Page 74 of While the Dark Remains

“Where have you been?” Her voice shakes, and I realize with a jolt how afraid she was, waking up to find herself alone.

“I’m sorry, Saga,” I tell her. “There’s an underground river, a pool. I had a bath. I remember the way—I’ll show you.”

Her lips go tight but she nods, so I take her to the pool while Ballast stays behind. I wait with Saga as she slips into the warm water, turning my back to give her privacy. I try not to listen to her sobs.

When she climbs back out of the pool, dripping and shivering, she’s calm again, but her sadness hangs on her like a shroud. She dresses quickly, and we start the walk back.

“He isn’t kind,” she says quietly. “He healed me. He saved us. But he isn’t kind.”

I blink and see Ballast carrying Saga through the tunnels, infinite in his gentleness. I see his smile in the torchlight as he hands me the soap, see the books and the games he shared with me when we were children. I hear his voice, broken as he is broken:I know it doesn’t mean anything. But I’m so sorry.

“He killed Hilf.” Her words waver. “He killed Hilf.”

I gnaw on my cheek to keep the tears from coming. “I know, Saga.”

“I will never forgive him,” she whispers. “He deserves to die for what he’s done.”

My stomach twists. “It was Kallias,” I remind her. “Kallias made him.”

“But he didn’t have to do it! He didn’t have to do it and hedidand Hilf isgoneand—”

She breaks down crying again, and I kneel with her on the stone, numb, hollow.

It takes a few minutes for me to look up and realize that Ballast stands there in the tunnel, torch wavering in his hand. He won’t meet my eyes.

We are all three of us forever changed by Kallias; I think that part of us will always feel like we’re children wandering alone in the dark, even now we’re free of him.

Saga glares at Ballast and pushes to her feet, hanging on to my arm to steady herself. “Could an army come through here?” she asks him, her voice rough and low.

“The Skaandan army, you mean,” says Ballast. “To catch my father unaware in his mountain.”

Saga clenches her jaw. “Yes.”

“It would take a long time for many soldiers to travel these routes—the passages narrow so often. And there are the cave demons to contend with.”

“But it is possible,” says Saga. She snatches at his sleeve and drags him back to our camp, where she pulls a piece of charcoal out of the fire. She nudges it toward him with her foot. “Draw the route,” she orders.

His face tenses, but he doesn’t pick up the charcoal.

“Draw the route,” she repeats. “The route my army will take through the labyrinth.”

“I won’t let Skaanda take my country.”

“But you’ll let yourfatherrule it?” Saga demands.

He flinches. “I have no love for my father.”

She laughs, bitter. “You are your father’s prize hound. What will he do to you, I wonder, when you at last come slinking back to him?”

Ballast recoils as if she’s slapped him. For a long moment they just stare at each other, Saga’s chin trembling, tears of rage dripping down her face.

Then Ballast bows his head and picks up the charcoal and draws a map on the stone.

Chapter Thirteen

Year4200, Month of the Black God

Daeros—Tenebris

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