Finally removing himself from my shadow, Kyle
cleared his throat and stepped around me. “We're from a place called Haven.” Lamplight rolled over him, making the ringlets of his brown hair shine. His silver-gray eyes were strong and unwavering. “If this war reaches us, we'll lose everything, and so will you.”
Headly stiffened visibly.
“Haven?” he breathed. The lights cycled overhead, and he sank away in his chair as though he'd just seen something hideous. “Your eyes– that scar. And you... and you...” he trailed off.
Dead
heart’s eyes bulged and his jaw worked as he looked between us. “Sir–”
“
Impostors!” Headly bellowed. “Get them out of my throne room! Arrest them, General! Arrest them!”
Chapter 31: Diplomacy at its Finest
My brain caught up too slowly. His throne room? What about the Prince? Why did Headly look so afraid?
“Arrest us? Why?” I cried out with alarm.
“
We didn't do anything!” Kyle protested.
Rune held his hands up in a show of pacifism.
“Sir, if you'd only listen to our case I'm sure you'd find that–”
Deadheart glowered at us as he marched down from the platform beside the throne.
“Take them,” he ordered his soldiers.
The Hussars lined at the head of the room were on us in an instant. Rough hands grabbed at my clothes, pulling me away from Rune and Kyle. My mind raced, reliving every step, every word. Things had been going so well, what had changed? A shout escaped me as the
cinnamon-haired woman wrenched me painfully aside, and I stumbled when they forced my hands behind my back. Someone kicked me, and I sank down to my knees.
“
Hey!” Kyle shouted, but he was jostled away.
My back hurt. Was that where they'd hit me? I met Rune's gaze. First I saw his love and fear for me. Then I saw his rage.
“No.” My voice came out a whisper. It was too late. He'd already snapped.
“
Get your hands off of her!” Rune twisted out of the grip of one Hussar, and shouldered another out of the way to get to me. “Let her go!”
Another Hussar stepped in, slamming him in the gut with the butt of his spear. Rune buckled over, coughing, and then lashed out. Gripping the spear with both hands, he kicked the Hussar's legs out from under him. Before the soldier could recover, Rune jammed his weight against the weapon, slamming the end of the spear into the Hussar's jaw.
My ears rang and my heart rose into my throat. “Don't fight!” I shouted, struggling to stand straight. “There's been a misunderstanding. We don't want any trouble!”
Could they not hear me?
Two more soldiers flew at him, gripping him by the arms in effort to restrain him. Tucking his broad shoulders down, he bowled through them, flinging them off. He broke the next arm that made contact with him, gripping the soldier by the forearm, and twisting the joint out of socket. The sound was disgusting, and the soldier staggered away, howling. A black-haired Hussar put his weapons aside and punched Rune in the face. An unmatched brawl erupted before my eyes.
I winced, feeling each strike like it had hit me.
“Don't hurt him,” I begged, tears gathering in the corners of my eyes. “He was only protecting me.”
Someone beat Kyle over the back of the head with a spear, and my friend fell face-first to the ground. I
twitched with a combination of confusion and fury. The Spark stabbed at my insides, demanding release. I could fight back. I could blast this room into splinters. And then Brendon, the children, and all of those people in Breakwater would die because of our failure. It wasn't over. It couldn't be.
Someone managed to pull up one of Rune's sleeves and an alarm rang out.
“Dragoon! He's a Dragoon!”
The Hussars had been holding back in the fight, but at mention of their mortal enemy, they exchanged murderous glances and attacked Rune in a dizzying flurry of blows with their spears. Rune staggered down to his hands and knees, and blood poured from his nose, soaking into the royal carpet.
I snapped. The Spark pulsed through my muscles, my skin charged, and I shocked the Hussar holding me. The hands that gripped me fell away, and I encouraged my power to grow. In three seconds I'd have the entire room on their backs. I'd get Kyle and Rune, and we'd run. Somehow we'd run. But I didn't have three seconds. The moment one Hussar fell off of me, another was ready to strike. I didn't see it coming. Something hard hit me in the head, probably a spear. My entire body went weak and I buckled. There was a shout. I may have electrocuted the person holding the spear. My vision doubled.
“
Don't kill him,” General Deadheart ordered above the chaos. “Not here.”
“
We only wanted to talk to your prince,” I babbled. “We needed your help.”
“
I'm afraid it's much too late for that, young lady,” Lord Headly said.
The general's face was set in a deep frown, and his ropey strands of white hair hung over his shoulder
. “Take them away.”
I tried to get up. I wanted to fight.
Pain exploded in my head, sending sunbursts of white light across my vision. This time it wasn't lightning that clawed out to dampen my senses. The world around me became dim and blurry, and my body was suddenly too heavy for me to hold up. I fought for consciousness, I tried to reach the Spark, but I was already slipping.
The last thing I saw was a pile of seven Hussars descending on Rune and beating him to unconsciousness. They dragged us away, and my ears were filled with the sound of my own boots scraping uselessly across the carpet. As I descended into blackness, two words repeated in my mind over and over again. What happened?
What happened?
What happened?
Chapter 32:
Blood and Aquamarine
High branches and bushy leaves cast mottled shadows over us, and the sun brightened our skin where it shown through. The tree beside Dragonfly Lake was enormous and filled with singing birds. Frogs chirped from the cattails, water lapped gently at the shore, and the Clockwork Ferris Wheel turned lazily on its axis. Away down the road, I could see the charming buildings of Rivermarch poking up from the gentle hills and stone bridges. A steam train sounded its horn and chugged in the distance. Farther still, Haven Valley's white-capped mountains looked down on us like adoring parents gazing into a cradle.
I loved the way it felt when the breeze brushed the skirts of my purple cotton dress against my legs. I loved that it was warm enough not to need a jacket. “Lemonade weather,” my dad used to say.
I stared at the edge of Rune's strong jaw as he looked up at the canopy of green and blue.
“Is this what happiness feels like?”
Lacing his fingers into my own, I couldn't help but smile.
“Yes.” I wanted to say the word, but it wouldn't come out. Pain scratched at the back of my mind and I shook it off.
No. This is what life is supposed to be like. This is real.
The surface of the lake began to ripple and the Ferris wheel ground to a halt. The sky went black, and Rune faded away from me.
No!
The ache in the back of my head bloomed, sending cold tendrils of pain down my neck and shoulders. Someone was shouting at me over and over. It was Kyle, and he was burning in the darkness. Flames leapt up around him, twining about his limbs.
My skull pounded and the mind numbing hurt brought me back to reality. I peeled my lids open, but my eyes wouldn't focus. A groan pressed from my lungs.
“Katelyn!” Kyle's voice was hoarse and thick with pain. “Katelyn!”
I hung from my shoulders. Two sets of hands were linked beneath my arms, dragging me ahead. Sluggish and disoriented, I tried to put a foot down, hoping that I could stand. My captors yanked me along, and my ankle rolled. I couldn't make any ground. The distinct scent of raw oxygen filled my nose. So familiar.
The hands heaved me back and flung me. I didn't fall far. My vision returned just in time to see the stagnant surface of a glowing aquamarine pool rushing up to strike me. I hit the water flat, and the impact shocked me awake.
With my hands still tied behind my back, I sank helplessly to the bottom. Ribbons of pink liquid twined up through my floating hair, leaving a trail overhead. Had I been bleeding? Kyle plunged down beside me, kicking and struggling to free his arms. I twisted in the dry water, feeling it numb my pain. Above us, I could see several rippling figures, and then darkness as they sealed and locked the entrance. There was no going back the way we'd come.
Glowing pools like this one had acted like gateways linking two far away destinations. They were how we'd passed beyond our impenetrable mountain border and left Haven. But where was it they were sending us now? Home?
Touching down on the pool floor, I let the strange water numb my pain and tried not to think about how such an unusual substance was made.
Entire human bodies were drained to make this– from spirit to skin. They were compressed, somehow, to make this liquid. Why doesn't it feel disgusting? Why is it so beautiful?
I cursed myself inwardly. It was just like me to avoid a subject, and then gravitate to it. Floating gently along the bottom of the dry water pool, I enjoyed the sensation of not needing to breathe. Down here, I could let go of everything that hurt. Maybe I wouldn't need to remember what had just happened to us either.
Rune! They took him!
Alarm quaked through me, breaking the still water's soothing trance. How could I let myself be lulled into lethargy like that? I may have only lost a collection of seconds, but with Rune beaten and stolen away from me, seconds were as precious as hours. I bobbed up to my feet and pulled at the ties on my wrist, but they held fast.
Kyle drifted down beside me. The aquamarine glow painted us like wraiths. His curly hair straightened as it floated around his head. In the near weightlessness of the water, he looked tall, ageless, and his pointed features made him seem ethereal. Nothing like the sloppy kid with accidental charm.
Kyle pointed up with his chin, motioning away to the right. There was another opening on the opposite end of the pool. I showed him my wrists behind my back. We'd need our hands to climb out.
My heart quickened with the panic of being tied and contained, but I forced myself to calm down. I needed to think clearly. Stretching my fingers, I felt my bonds. They were rope. If I could electrify my wrists, the rope might burn off. Concentrating on the power within me, I called up the Spark. Power surged just beneath the skin, buzzing, but it didn't extend any farther. The water must have dampened my Abilities to external nonexistence.
Experimenting, I attempted to use the Pull to find Haven. Again, there was no response. Perhaps something closer would work. I thought of finding Kyle, who was right before me. Nothing.
No Abilities in the dry water pool.
Kyle had a plan of his own. His face hardened with determination as he buckled down, folding his chest over his knees. Slowly, he stretched his arms, nimbly threading his backside, then his legs, and finally his feet, through the opening. He pushed up off of the pool floor, with his hands tied in front of him.
If I'd have tried the maneuver, it would have been laughable, and probably humiliating, but I was certainly glad he was so flexible.
It didn't take him too long to untie the knot and free my wrists from their bindings. As soon as the ties floated away, I set myself to work on Kyle's hands. Using my short nails and thin fingers, I was able to loosen the ties and slip the rope off of him.
As soon as we're out, the pain is going to come back.
I wanted to warn him, but the water didn't allow for speech any more than it did Abilities.
Steeling myself for the inevitable, I launched from the bottom and swam up to the surface. In a moment, my skull would ache and burn, and I would find out where they'd sent us.
Chapter 33: A Writhing Floor
I broke from the glowing aquamarine water, and paid for every inch of freedom with a currency of pain. Fire spilled from where I'd been struck in the head, down my body. I'd been through much worse, but these pools could convince a person that hurt was a figment of the imagination. Hooking onto the surface with my arms, I dragged my body up and out of the water. Gravity pressed down on me, and I wished that I could have kept the weightlessness too. As expected, I came out as dry as a sunny day. Why, then, was my hair twined and slick with moisture? I touched the back of my head, and my fingers shimmered with red blood in the blue light.
Kyle came up after me, and I helped to pull him up from the water.
The pain must have struck him too, because he crawled out on hands and knees, grunting.
“Are you okay?” he asked me.
“
Yeah, but Rune–”
“
Your head is bleeding.”
“
I'm fine,” I insisted. “We have to go find him!”
Kyle pushed himself up onto his knees and inspected the wound on the back of my head.
“Hold still.”
I hissed through my teeth. The cut on my scalp stung as he pressed his palm down on it. Kyle's Ability was swift to action, and in moments, the gash sealed and my bleeding stopped. The throbbing in my head re
ceded, and I couldn't help but sigh through rounded lips.
“
We can't waste any more time,” I said, as soon as I'd gotten another breath into my lungs. “They could kill him.”
We helped each other stand up, lit only by the glow of the pool at our feet.
“There's nothing we can do for him right now.” Kyle was the kind of person who didn't pad the truth for anyone, but he didn't look happy about what he was saying either.
I knew he was right, and that upset me all the more. I couldn't bear to admit helplessness. That General had condemned him. What were they going to do? Beat him? Break him? Kill him? All he'd ever wanted was a normal life. He learned to fight for that seemingly impossible ideal, and this is how life would repay him? Fury seared through my middle.
“Don't say that! I'm not going to leave him like this!”
Kyle let the silence around us sink in for a moment. I'd yelled at him. It was an unfair thing to do, and I awaited the repercussions.
“You really like this guy, don't you?”
I would have fought for any of our friends, but with Rune it was different. We'd been through so much together. Memories of Sheer Town washed up against me and I held them close. Why did he have to fight for me? If he would have just let them hit me... My heart swelled and I choked back the urge to cry. I nodded to Kyle, the only response that wouldn't lead to tears.
He grabbed onto me by the arms, and tilted his head to ensure eye contact. “Kat, look at me. We'll find him. But we need to find ourselves first. When they threw us into the dry water, I tried to swim back up. They closed the way with a stone hatch. There's no way we can go back through.”
He was right. Of course he was right.
“Yeah.” If Rune had learned about freedom from me, then I would learn about being a soldier from him. The way forward was all that mattered.
I analyzed our surroundings. The room was little more than a simple chamber with a rounded ceiling. Great slabs of stone made up a narrow walkway around the pool and broke away, leading into a darkening tunnel. There was only one
direction we could take.
The passage was tight enough to inspire a cold sweat on my forehead.
“Close quarters,” Kyle said, reading my mind. He, at least, didn't look like he'd throw up from the effect of the tunnel, but that was more than I could say for myself.
I grumbled.
“I don't have anything good to say about it, so I'm going to keep my mouth shut.”
“
Probably for the best,” Kyle quipped. “We're running out of light here. A little help?”
I held up a hand, and it flashed brightly.
He recoiled. “Not so much!”
“
Well, make up your mind,” I griped back at him, and cut the energy down by half. Purpose replaced fear and my heartache drew away with the retreating darkness.
He's going to make it. I'll find him. I will.
The tunnel led up a stairway to a pair of gold-leafed hatches with vine-shaped handles. Kyle reached them first, but skittered back down the steps. “I don't want to do it,” he winced.
“
Do you think
I
want to?” I asked, stooping beside him. The unknown lurked outside those doors. “There could be a hoard of bloodthirsty cannibals on the other side.”
“
I don't want
you
to go first either,” he complained.
I could have agreed with him on that, but I refused to be weak. The sooner we found a way out of wherever we were, the sooner I could find Rune and see how ticklish electricity could make the iron plate in General Deadheart's chest. I didn't want to kill him, or anyone, but I'd happily settle for incapacitating him. When I saw Lord Headly again, I planned to have a nice, long chat with him.
“Well too bad,” I said to Kyle, and hefted the hatch over my head. It slammed back on its hinges, and the sound echoed long enough to make me worry. I climbed out before I could change my mind, and defensively, my arms bristled with electricity.
Light bounded up around me, but it was hardly a match for the cavernous darkness. Kyle climbed up after me, shielding his eyes from my glow.
“Are you
trying
to blind me?”
“
Where are we?”
The floor underfoot was swirling blue-gray marble. Around us, it was smooth, polished, and reflective, but five steps in either direction, the fine surface was padded in thick layers of white dust. We were at the back of a hall twice the width of those in Caraway Keep. The ceiling was so high that it made me gasp. I wondered if I couldn't see the top, or whether my light simply couldn't penetrate such a formidable gathering of darkness. At our left, three-story windows stretched out along the length of the hall, too crowded with dust and webbing and the blackness of night to provide us with a view. Our right was a maze of stairwells and doors, bridging and crossing one another to lead off along what must have been a multitude of passages. All of the doors wore heavy black chains, and locks that looked wicked and stubborn.
Twelve-foot-tall statues rose up on either side of the hall in intervals. Each one was a man or a woman, and some held staves, books, or food. The light of my electricity bounced off of their faces, creating the illusion that their straight expressions were changing in subtle ways. There were chairs, benches and long display tables, all draped in webbing.
“
Whoa,” Kyle said spinning in a circle to look around us.
“
Where
did they send us?” Our voices sounded lonely in the vast silence of the open hall.
“
Not to Haven, that's for sure.”
“
It looks like a palace. Maybe this is where Prince Varion really lives.”
“
You think we'd be that lucky?” Kyle asked, stepping cautiously into the field of dust. It puffed up around his shoes, and I wrinkled my nose.
“
If that's what you call lucky. Do you have any better ideas?”
“
Not one,” he admitted. “Where does the Pull want to take you?”
I concentrated on Rune, Carmine, Dylan, and even Sadie, and each of them brought me toward the same point: the hatch with the aquamarine pool. When I thought about Haven, I felt myself wanting
to walk away toward the windows. In Breakwater, Cape Hill, and our journey across the open sea, I could always figure out the direction I faced, but here, I hadn't the slightest idea. It was too unfamiliar.
I flexed my fingers for warmth. Had it always been this cold, or did I only notice just now?
“It's just... ugh. It's just pointing us back. The dust is cleared off this way. We should follow it.”
“
Yeah, that sounds like a horrible idea.” Kyle puffed a breath into his own palms and rubbed them together. “If something unfriendly is in here, we'll be heading right for it.”
“
And it's the fastest way to find out where they've put us.” I wouldn't let any more time slip away when Rune needed me. Stalking ahead, I let Kyle follow me. “Don't worry, Kylie, I'll protect you.”
He gave me a sour smile.
“I should have never told you about that.”
“
What are parents for, if not giving us ridiculous nicknames?” A grin slipped past my chattering teeth.
Gravity, it was still. The air was as trapped as we were, stuffy and stagnant, despite the size of the chamber. If I were blind, I'd think that we were treading through the tomb passages of the mausoleum beneath Rivermarch. Strange to think, I might have taken comfort in that. Once, it had been the most frightening place I'd ever walked, and now, I'd thrill to see the rows of candles I'd lined up on those curving stone steps. Aside from the closeness of the air we breathed, there was still nothing familiar about our surroundings. At least it wasn't as suffocating as Shadows within Shadows.
Kyle rubbed his arms and walked close behind me. “Figures that you'd have the butt-kicking Ability, and I'd be stuck with healing. If we could trade, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't want to walk in front either.”
I laughed, and the jubilant sound seemed unnatural in such a somber place.
“Oh, don't give me that excuse. We didn't always know that we had Abilities, and that never stopped me from doing anything stupid. Who was the first one to box-sled down mud hill?”
“
That was almost a sheer drop!”
“
So? I lived, didn't I?”
Kyle snorted.
“You're right, I shouldn't bother comparing myself to a proven crazy person.”
“
No, you shouldn't.” When my eyes slid over the face of a particularly severe statue, I didn't look away.
“
The dreams have been getting to me. I hardly feel like myself anymore. I mean,
me
? Freak out because of a
dream
? It sounds pathetic just saying it. If I were you, I'd tell me that I'm being stupid.”
“
You're being stupid.”
“
Funny, it doesn't sound as good on
this
side of the conversation. But, you know, it could be worse.”
“
I've been saying that to myself a lot lately.”
He let out a dry chuckle.
“At least I'm not
that
guy.” Kyle pointed up at a looming statue with a scowl that was even worse than the last. “Look at him. Immortalized in stone while he was clearly constipated.”
I grinned despite our circumstance.
“You know, I think these were real people. They all look unique.”
“
Well, they might have wanted to stand in front of the sculptor on a different day. Fiber. It's an important part of anyone's diet.”
Only Kyle could make a place like this feel less grim.
“Good job. You've officially insulted the dead in what could quite possibly be their place of rest.”
“
Hah. This isn't a gravesite! And don't start with your ghost stories. There's no such thing.”
“
Says the guy with the spooky dreams.”
“
That's different.”
Our irreverent conversation came to a halt when my searching light touched the room's boundary and raced up the substantial height of the wall. A pair of hundred-foot-long tapestries drooped from their hangings before us. Though large sections were moth-eaten and threadbare, I still found evidence of their exquisite origins in the delicate crests of blue and gold weaving. Between the two decaying panels of cloth stood a set of dark wood doors. At two
stories in height, I doubted we had the combined strength to push one open.
“
Looks like this is where we turn around,” Kyle said with bright enthusiasm.
“
No, look,” I held an electrified hand out and let a sheaf of lightning extend a little farther from my fingertips. The doorway brightened, and the gathered shadows retreated into a deep crack at the middle of the entryway. “It's open.”
He submitted with slumped shoulders.
“Fine.”
We made for the opening in nearly complete silence. Only the sounds of our shoes tapping on the marble floor accompanied us into the forbidden interior. I was glad to leave the unseeing eyes of the statues behind us, but I wondered if we'd traded our eerie surroundings for something more sinister.
I passed the wilted tapestries, and slipped between the two doors that were thicker than my entire body. My heart rate doubled as we trespassed within. Keenly aware of Kyle's feeling of defenselessness, I ignited both of my arms for protection as much as light.