Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Don’t look down.”
I hear the warning in Mica’s words, but look down and immediately regret it. “Why would you say that?”
“Why would you look down when I specifically told you not to?”
I honestly don’t know. But more importantly, I don’t care. The only thing I care about is getting to the top of this mountain.
In truth, I’m nearly dead on my feet and we’re barely a quarter of the way up. I have no idea how we’re going to make it all the way to the top. Or what we’ll say to the guardian matriarch. Or how we’ll help Violet.
One clusterfuck at a time, though, right?
I shuffle my foot sideways, pressing my palms flat against the sheer stone of the rockface. Inch by inch, foot by foot, the three of us make our way higher.
The path, if it can truly be called that, winds up the mountain face in narrow switchbacks barely wide enough for single file. The drop-off grows in height and threat with each pass we make, the long fall to the bottom something my brain won't stop calculating.
Since our last change in direction, the rock under our boots has been slick with rain that hasn't stopped. The wind is also a problem, because it’s gusting at us as if testing to see who'll lose their footing first.
Lightning cracks overhead, so close the thunder comes simultaneously, no gap for counting distance.
The storm's gotten worse. Much worse.
And that makes my heart ache with the possibility that I might not get to Violet in time.
“I’m almost to the next switchback.” Mica is about ten feet to my left and much more confident with her handholds and footing than I am. “The path is widening out a bit. I think it’s going to… Oh, cool.”
Cool? Nothing about this has been cool.
I do love how the path widens, though, and when I round the corner, I breathe a sigh of relief. “Oh, cool.”
Mica reaches for me and tugs me further onto the wide plateau. “Like I said.”
Another crack of lightning splits the sky, close enough that I smell ozone.
I wince and turn to make sure Asher is okay. “Once you get here, you’ll be good, sweetie. There’s a plateau.”
I send Birdie up a prayer of thanks when the three of us are all on solid footing. The rain is miserable, but at least it’s a warm summer rain. It could be worse.
It could be much worse.
The image of that exploded house in Emberwood flashes through my mind—debris scattered in every direction, nothing left but a single wall.
That could be Violet.
That will be Violet if we don't reach her.
The wind screams now, a constant roar that drowns out everything else. Rain comes sideways, needling into exposed skin. I'm soaked through, my hands numb and scraped up from the rock.
“Where do we go now?” Asher searches the wide plateau where the trail just stops.
Not gradually. Not with warning. We round the bend and there is nothing. Just this plateau and the sheer vertical cliff face extending upward into cloud and storm.
"Great question.” I check that he’s whole and then stare up the rockface. "There has to be a way up, doesn’t there?"
He nods. “Because giving us a path to climb all the way up here just to make us climb down would be a supremely dick move.”
I scan the cliff. "We’re not going back down. Not without Violet."
But even as I say it, I know that if we don’t find a way up, we’ll have no choice. The storm is intensifying, the lightning coming faster, the whole mountain shaking with thunder.
Violet is reaching critical mass.
"Spread out," Mica suggests. "Look for handholds, another path, anything."
We fan out across the ledge. I run my hands over the surface of the rock, searching for cracks or handholds we might use. The stone is smooth under my palms, worn by centuries of weather.
Then my fingers catch on something.
Not a crack—a groove.
It’s a deliberate, carved slot in the stone. I trace it up the rockface. It runs vertical, perfectly straight, and is too uniform to be natural.
"Hey," I wave them over. "Look at this."
Mica and Asher crowd in, and I show them what I found.
Asher nods and points to where he was standing. “There’s another one here. And here."
He's right. Now that I'm looking for them, I see five grooves in total. They’re spaced evenly across the cliff face, each running up toward the summit.
Mica leans in close, her fingers hovering just above one. Her expression shifts. "These are channels."
"Channels for what?"
"Magic." She traces the air above the groove. "It’s an old practice. Really old. These were carved to conduct and compress elemental energy."
"Which means what?"
"Which means…" Mica straightens, something like awe lighting up her expression, "if we activate them, they'll create a wind vortex strong enough to lift us straight up."
My stomach drops. "You want us to ride a funnel cloud up a cliff face."
"In a full-on storm," Asher adds helpfully.
Mica crosses her arms. "Have either of you got a better idea?"
I don't. That's the problem.
I look up at the cliff, at the lightning splitting the sky above, at the storm that's getting worse with every passing minute because my sister is burning through magic she can't control.
"What if it tosses us over the edge?"
"Then we fall." Mica's voice is flat. "But if we don't try, Violet's dead anyway."
The wind howls. Thunder rattles my ribs.
Asher moves to stand by one of the channels. "I hate this plan."
I take position at the next groove over. "Yeah, me too."
Mica steps up to a third and hovers her hand over the carved stone. "On three. Press your palms flat and push magic into it. The channels should do the rest."
“Should?” Asher repeats.
"This is insane," I mutter.
"One."
Lightning cracks.
"Two."
The mountain shakes.
"Three."
Here goes everything. I press my palms against the stone and push magic into the channel.
“Wow, if I’d ever wondered how Dorothy felt being picked up by a twister in Kansas and being spit out in Oz, I now have a fairly good idea.”
I laugh at Asher’s comment, not that it’s particularly funny while I’m down on my hands and knees puking, but because I can’t believe we’re alive. “That was horrible. Who thought that was a good way to travel?”
Mica grunts off to my right, where she’s lying on her back with her eyes closed. “I never said it was a good way to travel, just that it was an old way.”
“Come on, ladies. It wasn’t that bad.”
I’m about to tell him to shove his chipper, adventurous spirit somewhere very rude, when another round of out-you-go takes hold of what’s left of my burger and onion rings from dinner.
My stomach muscles convulse and I retch.
Comfort food my ass.
One second, we were standing on firm ground on a plateau in a thunderstorm, and the next we shot straight up like someone dropped a pack of Mentos in our Coke bottle of life.
“You dare to invade the sanctity of the guardian’s domain!”
My world spins again as Asher yanks me off the ground and pulls me and Mica against his side. A golden shield snaps around all three of us a half-second before a horrifying set of daggered talons descend.
They hit the barrier with a sound like a crack of thunder, the force of it driving us back two steps toward the edge of the plateau. Rain whips around the outside of the shield while the magic holds.
The guardian pivots its wing thrusts and pulls back.
It stares at the shield with unbridled fury, its pupils narrowing to a point. Its claws hover over the ground as if it doesn’t want to land in case it gets another run at us.
Asher is breathing hard next to me.
Mica has her hands up, ready.
"We mean no harm to your colony." I push my voice out past the storm, past the grinding wind and the rain. "We're not here to fight. We're here to get my sister and bring her back to the Academy where she can get help. That's it. That's all."
The guardian stretches its neck toward us, its beak catching the flash of lightning. "You have entered guardian territory without invitation."
"And I’m very sorry for that." I keep my hands open and visible. "But my sister is up here and she's scared, and we need to get to her."
“I took an oath to protect our home.”
“And I took an oath to protect my sisters. So where does that leave us?”
Two more enormous guardians touch down before us, each of them landing with a thunderous crack against the stone ground. “She smells of demon. Like the other.”
“She’s the one from before,” the third bird snaps.
“She carries the taint of betrayal and evil.”
“Screw you, bird boy,” I shout. “Headmistress Briar told you I was no danger to Arcana because of something done to my mother. She told you to leave me alone. That doesn’t mean you get to pick on my sister.”
“You bring the tainted stench of demon corruption into places under guardian protection. And now another of your cursed bloodline brings chaos to Arcana. I will not allow your family to cause further destruction."
"Violet is not a threat."
"The female is very much a threat.”
The heat behind my eyes is not from the lightning. My jaw locks. I have a very specific response forming in my throat, and none of it is helpful.
Asher's hand lands on my shoulder.
Mica steps past me, calm in the way that people are when they genuinely don't register danger the same way others do.
"Violet won’t be a danger to anyone if she’s given the chance to be helped by the healers of Arcana. Her affinity manifested too quickly. She panicked. Her sister will calm her, and we can get her the help she needs. This has nothing to do with her bloodline being marked by a demon.”
“She is an abomination.”
“You’re an abomination!” I shout.
Mica stares back at me. “Not helping.”
“Sorry.” I make a motion of pinching my lips shut and locking them tight.
Mica turns her attention back to the three guardians. “Then we’d like to speak with the matriarch.”
"The matriarch will not see you. She has done what she could to calm the girl, but there is nothing to be done. She will cease to be a threat shortly.”