9. Prospective Seconde Mancella Amaryllis Cliff
9
P ROSPECTIVE S ECONDE M ANCELLA A MARYLLIS C LIFF
|8 DAYS UNTIL THE ASSURANCE|
A couple days later, Silver takes me up the wrong side of the Beholding Mountain. Not the side with the nice, well-worn path that overlooks our realm, but the side that’s crammed against another mountain so it’s just stark, bare rock no matter which way you look, and every step is precarious.
Silver leaps past me, skipping from boulder to boulder like an antelope, completely at ease.
Okay, so maybe every step is just precarious for me.
I slip on some loose sediment and almost fall face-first into the gravel, but I catch myself on an outcropping at the last second, watching the pebbles skitter down the mountainside behind me.
“You all right back there?” Silver crouches on a ledge that doesn’t look like it has enough room to crouch on at all, and I scowl at him. He shoots me a lopsided, one-dimpled grin, and it actually reaches his eyes this time. They crinkle at the corners, and it makes their color softer, less like rust or dying leaves and more like burnt sugar, just short of caramelization.
Something in my chest flutters.
I’m sure it’s just surprise.
Silver’s attitude toward me seems to have shifted since our conversation in the garden. I guess conspiring to commit treason together can do that for a relationship, but I’m still getting used to it. Between our clandestine planning meetings to the faces he makes at me during dinner when no one is looking—and somehow he always knows when no one is looking—he has fit himself into the small corners of my day that I didn’t realize were empty before.
It’s a little disconcerting, but it’s also… nice. I don’t miss the careful phrasings or the simpering, full-dimpled smiles he used when we first met. In a castle loaded with double meanings and significant glances, I appreciate the bluntness.
“Next time wear better shoes,” he calls back, executing another perfect jump. “Those slippers are ridiculous. They’ll be ruined by the end of the hike.”
I look down at my feet, and he’s right. The sea-green silk is already filthy and one of the soles is starting to detach. “Well, you could’ve told me where we were going!” I remind him in exasperation. “I would’ve changed!”
“Next time, guess better,” he says.
On second thought, the simpering wasn’t so bad.
I heft my bag higher on my shoulder—the one he didn’t offer to carry even though it would clearly be less of a hindrance for him than it is for me—and chuck a shoe at his head.
After another arduous half hour, punctuated by several more helpful remarks like “you probably shouldn’t have worn a dress either” and “stop falling so much,” we finally reach our destination.
Which, apparently, is a crack in the cliff face.
I drop my pack and do my best not to pant visibly, since Silver continues to be infuriatingly sweat-free.
“What is this?” I ask, jutting my chin at the gap in the rock.
He strides toward it, fingering the edges of the cleft. For a second, he looks strangely doleful, but in the next second his trademark smirk slides back into place like a door slamming shut. “ This is a back entrance to what used to be the best market around,” he tells me, voice light.
I scrunch my eyebrows. “A market? All the way up here?”
He shrugs. “What it sold wasn’t strictly legal. But anyway, it’s gone now. Come on.”
He slips into the crevice like a fish flitting through water and quickly disappears from sight.
I eye my bulky bag and the narrowness of the crack, gritting my teeth, but I don’t call after him. I’ve been pandered to my whole life, and it’s refreshing not to be.
Refreshing , I think forcefully as I cram myself into the fissure and immediately get stuck.
Heaving the pack back up, I contort my body until it fits through the narrow opening. Hard stone grates against my shoulders as I edge forward. Sunlight fades away behind me, and I’m claustrophobic almost immediately. In suffocating darkness, with rock pressing against my body from every side, it’s difficult not to feel that I’m being chewed up and swallowed alive by the mountain itself. But I push through. I keep going. And soon I’m stumbling into an enormous cavern, trying hard not to think of it as the mountain’s gaping belly.
A bonfire crackles in a rough pit in the middle of the floor and it’s burning too high for Silver to have built it in the last couple minutes, so I tense. He turns to me, silhouetted by the flames, and two other figures approach to flank him.
“I… didn’t realize we were meeting anyone,” I say nervously, taking a step back as they advance into the light.
The one on the right doesn’t seem so bad. He’s tall, and his eyes are the soothing pale green of an aloe vera. Not the spiky exterior of the plant, but the dewy heart of it, the part that responds to a fresh cut with healing salve. I don’t know him, but I feel immediately that I could trust him. No one with eyes that kind could want to hurt me.
This girl, though.
She’s pretty, with striking features and stark gray eyes, but her smile makes her seem more like a predator than a friend. She’s not standing completely straight, but slightly crouched, like she’s ready to pounce at any moment. Her hair is cropped close to her temples, her nails torn down to stubs. She wears no accessories or makeup, but her arms are covered with tattoos, many of them graphically violent. I felt her sizing me up when I first entered, and she hasn’t stopped looking at me since. It’s unnerving.
Almost without meaning to, I let a small fennec fox slip out of my inner well, sending ripples over my skin. He sniffs the air and growls, a low, gravelly sound that echoes off the walls of the cavern.
The girl growls back like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
I yank the fox back inside me and his physical form blinks away. But I can still feel him, and others, stirring with apprehension under my skin.
“Relax, Mance,” Silver says easily. He started calling me by the nickname a couple days ago and I’ve mostly gotten used to it, but the way the girl’s eyes cut toward him when he says it tells me that she’s not. I wonder what their relationship is. “These are friends,” Silver explains. “They’re here to help with the plan.”
“Oh,” I say, my shoulders slumping. “Of course.” Other members of his mysterious, pacifistic organization. I should probably have expected that.
Still, he could have told me.
“Let’s review the logistics,” he continues. “Mance, you have the uniforms?”
“Yes,” I say, shoving the bag at his chest with a little more force than is strictly necessary. “But I’m not sure why I couldn’t have given them to you at the bottom of the mountain. Or, I don’t know, a different day entirely. One that didn’t involve a lengthy hike.”
“Because it wouldn’t have been as entertaining,” he says cheerfully, lifting the pack like it’s made of feathers and riffling around inside. “How many did you bring?”
“Several,” I grumble. “You didn’t tell me your… friends ’ sizes.”
“You didn’t ask.”
I glower at him. “Fine, I’ll ask more questions. For example, why did we need to scale this mountain in the first place? Haven’t you ever heard of meeting up at a tavern?”
“There are people at taverns.”
“Yes, smart ones who realize how easy and pleasant it is to meet there.”
“Or, nosy ones who would love to overhear our plot to deceive the Prime.”
“Oh.” It annoys me that he has a point. “Well, what about—”
“The castle is full of loyal servants and soldiers, the town has gossipy merchants and nobles, and if anyone in our neighborhood thought a scrap of information was worth half a meal, they’d sell you out faster than you can blink,” Silver says. “But no one comes here. They sealed the main entrance a few years ago and only a handful of people know about the back way.”
For the first time, I peer past the ring of the firelight, trying to make out what lies beyond it. I see the shadowy shapes of stalls strung up between stalagmites, stacks of boxes, and tables broken in half.
“What did they used to sell here?” I ask. “Weapons? Drugs?”
“Food, mostly,” Silver says wistfully. “They had the best pies.”
“What?” I shake my head. “But food isn’t illegal.”
“It is if you don’t pay taxes on it,” the tall one says. His voice isn’t aggressive, but there’s a bitterness to it. Like someone accidentally stirred some mugwort into a cup of chamomile tea.
“Oh,” I say. “Well, then why wouldn’t they just—”
The girl shoots forward. “Because your father hiked up the prices so high that no one could afford them,” she says, getting in my face. “All to fund his constant preparations for war. People were just trying to make a living, trying to survive, but he realized he wasn’t getting enough, so he sniffed this place out, and he slaughtered everyone in it. To make an example.” Her sharp eyes bore into mine, daring me to snap back.
But I don’t want to. I look down instead. “I-I’m sorry,” I stutter. “I didn’t know. I’m realizing that there are a lot of things I don’t know. But when I’m Prime, it will be different. I promise.”
She spits on the ground at my feet. “I’ve heard a lot of promises from Primes. Enough to know how little they’re worth.”
Silver puts a hand on her shoulder. “Cut it out, Vie. We’re here to plan, not to put her on trial.”
“Can’t I do both?” she sneers. But she does fall back.
I shake out my arms like I’ve just finished the first round of a fight and I’m trying to pump myself up for Round 2. Silver said his organization wasn’t partial to any particular Prime, but these two certainly seem biased against my father. But if they, like Silver, grew up in the Academy, then I can’t exactly blame them. Silver was hostile at first, too. And it’s clear that this place brings back bad memories.
I wonder how many people they knew at the market that day. How many of their friends died on the stone beneath my feet. Suddenly, the flickering flames seem ominous, and I fear what they might reveal if they burned any brighter.
“So, the plan?” I prompt, voice small.
“Right,” Silver says. “You and I will fight. I hear you have a creepy death arena?”
I scrunch up my face. “That’s… accurate, yes.”
“Great, so we’ll fight there. Nice and visible. Vie and Rooftop,” he continues, pointing to each of them so I know which is which, “will wear the soldier uniforms and blend in. After I die, your job is to make sure no one touches me but them. They’ll get the body out, you’ll get your dad to back off the whole murder plan, and once everything is said and done, I get the fancy sword. Right?” He points a finger at me for confirmation.
“Right,” I grit out. I know I agreed, and I believe him that his ultimate goal is peace between the realms, but I still don’t think he should be talking about something this serious so flippantly. And I don’t love that he won’t give me any more information about the organization he works for.
But I don’t really have a lot of options here. Not if I want to avoid innocent kids being murdered at my father’s hand.
“Excellent,” Silver says. “Let’s practice.”
I shift, tugging on the edge of my dress. “Right now?”
“Unless you want to hike up here again later.”
I don’t, so I kick off my useless slippers, which are completely destroyed at this point. The corset I ditched a while ago, but I’m not sure what to do about my dress. I try to knot it at the sides, but this particular dress is just as impractical as my shoes are, made of a filmy fabric in the same sea green, and the skirts are too billowy to be subdued. After a prolonged and embarrassing struggle, I decide to just take the whole thing off. My chemise and leggings are covering enough.
As I pull the garment over my head, I feel the gazes of all three of them tracing the movement, but no one makes any attempt to stop me. By the time I toss it to the side, Vie is scowling, Rooftop looks like he’s trying not to laugh, and Silver’s expression is appraising, though I’m not sure whether he’s evaluating my decision to disrobe or the way I look now that I have.
Was the fire this warm before?
I resist the urge to cover myself as his gaze travels up my body. When his eyes get to my face, I meet them.
And the burnt sugar has fully caramelized.
“Okay,” I say, my voice breathier than I’d prefer, “let’s practice.”
Silver smirks.
Our eyes stay locked for one more beat, and then he charges me. I dance to the side, making the flames flicker as I brush by them, assessing Silver’s movements the way I would study a new creature. Memorizing the ways his muscles move as I try to predict what he might do next.
He swipes again, and I duck effortlessly, having read the action in the tension of his shoulders before he struck.
We keep that up for a few more strikes. He’s not bad. Decent form, and quick recoveries. But I don’t have too much trouble sidestepping his attacks.
“You can’t dodge forever,” he taunts.
And he’s completely right, so I punch him in the face.
The smack of flesh connecting echoes through the cavern and he reels back, surprised. I dart forward to land another on his gut, but this time he catches my fist. And to my surprise, he’s smiling.
“Didn’t know you had it in you,” he says, sounding weirdly impressed.
“You know I killed a jaguar, right?” I remind him.
“Sure,” he says teasingly. “But I figured someone softened it up first so you wouldn’t get your pretty hands dirty.”
My face falls, but not because I’m offended.
With a sudden flash I remember my father locking me in a room with a dog when I was nine. The poor creature was beaten, bloodied, and whimpering, looking at me with watery eyes that begged for mercy. It tried to stand, but its legs were broken, so it toppled to the ground with a pained bark that still haunts me. I remember looking at him with tears streaming down my face, knowing what I had to do.
“It doesn’t work,” I say darkly. “The magic likes a fair fight.” And the fact that the dog had been tortured first did not make my hands feel any less dirty.
Silver’s expression sobers as he takes in mine, and his eyes latch on to my scar-covered hands.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m still getting used to—”
I lash out, striking his throat with my palm, right in the spot that cuts off his breath for a couple seconds. As he staggers back, I hook a leg around his in an attempt to trip him, but he flings a handful of ash in my face that leaves me coughing and retreating. I don’t even know when he scooped it up.
“That’s cheating!” I protest.
“Just because the magic likes a fair fight doesn’t mean I do,” he says.
I sense a challenge in his words.
And I grin.
What follows is not only a battle between two people but also a clash of styles. My fighting techniques come from the Captain, and they’re characterized by structure, strategy, and discipline. Silver, on the other hand, is pure chaos. I’m stronger than he is, and I have much better form, but he uses the environment around him in a way I can’t help but respect. One minute he’s leading me away from the fire so I can’t see what direction his hits are coming from and the next he’s spinning me around until the flames blind me. He kicks rocks into my path, uses sparking embers to distract me, and at one point even chucks an entire flaming log at my head. I duck just in time and it lands with a thunk behind me.
Off to the side, Vie and Rooftop are sitting cross-legged on the ground, whispering back and forth. I think they’re placing bets. As the log rolls to a stop, Vie’s mocking laughter reverberates around the cave, bouncing from rock to rock until I hear it from every angle.
I grit my teeth and the animals within me grow restless, growling and gnashing their teeth at the indignity of losing to such cheap tricks.
So the next time Silver charges toward me, I let him get close, close enough to feel his breath on my cheek.
Then I drop to the ground.
In the space I just abandoned, the space directly in front of Silver’s face, I summon my grizzly bear. She surges into being, a fur-covered giant with swiping claws and a gaping maw. Her full, throaty roar booms through the cavern, drowning out any trace of laughter. It also drowns out whatever expletive Silver utters as he scurries backward, away from the kind of beast he’s probably never seen up close.
But I’m already behind him. As he stumbles away, I sweep his legs out from under him, and slam him face-first into the ground, twisting both his arms into a neat restraint behind his back. As the bear disappears, I dig my knee into his spine, making it clear that he’s not going anywhere.
Beside us, Vie’s on her feet, a dagger in each hand, but Rooftop is frozen, jaw dropped. It’s several breaths before anyone speaks. The only noise is the crackling of the fire and the faint whistle of the wind in the crevice outside.
“All right,” Silver says finally. “You win.”
“Not yet,” I disagree. “We’re playing to the death, remember? So how would you like me to kill you? Any preferences?”
He chuckles, and I feel it vibrate through his back. “What are my options?” he asks, turning his face to fix those caramel eyes on mine.
“Let’s see…” I scrunch my mouth to the side, pretending to think about it. “We could do a hard blow to the temple, a snapped spine, a nice strangle—”
“I’m failing to see what exactly would be nice about a strangle.”
“Well,” I say, leaning forward until my hair drapes across his shoulders, caging the two of us in, and lowering my voice to a whisper. “I’ve heard that you can also kill a man by hitting him so hard between the legs that he goes into shock from the overwhelming, vicious pain of it. Compared to that, I’d say strangling is pretty nice.”
He shifts beneath me uncomfortably. “Okay, well, I’m definitely voting against that one.”
Then suddenly he raises one knee and turns sharply to the side, throwing me off-balance. I crash to the floor behind him and he uses the momentum to push me back farther, flipping toward me in the process. I don’t go down easily, though, and soon we’re rolling, both of us wrestling for the upper hand, careening across the stone floor of the cavern.
It’s only when a stick digs into my side that I stop, realizing how close we’ve come to the edge of the bonfire. In my moment of hesitation, he straddles me, pinning my wrists on either side of my head. Both of us are breathing hard.
For one heartbeat, I blink up at him, stunned, and he stares down at me with an unreadable expression. The heat of the flames washes over me, and his dulcet eyes seem to liquefy and turn molten in their flickering light.
In the next heartbeat, I am abruptly and acutely aware that his legs are wrapped around my thighs, his face is only inches from mine, and this is, by a pretty wide margin, the closest I’ve ever been to a boy. And I’m only wearing a thin shift.
Every exposed inch of skin seems to burn.
For two more heartbeats we stay there, skin blazing, breaths panting, bodies interwoven, and eyes locked.
But on the fifth heartbeat, we both launch ourselves away, Silver rearing to his feet, and me scuttling backward in a ridiculous crab walk. The cool air of the cave rushes into the void that opens up between us.
“Get off me!” Silver yells.
Which is an absolutely absurd thing to say.
“First of all,” I yell back, leaping to my feet and waving my arms erratically at the extensive space that now surrounds me. “I’m all the way over here now. But secondly, and more importantly, you are the one who straddled me .”
“Because you suddenly stopped rolling!”
“Because we were about to be engulfed in flames , Silver!”
“Yeah, you were,” Rooftop says with a snicker.
I must not be as far away from the bonfire as I thought, because suddenly my face is scorching. Rooftop’s smirk only widens.
Vie, on the other hand, is significantly less amused. She stomps over, twirling both daggers with sharp, rapid fingers.
“You know what just occurred to me?” she says loudly. “Silver can’t fight you after all. Unfortunately, we’re going to have to throw out the whole plan. So sorry.”
I straighten and my animals snap their heads up in alarm, my argument with Silver forgotten. “What do you mean?” I demand.
“I mean,” she says, stalking toward me, “if he dies in front of everyone, then he’s not going to be able to work there anymore. They’ll remember him and wonder why he’s looking so very not dead. And I know how much the job means to him and how much he’d hate to lose it.” She gives him a pointed look that I don’t completely understand, and he frowns. “So you can’t do it. Or do you not care how your little plan affects anyone else so long as you get what you want?” Her daggers speed up as she talks until they’re whirling metallic discs glinting in the firelight, and she keeps creeping closer, pinning me with a glare that feels just as dangerous as the weapons in her hands.
I bristle against her accusations, but my heart thrums with panic. I need this to work. I don’t have many days left before the deadline. And if I don’t pick someone before then…
“Thankfully,” Vie continues, almost preening. “There’s a very simple solution here.”
“And what’s that?” I ask, jaw clenched.
She smiles at me with that predatory smile, her lips stretched wide and her teeth glistening. Shadows play along her features now that she’s standing so close to the flames, making them look eerie and off-balance, almost inhuman.
Her daggers come to a sudden stop.
“You can fight me ,” she says.