Chapter 40
Forty
Lark
My breath caught in my throat as Nassir said the words. My mother. He knew her.
“I knew it instantly. The first moment she stepped into the city, it was the same tug I’d felt to seek out DuVarick.” Nassir leaned back with a smile, reminiscing. “She was full of energy. Stubborn too. Her aura was different, but that was to be expected. After all, she wasn’t fae.”
My heart thudded. I felt a pang at my mistaken identity for all these years, but if Nassir had the truth, I was going to find out.
“What was she then?” I asked. Patience wasn’t one of my virtues.
“I hadn’t encountered one of her kind in person, though from time to time they do wander into the Wyldes, seeking to share knowledge and attempting to form a mutual relationship.
Not often after the war, of course, but from time to time.
But we have a long, uncomfortable history with one another, and soon enough they leave,” Nassir said.
“Or are slain. One way or another, they do not stay for long.”
The idealists. The ones who thought they could mend an old rift and gain knowledge for it.
“Lark was a witch.” My voice shook. “But . . .”
Thain would hate me.
Thain would hate me. He had a personal history with that war. He had seen witches do awful things to his people.
They would all hate me.
Schula, she’d made a face right before she left me in the crater. I’d thought she was acting strange. She knew. She’d found out when she lifted my seal.
Oh Mother. Oh Stars. Did she hate me too?
“Wren, are you all right?” Nassir asked, reaching out for my hand again. “Stay calm, I will tell you everything. This does not mean you are hated here. Half of you is still of the Wyldes.”
“What if this is how I survived the plague?” I whispered. “They’ll think it was witchcraft that saved me. What if it was?”
“Wren, calm down,” Nassir said firmly. “You can tell me about this plague later, but I assure you that as a baby you had no control over your powers. Lark was a righteous person, and she would not have her own child part of an evil plot. It was not your fault; it was not her fault. Just let me tell you what I know.”
I took a breath. Then another. “All right, yes,” I said. “Sorry, I’m fine. Go on, I want to know more.”
Nassir paused until he was satisfied that I had calmed down, then he leaned back again and sighed. “Lark met DuVarick first, of course. I could feel them together. Thriving, getting more and more powerful.”
“How is it that a witch could be triquetram with a fae?” I asked.
“It’s uncommon, but it does happen. Your triquetram is almost always your equal in power, but that doesn’t mean equal in race or status. It’s as the Stars will it to be.” Nassir shrugged.
“Okay, so your triquetram was whole, and that made you all stronger. Right?”
Nassir nodded. “I had long ago ceased to meditate. I thought if I was weaker, DuVarick could not benefit from my presence. But even in that low state, I felt the pulse of energy from them flowing into me. I could deny it no longer, I itched to meet her, and evidently the same was true for Lark.”
“You met her? In here?” I asked.
“One day, when DuVarick was out on a diplomatic errand, she came down here. It took some time, but with the pull of our powers she eventually found her way to me. I was waiting at the door, and the moment she opened, it she flew into my arms, hugging me.” He smiled sadly.
“And that was that. As far as she was concerned, we were family. She stole away whenever DuVarick wasn’t looking to come see me.
She told me about herself, and I told her about me, though I don’t like to talk about it; she was very good at prying the stories right out of me.
Against my wishes, she begged DuVarick to free me.
They argued often about it, but as you can see, DuVarick won in the end. ”
“That’s awful,” I said.
Nassir waved away my concerns. “DuVarick’s mind is twisted far from what it once was. He has allowed it to become so tainted by his emotions and his uncle that there is no coming back from it. And those shadows do much to keep him out of touch with what he knows to be true.”
“Then, what happened to Lark?” I asked.
“She disappeared. One night, she was simply gone. I felt DuVarick’s rage. I was saddened, but glad she’d escaped his clutches. No matter how much he might have cared about her as his triquetram, he cared about his power more, and now she was a part of that. He was furious when she left.”
“Why did she leave?” I asked.
“I never did find out,” Nassir said. “But it was months after her disappearance that I felt her life fade. It nearly stopped my own heart, it was such a painful loss. I suppose I had always harbored hope of seeing her again, once more before her mortal lifespan ended. Even by a witch’s standards, she was lost to us far too soon. ”
I sat quietly, not sure how to absorb it all.
My mother. A witch.
I was part witch.
Right?
“How can you be certain that I’m her daughter?” I asked.
“When you first arrived, I thought my mind was playing tricks on me. I thought you were Lark, come back to me after all this time. Your spirit is very similar to hers, your magic feels almost the same,” Nassir said.
“Perhaps a bit more of the Wyldes in you, but close enough to fool an old fool like me. My first thought was that witches simply had magic that felt that way, but as I observed you from a distance and realized you were not Lark, I could still feel the faint echoes of my triquetram coming from you. You are also the right age to belong to her, and her death coincides with when you were left in the mountains. I had to piece it all together, but when you came at me in my mind, a purple bird of fire, I realized you had to be connected to my Lark. Your story simply confirmed a few things.”
“You’re sure?” I asked again.
“I am sure,” he said. “And tell me this, Wren, how did DuVarick behave around you? He mentioned you look just like her, right?”
“Yes, he did,” I answered.
“The only obsession I have felt from him in decades was when he was with Lark. I’m convinced, and I think he is as well. If anyone was going to recognize the offspring of Lark, it would be us.”
“But why didn’t you come forward when I first arrived?” I asked. “We could have figured all this out before now. I could have warmed us with my fire, and . . . and . . .”
“Ah, for that I am sorry. First I thought you were a trick of my mind, and then I thought you were a trick of DuVarick’s to finally tip me into insanity,” Nassir admitted.
“Oh.” I let the fire fade from my palm with a sigh. It had drained a lot from me, as had Nassir’s story. “I don’t know what to do now.”
“There isn’t much to do but wait for DuVarick to come for you again.”
“I suppose I should be a little closer to the entrance then.”
“We can go that way. I will follow, but I won’t get close enough to be seen when one of his men opens the door,” Nassir said.
“Good idea.” I stood up and brushed dust off my clothing. “With the light, it should only take me an hour to get back there, maybe less.”
“Far less, I’m sure,” Nassir offered. “I’ll gather a few more plants to eat and be there with you after a while.”
“Right, I’ll go back in case they come for me again.”
And think of a way to use this new information to get out of this mess.
The rest of the day, or morning, or whenever it was, went quietly.
Nassir and I both had a lot to dwell on.
We ate. Nassir appreciated the roasted food as he hadn’t had such in a long time.
I gave him the last bit of bread I had saved earlier when I didn’t know where my next meal would come from.
He savored it, and it pained me to think when his next bit of food would come that wasn’t mushrooms or insects.
I thought a lot about Lark. About the kind of person Nassir said she was. One of her last desires was to free him. Could I do that? If I could find a way, I wanted to.
After a time, we decided to sleep. I was exhausted emotionally and physically, and I didn’t have a problem drifting off on the hard ground.
The cool cavern chilled me as I slept. I didn’t know how long I was out, but when a clicking sound disturbed me, I grumbled and rolled over.
“Shh, I’m still sleeping, Nassir.”
Tap tap . . . tap tap.
My eyes flew open when I realized it wasn’t Nassir’s clicking but a new tapping sound that had bothered me.
I sat up in my cabin and instantly realized my body must still be asleep. I was alarmed but kept myself under control as I looked around.
There at the window was the tapping sound. A fat black bird with one milky white eye was trying to get my attention.
“Puko!”
I ran to the window, throwing it open and gathering him inside. “Puko, how are you here? Where are you really?”
He screeched in my ear and flapped clumsily over to a chair, where he perched on the arm closest to the fireplace, preening.
“But how are you here?” I sighed, frustrated.
Caw!
He puffed out his chest and took off, flapping back through the window. He settled just outside again and pecked at the windowsill.
CAW!
“What? I don’t understand!” I pleaded.
Then I was snapped awake. Really awake.
A tendril of panic entwined my insides before I realized it was Nassir shaking me in the dark.
“Wren, Wren, are you okay? Was it a nightmare?”
“No, it was a bird I know.” I sat up, lighting my palm and looking at his concerned face. “He was trying to tell me something.”
“A bird?” Nassir asked.
“Window!” I shot to my feet. “Nassir, you called it a window. I need to get there.”
“Slow down, the hole? Well, or window. Or whatever it is.”
“Yes, yes, can you show me?”
“Of course I can, come on.”
Nassir took me to where the water source was. It was painstakingly slow. While the light helped me to see where I was going, it did nothing for Nassir, so he still had to rely on his clicking tongue trick to get around.
My heart sped up when the cavern around us began to take shape. Light, more than just my little flickering palm flame, showed the walls around us as we went in further than the small spring. I hadn’t been in this deep before.
“Does there still appear to be some light here?” Nassir asked.
“More than that, I think there really is a way outside! It must have been night when we were here before, because there is so much more light now,” I said excitedly.
“Really?” Nassir grinned. “Quick, over here. Halfway up this wall there is a hole, see if you can tell what it is.”
We rounded a corner, and sure enough, the light was coming through a hole barely bigger than my arm. I held on and climbed up the wall as well as I could, shoving my face to the hole.
“What is it? What do you see?” Nassir asked.
“Not much,” I said. “There’s some light, so I think we’re must be at the outside of the mountain. The air is very cold here. But we must be under an overhang of sorts, because all I can see is rock.”
I slid down the wall, and we both took in the news. It was a strange mix of hope that we could reach the outside air and despair that we could never get through it.
I sat on the ground next to Nassir and tried not to let the disappointment slip into my voice.
“Well, at least I know what that hole is now,” Nassir said.
“Yeah,” I said.
Tap tap.
“Did you say something?” I asked.
“No,” Nassir said. “That was the hole.”
We both tilted our heads to the hole, and then I heard it again.
Tap tap.
Carefully, I got up and climbed back up to the hole. I lifted my face to it, only to be rewarded with a hard peck on my nose. “Puko! Ouch.”
There was enough light that I could see he had something in his beak. I reached out my hand to catch it. “What’s this?”
Puko dropped a few strands of hair in my palm and pecked me in the forehead, cawing.
“Ouch, stop that!” I rubbed my head and looked closer at my palm. I lit my other hand to see better and gasped. Four strands of deep-blue hair had landed in my hand, and they could only belong to one person. “Thain.”
“What is it? What’s going on?” Nassir asked.
“I think I have a way to tell my friends where I am,” I said, pulling a few strands of my own brown hair off my head. I handed them to Puko, who took them and nodded once before hopping up the hole and flying out of sight.
“How?” Nassir asked.
“Puko, my raven friend, just brought me a sign of Thain, and I just sent a sign back. With enough luck, they’ll be able to find this place.”
Nassir was silent, a stunned look on his face.
“Nassir?” I came back down and sat beside him. “Nassir, if anyone can get us out of here, it’s Thain. We can get out. You’ll be free.”
“He’ll never let me leave here,” Nassir insisted.
“He won’t have a choice.” I pressed on. “Please, Nassir, my mother didn’t get a chance to get you out of here, let me do what it was she wanted.
Will you come with me? I don’t know if the friends I’ve made will accept me now that I’m not what we thought I was.
But I couldn’t leave you behind. I want to know so much more about you, and Lark, and I want to show you where I’m from.
I want to take you out of here. Please, Nassir. ”
He was quiet a moment longer as I held my breath. I knew he could hear my crazy heartbeat, but I let him think until he finally gave me an answer.
“Okay, if your friends come, we’ll leave together.”
And that was that. Suddenly, we both had a reason to hope.