Chapter 3
SEREH
Sereh woke disoriented, still dreaming. There it was again, a soft rustling noise.
But even as she blinked into the gloom, she wondered if she’d imagined it.
Her dream was slipping fast, but it had been so vivid.
The baby. A steading. Warmth. Memories of the blizzard from the night rushed to take its place.
By rights, she should be dead, in a snowdrift somewhere.
Icicles hanging from her nose, her clothes encrusted in ice, her corpse waiting to be discovered by the first unfortunate traveller to venture this way.
But she was safe and she was alive. She was gloriously alive!
She snuggled into her cloak against the chill of the morning air and listened to the familiar and comforting sound of Arrow’s breathing.
The wolf-dog had spent the night draped over her legs.
The cave wasn’t warm, but it wasn’t as cold as spending the night outside.
And not just any night; the first night of the Long Day.
One of the longest nights of the rotation, only bested by the Long Night itself.
The wolf-dog began to stir. Sereh didn’t rush her.
She knew her legs would feel hollow when Arrow got up, but it was worth it.
Instead, she lay there, enjoying the luxury of waking in silence and not having to get up, despite the chill.
Usually, she’d be awoken by the other servants, or by Rankil’s shouting and stomping around the steading.
She allowed a smile to steal over her face.
For eight rotations Rankil had been the cause of her waking.
So, she’d allow herself to enjoy this moment.
She doubted the chance would present itself again.
After all, while her survival was miraculous, she’d need to return to Rankil’s steading.
The smile slid from her face at the thought.
For the briefest flutter of breath a different opportunity had presented itself to her.
But no. She would have to return to her life of servitude. It was the only one she had.
Arrow leapt to her paws with a gracefulness Sereh envied.
She moaned as her legs flooded with pins and needles.
Once more, Arrow’s nose was to the ground.
She sniffed where Sereh lay. Sereh risked removing her gloves to run her hand through the wolf-dog’s fur.
The wolf-dog felt warm and her coat was free of icicles, reinforcing the realisation that within their cavern it wasn’t that cold.
‘Good morning, girl,’ she offered, joyfully, banishing thoughts of Rankil.
‘Thank you for finding this place. I can’t believe it was here, just waiting to keep us safe from the storm.
’ Her words sounded overly loud now that the blizzard of last night had blown itself out.
The silence was so complete, it was almost unnerving, as her words echoed back to her.
She glanced around, still unsure what to make of where they were.
Abruptly, her attention returned to Arrow.
The wolf-dog’s ears were pinned back, her tail between her legs, and a soft whine came from her closed mouth.
Sereh had never heard her make such a noise before.
‘What is it, girl? What can you smell?’
Arrow cast her a quizzical look before stalking outside, away from the little cavern she’d found in the darkness of the raging storm.
‘Nothing then,’ Sereh muttered. She struggled to her knees, her legs not yet ready to bear her weight, leaning on the cave’s wall for support.
Beneath her ungloved hands, the wall felt completely smooth. She’d never touched anything like it before.
The interior had been too dark to see much last night.
Now, in the growing light of the second day of the Long Day, she could see the vastness of the space.
The cavern was even bigger than two steadings, stacked one on top of the other.
Bigger even than the Library. The smooth walls rose steeply high above her head, further than the eye could see.
Although daylight came in from the entrance through which Arrow had just left, the walls themselves seemed to glow, a strange pulsing green light, which had no source, as far as Sereh could tell.
From outside, Arrow gave a sharp bark. Shaking her head at her myriad thoughts, which she suspected were more to do with what she’d endured than actual fact, Sereh hurried after Arrow and stepped into the weak sunlight of the second day of the Long Day.
Fresh snowfall covered everything. The sun glowed weakly in the cloudless blue sky.
Sereh blinked in the sudden brightness. Pulling her cloak tighter, she gazed at the rock face, almost entirely obscured by the snow, although clearly visible in the smoothness of the snow now she knew to look for it.
There was no other opening in sight. She guessed they’d been very lucky last night to discover the small cavern entrance when they had.
Once more, Sereh wondered how Arrow had managed to find it in the nightmare of the swirling snowstorm and the all-encompassing black of night.
The rays of the rising sun reached the wall inside the narrow entrance. Sereh felt her breath catch. Her backpack slipped from her grasp. She peered more closely. The deep blackness of the rock was extraordinary. She’d never seen its like. It was so black it seemed to suck the sunlight into it.
‘What is this?’ she asked wonderingly, distracted once more, despite her intention to forget all about it.
She was certain she’d never seen this type of rock before.
She moved back into the cavern and pressed the rock face with her gloveless hands once more.
The rock was cold, but not icy. There was no trace of a seam.
And she couldn’t shake the sensation that, when the sunlight did touch the surface, it revealed shapes cut into the rock, more evident in the disturbed shafts of light than in what she could see.
She felt with her hands, convinced of the notion although now her eyes didn’t reveal it, even when she squinted.
‘What is this?’ she asked once more, as her fingernail quested in and out of something that was most certainly there, even if she could only see the effect of the patterns and not the patterns themselves.
Were they curling shapes? If they were, what did they mean?
They were no script she’d ever seen before, and she didn’t believe they were a natural part of the rock’s formation.
Her stomach rumbled loudly in response, distracting her from the mystery of the cavern.
It had been nearly a whole day since she’d last eaten.
She had some peat cakes in her backpack.
She bent to retrieve it from where it lay discarded and grabbed the food from inside.
Only as she chewed the slightly spongy texture, reminded of the poor food she was often provided with at Rankil’s house, did the spark of her idea reassert itself.
Did she truly need to return to Rankil’s?
She and Arrow had survived outside. All night.
It was unheard of. Yes, a lack of food would be a problem but surely she could survive for a few days, especially if she didn’t eat all the peat cakes now.
There would be little, if any, vegetation growing wildly, and the small wild animals she could easily catch would certainly still be in hibernation, but could she survive long enough to travel to somewhere she’d be safe from Rankil?
After all, her failure to return to the steading would have him assuming she’d frozen to death.
She could escape life under his rule. But she needed food for herself and Arrow for at least the next seven days until the Long Day had become properly established and the snow had started to melt, which is when Arrow would be able to start hunting the small creatures who inhabited their land.
Musing on the unexpected predicament, Sereh hitched up her backpack and began walking along the inky rock face before her. Now she was up and about, outside the relative shelter of the cavern, the wind enthusiastically blowing along the valley edge was making her cold.
She walked some distance, sharing her peat cakes with Arrow, who skipped along beside her.
The wolf-dog seemed to have recovered from her strange behaviour when first waking.
Sereh concentrated on walking above the snow with the aid of her snowshoes.
That was probably another reason why her feet and legs hurt so much, she realised.
She’d fallen asleep with them still on. They weren’t exactly comfortable slippers.
She resolved to forget the tragedy of yesterday.
She’d never be able to forget the baby, but she could make right that wrong by living long enough to report Rankil’s activities to the Full Council.
Maybe then she could earn vengeance for the poor little boy.
Right now she’d allow herself to feel exhilarated by the feel of the sun on her skin.
She closed her eyes and let the weak rays of the sun turn the back of her eyelids yellow and orange.
It was only when something was withheld that you began to appreciate it, she decided.
The sun’s warmth and light was a luxury no one in her world could take for granted.
Abruptly, she had it. Estrith. Her childhood friend. From before her family’s fall.
Estrith would help her. She knew she would.
Calling to Arrow, Sereh began walking back the way they’d come.
Estrith would help her, and she hoped her family would also keep her identity and survival a secret.
She felt light with excitement, even as she struggled to run in her snowshoes.
Eight long rotations had finally come to an end.
All she needed to do was survive long enough to reach her destination.