“I’d like to see who I speak to,” I said.
“As would we,” the one in the middle answered.
My chest clamped tight. He spoke in perfect Vendan, but even in those few words, I heard the difference, the way he formed his words, the erudite air. The foreignness. He was not Vendan. I kept my chin tucked low to keep my face in the shadow of my hood. “I’m only a visitor of the Komizar, and I’ve lost my way.”
One of them snorted. “Indeed.”
“Little wonder you keep your face covered,” another said, and pushed back his hood. His hair swirled in intricate braids across his head, and a deep line cut between his brows.
“Is this a dungeon of some sort?” I asked. “Are you prisoners down here?”
They laughed at my ignorance, but came forth with the information I fished for. “We’re the amply rewarded purveyors of knowledge, and the gut of this beast has much to keep us busy. Now be on your way.” He pointed behind me, telling me to take the second stairway up.
Learned men in Venda? I stared at them, my thoughts still racing with the who and why.
“Go!” he said, as if he were shooing off a one-eared cat.
I whirled around and hurried away, and when I knew they could no longer see me, I ducked behind a pillar and leaned back, my head pounding with questions. Purveyors of what knowledge?
I heard footsteps and froze. More of them walked past, a group of five this time, mumbling about their midday meal.
The gut of this beast has much to keep us busy.
A whole army of them prowled through these caverns.
A chill crawled up my neck.
Everything about them was out of place here. What were they being amply rewarded for? I dashed out and found the second stairway, taking two steps at a time, the sweet, smoky stench of the cavern suddenly turning my stomach.
CHAPTER TWENTY
I sat on the wall staring at thin gray clouds, strange to me like everything else in this dark city. They striped the heavens like giant claws drawn across flesh, and the pink of twilight bled between them.
The guards below me had, by now, become accustomed to where I sat perched on the wall. I hadn’t been able to get back to the trapdoor in the chamber closet, and I’d had to take a chance on getting back in through my window since the door was locked. I had almost made it to the ledge when the guards spotted me. I immediately sat down on the wall, making it appear that it was my destination and I had just come from my window. Their shouts hadn’t deterred me, and once they were assured escape wasn’t part of my plan, they tolerated my teetering place of refuge.
/> In truth, I didn’t want to go back inside. I told myself I needed air to clear the smoke and sulfur from my nostrils. It seemed to cling to every pore of my body, sickly and pungent. There was something about the strange men down in the caverns that left me dizzy and weak.
I remembered Walther saying I was the strongest of us.
I didn’t feel strong, and if I was, I didn’t want to be strong any longer. I wanted out. I’d had enough. I wanted Terravin. I wanted Pauline and Berdi and fish stew. I wanted anything but this. I wanted my dreams back. I wanted Rafe to be a farmer and Walther to be—
My chest jumped, and I choked back whatever was trying to shake loose.
Something is looming.
And now, with these strange erudite men in the cavern, it seemed certain.
I felt the loose pieces floating just out of my grasp—the Song of Venda, the Chancellor and Royal Scholar hiding books and sending a bounty hunter to kill me without benefit of trial. And then there was the kavah on my shoulder that refused to fade away. Something had been stirring long before I ran on my wedding day.
I remembered the wind that day I prepared for the wedding. Cold gusts beating against the citadelle, warning whispers winding down drafty halls. It was in the air even then. The truths of the world wish to be known. But it was far more than I had believed it to be. The before and after of my life cleaved in two that day, in ways I could never have imagined. My head ached with questions.
I closed my eyes, searching for the gift that I had only just been getting a sense of when I crossed the Cam Lanteux. Dihara had warned me that gifts that weren’t fed shriveled and died, but it was hard to feed anything here. Still, I kept my eyes closed and searched for that place of knowing. I forced my hands to relax at my sides, forced the tightness from my shoulders, focused on the light behind my eyelids, and heard Dihara again.… It is the language of knowing, child. Trust the strength within you.
I felt myself drifting to something familiar, heard the swish of grass in the meadow, the gurgle of a river, caught the scent of meadow clover, felt the wind lift my hair, and then I heard a song, quiet and distant, as delicate as a midnight breeze. A voice I desperately needed to hear. Pauline. I heard Pauline saying remembrances. I lifted my voice with hers and sang the words from the Holy Text of the girl Morrighan as she crossed the wilderness.
Another step, my sisters,
My brothers,