Chapter 11
I NEED YOU TO JUMP
ODELIA
We walk, the breaks in the canopy offering glimpses of the dark, towering stones. The trees thin and all at once we break through to a grassy meadow. A flurry of fur and racing feet disappears into the woods. A rabbit or a fox or something else that’s right to be afraid.
“We rest here,” Rune says, but doesn’t find a spot to sit. He moves to the other side of the clearing and drops his bag before pacing.
I stifle the urge to go to him, but Elio moves past me, leaving his pack with Tavi and Bear.
He stands firm while Rune paces near a half-fallen tree at the meadow’s edge, and I wonder how often this exact scenario has played out: Elio the anchor, Rune trapped in the insistent currents of his mind.
A strange ache wells in my chest, sneaking in on the rawness that’s left after adrenaline fades, but I remind myself the trust they have in each other can only lead to pain for both of them. It’s not something I should want.
“Hey Odi, got any water?” Otto sits behind me, holding Tavi’s forearm, where a clean slice sheets blood over her skin.
Sweat drips down Tavi’s brow but she makes no move to wipe it while Bear attends to the wound. “Briar got me while I was trying to secure the rope,” she says by way of explanation.
“Uh, sure, here.” I kneel with them and tug off my water skin.
Bear works efficiently, washing the wound, then pulls a vial from his pack.
Elio feigns a retch as he walks back, his eyes tracing over the blood on Tavi’s arm. “This stuff smells like wyrm shit.”
“Smells better than infection.” Bear grins, and Tavi hisses as the dark liquid coats the wound.
“What is that?” I ask, pulling the fabric of my shirt over my nose. The scent is something between bitter herb and gut-twisting floral.
“Mix of stuff from the islands around, and one secret ingredient.” He winks.
Elio huffs a laugh, glancing at the stone-faced tavi. “It’s mistleroot. Grows everywhere around Nareth. Otto here found when you mix it with herbs from the up top it’s unparalleled as a wound cleaner.”
“Nareth? The ocean kingdom?” I knew they had open trade with some of the islands, but I didn’t know anyone who had ever actually been.
The sirens were a secretive and protective bunch, often suspicious of landsmen, the name they’d given to all who breathe air, though I’d argue sailors and pirates would be grouped in with the seafolk by any other definition.
The distinction seems to be more about pride than animosity, thought.
I’d even heard the Sirens keep entire rooms in the upper sections filled with breathable air for land visitors.
Otto winds a bandage around Tavi’s arm. His fingers are long and thin, like an artist’s.
“Yeah we mostly turn bounties in top side, hunt whoever’s face is on the bounty posters and turn them in wherever is closest. But sometimes Rune gets requests straight from Nareth, and he always prioritizes those.
The ointment was an accident. Came up with the idea because the quail.
Captain knows I love new ingredients, and apparently it’s popular in certain circles.
I hated it. Tastes like you took a munch of this grass.
So I tossed it to the quail and they loved it.
So every time Rune had some he’d bring it, and once, I noticed one was sick, then it wasn’t. So—”
“Bear, can you bring some of that over here?” a woman with cropped red hair calls from the middle of the group.
Otto leaps to his feet. “On it!”
“We should go too,” Tavi says to Rune, standing to follow him to the others.
Elio’s gaze follows them. Mostly Tavi. He does nothing to hide the way his lips tighten, or the deepening of the creases by his eyes.
“Jealous?” I ask, because I’m an ass. That ache is back again. These people care for each other too much.
He snorts. “No. Are you?”
“Unlikely.” I grin at the wicked gleam in his eye, though I should feign offense.
In truth, I am jealous, but not in the way he thinks.
I’d never thought to miss any sort of companionship before—attachments are weaknesses, I know that better than anyone—but now I can’t help but feel I’m missing something.
If a Viper had been lost to that underground creature, few, if any, would have mourned.
My father would have taken it as a price worth paying, if it meant meeting his goal.
I would have too. It was the nature of life. Our life, at least.
Bear returns my water skin half empty and Rune calls us to continue, warning everyone to be on their guard as we approach the stones.
Rune and I lead us out. The afternoon sun is on its way down, teasing us with how little time we have before sunset.
Near the top of the hill, the obelisks are weathered, leaning on cracked foundations, their shadows stretching long into the forest behind us.
One is rigidly linear—sharp lines and a point that spears into the sky.
The other is twisted, like its creators had chiselled a spring into the design.
Hopefully, we’ll find more clues once we reach them.
Water rushes nearby. A stream, maybe, or a waterfall, though the source is unclear. A natural spring? Unless the ocean has carved its way through the island. The grass gets taller the further we go. It’s up to our waists before we crest the hill.
And stop.
The ground sweeps down before disappearing completely. Between the stones, there’s a gaping hole twice the length of the ship that drops into darkness. Elio whistles as he and Tavi come up behind us. Bear bobs up, settling behind me to peek over my shoulder.
“This in your riddle, Odi?” he says.
“It is,” Rune says seriously, and there’s no reason for me to miss the playful side of him, even if the sturdiness is remarkably grounding. “We’re scouting ahead. Everyone else should stay.”
No one argues. The five of us move down the rapidly steepening slope, though my heart starts to gallop in protest. With the grass so tall, it’s impossible to see where each step lands, what might be lurking to turn the ankle of those distracted.
In reality, it’s safe, but the emptiness that stretches beyond us seems to have its own gravity, like one slip will send me tumbling into the pit.
The rushing water grows louder. It falls from cracks in the walls, emptying into crystal-blue water that hardly ripples.
The flooded cavern extends beneath the shelf of rock, and the realisation has fear spearing white hot through my chest. I fight the urge to turn back, and push away the knowledge that six inches of stone may be all that’s under our feet.
“It’s a cenote,” Tavi says, kneeling at the edge like a stiff breeze wouldn’t send her plummeting down.
“It’s a maw,” Rune says, looking at me, his eyebrows raised.
I nod. But I don’t know where to go from here.
The towering stones bookend the cenote, pieces of chipped rock falling from the twisted side and bouncing into the cavern below.
The water swallows the offering, not even deigning to move.
“Come on, little doe. I know you’ve got some idea of what we should do. ”
He’s only half serious, I’m sure, but even that amount of confidence is staggering. One idea does loop in my head, but it’s a death wish. How could anyone complete the map if they died in the process? Surely there was another solution. Still—
More rock tumbles from the obelisk, the clattering of impact audible even over the waterfall.
I squint against the setting sun, peering up at the stone. If it collapses while we’re here, it might just be a sign I should take Rune’s advice. Find a job in a small town and hope Nisse stays in the past where she belongs, give up the map and the sea in one fell blow.
Instead, the column starts to move.
It unfurls, the spiral design corkscrewing down, a thousand legs scratching and skittering over the solid surface.
“Run.” The word is a whisper.
Rune is still peering into the cenote. “What?”
The creature’s front reaches the ground, the other half of it still unwinding, and the ground starts to rumble.
“Run!” My legs turn on their own, my knees burning with the uphill fight against the grass.
Rune’s long stride eats up the ground beside me, and Tavi keeps pace with Elio behind, though being a fae means she could easily push ahead.
The rumbling grows, then muffles, and the vibration in the ground shifts, increases.
“It’s gone underground,” Bear says as we make it to the group.
“You need to go, Otto.” Rune’s chest heaves. He’s drawn his sword, the bone wicked sharp on both sides.
“Aren’t we all going?” My voice cracks. The fear in me feeds on itself now that my feet have stopped moving. The need to keep running hums just under my skin, smothering any other thought.
“No. We’re staying here. It may move to the outer parts of the island.” The earth's growing tremble and the way he holds his sword tells me how confident he is that will happen. “And if it attacks, it’ll be the last thing it does.”
My attention narrows on him, my fingers itching for a blade. “If that’s your plan, then I’ll need a weapon.”
His jaw hardens. “No. Go find somewhere to hide with Otto—”
I’ve wrapped my fingers in the front of his shirt before he can finish and pull his face inches from mine.
My heart trips over itself when his attention moves to my lips, then drags back up to my eyes, bringing to mind the burn of his hands on my waist and the scent of salt and oranges in a darkened room.
His gaze flickers with something, there and gone again, and ill-timed heat pools low in my belly, only irritating me more.
“If you want the second half of this map,” I growl, “you need me to stay alive.”
“Exactly.” His breath spirits over my cheek. “So go with—”
Rock shatters.
Bits of broken stone pelt us as the creature erupts from the ground, a few of its wicked-sharp legs splayed wide before it lands and begins to wrench itself out of the earth.