Chapter 39 Old Stories #2
Kit startled, nearly dropping the pages. She set them back on the table, then gripped the edge of it for support. Nox straightened in their chair, leaning toward her, as though concerned she might faint.
“Who told you they were taken to Nyrundelle? They are not, Tenny. They never were.” She blew out a breath. “They were killed.”
Tenny looked aghast, all color drained from her normally peachy cheeks. “Wh-what? No. That cannot be true. My father said—”
“Oh, do tell me what the lord paramount said happened to all the mixedborn children on this side of the Chasm?” Kit all but spat.
“They wouldn’t kill children!” Tenny cried. She dipped her chin, amber eyes shooting to the floor, and Kit thought it might have been an attempt at preventing them from seeing the wetness lining the edges.
“They would, Tenny.” Kit’s expression softened. “They have. Why would they bother going through the trouble of taking them all the way to Nyrundelle? Who is taking them?” She shook her head. “My uncle is the king, and I have never heard of such a thing.”
Tenny’s voice shook when she spoke again.
“I’m sorry. I thought . . .” She swallowed.
“I didn’t know. My father always told me that even though Arcanian and human relations became illegal after the war, there was an entire sanctuary set up in Nyrundelle for just this sort of thing.
That no children of any race deserved to be harmed. ”
Tenebris Nox released a dark laugh. “The statement is right, but the reality is wrong.”
“What do you mean?” Tenny asked again.
“I mean, he is right in that children do not deserve harm. Yet they are harmed here every day.”
Tenny crossed one arm over her chest and began fiddling with her locket. “You’re speaking in riddles. Why would my father lie?”
“Why indeed?” Nox hummed.
“Is your father not aware of how the children of the Walk live? Even in your own city, people starve, work themselves to the bone.” Kit softened her tone before continuing.
“I know that you yourself are very aware. Ellie told me that when you two were at the orphanage . . .” She trailed off, a stray realization surging from the back of her mind.
“At the orphanage, what?” Tenny asked, voice quiet, shoulders creeping up toward her ears.
A spark of guilt flared to life in Kit’s chest, but she shooed it away. There would be time to feel bad for, well, making Tenny feel bad later. “I need us to go back a second. What was that before? You said, ‘sanctuary.’ ”
Tenny arched a brow. “I did . . . but you said no children were taken to Nyrundelle, that they were k-killed, so—”
“Ellie sent a sparrow.” The words flew out of Kit’s mouth in a jumble, her pulse ticking in her ears.
“It kind of”—she made a fist, then flared all five fingers wide with a flick of her wrist—“poofed out of existence before we could send back an answer. But they’re still alive, so that’s something. ”
“For now,” Nox added, and Kit elbowed the nocterrian, connecting hard with their chest. She tried not to grimace at the burst of pain suddenly lancing up her arm. Hitting the nocterrian was like striking a wall of stone.
“Well, I’m certainly glad to hear that,” Tenny said slowly, “but what does that have to do with any of this?”
“The message was garbled, like some of it got lost on the way back from Dawnspire. But she said it. Ellie said something about a sanctuary.”
Tenny’s eyes widened. “Like I said, when I came across the birth records, I found it interesting, and it reminded me of the stories my fa—” She swallowed. “The stories he told me when I was younger. So, I started thumbing through this.” She gestured at the book.
Kit’s eyes finally focused on the letters embossed on the leather. It took her brain a few seconds to realize the words she was reading were in the old language. Sanctus Salutum.
Sanctuary.
“Tenny, where did you find that book?”
Color returned to Tenny’s cheeks in a rush. “Oh, I, er, well . . . You can’t tell, all right? I hadn’t read it for years, but then I remembered seeing it in there one day and . . . Look, I was always going to put it right back after, and he isn’t even here right now so I—”
“Tenny.”
“From my father’s study.”
“And you know how to read Old Arcanian?”
She nodded, trailing a finger down the book’s gilded spine.
“He taught me. Used to read to me from this very book. Among its many tales, it speaks of a sanctuary deep in the glenwood, a place where people are safe.” Tenny’s eyes started getting misty again, and she inhaled through her nose.
“I thought it was located in Nyrundelle. I believed him when he said it was real.”
“And do you know where your father got a book of Arcanian stories?”
Tenny shook her head. “He simply gave it to me one day. I was, oh, I don’t know, perhaps five? It wasn’t long after Ric showed up, actually. After we took him in.”
Kit pursed her lips, eyes flitting from Tenny, to the book, to Nox, and back again, her mind working to place pieces of a puzzle that didn’t quite fit. “What else does your father keep in that study of his?”
Kit spotted the wagon and horses rolling in just after noon from her perch on her bedroom balcony.
She didn’t even bother running inside, didn’t bother with the flights of stairs and winding hallways of the palace.
She simply leapt over the side of the railing, silver-and-gold wings flaring wide, and relished the shouts of surprise from below as she soared over the courtyard.
“Tristan,” she breathed, landing deftly just as the wagon pulled through the gate, stablehands and attendants rushing forward.
The knight looked exhausted, his wavy blond hair limp, face crusted with dirt, dark splotches of old blood coloring his clothing.
He gave Kit a nod, a slow smile stretching across his face as he slid down from the front of the wagon.
For a moment, Kit thought he might have kept on sliding until he was lying flat on the ground.
Thought he might have fallen asleep right then and there.
“You look like death.” Nox’s voice filtered through Kit’s ears as the nocterrian stepped out of a shadow, a wide-eyed Tenny clutching at their arm. She gasped, like she’d been holding her breath for an extended amount of time, then doubled over and braced her hands on her knees.
“I don’t think . . . shadowstepping . . . is for me,” she panted.
The nocterrian shrugged. “I told you that you were welcome to take the long route. You were the one who insisted on coming along.”
Tristan let out a rough laugh. “You’re all a sight for sore eyes, I’ll grant you that.”
“Where’re the rest of you?” Kit asked.
Tristan jerked his head toward the wagon, where several attendants helped Sephone, Thibault, and Hargrave out from the back. The two humans each lifted a hand weakly in acknowledgment before limping off toward the barracks.
“All right, I take it back,” Nox said. “They look like death.”
Sephone sneered at the nocterrian, but she, too, looked like she was capable of falling asleep where she stood.
Her blue-black hair was pulled back in a tight bun, highlighting the severe lines of her face and the spray of the thorny tattoo on her scalp, but the dark circles under each eye dramatically lessened the impact of her scowling.
Kit peered around the edge of the wagon. “Just the four of you?” she asked, and though she knew better than to hope that she’d see her other friends again so soon, she still felt a pang of disappointment.
Sephone growled. “There was one more. We had a prisoner in tow, a fucking cultist leader, no less. But he died on the road.”
Kit blanched. Red trouble.
Tenny’s voice was something of a squeak when she said, “A sanguinagi? So your lead on the Cult of Malakar, it—”
“Turned out to be more of a trap than a lead,” Sephone grumbled, leaning against the side of the wagon.
“And then the bastard didn’t even have the decency to either die right away, or last until we got here.
Noooo, he had to go and pop off in the middle of the night, after we’d already put up with his nonsensical muttering for a full day. ”
“How did he die?” Tenny asked quietly.
Tristan shrugged, his shoulders moving slowly, as though they were extra heavy. “He just . . . didn’t wake up after the first night at camp. It was strange. We’d thought Young Shep stabilized him after the injury Ric gave him, but I guess some wounds fester beneath the surface.”
“How is Ric?” Kit asked. “Thraigg? Joss? Shep?” She bit the inside of her cheek to force herself to slow down. “Ellie?”
Tristan blinked, as though the onslaught of names confused him. “We pushed hard to make it back here as quickly as possible. We could use some food and rest, but I promise I will answer any and all of your questions.”
“You could also use some showers. In triplicate,” Nox said.
“Not. Helping,” Kit hissed. Then, turning to Sephone, she said, “No Raefe?”
Sephone folded her arms over her chest.
“Gone,” Tristan answered for her. “Elyria kicked him out of the party before we even got to Dawnspire.”
Kit tried to cover her laugh with a cough. “Sounds like Ellie.” A beat of silence. “So, she’s gone on to Elderglade, then?”
“That was the plan. Before the wicked bastard went and died on us, that damned cultist was blathering nonstop about sylvans and sunrises and some sanctuary and Varyth Malchior and—” The knight exhaled. “Seemed like all roads pointed to Elderglade. Ric was headed there anyway. A bit like fate, eh?”
Tenny and Kit both sucked in sharp breaths.
“So, this man, this sanguinagi leader,” Tenny said, turning to Tristan. “He mentioned the sylvans and the sanctuary? Together?”
Tristan swayed on his feet. “I . . . think so? Honestly, the man said so many things, they all became a blur after a point. We had to drug him with more of Jocelyn’s somnium seed just to get a moment’s peace.” He frowned. “Though, if I’d known he wouldn’t wake afterward . . . Why do you ask?”
“It reminded me of a passage from the Sanctus Salutum.”
Sephone arched a brow.
“Yes, she speaks the old language, and yes, she’s talking about an Arcanian book,” Kit explained hastily. “What passage, Ten?”
“In the story, the sanctuary is located in the midst of the glenwood, protected by old magics and wise sages, green of skin and pure of spirit. I’d always thought it was a bit of a metaphor, but what if it is literal? We know so little about Elderglade, really. So few have ever been to see it.”
“Glenwood. Elderglade. The words are similar in Old Arcanian,” Nox mused. “It is looking like that book is less and less of a fairytale with every new thing we learn, Miss Church.”
“Right.” Tenny straightened. “So, how do they plan to get through then?”
“Through what?” Tristan asked.
“The wards,” Tenny said. “The old magics. The book is very clear on how it doesn’t let just anybody in. And my father said that once he—” She cleared her throat. “It doesn’t let just anybody in.”
Kit froze, her mind churning. “If they really are one and the same, then Ellie and Ric are about to hit a dead end without even realizing it, and their entire trip will have been for nothing.”
“Which means both Hargrave and I will have gotten fucking stabbed for no stars-damned reason,” Sephone muttered.
“Perhaps Cedric already has some idea,” Tenny suggested, though the doubt in her voice was clear.
“He did receive those notes that Magister Yvan sent from Paideus, and they are . . . comprehensive. Now that I’m thinking of it, I remember seeing some kind of mention of how to navigate around the veil—”
“Ah, yes, the veil. The dead bastard mentioned that many, many times too,” Sephone interjected.
Tenny swallowed. “Well, if Ric was able to get through all the magister’s notes, he might have—”
“Good thing he wasn’t at all distracted during his final days here then, hmm?” Tristan quipped.
“Precisely what I was thinking,” added Nox.
Kit resisted the urge to slap them both.
“I suppose they’ll find out one way or another,” Nox continued. “There’s little we can do about it now, is there?”
“I hate this. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I’m no good at waiting. All the magic in Arcanis, yet we can’t send a stars-damned letter across the Chasm?”
“Well, were they at a missive station and had access to a mana stone . . .” Tenny began.
“Yes, I know.” Kit pasted a smile over her gritted teeth.
“I meant it rhetorically. I do understand how the sending of messages works, and that it was never an option in this situation.” Her voice was tight when she added, “Let’s just hope Ellie sends another sparrow fast. One that actually lasts long enough for us to send something back. ”
Even as she said the words, though, Kit knew the chances were slim. If her sparrows were already so fragile just being sent from Dawnspire, what were the odds of one surviving a trip across the Chasm? Both ways?
“Is there truly no way for you to conjure one of your own?” Kit asked, turning to Nox. “To get a message to her without a sparrow coming here first?”
The nocterrian pursed their lips. “I am no wildshaper. What the Revenant can do is . . . unique. My own shadows have never worked that way.”
Kit’s face fell.
Nox tilted their head, indigo brow creasing. “But . . .”
“But?” Kit couldn’t keep the pathetic eagerness from her voice. She didn’t care.
“But there may be something I can try. I, too, tire of this inaction. I would like to be able to do something.” They looked at Kit, their crimson-black gaze suddenly piercing, like something lingered just behind their teeth.
It remained unsaid.
Just as Kit’s silent prayer, thrown out to any celestials who would listen, did. Still, though, she prayed. For answers. For a path to the crown. And for her dearest friend—her sister—to come home soon.