The Bitter Kingdom

28

THE next day—or maybe only a short time later—I wake to utter darkness. I can’t see my hand in front of my face, and I have a moment’s breathless panic, but then a spark sears the blackness, followed by a softer, wider light that fills our campsite.

Mara is hunched over the fire, blowing onto the small flame. Her tinderbox is on the ground beside her.

“I’m so glad you can do that in the dark,” I say with a yawn as the others stir around me.

“Me too,” she says. “But we’re going to have this problem a lot. The wood is too dry to bank properly. Whoever stands watch will have to keep an eye on it. We should always have wood within arm’s length, just in case.”

I nod agreement. “If necessary, Storm and I can make our Godstones glow, though we couldn’t keep it up indefinitely.”

But I warm myself with the thought. So long as I have the Godstone, I have light.

After a quick meal of smoked horse meat and pine-needle tea, we shoulder our packs and set off. Our path grows steep, so steep that at times we skid our way downward into the belly of the mountain. It seems so wrong that we should go down when every instinct in me screams to go up, toward light and air. Waterfall insists we’re on the right path.

When the tunnel curves to the right and then levels off, I’m delighted to give my calves and shins a break.

A crack sounds, then an echoing clatter that ends in a splintering crash.

“My sister!” Storm cries out, rushing forward.

I can’t see over everyone’s heads, so I push forward, elbowing them out of my way.

Waterfall is crumpled to the ground. Her left leg has broken through the floor. The resulting hole is jagged with splintered wood. She pulls on the leg, but it’s clearly stuck. “A false floor,” she says, her eyes wide with pain. “You should all step away.”

Now that she mentions it, my steps sound hollow, and the ground beneath me has a slight give. We edge backward, testing each step before putting full weight on it. “We’ll get you out of there,” I assure her. But I don’t stop backing away until my heel meets with a slight lip, followed by solid ground. We were walking across ancient planks of wood, I realize with a pounding heart. Disguised by centuries of dust and gravel.

“I’m bleeding,” she says matter-of-factly. “I can feel it going down my leg.”

Oh, God. I hope she hasn’t nicked an artery.

“I’ll throw you a rope,” Hector says. “Try to get both arms through the loop. Once we have you secured, we’ll send someone to start widening that hole.”

He pulls the large coil from his pack and starts to loop and knot, his fingers sure. I put a hand on his forearm. “We can’t lose her,” I say quietly. “She’s our only way through this place.”

His return gaze is solemn. “I know.”

He finishes his knot. “Ready?”

She nods, and he tosses it her way. She grabs the end, manages to get one arm through . . . when the floor cracks again and she sinks deeper. She grunts in pain.

“We’ve got a good hold on the rope,” Hector says, and I see that it’s true. Behind him, Belén and Mara are holding tight to it; Belén has it wrapped twice around his forearm. “We won’t let you fall.”

Slowly, gingerly, she wriggles her other arm through so that the rope curves under her armpits and around her back. “I’m secure,” she calls back.

“Now we send someone to break her out of that hole,” Hector says to me, “tied to Belén’s rope. I’d go, but I think the strongest of us should stay behind as anchors.”

I nod, and even as my gut screams no, my mouth says, “I’ll go.”

“I should go,” Red says. “I’m the littlest.”

I open my mouth to protest, but I know she’s right. She’s the safest choice. “All right. Thank you, Red.”

“I’ll hold the torch,” Storm says.

Hector makes sure Mara and Belén have a tight grip on the rope holding Waterfall, and then he rummages through Belén’s pack and pulls out a second rope. He wraps it between Red’s legs and around her waist, then ties it off with a thick sailor’s knot. “Go carefully,” he says, his voice dark. “Test each step before putting your full weight on it. When you get there, don’t try to dislodge Waterfall’s leg. Just try to open up the hole so she can move it herself.” He hands her Belén’s ax.

She nods up at him, swallowing hard, then she screws her face into a mask of determination and sets off. Hector and I grip her rope tight, bracing ourselves in wide stances.

My heart pounds in my throat as I watch her tiny form work its way across the planking, testing each step and letting the floor gradually assume her weight. When she reaches Waterfall, she gets on her belly and splays herself, spreading her weight out as much as possible.

“Smart girl,” I mutter.

She attacks the wood around the hole with the ax. Lying on her belly gives her little range of motion for the task, but the wood is weak and dry, and it cracks easily and falls away. I count one-two-three-four before hearing a faint crash as the pieces splinter on impact far, far below.

“Big chunk here I think I can get rid of,” Red says. “Hold tight to that rope.” Her high little-girl voice rings with authority, and Waterfall nods wordlessly and grabs the rope with both hands.

Red slams the floor with the ax. Something breaks away, Waterfall sinks, the rope goes taut. Mara and Belén strain to hold it in place. “Can you move your leg?” Red asks.

Waterfall closes her eyes. Sweat beads on her now-bloodless forehead as she yells through gritted teeth and pulls her leg away from the jagged wood.

“Got it,” she says breathlessly. “But it’s bleeding badly.” She lets go of the rope to grasp at the planking. Red backs up a little to give her some space, but she stretches out a hand to help. Waterfall reaches for it.

The floor collapses, and Waterfall drops away while Red scrambles backward. Mara and Belén are pulled forward a few steps, but they find their footing and hold fast.

“Don’t let go!” I yell.

As soon as Red reaches solid ground, Hector and I drop her rope and rush to Waterfall’s. Slowly, muscles straining, we pull it back.

Storm has moved to the edge of the false floor. “Can you hear me?” he says. “Are you all right?”

“This rope . . .” comes the labored voice. “Can’t breathe . . .”

A white hand peeks over the edge, then a forearm. Storm steps out to help her.

“Storm, no!” I call out, but he ignores me. He lowers himself to his knees and bends toward the hole. The floor creaks.

He grabs his sister’s wrist, then her arm. The rest of us keep hauling on the rope. And suddenly, Storm has her. The floor cracks. He leaps backward toward solid ground. His heels slip out from under him, and he lands flat on his back with his sister atop him.

Waterfall rolls away. I drop the rope and run forward. “Storm? Are you all right?” I fall to my knees beside him.

His mouth opens and closes, like a beached fish. He blinks. I check him for injury but see nothing. What if it’s his back? What if he can’t move?

Air rushes back into him, and he groans like a dying animal. “My back!” he says. “My head! I don’t like pain.”

I exhale relief, that he is well enough to complain so.

He sits straight up, looking around. “Waterfall?”

“Here,” Hector says. “She has a chunk of wood lodged in her thigh. We’ll have to cut it out.”

Storm drags himself to Waterfall’s side. She puts a hand to his cheek. “Thank you for saving me.”

I have to roll my eyes at that, because we all saved her. Every single one of us.

“Mara, can you get a fire going?” Hector says. “I need to heat up my dagger.”

Storm rises, grabs my arm, and pulls me aside. “Will you heal her? It could get infected. She could still—”

“I doubt it.”

“Why not?”

I frown. “It only seems to work on people I care deeply about. But maybe you could heal her? You’re the one who loves her.”

“I don’t know how to heal.”

“What you mean is you’re afraid to try.”

His face turns thoughtful. “Yes, that is exactly what I mean. Forgive me for not speaking more precisely. I fear hurting her. She is . . .” He looks down. “She is dear to me.”

“Let Hector do what he can. If she needs healing afterward, I’ll show you what to do.”

“All right.” He puts his hands to his face, then runs them through hair that now reaches the nape of his neck. “All right.”

I’ve learned to face death and injury when I must, but it’s never easy. I step away from the others, into the darkness, telling myself our tunnel is too narrow and small for everyone to be an onlooker.

A tiny hand creeps into mine.

I look down at the girl and squeeze gently. “Thank you for what you did, Red Sparkle Stone.”

“You’re welcome,” she says gravely.

She has been with us for such a short time, yet she was willing to risk her life for our cause. “Weren’t you scared?” I ask.

“Yes. But it was a good scared.”

“There’s a good kind?”

“Oh, yes.” Her voice drops so low I have to strain to hear. “Orlín made me scared all the time. Scared I would starve. Scared I would get too cold. Scared he would hurt me again or get so mad that he’d throw me to one of the men. That was nasty bad scared.” She pauses, scuffing her boots against the floor. “But you never hit me, even though I’m your slave.”

“You’re not my—”

“You always feed me. You call me a true name. Now when I’m scared, it’s not because of meanness. And today I chose my own scared. It’s always a good scared, when you get to pick it your own self.”

I squeeze her hand again, whispering, “I think I know exactly what you mean.”

In the months since becoming queen, there has been a nebulous thought wavering in my mind, just beyond the clarity of consciousness—that if I wanted to, I could give it all up. I don’t have to fight for my kingdom. I could abdicate. Hand it over to Conde Eduardo, who wants it so badly. Let him fight it out with Invierne. I could go back to Orovalle, to Papá and Alodia. I would be a failed queen, a failed bearer, yes. But I would be safe. My life would be easy.

I know I’ll never do it, even though my current path means danger and maybe even death. It’s terrifying. But it’s a manageable terror. Because I’ve chosen it.

I wince at Waterfall’s muffled scream. “Got it!” Hector says.

Mara sacrifices some of her precious burn ointment for disinfecting purposes, then Hector stitches her up. I call a halt for the day—if indeed it is day—to give Waterfall a chance to rest and ascertain the true extent of her injury. We’ll see if she can walk tomorrow.

But I gaze down the tunnel into the dark, knowing it’s too late to turn back, racking my brain for an idea on how to get across the false floor.

After breakfast I tell everyone the plan I came up with while we rested. I’m greeted by silence. “Or,” I add, “we can turn around and go back. Take our chances in the snow.”

“This is our best option,” Hector says.

“I agree,” says Belén.

Mara closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, but she nods.

We set up quickly. Hector shows Red how to tie a rolling hitch knot and has her practice several times. We loop one end of the rope around a rocky outcropping, the other around Red’s waist.

Traveling this tunnel has been made even more difficult by the fact that it is rough-hewn and jagged, for the goal of the original miners was to tunnel as quickly as possible. But now I’m grateful. There are plenty of places to tie a rope down. It might be what saves us.

We hold tight to Red’s rope as she sets off. She holds her cloak out in front of her, and she uses it to brush years of dust away from the floor to expose the rotting wood. We hope that by being able to see the floor, we can avoid the more obviously rotted parts as we cross.

She takes a step on the floor. It creaks. She waits a moment, then takes another step. On the third step, her foot breaks through and she jerks left to retain her balance, clutching at the wall. I brace myself and grip the rope so tightly my palms ache, but she doesn’t fall through. She doesn’t look back, and she doesn’t hesitate. She pulls her foot from the hole and keeps going.

The moment her feet touch solid ground, she jumps into the air with a whoop. “I did it!” she says, whirling to show us her grinning face. “I did it!”

“Good work, Red,” I call out. “Now can you tie the rope to something?”

She removes the rope from her waist and looks around. She spots a promising outcropping of rock, then loops the rope around twice and ties it off the way Hector showed her.

“Your turn, Waterfall,” Hector says.

She limps forward and grips the now-taut rope that stretches across the hidden chasm.

“Hold on with both hands,” Hector instructs. “And try to keep to the path Red used.”

I hold my breath as she starts forward. Ideally, we’d tie another rope to her waist. But this one will have to be cut when we all reach the other side, and we dare not risk losing another. I make a mental note that if I survive this and have the misfortune of embarking on another long journey, I will take lots of rope. A mountain of rope.

Waterfall reaches the other side safely. Then me, then Mara, then Storm and Belén. Hector goes last. He insisted on it, saying he is the heaviest and thus most likely to weaken the floor for everyone else.

My heart is in my throat as he sets out. The floor groans beneath his weight. He has only gone two steps when something snaps. The entire floor falls away, and Hector with it.

“No!” I yell, rushing toward the edge. Hands grab at my elbows, trying to hold me back, but I push them away.

The dust clears. The rope sags into the pit, but it is not broken. Hector hangs from it with both hands. He swings one leg up and hooks the rope with his ankle, then does the same with the other. With slow, jerky movements, he executes an upside-down crawl along the length of the rope toward us.

“Hurry, Commander,” Storm says. “The rope is fraying.”

I whip my head up. Sure enough, the rope is unraveling where it rubs up against the opposite edge. We’ll be lucky if it holds much longer.

One of Hector’s ankles slips, and the rope sways wildly, scraping hard at the edge of the pit. He swings his leg back into place and keeps going, hand over hand, dragging himself along as the rope unravels, and I can’t stop muttering, “Please, God, please, please, please.”

He reaches the edge. The rope snaps.

Hector’s head drops out of sight as Belén and I lunge forward to grab him, and miss. My chest feels like it’s turning inside out, until I see Hector’s fingertips, gripping the edge so tight they’ve gone white.

We grab his wrists, then his arms. My fingers dig into his flesh, and my shoulder sockets burn as I pull with all my might. He gets an arm over the edge, then a leg. I grab the back of his pants and help him to solid ground.

He lays there panting, staring at the ceiling. “That was close,” he says.

I stick a finger in his chest. “Don’t ever scare me like that again.”

Before I can blink he grabs me, pulls me atop him, and right in front of everyone, kisses me soundly. “It’s hard, isn’t it?” he says, his lips still against mine. “To watch someone you love almost die?”

I rest my forehead against his. “Once this is all over, I say we stop doing that to each other.”

He grins. “Agreed.”

I get to my feet, pulling him with me. “Can you travel?”

“Like the wind.”

I turn to find everyone else staring at us without bothering to disguise their amusement. Except Red, who wrinkles her nose at me. “That was gross,” she says.