Chapter 62 Hell
The journey home was more of a death march, something that felt like a funeral procession rather than a mission.
If we could not rally our own neighbors to our side, the chances of us securing allies beyond their borders were slim to none.
We settled around the fire at the center of the camp and even that felt colder.
“We will need to search for another home, somewhere hidden. Stanhope will be searching for us and this camp is too exposed.” I poked at the fire with a stick. “Perhaps we can flee to the eastern side of Torezia, beyond the capital, farthest away from Verith.”
“No.” Liv did not look up from the ancient texts. Her nose had been buried in the book since the moment we arrived back at camp.
“No?” She still did not meet my gaze. “Liv, without an army we do not stand a chance of fighting against him. He has the whole of Verith at his disposal, and we do not even have a home. Without Torezia, our best hope is to hide while he hunts us and hope that he grows bored.
We need to protect what remains of this family.”
“We will have an army.” She rose to her feet, then settled next to me, thrusting her book into my lap. “We will win Torezia to our side with this.” She pointed to the top of the page.
“What am I looking at here?” I scrunched my nose as I scanned the page. “This is just information about the cantors. A bedtime story.” She rolled her eyes and then pulled the book away from me as though I lacked the vision to understand her or the book. Perhaps I did.
“This book is not a book of fables, Hell. This is a record of history, written by those who experienced it firsthand.” I blinked back at her, awaiting the explanation of how a book would help us gain an army and win a war.
“Do you remember the night Clarissa died, Hell?”
The light and excitement that filled her eyes disappeared entirely.
How could I forget, how could either of us?
I nodded cautiously. “There were two things I noticed, even in my grief. The trial made me physically ill. Even before what happened to Clarissa. I was nauseous, dizzy, my ears rang.”
“Yes, I felt it too,” I said. “And there was something happening to our minds. Visions, influence…”
“Read this.” She pointed to a passage in the book.
It was a passage detailing the magic of the cantors.
Their magic is rooted in their song. They can control vulnerable people, entrance them, influence their thoughts and actions.
My eyes widened. “That is why Clarissa was so affected? Her power, it was rooted in sound.”
It was less a question than a realization.
I continued reading. Their song is almost imperceptible to human ears but leaves behind symptoms. Physical illness, dizziness, headaches…
“I felt the same thing that day out on the sea. When Arabella fell in the water. I thought it was my body remembering, reacting to our proximity to the Verisepth and the cliffs. But what if it was not?” My eyes widened as the realization struck.
“When I pulled Arabella from the water… It felt as though the waves picked her up and placed her in my arms.”
“Exactly,” Liv said with a smile. “What if the cantors are not just a cautionary tale? What if they are still out there?”
“None of this proves that. Cantors have not been seen by anyone alive. If they were real, they have been gone long enough for them to turn into a fairy tale.” I shook my head.
“They have been seen by someone alive though.”
A smirk tugged at her lip. “Or at least, I believe they have. That was the second thing I noticed.”
I raised my brow at her. “When I was consumed by grief after the loss of Clarissa, and I set the cave ablaze… I saw something. At the time I admit, I thought it was another vision, a hallucination brought about by the magic of the trial or the cave. I rationalized it and explained it away.”
She took a breath as though preparing herself to share a revolutionary thought.
“Deep within the flames, I could have sworn I heard screaming, and saw a woman in the water. She was beautiful, almost ethereal. I told myself I had imagined it, but what if I did not?”
“Liv.” I took her hand. “I believe that you think you saw a woman. The magic of that trial was messing with our heads. That could certainly explain everything.”
I sighed. “Even if we suppose for a moment that it was not the trial, that the cantors do exist, and one was there that day and the day at sea… How does any of that help us win Torezia to our side?”
“Hell!” Liv looked truly irritated now. Raf leaned forward, entirely intrigued by the story, and Ezra stared at her as though he knew exactly where this was going.
“Torezia wants proof that what has been happening within Verith has an effect on life beyond its walls. They want something that tells them Verith has extended its reach to other societies before they will take action.”
She shot to her feet. “What if we can prove to them that Verith sent an entire population into hiding? That the actions Verith took in the war were enough to turn a society into a myth. That the long arms of oppression do have a reach beyond Verith and that effect has continued all this time.”
“How exactly do you intend to prove that?” Truthfully I was scared of her answer.
“We are going to find the Cantors,” she said simply. Naturally.
“Liv, they have been gone long enough that they have ceased to exist in the minds of people. How do you expect that we will be able to reach them with our limited resources and dwindling spirits?”
“I have been compiling everything I know to be true about them.”
She pulled out a map that she had marked with wild scribbles and drawings.
“I marked the places I believe the Cantors were, and the places that others commonly say they dwell in their tales.”
She ran her fingers along the lines drawn on the map.
“All of these points cluster around this specific area.”
She pointed to a single spot. “Within this area there is only one place that no one goes. This cave.”
“Wait, I know that cave. That is the cursed grotto.” I cringed. “No one who goes there is ever said to return. Entering means death because of the network of underwater caves. If you enter, you get lost and go mad.” Liv’s smile turned impossibly mad. “No.” I shook my head. “Absolutely not.”
“We need allies, and we shall have them. That is exactly where we are going.”