The Fire Sisters (Brilliant Darkness 3) (26 page)

“I think we can go again,” Kai says.

As I press off the wall, I hear a familiar, hated sound: the scratchings and rustlings of the wasp enclosure at night. Even after the sun sets and the majority of the insects go dormant, there’s that ominous noise. I imagine the thousands of tiny bodies shifting and moving inside their nests. During the day, the buzzing is enough to drive me crazy. It’s bad, but something about this sound is especially revolting.

I pause.

“Should we open it?” I say. “In all the commotion, the Sisters might not notice, and at first light, the wasps will find their way out. It could take years for them to collect this many insects again.”

Even if we fail tonight, we can take the sting, so to speak, out of the Sisters.

“Let’s do it,” Kai says.

“Carefully,” I add.

“I’m not stupid, Fenn.”

The usual scorn in her voice is missing. Instead, she sounds like she’s teasing—something I’ve heard her do with Peree, but never with me. A smile plays on my lips.

We hurry to the enclosure. We don’t have time for this, but it feels important. A small victory over the Sisters, even if this one win is all we get.

“Do you see a door?” I ask Kai. The sounds of the wasps shifting around in their nests make my own skin crawl.

“Yeah, it’s here.”

She lifts my hand, putting it on some kind of latch, and, together, we tug the door open. We back away.

“Stop there!” a stern voice calls.

Deliberate footsteps move closer. A Sister has found us.

I do what she says. We can’t let ourselves be taken, and I think I’ve adequately proven my worthlessness in a fight. Even with Grimma’s training, I’m still more of a danger to myself than anyone else. I ready myself anyway, holding the staff lightly in my palm, balancing it as Grimma taught me. It feels like a betrayal of sorts to use the skills she gave me against one of her own.

Uncertainty swirls through me. Moray tells me I care too much; Kai tells me I’m not embracing the power that my caring gives me. Who’s right?

Kai and the guard seem to circle each other, their feet sliding against the ground. Why hasn’t the Sister called for help? It hits me: she doesn’t need to. She must be confident that she can overpower two bumbling Initiates, especially a Sightless one. And she’s probably right.

There’s a burst of sound: a few quick footsteps, a sharp crack, and a grunt. And just like that, Kai goes down.

I wince. At least for us, the attempt to rescue the children is over. Probably our lives, too. For the children’s sake, I pray the others have better luck. I let my staff drop and wait, defeated.

“What are you doing? Pick up your weapon. We need to move.”

My mouth drops open. “Kai?”

“Yeah, what did you think?”

“That the Sister beat you, of course!”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence. C’mon.”

I search on the ground for my staff, and then jog to follow her. “But… in training, you never seemed like you—”

“Knew how to fight? I was faking it. I didn’t want Grimma or the other Sisters to know my skill level. As soon as I returned to Koolkuna from the Cloister as a girl, I continued to train with weapons. Staff, spear, knife. The only one I didn’t know how to use well was a bow and arrow. That’s why I asked Peree to work with me. I never wanted to let myself be caught weak and helpless like that again.”

Shame washes over me. I was envious of the time Kai and Peree spent together practicing archery. Understandably, Kai wanted to be able to protect herself after what happened to her as a girl. Sure, she made no secret that she liked spending time with him, but I can’t blame her for that. I like spending time with him, too.

We enter the forested area in the middle of the Cloister that shelters the Sisters’ homes and the children’s compound. I get hints of where we are from the rustling leaves overhead, the darkness cast by the tree branches, the slope of the ground we’ve now traveled for days. Sound is muffled here. A whiff of soap tells me the laundry is somewhere to our left.

The horn has stopped, and the shouting has died down. In fact, it’s growing ominously quiet inside the Cloister. What’s happening?

Kai pulls me quickly behind a dark, shadowy tree. I press myself against the trunk, trapping the staff and my shaking hands against it. Someone runs by, this time heading in the same direction we are. That’s not good. We need the Sisters to be pulled away from the children, not toward them. As the footsteps fade, we go forward again, moving more slowly, ducking in and out of doorways of shelters when we hear noises. No other Sisters materialize.

“The children’s compound is here,” Kai says after another minute. “Looks quiet for now.”

I listen hard. “Guards?”

“I don’t see any.” She sounds uneasy.

I am, too. There should be a few, at least. We thought we might have to fight our way through a crowd of them once the alarm sounded. Where are the Sisters? They can’t
all
be at the gate.

Kai in the lead, we start moving again, still among the trees. If Amarina, Frost, and the men are here, we need to find them.

In the quiet, a bird calls. A part of my brain catalogues it as a thrush. Hold on… thrush usually sing in the morning, a melodic section of the dawn chorus. It’s nowhere near dawn.

A
thrush
.

“Peree’s here!” I whisper.

“Where? How do you know?”

“That bird call… it’s him.” We hear the sound again.

“The other side of the compound.” She takes my arm, leading me through the gloom.

My body tingles, anticipating being with Peree again, but the utter silence from the children’s compound to our right distracts me. The Teachers and whatever guards are normally here must have heard the horn. What are they doing in there? Is this their protocol? Stay silent and hope the threat passes?

Kai pauses. The thrush calls again from in front of us, much closer now.

“Peree?” I whisper. My mouth is so dry.

Footsteps come closer. Kai steps aside, and Peree wraps me up.

“I thought the Sisters might have caught up with you,” he whispers.

“They almost did,” I said. “We only made it because of Kai.”

He greets her warmly and takes us back in the direction he came from.

“Any problems?” I ask him. “Did you all get in?”

“The most important of us did,” Moray says in a loud whisper. “Me. Did you miss me, little Fenn?”

If living rough in the forest affected Moray, it doesn’t show in his voice. But I’m oddly happy to know that. So much has changed; I want
something
I can count on. Moray being his arrogant, irritating self is one of those things.

“You bet I did.” I smile toward his voice.

Someone tugs me away from Peree. Bear. His woodsy smell hasn’t changed either. He hugs me, and I hug him back.

“You okay?” he asks.

“I’m fine. Happy you’re here.” I squeeze his hand.

I greet Derain and Cuda, and, when I hear Amarina’s voice, I congratulate her on the success of breaking the men into the Cloister.

“Mirii—” she says.

“The Sisters have Frost.” Conda interrupts. “Do you know where they took her?”

“No! What happened?”

“We left our quarters and went straight to the damaged section of the wall, as we planned.” Amarina sounds upset. “Several Sisters were gathered there on the ground, guarding it. Before I could stop her, Frost went to them, saying we planned to escape the Cloister, but she did not want to go. She said we were leaving from the eastern wall, that they should look for us there. Her ruse worked—the Sisters left—but they took her with them. I remained to bring the men through.”

“It was smart thinking,” Cuda says. “Only a few guards were left on the wall. We had no problem climbing it and taking them out.”

“Are the Sisters… okay?” I ask him.

“We only knocked ‘em out. Might have a few headaches.”

That’s something, at least. I bite my lip. Frost led the guards away from us and from the men… but did she sacrifice herself in doing so? Where will they take her? How will we get her out, too?

“Let’s get the children out, and then worry about Frost,” I say. “How do we get into the compound?”

“Bust down the gate. There aren’t even any guards,” Moray says.

“But why aren’t there?” I say, partially to myself.

“Climb the wall. It will be quieter,” Amarina says.

“I’ll go first, take a peek,” Bear says.

Peree keeps me close as we all move quietly out of the protection of the forest. When we stop, I put a hand out to find the wall. Bear scrambles up, his feet scraping softly against the rock. An owl hoots from nearby, breaking the utter silence.

Why is it so quiet? Where are the guards and the Teachers? Are the children even in here? I want to know so badly if Kora and the others are safe. We’re so close now. Amarina picks up my hand, gripping it. I squeeze back.

“What do you see?” Peree asks after a moment.

“Nothing.” Bear’s whisper comes from above our heads. “The doors to the building are wide open. Looks deserted.”

“Can you jump down and open the gate? Let us in?” I ask.

I hear a solid thump from the other side of the wall a moment later. The gate squeaks open down the wall, mimicking the massive gate to the Cloister. Peree takes my arm, and we move inside the wall as a group. I catch the scents of nightshade and moonflower, and a sleepy bird squawks from somewhere to the side. Maybe it’s one of the ones Kai said the Teachers kept in cages, where the Sisters’ colorful feathers came from.

A few more paces and we enter a building. A few torches flicker, delineating the area of the large room. It’s otherwise completely still. Amarina’s quick steps, and Derain’s heavier footfalls are in front, rushing forward to look for Ellin, Kora, and Darel. I smell cooked meat, probably from dinner earlier, fainter scents of wood smoke, and something else. It’s a human scent, but not like the Sisters. It must be the children.

Only… they’re clearly not here now. Disappointment punches me in the gut. I can’t imagine how Amarina and Derain must feel.

“It’s not bad.” Peree sounds surprised. “Tables and chairs, flowers in vases, beds in the far room. Everything’s neat and tidy. But they left their dinners half-eaten.”

“Any clues where they went?” I ask.

No one answers for a moment.

“Yeah,” Cuda says from somewhere across the room. “Right here.”

Peree pulls me toward his voice, following the footsteps of the others.

Derain curses.

“What is it?” I ask.

“A trapdoor in the floor. It’s wide open.”

Cuda’s voice is muffled. He must have stuck his head in the hole.

I slap my hands together. Of course the Sisters have a plan B for the children when something goes wrong. Maybe they took their cue from the ants, building an underground tunnel. But to where?

“We should follow them,” Amarina says.

“Yeah, and there’s liable to be a thousand Sisters with their spears pointed at us when we get to wherever they went,” Moray says.

“We could split up,” I suggest. “Half of us follow the tunnel, half look aboveground.”

“No. We’ve been split up for too long,” Peree says. “We all came here together. If we’re going to fight the Sisters, we’ll do it together.”

“This is getting better by the minute,” Bear mutters. Kai snorts.

It was probably inevitable that we would face the Fire Sisters at some point. I just hoped it would be more on our terms than theirs. It doesn’t seem like that’s possible now.

One by one, we jump down into the hole in the floor. I go last. Peree jumps, and then catches me. It’s not much of a drop. When my feet are on the ground, I reach to the sides, and above my head, feeling along the earthen walls. The men must have to stoop; it’s not very tall. At least it’s wide enough to walk one at a time.

Someone up ahead grabbed a torch, lighting the way through the tunnel as we go. I keep a hand on Peree’s back to orient me. The warmth of his body comforts me a little. A very little. This is going to be bad.

The way twists and turns. My guess is that we’re making our way farther into the Cloister. Where will we end up? Somewhere the Sisters can defend themselves and the children easier. The great hall comes to mind.

The tunnel is frigid; it seems to be growing colder the farther we walk. It occurs to me that we could have walked straight into a trap: the Sisters could lock the doors on either end of the passageway. Wait a few weeks… Problem solved. My body begins to quake.

“I think we’re at the end,” Conda says from in front. The torchlight staggers in the air. “There’s a ladder going up and a closed door above my head. What should we do?”

“Go on out. It’s not like we’re going to surprise them now,” Bear says. His voice is flinty; he’s preparing for a fight. Peree’s muscles tense under my hand. He slings his bow off his back with a twang.

No
, I think,
bloodshed isn’t what I wanted
. But… we didn’t ask for
any
of this. Maybe, like Peree said, it couldn’t be helped. The Sisters took the children. We want them back. If no one will budge, fighting for them is the only way.

We huddle together as much as we can. Fear wafts from the others, a metallic scent. I sidle closer to Peree.

“Here I go,” Conda says. Each of his feet thumps the rungs of the ladder as he climbs. I can’t help thinking it might be one of the last things I hear.

We wait, listening, as he pulls himself up and out. There’s no other sound from above. He doesn’t come back to tell us what he sees, so we have no choice but to climb up ourselves. The others go, and, finally, it’s only Peree and me.

We cling to each other for a moment. He kisses me gently, one last time, and then he climbs.

Blood pounding through my temples, I follow.