Broken Ground Read online

  Not that Kovo was the biggest of their problems right now.

  Which was saying something.

  Conor turned to Briggan, obviously wondering if he should invite the wolf into his passive form, but he hesitated. Boy and wolf met each other’s gazes for several long seconds. While Meilin didn’t know what passed between them, she saw Conor’s hand go to his shoulder, where the parasite was making its slow advance. Was he trying to protect Briggan from the disease? Or to protect the rest of them from him?

  Whatever it was, the two seemed to reach a silent agreement, because Briggan and Conor looked away at the same time. “Let’s go,” he said, starting toward the edge.

  Meilin was right behind him. Xanthe reached out and took Takoda’s hand. She squeezed it, and he squeezed back, and neither one let go.

  “Stick to the heaviest ropes,” Xanthe whispered to them all. “And watch out for the Webmother.”

  “What,” hissed Meilin, spinning on the girl, “is the Webmother?”

  Xanthe managed a nervous smile. “Don’t worry,” she said. “You’ll know her if you see her.”

  “And if I see her?”

  Xanthe bit her lip. “Run.”

  “Great,” said Meilin and Conor at the same time. Even Briggan rumbled. For a long moment, none of them could bring themselves to go. The music played across the field, and the spiders moved along the strings, and it all seemed so delicate. And so dangerous. Like the slightest motion would upset it all.

  “Come on,” said Xanthe at last, letting go of Takoda’s hand. She took a deep breath and set her foot on the thickest strand, testing its weight. It held, and she stepped out onto the cord. The music in the chamber changed ever so slightly with her weight, the resonance shifting a fraction—no, half an octave—lower.

  “It’s solid,” said Xanthe, hands out to her sides for balance.

  Takoda went next, taking a strand to Xanthe’s right. Briggan sniffed at the cords before padding out onto a third, followed by Conor.

  At last, Meilin stepped onto the web. She expected to feel the sickening give of the silk beneath her feet, but it was surprisingly strong. More like metal than cloth. She held her quarterstaff out like an acrobat walking a tightrope, half for balance and half so she had something to look at besides the palm-sized spiders tending the thinner pieces of the web, or the darkness beneath the silver strands.

  Darkness that went on and on and on. She couldn’t help but feel like, if she dropped something, it would never land.

  Don’t look down, she told herself. Something the color of rubies skittered to her right. Don’t look at the spiders either.

  She resisted the urge to squeeze her eyes shut. Now, she thought, would be a great time for some of Jhi’s calming influence. But it didn’t come. Apparently Meilin was on her own.

  This isn’t so bad, she told herself, and then immediately took it back, remembering a lecture Abeke had given her once about inviting bad luck. This is bad enough, she corrected, hoping it wasn’t too late. This is definitely bad enough.

  And yet, somehow, it was beautiful, too. Funny, how things could be both. How the most wonderful places were unsettling, and the most terrifying places possessed a kind of grace.

  With every step they made, Xanthe, Takoda, Conor, and Meilin produced a strange sort of music. Xanthe stepped lithely from one strand to another, following the network of strongest lines. As she did, bass gave way to a faint sweet sound. Takoda shifted, and his own tone changed. Briggan padded steadily along. Conor trembled slightly, and the music warbled. Meilin had learned music back in Zhong, in between her lessons in the bow and staff. Now she recognized the trail of keys.

  A. C. F.

  It was lovely, that music, so lovely that Meilin could almost forget that they were standing on a massive spiderweb. Almost.

  “In the legends,” whispered Xanthe, her words accentuated by the melody, “the spiders tended the Arachane Fields, but they weren’t what stopped people from crossing.”

  A. D. E.

  “That was the music,” continued Xanthe. “It was said to trap anyone without purpose. To ensnare those with darkness in their hearts.”

  To Meilin’s right, Conor shivered. She wanted to reach out, to lay a hand on his arm, but he was too far away.

  “To drag them under … ” continued Xanthe. “And—”

  “You know,” said Meilin, careful to keep her voice even. “Maybe now’s not the best time for stories. Let’s just get across the field.”

  But the field showed no signs of ending. It stretched on, as far as she could see, the silver threads vanishing into shadow.

  A crimson spider with legs as thin and sharp as needles stood several yards away, its many eyes passing over them as it stitched at the web. Nice spider, thought Meilin, feeling queasy. Good spider.

  They were almost there. One more obstacle down, one more test passed, one step closer to the nightmarish Wyrm at the roots of the Evertree, a foe Meilin could fight, an enemy she could defeat.

  They were almost there.

  Another spider, this one emerald, shone in the corner of her sight.

  She tried to imagine Rollan there beside her, not because it gave her strength, but because the thought of him having to navigate this place was funny. Rollan, who liked to put on such a face, pretend he was tough. He hated spiders. Hated anything that crept and crawled. He said it was because of his time on the streets, but Meilin knew they just made him squeamish. In her mind, he shuddered, and stuck out his tongue, and hopped from foot to foot in disgust, and the image made Meilin smile.

  And then she slipped.

  She didn’t fall—she caught herself on two silky, silvery ropes, breath held and body taut—but the sudden movement, the force of her slip and the weight of her body landing, was enough to send a tremor through the web.

  First one cord.

  Then four.

  Then eight.

  Out and out like ripples in a pond, until the entire web seemed to be shuddering, the movements leading away from—and back to—Meilin.

  She went still, as if that would stop the web’s tremor, and bit the inside of her cheek against the sound of fear trying to claw its way up. To every side, her friends stilled. Conor, Takoda, and Xanthe froze, Briggan lowering into a crouch, as all around, the jewel-toned spiders stopped their work and turned their myriad eyes, following the movement of the web.

  Meilin squeezed her eyes shut and cursed herself, cursed her tired body and her straining mind, cursed her fear, and the fact that after everything, she would be the one to get them killed. She could feel the web shifting beneath her, could feel the spiders’ approach, and she forced herself not to fight, because fighting would only draw more spiders. If she stayed still, if she let them come to her and her alone, the others might still get away.

  The cord beneath her dipped slightly under the weight of the approaching spiders, and Meilin held her breath.

  And then she felt it, on her shoulder, not a spider’s needly limb, but a human hand.

  Conor’s hand.

  “I’ve got you,” he said, and even though his eyes were feverish, his grip was strong.

  “Thanks,” she said, her voice shaking as she let him help her to her feet.

  And Conor smiled that warm, kind smile of his, a smile that the infection couldn’t take from him, not yet. “You’ve been saving me a lot lately,” he said. “I figured it was my turn.”

  She saw the ghost of pain crossing his face, felt the tremor in his touch, but he didn’t let go, and neither did she.

  WHEN ABEKE WOKE THE NEXT MORNING, IN A FOREIGN bed in a foreign city, the air was thick with a coming storm.

  She could feel the weather weighing on her chest, brewing in her lungs, and she wished the rain would just start falling. Waiting for storms was always worse than getting soaked.

  But all morning, it didn’t come.

  The clouds hung low with the promise of rain, and made the day muggy, but the storm held back.
br />   Abeke packed and repacked her satchel, read and re-read the note from Olvan saying Conor and Meilin and Takoda were still alive. She was as restless as Uraza, who refused to go back into her passive state, despite frightening half the castle residents and stealing two pheasants from the kitchens. The leopard was stretched at the base of the bed, violet eyes closed but tail flicking side to side.

  “Fine, then,” said Abeke after an hour of pleading. “You can stay here in this stuffy room while I go off on an adventure.” She was halfway to the door when she felt the sudden flare of heat against her skin and saw the fresh black of the tattoo running down her arm.

  Abeke shook her head. Stubborn cat.

  She went looking for Rollan and found him sitting on the floor of a library with the white-blond girl, Tasha. Essix was perched in the windowsill—maybe even she could feel the coming storm. There was a stack of cards on the floor between Rollan and Tasha, but whatever the game was, they were no longer playing it. They were talking. When Abeke caught the edge of their conversation, she hesitated and hung back, hidden from view. It wasn’t eavesdropping, she told herself, since they were a team, and she’d have made Rollan tell her everything later anyway.

  “… my city,” Tasha was saying, “my parents.”

  “Yeah, but your parents didn’t summon Ninani,” said Rollan. “You have to make this choice. And I meant what I said, about the Great Beasts not belonging to one land.”

  “But Stetriol needs me.”

  “So do the Greencloaks.”

  Tasha murmured something Abeke couldn’t hear, a sound of uncertainty.

  “You know,” said Rollan quietly, “I didn’t want to be a Greencloak at first. I agreed to help them, sure, but I wouldn’t put on the color, not for ages.”

  “Why not?” asked Tasha.

  Rollan hesitated. “It felt like too much,” he said at last. “It was easier, safer, not to care. You see, for a long time I didn’t have anyone, and then all of a sudden there were these people who wanted me around. Needed my help. Cared what happened to me. It was scary, and I knew that if I let it matter, let myself care too much, then I could mess it up. As long as I didn’t commit to them, I couldn’t really fail. Couldn’t let anyone down.”

  “What made you change your mind?”

  “The people I met,” he said.

  “But I thought they were what scared you.”

  “They did,” he said, then added with a chuckle, “They still do.” And Abeke knew he was thinking about Meilin in particular. “But,” he went on, “I guess I realized that it’s worth it. Caring about people enough to fight alongside them. Caring about something enough to fight for it. There was a Greencloak named Tarik. He showed me … ” Rollan’s voice faltered. “He showed me it was worth it.”

  Abeke peered around the corner, saw the sadness in Rollan’s usually guarded face.

  “Is he back at Greenhaven?” asked Tasha.

  Rollan swallowed, shook his head, and Tasha seemed to understand what he was saying, and what he wasn’t.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, wrapping her arms around her legs, resting her chin on her knees.

  “He was like a father,” said Rollan after a moment. “And he fought to protect Erdas. All of it.”

  Tasha’s gaze went to the window, to Essix and the storm-laden sky of Stetriol. Abeke pressed her back to the wall and listened.

  “It’s not easy,” said Rollan. “It’s scary, and it’s dangerous, to stand up for things. But there aren’t that many people in this world who can really make a difference, and we can.”

  “We … ” she said softly.

  “You’re one of them. One of us. But if you stay here, we can’t help you. And you can’t help us.”

  There was a long silence. Abeke bit her lip, and heard Rollan get to his feet. “There’s never been a Greencloak from Stetriol,” he said. “You’d be the very first.”

  Abeke heard Rollan walking toward the door, toward her, when Tasha said, “Okay.”

  Rollan’s steps paused. “Okay?” he echoed lightly.

  “I’ll come with you,” said Tasha, her voice gaining strength. “I’ll do whatever I have to, to protect Stetriol. And the rest of Erdas.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” he said.

  Rollan sounded so serious, so mature, but when he rounded the corner and nearly ran into Abeke, he jumped and let out a mousy squeak that made her bite back a laugh. “Gah!”

  Abeke clamped a hand over his mouth and tugged him down the hall.

  “Do you always have to creep everywhere?” he hissed when they were out of earshot.

  “It is my way,” she said with a shrug and a gentle grin.

  “I’m going to put bells on you when you sleep,” muttered Rollan, shoving his hands in his pockets. “So I suppose you heard everything I said?”

  He sounded a little embarrassed, even though he had no reason to be.

  “Enough to know that Tasha’s coming with us,” said Abeke lightly as they stepped through the castle doors and down into the courtyard. “Good job.”

  Rollan scuffed his boot and murmured a yeah-whatever-don’t-worry, which was about as close as he got to accepting a compliment. “Ugh.” He made a stifled noise. “It’s so humid I can feel the air.” He dragged his hands back and forth.

  Abeke looked up. The clouds were darkening overhead, but still no rain. She bit her lip, trying not to take the roiling sky as an omen. Back home in Okaihee, it wasn’t just the bad weather that people worried about. The violent dust storms were dangerous enough, but what scared the villagers was the time before they struck. The longer it took for the storm to break, the worse it would usually be.

  Looking up at the churning clouds, she had a bad feeling about this one. Did Stetriol usually get this kind of weather? Or was it another side effect of the sickening Evertree?

  Beside her, Rollan was still complaining as he wrangled himself out of his cloak and rolled it under his arm.

  “Come on,” he said, catching her look. “Don’t you ever want to take it off and just be Abeke?”

  “I am Abeke.”

  “You know what I mean. Not Greencloak Abeke of Nilo, bond of Uraza!” he said, mimicking Bern’s deep booming voice. “Just Abeke,” he added, returning to his own. Abeke laughed, but the truth was, she understood. She didn’t chafe under the mantle like Rollan did, but she still felt its weight. And besides, the humidity from the coming storm was oppressive. She shrugged out of the cloak and folded it over her arm, hiding the mark of Uraza beneath the green fabric.

  The two walked beyond the castle gates and into town, looking not like Greencloaks, but ordinary kids.

  They didn’t have a destination in mind, not at first, and simply wandered the streets. For all their differences, Abeke and Rollan shared a restless streak, born of their upbringings, one tracking and hunting on the Niloan plains, the other scrounging on the streets of Concorba. They both hated sitting still.

  Besides, it was nice to take in Stetriol without the procession of guards or the scrutiny of a crowd. Abeke’s first impressions held true. The city was definitely rebuilding. Doors and windows were open, and people stood talking on steps and picnicking in courtyards. In one square, she saw a female Greencloak and a local carrying a piece of slate together. In another, an old Greencloak and an even older Stetriolan were deep into a game of stones; the Greencloak’s animal, a raccoon, playing its own game with pebbles under the table.

  The serpent—once the symbol of Stetriol—still marked many of the stores and streets, carved into lintels and etched into curbs, and yet its green S-like pattern now reminded Abeke of the curve of Ninani’s neck.

  “See?” She nudged Rollan’s shoulder as they walked. “It’s not so bad, is it?”

  “It’s like a different world,” admitted Rollan grudgingly. But he was obviously still skeptical; she could see him fingering the hilt of the dagger on his belt, scanning the city for trouble.

  And then, as they walked down a roa
d lined with shops, trouble ran right into him.

  Not in the form of an attacker or a thug, but a small girl, no higher than his waist, clutching a disk of bread.

  She stumbled, scrambling to catch the dropped disk, while heavy steps rang out on the path. Before Abeke could react, Rollan had the girl tucked behind them, and when the pursuer—a heavyset man in billowing blue robes—appeared, demanding to know if they’d seen a thief, Rollan simply shrugged and said, “Can’t help you.”

  The man turned his sweating face to Abeke. “What about you, girl?”

  Abeke shook her head innocently, and the man trudged off, cursing to himself. As soon as he was gone, Rollan swung the terrified girl up into his arms. “There now,” he said, his voice gentle, teasing. “The trick is to eat the food while you’re running off with it. That way, there’s no evidence!”

  Abeke was always caught off guard by Rollan’s streaks of kindness. At first she’d pegged Conor as the nurturer, but Rollan had a fondness for those in need, and a way with them, too. Within moments he had the girl’s tears replaced by a toothy smile, and then a laugh, as he sent her on her way with the disk of bread safely in her hands.

  “What?” he said, catching Abeke’s look as the girl vanished in the maze of streets.

  “I forgot how much you like kids.”

  Rollan shrugged. “Nothing against kids,” he said. “Heck, I’m a kid. It’s the grown-ups you have to watch out for.” His stomach made a loud growling sound, and he fetched a few Stetriolan coins from his pocket and clinked them in his palm. Olvan had given them some coins before they set out, for necessities, but most of their needs were being met by the castle. Abeke was about to make a joke about them finding some stew when she heard a long, high whistle, followed by a bang.

  At first she tensed, assuming they were under attack, but an instant later she saw the burst of purple light against the low clouds, and realized it was a firework.