taking a shower, but once I got to the bathroom and smelled myself again, I sighed and decided it was worth it. Maybe that’s what Ben had been kindly implying when he told me to take my time. Belatedly, I remembered how sensitive drakón noses were and winced.
Fortunately, Yvera must have requisitioned some of my towels already, because one of the formerly empty stone shelves was stuffed full of them. I grabbed one and then entered one of the stalls. At least these showers had stalls, unlike the ones Svyer had showed me how to use.
To my surprise, the controls were a blend of the new and the familiar. I ran my finger over the crystals I wanted, but this time they were set in a circle, in a gradient from blue to red. They glowed at my touch, the color becoming more vibrant, and all I had to do to turn the heat up or down was touch a crystal again to light or dim it. Dimming them all turned the water off, just as activating one had turned it on.
Then came the final decision: put my “pajamas” (the loosest clothing I’d found in my bags) back on or make a dash for my room wrapped in a towel.
I sighed. Though the pajamas weren’t that smelly, I had slept in them, and the whole point was to start out fresh and nice smelling, for me as much as for Ben. The divinely herbal scent of the soap dispensed in the water lingered on my skin, and I didn’t want to lose a bit. I was going to need all the confidence I could get today as we started off on our search for the next gate.
I compromised by using two towels, one around my torso and one over my shoulders. That would keep my wet hair off my back, anyway. Still, I was glad that Kor and Yvera were still asleep.
By the time I approached the kitchen and peered cautiously inside, Ben was softly singing to himself, an unconscious smile on his face as he worked. Maybe I had been wrong to try dissuading him from making breakfast. The sight of his simple peace as he cooked warmed my own heart and made me think that today just might be OK after all.
I hated to disturb that peace by crossing the room in only a couple of towels. He had been so adorably awkward in offering to help answer questions about clothes that I was sure he would go red again the moment he saw me. But what else could I do? I wasn’t aware of any way into the dorm area except through the kitchen.
If only there was a way for me to sneak through…while holding the towels around my body and my pajamas in a ball against my chest.
Hang on a sec. I had magic now, didn’t I? Surely it could help somehow in this situation. Was that how Kor seemed to sometimes appear out of nowhere? Did he make himself invisible?
I had no idea how to go about doing what I wanted. This was the first time I’d considered doing magic, with no item to interact with or pull it out of me.
Even as I thought about the possibility, I took on a soft white glow, and my hands glistened with their swirling patterns. As if attracted like moths to a flame, or perhaps summoned by my desire, a few of this hold’s mysterious helping lights floated out from the glowing stones on the wall and down to me.
“Why, hello there,” I whispered in delight. “Is that where you guys go during the day? Do you have cozy little nests in there?”
They bobbed, and I felt a confirming feeling, but both movement and feeling were less energetic than they had been last night.
“Sorry to wake you,” I told them regretfully. “You can go back now. This isn’t that important.”
They just continued to hover around me, as if to say, It was important enough that we came, so get on with it so we can go back to sleep.
I sighed, figuring that arguing with them wasn’t worth it. Then considered. Even if they could make me invisible, that sounded like a lot of magic to my inexperienced mind, and I didn’t want to ask that of them now.
Did I really need invisibility? What did I need? Articulated in a way to allow them maximum flexibility in how to bring it about?
After a few moments, I thought I had it. “Do you know how I can get back to my bedroom without Ben seeing me?”
As if all they’d been waiting for was the specific request, they slowly flew in unison to the center of the outer wall in the small antechamber I was standing in between the bathrooms and kitchen. As if they were white crayons, when they brushed themselves over the walls, wherever they touched, a glow lingered. They traced a miniature version of the many arched doors all over the hold, complete with the white tree in the center. The only difference other than the size was that this appeared to be a single door instead of a double.
I inhaled in excitement. “A secret passage! Perfect!”
And, because none of the drakón were with me in that moment, it could remain a secret for at least a bit. A little part of my home for just me to savor for a time, even if it was only a morning.
Take that, Kor, I thought smugly as I pressed my free hand to the door. It swung inward silently, and the empty doorway was just right for my five-foot-six-inch height—truly meant for me. I chuckled to myself as I thought of Ben, who must have been over seven feet tall, trying to fit through.
One light floated into the dark passageway ahead of me, and the others drew back.
“Thank you!” I whispered to them as they drifted back to their glowing nests. They hummed quietly in reply and disappeared inside.
When I stepped inside the passage, I saw it was wide enough for one drakón abreast and tall enough for Kor, though Ben and Yvera would have to stoop. It appeared, as much of the hold did, to be carved straight from the mountain rock, with no seams for blocks in the walls or tiles in the floor and the only variations being that of the natural veins in the stone. The passage itself formed a continuous arch, going straight left and right for as far as I could see in the light of my hovering guide.
Feeling a mix of thrill and trepidation, I slowly pushed the stone door closed, and Ben’s voice and cooking clatter faded to complete silence.
“Alright,” I whispered to the light. The low volume wasn’t necessary anymore, but…you know, secret passage. Besides, the echoes in this long, small, stone space were formidable. “Let’s go find my room. Do you know which one that is?”
Either it did, or it didn’t understand me, because it simply floated down the passage to the left (south) with no other reply. I shrugged and followed.
Strange that, even though I walked barefoot and barelegged through the cold stone passage, with wet hair still dampening the towel on my shoulders, I didn’t feel discomfort. I knew it was cold—cold enough that my breath steamed just a little in the light of my guide; I simply didn’t mind. In fact, the cold and even the darkness felt good…energizing. Nothing compared to the shot of energy I’d felt when the sun went down last night, but it was a tiny boost, like a cup of coffee on a sleepy morning. With the adrenaline I’d felt ever since Kor had told me Ben was back, I hadn’t realized how weary I was feeling until I felt the weariness eased.
Was this what it was like for the drakón in the nighttime, the weariness? And was this boost what they felt with a bit of heat? If so, why was I so completely reversed? Despite my relief from the physical fog, I felt anxiety about the difference creeping back in, especially when I remembered Ben’s look of worry from last sunset. Was there something wrong with me? Had the Tree made a mistake?
We passed a door to the left, which dimly illuminated itself once it came in range of the floating light, like glow-in-the-dark plastic given just a few seconds of sunlight, and faded away soon after it fell back into shadow. It was set into the wall I’d come through, which made sense to me given the rough map of the hold in my head. As did the gentle curve of the passage to the left, as part of the outer edge of the oval coming to the southern end. It occurred to me that if this passage went around the entire hold, then the hold would have two rims: the inner that was the enormous balcony ringing the garden, and this outer one.
Like an eye, I realized. The Inner Rim would be the edge of the white, with the garden the iris and the waterfall the pupil, and the Outer Rim being the eyelid.
Though after we kept walking for a while, I became confused. Surely the first door had been to the kitchen, so that made sense why we didn’t go through it, but surely we should have encountered a door to the bedroom area by now.…
Then we came to another door. Which was set into the wall to the right.
“What’s this?” I murmured to myself, heartbeat picking up in excitement.
Something new, since it didn’t fit anywhere in my mental map, but the light was hovering in front of it, clearly intending me to go in.
I placed my hand on the door. The glow brightened for a moment, and I felt a sudden sharp drain of energy and the popping sensation I’d had when I’d broken the seals on the storage rooms. My anticipation rose further, and I pushed.
The door swung inward slightly, and I and the light went through.
My jaw dropped.
Well.… I thought faintly. I did ask them to get me to my room.
I just hadn’t realized that they would have assumed this would be it.
It was clearly a bedroom, but one fit for a queen. Unlike all the other bedrooms, which had been reasonably sized and unfurnished, this one was large enough for a family, in my opinion, and fully stocked with everything I could have wanted or imagined.
It was like a miniature version of the hold itself, with a grand central seating space, plumply cushioned and illuminated by another ice-rose skylight, with a peacefully gurgling fountain and ring of mossy and hardy-looking plants, all sunken down a couple steps below the rest.
A rim of a stone walkway went around the center area and led to various themed nooks. My eyes were immediately drawn to a cozy reading nook lined with shelves stuffed with vibrantly colored leather spines, a nest of cushions and pillows, and even curtains (currently pulled back) for an extra bit of privacy. There was another area with a desk, complete with a writing easel and appearing stocked with stationery and odds and ends I didn’t bother to identify. Another area appeared to be a workstation of some sort, with things I faintly recognized as being magical tools, including one of the rods Kor had tried to swipe.
Perhaps most disturbing of all, a giant loom occupied the final nook, almost teasing me into coming over to touch it, to run my hand through the baskets of yarn, to run it over the beautifully carved and polished spindle.…
Of course whoever had built this place would have known what I had never told a single soul: that I’d inexplicably yearned to learn spinning and weaving ever since visiting a historical immersion village that reenacted old crafts and ways of life. If they were trying to tempt me into accepting a role as their long-lost leader…dang it, it was working.
Although I found a bit of fortification against their wiles in the largest area, the one directly across from me. It was the grandest as well as being the biggest, lined with curved dressers and an enormous vanity, hung with blue tapestries with white trees, covered in a plush blue rug that looked like it could swallow me up to the ankles, and with a gigantic oval bed—draped with thick, velvety blue curtains that went around a matching ring suspended straight from the ceiling—as its centerpiece.
I shook my head at the folly. How they could have predicted me so well in every other instance and then create that was beyond me. What would I ever do with a bed that big? It added a whole other definition to the term “king sized.” I would drown in that sea of sumptuous white comforters and pillows.
There was something nagging at me about the wall behind the bed, though. The bed was set in the center of the area, and beyond was a gentle curve of a wall covered from floor to ceiling with matching velvet drapes. What were the drapes covering?
My curiosity got the better of me, and I rounded the rim to find out. Interestingly, the temperature rose noticeably the moment I crossed the boundary of the “bedroom,” and I realized how (if not why) when I reached down and felt the stone floor: it radiated a soft heat. Interesting, that. If there wasn’t something wrong with me, and if I truly was meant to gain energy from the cold, then why heat the sleeping area?
Then I laughed a little at myself as I realized it was the same reason you wouldn’t want to drink coffee before bed. Hadn’t I worried just last night how I was ever going to sleep at night? The exhaustion of all that had come in the hours after sunset had let me finally sink into sleep, but I had still mildly worried I would have to become nocturnal.
The heated floor, the plushness of the carpet and tapestries, the curtains, the sumptuous comforter could all be designed to help me—or rather, the Moontouched leader, whoever that would be—to rest. For that leader, heat might be that signal to the body that it was the time to lay their burdens down to do so.
If cold and dark was the Moontouched’s lot in life, perhaps there were ways for them—for us—to be able to function as normal people, after all. That thought gave me hope.
Though the size of the bed was still ridiculous. I mean, really. You could have fit a couple drakón in there, with room to spare. Even Ben could.…
I stopped myself right there.
For further distraction, I continued straight to the back curtains and waded through the rug for good measure. Sure enough, though the rug didn’t quite sink me up to my ankles, it was still the deepest I’d ever walked on. I was serious when I said that I waded.
I had to search a bit to find the center split in the heavy velvet curtains, and as soon as I came across it, I let the curtain fall back with a yelp as a spear of light shot through. I laughed again at myself and moved the curtain aside as I realized what the thickness and tingle of magic inside the curtains had so thoroughly concealed: an enormous, floor-to-ceiling window.
The curtain was so heavy, I opted to slip behind it, since the slant of the window left a comfortable space to stand in between the curtain and the glass. Just as with the window in the hall, the glass was set seamlessly into the stone, except this time it took up the entire wall, giving me a breathtaking view of the icy, mountainous landscape, resplendent in morning sunlight. For a moment, I just stood there in awe.
Then the thought came to me, arising so separately it hardly felt like my own. All this was made for you.
It wasn’t a selfish, possessive thought. Rather, the reverse: it was a longing to be a part of something. To have something worth caring for, worth protecting. To pass down with pride to the ones who came after.
I offer it to you, the other-voice continued, and now I recognized a different Presence inside me, of something bigger than myself.
It filled me with a heaviness that was both energizing and exhausting at the same time. I would have been frightened, except I recognized something of the same feeling from when I’d stood in the darkness with Ben last night and heard the Tree of Ice speak. The words didn’t come in the same voice. They still felt more like my voice than Hers, even though they weren’t my words; but perhaps that was simply the heavy filter of distance and method.
It was made for you, to give you the strength and protection to do what you must for the sake of all worlds. Though We are not mortal, though We ask much, We are not heartless. We do what We can to help ease the burdens We place on Our children.
It was everything I hadn’t realized I’d ever wanted and offered so freely and with such love. What was stopping me from reaching out to take it?
Are you unworthy, Sarah?
I winced at the familiar question.
I’m no ruler, I told the voice, just as I had answered the King. If anything, the bed area just behind me proved that. It was the one piece of the puzzle that didn’t fit into place.
Yet, the voice whispered back. I didn’t know whether it was answering my words or my thoughts.
She said no more, and the unsettling feeling of Presence left me not a moment later.
In its sudden absence, I sagged, and I had to throw out my hands against the glass to keep myself from toppling into it. Even so, I slid down its surface and shivered. My guide hovered around me, buzzing and pulsing in anxiety.
“I’ll be alright,” I breathed, and leaned my head against the glass and closed my eyes. “Just give me a minute.”
I took comfort from remembering Ben had said that communing with a Tree did this to a person. Hopefully he was also right that it would get easier with time. Now I appreciated—and regretted—to an even greater degree what Ben had done so willingly for me to get the answer I needed on the mesa. If it had felt like this.…
Yet, exhaustion aside, the Presence had left me with a sense of peace and strength I couldn’t quite describe—one that had been worth the cost. It was like the satisfied high after a good run, the kind that left me trembling but triumphant, every part of my body tingling and alive.
I found myself thinking the strangest and perhaps craziest thought I’d ever had: I could get used to this.
Even crazier…I wanted to.
my legs no longer felt like jelly, and I pushed myself to my feet. I sighed at the loss of time. I didn’t know how long my detour had taken, but I didn’t want to leave Ben by himself much longer, much less worry him if he started to wonder where I was. Plus, it really was time I put some clothes on. Even though I wasn’t ready to accept this bedroom—this suite, basically—as mine, I made a decision.
I slipped out of the curtain, and as I held one edge aside for the light to float through after me, I said, “Are there clothes in here? That would fit me?”
I figured I could always return them later.
The light flew over to a dresser and, by some means I couldn’t discern, pulled a drawer open. Then another. Then another.
In each, I found a different type of clothing, and I grabbed the first thing my hands touched from each. In short order I had on the comfiest, most formfitting and yet breathable underwear I’d ever had, a pair of black pants that hugged my hips and thighs just right while being breathable, and a V-neck sweater the color and softness of a cloud that draped and clung in all the right places and had me pleasantly warm in seconds.
While I was busy dressing, two lights came to me, hefting a knee-high leather boot each. “Oh, thank you,” I crooned to them. While I sat down on the vanity stool and bent over to put them on, I felt a tugging at my hair and shot straight up again. In the mirror, I saw the two lights had been joined by a third, and they were buzzing around the back of my head in annoyance.
“Are you trying…to do my hair?” I asked in bafflement.
They hummed in unified confirmation.
“Alright,” I said, dragging out the word, but since they were sacrificing sleep…or recharging time…or whatever they normally did during the day, and seemed so determined, I decided it wasn’t worth arguing.
As soon as I had given my tacit approval, they set to work again, radiating a gentle heat as they quickly weaved in and out of my hair until it was dry within seconds. Then I watched in fascination as they somehow lifted one part of my hair at a time and danced around each other, weaving, weaving, weaving, until in no time at all I had a crown braid around my head like the one Svyer had done for me, yet even Svyer hadn’t inserted clear gemstones or small, white, jewellike flowers at artistic intervals. I had to admit, my self-confidence was bolstered to see myself done up as well as a princess could hope, but my practicality was screaming too loud for me to ignore.
“Um.… It’s beautiful,” I said as I turned my head this way and that. “Absolutely beautiful. But don’t you think it’s a bit.…”
The three buzzed warningly—the equivalent of a glare.
“OK, OK,” I said in surrender, throwing up my hands. “If you think it’s what’s best for traveling to another realm to find another gate and facing who-knows-what along the way.”
One of the lights rubbed against my cheek and hummed in confirmation, and my heart melted just a bit.
“Thank you, then,” I said sincerely. Even though I silently promised myself I’d remove every pin and flower as soon as we left the hold. After all, some of those could be valuable, and I didn’t want to lose them. Especially if I was going to be handing this room and its contents over to someone else.
“Now,” I said briskly as I rose. “I thank you, all of you, for your help, especially during the day, but I really have to get back to Ben as soon as possible. How do I do that? Um…without going through the secret kitchen door, if there is one.”
One light bobbed on ahead while the other two retreated. I waved them goodbye over my shoulder and blew them a kiss as I followed my new…or old…guide. Sometime, I was going to learn how to distinguish which light was which. Assuming there was a meaningful difference, which I would until told otherwise.
The light led me through the still-open bedroom door and back into the secret passage, but instead of leading me right or left, it floated straight to a door that illuminated itself directly across from my bedroom one. I was positive it hadn’t been there before, but then, it hadn’t needed to be.
When I pushed that door open, I entered another narrow passage that went straight out before me, at a perpendicular angle to the Outer Rim. After closing the door to the Outer Rim, I followed the light to the end and another identical door. Once I emerged from that one, it took me a second to get my bearings, and then I recognized where I was. I looked back at the still-open door for confirmation and saw that the connecting passage I’d just emerged from went straight through the space in between Ben’s and Kor’s rooms in the dormitory. Yvera’s and mine were directly across the way, and I could hear Ben’s voice floating through the kitchen beyond the in-between chamber to the left.
Thank you, I mouthed to the light. It bobbed and hummed in confirmation and floated to a lightstone, disappearing inside. I pushed the door closed, and not just the glowing lines but every trace vanished. Curious, I pressed my hand to the center of where I remembered the door to be. The pattern of the tree illuminated itself just under my hand but nowhere else; I felt what I could only describe as potential there, waiting for my call. When I removed my hand, the sense of potential faded, as did the handprint outline of the tree, leaving the stone as blank as it had been when we first walked into this area.
I fixed the door’s location in my mind, and then satisfied that I could both find and activate it again if I needed to, I hurried toward the kitchen and the voices there. My heart sank when I recognized Yvera’s; not only was she not the easiest person to be around (at least if you were me), I felt the loss of the alone time I’d been hoping to have with Ben.
“I’m here!” I said with a cheer that was a tad forced as I hurried in, rolling up my sleeves. “Sorry that took longer than I expected. Is there anything left for me to help.…”
I trailed off as I came to a stop, finally reading the room. Ben and Yvera faced off across the counter. Ben’s hands gripped the countertop with telling force; it was a good thing the surface was solid stone, or he might have done some damage, and then what would my ancestors think? His jaw was clenched, and his gold eyes glowed slightly—not a good sign.
For once, Yvera was the calm one, staring him down with folded arms and a cocked hip. Neither of them so much as turned to look at me, though from the pause in their exchange, I assumed they knew I was there.
My heart clenched and my breath caught. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Ben said curtly, his eyes not leaving Yvera’s. “Nothing whatsoever.”
“Think about it,” she said simply, and with a toss of her braid, she turned to stride back to the dorm area. As she passed me, she sniffed in disdain.
“Are you dressed for work or a feast, Earthren?”
“Yv,” Ben said dangerously.
Strangely, having Yvera bring it up so baldly made me feel better. First off, if she was throwing out casual insults, we were safe for the moment. Second, it gave me a chance to explain and laugh at myself.
I chuckled and turned as I spoke to keep addressing her, since she didn’t stop. “I’m ready to go to work, don’t worry. My…helpers decided I needed their assistance getting ready this morning.”
In case they were listening, I left it at that.
She huffed, and even with her back to me, I could feel her roll her eyes, but I was a female too, and if she thought I wouldn’t notice that her own braid down her back was more elaborate than usual, that her leather clothes were on the sexy end of rugged, she was wrong. Instead of putting me down, her comment made me rather more…smug.
I’d never had another woman think I was a genuine threat before. I rather liked it.
Even though it was all for naught, of course, because as far as I could tell, Ben hadn’t noticed either of our efforts. Speaking of whom.…
“Ignore her,” Ben groaned.
I turned around and resumed my walk to him. He was bowing his head, but as I approached, he straightened and gave me a strained smile.
“How much of that did you hear?”
“None of it,” I said honestly. Kor would have been so disappointed with my total lack of spy skills.
I didn’t regret it, though, when Ben let out a breath of relief and relaxed his shoulders somewhat. “Good.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” I said quietly.
“Not really,” he said with a sigh. He ran a hand through his hair. “Yvera’s just…out of sorts, that’s all. This situation is hard on all of us, but…defense is her job. Her life, really. All her friends except me, and everyone in the flight she’s supposed to lead, are getting ready to defend our home right now from the biggest threat our generation has faced, and she’s.…”
“Here,” I said, leaning back against the counter. “That would be tough.”
I felt a little guilty for my smugness a bit ago.
“Yeah,” Ben muttered, turning away as he set a frying pan back on the hot disk. Something was telling about how fixed his gaze was on the pan. “Mind, I’m not making excuses for her. She said some things I’m not going to repeat. It’s just.… It’s making her see threats that aren’t there.”
Like me, I thought. That was why Ben was so furious, and why he was being so vague now.
I took back my guilt. Still, I wasn’t mad at her. Again…I understood. Right now, her world as she knew it was unraveling, and no one embodied that fraying more than I did. It would be so easy to make me into more than just a threat to her chances with Ben.
That didn’t mean I was going to roll over for her. If anything, she was teaching me I had more of a competitive drive than I’d realized. At the beginning, I’d intended to make peace, show her I made no claim, but though I knew she’d understood my message, she didn’t seem to care. If she was going to keep making this a thing between us.…
Well, it might as well be a thing.
Just like that, while watching Ben cool his temper by frying sausages in a pan, I decided I was going to reach for what I wanted.
At least…this one thing.
Ben cleared his throat awkwardly, and his cheeks flushed a bit as he darted glances my way. “Er…you look very nice, by the way. Your hair is very…pretty.”
I turned to grab the stack of plates at the end of the counter so he wouldn’t see my expression. He was probably just saying that to make up for Yvera’s slight, but still.…
She’d made him notice. The irony would have killed her. I would bet my last (albeit measly) waitressing paycheck that he hadn’t said the same to Yvera, or she wouldn’t have been so sour.
“Thanks,” I said casually as I carried the plates to the table.
With my back to him, I smirked in the direction of the dorms.
Earthren, 1. Drakón, 0.