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CHAPTER

Twenty-One

N EEMA HAD A decision to make. In front of her lay three tunnels, fading off to black. The tunnel to her left led to the western vaults, the section she knew best. The central tunnel would take her down to the Hall of Heroes. Katsan had taken the eastern tunnel, to the right. Neema could hear her faintly, still chanting her mantra.

She headed left. She was walking in the opposite direction from the temple crypts, but she didn’t believe for a moment that the Foxes had created a new linking tunnel. That was not what this Trial was about. At least this way, she could avoid Katsan.

She took her time, holding her lantern high, watching for traps. Cain’s speciality. Brushing her fingers across a wall, she felt a slight give to one section. A hidden door. She ignored it, and moved on. A secret passage through a haunted, booby-trapped tomb system? No thank you.

This wasn’t so bad. She had survived a night locked down here in the pitch black, with no promise of rescue; she could manage one solitary hour with a lantern. A wave of melancholy hit her, as it always did when she was forced to remember that night. Alone and abandoned in the dark, until she found the book. Her book.

She pushed the memory from her mind. Focus . Trials were not supposed to be deadly, but there was always an element of risk, especially in a Fox Trial. They did like to flirt on the boundaries of what was permitted. And whose fault was it, really, if a contender didn’t watch where she was going?

Perhaps on instinct, Neema had stumbled on to a familiar route. She had undertaken numerous research trips down here at the emperor’s request. Never alone, though—not after that first time. Vabras had insisted on that, sending two of his most trusted deputies to guard her. The High Scholar was too useful to be lost to the darkness.

Brushing cobwebs from her face, she held the lantern out ahead of her. She knew this tunnel well, she recognised its dank brickwork, the particular slope of the dirt floor. This would take her down to the sea entrance. She could smell a fresh salt tang laced into the stale tomb air.

Something felt different.

She paused, casting the lantern light all around her, searching for any changes. Some of the cobwebs were fake. She tested them, in case they were covering something. A hidden catch, maybe. Nothing. There was nothing. The cobwebs were a theatrical dressing. The tunnel was just a tunnel. The same one she had walked through a hundred times before.

She sighed to herself. This was how the Foxes trapped you, with their sneaky hints and secret smiles. Until you were so paranoid, you didn’t trust your own judgement.

She was about to press on when she heard a scream in the distance.

Neema froze, listening hard. “Katsan?”

Another scream, high and desperate. Then silence.

The silence was worse.

“Katsan!” Neema yelled, and raced forward.

The floor collapsed beneath her.

Nothing she could do, but fall.

In a distant part of the tunnel, Katsan wasn’t screaming. She was trying to stay calm, walking at a slow, steady pace. My mind is clear, my mind is still. But through the walls she heard the whispers. The words of her commander, the night she won the tournament to become contender.

Step aside, Sister , he’d said. No, that is not an order, I will not compel you. You won the tournament. But was that skill, or luck, at your age? Ask yourself: are you the contender we need? Search your heart, Sister. There is no shame in recognising your limits. Do not let your pride overcome your honour.

No matter that she had beaten warriors half her age. That she was five years younger than Bersun had been, when Lanrik sent him off to fight for the throne.

Step aside.

And she would have done, if Gaida had not been there to counsel her. Gaida, her true Sister. Don’t listen to them, Katsan. You won the tournament. You are the Bear contender. You will step aside for no one.

But now Gaida was dead, and the words had risen like ghosts to torment her again. Through the walls she heard her own doubt whispered back to her. Was it skill or luck? Search your heart, Sister.

The Foxes, it had to be. But how did they know the words?

Were they coming from her own head? Was she imagining them?

With a snarl of frustration, she staggered on down the tunnel. She sensed something following her, scuffing footsteps in the dark. Then it was gone. “Have you drugged me?” she called out, furious.

Snatched laughter, from behind the wall. Too old, too slow , the voices whispered. Up ahead, at the end of the tunnel… Whatever had been following her was now in front. A creature lumbering back and forth, as if waiting for her. Fur, teeth, claw…

The Bear.

She dropped to her knees. Was this real, was she dreaming? Why couldn’t she think straight? The Bear—a blurred shape—came and went. If it was real, would it give her the answers she craved? Tell me. Tell me! Was it skill, or luck? Am I worthy?

She clamped her jaw shut. Real or fake, she was too afraid to ask.

A sound cut through her fevered thoughts. A scream in a distant tunnel. The Raven contender, presumably.

Another scream, sharper this time.

Katsan sat back on her heels. The Bear was gone, if it had ever been there. The warrior in her said—someone is in trouble, it is your duty to help them. Any other day she would have got to her feet. But her Sister was dead. Murdered. And that woman… that… woman …

“May the Eight give you what you deserve, Neema Kraa,” she said, in a dead voice.

“And remain Hidden,” a voice whispered back, through the walls.

Neema fell.

A flare of terror. Death, death was coming. And then relief. It was only a short drop, and she had landed on something soft.

The lantern slipped from her fingers and snuffed itself out, plunging her in darkness. She sat up. What had she landed on? Something soft but lumpy. Some things. Satin. No, fur. No, velvet. She tugged a piece free from the pile. Velvet, with a trailing lace ribbon. Her fingers worked their way round, making sense of the shape. A hat? She groped about and found another one, and another.

She had fallen into a sea of hats.

Foxes.

Whispers from the tunnel, ten feet above her head. The gleam of a fresh lantern.

“Hello?” she called out.

The card-playing novices from the veranda peeped over the edge, shaved heads pressed close together. They were grinning. “Hello.”

“Could you help me out?” She gestured to the walls—too smooth to climb.

“We’d definitely help you,” one of them said, shuffling further out over the edge. “But we don’t have a rope. Sorry.”

“So I’m stuck down here? Is Katsan all right? I heard a scream.”

“That was us,” the other one said. “Fox One and Fox Two.”

“Those are your names?” Neema was still rummaging around among the hats.

They laughed. Today, those were their names. Fox novices spent their first year learning how to deal with constant change. A different bed every night, a new name every morning. Constant change, while holding on to their essential self. Vital, for nascent spies. They didn’t explain any of this to Neema, because she was already asking another question.

Ravens.

“Why am I sitting on a pile of hats?”

Fox One was dangling precariously over the edge, for the sheer joy of it. They waved their arms manically. “You’ve fallen into Tala Talaka’s worst fear.”

“Recurring childhood nightmare,” Fox Two said. “Drowning in a sea of hats.”

“How weird,” Neema said. She snatched the dangling novice’s wrist and pulled hard.

“Oh,” Fox One said, as they slid into the hat pit.

“Ohh-hoh!” Fox Two agreed from above, delighted. “Sneaky!”

Fox One flailed about on the hats, snorting with laughter. “Aargh! Help! I’m drowning.”

“Will you help me now?” Neema asked.

“I still don’t have a rope,” Fox Two said, with a helpless gesture.

“I do.” While they’d been talking, Neema had been rummaging. Beneath the top layers she’d found other garments, including scarves. She tied them together. “I’m going to throw this to you,” she told Fox Two. “Once I’m out, you can help your friend.”

She tossed up the scarf rope. Fox Two caught it, bracing themself as Neema climbed to the top. She could tell they were tempted to let go at the last minute. “Don’t you dare,” she panted. “Don’t you dare. ”

She hauled herself out, sprawled on her stomach.

Fox Two applauded. Fox One joined in, from the pit of hats.

Neema gestured back towards the trap. “That was Cain’s idea?”

“Never tell your nightmares to a Fox,” the young novice replied, portentously.

Neema, who had been suffering in secret for months from strange, shadowed dreams, agreed this was solid advice. “Are you going to help your friend?”

Fox Two looked hesitant. “They’ll just pull me in with them.”

“I won’t. I promise!” Fox One called unconvincingly from the trap.

Neema took their lantern, and left them to it.

Walking away, she felt a flicker of satisfaction. She had tried to help Katsan, and she had survived Tala’s nightmare. Surely she could sit out the rest of the hour. There was a storeroom down the next side tunnel—she would wait there until Cain came to find her. She had a horrible suspicion she wasn’t even halfway through the hour yet. Time did strange things in the dark.

When she reached the storeroom, she found its narrow door was marked in white chalk with an eternal eight. She touched it, and rubbed her fingers. A white ∞ was usually drawn to ward off bad luck and dark spirits. She’d seen shipbuilders back in Scartown painting them on the hulls of new boats. They often appeared in graveyards, especially in the month of the Fading Light. The Foxes could have drawn this one, or it could have been someone working in the tombs.

Warily, she opened the door. The room was empty, cleared of supplies. Its earthen walls were lined on both sides with matching shelves, also empty. She breathed out, and stepped inside. A quick inspection, just to be sure, and then she could wait it out safely…

The door slammed shut behind her.

Spinning around, she ran towards it, but the key was already turning in the lock. She banged with her fist. “Let me out!”

“You chose the wrong door, contender,” someone said. They sounded sorry for her.

She banged harder, but they were gone.

She turned a slow circle, preparing to defend herself. There were marks on the floor, as if a piece of heavy furniture had been dragged across it. Otherwise the room was bare. No, wait. Propped up on one of the shelves was a weathered strip of wood—painted blue with white lettering. The Merry Dolphin. She stepped closer, and felt a trigger click and release under her foot.

A grating sound, as the shelves lurched into life. No, not just the shelves…

The walls. The walls were pressing in.

Neema fled to the other end of the room, but it was even narrower here, like the prow of a ship. She returned to the widest point—arms stretched out as if she could hold the walls at bay—and screamed for help. But this was a Trial—no one was coming to rescue her. You chose the wrong door, contender…

The opposing shelves were inches apart. If she didn’t think of something fast, they would crush her to death.

With moments to spare, she clambered up on to the shelf with the boat sign. Seconds later all the shelves met in the middle, and clicked neatly together. The grating sound stopped.

She lay there for a moment, panting hard. She was safe, it was over.

She was also trapped, face pressed against the packed-earth wall, her right shoulder jammed against the shelf above. Wriggling painfully in the tight space, she inched herself on to her back, spreading her weight evenly between the two connected shelves. At her head, the sides of the shelves joined; the same at her feet. Like a coffin, she thought.

The earth wall to her left collapsed.

Neema screamed.

The space around her was filling up with loose soil, spilling over her in soft, crumbling cascades. Burying her alive.

Terrified, she shuffled back on to her side, trying desperately to stop the avalanche of earth with her hands. Her fingers closed against the boat sign. She wedged it up against the collapsing wall. The soil slowed to a trickle, then stopped.

She coughed and spat earth from her mouth, and lay back, half buried—only a few precious inches left above her. She was struggling to breathe—the fear and shock pressing down on her as much as the collapsed wall. “Help!” she called out, then coughed again, suffocating in her panic. “Help!”

No one came. She was on her own.

In her mind she saw a blank page. Words blossomed on the paper. Don’t fight it. Relax. Breathe.

She did her best. She breathed—in through the nose, out through the nose, mouth firmly shut. Her heartbeat slowed.

An image of Havoc, returning from the tombs, covered in dirt. Eyes vacant with dull horror. She’d stumbled into his nightmare.

Havoc was one of Cain’s closest rivals. But this felt more than strategic. It felt personal. It felt like punishment. She touched her fingers to the boat sign. The Merry Dolphin. The wood was splintered and worn, the paint cracked. It must hold some personal meaning for Havoc, some tragedy or scandal from his past.

“You’re safe,” she told herself. “Just breathe.” But she was in a coffin filled with earth, in the dark. What if they forgot about her? What if she ran out of air before they came back? And before she could stop herself, she was screaming again, from the top of her lungs. She was going to die, she was going to die…

The grating sound returned. Gears whirring in reverse, somewhere on the other side of the wall. The two connected shelves juddered beneath her and broke apart. Released, she fell to the ground, sobbing with relief.

Once she’d wiped the earth and the tears from her face, she saw that the door stood open. “Hello? Cain? Is that you?”

Avoiding the trip stone, she made her way back out into the tunnel. There was no one there. She was alone.