Chapter Seventeen #2
The shape of Neokell’s city borders almost perfectly matched that of the lines on the papers.
And there just so happened to be an outlier on those papers.
One I was willing to bet was put there for a reason.
Within a moment, I was landing on the edge of the roof and rushing toward Byn. Kneeling next to him in front of the papers, I pointed to the outlier.
“They’re here. I’m sure of it.”
“It could just be a random marking, but it doesn’t hurt to go check it out. We’ve already come this far, after all.” Byn rested his hand on my shoulder and squeezed. I could feel his pride for me radiating through my body.
“On Laurence’s map, that outlier is roughly where the old Northern mineshaft is. Maybe it’s not a coincidence.” I tugged a small piece of charcoal out of a small bag on my hip. Using it, I marked the papers, so I’d be able to place them in order again promptly if needed.
“We need to find—” I was interrupted by a shadow spearing towards us from the far corner of the roof.
A moment later, Matea appeared a few feet away, holding up a sick-looking Laurence.
“Where have you two been? We waited at our spot for over an hour. There’s nothing here,” Matea stated.
Laurence groaned as he slumped to the ground, his hand clutching his stomach.
“Oh, stop being dramatic, old male. Shadow travel isn’t that bad.” Matea rolled her eyes.
“I beg to differ, my lady,” Laurence panted.
“Is he—” I started to question, only for Matea to say quickly, “He’ll get used to it.”
I patted my friend on the shoulder, then tugged on Matea until she was sitting beside me before the map of papers.
“There’s nothing here because they aren’t in the city. They’re outside of it, hidden in the mountains,” I explained.
The next few moments were consumed by catching Matea and Laurence up on my discoveries and theories. By the time we were ready to head out toward the southwest—the direction the map’s outlier was in—Laurence, fortunately, no longer felt like getting sick.
I felt guilty for asking him to travel by shadows once again, but it became necessary the further southwest we traveled. The amount of Northern soldiers subtly patrolling the forested area only solidified my confidence.
We had found them.
I was sure of it.
The smell from before had returned full force by the time a giant stone wall came into view through the sparse trees. No matter what we did, the smell invaded our senses. But with the wall in sight, I could hardly care about the stench.
That had to be it.
The wall was made up of giant pieces of the surrounding mountains, with wood and metal spikes at the top, and it seemed like smaller versions of those metal spikes stuck out of the sides like small thorns.
Every so often, there were towers built into the wall, making up what I assumed were watchtowers.
Oddly enough, though, the closer we got to the dark wall, the weaker I felt. My connection to my zirilium seemed to wane, and in the short seconds we’d been in our solid forms, it seemed like even the sun and moon stones adorning my gloved hands weren’t glowing as brightly.
Soon, I couldn’t hold Byn and myself in shadows any longer. Pausing in the thin forest’s darkness, not far off from the wall, I dropped my connection with my zirilium.
“Something’s wrong,” I panted. “I can’t hold the connection any longer.”
Matea and Laurence stepped out of the shadows a heartbeat later, Matea looking rattled with a furrowed brow, and Laurence a sickly shade of green.
Byn held out his hand, and a small spark lit in his palm as quickly as it went out.
“Something is blocking our zirilium,” Matea observed, saying aloud what I had been too scared to.
Curiously, I tried to redirect the soft breeze that had just graced my face toward Laurence, hoping it would work and make him feel slightly better.
To my disappointment and confusion, that didn’t seem to work, either.
“Whatever it is, it’s affecting my Northern zirilium, too,” I noted, reaching for my Northern abilities within me and feeling them weakly pulsing within me.
Just like my Southern abilities.
If there hadn’t been so much riding on the four of us in that moment, I’d likely have begun panicking.
Byn shook his head, obviously trying to refocus our efforts.
“Alright. We still have to find a way onto that wall, at the least. We need to make sure we’re in the right place,” Byn said—ever the logical ruler. “Any ideas?”
“Check for weak points,” Laurence groaned softly, “in the wall.”
“Good thinking.” Byn nodded, then tilted his head as if considering something.
“What is it?” I questioned quietly.
“I think you two,” he looked toward Matea and Laurence before us, “should stay here. We’re less likely to be spotted or caught if there’s not as many of us slinking around.”
“Respectfully, my king, we shouldn’t be sending both of our royals off, either. Let me accompany my queen,” Laurence suggested, though he was still struggling to regain his composure.
“He’s right,” Matea sighed. “But it should be me and Aviva. Aviva found this place, and she has the most zirilium, so maybe she’ll be able to find a weak point easier than the rest of us could.”
“And why should it be her and you?” Byn raised an eyebrow in question.
Matea looked at Laurence, whose complexion was still green. Then she looked back to Byn—to his temples, where his casual circlet usually sat.
Byn, having followed her gaze to both and gave the impression he understood, seemed to deflate slightly.
Matea didn’t even need to utter a word to get her point across.
Byn’s hand found mine in the dark and squeezed, causing me to look over and meet his gaze. I focused on our emotions within me and tried to imagine wrapping my confidence in my assignment around his anxiety.
A small smile played on his lips and I knew he could feel the difference, especially as his anxiety seemed to fade ever so slightly.
“Be careful,” Byn said to me for the second time tonight. “And remember you only have a couple hours until sunrise.”
I nodded once, steeling myself as I stood from our place on the ground to take my place next to Matea.
After checking on Laurence briefly, Matea and I began our trek around the wall.
***
“Maybe we should head back to where we saw that weird bug.”
“There’s got to be a weaker point than that somewhere,” I replied to my sister in a whisper.
We’d already spent the better part of an hour—maybe two, for all I knew—creeping around the perimeter. We had to stop more often than we’d liked due to passing patrols, but progress had been made.
I had felt a small surge in my zirilium near an iridescent beetle we’d seen, but it didn’t seem like enough of a surge to make use of the spot.
“But if we don’t find one, we’ve wasted all this time,” Matea argued.
“I understand the risks, Matty,” I teased, but I couldn’t hide the sharp edge in my voice that displayed how serious I knew the situation was.
We continued walking in silence. One of my hands made contact with the wall at all times, dodging the metal spikes that threatened to make me bleed every few steps.
Fortunately, I could avoid them, thanks to my Northern ability to see better in the dark.
Matea walked on my other side, doing her best to keep an eye out not only on the trees and mountain-scape surrounding us, but on the wall and in the sky above us.
A few times, we’d had to duck for cover when a patrolling soldier walked across the top of the wall, or flew overhead.
Each one we’d seen had been armed as though they were ready for a battle to break out at any given moment.
Part of me didn’t doubt they were.
I focused intensely on the way my zirilium felt within my veins with every step I took.
“I really think we should go back to—” Matea started, but was interrupted as I shushed her, coming to a pause.
Looking up at the wall, I realized we were standing below the largest watchtower built into the structure that I’d seen thus far. With that, there were larger supports to ensure the watchtower would remain upright on the rocky, uneven terrain.
Which meant less room for the odd metal spikes that dotted the outside of the wall.
For whatever reason, that area with less metal sticking out of the wall seemed to make my zirilium surge in strength. It wasn’t like my usual flow of power, but it also wasn’t nothing.
“Here,” I breathed, ushering Matea over. That was when I realized the sky had lightened just a shade or two.
Before she could take more than a step forward, we heard wing beats in the distance.
Then nearby.
And soon, all above us.
We sprinted towards the closest copse of trees, taking cover as dozens upon dozens of Northern soldiers and guards flew over the wall and out of view. These were likely all the ones we’d seen around the area—along with the ones we hadn’t seen.
They all wore the same navy material, and all had multiple weapons strapped to them in various places.
But were they working to keep fae in, or keep them out?
Or worse—both?
“It must be shift change, with dawn coming so soon,” Matea observed.
I nodded my agreement, taking a step toward the wall again once I could no longer hear wing beats coming from the other side.
Matea tugged me backwards, whisper yelling, “What are you doing? We need to go back!”
Shocked, I pulled free of her grip, turning back to face her.
My expression must have been more angry than shocked, though, because the realization of who she was talking to seemed to pass over Matea’s face.
“I am not leaving here without confirmation,” I said through clenched teeth.
Approaching the structure again, I placed my hands on the stone before me and reached my power out, feeling what I could with any zirilium that would respond.
To my surprise, it felt as though they were all reaching for me, too. Like they were trying to remind me that they were still there—still with me.
I picked earth wielding first and used it to check our surroundings without moving a muscle.
It was like I could sense not only the earth below, but anything touching it or made of it.
I could feel the vibrations of the winged fae landing on the ground inside the wall, as well as the lack of vibrations within the watchtower above.
Gasping as I dropped the connection, I turned towards my sister, who had drawn closer.
“Now,” I said urgently. “We can shadow wield up the watchtower, but we have to go now.”
A look of uncertainty passed over her face, but quickly vanished.
“Alright,” she responded. “I’m trusting you.”
Without warning, she grabbed my shoulder and suddenly, we were dissipating into what almost felt like nothingness. Within seconds, we were slinking up the crevices of the watchtower, using the still semi-dark sky to our advantage.
After a swift check of the top of the watchtower, we stood in the middle and materialized.
As I lifted my head to look inside at what the North was so desperately trying to hide, I felt as though the breath had been knocked out of me.
Stumbling toward the edge, I couldn’t believe my eyes.
That was most definitely the place we had been looking for. Encampments didn’t seem like a harsh enough word for what I was seeing, though.
I watched as navy-clothed figures walked into wood and stone structures—which I could only assume were where the captive fae were being held.
But it seemed they didn’t have enough room inside, since there were also countless groups of prisoners huddled together outside.
More blue soldiers rallied those groups, too.
Every captive wore shackles or cuffs and was being roughly tugged to their feet or outside of the buildings before the sun could even rise.
They all seemed to know the drill, though, as they filed themselves into lines and began heading up a gravel trail into the mountains.
But why…
I gasped as it dawned on me.
This wasn’t just an encampment for prisoners.
This was a labor camp.
A small commotion drew my eyes back to one of the nearest houses—if you could call it that.
Then I fell to my knees as I watched the soldiers drag children out of the grasps of their parents and put them in a separate line from the adults.
Tears flooded my eyes, and without realizing, I felt my wings spreading, as though I was preparing to leap into the skies.
Matea quickly wrapped her arms around me, tugging me back down to my knees.
“We have to go, Viva.”
A sob tried its best to claw its way up my throat, but I swallowed it down harshly.
“We have to do something,” I reasoned, my voice hoarse.
“We’ll be back for them,” Matea promised. Our eyes were both on the line forming of children—children with and without wings. Northerners and Southerners alike.
“Each and every one of them,” I swore, looking up toward the Stars as I spoke.
I’d tear the Stars from the sky if that was what it took to rescue these fae.
I’d tear myself apart if that was what it took to succeed.