17. A Child’s Song and Lights That Touch the Earth
A Child’s Song and Lights That Touch the Earth
SAPPHIRA
O n their way out of the village of Eldljus, the kids race behind them, holding hands and bounding around as they chant:
Up, up, on the hill, the moon falls down, HURRA!
Light in the sky touches the ground, HURRA, HURRA, HURRA!
A ray of colors falls like rain, a party of rainbows. Greens, reds, blues, and yellow—the kids all shout HURRA!
Take hands to the holy place, a path to jotnar. Marching down, down, down the hill, the chant resounds, HURRA, HURRA!
Over the little girl’s voice, her brother shouts it in their tongue—
“Upp, upp, p? kullen, m?nen faller ner, HURRA!
Ljus p? himlen, ror vid marken, HURRA, HURRA, HURRA!
En str?le av f?rger faller som regn, en fest av regnb?gar. Gront, rott, bl?tt och gult, barnen ropar HURRA!
Ta varandras h?nder till den heliga platsen, en v?g till jotnar. Marscherande ner, ner, ner for kullen, ekar s?ngen, HURRA, HURRA!
The song follows them as they crest a mountain, and Kaelen touches down when they reach a mushroom forest. The sky turns black and gray, and the clouds fight like battling tides as they gather for rain.
“Do you think that’s the hill of eyes?” Kaelen asks.
“I think so,” Isabel says.
Sapphira nods. “They sure looked like eyes from up in the sky. But couldn’t we just fly over the valley?” she asks.
Kaelen gives her a comical, wide-eyed stare, brows raised to his hairline. “You heard the locals in every place we passed. The one thing they all agreed on was never to enter the valley. They called it Dodens dal. I’m not sure about you, but I’m not ready to die.”
“You could have just said no,” Sapphira grumbles, peering into the dark forest. She takes Isabel’s hand, puts on a brave face, and steps forward.
They travel deep into the earth, down a winding path lit by fluorescent mushrooms. When they reach a cave where giant eggs rest in a bed of rocks, they’re startled by a man who falls from the cave ceiling and lands on Kaelen’s back, a blade to his throat.
Kaelen shouts, his eyes wide in shock and fear as he struggles in the large man’s hold. “The one who spies,” he gasps.
When he shouts a second time, even louder than the first, both women turn to see two more people, a man and a woman, each bigger and burlier than the one who caught Kaelen. They ride atop the backs of massive, beastly spiders with stingers and the distinct coloring of an emperor moth.
The takops looks like he might pass out, and Sapphira might have to agree with that reaction.
“Who are you?” the man atop the beast says, his spear pointed at Sapphira.
He wears a white-and-brown fur cloak, and his nose is large and curved.
The other two have similar features, faces like stone, and eyes sharp as ice.
The man on the beast is big and burly, while the one pining Kaelen is smaller, and leaner, but still has rippling muscles. Even the woman is broad and muscled.
Isabel squeezes Sapphira’s hand, giving the princess strength. Taking a deep breath, Sapphira lets go and steps forward alone.
“Who are you?” the woman growls, her spider-beast shifting closer to the man’s.
“What you want?” the big man asks in a thick, heavily accented voice.
Sapphira swallows, shifting her eyes from the beasts, whose fangs are twitching. She meets the smaller man’s harsh gaze. Every lesson she has learned, every bit of royal confidence and high-born training instilled in her, snaps forward as she holds her head high, chin pointed in the air.
Her voice is loud and full of passion. She calls out, “I am Sapphira Tuisaravere, and I am a child of ice. I came here to find my family.”
The pair share confused and shocked glances. The smaller one, holding Kaelen by knife point, grunts, “Prove it.”
“I’m n-not very good at calling it on command,” she says, nerves twisting her gut. “I can’t—”
The blade presses deeper into Kaelen’s throat, and he hisses. Sapphira widens her eyes, trying to urge him to shift . If he did, he could get the man off him. But Kaelen gives a subtle shake of his head toward me. Why?
Is he afraid the spies and their eight-legged beasts will attack me and Isabel if he provokes them? Or is it . . . Her eyes widen. These are my people. Kaelen’s afraid of hurting them because of me .
Sapphira wets her chapped lips and inhales icy air. Holding out her hands, cupping them together, she closes her eyes and imagines what she wants to create.
When she hears a collective gasp, she opens them again to see a snowflake dancing in her palms. As big as a starstone, the six-legged ice sculpture with a plume of delicate, symmetrical branches spins and glimmers in the light.
Sapphira gasps, taken aback by her own stunning craftsmanship, and the image melts away.
The strange trio doesn’t speak. They look at one another, and the man behind Kaelen slowly steps back, releasing him.
As soon as he’s free, Kaelen gasps for breath, blood dotting his throat. Isabel stumbles over to him and wraps her arms around him.
“Come,” the man on the spider-beast beside Sapphira says. He snaps snow-white reins, and the spiders turn and scurry to another tunnel in the cave. They follow the stranger on foot as they’re escorted through a maze of tunnels back up to the surface.
A towering gate opens at a throaty, musical call from one of the armed men, and Sapphira’s eyes don’t stop moving as she takes in the sights. She feels like Isabel, studying and recording her creatures.
Domed houses are made of ice, fish roast over communal fires, and the smell wafts through the village.
A large group of young men and a sprinkle of burly women march through with masks over their eyes.
They are using ropes to pull a massive creature with a smooth, gray back and white underbelly.
On their hips, deadly-looking sticks with serrated bone tips hang.
The entrance of a wooden building appears to intertwine with the ice structures that encompass it. It has pillars and spires, and large bodies of ice statues stand on either side of the entrance like guarding giants.
The man hops off the back of his creature while the woman rides away. The unmanned beast unfolds delicate wings from its fuzzy abdomen and flies into the sky. Kaelen whimpers, and Sapphira catches him as his legs give out.
“Such a big baby. You turn into a draek?n, and you’re afraid of a bug,” she says.
“Yeah? Well, you stare a bug the size of that thing down and see how you feel! I mean, look at it. It could eat me.”
She rolls her eyes. “Yeah, yeah.” Though, as she says it, her own legs shake. Isabel gives her a smug, knowing look over Kaelen’s head, and Sapphira’s cheeks grow warm in embarrassment.
“The ?kreüski won’t hurt you, barn,” the smaller man assures them in a honey-thick accent. He looks kinder now, then he had when he was pinning Kaelen, the scowl no longer on his face. Pushing through the crystal-beaded drapes over the entrance, he leads them inside.
It’s warmer than it should be inside the snow cave.
Sapphira’s eyes rove over the snow, which is packed so tight that it’s nearly glass.
Sparkling ice crystals hang down at the edges of the room.
On a throne, with a white bear-head crest on the high back, sits a woman in fine robes, her age lines like delicate lace.
Before her, people kneel, revealing to her their plights. One man tells of a shape-shifting serpent that travels farther down the west end, snatching children who fall into ice holes in the water. Another speaks of a storm that crushed their igloo and swept away all their belongings.
As they stand at the entrance of the room, watching all of this unfold, Sapphira’s eyes fall to two young girls.
One wears nice clothing, a crown, and a cape.
She’s giggling and messing about with another girl, who’s in a knee-length tunic and bearskin boots.
The second girl appears to be the young ruler’s page.
Both girls look up in sync and stare at the three newcomers with curious eyes. The little princess’s gaze lingers on the white stripe in Sapphira’s hair. Then she turns, and the two girls begin whispering to one another.
“I will have my grandson and a few volunteers go out to your place and set up a new home for you in the morning,” the woman on the throne says in a rough, oak-old voice. “And I will send someone out with a replenishment of food reserves.”
The man bows, holding his wife and young son tighter to him. “Thank you so much, Ice-Mistress Eleksai. We greatly appreciate it.”
The elder nods, her wizened eyes like great rivers and her coarse, silver curls shimmering a purple-blue. She wears pale robes and a tall black crown shaped like reindeer antlers. Her head is high, and her back looks stiff and strong despite her age.
One of the men who brought Sapphira, Isabel, and Kaelen cuts through the crowd and takes the family’s vacated spot in front of the ice-mistress.
The woman gives him a confused look as he kneels before her, bowing low to the ground, his forehead pressed to his fingers that spread across the ice. The larger man takes the woman’s hand and kisses the back, grooves like ancient tree bark etched in the years of her skin.
“Grandmother,” he says, “I brought these guests to you.” Looking back at Sapphira, he urges her to step forward, and says, “She is an Heir of Ymir. A child of ice.”
A collective gasp rings through the room, and the elder’s ancient eyes snap to Sapphira. She squirms under the sudden attention. This isn’t the same as the guards and maidens of her kingdom. Sapphira has no control here, and it’s an uncomfortable feeling to be at the mercy of others.
“Are you sure, Sekile?” the woman says.
The smaller man stands, and the burly, blade-happy one says, “I saw it myself, Ice-Mistress.”
Sekile turns to Sapphira. “Show her.”