Chapter 69 #2
Crouching, I rip away the splintered shards, revealing a cache of unfolded parchment larks I rifle through, hunting for one garnished with the jerky signature of a certain male I’m determined to come face-to-face with. Right before I turn his intestines into a pretty garnish I’ll feed to Líri.
Still steaming.
“This place is creepy,” Pyrok says, scrunching his face at a frame showcasing what looks like a large purple-winged tick that’s pinned to the backboard. “Makes me wish I wasn’t sober.”
“I always walked out of here wanting to stab someone.” Spotting the signature I’m looking for, I snatch the square of pale-brown parchment and refold it down the pre-creased lines.
It flutters to life, immediately trying to wriggle from my pinched grip as I turn it around and assess its tail …
return fold unpinched. “This dae is going to be no different,” I say, lavishing in the thought of the Elding’s blood on my hands.
The fuck.
I unfold the lark and pocket it for later, pausing when I see another note at the bottom of the drawer, signed with the same signature—its scrawled guts bared.
I lift it out, reading:
SEREME.
SHOULD SHE WANT TO SAVE A CLUTCH OF WOUNDED NULLS, SO BE IT. IT IS OF LITTLE POLITICAL INFLUENCE AND DOES NOT AFFECT MY PLANS. THE REQUIRED RESOURCES ARE TO BE PUT TO HER DISPOSAL.
I’VE BECOME AWARE THAT YOU’RE USING—
“Raeve.”
I look up, finding Kaan in the doorway with Ahvi beside him, clutching his hand. Immediately, I notice Ahvi’s lips—blue. Hear the heaving rasp of his breath, like he’s battling through each one.
“We need to get out,” Kaan continues. “There’s something that’s spilled down there. His lungs aren’t coping.”
I’m up, punching my elbow back through the window that looks out over the strung-up bodies before he even finishes the sentence.
Purple glass shatters.
“Sheil athin, Clode. Soich.”
She swarms in, gusting the room with a fresh breeze as I pocket the lark and charge forward, take my satchel off Kaan’s shoulder, and root through the clattering contents, pulling out the Book of Voyd bound in a double layer of veils.
Precautions, given the book’s apparent penchant for mauling folk to death.
I unbind the second layer, then drop to a kneel, binding the veil around the bottom half of Ahvi’s face. “I thought you had your shield up?”
“Must need some tw—tweaking. I never tested it against … powders.” His face flushes, his gaze all but burrowing into the floor. “Oops.”
Creators.
“The collapsed shaft,” I murmur, glancing up at Kaan as I twist the veil into a big knot at the back of Ahvi’s head, “it’s over a cycle’s walk away.
Two if we want to take the long route so we can avoid the areas I think will be most populated with city folk.
Two cycles … through dusty mineshafts thick with dirty air that’s very good at clogging lungs. ”
I hope he sees the heavy intent in my stare. The words I’m quietly screaming.
We need to work as a team and find a way to convince Ahvi to abort the fucking mission.
“I’ll … make it,” Ahvi rasps, heaving through the thin material. “But Gruffin cahh … can’t come. Too many … predators down there. And he’s l—loud.”
I put my hands on either side of his face. Stare into stark silver eyes with such fierce intensity I barely recognize myself in the reflection bouncing back in his blown pupils. “You don’t need to do this. I don’t even want you to do this.”
I just want you to be okay.
“Please, Ahv—”
He shakes his head. “You can’t … change my mind. The s—song inside me … tells me it’s ri—right and it’s all going to be … okay.”
My blood chills.
I meet Kaan’s uncertain gaze overshadowed by a heavy frown.
“What do you mean by that, Ahvi? What song?”
“It’ll make s—sense one dae. I promise.”
I search his eyes, waiting for more. When he doesn’t offer anything else, I sigh, shove to a stand, and push my hands through my hair as I hold Kaan’s steady stare. “I don’t like this.”
At all.
“Neither do I,” he rumbles, only loud enough for me to hear, bringing his free hand up to tuck a strand of hair back off my face. “But I feel it’s important we trust him.”
I realize, like a sharp stab to my heart, that Kaan would’ve made a wonderful pah. The sort I would’ve been so proud to stand beside. To build a family with … if things were different.
If I wasn’t so messed up.
“I’ll mind Gruffin,” Pyrok says from where he’s lounging in Sereme’s chair, flicking through a dusty purple book with his boots kicked up on her upturned desk. “I have shit to do here anyway.”
“I’m okay with th—that.”
I arch a brow at Ahvi, looking far too confident with his abrupt decision. “What if he gets drunk and forgets to feed him?”
Pyrok tosses the book over his shoulder. “That’s rude, and actually, I’m at my best drunk and blissfully numb.” He points at me. “Remember that.”
Agree to disagree.
“The little fucker’s gonna thrive,” he continues.
“And I’ve raised a Moltenmaw. Ahvi’s right, not only will he start making a lotta noise soon, but he’s gonna stop sleeping so much and get really fuckin’ hungry.
Besides—” He drops his gaze and begins massaging another one of Gruffin’s pin feathers loose.
“I know this city. Know the good hunting spots. I’ll keep him well fed. ”
Wait … what?
I’m about to ask how he’s so familiar with Gore when Kaan says, “This shop is compromised. You can’t wait for us here.”
A little voice cuts in. “Raeve knows a place that’s really safe.”
My blood runs cold.
I look at Ahvi, who’s now breathing more comfortably. Makes it a little easier to glare at him.
“Ahvi, we’ve spoken about—”
“He can use the other entrance!” He jerks the veil down off his face so I’m slapped with the full might of his desperate, wide-eyed enthusiasm. “He doesn’t even have to go … up. He can stay downstairs the whole time, and I’ll be so happy knowing how safe Gruffin is.”
This kid.
I spin and stalk to the smashed-in window. Stare out past the hanging bodies while repressing the urge to chew the tips of my fingers.
“Creators,” I mutter, realizing he’s right. It is the safest option. Essi spent phases etching that place, making sure it was secure. If I can trust anything … it’s her. Knowing Ahvi feels the same hits like a boot to the chest, making it hard to breathe properly.
I squeeze my eyes shut against the sting flaring across the backs of them, waiting for the sensation to ease. When it doesn’t, I make for the door, keeping my gaze on the ground.
“Follow me.”
The abandoned wind tunnel I’ve only ever been down once before looks different in this bleak light. A tunnel I last entered when I was adjusting my crooked lodgings, making it safe and secure enough for Essi to call it home. Never imagining I’d need to use this emergency back entrance.
Never imagining I’d lose her.
Fail her.
I release a slow, shuddered breath and stop beside a trash chute. Stuffing my head inside, I look up into the gloom, pocket my ring, and open myself to Bulder—grinding my teeth at the drudging sound of his smooth, too-stable song.
Nothing’s stable, Bulder. It’s all fucked.
“Guit atah eh,” I grit out, whipping back before I get clobbered by the plug of stone that loosens from above, releasing the distant scent of buttermin loaf like a cruel taunt wrung straight from the dark pit of my sadistic imagination.
I point at the hole, meeting Pyrok’s eyes that are mantled by two raised brows.
“If you move in there and spin, you’ll find grooves chipped into the chute.
Keep climbing until you can’t go any farther.
Turn, and you’ll find a hole that’s probably big enough for you to squeeze through. ” I look him up and down. “Just.”
“I’ve never been less assured.” He frowns. “Where does it lead, exactly?”
“My living quarters.” I glance down at my hands and dust them on my cloak. Not that they’re dusty, but it gives me something to do.
Somewhere to look that’s not at him or Kaan, who’s standing at the other end of the tunnel with his arms crossed, watching me in the way he does sometimes. When I just know he’s shuffling puzzle pieces, putting them together.
Quietly working me out.
“It’s a secret entrance. Moving through it will make you projectile vomit, but it’s not permanent. Apologies.”
Silence stretches.
I look up to see Pryok staring at me, face slack. “Okay … And what if I fall?”
“Don’t. It’s runed against getting blocked. The velvet trogg will be picking her teeth with your bones before the cycle’s through.” I look past him to where Ahvi’s cradling his hatchling, murmuring soft goodbyes. “And the kid will never forgive you.”
Pyrok curses, moving to peer up the hole, his next words echoing. “This is fucked, Raeve.”
It’s not ideal for me, either.
“I have an entire armory of weapons in there, working water, a privy, and a place to slumber, but you’ll still have to slip out while Gruffin’s napping and raid for food.”
Pyrok pulls back out, his hair notably more askew. “Anything else I need to be made aware of before I embark on this climb of doom?”
Yes.
I look out on the mist-smothered south just as the sky opens, offering me a fleeting glimpse of the small, wonky silver moon I love so much—tangled with the middae aurora ribbons.
But a smile doesn’t come to me as it usually does at the sight of Hae’s Perch.
All I feel is icy grief that squeezes my heart almost hard enough to burst …
encumbered by the memory I touched in my Other’s den.
A moment I lived through her, discarded immediately after I swam back to the surface of my conscious self, not wanting to look it in the eye. To understand it.
But now I understand too clearly.
My Other was trying to show me that she has also loved. Also lost. That we’re more alike than I want to realize—
I look away. Push it all down.
Gone.
“There’s one rule,” I rasp, meeting Pyrok’s emerald eyes, vibrant in the dim surroundings. “Do not, under any circumstance, go up through the hatch in the ceiling.”
The words come out cold and hard. Not at all as broken, bleeding, and charred as they sounded in my head.
His brows pinch together. “Dare I ask why not?”
“Because I said so.”
I charge past them all, refusing to look Ahvi or Kaan in the eye as I move out onto the perilous path beyond.