Slight and Shadow (Fate's Forsaken: Book Two) (23 page)

She looked in the direction of the familiar voice and her heart leapt at the sight of Silas. He held his shackled hands up in greeting. A number of thick, purple bruises covered his face.

Kyleigh had never imagined that she’d be happy to see a cat. “Still alive, are you?”

He grinned. “You won’t be rid of me that easily.”

Kyleigh groaned as she forced her tired body upwards. Fortunately, there was something directly behind her that she could lean up against.
Un
fortunately, it was the bars of a rather large cage. They were seated on top of a small, grassy plateau, and seemed to be in the bottom of some kind of valley.

The valley was a little larger than the size of a small village. The ground was made up of different levels of plateaus, sitting like shelves across the earth. Crops sprouted up from most of the shelves — though there were a few that had goats grazing on them. Kyleigh’s stomach rumbled at the sight of their fleshy legs.

If there hadn’t been a blasted cage in the way, she would’ve snatched the fattest one right out of his pen.

But she was too weak to force her way through the bars, and it would do her no good to torture herself. So she tore her eyes away from the goats and instead, looked up.

Hundreds of eyes stared back at her, watching from the walls of stone that encircled the valley. Room-sized homes had been burrowed out of nearly every inch of the walls, separated from their neighbors by what looked like a mere foot of stone. The rooms spiraled in an unbroken line along the valley’s innards, winding their way up the walls to the smooth top of the mountain.

Mots of all sorts peeked out of the open rooms. Some watched from their beds, others stood at the opening, and a rather brave group of boys sat on the very edge, swinging their legs over oblivion.

Kyleigh suddenly felt as if she was trapped in the middle of a gigantic beehive. “What’s going on?” she said.

“Hmm?” Silas looked away from where he’d been staring hungrily at the goats, and gestured to the ground below them. “I believe they’re deciding whether or not to kill us.”

In the very bottom of the valley was a small circle of dirt. The space only looked big enough for five mots to sit comfortably, but she thought there might’ve been twice that many crowded into it.

She recognized Nadine straight away. She was seated in front of a few other soldiers on one side of the ring, while Hessa sat alone on the other side. And of course, the Grandmot was seated in the middle.

Though Kyleigh couldn’t understand any of what they said, she couldn’t stop herself from listening, either. The language the mots spoke was so fluid that it was almost musical. It even sounded lovely in the Grandmot’s sharp voice.

With her ears still on their chatter, Kyleigh turned her gaze to the space directly in front of them. Her skin began to crawl.

A thick table sat before her, one made of beaten slabs of silver. The legs still gleamed like new, but the top of the table was stained beyond recovery — by what looked suspiciously like large amounts of dried blood. Several bowls had been arranged neatly across the table’s surface. A number of instruments waited in a line near its head, sharp and twisted, each with a different gruesome purpose.

“Odd, isn’t it?”

“What’s odd?” Kyleigh said, tearing her gaze from the table.

Silas rolled his eyes, as if she was easily the slowest girl he’d ever had the displeasure of meeting. “Odd that we should be destined to die together: one proud King of beasts, and one lowly, hairless thing.”

Kyleigh patted him on the shoulder. “Oh, come now, Silas — you shouldn’t talk about yourself like that. I think you’ve got plenty of hair.”

He made an attempt to look insulted. But in the end, he only smiled.

They leaned back against the cage for a moment, listening as the Grandmot made her speech. Hessa would break in every now and then, and Kyleigh couldn’t help but notice how the people quieted at her voice. Even the Grandmot would fold her hands and listen patiently, as if she couldn’t afford to miss anything the little girl said.

“Speaking of odd things,” Kyleigh mused, “how on earth did you come to be here?”

Silas grunted as he shifted his back to a more comfortable position against the bars. “There was a cave in the shelter of rocks. I followed that stupid girl inside —”

“Elena,” she corrected him.

“My apologies. I followed that stupid
Elena
inside,” he said, grinning when Kyleigh struggled not to laugh. “Of course, she slithered off into the darkness at the first split in the road. I’m not sure where she went. Nor do I care. But I kept following the tunnel — ah, because it was cool, and I thought I could smell water.”

“And did you find water?”

“I did, yes. It was a blue, shining pool of sweet water. And I could see little fishes swimming around in the bottom. I was trying to scoop one up when I was suddenly struck in the face.” He grimaced, touching his bruises. “It shocked me, and I accidentally jumped back into my human skin. The next thing I know, all of these little humans are swarming about me, screaming
a’calla
. They clubbed me again, hobbled me, and carried me like a roasted goat into here.” He waved his hand about him and made a face. “Wherever
here
is.”

Kyleigh wasn’t surprised that Elena had run off. Good riddance. “What about Jake — have you seen him?”

Silas’s eyes widened, making him look the closest to
concerned
that he’d been since she’d thrown him across the library by his tail. “I thought he was with you.”

She sighed. “He was, but then he got hurt …”

She told him everything that had happened since the sandstorm, and he listened patiently. “Trolls?” he murmured when she was finished. “Well, that explains the stink I smelled on my way through the tunnel. Maybe that stupid Elena got herself eaten.” He smiled at the thought. “Jake will be fine. I sense it.”

Kyleigh sensed it, too. She just hoped their instincts were right.

“At least they gave me something soft to wear,” Silas said over her thoughts. He pulled at the hem of his silk garment. It had no color, but was a plain, stark white. “This is much more comfortable than pants. I don’t like having all of my —”

“Yes, I can imagine,” Kyleigh said quickly. She turned her attention back to the circle in the middle of the valley, where the mots’ tempers were starting to burn hot.

Nadine spoke now. Her voice was raised and her hands spread wide. The Grandmot leaned forward dangerously, as if she was just about to get to her feet — and the soldiers leaned back.

Kyleigh may not have understood their words, but she got the sense that the Grandmot didn’t like Nadine very much. So if Nadine was pleading on their behalf, it’d probably only get them killed faster.

Kyleigh elbowed Silas. “I hope you’re ready for a fight.”

“Certainly, a’calla,” he said with a smirk. Then he leaned forward. “Do you know what
a’calla
means? The men we slaughtered in the desert knew it, too.”

Kyleigh sighed. She didn’t know much of the desert language, but she certainly knew that word. “It means
the cursed
. The people of the desert believe that we had to trade our souls to necromancers in order to become shapechangers.”

“And what is a necromancer?”

“Someone who practices dark magic — like raising the dead, and harvesting souls.”

Silas raised his brows. “But that isn’t true. Are humans in the habit of making up stories for the things they can’t explain?” When Kyleigh shrugged, he let out a frustrated huff and fell back against the bars. “Stupid humans. Why don’t they just let questions be questions?”

She didn’t have an answer for that. Though she often found Jake’s many questions to be annoying, there was a lot about human curiosity that she found rather … endearing. Like the way Kael screwed up his nose when he was trying to solve a problem …

“Look, dragoness.”

She pulled herself away from her memories and glanced down at the circle. The Grandmot’s hands were cupped over her head. She shook them, and Kyleigh’s ears picked up a soft, rattling sound coming from between her palms. When the Grandmot opened her hands over the middle of the circle, a number of small bones fell out. Kyleigh had to strain to see them, but it looked as if there were symbols carved into each one.

The Grandmot leaned over them for a moment, and then she took to her feet. She spread her arms wide and spoke loudly to the people waiting in the hived houses:

“The runes have spoken!” she declared.

No cheers followed her announcement; the people remained eerily silent. Without another word, the council began trudging up the hill towards the cage.

Kyleigh reached instinctively for Harbinger — but he wasn’t there.

Her heart began to thud inside her chest. She looked frantically about the cage, but didn’t see him anywhere. Her eyes shot across the valley, combing over every shelf and grassy knoll.

And that’s when she noticed the weapon strapped to the Grandmot’s hip.

Chapter 21

Nakedness

“Think carefully before you act, a’calla,” Nadine hissed as she put the key into the lock. “If you are not careful, your life could end swiftly.”

Kyleigh wasn’t listening. She watched as the Grandmot wrapped her sly fingers around Harbinger, and he let out a piteous moan.

Kyleigh bit down on her lip. The others couldn’t hear Harbinger’s plea: he spoke only to her. He begged her to do something — to fight for him, to take him back. She gripped the cage bars tightly. Her blood swelled as she tried to control herself; it pushed against the sides of her head.

“Please, outlander.” Nadine was taking her time with the lock, turning it slowly while her eyes stayed locked on Kyleigh’s. “If you attack, they will kill —”

“I’ll take my chances,” she growled.

Taunting lines creased Grandmot’s mouth as her lips bent into a smirk. She knew very well what she was doing — and she was doing it on purpose. A scheme flicked across her fox-like eyes as she watched Kyleigh struggle. Like a bird feigning a broken wing, she was trying to goad her into an attack.

And what would the Grandmot do if she
did
attack? Use her own blade against her?

That thought made Kyleigh’s blood burn all the hotter. She could feel it scorching the underside of her nails as she tightened her grip around the bars. She didn’t think she could’ve been more furious — not even if the Grandmot had ripped her arm off and slapped her with it. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d wanted to kill somebody so badly.

“Please.” The word sounded odd on Nadine’s lips, and by the faltering in her eyes, Kyleigh knew it wasn’t a word she used often. “Please, outlander,” she said again. “I have paid dearly for your freedom. Do not cast your ransom to the wind —”

“Stop!”

A familiar voice rang out across the valley, more powerful than Kyleigh had ever heard it before. The mots gasped in their hived houses as Jake stumbled out from a nearby tunnel. He seemed to have just escaped from the healers: his bandages were only half-wrapped, and a whole gathering of blue-robed mots grasped at his heels. They seemed to be trying frantically to coax him back inside, but he was too tall for their reach.

He moved unsteadily out into the grass and raised his staff high overhead. When he brought it down, a noise like the deep boom of a drum filled the valley.

The blast from his spell knocked them all off their feet. Nadine slammed into the cage, her mouth parted in a surprised O. The Grandmot and all of her guards went rolling down the hill. Kyleigh and Silas were thrown to the back of the cage — where they collided painfully with the unforgiving bars.

“Those are my friends,” Jake roared, leveling his staff at the Grandmot. “And I won’t let you … I won’t stand by … and …” He teetered dangerously, and Kyleigh feared that he might fall and hurt himself. But the blue-robed mots rushed in and caught him gently on their palms. “I won’t …” His head sagged backwards, and his body went limp.

Kyleigh watched as the mots rushed him back inside the tunnel, carrying him across their backs like an army of ants. She shook the door of the cage, but it was still locked. “Where are they taking him? They’d better not hurt —”

“Silence, a’calla!” the Grandmot snapped. One of the guards pulled her from the ground, but she didn’t thank him — her eyes were on Nadine. “Did you know one of them was a spellweaver? Have you deceived me?”

Nadine shook her head. She brushed the dirt from the back of her dress and gathered her spear from the ground. “I had no idea, Grandmot —”

“Lies!” she spat, the tawny feathers trembling furiously on the top of her head. “You must have known. Why else would you have traded so much for their lives?”

“I must claim fault for that, Grandmot.” Hessa was quickly plucked from the ground by a nearby guard. She had a smudge of dirt on her cheek, but made no move to wipe it away. She clasped her hands in front of her pleadingly. “It was I who told Nadine to buy the a’calla. I closed my eyes and saw our people’s lands reclaimed, our fires burning brightly once more. And I thought …”

Hessa’s deep gaze roved from the Grandmot’s furious, red-tinged face to the many watching eyes above her. “I believed there was something more to the a’calla than what we could see. Now we have a spellweaver in our midst.” She smiled shyly as she turned back to the Grandmot. “Perhaps it is as you always say: we should never turn aside a gift until we understand its meaning.”

The guards murmured in agreement with Hessa, nodding to her. The Grandmot clutched tightly at her robes. For a moment, she looked off-balance — as if she’d stepped into a hole. Then her face went dangerously smooth. “Very well. You paid me a fair price, Nadine. The a’calla and the spellweaver are yours by right. The guards will follow you to claim the rest of your payment. Come, Hessa.”

The Grandmot held out her hand, and Hessa took it obediently. As she marched across the valley, Kyleigh couldn’t help but think that the Grandmot’s feathers looked severely ruffled.

That thought might’ve put a grin on her face, had she not been so worried about Harbinger. His moans faded as the Grandmot carried him away. Kyleigh stared after him until he disappeared into the tunnel, fighting not to cry in the silence he left behind.

She’d always thought humans were a bit ridiculous for how they blushed at nakedness, how they saw it as a shameful thing. To her, there was nothing shameful about running around in her skin. But now … well, she was beginning to understand.

It wasn’t their
skin
the humans were ashamed of — it was their vulnerability. They kept themselves covered in order to hide their weaknesses. Without Harbinger at her side, Kyleigh felt empty. She felt exposed and humiliated, vulnerable to every slight. She felt … naked.

The lock clicked and Nadine opened the cage. She freed their hands and ankles, leaving the shackles on the floor. Then she stepped to the side. With one hand on her spear and the other propped on her hip, she waited.

Kyleigh realized that she was being given a choice: she could behave, or Nadine could crack her over the skull. The sharpness in her stare was like the edge of a razor. She’d seen Kyleigh collapse in the arena. She could guess how weakened she must be.

Her dragon half stirred inside her chest, demanding vengeance. And though Kyleigh wanted nothing more than to snap the Grandmot’s villainous neck, the thought of Jake made her think better of it.

“What do you plan to do with Jake — I mean, the spellweaver?”

“The healers have agreed to deliver him the moment he is ready,” Nadine replied.

It was with no small amount of anguish that Kyleigh finally stepped outside of the cage. Deep in the pit of her heart, she knew Harbinger would be all right. He would find his way back to her.

Eventually.

*******

The mots’ home was indeed like a giant beehive. The tunnel they followed led out of the valley and to the foot of a giant, sloping staircase. The staircase spiraled up the inside of the mountain, wrapping behind the honeycombed rooms and winding its way in great circles to the very top.

It was a hot and stuffy passage. The steps were well-worn and rather slippery, in places. But the most unsettling thing about the long journey was the staring.

Each room had a silk curtain draped across its front like a door, and some of them were pulled tightly shut. But most were cracked open or hung unabashedly to the side, so that the many curious residents packed within them could gape at Kyleigh and Silas as they passed.

And none of them spoke a word.

“What do the colors mean?” Kyleigh said, lowering her voice when she heard how it struck the walls.

“What colors?” Nadine said over her shoulder. She was using her spear to help pull herself up the steps. It clicked rhythmically against the ground as they climbed.

“The colors on your clothes and curtains.”

“Ah, those are the symbols of our classes. Those people of green are our farmers — because of the life they give us. Blue represents healing springs, and so our healers have chosen it for themselves. Warriors wear red … for the blood we have spilled.”

“What about the yellow?” Silas pressed. “And why does this
Grandmot
wear black?” He stared openly at the people they passed, meeting their eyes with interest. He even craned his neck to try to peer behind them and see into their rooms. Once, he leaned in so close that a whole family of mots squealed and jumped back behind their curtains.

Nadine turned so they could see her pursed lips. “The Grandmot is Fate’s messenger — she alone bears the power to interpret the secret groans of the earth. She is most blessed of us all, and so her robes are black. Hessa wears yellow because of the dawn she represents. One day, when our Grandmot passes, Hessa will take her place as our guiding mother.”

Kyleigh was slightly taken aback. “A woman is your leader?”

“Of course, outlander,” Nadine said with a heavy sigh. “From
woman
is where all life stems. We are closer to the earth than men, and have a wisdom they do not. We are much better suited to leading. No — no more questions.” She held up a firm hand. “Save your breath for walking.”

It turned out that Kyleigh needed every ounce of her breath to make it to the top. For the first time in a long while, she felt the human ache of weakness. Her dragon’s strength had waned to the point where she could hardly feel it. Human stubbornness was the only thing that dragged her to the top.

When Nadine finally split from the stairway and into a room, they followed her without question.

“Oh, there
is
a Fate!” Silas said as he crumpled onto the ground. He panted heavily, leaving a dark ring of moisture on the stone near his lips.

The floor felt cool beneath her feet, and Kyleigh was tempted to join him. But instead, she stepped over his sweaty body and took a good look around the room.

There wasn’t much to it. A small bed of pelts lay in one corner, and it seemed to be made up of everything from goat to fox. Nadine went directly to the barrel on the opposite side and drew a half-empty sack from behind it. She handed it to the guards that had followed them up the stairs, and they left without a word.

Nadine went back to the barrel and spooned a ladle full of water into two clay bowls, which she handed to Kyleigh and Silas. They gulped their drinks down without taking a breath. Nadine seemed to be fighting back a smile as she poured them a second.

A silver brazier sat to one side of the room’s large window, which spilled out into the dizzying drop below. Kyleigh leaned out of it and saw small dots of people moving across the valley. The wind kissed her face, and she breathed it in. She would’ve liked very much to drop out of the window, spread her wings and swoop up to the sky. But she didn’t think she had the strength to pull herself out of a fall, just yet.

Instead, she traced the sparkling stream of water from where it pooled in the valley floor, up the crooked, wet line that streaked down the walls, to a rock at the top of the lip. It looked a bit like a broken egg.

“A spring,” Nadine said when she asked. “We will have to hike there tomorrow to refill our water barrel.” She watched Silas gulp down another bowlful and smiled wryly. “Or perhaps we will have to go tonight.”

“I have a question,” Silas interjected. “I could’ve asked it earlier, but I didn’t want to be rude —”

“And you also didn’t have the breath for it,” Kyleigh added.

He scowled at her. “I had plenty of breath. And I still have breath enough to bite you, dragoness.” Then he turned back to Nadine. “Did I hear you say you’ve …
bought
us?”

Nadine nodded. “It cost me my entire fortune. The Grandmot owns all three of my goats, now. And I just gave my seed rice to the guards.” Her eyes were distant as she watched out the window. “So even my poor fields will lie empty.”

Her accent was thick. Kyleigh thought she could hear traces of the song-language in her voice. She
felt
the sadness in Nadine’s words, even before her mind had a chance to sort them out. They fell like rain striking the rock: muted, and without hope.

“But I trust Hessa,” Nadine went on, a bit of her strength returning. “So if it is my fate to watch over the a’calla, then I will bear it proudly.”

“Huh.” Silas narrowed his eyes. “Well, I’m afraid you’ve wasted your goats — I cannot be bought. I belong to no one.”

Nadine shrugged. “Then I suppose you can return to the Grandmot. She wanted to split you open on an altar while you yet lived, and remove your insides one at a time to purge your body of its cursed soul.”

Kyleigh choked on her water. “Would she really have done that?”

“I have seen it done before.” Nadine sat cross-legged on the ground and gestured for them to join her. “I know you are a’calla,” she said, her sharp gaze locking onto each of them in turn. “But you are in my charge. So I will try to help you fit in here the best you can. What you need to understand first,” and here, she looked pointedly at Silas, “is that without my protection, they will kill you instantly. The runes have fallen in your favor, but they cannot keep you safe from the others’ hatred.”