Page 59 of While the Dark Remains
The distant shriek of monsters echoes down the passageway, and I shoulder my torn pack, hoping it will hold together, while Ballast shoves blankets into a pack he has waiting by the back wall, then shrugs into it. He grabs the sword and the torch, and offers Saga a wooden staff that was leaning against the wall. She snatches it from him.
He looks like he wants to say something to her, but reconsiders.
Then he leads us out into the passage, stepping over the bodies of the monsters he slew, their blood still wet on his hands.
Saga follows, teeth gritted, staff clenched hard in one hand. I come on her heels, a riot of confused emotions.
Ballast is here.
But I have no more answers than I did before.
Chapter Eleven
Year4200, Month of the Black God
Daeros—Tenebris
Saga isn’t there when I wake, bleary-eyed, to the smell of sausages and tea. A lantern glows orange on the table, and Pala watches from her post at the door.
Fear grabs me. “Where’s Saga?” I ask.
“Down in the kitchens,” Pala replies mildly, though the crease between her brows tells me she’s not happy about it.
“Vil told her to stay in the room. She’ll be caught.”
Pala shrugs. “Her Highness is not exceptionally pleased with her brother right now, and in any case, she claims it would bemoresuspicious if she never mingled with the other attendants.”
Saga’s still angry that Vil didn’t tell her about the weapon, then. Not that I blame her. I’m not especially happy with him right now, either. I sigh and sit down to breakfast, trying to shake the remnants of the awful dream from my mind.
Saga comes back in time to help me dress for the treaty meeting, her eyes bright and fierce, but I wave off her choice of gown. “I’m not going.”
“Why not?”
“Perfect time to scout, with everyone of any importance shut in the council room for at least an hour.”
Saga makes a face. “Fine. I’ll send word that you’re not feeling well. I guess I didn’t need to be back so soon, then.”
For a moment I study her, noticing fresh, dark earth on the hem of her dress. I wonder why she lied to Pala about going to the kitchens. I wonder where she went instead.
Scouting proves fairly fruitless. I briefly search Kallias’s receiving rooms, and the guest suites of all the visiting nobility, finding nothing of note beyond a detailed record of Basileious’s drilling into the mountain. There’s over a decade of accounts that I’d like to read through, but I don’t dare take the book with me—it would be too quickly missed.
After a quick perusal, I slip back into the vent.
I don’t mean to take the path to the great hall—or maybe I do, my dream haunting me, Saga’s words stuck deep in my mind.They deserve hope, Brynja.Gods know that’s what I needed, for eight long years.
I spend a while staring out of the vent above the time-glass before gathering enough courage to jump down into the echoing room.
Above me, I hear the ghost of myself shifting in her dangling cage, but I’m not ready, yet, to face her.
I go to Saga’s cage, first, the one bordered with orange trees. A Daerosian girl of perhaps twelve sleeps on the floor behind the glass bars, but she lifts her head as I approach. She has dark eyes and pale skin, and her blond hair hangs straight to her waist. She scoots to a sitting position as she blinks out at me, tense and trembling.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I tell her, agony tightening my throat. “I wanted to tell you that ... we’re here to save you. My friends and I. Not yet, you must wait still a little longer, but when Gods’ Fall is over, when the sun rises again—then it will be time. So have courage. Have hope.”
Tears brim in the girl’s eyes. I’m not sure she believes me.
“What’s your name?” I ask her quietly.
“Gaiana, my lady.”
