Page 37 of Cage of Starlight
Tory’s only thought when he came to a fork in the road and went left rather than right, which would’ve led him past Hulven, was that he wasn’t sure he’d be strong enough to see that place and resist checking in on Thatcher. It didn’t occur to him that the other road went through Serpentshead.
Hasra. She promised she’d find him here.
Old instinct urges him to keep moving. Stopping anywhere, even here, could get him caught.
But when he finds his feet, he heads deeper into the woods instead of farther away, filling his heaving lungs with the sweet, damp rot of decaying leaves. The murmuring trees drop puddles of light onto his shoulders as he weaves between them, until he steps into Serpentshead’s cool shadow. His body still remembers this path.
He arrives at the mouth of the wide cave he slept in for months after fleeing the labor camp. The murmuring of the nearby brook joins the rustle of leaves, and he breathes in rhythm with the world around him, deep and slow.
He looks up at the head of the maned serpent. The hollows that would have been its eyes once glinted with stellite crystals, the stories go, but now, they sit empty. What might be age-old paint in shades of blue, red, and purple lies in the deepest pits in the rock, worn away everywhere else. Everyone pretends Serpentshead is a mystery.
Fools, all of them. They’re barely a few hours from the border at a sedate walk, and this land didn’t always belong to Westrice.
Tory stills at motion to his left, but it’s only light—prismatic shards of it flickering over the ground with every sigh of wind.
From a tree branch, faceted clear, amethyst, and pale-green beads dangle on a fine cord. Tory’s first instinct is a rush of fondness, but he crushes it before it can take root.
That’s a wind charm.
A wind charm all the way out here, too far from the fuel fog they wish away in Hulven to be a coincidence. Tory approaches it. It’s not justsimilarto the ones at Hulven’s House. It’s identical, down to the chip in the largest bead.
Hasra.
At the base of the wind charm, a rectangle of paper swings in the breeze. Hasra’s bold, blocky writing tells him,wait for me.
She was here. His pulse rushes in his ears.
That’s probably why he doesn’t hear the men approaching until it’s too late. They freeze as they pass the mouth of the cave, canteens slung around their shoulders and a huge bucket in each hand. They must have come from the brook.
The man nearest Tory drops both of his buckets with a splash and reaches for a revolver at his side, eyes widening. “He’s from the Compound!” the man yells. “Mr. Belmin! Scouts in the area!”
Belmin?TheBelmin?
Tory barely has time to process the name before someone bursts from the woods and tackles him. He lands on his back with a painful whoosh of breath. On top of him, face set with intent to kill but hands free of weapons, sits a girl. Short and slender with offensively vibrant red-blonde ringlets angled to follow the line of her chin, she sports a splash of freckles over her pale nose that reminds Tory of nothing so much as blood spatter. She wears a delicately embroidered vest in the same hazel-green as her eyes over a flowing white blouse, and men’s trousers. The fragments of light from the wind charm swing over her face.
“You didn’t see us,” she hisses.
What is she talking about? He absolutely did—did . . .
What did he do?
The edges of the girl become indistinct, fading into the forest, and Tory’s mind drifts on an ocean of peace. Someone bursts from the trees, though, and the girl returns with startling clarity, the peace vanishing.
“Ariana,up! Damn you, I told you I was waiting for a friend! Tory? Tory, look at me.”
A familiar hand thrusts into his field of vision and helps him to his feet, then bends to brush leaf litter from the back of his ugly slate-blue clothing.
Tory’s head clears, and he stops her, lifts her with a hand on her wide shoulder. There she is: eyes pinched and black hair loose, a dark blue robe embroidered with interlocking spirals tied at her waist. Hasra looks just like the day he left her.
Tory must not look the same at all, because her face crumples at the sight of him. She exhales a raw, disbelieving noise, crushing him against her, and as Tory inhales the spice of her pipe, a knot inside him unties itself.
“Hey,” he whispers into her robe, eyes burning. “Glad you got out safe. How’ve ya been?”
Hasra thwacks the back of his head and lifts his face to examine it. “Worried! How’d you think I’d be?”
He muffles a laugh into her shoulder. “Sorry.”
Her hands flutter over him. “Don’t apologize, just take care of yourself. Have you been eating? And you’rebruised! Tory, you’re bruised all over! What have they been doing to you?”
