Chapter Twenty-Six Fia
Chapter Twenty-Six
Fia
The endless jet-black weight of the mountain swallowed me whole before spitting me out. I stumbled to my knees on more smooth, dark stone, bracing myself as I retched against familiar nausea.
I hadn’t experienced Irian’s peculiar mode of transportation in months. Time had not eased my opinion of it.
Worry and panic picked me up from the floor.
I whirled on my heel, throwing off Irian’s cloak as I searched for him.
He stood a pace away, glancing at his untarnished arms. Covering me with his cloak had seemingly shielded him from the worst of my starshine.
I looked past him—to my surprise, Wayland stood beside him, one of his hands resting on Irian’s shoulder.
Another surprise—Irian had flown us not out of the Cnoc, but simply back to the vaulted dining chamber, where all the hallways and caverns converged.
“Find Sinéad,” Irian commanded, simply, with a gesture toward the Armory. “Wayland, warn Idris and Balor. I shall try to find the aughiskies. Then meet outside—I do not think any of us should linger here.”
I nodded—the roar of flames echoed through the twisting caverns, and the thunder of serpentine bodies colliding with stone shuddered beneath my boots. Or perhaps that was Talah, testing the bonds of the new home I’d given her.
“Laoise?” I hated how my voice trembled.
Irian’s jaw tightened.
“Laoise can take care of herself,” Wayland answered as he wrestled the rotund baby draig, hissing like a furious cat, into his own mantle.
Her needlelike claws were extended as far as they could go, and tiny sparks ignited in the air as smoke curled from her nostrils.
Her pupils were hugely dilated and noticeably silver. “Irian’s right—we’re not safe here.”
As if to punctuate his words, another of the juvenile draigs—smaller than Blodwen, but not by much—came shrieking into the main cavern, swinging turbulently from the arched ceiling to the floor as the points of its wings scraped the rocks.
Erratic flames rocketed from its mouth, sending light and heat to blossom like captive suns in the black night of the caverns.
I hurled myself out of the draigling’s unsteady path, diving down one hall as Wayland veered the opposite way.
I did not see Irian, but the singing of the Sky-Sword vibrated along my bones, humming in counterpoint to the soundless throb of the Heart of the Forest.
Confusion and fury puddled in my gut as I dashed along the halls. No matter what Talah had done to Laoise’s draig family, I did not wish to see these creatures harmed.
Sinéad was in her bedroom—if her wet hair was any indication, she’d been bathing. She looked up when I flung open the door without knocking, surprise swiftly turning to alarm when she noticed my soot-striped skin and scorched clothing.
“What’s wrong?”
“The draigs,” I gasped out. My lungs felt congested with acrid smoke. “Something’s wrong. They’re… attacking. We need to get out of the Cnoc. Now.”
Sinéad did not hesitate, shoving her feet into boots, snatching her daggers, and whipping her mantle around her shoulders before dashing after me. Smoke snaked a terrible warning along the ceiling. We slammed our fists on the closed doors as we passed back through the hall. No one exited.
The main cavern was a thunderous cacophony of roaring fire and splitting rock and scales colliding with stone.
Another two draigs—these with patterns of gold scales on their red bellies—had joined the first. They circled one another in volatile spirals, the unsteady beating of their wings buffeting the smoke into great stinging sweeps.
I swallowed as tears sprang to my eyes, wetting my lips against the ominous taste of char.
“The exit!” I screamed at Sinéad, who was staring in shock at the draiglings. “Do you know how we get out of here?”
“There!” She gestured toward a sharp, narrow crevasse cut into the far wall.
Renewed panic pulsed through me—we’d have to cross beneath all three frenzied draigs in order to reach it.
We could skirt around the edges, but we were both already coughing and retching from the stench of smoke and burnt metal.
“On my count, we run!” I screamed, yanking the collar of my tunic over my nose. “One, two—”
“Three,” Sinéad shrieked.
We flung ourselves forward, fire bombing around us.
I feinted left. A ball of fire slammed inches from my foot; I spun right, nearly colliding with Sinéad.
I leapt over a smashed decanter of mushroom whiskey; flames guttered hungrily along the spill.
Another sheet of fire arced over my head; I ducked and nearly stumbled.
The narrow gap in the stone Sinéad had indicated wafted, inchoate, between phantoms of smoke—I tried to keep it locked in my vision, even as my eyes and lungs and muscles burned. Just ten more paces—
I tripped over something large on the floor, my knees giving out as I catapulted onto the slick black ground.
The breath whooshed harshly from my chest; my elbows screamed where I caught my fall.
Instinct forced me to my feet; I almost didn’t register what had made me fall.
The exit was temptingly, tantalizingly close—
It was a… person. Panic spiked my veins—was it Irian? Wayland?
A gust of air formed and re-formed the shifting smoke, and I glimpsed straight hair the color of draig fire; lean, muscled arms curled around himself; eyes shut tight as if to block out the chaos. I reached for him. Hesitated when I remembered what I’d become.
Wayland had been able to touch me without injury. I took a chance—laid my palm on his shoulder. He flinched but did not move save for his lips, mouthing words I couldn’t hear. I lifted my hand away.
“Idris!” I shouted. That was his name—wasn’t it? Around us, bursts of fire lashed, shrieking through the air to explode near our heads. I ducked and winced, staring after Sinéad as she disappeared down the aperture. “Idris, you have to get up! There isn’t much time.”
Somewhere, the Cnoc’s supplies of oil and wine must have caught fire—muffled blasts rocked the caverns, the smoke fuming from the deeps.
The walls dripped with molten silver metal, as if the mountain were weeping.
I had lost count of how many young draigs bellowed and flapped and rained fire upon our heads.
I prayed to gods I had reason to believe weren’t listening that my friends had found a way out of this conflagration.
Sinéad, at least, was safe. Irian was a ruthless warrior who wielded a Treasure.
Wayland was an obstreperous reprobate with an uncanny knack for weaseling into—and out of—trouble.
Balor and the aughiskies had likely survived worse. Laoise could take care of herself.
Which meant there was only me. And Idris.
I couldn’t leave him here.
I crouched beside him, cursing myself for barely speaking to him yesterday beyond cursory introductions.
The only salient thing I knew about Laoise’s brother was how he’d looked at Wayland last night in the library.
Like the prionsa was something rare and forbidden—a sweetness he could hardly resist, or a poison that might linger long after the thrill.
That didn’t help me now.
“Listen,” I rasped, my voice choked by smoke. “Fear is the body’s armor. It can be a shield. But it can also chain you.”
Again, Idris’s lips moved inaudibly. My patience was as shattered as the rocks crumbling from the vaulted ceilings high above. “What?”
“Not… a… fighter. Not… strong.”
“You’re alive, Idris. That makes you a fighter,” I choked out. “You don’t need a blade in your hand to be strong. Strength comes in standing, even when fear grips you. All it takes is one step. Then another. Be your own shield. Don’t let yourself die chained to your fear.”
He uncurled. Slowly—painfully slowly. I fought with every ounce of my self-control not to harry him, hurry him. Grab him bodily by the arm and haul him toward safety.
“That’s it,” I encouraged, my voice disappearing beneath the booming blasts and crackling fire. Idris levered himself to his feet. He was surprisingly tall—I had to slant my face to look at him. Half his face was shadowed by the fall of his hair. The other half was utterly petrified.
“Go on,” I screamed, pointing toward the crevasse where Sinéad had disappeared. “I’m right behind you! I won’t let anything happen.”
He moved as if he were made of stone. But he moved.
Shadows swallowed us; a few steps later, fresh air swirled around my face, sweeping fumes from my lungs in one relieved gasp.
I urged Idris forward, my flame-roasted gaze dredging the darkness for scraps of light.
After what felt like eternity, pale blue filtered in.
Daylight. We spilled out onto the mountain.
The landscape unfolded with rugged, desolate beauty—a vast expanse of windswept dark rock and craggy mountains stretching toward the endless horizon.
Sparse patches of velveteen moss clung to crevices, defying the harshness around them; pale, slender wildflowers pushed through fractured stone as if holding vigil in the solitude.
“You made it.” Sinéad had her hands planted on her knees as she sucked in breath after breath of fresh mountain air. Behind her, the aughiskies sallied and stamped, their aquatic beauty at odds with the stark strangeness of the Barrens. “Thank the gods.”
Linn sent me a blistering image of myself, so blackened and sooty that I crisped away like ashes upon the wind.
“Missed you too, fiend,” I grumbled.
My momentary relief at having escaped the caverns faded before my mounting worry for everyone else.
A huge craggy head appearing above the rise swiftly alleviated at least one fear; behind Balor were Irian and Wayland.
Soot was smeared across Irian’s face, and half his tunic was burned away; Wayland was still wrestling with the baby draig.