Page 33 of A Fractured Song

Marieke rolled her eyes, but she also was smiling. “It would have failed.” The shyness was back in her voice. “I am glad you’re here, though. When it reached noon and there was no sign of you, I thought you weren’t planning to come.”

“Well, I wasn’t planning to come here,” Zev said fairly. “I don’t even know where here is.”

Marieke raised an inquiring eyebrow. “Is this not the spot where you pulled me up last time?”

“Not even close,” Zev said dryly. “I waited at that place for a couple of hours before coming searching.”

“Oh.” Marieke looked sheepish. “Oops.”

Zev didn’t know whether to roll his eyes or laugh.

“That’s a shame,” Marieke continued. “Because I was hoping to find the staircase Gorgon took me partway up. It would have made our task much easier, both because we wouldhave much less sheer cliff to scale, and because then we’d know we were in the right area to find the monarchists.”

“I hear a lot ofwein that explanation, but I have no desire to find these self-proclaimed monarchists,” Zev pointed out.

“Then why are you here?” Marieke asked.

There was a moment of silence before Zev responded. “You know why I’m here. I’m here because of you.”

The silence that followed his words was longer, and more charged. When Marieke looked into his eyes, he held her gaze, wondering if she would put words to whatever was between them, as he’d thus far been too cowardly to do.

But she didn’t. After a moment, she looked away, shuffling one careful step closer to the edge of their platform and peering down.

“The more pressing question isn’t why but how. We need to find a safe way down.” She must have heard Zev’s grunt, because she added with a faint smile, “All right, safe might be optimistic, but the safest of our available options.”

“What was your plan once you reached this ledge?” Zev asked.

“To figure out a plan once I knew if I had my voice,” Marieke told him. “And for now, it seems I do. As long as that’s the case, I can tie the rope, then climb down it to another landing point, then use my song to untie the knot and free the rope to fall down to me. Then repeat.”

“There are a lot of problems with that plan,” Zev said.

“Are there?” She folded her arms. “Name them.”

“Firstly, tie the rope to what?”

By way of answer, she swung the rucksack she wore around to her front and pulled out a large metal peg. “To this. Once I’ve usedthis,” she pulled out a mallet, “to drive it into the wall.”

“Huh.” Zev grunted. “That might work.”

“It will work,” Marieke said calmly. “Especially if I can use songcraft to strengthen it.”

Zev glanced over the edge of the platform as well. “All right, second, your plan assumes that there are enough landing places like this to get you all the way down. That seems extremely optimistic.”

“Not all the way down,” Marieke said. “I acknowledge that there are some sections directly below us that might be…questionable. But if we can get through them, we should be fine. Further that way,” she gestured westward, “the cliff face is incredibly sheer in the top section, but then not that far down becomes much more gradual. Genuinely climbable, I’d say. We just need to get across to it once we’re far enough down.”

“How do you know that?” Zev demanded.

Marieke moved past him, starting to untie the rope from the stake as she answered. “I have considerable training in agricultural song, Zev. Getting a feel for the terrain around me is rudimentary. And I had plenty of time up there, waiting for you to show up. I did all kinds of assessing songs, and if I say so myself, my reach is pretty good. I have a very fair idea of the state of the slope for quite a while around.”

“That is…handy,” Zev acknowledged. He was impressed. He wasn’t quite willing to admit it to Marieke, but he admitted it to himself.

She stared at him. “Did you just say something positive about magic? You’ve changed since we parted ways.”

Her tone was light and joking, but Zev didn’t respond in kind.

“It wasn’t the time since we’ve been apart that changed me. It was being with you.”

Marieke bit her lip, probably as unsure what to make of his words as he was. He didn’t know what he was trying to achieve, he just didn’t seem able to help becoming more intense themore flippant Marieke became. Perhaps it was because inside, he was so torn. Half of him was relieved that she was approaching their reunion with a bantering spirit. The other half was wrestling a desperate desire for them to find their way back to the passion they’d so briefly shared. It seemed impossibly out of reach at that moment, and while his head knew it was probably for the best, he couldn’t seem to convince his heart.

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