Chapter 31 Ariah
ARIAH
Adeafening shriek wakes me and propels my body forward.
Through the mouth of the cave, I see dawn breaking through a blurry sky. With a few blinks I notice Chana stands near the mouth of the cave with a dagger drawn. Beside her is Iann who I thought was still next to me, but he’s wide awake with a sword in hand.
“What’s happening?” I whisper, taking my ring blade and standing with the others.
“Started minutes ago,” Vera whispers back, her shirt brushes the skin of my arm as she stands close. “Sounds like we might not be alone.” She stands up from her squat, and I join her. Both armed for the unexpected.
“We should keep moving.” Iann fastens the sword back in his scabbard. “Collect everything and let’s get going.” He comes over to me and discreetly rests his head on mine. “Good morning.”
“Is it a good one?” I pull away and eye the others with caution. “What was that?” The noise didn’t sound like it came from a human, but instead, a large creature of some sort.
“No idea.” He gently squeezes my arm. “But I don’t think we should worry. We’ll just have to make sure we’re extra careful.”
I nod and together we pack up our things. There are another two screeching sounds before we all exit the cave. The most unsettling part is that we seem to be heading in the direction the shrieks are coming from, but it’s hard to tell how far, or near, the offending creature is located.
Nico, who impresses me as he keeps the same cheerful spirit throughout the journey, continuously checks the map making sure we are always going in the right direction.
He’s in the middle of telling me a story about his first expedition with Iann when he stops walking. His fingers trace over the map and then at invisible lines in the air.
“We can’t go that way.” He speaks loud enough for Iann and Deean, who lead us, to hear.
Deean immediately drops his bag, breathing heavily at the weight that’s been strapped to his back. “Then which way are we supposed to go?”
Nico does some more searching on the map and turns to his right, facing a stone wall. Thriving green vines cover most of it and I don’t want to think of what spiders hide within.
“Do you have a way of getting through stone?” Sky sarcastically throws out, before taking the opportunity to sit on a boulder and downing a swig of water.
I see Iann pick up a hefty size rock off the ground and before I can ask what he’s doing he throws it into the air.
It lands on the continued path, but it doesn’t stay there.
Chunks of mud fly up as if it’s boiling and slowly pulls the rock under until it disappears, and then the terrain returns to normal, like nothing has disturbed the ground.
Deean jumps closer to the rest of us, feeling a little too close to the muddy death trap.
“The stone wall it is,” Sky concludes.
“What now?” I look over Nico’s shoulder to see what little clues Fraya left. “That patterned one—maybe it’s a cipher or something.”
Suddenly, the ground rumbles, urging us to move faster.
Iann cuts away at the spider-infested ivy. No actual spiders come crawling out, but I’m still convinced they’re in there.
Once the vines come down, tile-like rocks with symbols embedded in each are scattered across the wall.
“What language is that?” Iann takes a step back examining it more in depth.
“Kind of similar to Ethnay. But then again, it’s not,” Chana suggests, as she tilts her head to the side.
Benny chuckles, although no one has told a joke. He moves close and glides a hand over a few stones. “It’s Herolvic. An old dead language many claim was invented by the divinities.”
Great. Not only foreign to us but a dead one as well.
“What are you talking about?” Sky aims his head to the grouping of symbols further at the top. “It’s Haymelian. It reads, ‘What is my true name?’”
I spin to Sky prepared to tell him it says nothing of the sort but my eyes get caught on Vera’s necklace. It shines with a red urgency and causes me to look down at the bracelet, which glows the same color.
“Is she watching us?” I back into Chana as fear snakes up my spine.
Sky grabs my wrist, and I see Iann lurch forward but stills before he realizes Sky is only examining it. His eyes drift back and forth from the bracelet to the wall. “The wall is enchanted.” Sky’s words come out in amazement, and it doesn’t take me long to realize why.
The necklace and bracelet pick up on any enchantments around us. They were also created by Sky who might be more than an ordinary apothecary.
“What does this say?” Nico holds up the map to Sky.
“Ocean Ruler.” Sky’s interpretation carries no hesitations. Without warning he begins to push in the stones of the wall matching that of what’s on the paper. With the final stone he steps away, and the ground rumbles and the wall shakes as a chunk sinks back in itself.
Iann is the first to approach the gap in the wall. Pushing the area that has become disconnected from the rest of the wall. Once pushed to its limit, he starts sliding it over as Deean comes to help; before us is a door of darkness, continuing us on the path.
Iann grabs a few fallen sticks and takes one of the blankets we have, wrapping it around the stick. Deean searches for the nille stones and then sets fire to the blanket.
“This way.” Iann bobs a head towards the entrance and slips into the darkness.
I follow first and Nico stays close behind us, clinging to the map.
The ground is solid, nothing like the muddy trap outside, and the walls are narrow. Along with the soil scent there is something powdery, almost waxy about the smell around us. There is something familiar in the peculiar odor. It’s almost like being in my father’s study, near Lemon’s cage.
The walls begin growing wider and in the distance, I spot a light.
Iann stops and hovers the torch over Nico’s map.
“Does it show us what’s next?” He finds where the olden language is written and follows the route upwards, his finger freezing on the map.
“It’s the image of the bird.” Nico slowly pulls the map away.
In the dark I find Iann’s hand and squeeze it tight.
Deean, somewhere behind us starts laughing to himself. “Sorry, it’s not funny.” He lets a few loose snickers slip. “Do you remember that time when you were eleven and one landed on your shoulder?”
“Not the time,” Iann grumbles and continues walking.
Deean ignores his brother and continues telling us a story of how someone had gifted their parents lovebirds one year as an anniversary gift.
The next day one bird had died, making the other one become quite sad.
Little Iann wasn’t aware of the violence a lone lovebird could cause.
Iann had opened its cage, and it immediately flew onto his shoulder.
Confident he could touch it, the bird bit his finger and then his nose before it started flying around the room.
“Even shit on his head.” Deean is wrapped in the memory and laughs his way through the tunnel. “Poor Iann tried getting out of the room, but the door was stuck. The bird did him one good that day.”
I feel Iann sigh and move my other hand up his back in comfort, tracing familiar sculpted lines.
I hold my laugh in, and it’s not from Iann’s fear but from the way Deean tells the story.
It may seem cruel to others, but the way in which Deean recounts the experience is done in a way in which only your siblings can tease you.
I know it well from Jaleese, who would certainly have stories of her own if she was here.
Her and Deean would probably end up in a most-embarrassing-sibling-moment contest.
Approaching the light, everyone stops talking. We walk into the openness of a cavern, under a dome-shaped room with an enormous circle cut out in the ceiling that allows in sunlight.
There is a path from one side of the room to the other and several trees that stretch up to the top of the dome. Sitting in every tree are tiny, round shadows that I think are some sort of fruit at first, until we get closer. Then I realize, thousands of birds are sleeping in the trees.
Iann grips my hand, cutting off my circulation and crushing my bones. I pull away before he has a chance to break anything.
“Sorry,” he whispers unsteadily.
“We just have to make it to the other side and then we’ll be done.” I try comforting him but have no clue what awaits us once—or if—we make it through.
“No one move,” Chana warns as she passes the entrance and sees what lies inside the dome.
“Are those…” Nico quietly tries to fold the map.
“Picos.” Chana eases past Vera and Sky and looks more closely at the path.
“They occupy some of the forests in Ethmay. One or two usually aren’t a problem but we’re looking at hundreds, if not thousands.
They are particularly drawn to noise, so we need to move with silence.
They are known to attack anything that disturbs them. ”
Foxes are to remain unheard. With one deep inhale I take the first step onto the path. Iann tries grabbing my hand, but I pull it away and place a finger to my lips and give him a smile. He’s led the way most of this journey but in his fear—which I know is ever potent right now—it’s my turn.
The ground seems like any other dirt path and doesn’t make much sound as we walk on it.
The closer we get to the trees, the more visible the birds become.
Speckled among their black feathers are traces of yellow-and-orange, colors that scream caution.
Their eyes remain closed and we take our time.
Slowly but still steadily getting across the room. The exit is nearly within reach.
Almost there. I encourage myself to keep going.
Unseen. Unheard. Untraceable. I repeat the rules over and over.
Even if I have no desire to ever be a Fox, all the training had to have meant something.
Every late-night watch, every poor soul I had to follow, or every gritty task ordered by the Queen, it all had to have been for something.
Just when I find my pace, my confidence is shattered by a metallic sound. My body goes rigid, and I instantly feel Iann lose all momentum behind me.
Looking back, I spot Benny gathering the lead pieces back into a metal tin, making more noise as he’s going at it.
Chana bends down, placing a hand on his, forcing him to stay quiet. She looks above us, and I follow her gaze. Every bird now perches with eyes open, peering in our direction. They begin making sounds, similar to the cries we heard earlier.
“Damnit, Benny,” Deean hisses. “What could you even be writing about at a time like this?”
Benny assures us it just slipped, but Chana pushes him forward before he can finish explaining. “GO!” she shouts.
The birds begin flying around, circling the space above us. Iann becomes paralyzed by the terror of it all, lost in the fear above him. It takes me a few times, but on the third tug he finally starts running with me.
“The parfa powder, Your Highness.” Sky stops running to shout at Deean. “Keep going,” he orders the rest of us.
The moment I have to look back, I see Deean and Sky struggling with a backpack. By the time we hit the other mouth of the cave, the birds make a final circle and then dive.
“Run!” I warn them.
Seeing the birds flying at them, Sky struggles with the sack of parfa powder as Deean holds on to the nille stones.
Leaving a trial of powder behind, Sky dumps it all and Deean stops for a second to generate sparks over the small mound.
In a panic it takes five strikes before the stones spark and set the powder ablaze.
Right before the birds can reach Deean they divert and fly upwards and out of the clearing at the top of the dome, rising with the smoke.
The smoke is strong and hits us in a rush. We continue running until we are in absolute sunlight and out of the cave and its adjoining tunnel.
Out of breath, I bend over and take in as much air as my lungs allow. Between the running and the strong scent of the powder, it’s difficult to breathe.
A tightness in my chest begins to set in and my shoulders rise.
Even though I desperately try to take deep inhales it’s not enough.
I dig in my pockets for my spray. My hands sweat and it’s like I’ve rubbed them with butter because the bottle flies out of my hand and lands near me. Thankfully, it remains whole.
“We need to keep going,” Deean shouts running out of the tunnel. As I bend over, he runs my way and steps on my bottle before I have a chance to retrieve it.
Crunch.
The noise sucks out any air I have left in me, and I watch the liquid soak into the ground.
“Ariah.” Iann is at my side in a second. His hands lift up my face to see him. “What’s happening?”
“She can’t breathe,” Vera says, having seen me struggle in the past. “Sky, help her.”
Vera starts to rub my back as Iann tells me to drink some water.
My wheezing picks up as I watch Sky sniff the mixture on the ground.
“Twenty-five crushed elderberries, two pinches of mullein, a dash of ginseng, four leaves from an elmonk flower,” I struggle to get out. “Boiled.”
He gives me a look and then gives one to Iann. A look that doesn’t need to be translated. We are on a deserted island and the chances of finding all those ingredients in the limited time I have before my breathing stops is impossible.
Iann lifts me into his arms and tells Sky to get moving. He sits me near a tree, allowing me to rest against it. I feel his hands brush the hair from my face. “I’m going to make it better, Ariah.” He kisses my forehead and tells Vera to watch me.
There is something stronger here than just my difficulty to breathe. There is a tingling that coats me. A near-magical feeling, but not in a beautiful, majestic way. Something malevolent is at work.
My eyes grow heavy and my breathing becomes more and more strained. People start running and shouting but it all becomes a blur.
I feel Vera’s hand in mine. “I’m sorry my mom never showed up,” I struggle to say and should really refrain from talking.
“No, more talking,” she orders.
I don’t know when, but all noise becomes mute, and my eyelids fall heavy. Breathing, the one thing we must all do to survive, becomes painful. Too painful to bear. My eyes finally close off to the panic of those around me, and I slip away to somewhere else.