10. Persuasive Communication #2
Green fire in stone lanterns flickered, and as we passed through their halos of eerie light at the base of each staircase, I felt like we were sinking deeper into a lake.
“This way,” Orla hissed at us before whisking Tiernan around a corner.
A grand archway towered overhead, welcoming us into a vaulted foyer.
The echoing of our footsteps across the polished black floor set my nerves on edge.
Everything seemed louder in here, from our harried pace to the hum of Ciarán’s thoughts threatening to burst into my skull from his end of our connection.
The foyer branched out into a semi-circle of adjoining corridors, but Orla led us down one without hesitation. Wherever we were going, she was very familiar with the path to get there.
The corridor ceiling felt cramped after being in the airy foyer, and Orla held a tiny purple flame aloft to scan the doors that lined the walls as we passed through.
“Where are we?” I asked.
“The Scholars’ Quarters.” Orla squinted at a door but carried forward again.
“You think Iseult might be here?”
It wasn’t a bad guess. Iseult had carried a knowledgeable air in the short time I’d known her, and we were only here for her because she supposedly contained some secret Lyrian information that would help us get to Keldori. She’d probably feel right at home among the Second Sentinel’s scholars.
“No, but there’s someone here who might know where she is.” Orla turned a corner, still scanning every door.
The deeper into the mountain we wandered, the more apprehensive I became. The doors were all dark, so it was safe to assume their occupants were all asleep. However, if any one of the scholars living here decided to get up and take a walk, we’d be found.
“Here!” Orla stopped in front of a door that looked like all the others, but a hazy green light spilled out from beneath it. “Oh, good. He must be awake.”
She looked up and down the hall, locked eyes with me, grimaced, and knocked.
A moment’s silence filled the corridor, and Ciarán tensed next to me, but then the wooden door creaked inwards to reveal a disheveled young man.
He could’ve been Orla’s twin. Their eyes were the same green, and they were even the same height.
His chin, however, was a bit broader and his hair, longer than Orla’s pixie cut, swooped upwards like Ferrin’s.
While I’d only ever seen Orla in clothes fit for travel and the occasional scuffle, this man donned a floor length robe of emerald and black.
“Orla?” His eyes grew wide.
Orla fell into him. “Cade.”
Cade’s disbelieving arms wrapped around his sister, but he stared at Ciarán, Tiernan, and me over her shoulder as they embraced.
“What’s—why are you here?” He pried her off him and glanced down the corridor. “Come on. Inside. Before someone sees you.”
Cade’s living quarters reminded me of a college dorm, if college dorms were carved out of rock. The late hour made the absence of windows less noticeable, and a green flame flickered inside an obsidian bowl on a wooden desk, doing its best to throw light into the corners of the small space.
The door clicked shut behind us, and a burst of fresh Skal-light threw the room into sharp relief. Ciarán pushed me out of the way, putting himself between Cade and me, but Cade’s hands were full.
He held Tiernan against his chest with a dagger of green Skal sizzling in his hand and pointed at Tiernan’s throat.
“Cade—” Orla started towards her brother, but stopped when Cade brought the Skal-weapon closer to a feebly struggling Tiernan.
“You better talk, and you better talk fast,” Cade demanded in a hiss.
“He’s with Ferrin,” Ciarán growled. “This was a mistake.”
“I’m with no one, but my uncle told me Orla deserted her duty and joined the Frozen God. Now she’s in my quarters with a Grimguard.”
“Ferrin tried to kill me!” Orla insisted. “Please, let Tiernan go—”
“Grimguards killed our mother!” Cade’s voice raised, and orange light danced against emerald as Ciarán summoned a flickering blade. Cade pressed his own weapon closer to Tiernan’s neck in response, and Orla tugged at Ciarán’s arm, trying to diffuse the stand off.
“Ferrin killed our mother!” she explained. “He’s a liar, Cade!”
“Why would Ferrin kill his own—”
A purple flame sprang forth in Orla’s hand.
“Purple?” His jaw slackened in shock, and his gaze wavered. By the look on his face, it was apparent Ferrin hadn’t told his nephew about Orla’s true heritage.
“Ferrin was trying to release the Frozen God. He needed to kill Oren Quill to do it, so he did, and he killed our mother, too, when she tried to stop him. And then he was going to kill me because he found out Oren was my real father.” Orla let the purple fire die and stepped closer to her brother. “Did he tell you all that?”
Cade remained silent, his dagger still burning dangerously close to Tiernan’s throat.
“He isn’t who you think he is,” Orla continued. “But we can stop him. We’re going to refreeze the Frozen God.”
“But the storm—”
“Doesn’t matter. We can reach the Saergrim from Keldori, but we need a Lyrian to show us how to get there without crossing the Rift.”
“Lady Quill.” Ciarán hissed a low warning.
“We can trust him.” Orla held a staying hand out towards Ciarán but kept her eyes on Cade. “We can trust you.”
Cade’s tight frown loosened into something defeated, and his dagger sputtered into steam.
Tiernan fell forward into Orla’s arms.
“You shouldn’t be here.” Cade pressed against the door at his back. “If that’s all true, Orla, you need to run.”
“We need Iseult. The Lyrian who arrived here with us a few weeks ago. Uncle is trying to force his way into Keldori. We need Iseult if we want to stop him.”
“Stop him?” Cade looked between us—a prisoner who couldn’t stand on his own, a Grimguard suffering from altitude sickness, a blue-haired Nightmare, and Orla.
He was right to tell us to run.
“He’s going to hurt people,” Orla pleaded. “We can’t do nothing, not when there is a way forward.”
“Right.” Cade blinked several times in rapid succession. “Right, Orla, I’m—it’s a lot, okay?”
“I know,” she said through a breathy laugh. “I promise I know.”
Cade shuffled between us to reach the wardrobe next to his desk. The wooden doors creaked on their hinges when he threw it open.
“The Lyrian girl has been helping keep watch at the main entryway during the night shifts. I’m assuming you snuck in, otherwise you would’ve seen her when you entered.” Cade pulled a fresh tunic, boots, and cloak from the wardrobe. “I’m a bit taller than your friend, but it’s better than nothing.”
“What’s this?” Tiernan grunted as Cade passed the clothing his way.
“You can’t travel to Keldori in those clothes. Consider it an apology for holding you at knifepoint.” He gave an awkward chuckle that sounded just like Orla’s laugh.
“Thank you.” Orla wrapped her arms around Cade, and he patted her back.
“It’s fine.” He patted her back. “But you really shouldn’t be here.”
“I know. I just—” She let go and straightened up. “I love you, Cade.”
“Of course, Orla. Be quick. Stay safe.”
Orla pecked her brother on his cheek, and he kept his eyes down as she helped Tiernan back into the hall. Ciarán made a point to leave the room last, and as soon as the door clunked shut behind us, he was in my head.
“It’s a trap.”
“Calm down,” I growled back.
“There weren’t any other cloaks in his wardrobe. Why would he give away his only cloak if he doesn’t intend to immediately recoup it?”
“He can buy a new one in the morning, but Tiernan needed a new cloak now. Besides, Cade wouldn’t hurt Orla.”
Tiernan’s left boot didn’t quite fit over his swollen ankle, and his new cloak billowed behind Orla as she helped him hobble down the hall ahead of us. She trusted her brother, and we would have to trust her judgment.
“Cade won’t hurt Orla,” Ciarán repeated in my head, “but you would’ve said the same about Ferrin not that long ago.”
“Stop being paranoid.”
Except what annoyed me more than anything was that Ciarán was validating the tiny voice in the back of my head—the voice that was mine and not his—that was screaming that something was off.
It was odd that out of every scholar living in Cade’s corridor, he had been awake. What if it wasn’t Iseult waiting for us at the city entrance, but guards ready to take us back up to the prison suite? Or maybe Ferrin himself would be there.
The corridor opened back up into the Scholar’s Quarters main foyer, and I winced again at the sound of our boots echoing across the obsidian floor.
Maybe our anxieties were wrong, though. Maybe Cade had been telling the truth. Maybe it would be Iseult waiting for us at the Second Sentinel’s entrance. It would make for an easy escape, too, with the stairs down the mountain right there.
I was too lost in my own thoughts to take much notice of the stairs and passageways Orla led us down. It had all started to look the same when the grand entry to the city finally loomed ahead.
An engraved arch extended into a tunnel that provided a straight path from the city heart to the exterior mountain face. Green light danced at the far end of the dark walkway, and a gentle breeze stirred inside, carrying fresh air on its tide.
“If she’s not there—” I started to warn Orla.
“If Cade said Iseult’s there, then she’s there.” She adjusted her grip on Tiernan and set her jaw.
“He said she’s probably there,” Tiernan grunted.
“She’s there,” Orla insisted and pulled Tiernan into the tunnel with her.