Broken Ground Read online

  Tasha swallowed and sank back into her chair. She seemed so young, caught between the Greencloaks on one side and the Stetriolans on the other. Ninani may be all grace, but Tasha was all limbs, sharp elbows and bony knees, stretched out in a way she clearly hadn’t grown into yet.

  “Then I have two days to decide,” she said. Rollan looked about to argue, but Abeke caught his arm. They could not force the matter. It had to be her choice.

  Ernol spoke up, stepping in front of Tasha. “No one is going anywhere today.” Behind him, she saw Tasha’s family fold like wings around the girl. “You both must be weary,” he said, addressing Abeke and Rollan. “Come, let me show you to your rooms.”

  Abeke sat in a large tub, scrubbing the salt and sea grime from her skin and wondering what they were supposed to do if Tasha refused to go with them to Greenhaven. When she was done—with the bathing, not the wondering—she found her own cloak was gone. A fresh one, dazzling green, lay folded on her bed. A tray of hot food sat on the table beside it, and Abeke wondered if this was what it felt like to be a royal. She took an apple from the tray, its skin the vivid green of fresh grass.

  She and Rollan had both been given elegant rooms in the southern wing of the castle—the castle itself had been divided into north, south, east, and west. The Greencloaks occupied the north and south wings, while the members of the council, a few noble families, and what was left of the royals (a few cousins of Shane’s family, mostly), took the east and west. It was strange, thought Abeke, that no one had tried to claim the throne in Shane’s absence. Even though Bern had said it was a relic, what with the council in power, she couldn’t help but feel like they’d left it empty on purpose. As if they were waiting for their young king to come home.

  Abeke leaned her elbows on the window. Her room looked out not onto the city but into the castle grounds and a garden far below. Feeling suddenly restless, she decided to go exploring, in the hopes that a walk through the grounds would do more to clear her head than the bath had.

  The sun was setting as she made her way down the stairs toward the gardens. She was nearly there, her mouth full of tart apple, when she almost collided with a boy.

  The sight of him made her choke.

  The boy—a noble, judging by his clothes—could have been Shane’s younger brother. He had the same fair hair, the same slight build, the same intense eyes. The only difference was his mouth. Where Shane’s had so often drawn into a smile, especially in those early days—they were, after all, friends before they were enemies—the boy’s mouth was a stern line, his eyes hawkish and sharp.

  And he wasn’t alone.

  A small ginger cat, little bigger than a kitten, danced around the boy’s legs. Abeke could tell—maybe by the boy’s feline grace, or the way they moved in sync—that they were bonded.

  Without the Nectar or the Bile, children were bonding naturally. It was becoming even rarer to have a spirit animal, but Stetriol was no longer cut off from the gift.

  “Sorry,” mumbled the boy, eyes darting over her cloak and face and skin.

  “It’s okay,” said Abeke. “What’s your name?”

  “James,” said the boy.

  “And this?” asked Abeke, crouching. “Is she your spirit animal?”

  “He,” corrected the boy, “is Barnabas.”

  “Hello, Barnabas,” said Abeke, scratching the kitten’s ears. He purred against her palm.

  “Do you have a spirit animal?” asked James, though the green of her cloak meant she obviously did.

  “Maybe,” she said with a crooked smile.

  “Let me see,” said the boy imperiously.

  Abeke grinned, and then released Uraza.

  The boy had the decency to look surprised, staggering back as the massive golden leopard sprang into being, paws landing heavily on the stone floor. James’s mouth fell into an O as the big cat, who was nearly as tall as he was, yawned, exposing long, sharp teeth.

  When Uraza bowed her head to consider the tiny cat, Barnabas had the audacity to swat a small paw at the leopard’s face. It was roughly the size of her nostril. Uraza watched patiently, even tolerating the cat’s tinny meow, before she finally opened her mouth and plucked the ginger cat up by his scruff.

  Barnabas swung indignantly from Uraza’s teeth, and the boy stamped his foot and ordered that the leopard put him down at once.

  Uraza glanced at Abeke, an amused glint in her violet eyes. Then she dropped the ginger kitten with a plunk and padded away toward the grounds.

  Abeke rushed after, trailing the leopard through an archway and into the castle gardens. They were larger than they looked from above, filled with the kind of maze-like greenery that swallowed you up, got you turned around.

  Abeke strolled while the setting sun drew long shadows, and the sounds of the castle and the city beyond began to shift, soften.

  There was something wild about this place. She could tell that the gardens had once been groomed, but they’d long overgrown their boundaries. Hedges and low divides interrupted the greens. Some were ordinary bushes, but others were strange, bulbous things. She reached out to touch the nearest bush and was surprised when her fingers went through the layer of leaves and into something beneath.

  When she pulled aside the viney cover, she realized it wasn’t a dense plant at all, but a layer of ivy covering the remains of a cage, the old iron warped and broken and swallowed up by green. Abeke glanced around the garden.

  How many of these hedges held other things?

  Bern’s green-eyed lemur sat on a windowsill halfway up the garden wall, and Essix soared in broad circles overhead. Uraza was obviously happy to be free, and began to prowl around the garden, startling anyone she came across. A noble gave a cry of surprise, and Abeke called the cat back toward her. Uraza didn’t come, but Abeke could hear her still prowling through the greenery, hunting small game. Hopefully no one had summoned any small woodland creatures and left them to wander the gardens. When the cat finally reappeared, Abeke was relieved to see that her mouth and paws were clean.

  Abeke yawned. She didn’t realize it was getting dark, not until the sun dipped behind the castle walls, plunging the courtyard into an early twilight.

  She was just about head inside when something caught her attention.

  Her senses prickled, the way they did when she was being watched.

  Abeke scanned the darkening grounds, and then Uraza let out a low growl, and Abeke’s eyes tracked up the garden wall and landed on the figure perched on top. He stood, leaning almost lazily against the place where the garden wall met the side of the castle. He’d be hard to notice in the fading light, but Abeke felt her eyes focus with Uraza’s keen sight. She could see him clearly, from the sweep of his red cloak to the silvery wood of his featureless mask.

  The last time they’d crossed paths, it had been in the middle of a battle, all chaos.

  Now, the world was still.

  They stood there, staring at one another, her conversation with Olvan echoing in her head.

  He helped us.

  Yet he conceals his face.

  There was something so … familiar about the figure. Which was impossible, she knew. He was covered head to toe, every inch hidden from view except the faintest glint of pale eyes, and in them, recognition.

  Abeke opened her mouth, but the boy held a finger to the lips of his mask. A second later she heard Rollan’s voice from the archway at the edge of the garden, calling her inside. She heard his steps coming down the path and looked away, only for an instant, but by the time she glanced back at the wall, the stranger was gone.

  “THERE’S A SAYING AT MY MONASTERY,” SAID TAKODA AS they made their way down the path on the right. “It goes, ‘There are no easy roads in life. There are no hard ones either. There are only the paths we choose to take, and the places they lead us.’ ”

  “Oh, yeah?” countered Meilin. “What about when you choose one path, but it’s full of white-eyed monsters and so you have to double back and t
ake the other road? Is there a saying about that?”

  Takoda winced. Meilin knew she was being harsh, but they’d been traveling down the second path for more than an hour, nerves tightening with every passing moment. They’d yet to come upon more of the Many, or a cyrix nest, or anything else that might want to eat them, but Xanthe’s warning at the entryway had them all a bit wound up.

  All except for Kovo, who lumbered along with his usual impassive glare. But when it was obvious that Meilin had hurt Takoda’s feelings, the ape signed a word that she didn’t know. She wouldn’t have paid it much attention, if he hadn’t signed this word at her several times so far on their trip—pulling his hand in a gesture over his face.

  Finally she asked Takoda to translate. The boy shuffled his feet.

  “Um … ” he said. “It means ‘cranky.’ ”

  Xanthe cracked a laugh, and Meilin felt her face go hot. “I’m sorry, the ape who got us trapped under the world is calling me cranky?”

  In response, Kovo’s red eyes found hers. He made the gesture again, slowly enough for her to follow. Meilin raised her staff. Kovo bared his teeth. Takoda chuckled.

  “He doesn’t mean anything by it,” said the boy, waving his hands. “I think he might just be using it as your name.”

  “My name,” growled Meilin, “is not Cranky. It’s Mei-lin.”

  “If it’s any consolation,” offered Takoda, “he calls Xanthe Pale Girl.” The monk ran two fingers along his forearm to show the sign for pale girl.

  “That’s because she is a pale girl!” snapped Meilin. “What does he call you? Skinny monk?”

  “Um … ” Takoda hesitated, looking to the ape. “Nothing, really. Most of the time he just shoves me.”

  Kovo lifted his massive hands and Takoda flinched, as if bracing for another shove, but the ape didn’t push him. Instead he brought his furry hands up before his red eyes and linked his two forefingers.

  Even in the flickering torchlight, Meilin could see Takoda go red.

  “What?” she prompted. “What does that mean?”

  Takoda smiled shyly. “It means ‘friend,’ ” he translated. Adding, as Kovo made another gesture, “ ‘little friend.’ ”

  Xanthe broke into a warm grin. “Aw, that’s sweet.”

  But Meilin rolled her eyes. “Oh, of course,” she said, “you get the nice name.”

  Takoda wasn’t paying attention. He was busy signing back to Kovo, linking his fingers, then spreading his arms wide. Big friend.

  “What does he call me?” asked Conor, his voice soft.

  Takoda shot a look at Kovo. The ape hesitated, then curled his hand into a fist, pressed it to his throat, and drew the fist down toward his stomach.

  “What does that mean?” asked Conor when Takoda didn’t translate.

  “Cursed,” whispered the boy at last.

  Conor swallowed. “Oh.”

  Briggan growled at the ape. Kovo didn’t even flinch.

  “Do you hear that?” asked Xanthe. At first Meilin thought the girl was just trying to break the tension, but then she listened and heard it, too. The sound was almost musical, like wind chimes, or the faint plucking of harp strings.

  “What is that?” she asked, entranced.

  “I don’t know,” said Xanthe honestly.

  “Well,” said Conor, “we’re going to find out.”

  Up ahead, the tunnel path became narrow and steep, the ground plunging away every few feet, as if they were descending a set of massive stone stairs, each half as tall as Meilin herself.

  At the bottom of the steps there stood a kind of archway set into the rock wall. It was made of pale stone, only instead of two limbs, it had seven. It looked like at some point there had been eight, but one had crumbled away with time, and lay in broken pieces on the ground. The archway reminded Meilin of a weeping willow without a trunk, or—she thought with a chill—of the cage of roots in her dream.

  Conor was the first one to step through the gateway—Meilin didn’t know if it was because he was tired of being coddled, or annoyed by Kovo’s nickname, or simply in a hurry to keep moving. As he passed Xanthe, Meilin saw the girl recoil slightly. Meilin glared, and when Xanthe’s pink eyes met hers, Xanthe had the decency to look down, ashamed.

  Then Meilin heard Conor catch his breath and rushed through the doorway after him, expecting something horrible.

  Instead, as she saw what he saw, her mouth fell open in wonder.

  One by one, the others followed, and for a moment they all stood there, staring at the world they’d found beneath the earth.

  Meilin had seen tunnels and caves and even the sprawling city of Phos Astos. She’d dreamed about the vaulting space beneath the Evertree. But so far, she’d never seen any place like this. The chamber was so vast, she forgot they were underground at all. It didn’t seem possible, when the opening stretched so wide she couldn’t see the walls, so high the roots and rock were lost in darkness.

  So much of Sadre had been harsh edges and sharp stone, like the toothy rocks in the cavern with the Many. But here, everything was softness. Silvery curtains spilled down from somewhere high overhead, and though they were standing on a stone ledge, the floor ahead was covered with delicate strands of light. An intricate network of lines, each shimmering with their own glow. Fields of silvery thread.

  The music reached them now, clear as bells, and yet still somehow distant, as if the instrument weren’t somewhere in the chamber before them, but all around, everywhere at once. And then Meilin realized that it was.

  Because the fields themselves were singing.

  A breeze blew through the chamber and strummed across the thousands of strings. Their vibrations drew out a faint but steady hum. The sound was eerie and enchanting. Meilin stood there, mesmerized and confused, because she didn’t understand what she was looking at, how the floor could make music, how it could be so strange and beautiful. Less like earth than a thousand filaments of light. Like tiny rivers sparkling in the dark floor.

  And then she understood.

  They weren’t lines of water set into the ground.

  There wasn’t even a ground to be set into.

  The threads running together were the ground. Or rather, they were a net.

  Like the nets in Phos Astos, the ones that caught them when they jumped.

  But there were no currents of air to guide them, and the net was suspended over a hole so vast and deep it plummeted away into nothing.

  And besides, what was a net doing here, in the middle of a cavern without any people?

  And then Meilin’s stomach turned. Because this net wasn’t a net at all.

  It was a web.

  Meilin felt the color drain from her face. Beside her, Xanthe drew in a breath, but she didn’t sound scared. Her pink eyes were wide with wonder.

  “I know where we are,” she whispered. “These are the Arachane Fields.”

  As if on cue, dozens of small forms as big as Meilin’s hand began to crawl up through the spaces between the silver threads. Their bodies glittered like jewels, and their legs—all eight of them—were as spindly as the silk they moved over.

  Spider silk.

  Meilin looked back at the arch they’d come through. Of course. It had eight legs. She swallowed. She wasn’t afraid of many things. Not the dark, not even being buried alive—which was good, considering her current position—but she did not like spiders.

  She felt herself backing away, retreating until her shoulders came up against something large and warm and covered in coarse hair. A low growl rumbled through the barricade behind her, and she craned her head to see Kovo’s fangs. She scrambled forward, her foot nearly skimming the edge of the web.

  “I’ve heard legends about this place,” continued Xanthe, almost reverently. Meilin couldn’t help but imagine what Rollan would say to that. Probably that legends were rarely told about happy places where nothing bad happened.

  As if on cue, Conor said, “Good legends? The kind where everyone live
s?”

  Xanthe didn’t answer that. Instead she said, “The legends say that the Arachane Fields are one of the three wards of protection around the Evertree. Their music is meant to guard the way against evil.”

  “And the spiders?” whispered Meilin.

  Xanthe swallowed. “Well, if I had to guess, I’d say they’re meant to catch anything the music doesn’t. But as long as we’re careful, they should let us pass.”

  “Should … ” echoed Conor.

  “You said there were three wards of protection,” added Takoda, whose eyes were fixed on the field.

  Xanthe nodded. “The Arachane Fields guard the passage to the Sulfur Sea, and the Sulfur Sea runs like a moat around the Evertree. Beyond the sea … Well, the legends get kind of murky, but—”

  “One obstacle at a time,” said Conor, straightening. “Once we get across the fields, we’ll face the rest.” Briggan stood tall beside him, ears back but head high, blue eyes trained on the fields ahead.

  “There must be another way,” said Meilin, trying to keep the fear from her voice.

  But Xanthe was already shaking her head. “There was another way, remember? It was filled with the Many.”

  Meilin swallowed. She would rather take on a hundred of the Many than do this. She thought about suggesting it, but Conor’s fevered eyes and Xanthe’s set jaw made her hold her tongue.

  Meilin’s stomach turned over as she scanned the expanse of threads, searching for an edge, some way around, and finding none. But then she noticed that here and there the threads wove together into plats. They weren’t as wide as footpaths, but they should hold the weight of four kids. Maybe even Briggan.

  But there was no way the field would hold the weight of a massive ape.

  Everyone seemed to reach the conclusion at the same time, because they turned back toward Kovo.

  “Please,” said Takoda, linking his fingers in the sign for friend. Meilin had only seen the ape agree to take the passive form once, and he hadn’t been happy about it. Now his red eyes tracked over the field. Even the ape must have seen the predicament, because he snorted and brought his heavy hands down onto Takoda’s narrow shoulders, and in a flash of light, Kovo vanished, becoming a massive black tattoo that circled the boy’s neck and crept across his face. Meilin took a deep breath. The air felt lighter without the ape’s looming presence and weighted gaze.