Chapter Fifty-Six Hanan
chapter fifty-six
hanan
Ris holds the empty air, as if willing Biba back into her grasp.
She pauses, still as stone for a moment, and I scour the dark maw of the cave.
In the distance we hear Biba’s laugh, uncanny and distorted.
It’s followed by a song: not the bright rhymes of a child but a plaintive, otherworldly tune.
It reminds me of the chants and recitations we would offer in the Temple of Aistra.
When she hears it, Ris drops to her belly and worms her way into the tunnel on her elbows. I grab her ankles and haul her out.
Her face is caked with mud, eyes ablaze. ‘Biba’s gone down there. I’m not leaving her.’
‘You’ll get trapped. You’re not as small as she is.’
‘I’m not leaving her,’ she repeats stubbornly.
‘Then let’s find another tunnel. One big enough for all of us.
’ I look pointedly down at Raina. She is suckling quietly on my dress.
My breasts are sore and heavy, and I feel something leaking from my nipples.
My body feels stronger down here, how I feel on a good day when my muscles aren’t screaming at me.
I’ll need to feed Raina at some point soon, and I think I can this time.
‘Paranish, we brought three children down here to die,’ Ris says, slumping against the wall with horror in her eyes.
‘No one’s dying today,’ I say, with more faith in my voice than in my heart. ‘I’ve destroyed enough lives.’
I take her hand and guide her away from the tunnel.
We move into another passage, seeing with our hands and feet, wary of sudden drops and false tunnels.
I try to breathe slow and steady, if nothing but to set a good example.
I want everyone calm. I can’t have her panicking as she did in the collapse.
That would spell ruin for us all. And if I panic, Raina might panic.
‘What happened to you?’ Ris says after a time.
‘The worst thing that can happen to someone like me. They bound me.’
‘What does that mean?’ she asks tentatively. There’s a curiosity there, and a dread. We can’t see each other, using touch as our only guide, and there’s something about the darkness that makes us both more bold.
‘It locks your power within you,’ I say. ‘You can’t use your gift. You’re an ordinary mortal with no protection from illness or injury. You can’t channel life force.’
I can feel Ris stiffen with shock and then squeeze my hand.
‘But what you did to fix my ribs, wasn’t that magic?’
‘Not my magic. There’s an energy down here.’
I lead, inching forward painfully slowly.
We scrape our skin and bruise our knees on the sharp, unforgiving rocks in a tight crevice.
The air coming in is foul, and I swallow down the bile, hot and acid and in my throat.
Breathe. You must breathe. I think of bad air.
There’s nowhere else to go. We wriggle through to the next passage and come out into a bigger chamber.
There’s more air, but it’s as acrid as before.
How long has it been trapped down here? Ris emerges next to me, clearing her eyes and gasping.
There’s more light here, a gloomy kind to see by, but being able to see her again is reassuring.
‘Are you hurt?’ I ask. She’s scratched and banged up but doesn’t look too bad considering she’s broader and taller than I am.
‘No. You?’
I bite down pain radiating from my arm. She notices my wince. ‘Your arm, what’s wrong?’
‘I contorted my wrist going through the tunnel,’ I say, examining the awkward angle of my hand.
‘Oh Paranish, what should we do?’
I try to keep my voice level. ‘We must keep going.’
‘Can you make it?’
I ignore her question as I unwrap the sling and give Raina some fresh water from the pouch around my waist. She spits it up. Oh, my girl, I’ve taken all the softness from your life.
‘I need to feed her,’ I tell Ris.
Ris lets out a frustrated noise but stops when she hears her own breathlessness.
‘We need to conserve air and move deliberately, as well as quickly,’ I say.
‘All right, we can rest for a moment,’ she concedes.
When I don’t move, she asks, ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I . . . need you to see this,’ I take Raina and cradle her in my arms.
Ris looks at me warily as I unlace my gown and bring Raina to my breast. For a moment I doubt the energy I’ve felt in the cave.
Perhaps I’m wrong, and I can’t feed her anymore.
My mind begins to reel. Biba was able to placate Raina for a time, but without her here now, I don’t know how long she’ll survive without nutrients.
Raina latches on and feeds deeply, even more greedy than back at the Bastion, before I was bound.
It feels different, too. Perhaps she’s taking from this energy source in the same way.
Those teeth are just as sharp, and I wince.
When the princess is sated, she pulls away, her lips painted by that same dark mixture of crimson and green.
‘What is that?’ Ris asks, wide-eyed and pushing away from me. ‘She needs to feed, or she’ll die. They all do.’
‘Who? What are you talking about?’
‘The royals,’ I say, trying to keep my voice even. I look down at Raina, stroking the peach fuzz of her soft cheek. ‘I saved her. She’s more mine now than theirs.’
‘What do you mean? Isn’t Raina your daughter?’
‘She’s the queen’s,’ I confess, wiping blood and mulch from the child’s mouth.
Ris looks down at the baby. ‘That’s the princess?’
I nod.
Ris’s face contorts in a flash of anger, then hurt. ‘What else have you been lying about?’
‘I only did it to protect us. You’re on a quest for the queen, sailing under the royal sigil. I didn’t know if I could trust you,’ I insist. ‘Wouldn’t you do anything to protect your child?’
Ris stares at Raina as though she is an abomination. ‘Is that what they teach you at the temple? To suckle monsters?’
I close my eyes slowly. ‘The priestess is at the mercy of the Bastion, to be used any way they see fit.’
‘Did the queen do that to you?’ Ris asks, indicating my arms, the scars barely visible even as our eyes adjust to the darkness of the cave.
‘No, I did,’ I admit.
‘Why?’ she asks, horrified.
‘I wanted to practise healing,’ I say, placidly.
She looks appalled. ‘And this too?’
She points to the royal brand on my thigh, visible through a rip in my dress. The outline of the brand is glowing as though it is white-hot.
‘It hasn’t looked like that since the day she marked me. It happened the first time the queen fed from me.’
‘That’s disgusting.’
‘I’m a possession to her – that’s all,’ I say.
The song penetrates through the cave again, the strange plaintive chanting Biba followed.
It feels much closer as we stare into the murk.
My heart constricts, and my muscles tense and weaken under my skin.
It pulls me forward, like an invisible thread I can’t help but follow.
Raina moves her head towards the sound too and burbles, as though she also wants it.
‘Where do we go now?’ Ris asks as I secure Raina back around my body.
‘Biba followed the song. Our best chance of finding her is to do the same. It’s closer now.’
‘What do you think is singing?’ Ris asks.
‘I think we’re getting closer to the source of energy.’
We stare hard into the space in front of us. This place is a labyrinth, and we only have the song to guide us. The cave is eerily still as we listen to the strange melody and trace it into the darkness.
I listen to the rise and fall of Ris’s chest, wondering how her ribs feel, if they’re healing well. My hands are shaking. We lean against the wall, trying to keep as still as possible. The glow from my mark emanates around the cave now, pulsing brighter in time with my frantic heartbeat.
‘Is that a ledge?’ Ris asks, so close to me I can feel the heat of her breath as she approaches.
‘I think so,’ I say, feeling the jutting rock.
‘Do you think you can get up, with your arm?’
‘No,’ I say, examining my injury.
‘All right. I think I can get some purchase; help me up?’
Ris pushes off my shoulder with her hands to grip the ledge. Her legs flail for footholds, and I shove her behind, giving her a final boost. She heaves herself up and over.
‘Hand me Raina,’ she says, leaning over the side of the ledge.
The princess wails in confusion as I hand the sling up to Ris. My body rebels as I try to pull myself onto the rock ledge, the method awkward as I try to protect my hurt arm. Holy Aistra, I’m transported for a moment back to that desperate time in the ocean after my expulsion.
‘Help me,’ I call to Ris, and she grips my arms. I cry out as she pulls on my sore wrist.
‘Find a foothold,’ she grunts, trying to haul me up. ‘Or I’ll dislocate your shoulder.’
I lean into the wall and balance on the ridges of the rock with my toes.
‘That’s it.’ She heaves, scraping me up the side of the wall until I can crawl.
My body feels like one open wound, every movement a hurt. It is a pain that comes fast and fresh, stinging and then subsiding. We pant as we feel around for the way to go next. Voices in the distance. It’s the song, but mixed with something else – human, familiar.
Ris stops and listens. ‘It’s them!’
She takes off urgently in the direction of the sound, disappearing into the darkness ahead.
‘Ris, wait! Be careful!’ My words are futile as I try to follow, my good hand tracing the whorls of the royal brand that glows like a torch. I have no choice but to be guided to whatever lies beyond.