Chapter 29 Beneath the Hill
Beneath the Hill
The Hill looked even more otherworldly up close—its shape too perfect, the grass on its slopes too green and too lush.
Above, the giant, blue-tinged oak towered over it all, its long, twisted branches casting strange shadows down the slopes beneath.
From here, looking up from below, I could see that the tree wasn’t just a tree—there were platforms and walkways among the branches, making it look like some sort of large, enchanted treehouse.
I wonder if we can go up there. I filed that question away to ask Octavian once he was convinced we were safe.
The girl led us along the base of the Hill, following the town’s innermost, perfectly round road.
It wasn’t long before we came to a large stone archway built right into the side of the Hill’s grassy slope.
The crowds were just as thick here as they were in every other part of Ring-Around-the-Hill, and even though the archway was, by my wager, big enough for two semi-trucks to drive through side-by-side, there was still a bit of a traffic jam going in and out.
Octavian pulled me closer to him, right against his warm, muscular side.
“Stay close,” he murmured to me. “Hold on to me no matter what.”
There were worse things than being snuggled up against Octavian, despite the warnings my head kept sending me.
He slid his arm around my waist so the crowd couldn’t pull us away from each other, and I resisted the urge to lean into him, to rest my head on his shoulder like some sort of lovesick teenager.
Octavian, meanwhile, was back on full alert. From where we were pressed together, I could feel that his body was completely rigid with vigilance, and his azure gaze darted in every direction, scanning for potential threats.
I found myself tensing, too, when it was finally our turn to pass beneath the archway. The stone of the arch was marked with strange symbols, and though I had no idea what they meant, the back of my scalp prickled as we walked beneath them.
A little shiver raced down my spine, too—clearly, there was enough essence in this place for me to feel even with the pearls still secured to my wrist.
“Wards,” Octavian rumbled to me. “Very, very old ones.”
I wasn’t sure what I’d expected to find beneath the Hill—something dark and damp and cave-like, probably.
And yes, the large room in front of us was truly cavernous, but no one would ever confuse it with a dark, damp cave.
It was lit from above by what I assumed were hundreds of lamps, giving off the illusion that we were moving beneath sparkling fairylight.
The cavern below was filled with more colorful vendor stalls—another one of the town’s markets, obviously—and from what I could see of the edges of the room, dozens of tunnels led off this main cavern in every direction.
I couldn’t help marveling. “It’s beautiful.”
Octavian squeezed my side. “The Hill Market is considered one of the great wonders of Therador. There are legends about this place.”
There wasn’t time to ask him to elaborate on that, since our guide was already leading us past the first row of market stalls and to the path that wound around the edge of the cavern, along the tunnels going elsewhere.
Each passage boasted a different, brightly painted symbol on the stone above its arched entryway.
We must have passed a dozen tunnels before she finally turned and stepped beneath an archway marked by two teal, braided spirals. She glanced back once to make sure we still followed her, then led the way into the tunnel beyond.
But the word tunnel suggested something dim and confining, and this passageway was anything but.
True, the walls were clearly carved right out of the stone of the earth, and sure, there were no windows to offer natural light, but the passage was well-lit, sparkling with the same golden lanternlight as the cavern behind us.
And though some stretches of wall were left plain, with nothing but veins of minerals to add interest, others were painted with murals depicting all sorts of strange and beautiful scenes—pastoral landscapes, or flowering meadows full of fairy-like creatures, or glittering lakes dotted with ultramarine nymphs.
One particularly vivid scene featured a terrible, majestic creature crouching on a craggy silver mountaintop—the beast had the body and head of a lion, but a pair of dark, feathered wings rose from its back, and its tail was barbed and scaled.
An odd, tingly familiarity pricked at the base of my skull. The beast was beautiful and frightening at the same time, and I must have paused as I stared at it, because Octavian’s fingers squeezed my side, urging me onward.
There were doorways and additional corridors leading off our passage, and occasionally the young woman would turn us down one of those side-routes.
This place is a complete maze. Despite the distinctive murals and the bright symbols painted over every passage and doorway, I was shocked that anyone could find their way around without becoming hopelessly lost. Hopefully we won’t have to make some mad escape from this labyrinth.
The further we moved from the large cavern, the fewer people there were around us, until the girl turned us down a passage marked by a red bird and we found ourselves alone.
Octavian’s grip tightened again, and I knew his other hand was wrapped around his sword hilt once more. Was this girl leading us into some sort of ambush?
But if she sensed his tension, she ignored it, glancing back with one of her smiles. “It’s not far now.”
We passed a couple of doorways marked with more red birds, though each one had the creature in a slightly different pose—this one with its wings outstretched, that one fanning out its tail—and then the passage ended.
The only thing here was a knee-high grate built into the wall, presumably for drainage of some sort.
The young woman dropped to her knees, fiddling with the edge of the grate until she could pull it open.
“Follow me,” she said, then crawled through without waiting for an answer from either of us.
Octavian released me, then crouched down, peering through the opening.
“There’s another passage on the other side,” he told me.
“Do you think it’s a trap?” I asked, keeping my voice low.
The young woman apparently heard me anyway.
“Not a trap, I promise.” She poked her head through to our side again. “It’s not the most convenient, I know, but Talon likes his privacy. And I figure the Mighty Oak does, too, these days.”
Octavian paused a moment, considering, then nodded.
“Follow close behind,” he rumbled to me, then dropped to his hands and knees and followed our guide to the other side. He was so big that his broad shoulders barely fit through the opening.
With a sigh, I bent down and followed.
He was right—the other side looked much like the passage we’d just left, only with no murals and less light. Octavian helped me to my feet, holding my hands longer than necessary as the girl closed the grate behind us.
She beckoned us forward. “We’re almost there, I promise.”
This time, she wasn’t exaggerating. We rounded a bend in the passage and found ourselves facing a plain, unmarked door, which she pushed open. We followed, Octavian positioning himself in front of me as if to protect me from whatever waited inside.
On the other side was a large, surprisingly high-ceilinged room that currently contained at least a dozen people—and, oddly, nearly twice as many small birds.
The birds flitted about, alighting on bits of furniture or the natural ledges that occurred in the room’s rough-hewn walls—or, on occasion, on one of the room’s human occupants.
The room itself was unexpectedly cozy, with layers of carpets on the floor and plush, well-worn couches and chairs along the edge of the room.
The stone walls were draped with patterned fabric or painted with more murals—and while these paintings weren’t as detailed or as technically perfect as the other ones we’d passed, there was a vibrancy to their strokes that filled the room with energy.
At the far side of the room was a long table of aged gray wood, where most of the people here were clearly enjoying the remains of their breakfast. Their laughter and voices died off when they saw the girl—and us.
“I’ve brought you all a surprise,” she announced to the room, practically bursting with enthusiasm. “We were right. He’s back.”
Several of the men and women had risen, but one in particular caught my eye—a broad-shouldered fellow about Octavian’s age.
His dark, wavy hair had a single golden streak sprouting from just above his brow, and the kohl he wore around his eyes made his dark irises pop against his golden brown skin.
He wore his facial hair short and trimmed in that way that gave him perfect perpetual stubble—well, perfect except for the scar that slashed across the right side of his jaw.
Everything about the guy gave me killer rock star vibes.
Like the girl who’d led us here, he ignored me completely in favor of my large, muscular companion. And even though Octavian still wore his hooded cloak, only a few seconds passed before recognition flashed in the other man’s eyes.
He stepped forward. Everyone else remained quiet, unmoving, and even the birds had fallen silent, as if they knew something important was happening.
One of the birds—a swallow, I think—swooped down from the ceiling and landed on the approaching man’s shoulder.
The little bird cocked its head as if studying us, tweeted a few strains into his perch’s ear, then flitted back up to the ceiling again while the man never broke his stride.
“Take down your hood,” the man said to Octavian.
Octavian did as he was commanded, lowering the fabric so that his face was clearly visible.