22. Chapter 22
We slow to a halt at the end of the tunnel, where Runu shoulders open a nearby door.
He leads us inside a carved-out home burrowed into the wall, where a woman is strewn out on a leather-hide sofa, crocheting a blanket in her lap.
Beside her, a baby sleeps in a white wicker basket.
Above them on the mantle stand three little statues of women draped in black robes with crowns on their heads.
Effigies of the Sister of Fall, the Sister of Winter, and the Sister of Spring, I imagine.
All that’s missing is the effigy of the Great Mother Sun, who is apparently a dragon.
“Suer as tua! brASKIER?” the woman says the moment the door closes behind us.
She drops her crotchet hook and points a finger at Runu, her face twisting like she’s had enough of his bullshit.
From the way she’s looking at him, he’s lucky she dropped her crochet hook instead of choosing to wield it.
Runu must be thinking the same thing, because he holds out his hands in surrender and starts panicking.
“Ju ras galmam anuh. Sea wa!” he winces.
“Runu’s wife would like to know why he has brought more women home again,” Bella translates for us quickly.
“Again?” Maxine whispers, eyeing them both with disbelief.
Runu strings out another slew of unintelligible words, and in return, his wife practically goes for his jugular.
She strides across the room and grabs him by the hair, yanking his head down to meet her gaze at eye level.
“Ama saldrua siend ga mar,” she snarls in his face.
“Ditdit bra." She glances up at us. “Mienda nille ga Rasgi. Parnay duah ga laise,” she adds, as Runu winces under the weight of her grip.
“Runu’s wife says that we should all make ourselves comfortable here.
Although should she decide to murder Runu, we are to keep her secret safe with us,” Bella announces awkwardly as she side-steps the couple and makes her way toward the little kitchen nook in the room’s corner. “Her name is Rasgi, by the way.”
Maxine plops down on a giant resin-encapsulated mushroom and removes her dagger from its sheath, slamming it into a piece of forgotten cheese that looks like it’s been sitting there for weeks.
“Tell Rasgi that I’m all for girls supporting girls.
Here, she can even use my dagger.” She sets the dagger down on the table with a clunk.
“Maxine!” Lily shrieks, rushing across the room to confiscate the sharp object quickly.
“You can’t just be giving away our only weapon—” She cuts herself off and glances back at them.
Runu and his wife don’t seem to notice all the fanfare, however, given how they’re a bit preoccupied with their own affairs.
In fact, it appears that their overzealous argument has since sizzled out into a string of hushed voices, a tish of passion and fervor, and a bit of tongue tango to boot.
"I really don’t think they intend on murdering anyone,” I deduce, crossing my arms over my chest and tilting my head in amusement as the two of them begin passionately kissing. “What do you think, Bella? Do Valenorian women often kiss their victim first before going in for the kill?”
Bella takes a thoughtful sip of her water glass, which seems to have materialized from thin air. “I imagine she’s probably plotting Runu’s demise as we speak,” she says, a small sliver of a smile sweeping across her lips.
“In that case,” Maxine says, flicking a crumb off the table and looking morose that her precious dagger has been apprehended, “Lily, be a doll and give me my dagger back, will you? Unless you’d like to be the one to defend us all should a monster erupt through that door.”
“Fine,” Lily hisses, sliding the dagger back to Maxine, only for Maxine to stick it straight into another block of cheese despite Lily’s adamant protestations that she not… touch… anything.
As the pair erupt in another hushed argument, I stroll across the room to sneak a peek outside the window.
It appears that with all of our tunnel-walking, we’ve made it to the Spring Faction of the city.
Specifically, we seem to be stuck inside a little building that is walled off by a fortress of golden leaves and surrounded by a flurry of other buildings that look identical to ours.
The brick-and-mortar slabs practically bloom around the tree from the ground up, each one as gorgeous as the next.
Their round rooftops are coated in moss, their doors all draped in cherry blossoms. “I could offer to toast them all marshmallows…” Maxine says from behind me, causing me to wonder how she even got on the topic of marshmallows in the first place.
On the bright side, at least she and Lily have stopped arguing.
“Where did the inverted tree come from?” I interject.
“Eyat Circee Life,” Rasgi replies, her pensive stare searing into mine.
A small blush creeps over my cheeks at the realization that I’ve garnered her interest from the other side of the room, which wasn’t exactly my intention.
My intention had been to bother Bella with my question, so that Bella might ask Rasgi on my behalf.
But Rasgi continues watching me, wrapped up in Runu’s arms, his chin resting against the top of her head.
“Or in your language,” Rasgi adds, dropping her native tongue, “I believe it is called the Great and Formidable Tree of Life.”
My breath falters at the realization that she is bilingual.
“They say it was gifted to us by the Great Mother Sun a century ago,” Rasgi continues.
“Not only does it sustain our way of life, but from it, all auras derive. It is the conduit that moves souls to and from the afterlife, and therefore, it must be protected at all costs. Which is why the Harvest Queens are so careful about who we allow into our world.” She pauses for a beat before adding, “My husband claims the four of you will get to meet with them in the morning, after the sixth clock chimes in the sky. This is a great honor, I hope you realize.”
Bella swirls around her glass of crystal-clear water quietly.
“The marshmallows,” Maxine blurts out. “We must contribute to their ecosystem and prove that we are useful. I’d like to offer my services by roasting marshmallows for the Valenorian people. I’m sure they’d be fascinated. Now, all I need are the ingredients and—”
“Perhaps we could start proving our usefulness by not eating Rasgi’s food without permission,” Lily replies in a hiss. Maxine drops the last piece of cheese with a thunk and glares over at Lily hotly, looking almost offended by her interpretation of events.
“Gastari parnay. Nei narbu,” Runu says, slinging an arm over his wife’s shoulder as he chuckles at our expense. “Sar dalu rebal soulfeers.”
“Runu says that he and Rasgi don't mind if we share their food,” Bella translates for him. “He would also like us to know that while it’s not a requirement of our stay, the Valenorian people are always recruiting rebels to fight for their cause.” She looks between Runu, Rasgi, and the rest of us, her eyes widening as Runu speaks again.
“The rebels meet at midnight over in the Summer Faction," she continues translating. "Runu says that we’re more than welcome to attend. They’ve been tirelessly plotting how to blow up the queen’s military encampments with the intent of destroying the unsuspecting Divine Army from within. ”
“What?” I whisper, all the breath expelling from my lungs at once.
“Whether or not we accept this offer, we will be given rations of food, a place to live, and we can also decide which faction we’d like to join, depending on our preference of climate,” she finishes.
“Did you just say they intend on destroying the queen’s army from within?” I ask.
Runu and Rasgi both nod, looking quite proud of themselves.
“I like this plan,” Maxine announces loudly. “Although if we do join them, we would, of course, need to alert everyone of Lily’s inability to aim before handing her a weapon. You know, as a safety measure, given how she might accidentally lob someone’s head off.”
“Thank you for inviting us, Runu and Rasgi!” I interject quickly, before Lily has a chance to upturn the entire table on Maxine’s head.
As the two of them stare at each other, I suddenly realize that this must be the black hole I’d grown up envisioning—a paradise beneath the forest floor with more to offer us than all of Aurora combined.
Where people can get jobs without having to worry about donating their blood or first proving their worth.
Somewhere to hide from the monsters lurking up on the surface above.
I decide in that moment that whatever the Harvest Queens must want with us, it can’t possibly be worse than the gods.
“Maybe she could tend to the great Tree of Life?” Bella offers, glancing at Lily. “Given her spellmark?”
Runu and Rasgi peer across the room at Lily’s spellmark, their eyes widening. Lily’s chest puffs up with pride.
Maxine stabs another piece of cheese with a loud thunk and cuts through the silence by saying, “Were you the ones who bombed the Malgrave Repository? Because I’m a big fan of your work. You should’ve seen the look on Regent’s face when he was relaying the news to the priestess.”
“Okay, you little pyro,” Lily grumbles, shooting Maxine a look of utter disbelief.
“Yes,” Rasgi says, standing up tall. “Dier bloodmagic, alari dalu husk.”
Bella pulls the glass away from her lips, her mouth falling open in disbelief. The rest of us exchange a confused look and wait for her to translate.
“Rasgi claims that the bombs are made by injecting too much bloodmagic into the veins,” she relays.
A heartbeat of silence passes, during which Lily peels herself out of her chair like it’s made of fire and not a giant mushroom, shrieking, “I thought Priestess Seraphina said that wasn’t true!
” She begins tracing the holes in her lilac dress and prodding her fingers through them like worms. “She said explicitly that too much magic injected into the veins wouldn’t cause any ill-intended effects.
She said that it was a safe endeavor. She even injected excess bloodmagic into me. ”
“You cannot trust the priestess,” Rasgi hisses, her accent heavy. “Excess bloodmagic is only to be injected into the veins of our enemies, given how easily it can cause combustion. She put you in grave danger.”
“Big shocker there,” Maxine cuts in, twirling the hilt of her dagger as she eyes a chunk of charred meat.
“Are you saying that you turn your enemies into bombs?” I rasp as I withdraw the icy rose from my pocket with the intention of admiring it. The only trouble is, it goes limp in my hands. Rasgi nods. So I ask, “And who might those enemies be?”
“Heist askanti tik tui as ascari mar tasunni,” Rasgi says, peeling herself away from Runu’s arms and staring directly at me.
Bella jerks her head in my direction. “Rasgi says anyone who is enemies of the Great Mother Sun is an enemy of the Valenorian people.”
“Come again?” I choke on air.
Bella chomps on her lower lip, like she’s suddenly realizing the same thing I am. “The Great Mother Sun… who is a dragon,” she says slowly, seeming to be speaking for herself now instead of translating. “Her enemies are also the enemies of the Valenorians.”
“But aren’t we the enemies of the dragons?” Lily squeaks, holding her dress up against her cheek like it’s a well-loved holey blanket. “Given the bounties over our heads?”
Maxine stares at us blankly, like she too has come to this conclusion.
“Hey Bella?” Maxine blurts out. “By chance, what language have you been speaking?”
“Tannerian,” Bella says, muttering something under her breath.
“And what language is that, exactly?” Maxine asks as the rose disintegrates in my hands.
“The language of the dragons,” Bella supplies.
“Oh gods, I didn’t even realize—” She sets a hand against her mouth to contain her squeal.
Meanwhile, Maxine sheaths her dagger and moves toward the door.
But not before whisking Bella’s cup from her grasp and draining it down the sink, stopping only to thank Rasgi with a quick nod of appreciation.
“Now I understand why they’ve been looking at us like we’re chocolate-studded pinecones dipped in bloodmagic all evening,” Maxine says, grabbing Lily by the arm.
“The Harvest Queens intend to hand us over to the dragon king in the morning, who intends to kill us. Our deaths are the only way to vanquish the gods for certain. This is a trap.”
“I TOLD YO—” Lily blurts, stopped short by Maxine’s hand clamping over her mouth.
“Get us out of here, Bella,” Maxine growls.
“Dier knar ji!” Bella says, her voice hushed and harried as she darts toward the exit, giving Rasgi and Runu a heartfelt wave goodbye over her shoulder.
Together, the four of us race down the tunnel’s vein and merge back into the heavy flow of traffic, quickly, before Rasgi has a chance to scoop us up into her powerful arms and inject bloodmagic into our veins.
“I’m so sorry, everyone,” Bella says along the way, looking mortified.
“This is all my fault. I never should’ve assumed this was a safe place.
” She shakes her head, seemingly oblivious to the hand swatting happening between Lily and Maxine, who are arguing over which tunnel to take.
“I should’ve connected the dots sooner,” Bella continues, dropping her head in shame. “And now…”
“We’re lost!” Lily cries out as we careen to a halt at an intersection. “Ugh! This day cannot get any worse!” She balls up her dress and screams into it.
“You forget that Bella is a walking memory vault,” I remind her, giving Bella an encouraging nod. “She’ll lead us out of here, surely.”
“That is a good point,” Maxine concurs. “I’m sure that Bella memorized every piece of beetle dung throughout the entirety of our journey, and she is now using them as breadcrumbs to find our way out. In fact, I bet she gave each of them names. See? That piece of beetle dung is Larry.”
Bella waves us around the corner, and we follow her up a staircase.