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THROUGH THE MOUNTAIN

RANNOCH

T here’s very little space between waking and sleeping.

Deep in the heart of the molten black tunnels, veined thickly with raw minerals, life itself seems a dream, and this pressing prison of stone a living nightmare.

We’re guided only by Wren’s blank eyes; truly blind now she pulls us forward at a frantic pace, letting us stop just long enough to regain strength before she pushes on.

When she is certain, we don’t have time to think of all that could go wrong.

It is only in the pauses, at the forks of long, hollow tunnels, where our blood runs cold — air stagnant in some, in others pushing out and then sucking back in like an unknown creature is breathing just beyond the bend.

At these, when she freezes statue-still, head tilted, eyes closed, and listens to something only she can hear, the Miller and I exchange long glances.

We are at such a place now, and have been for a full five minutes. Wren is nervous; her pale fingers barely visible in the darkness, playing with the wet bones around her neck, wrapped like a choker. Lorcan , I correct myself. He is Lorcan. Not just bones.

Everything has been phantoms and fear since the rain fell.

Longer than that, actually. So long that I can’t remember the last time it didn’t feel like fist clenched around my heart, burning ash filling my lungs.

I’ve lived for the past few weeks surviving only on the memory of a sharp, citrus sting and soft, sweet lips.

It’s enough to keep my feet stumbling forward though; hope is a powerful elixir, poison and cure all in one, depending on the dose.

When I saw her body at the bottom of the pit…

shudders run through me. No. Don’t dwell on it — on her white hair red with blood, on the way her spine was twisted, on her empty face.

I followed her down almost without thinking, only pausing to say as much of a goodbye to Silas as I could.

The panic-stricken look on his face is burned in my memory, though.

My body didn’t give me a choice; it moved without me knowing, really.

I would have gone anyway, would have done the same again without hesitation, but the acrid taste of betrayal still coats my tongue.

He needed me, and I abandoned him. I made him a promise and broke it.

For so long we’ve only had each other, chosen brothers in a deadly family, and I’ve left him, willingly, at the worst possible time.

I don’t know how he’ll ever forgive me. But I don’t know if I could have forgiven myself if I hadn’t jumped after her.

From the tunnels there is a long, wet, sucking sound, like a drowning man trying to breathe, and I’m suddenly pulled into the memory of my feet sinking into the damp ground by her crumpled body.

Hitting the ground awkwardly, sliding on oily shale, I ignore the pulling protest from my muscles, and scramble over to her.

“Wren, Wren, Wren—” Over and over I whisper, a plea and a prayer, the only word my mouth can hold.

She seems wholly unmoving; I can’t see her chest, and her back is immobile in the darkness of the cavernous room.

Gently, as though she’s made of glass, I turn her over.

She must have slid down the wall of the pit in her fall; scrapes and bruises litter her skin like she’s crawled through thorns.

Somehow, though, she’d landed on a pile of soft sand and dirt, no rocks or sharp stones under her.

“Wren, Wren…” I beg again, frantically running my hands along her arms, her shoulders, pushing her damp hair back from her face.

The tiniest flutter of a pale blue vein in her neck caves my heart in; inhaling deeply, burying my lingering terror deep at the back of my mind, I force myself to calm down, to do a real assessment of her.

Meticulously, I check her ankles, kn ees, wrists, elbows — everything I can, this time with analytical hands, not willing to miss anything because I let myself become stupid with fear.

Wren needs me focused; anything else can wait.

No limbs broken, nothing that demands stitching, though there are a few deep cuts that will need some treatment.

Shallow breathing, but not pained, not struggling.

As carefully as I can I lift her shirt, just high enough to check her ribs.

Ugly red splotching as big as my hand is already blooming on one side, but on the surface of the skin.

So something to be aware of, but the curve of her ribcage looks unchanged.

She’d probably had the breath knocked out of her when she hit the ground. Possibly hit her head as well.

Her vertebracelets had helped shield her arms, though a couple of the bones look cracked.

Having no idea what she would do about the fractures, I make a quick decision, tearing a length of cloth from my tattered cloak and binding them as I would have a living person’s breaks.

Rocking back on my heels, I take a long moment, studying her as carefully as I’m able to in the scant light of the pit.

Some uneasy storm still fills my lungs; I’m missing something important to Wren.

And if it’s important to Wren, then it’s vital to me.

Starting at the top again, I repeat everything even more slowly, featherlight fingers tracing the lines of her skull beneath her hair.

It only takes a moment before I touch something hard, tangled in the elf-locks on her head.

Several minutes of fumbling and frustration pass before I’m able to completely loosen the bones from her hair and pull them around to the front of her body.

They wind around her throat, then lay in a straight line down her chest. Her Protector. Silas’s friend.

I’m sure there’s noise from above, the thunder of the mountain, the screams of the people, but all I can hear is the scratch of my breath, the pulse in my veins.

Think, Rannoch. Think. You are missing something.

Casting my mind back, I desperately search for the times I’d seen her interact with him.

Carefully moving her hands from her sides, I weave the necklace through her fingers, wrapping them as though with ribbon.

The blood from her scraped palms coats the bones, shimmering wetly even in the gloom of the cavern, and then…

it’s gone. Memory surges forward in my mind, pushing everything else to the side.

A cold voice from Wren’s mouth, speaking for her and to her, saying things that Silas and I did not understand .

“He has been off you too long. You are already bleeding. It is necessary.”

And the recollection of her face going through the Bone Arch, how tightly she’d gripped her necklace with crimson skin.

Staring down at her still face, I swallow back nausea.

Not at the choices she’d made, but the one I’m about to make, hoping against hope that it’s the right one, that I’m not about to violate something sacred, that she’ll forgive me for seeing two paths and choosing the darker one.

And then, not giving myself time to reconsider, I reach down to the few cuts that are deep enough to be damp with blood, and cover my hands until they feel like I’ve washed them in a village pool.

Breath shallow, nostrils flaring, I try desperately to focus only on her necklace.

Over and over I coat any piece of ivory I can see, sick to my stomach, throat tight.

Over and over the necklace turns white as it dries, seeming to take handfuls, pitchers, rivers of blood.

And still it won’t stay red. Choking, trembling, I roughen her cuts where they’re drying, hating myself even as I pull more blood to the surface.

I’m almost to the point of giving up, horrified with myself and my actions, when her necklace finally, finally remains wet, a crimson band on her skin, matching the prints on her pale eyelids.

Collapsing back into the unforgiving wall behind me, I stare at my shuddering hands, stained and soaking. How could you, Rannoch? How could you?

“What…what are you doing?” There’s so much shock and horror in the words it takes me longer than it should to realize they aren’t thoughts in my head, but spoken out loud, and I look up to meet the cold, suspicious gaze of the Miller.

I don’t know how to answer, what to say that would excuse the sight of me hovering over her, washed crimson with her blood, but am saved the trouble when the world began to cave in around us, rocks hurtling through the opening above us at unrelenting speed.

Tahrik lurches forward, grabbing Wren from the ground, cradling her in tender arms. Moving as one, we rush toward a curved opening in the groaning wall; seconds after stumbling through it into a low tunnel, light and life disappear behind us in an avalanche of dust and stone.

We have been staggering forward since in timeless darkness and unremitting fear.

In front of me, Wren’s small growl of anger yanks me from my reverie .

“Wren?” I am careful to keep my voice low, trying not to startle her, but she jumps slightly anyway. “Are you…do you need help?”

She sighs in frustration. “Yes, but not from you.” Her voice changes slightly, warms just enough to let me know that she’s not talking to me anymore, and it causes a strange, biting sensation in my stomach.

“I don’t have a choice, Protector,” she murmurs almost fondly, quiet even in the stillness.

“Desperate times and all that.” The gnawing continues, and I frown.

Bones can’t kiss a woman, can’t lick the juice of a vibrant fruit from her lips.

I have tasted something he will never have.

And he is her…friend, I suppose. Be kind.