“I’m more a son of the village than you’ll ever be, Councilman or not. I grew up with a scythe in hand, and I think you’ll find my fingers play the blade as well as they play the bow.” We’re both grinning now, rictus smiles with teeth flashing in the flickering darkness, and from the tunnel on the right, an eager sort of breathiness sounds.
Wren scrambles to her feet, wrapping the bones around her neck frantically, and my attention switches to her in a heartbeat.Those bones. Around her throat, feeling her pulse, where my tongue should be, tracing the pale column from the hollow up to that frenetic trembling beneath her skin. If I crush the bones, tear them from her, I can take their place. I just have to…
I must make a sound, a movement, because her eyes flare open, white in the darkness, locking on my own before focusing over my shoulder, down the breathing corridor. “It’s the caves,” she whispers, “We have to run!” and whips around, fleeing into the blackness so quickly I’ve lost her before I take a step.
“Wren!” Tahrik is after her like her shadow, and for a brief, wildmoment, I am left alone in the unending night. From the tunnel on the right, the one we are not taking, a faint voice calls.
“Rannoch!” It sounds like her, like she is crying out in pain. How did she get there? Did the tunnels combine ahead? Did she fall? “Rannoch!Help me!Please… help me!”
One step.
“Rannoch!” Her voice is quaking, vibrating as though her skin is being pulled from her body.
One step more. And now I am only half a step away, half a step until I am in, half a step until I have entered the sucking blackness.
“Rannoch!”
Cold fingers wrap tightly around my wrist. “No.”
I’m caught, caught between her voice pleading from the tunnel, and her hand pulling me away.
“Rannoch!Help me!” Her voice is crying from the depths, sobbing out. “HELP ME!”
Beside me, Wren tenses, breath fast and shallow, and her grip cuts into my skin, bruising. “I. Said.No!” Thisscreamed, not at me, but down the empty corridor. There is a startled shiver of shadows, the sliding movement of ink on ink, and then a piercing wail so loud I instinctively move to jerk my hands up to cover my ears, but she won’t let me. Wren is yanking at me now, pulling me off balance, running down the left corridor, with me tripping and stumbling after her, away from the screeching needles of sound behind us. In seconds we are even with Tahrik, who grabs my other hand without hesitation, helping Wren drag me forward. For a moment I’m confused, and then more confused when I realize I’m fighting them, trying to return the way I came.Why am I fighting?
“Rannoch! Please! I’mdying!”
She’s in agony, begging for me, and I’m a chained beast against them, clawing and desperate.
“She needs me! She needs me!” Even in my stupor I can hear the frenzy in my voice as I try to tear their hands from my arms.
She needs me, she needs me, she needs?—
“Rannoch. Stop.” In front of me, marble hands on my face, I meet Wren’s eyes. “Rannoch. It’s not me. I’m here. I’m with you. It’s not me.”
Tahrik is breathing heavily behind me, and I realize suddenly that his arms are wrapped around me like steel bands, that he has wrestled me into place somehow without me even realizing it.
“Wren?”
Her face relaxes at whatever she hears in my voice.
“I’m here, Rannoch. It’s fine. I’m fine. That isn’t me.”
“Oh,” I say stupidly, and out of nowhere am overcome by a shaking spell so bad I can barely stand, am kept upright only by the Miller. “Oh. I thought…”
“I know,” she replies, and there are so many questions in those simple words; questions I want to answer, questions I’m not ready to answer, questions I don’t even know if she wants to ask. So I take a deep breath and force myself to settle.
“I’m sorry.” Stupid words, but they’re all I have. “Miller, I’m sorry. I don’t know..I’m not sure…”
His arms fall away, and he steps back. “It’s fine…Rannoch. It’s the mountain. We’re too close to the Everfire. Let’s keep moving.” He glances behind us, shaking his head. “Now. Let’s move now. You’ll let us know when we are safe, Wren?”
She laughs shakily in response. “Safe? Will iteverbe safe?”
He takes her hands, staring down at their fingers intertwined. “We will find a place, Wren. I promise it. But for now, I’d settle for anywhere other than here.”
It is taking too long.Long enough that we are two days out of food, if you can call honeyed sweetsfood, and a full day out of water. Long enough that desperation gives way to hopelessness, which in turn fades to brutal acceptance. Yesterday, no words exchanged other than a silent nod, Tahrik and I quietly emptied the last of our flasks into Wren’s when she wasn’t looking, but it is not enough. We had been filling her ration pack with our own when we were able, thoughthe last time I tried, Tahrik held his hand over the pouch and shook his head.
“One of us has left the village, knows how to hunt, to navigate. There is no space left for niceties now. When my feet fail, don’t give her a choice, Councilor. She won’t want to leave. You must make her. Whatever it takes.”
