Page 16 of Witchlight
“Majesties!” Cam butted between them, his arms rising. Torchlight flashed on his dark eyes. “I forgot: the tunnel out of here has sleeping icein it too. Although… maybe it’s not the hungry kind? There are all these shapes inside—which Ryber told me are the Sightwitches. So maybe, since the ice has already… been fed…” He trailed off, grimacing as both rulers gaped at him.
And there was the panic again, a thunderstorm in each of Vivia’s lungs.Always so stupid. Why did you come here, Little Fox?She wanted to scream at those words. Or maybe she wanted to hide. Vaness had warned her, but she hadn’t listened.
“Perhaps,” she squeezed out carefully, “the best course is to find out if this other ice is indeed hungry. Once we have an answer, we can make new plans.”
“And if itdoestry to eat us?” Vaness asked.
Vivia didn’t respond. Instead, she sheathed her sword—since Vaness wasn’t taking it—and met Cam’s wary gaze head on. “Lead the way, please, Cam.”
He gulped. Glanced once at Vaness. Then nodded and obeyed his queen. “I’m sorry,” he whispered as they strode side by side, leaving the Empress in blue-dappled shadows. “I’m so sorry, Majesty.”
“Hush” was all Vivia replied. Now that her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, she could see the altar—although it was really nothing more than a simple table hewn from stone. Boring, empty, and with no sign that anything had ever been there.
“They’re gone.” Cam hurried toward it. “The blade and glass that used to be here—they’re missing.”
“Is that bad?”
“I don’t know.” He grimaced. “This is where we found Stix, though. She was staring at the blade like it was precious. Or more than that—like it was the answer to everything she’d ever needed. But Ryber told her not to touch it. That it would kill her in a way nothing else could. So Stix dropped it and we left.”
Vivia had heard this story before—weeks ago, when Cam had first appeared in Pin’s Keep babbling about raiders and Stix and danger in the under-city. But like everything Cam had shared, it had all been impossible to imagine. So much so that Vivia had even assumed most of it wasn’t true. Not because Camwantedto lie, but because memories often got distorted by pressure, by fear, by chaos.
Plus, Stix had never come back. Two months later, and Vivia still had no idea where her longest friend and closest companion had gone.
Vivia clenched her jaw. Adjusted her sleeves. Thinking of Stix was notwhat she needed right now. Much like with the waves always shouting at Vivia, the little fox couldn’t go that way. The little fox had to resist if she didn’t want to drown.
The room’s end came into view, a black square in the center that must mark the door into the tunnel. But that was when a vibration ripped out. A rattle, a rumble, a surge side to side. Vivia fell; Cam too; and far behind them, Vaness screamed.
In seconds, Vivia was scrabbling around. Trying to reclaim her legs in a room that was now moving.And not just the room.The ice was moving too. A distant glowing shiver that oozed this way like blood from a scab.
Vaness ran. Her own stride was as wobbling and wild as Vivia’s. They fell into each other beside the altar. The ground shuddered. The ice throbbed closer.
“It’s moving.” The Empress clung to Vivia for balance. “The ice is coming into the room.”
“Not quickly,” Vivia said—which was at least true, if little comfort. Assuming they couldn’t leave through the ice tunnel, then they really were trapped here.
“Majesties!” Cam screeched. “Majesties,look!There’s a hole in the wall! It just opened up in the quake—I’ll go through! See where it takes us.”
Oh no,Vivia thought. She met Vaness’s eyes, huge and shining in the torchlight. Then as one, they leaped from the altar and chased after Cam’s figure, already vanishing into a sharp slash newly hewn thirty paces away.
When they reached that hole, having shouted after Cam as they ran—havingbellowedat him to come back—Vivia pushed Vaness into the new tunnel ahead of her. Cam wasn’t answering them; they were going to have to trust that was a good thing.
For the ice was lumbering this way, and with it came sounds. Ones that sang directly into Vivia’s brain,Come, come, daughter, let me hold you.
And there were other sounds too. Real ones that somehow felt more impossible than anything Vivia had encountered in this mountain so far: laughter. One voice, high-pitched like a child’s, followed by a second that echoed in strange angles around the room.There are no coincidences,the voices trilled. Except when there are.
“Stop,” Cam whispered. “I hear people.” This was the first thing anyone had said in ten minutes. Maybe twenty. Or maybe an hour, for all Vivia could tell. The “path” Cam had found was more like a fissure in the stone,following the grain. It slanted, it dipped, it shrank and expanded in a way that might have made sense to the mountain, but held no guiding principle Vivia could follow.
At least there was no quaking now.
And no ice.
Vivia took up the rear, her torch wavering in angles that often left Cam blind and calling out, “Can you shine it this way?” But the last stretch had been smooth. Not a true tunnel, but at least a straight line with only the occasional upthrust of stone to get in the way.
Now here they were, a hole in the floor visible thirty feet ahead—and voices most definitely coming through along with more orange firelight. Not children’s either, like Vivia had heard earlier, but adults’.
“They sound Cartorran,” the Empress whispered, her head cocked and fingers scrubbing at her Witchmark.
Vivia agreed, but said nothing. Her pulse was gaining speed, a stochastic drumbeat fueled by excitementandfear. If there were people ahead, that might mean there was an exit from this mountain.
