Chapter Twenty-Five
We meet the others outside of the chambers: Seth, Taran, Larus, and Typhon.
“Elia?” asks Ronan.
Taran shakes his head. “Too weak to go with us. She’s heading with the other guards to Minar. They’ll be traveling slower.”
Our journey will not be slow. We’ve got to put as much distance between us and the palace as we can as quickly as we can, and for that, we’re taking a servants’ passage that leads underground all the way to the stables near the northern wall of Faros.
It’s less a passage than a series of passages, I realize once we’re in the damp cellars beneath the city. “This route was only recently rediscovered,” Ronan explains. “We found many of these longer passages only after the Guild upheaval.”
Which means that few people know about them. We’re not the only ones using the passages, but everyone we encounter is Selaran. They pass us by without much thought, primarily because Ronan is no longer Ronan but Soren once more.
We nearly make it all the way out without incident, but at one of the final turns before we’re outside of the city walls, we find our path forward blocked by a collapse from the building above.
Larus reaches out with his magic, feeling something in the obstruction that I can’t begin to understand. “It goes on for at least fifty feet. If we were all earth-born, maybe we could get through, but with just me?”
“There’s a storm drain nearby,” says Taran, following a trickle of water with his magic. I light it with the torch so the others can see. It leads to a low grate, barely large enough to crawl through.
Seth shudders. “Absolutely not. There’s no way that’s sanitary. I say we take our chances from the last junction.”
“Stains will be the least of your problems if we don’t get out of here soon,” says Larus, using his magic to break the bars as we hear the sounds of boots crashing through the tunnel we’ve just come from.
“I’ll go first,” I say, tossing the torch ahead to see where we’re going. “It opens up after a dozen feet or so.”
I crawl through the narrow opening on my hands and knees, trying not to think about what’s in the water. At least we’re not in the sewers.
Yet.
The passage after the narrow section requires me to drop down into a natural cave. My legs ache from the impact with the ground. “Be careful. It’s further than it looks,” I call back.
No response.
I can sense Ronan still back near the collapsed tunnel. He’s tense, his anxiety rising.
And then I feel the fight begin.
“Fuck!” I climb up the slick, jagged stone of the cave wall, trying to make my way back into the drain, but it’s nearly impossible to keep my grip. Steel clashes in the passage beyond as I struggle to hold on to the ledge, kicking my boots against the wall to throw myself up and over.
I peer up and come face to face with Typhon.
“Go, go, go!” he says, his bald head hurtling towards me faster than I thought he could move.
I pull myself back down and drop to the floor once more as he comes flying out of the passage headfirst, his hand slipping in its attempt to hold on.
“Oh, gods!” he screams as he falls.
My shadows reach out automatically, wrapping around Typhon’s flailing figure. His tunic flies over his head as I hold him suspended upside down, revealing his soft stomach.
Gently, I turn him over and lower him down to the ground as Larus, Seth, Taran, and finally Ronan climb down into the cave. Ronan grabs my hand, healing the scrapes from my climb as he leads us into the cave.
“Nithyrian soldiers. One of them got away. We’ve got to make a run for it.”
We race through the cave, our pounding footsteps echoing on the walls as we follow first the water and then daylight to the exit.
“Any ideas where that leads?” Ronan asks Taran.
“No idea. Hopefully outside the walls.”
The cave does lead beyond the walls, but unfortunately, we’re near the shore, far to the east of the stables we were hoping to find.
“There,” says Taran, pointing at where we were meant to come out.
The stables are engulfed in flame, along with half of the buildings on this side of the walls.
And more than half on the other side of them.
Ronan staggers forward, gripping his knees like he can barely keep himself upright. “Godsdammit,” he says softly.
The devastation in incomprehensible. The city rising up beyond the walls is practically in ruins. I’ve never seen so much fire, so much smoke, so much rubble.
Typhon’s hand covers his mouth in shock. Larus shakes his head solemnly, spitting at the group. Taran’s mask of perfect calm slips, his hands shaking as he lowers himself to the ground.
Even Seth, to his credit, has nothing smart to say. He rests a hand on Taran’s shoulder, and I’m nearly as stunned by the kind gesture as I am by the scene before us.
I blink the tears from my eyes and go to Ronan, pulling him up into a tight embrace. He sobs into my shoulder, and it tears the heart right out of my chest to hear it: his anger, his pain. To feel the hopelessness that pours out of him.
“I should have fought. I should have stayed and fought to the very end,” he says, his words choked and his face hot in my hands as I hold him.
“No,” I murmur, stroking his back. “This isn’t the end. We will fight. When we’re ready, we’ll fight. And then we’ll rebuild. We’ll build it back even better than before.” I pull back and look him in his tear-rimmed eyes. “I promise you, Ronan.”
“We have to go,” says Larus. “We’re too exposed out here. If a scout or patrol spots us—”
“Let’s go,” says Ronan, kissing my hair and releasing me, angrily brushing away his tears. “Quinn and Octavia are waiting.”
Our march into the hills along the same route that we took during the hunt is somber but thankfully undisturbed.
Few have fled Faros using the dangerous northern route towards Pyka, and it seems like no one at all has come in the direction of the Red Cliffs.
There’s little up here but the remains of the scouting camp—a couple of sheets of canvas and some wooden posts that we take to make our own camp later.
The weather is chilly, damp, and brutally windy out here on the exposed rock near the coast. I find myself shivering, even holding onto the torch and with Ronan’s arm wrapped around me.
“Here,” says Taran, reaching into his pack. He retrieves a pile of rolled-up woolen blankets and hands them out. I wrap one gratefully around my shoulders.
“Should we think about making camp?” says Seth as he airs out and then neatly refolds his blanket, smoothing the wrinkles.
It’s well past midday now, and we’ve been walking for hours with very few stops since last night. I’m exhausted, but I know why Ronan is pushing onwards: he wants to reunite with Quinn before we call it a night.
“Just a little further,” says Ronan. “We’re nearly to the canyon.”
The desolate landscape of the cliffs is featureless in my eyes, but Ronan must have seen something I didn’t because we make it to the canyon where we found Kira in under an hour.
This is where we’re meant to meet Quinn and Octavia, but though we can see for miles in each direction, there’s no sign of them or Kira.
Larus begins to lead the way into the canyon, using his earth-born sense to find good footings, when Ronan tells him to stop.
“I’m getting something. They’re near, but they’re separated, moving fast—”
Then two large shadows sweep over our heads.
“Woooooooo!” shouts Quinn, her voice echoing loudly over the wind.
“Ahhhhhhh!” screams Octavia from close behind.
They’re on two separate griffins. Octavia is riding Kira, Kira’s golden-brown wings spreading wide as she soars triumphantly, swooping down towards us.
Quinn’s griffin is tawny and considerably larger than Kira.
It moves erratically, and I’m alarmed to see that Quinn is riding it with just a single strap to hold her to its neck.
“Hold on,” I shout, trying to grip onto her with my shadows but barely keeping up with them, even with the incredible speed of my magic.
“Stop! He doesn’t like it!” shouts Quinn. The griffin claws at my shadow with its lion paws, and I’m grateful that although I can feel with them somewhat, I can’t feel any pain.
“See? I’m fine.”
Oh, no. Quinn has formed a delusional attachment to a monster, just like Ronan.
The griffins land dangerously close to the canyon’s edge, coming to a screeching, flapping halt as they size each other up.
“Come on, Bitey, we talked about this,” says Quinn as her griffin—Bitey—scratches at the ground. “She’s a friend.”
“Keep that thing over there,” Octavia says, heat in her voice. She unstraps herself and lowers herself down from Kira’s back as Kira’s golden eyes narrow on the other griffin.
“Now, now. Behave,” says Quinn. She undoes the strap, but she can’t lower herself off her griffin’s back without help. “He’s good. You can come and get me now.”
Octavia mutters loudly to herself, cursing Quinn as she approaches the lighter, larger griffin.
As she gets close, I suddenly understand Bitey’s name.
“Ow! You son of a bitch!” says Octavia as he leans forward lightning fast and bites her hand. “I’m just helping her down. God.”
“Hi, Ronan. Sylvie. Everyone.” Quinn waves to us as Octavia helps her down. “I made a friend.”
I walk over to greet her, but Bitey lowers on his lion haunches as I approach.
“Careful. He’s a little protective of me.” Protective is one word for it. Her own hands are covered in blood.
“It looks like you found a way to pass the time while you waited,” I say. “How did you guys meet?”
Octavia scoffs, setting Quinn down on a boulder. “This monster attacked us when we entered the canyon—”
“He was just defending his territory. Kira hasn’t been here in months. Someone new must have moved in.”
“And then Red here insisted that we try to approach it, but of course she conveniently can’t walk, so she’s begging me to go over to it—”
“Red?” I interject.
Quinn rubs her red hair, and I try not to squeal at the fact that Octavia, as annoyed as she sounds, gave Quinn a nickname.
“I didn’t beg her; I just told her if we had two griffins, it would make travel a lot easier. A lot less carrying me around if I can ride one or the other most of the time. And Tave couldn’t really argue with that—”
Tave.
“So I’m walking over there, and he’s looking at me with those big golden eyes, as curious as our darling Kira, and I’m thinking, ‘How bad could it really be?’ And he lets me approach—”
“And then he bit the shit out of her hand. It was just a little warning bite!”
“It was a gouge!”
Ronan comes over at the mention of the bites and heals both of their wounds, Octavia’s eyes lighting up at the casual use of his magic.
“But he did let her get pretty close. So we worked on it for a while. I was talking to him, and Tave was working up to touching him when Kira started getting upset. She didn’t want us to ride him.”
“But Red here was determined. So I brought her over—”
“And he loved me right away.”
“Loved?” I ask as Taran conjures some water to wash the blood off of Quinn’s hands.
“Can you do my pants next?” Seth asks Taran, pointing to the rusty stains on his knees from our crawl through the drains.
Taran scowls. “You’ll be freezing.”
“Not while they’re on my body. I have other clothes.”
“I am not wasting my magic washing your clothes for you—”
“He loved me, Sylvie. He just wasn’t crazy about the straps, but they really are intelligent. When I showed him I can’t walk, I think he understood. We just started flying when we heard you guys in the canyon. Isn’t he great?”
Bitey and Kira are still eyeing each other suspiciously, but Kira eventually turns her back on him to greet her favorite person, Ronan.
“Hello, girl,” he says. She nudges his shoulder, and he hugs her neck sadly.
Quinn gives me a meaningful look. “I take it you saw the city on the way out?”
I nod. “It’s bad.”
“Damn,” says Quinn. “I can’t believe she actually did it. I didn’t think she’d have the nerve.”
“Adria? Not having the nerve?” I say, shaking my head. “I can’t believe we didn’t see it coming, to be honest.”
“She’s never been this reckless,” insists Seth. “It’s the kind of thing I would have done—”
“Then why the fuck did you not say something?” We all turn in shock to see that Taran was the one who yelled. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him curse before, not in Selaran at least. He recomposes himself, turning to Seth with his eyes cast down. “That was rude. I’m sorry.”
The air is tense as Seth decides how to respond. Seth opens his mouth to say something but then shuts it again. He nods once, then turns away from Taran, his cheeks red.
“We should make camp for the night,” says Larus. He and Typhon are sorting through the supplies we all brought, rationing out the food. We have enough to last about a week. It should be enough to get us to Pyka, if we hurry and make good use of the griffins.
Assuming Bitey doesn’t fly off the first chance he gets.
We pitch the canvases up into a large, makeshift shelter behind a group of boulders, Seth moaning all the while about the terrible conditions and wishing he’d brought anything from his own luxurious tent before he burnt it to the ground.
There’s an argument over whether we can risk a fire, but we have another issue: the torch.
“It’s cooperating more now,” I tell Ronan as we lay out our blankets into a bed we can share, “but what if someone sees it in the night while I’m asleep?”
“Hmm,” he says, picking it up from where I’ve left it on the ground. It flares in his hand, responding strongly to him. “I have an idea.”
Ronan closes his eyes, and I feel his feelings leading him into a dark place. It’s the despair of losing the city, the loss of his people, his servants, his advisors, and friends. It isn’t tempered with rage or a desire for revenge. It’s just the same grey hopelessness I felt from him before.
A tendril of shadow creeps from his chest, drawing on my magic.
“Ronan,” I gasp. “How?”
He shakes his head. “I could feel it was possible earlier. At least I can still do us some good.” The torch goes out in his hands, and this time, it doesn’t fight us to reignite.
“Oh, my love,” I say, holding him close. I guide him into the blankets and look at him in the darkness, his eyes meeting mine with perfect sight. “Tell me what I can do to help.”
He brushes my freckles with his fingertips. “You’re already doing it,” he says, kissing me softly. “Just stay with me. Please.”
“I’m here, Ronan. I’ll never let you go.”
“Having you with me gives me something to keep fighting for.”
I feel the fight in him beneath his despair, and something else, a glimmer of hope within his chest. Hope that there’s still a way back from this, still a way to save Faros. I latch onto it, tugging gently on his magic, pulling it into my fingertips.
I brush them on his cheeks and lips, finding the healing light once more.
He sighs. “That feels incredible.”
“That’s you,” I whisper. “You are incredible.”
He doesn’t respond. I know he doesn’t believe it right now, but I still do.
And that’s all we need. I will be his hope, just as he was mine when I felt like all was lost.