26. Museology #3
I thought surely Caitria’s army would run out of Skal as we ran, but the explosions continued overhead, until we reached a darkened shop at the outskirts of the citadel. Montu ushered us inside and past chairs, tables, and a counter to the storage room at the back.
Laertes kicked a rug out of the way to reveal a hidden door in the floorboards. He pulled it open and held his hand out to Orla to help her into the tunnel below. The Skal bottles on her belt cast a blue circle around her feet, and she glared up at us as Iseult followed her into the tunnel.
“It’s a straight shot to beyond the wall,” Montu explained. “Your friends should be there.”
A blast exploded outside the shop, and glass shattered. I spun to face the windows, but Laertes put his arm around my shoulder to usher me towards the trapdoor. I pushed back at the sound of screaming outside, but Ciarán pressed me forward.
“Wait—” I protested.
“We can’t help them,” Ciarán murmured.
“But this is our fault!”
“We aren’t the ones blowing up the streets.”
“They’re blowing up the streets because of us!”
“The Barony guards have been looking for an excuse to ruin us for a while now,” Montu said. “And we’ve been looking for an excuse to fight back. Please. Let us do this.”
He clasped my hand in both of his, and I tried to nod. Another crash overhead rattled the walls, and Montu, in an impressive display of strength for someone his age, pushed me into the tunnel behind Orla and Iseult. Iseult helped me land on my feet, and Ciarán fell next to us.
“Good luck.” Montu looked down at us through the trap door. “And travel quick. Thank you, again.”
A flash of green outlined his silhouette, and he let the trapdoor fall as more crashing ensued overhead.
“No!” I screamed, reaching for the trapdoor, but Ciarán forced me after Iseult and Orla down the tunnel.
“They’ll be fine.” Ciarán grunted when I pushed him out of my way and made another break back towards the trapdoor.
“They don’t have Skal! They can’t defend themselves!”
Ciarán grabbed me by the back of my tunic and pulled me back into his arms. “They’ll have other weapons, Blue. Worry about us. Please.”
I balled my fists against his back, and another explosion rocked the roof of the tunnel.
“They’re going to die,” I whispered.
“We don’t know that. We have to trust them to take care of themselves.”
I took a deep breath, still fighting the instinct to run back into the citadel, and let go of Ciarán.
As much as I hated it, we had to keep going.
Bottled Skal-light reflected off smooth-hewn walls and cast our cloaked shadows against the low ceiling. The air became colder and staler as the tunnel descended.
“It’s an island.” Iseult held a Skal bottle to the pages of Mom’s notebook, reading as we walked. “Uninhabited, off the southwestern coast of Skalterra. There’s an entire chain of islands there. It’s got to say which island, right?”
She paused in her walk to leaf through the pages.
“We’ll have time to read it later,” Ciarán said. “Keep moving.”
“Is that them?” Fana’s whisper echoed from the end of the tunnel. Tiernan hushed her and lit a golden dagger in his hand.
“Fana!” Orla shot ahead. The light from her bottles caught the opalescent surface of exposed tree roots that dipped in and out of the earth overhead, and we stumbled out into the night in the middle of a petrified tree grove.
Jonquil meowed from the pile of packs at Tiernan’s feet.
“Tell us you got it.” Tiernan handed Orla a pack as he cast an anxious glance down the tunnel behind us.
“A version of it.” I took the journal from Iseult so she could pull her metal breastplate from her pack at Tiernan’s feet and strap it across her chest.
A distant boom lit the sky in hues of green.
“Everyone grab a bag and let’s go. We need to get far away from Willow’s Grave and fast.” Iseult marched forward, adjusting her armor and ready to disappear into the petrified forest. “If the doorway to Keldori is off the southwestern coast, we can catch a steamcart in the next town over all the way to the Breachriver Prefecture or the New Kingdom. It’ll only take a few days, as long as the steamcart isn’t attacked by a rotsbane. ”
“We can take a rotsbane.” Ciarán shouldered his bag and passed Jonquil into Fana’s arms. “We’ll be in Keldori by the end of the week.”
I grabbed my backpack from the ground and stepped after the others, but stopped when a fresh explosion ripped open the sky behind us.
I could go home.
Or I could save Willow’s Grave.
I could not have both.
“Wren?” Ciarán turned around, and the others followed suit, though Orla still avoided my eye.
I crossed the clearing and pressed the notebook into her hands. Her eyebrows lifted, and she finally looked at me as she took the book.
“You watch this, okay?” I asked.
“Why—”
“I’m sorry I didn’t trust you.”
“We can talk about this later, can’t we?” she hissed.
“We can’t.” I shook my head. “Because you don’t need me to get to Keldori, and as long as my mom is waiting in Keel Watch Harbor, you don’t need me to reseal the Rift. And if I go with you, Caitria will destroy Willow’s Grave.”
“Wren,” Ciarán warned.
“No.” I stepped away from Orla, back towards the tunnel. “You go. Seal the Rift. I’m not going home.”