack. Rafe took off his pack and wedged it through first, then followed. He popped out into the other side, and was immediately grateful that it was wider on the inside. It smelled warm and moist and carried a scent he’d not expected in the Barrens. The scent of growing things.
They crept through the tunnel, Isabella first with the light, followed by Bryony, then Rafe. They went slowly, following its serpentine twists. Fungi began to appear on the damp walls, spotty at first, then in patches and swathes. And finally Isabella didn’t need the light anymore because a great glow came from just ahead, bright and shining. Rafe quickened his step and so did Bryony, pressing past Isabella, who’d slowed down.
“Wait,” Isabella raised her hand as Bryony slipped past. “There might be traps—”
A loud click resounded in the tunnel. Bryony froze. Rafe sprang, but Isabella was faster. She shoved Bryony down to the ground, and half-turned, swinging her pack between her body and the projectile. Even so, the force slammed her against the cavern wall. A chunk of rock tumbled to the ground.
“Are you all right?” Rafe caught Isabella as she doubled over, wheezing. The pack dropped from her hands.
She pushed him away as soon as she had her breath back. “I’m fine. Nothing’s broken or crushed beyond hope, though no hugs for a while, please!” She straightened.
Bryony scrambled to her feet. “I’m sorry.” Her eyes were wide and contrite.
“A stupid little tripwire mechanism.” Isabella snorted in disgust. “Well? What are you two staring at me for? We’ve
found
it. Go, look. Carefully.”
“I’ll go first.” His gaze probing every corner, stopping to check every suspicious surface, Rafe led the way into the light.
Then they all gasped, tilting their heads skywards, and forgot all about traps.
The Tors Lumena rose in great stubby splendor from the broken cavern floor, its tip almost touching the ceiling. It was not a pretty thing, being wide at the base and with a roughly textured surface, but it glowed a bright white and gave off waves of strong heat. Plants surrounded it in messy profusion, but only one dared to grow upon its surface like a badly-crocheted doily.
Dragonlace.
“It’s true,” whispered Bryony. “It’s really true.”
R
AFE REALIZED THAT HE
was still standing, not writhing in quartz-madness. He could sense the immensity of the ka within the quartz, but as from a great distance, muffled as though with layers upon layers of cloth. He forced his gaze away from the quartz. Even unpolished, it shone too bright to let his look linger.
“Look!” Rafe dropped his pack and moved to the wall where twelve oblong cubbies had been crudely hacked out. Each cubby held dusty skeletal remains. “The kayan who died while binding Salerus. They were
here. He
was here. Renat was
here.
” The legend was suddenly a real man, a living man who had walked this very cavern, talked and argued with his companions as they faced the worst disaster their world had ever known, had perhaps even interred his fellows.