The Flute Keeper's Promise (The Flute Keeper Saga) (21 page)

“You think you’re so special,” the
priestess said. “You’re trash, do you hear me? TRASH! Nobody in your family
ever deserved the power they had. Not your grandfather, not you, not any of
them!”

Keep her talking
, I thought.
I needed to buy time to think of way out. “What did my grandfather ever do to
you?”

“He should have been less selfish,”
the priestess said with a sneer. “He was the last of his line. He knew what
needed to be done, and yet he turned his back on the clergy and his fellow Fay.”

My curiosity was piqued despite the
situation. “What are you talking about? Why does it matter that he was the last
of his line? If everyone had left him alone, there might be lots of little
Wrens running around Faylinn today.”

“That is so,” the priestess said in
a quietly ominous tone. “And their curse would be spawned anew with them.
You’ve eaten from your family tree, so you must know of the curse. Your
power-hungry ancestors brought it upon themselves when they created the
Summoning Flute.”

“So what? Sounds like a problem for
me to worry about, not you.”

“There is something you don’t know
about curses,” the priestess said, still suspiciously calm. “A curse is like
any other magic. It grows more powerful with each generation. Every time it is
passed on, it multiplies in intensity. Left unchecked, it can start to affect the
innocent, causing everything from plagues to droughts to wars.”

“That’s ridiculous!” I said. “You
can’t blame natural disasters on a few unlucky people. Sometimes bad things just
happen!”

“Bad things happen more whenever
your family prospers,” the priestess said. “Take yourself as an example. Since
you came here we’ve had nothing but ill fortune: the Cian Varsha, King
Theobald’s illness and death, the rise of Robyn. Do you think it is all a
coincidence?”

She had a point. I had been
ready with a comeback but I choked on the words.

“See?” said the priestess. “You
can’t deny it. This place will be better when you are gone. Your grandfather
knew this. He made a pledge to live out his life in the clergy, giving us
whatever service or knowledge he could, then he would die and his curse would
die with him.”

She was actually making a lot of sense.
It was one thing for me to bear a curse alone. It was quite another when it
affected my friends and the home I’d grown to love.

“Your silence speaks volumes,” the
priestess said. “Of course, you know what happened next. Your grandfather went
back on his promise. He became a heretic. He married and turned his back on the
clergy. Something had to be done.”

I shivered. A suspicion had been
forming in the back of my mind for a while. It was a question I was too afraid
to ask. It was the true reason I’d ignored Linaeve’s advice about researching my
grandparents. I had lied to myself, saying that it didn’t matter. The past was
the past but…

The grin hadn’t left High Priestess
Grimmoix’s face. “I was not such an expert with my talent back then, or I might
have seen that Alberich was already a father. Nobody had seen him or his wife in
two years. It’s a pity. If we had but known that one little fact, the
destruction of your family might have been complete.”

I looked away. “The clergy killed
him.”

“What choice did we have? He was a
renegade, and though we did not know he had a child, we did know one thing: he
had the flute. We discovered that someone had removed it from Fiddlers Green.
Alberich was the only one with the power to retrieve it. He was at large with
the most destructive tool known to all Fay! As soon as we found out where he
was hiding, we sent a crew to take him out.”

Shaking, I squeezed my eyes shut. I’d
seen the outcome in my father’s memories. In his last desperate moments,
Grandpa had sent his only son away to the human realm.

“After the job was done we sealed
the flute away again, not knowing there were any left who could retrieve it,”
the priestess said.

A tremor ran through me. I had
listened to the unapologetic confession without letting my outrage get the
better of me, but I was losing ground. My grandparents had been betrayed by
their own kind. “You didn’t have to kill them.”

“No?” High Priestess Grimmoix said.
“Alberich had the flute! What other reason did he take it if not to wreak
havoc? My own visions had shown me that a Flute Keeper would one day destroy
Ivywild. We had no choice.”

I tried to put myself in his place.
Why remove the flute from Fiddler’s Green? The flute was the source of the
family curse. It was also indestructible since doing so meant unleashing the
monsters it controlled. There was no good reason for him to have it unless…

I gasped. “Maybe he found a way to
destroy it!”

The priestess scoffed. “Don’t be
ridiculous! It was intact when we recovered it from his hideout.”

“Maybe he was working on it!” I
said, growing excited. “He must have joined the clergy so he could do research.
When he found the answers he needed, he left and set out to destroy the flute
and end the curse once and for all!”

“Nonsense!” the priestess spat.

Now that the idea had lit up my
thoughts, I wouldn’t let go of it. It was more than I’d dared to dream. “Don’t
you see? He knew something! He must have! Maybe it’s still possible. Maybe I
can end the curse!”

The priestess flexed her bony
fingers. They made ominous cracking noises. “All I have to do is get rid of you
for good. No more Wrens, no more curse. You should have been content with
becoming a Cognite. Now it’s too late.”

I gauged the danger I was in by the
psychotic gleam in her eyes. I didn’t delude myself into thinking that she was too
moral to kill me. I had finally given her the perfect excuse. By attacking the clergy
and judges, I’d just signed my own death warrant.

“You’re thinking that I won’t kill
you,” the priestess said. “I will. The vision I once had about a Flute Keeper
destroying Ivywild didn’t die with your grandfather.  If you are left to live
free past this winter’s solstice, then Ivywild will fall by summer.”

Dumbfounded, I shook my head. “I’d
never.”

“It’s not up to you!” the priestess
said.

I doubted the strength of my
barrier magic against whatever the priestess was about to unleash. In a last ditch
effort, I took out my shortsword.

The priestess threw back her head
and cackled. “A blade to protect you? Ah, but of course that’s a habit you
picked up from that filthy Slaugh boy.” Her expression changed suddenly. Her
lips twisted downward and her eyes went unfocused. “My great-nephew. Another
anomaly. A dam in the current of fate.”

While she babbled, I unlatched the
hilt of my sword. The flute slipped into my hand. Praying that I wasn’t
mistaken, I covered all but the fourth stop.

The priestess was still rambling,
her voice growing louder with every word to accommodate her rising fury. “It’s
obscene that two cast-offs like you hold so much power over our destiny. It’s
vulgar and wrong and I’m putting an end to it. NO SWORD CAN SAVE YOU NOW!”

“Not a sword,” I said, lifting the
flute to my lips. “A curse.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

High Priestess Grimmoix screamed. A
high-pitched note drowned out her voice. The ground quaked. Bits of dirt shook
loose from the ceiling. I heard splashing noises coming from outside.

The priestess fell to her knees.
The vortex of power she’d been drawing subsided, overcome by the call of my
flute. Something ancient and far more powerful than the priestess’s magic was
present.

A creature ripped through the
barricade of roots. It had a head like a dragon with scales and giant teeth.
Its body was covered in sleek fur like an otter’s. The creature was so long
that its back half remained submerged in the bubbling river. It tore the roots
around me using the talons on its short front legs.

The priestess was wide-eyed. “Sea
serpent!” she rasped.

I faced the marine behemoth and
shouted, “I command you to take me to out of here!”

The long creature swung its body
around so that I could climb aboard its slippery, fur-covered back. Then it
pushed away from the ground and shot out into the center channel of the river with
undulating swiftness. I got soaked but I didn’t care. The priestess and the
horrible greenhouse were slipping away behind me.

The sea serpent slithered between
thick, hanging roots. I had no idea where to go, but the creature seemed to
know the way out. I gripped its fur and kept my head low. Water rushed past my
dangling legs.

We came upon the archway where the
river spilled down into the outer canal. The sea serpent shot out of the narrow
opening and into the vaulted chamber on the other side. From there it slithered
downstream to the first room where the canal split into many different
channels.

I felt the sea serpent hesitate.
There could be any number of exits to the watery maze. Then the serpent turned
abruptly to the right. It swam into an even narrower stream that vanished into
dark underground tunnel.

“Wait!” I yelled. “Not this way!”

But the serpent seemed to know
better. It plunged its head underwater. I had just enough time to suck in a
deep breath before the rest of its body followed. We entered the underwater tunnel.
The sides were rounded and made of smooth stone but it was a tight squeeze. I
had to lie flat on the serpent’s back to avoid scraping my head on the ceiling.

The water pressure pushed against
us, making us gain momentum. My lungs started to burn. The tunnel was very long.
There was no light ahead.

The tunnel grew even tighter. My
elbows bumped against the sides. My head felt like it was about to explode. I
couldn’t hold my breath any longer. 

Then I heard a roaring noise. We burst
out of the tunnel high above an underground reservoir. The water that had been
trapped behind us gushed out in a cascade.

The serpent’s body went limp as we
fell through the air. Just before we hit the the pool, the serpent ducked its
head and dove in gracefully. Two seconds later we emerged on the surface.

I gasped for air. My lungs were on
fire. All my muscles felt stiff and useless. I lay on the serpent’s back until
I felt sensation creeping back into my hands and toes. Then I slowly sat up and
looked around.

Water spilled down from the tunnel
above, creating a constant gurgling echo. Something glowed dimly overhead in
the distance. The serpent swam towards the source of light.

I reclined on its sleek furry back
and let the water’s gentle flow soothe my aches. There was very little fight
left in me. Of course, High Priestess Grimmoix and Judge Kesper wouldn’t stay
trapped forever. Soon I’d be a hunted person with a rap sheet bad enough to put
me at the top of Ivywild’s most wanted list, especially if the Duke of Briar
was in control.

The serpent glided to a stop below
a circle of light that came from a hole high in the ceiling above. Shielding my
eyes, I studied it. It wasn’t just any hole in the ground. It was a well.

“Don’t suppose you can fly, eh?” I
said to the serpent.

The giant beast snorted water from
its nostrils.

“Didn’t think so,” I said glumly.
The distance up to the well shaft was an impossible gap. My only chance lay in
the bucket and rope that were tethered to the wench high above.

I listened for the sounds of
voices. When I felt sure that nobody was near the well, I focused all my
attention on the bucket at the top. I willed all my energy into making it come
to me.

Nothing happened. I was exhausted
and my magic had not yet recovered from the battle in the greenhouse.

The sea serpent snorted
impatiently.

“Oh be quiet!” I said. “I’d like to
see you try to summon an object that’s fifty feet above your head!” I tried
again. This time the wench spun a little, letting down a small length of the
rope.

The excitement of the tiny victory
made me lose my concentration. I had to start all over again. I stood up on the
serpent’s back and stretched my fingers towards the rope as though I could pull
it with invisible strands.

The rope began to uncoil, letting the
bucket drop further down the well. It was halfway down when I heard a voice. I
ducked out of the light and lay flat as I could on the serpent’s back.

A pretty face, framed in a green
scarf, peered over the side of the well. “Now where is that bucket?”

My heart did a flip. “Anouk!” I
hissed loudly.

The startled priestess stared down
into the well. “Hello? Is somebody down there?”

I stood up on the serpent’s back
and leaned forward into the circle of light. “It’s me!” I said in the loudest
whisper possible.

Anouk clutched her hands to her
chest. “Emma? My stars! Is it really you?”

“Yes! Can you help me get out of
here?”

“How did you get down there?” Anouk
asked.

“I’ll explain later,” I said.

Anouk’s brow knotted with worry.
“It’s not a good idea for you to come up here. There are patrols everywhere.”

Feeling deflated, I asked, “Then
what should I do?”

“Can you wait just a little while
longer? The sun will be down soon. It will be safer then.”

The idea of hanging around in the
bottom of a well after dark gave me the chills. Then again, I’d lived through
worse things. I shrugged and said, “I guess so.”

“I’ll come back, I promise,” Anouk
said. Then she vanished from sight.

With a sigh, I sat down on the sea
serpent’s back. The creature gave a dissatisfied snort.

The light coming from above
gradually shifted until it was only one slim orange crescent. My toes felt like
prunes. I should have been starving after nothing but fruit for weeks, but I
was so exhausted that the smells of cooked food wafting down from above only
made my stomach churn.