Page 15 of Her Blind Deception (The Dark Reflection #2)

Chapter Fifteen

‘ T his is a bad idea.’ Goras had said this more than once already as we stared up at the floating mountain above. When I saw the staircase curving around it, slender and chaotic, weaving all over the place as it ascended the limestone, I thought maybe he was right.

‘Nonsense,’ Mae said, hands on her hips as she stood before us, ready to drag me along if necessary. ‘Gwin needs sunlight. We can’t just keep sneaking her out for little glimpses of it when we think no one’s looking. And besides, she’s won the rest of us over, hasn’t she?’

Goras snorted and cast me a slanted look. He was very large, with a shaven head and colourful patterns inked all the way up and down his arms and neck. I’d asked him about them once, but he didn’t much like to talk. Elias said the wyvern riders were tattooed like that to mark them as warriors and protectors, the only ones permitted to use violence in their society. I didn’t know what a wyvern was, and I felt like I was already asking more questions than anyone around me could answer, so I’d held off asking that one. But one day I was going to get Goras to tell me about wyverns and about the tattoos himself. Just the fact that he was here meant I had more of a chance of that happening than I’d had when Mae had first discovered me locked away in Elias’s room. Among the others living with them, Goras had been the one who had seemed the most suspicious of me. He’d been the angriest about being caught off guard by a human hiding in the same dwelling where he slept every night. But he’d also been the first to volunteer to come with us today, so perhaps he didn’t hate me as much as he once had.

‘And the Elders are reasonable,’ Mae added. ‘They’ll hear us out and see how well she fits here.’

‘Not always,’ Elias said. He was frowning. Without thinking, I reached out and touched his arm. His gaze flicked to me, his face softening.

‘I want to do this,’ I said, feeling less confident than I sounded. ‘I don’t want you all having to keep secrets for me. And it would be nice to go outside without feeling like a criminal.’ I smiled, then bit my lip as I looked up. ‘Besides, I want to see Faerendor.’ Though I wish I didn’t have to climb to get there, I silently added. If I let him know I was afraid, he’d start doubting the plan all over again.

After Mae had found me, she’d insisted I be introduced to the rest of the household, arguing that it wasn’t fair to expect the others to share the dwelling without knowing I was there. There had been a lot of back and forth between Mae and Elias before they agreed about when and how that introduction would take place, but we’d all admitted that I couldn’t stay locked up in his room forever .

‘I think you’re all taking the fun out of this by making it so serious. I, for one, am looking forward to seeing the looks on all their faces when a human steps right into the middle of a Song Circle,’ Tanathil—or Tan, as he’d told me to call him—said, loping ahead of us. He was as slender as a sapling and always moving, his hands twitching and his feet tapping, his blue eyes shining with energy. His bright orange hair twisted around him, caught in a whirl as he doubled back and caught both my hands to tug me forwards. ‘Don’t you worry, sunshine. The mountain top needs a bit of a shakeup. And once they see how lovely you are, no one will want to hurt you.’

‘If they can see that before they do hurt her,’ Goras muttered.

Tan shook his head, releasing one of my hands to wave away the comment. ‘Don’t be such a sour sob. Go back and wring your hands with Daethie if you’re going to bring that attitude with us.’

Goras grunted again and folded his bulging forearms across his chest, scowling up at the mountain as Tan tugged me onwards.

‘Wait.’

I paused and turned. Elias moved closer, hesitated a moment, before reaching out and tugging the hood of my cloak up over my head. I felt the blush rise to my cheeks and looked down before he could see it.

‘Make sure you keep your ears hidden. It’ll get windy up there,’ he murmured.

‘I know,’ I replied, feeling stupid and clumsy and childish as he walked on ahead.

I became glad of that hood as we drew closer to the mountain and I caught sight of others making the same journey we were. It had been drummed into me that being recognized as human before we pleaded my case could end in panic and anger, so I sunk lower into the cloak and kept my head down. When someone drew close enough to shout a greeting, I felt a prickle against the skin of my face that let me know magic was being pulled around me, shadowing my features. It still sent a little chill down my spine, but I was growing used to it now. They used magic so freely when they communicated, using it to read one another’s emotions the way I used facial expressions. I remembered how much it had perplexed Mae when I’d told her what the Sanctum taught that fall spawn magic was evil, as though it had never even occurred to her that magic could be seen as dangerous.

We passed through a collection of empty stalls and tents in the shade of the mountain, like a market waiting to spring to life, until we finally reached the first of what looked like thousands of steps. There was a couple just beginning their ascent before of us, and Goras held out a hand to slow us down to a dawdle as we waited for them to draw further ahead.

‘Okay, let’s get this done,’ Mae said, clapping her hands together and mounting the step. She didn’t even touch the handrail, which wound and twisted like it was a vine or a tree root, seeming to float in mid-air with nothing to hold it in place. My heart fluttered faster and faster as I craned my neck, looking up at the treacherous path before me, imagining that impossible railing as the only thing to keep me from plunging to my death.

‘Gwin?’ Elias paused with one foot on the step, looking back at me, his warm brown eyes creased with concern.

I tried to speak past the nerves in my throat. Could only shake my head. I had learned to avoid fear. The fits sometimes happened when I was too afraid or anxious. What if I couldn’t get a hold of my fear up there? What if I had a fit while I was on the walkway? Pathetic. So pathetic. As if I needed to show him again how weak I was. As if he hadn’t already seen plenty of evidence of that.

He held out a hand. ‘I won’t let you fall.’

I chewed my lip. ‘I don’t know if I can do it.’

He smiled, and it was like the world fell away for a second, like the mountain didn’t exist, and neither did the staircase. He had the sort of smile that warmed his whole face, crinkling up his eyes and making you feel lighter, like he saw right into you and found nothing he didn’t like.

But he always smiled like that, I reminded myself. He wasn’t just smiling for me. Still, it was impossible not to smile back.

‘I know you can,’ he said.

I was about to take his hand when something ghosted over me, making all the hair on my neck and arms stand on end. It felt like someone was standing behind me. I snapped my head around, but there was no one there.

‘What is it?’ Elias asked, and when I turned back to him, he was looking over my shoulder, his smile replaced with a frown.

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘I just thought I heard something.’ Inhaling a deep breath, I took the offered hand. ‘I… might have a fit up there. The fear…’ I trailed off, embarrassed. I’d told him about the fits, but I never wanted him to see one.

‘I’ll be right behind you,’ he said, stepping to the side to help me up in front of him. ‘Just focus on the steps and don’t look down.’

On the way up, he talked to me. Every time I hesitated, caught sight of the dizzying height through a gap in the steps and felt fear rise again, he was there at my back, ready to tell me a story or point out features of the surrounding landscape, especially as we climbed higher and I could see beyond the cliffs surrounding the valley.

‘What’s out that way?’ I asked as he pointed out the different limestone mountains, telling me their names and about the towns and the people who lived on each one. They weren’t scattered haphazardly as I’d thought, but arranged in a spiral, building towards a great swathe of space in a centre.

‘The chasm,’ he said, looking at where my fingers were pointing. ‘A deep crevasse.’

A shiver of unease ran down the back of my neck as I thought of the story of the fall of Aether, of how he’d split the realm where he’d landed in the Yawn. Even if I’d learned that so much of what the Sanctum taught about the Yawn was wrong, was all of it?

After a while, I could push aside the dizzying height, soothed by the sound of Elias’s voice, and I even laughed once or twice. I was absorbed enough in the conversation that it surprised me when Mae stopped before us to turn and wait.

‘It’s already started,’ she said quietly, ‘which is what we wanted, so everyone should be seated. We’re going to approach slowly, stick to the outer edges. Don’t stray from us, Gwin. We’ll be waiting for Elias’s hearing before we bring you forwards.’

I caught strands of music on the air, and it was so beautiful, so strange and haunting, both sad and hopeful at once, that it took me a moment to register that she was waiting for a response.

I nodded. ‘I won’t go off on my own. I promise.’

She gripped my arm and squeezed. ‘Then let’s go.’

And all at once, the staircase ended. I allowed myself one last look at that panic-inducing, impossible cliffs below, so high wisps of cloud clung to the limestone beneath us, before I stepped off the stairs and onto a sandy path. Thick trees swallowed us almost immediately, making it almost impossible to tell that we were up so high. I began to pick out the shapes of houses in the trees. Rooms and platforms and winding bridges, constructed between the boughs like the different levels of buildings, connected by ladders or nothing at all. Little orbs of the violet light that Elias called wishlights darted through the leaves, clustering together here and there in pools of eerie radiance. The dwellings looked more like they were grown than built, as though the plants had been coaxed into certain shapes, hollowing out here and bending there, until the result was a small city of tree houses.

‘Wow,’ I breathed as we walked. ‘It’s beautiful.’

Tan dropped back to walk beside me, shooting me a lopsided grin. ‘See? Look how guileless you are. How could they not love you?’ he said. I looked down at my feet, ashamed. I didn’t want to be seen as young and na?ve. That was what had got me abandoned in the mountains.

The music grew louder, thrumming in the air around us, making my skin prickle and my heart beat faster. It was so consuming, a mixture of strings and voices, and I wanted to close my eyes and let it twirl inside my body. But then I would have missed the sight of where it was coming from.

A sunken amphitheatre cut into the ground before us, with rows and rows of spectators on ledges circling around a huge central platform where a ring of twelve stood with their hands outstretched. Some of them carried instruments, and they were all singing, their voices entwining in that strange melody that was running over me like water. In the middle of them all, a child sat across from an elderly woman, their hands clasped together .

‘What’s going on?’ I whispered to Elias as we perched ourselves on the top row of the amphitheatre.

‘Those are the Elders,’ Elias whispered back, pointing out the singing circle. ‘They’re performing a gifting ceremony to celebrate the boy coming of age.’

Suddenly, a dozen wishlights darted out of the trees and dashed down to the centre of the circle, whirling around the boy and the old woman like a great wind. I gasped as they whirled faster and faster, becoming burning trails of light that merged together, and a swift breeze ruffled at my hair.

Then, all at once, they stopped, suspended in the air like stars, as the boy winced, gasping out in pain.

I touched my fingertips to my lips. ‘He’s hurt.’

‘He’ll be alright,’ Elias said. ‘This part always hurts.’

After a few moments, their hands sprang apart, and the boy clutched his head. All around us, the spectators began humming, their voices rising and falling in a harmony as the old woman helped the boy to his feet. One of the Elders, a woman with ice-blue hair, stepped forward and embraced them as the humming died down.

‘We congratulate Finwe on his ascension and know his magic will contribute greatly to our community. And to Lirel, we thank her for her gift and the valuable role she has played in raising up the next generation.’ The Elder bowed to both Finwe and Lirel, before stepping back and allowing them to exit the circle, where others were waiting to embrace them.

‘What happened?’ I asked. I felt like I was missing something. Elias leaned closer to respond, and my breath caught a little in my throat, which it shouldn’t have. He’d been close to me plenty of times when I’d been unwell, when he’d held back my hair and sponged at my forehead. But he’d been so careful since then in keeping his distance that it was tricky to tell whether those memories were just part of the strange dreams I’d had while I’d been twisted up in bed. I had to keep reminding myself that, even if he had nursed me, had touched me when I was sick, it didn’t mean he would now. He had been helping me. I was the one distorting that by reacting this way.

‘The woman, Lirel, passed her magic on to the boy. It marks the end of his childhood.’

‘She passed her magic on?’ I repeated, nonplussed.

He nodded. ‘Magic is gifted, usually from grandparent to grandchild, but not always.’

‘Does that mean… you aren’t born with magic?’

‘No. It’s…’ His brow furrowed as he seemed to fish around for the words to explain. ‘It’s like a bond. A sort of relationship. It’s part of you, but separate, too. And after your gifting, nothing is ever the same again.’

He leaned away as someone else entered the circle, while my thoughts whirled around in my head with as much speed and energy as the wishlights during the gifting ceremony.

A few others stepped into the circle, one to ask for permission for a new home and another with a request to join the wyvern patrols, which made Goras nod with approval and hum deep in his chest. The next to step forth was a couple: a tall, red-headed man with an arm wrapped around a woman, whose shoulders trembled with sobs.

Elias stiffened. ‘This isn’t good,’ he muttered.

‘We come before you to beg,’ the man began. His face was grim with determination. ‘As you know, our Faela was stolen from us long ago, and we no longer expect to see her again.’ The woman’s shoulders shook more violently as he spoke. ‘But to lose our Orym to Koschei’s cause as a result has been an unendurable blow. As has been your decision to cast her out in consequence.’ His voice broke, and he cleared his throat.

‘Orym knew exile would be the punishment for joining the renegades,’ the blue-haired Elder said, and the man nodded.

‘We don’t dispute your decision, Elder Meira, but we do dispute what has been done to ensure others do not suffer our heartbreak.’

Some muttering broke out nearby and Mae leaned forwards in her seat, her elbows resting on her knees.

‘If we continue to let binders capture our folk without consequence, we will continue to face angry youth who go seeking revenge we refuse to give them. I want to give our young people an answer that goes beyond keeping safe and staying hidden. I want them to no longer feel the need to turn to Koschei.’

‘He wants us to sing another blight,’ muttered Mae, and my gaze snapped to her.

‘Blight?’ I repeated. She and Elias exchanged a look. ‘What do you mean?’ I had spent long enough around my father and his advisors to know that the blights around the Yawn were waves of disease that decimated crops, all but destroying those who farmed the areas and causing food shortages and poverty everywhere they touched. The Guild had been working on solutions for years and never managed anything close to effective. I didn’t want to think there could be any association between my new friends, this world I so desperately wanted to be part of, and that.

But something told me it wasn’t a coincidence that Mae had mentioned the word blight.

I wanted to press her, but after consulting with the rest of the circle, Elder Meira seemed ready to speak again.

‘We will take your words under consideration and have an answer for you at next Song,’ she said, then they all touched their fingers to their mouths and swept them out and down. The red-headed man did the same, but the woman with him didn’t seem able to even look up as they left the circle.

One of the other Elders leaned into Elder Miera to mutter something in her ear, and she sighed. ‘Elias Thistlemere, we’d like to invite you to speak.’

Elias rose and dusted at his trousers. ‘I’ll see you down there,’ he said.

‘We should have checked to see who else was going to speak today,’ Mae muttered. ‘This won’t go down well now.’

‘It was never going to, dewdrop,’ Tan said, squeezing her shoulder. ‘They were always going to think we’re just the ground-dwellers causing trouble. But we’ll convince them anyway.’

I watched Elias descend the steps, no longer thinking about blights and poverty and the kingdom I’d abandoned. All of my focus had to be on that circle as he stepped into it. Because he was doing this for me.

‘You are here to petition us about a new solution to the boggy infestation, Elias,’ Elder Meira said, and I didn’t think I imagined the note of exasperation in her voice.

‘A much as I know you’ve been looking forward to hearing that petition, Elder,’ Elias began, his voice taking on a dry irreverence that I hadn’t heard him use before, ‘I actually have a different request.’

The Elders shuffled, muttering to each other, and Elder Meira shook her head, her blue hair glinting as it caught the light. ‘This is irregular, Elias. We require issues to be submitted before an audience to allow for consultation beforehand. You know this.’

‘I do, but something urgent has come up that you’re going to have to make an exception for,’ Elias said, running a hand through his bronze hair until it was all dishevelled. ‘You see… I think…’ He rubbed his brow and glanced up at me. Mae flicked her hands in the air, as though to say what are you doing?! ‘I don’t think there’s really a way I can phrase this that will make you respond differently, so I’m just going to come out with it. I’m petitioning for the right to invite a human to live among us.’

There was a still, gaping silence.

‘What is this?’ Elder Meira demanded, her voice tight with displeasure. ‘Is this another of your attempts to make a statement? Why would you disrespect the speakers who came before you, who lost a daughter to the human invaders, by enacting such a flagrant spectacle?’

‘Yes. The timing isn’t the best,’ he said, rubbing at the back of his neck. ‘But there’s a human girl living in the caretaker dwelling. We’ve come to plead with you to let her stay.’

The amphitheatre was no longer silent. It was full of voices, some of them raised and angry. I shrunk down into my seat and Mae dropped an arm around my shoulders as Goras shuffled a little closer.

‘He’s making a mess of this,’ Goras said.

‘Quiet, everyone, please,’ Elder Meira called, her voice ringing out unnaturally loud. They must have respected her very much for them to all go quiet again, with those who were standing settling back into their seats. ‘Explain yourself,’ she demanded when calm had fallen.

‘A girl wandered through the labyrinth,’ Elias said, the irreverence gone now, his tone serious. ‘She was lost, and alone, and sick. She isn’t dangerous, and before you say I’m not a good judge of that, Maelin, Goras and Tanathil have come with me to testify the same thing.’ Eyes flicked in our direction, and I could feel them scouring me, the hooded, anonymous figure sitting between those he’d just named. My skin prickled all over as around me, the Yoxvese reached out to touch me with magic. It didn’t feel invasive, exactly, but it was unnerving knowing that they were all looking for signs of deception and aggression. I hugged my arms tightly around myself and Mae squeezed me closer.

‘Is this true?’ Elder Meira asked, her attention now fixed on us.

‘It is, Elder,’ Goras rumbled, getting to his feet to speak, his vast form towering over me. ‘She is peaceful.’

‘And all she wants is a place to belong,’ Elias continued, drawing eyes back to the circle. ‘She wants to learn about our culture, our world, to live as one of us.’

‘And how do we know she won’t take what she learns back to her druthi so they can use it against us?’ one of the other Elders chimed in.

‘Would you want our entire race judged on those who follow Koschei?’ Elias asked quietly. Muttering broke out again as the spectators shifted in their seats. ‘We can’t judge all of humanity based on the worst of them. And maybe there are things she can teach us, too, that will help defend against them.’

Elder Meira stared at him for a long time, seeming to turn over his words. Finally, she surveyed the circle, then nodded. ‘You speak well,’ she said. ‘You do your mother proud.’

For some reason, Elias didn’t seem pleased with this statement. He shot a frown at the floor.

‘Your human girl may have one turn of the moon to roam among us,’ she continued, shooting her gaze back up to where it rested on me. ‘In that time, she is never to wander alone. If you and your friends have sworn for her, then she is your responsibility. If she can prove herself capable of integrating with our ways in that time, she may stay.’

A smile split Elias’s face, that one that reached his eyes, and he directed it up the stairs, towards me. ‘Thank you, Elders. A chance is all she’s asking for,’ he said.