Fairy Queens: Books 5-7 Page 15

  Cinder wrapped her arms around him, and he led her to a dark bedroom. “Wait until I’m gone and sneak out the window. There are guards at the gate. They’ll let you pass.”

  He squeezed her hand and slipped out the door. Grateful the rain had stopped for now, she waited a dozen heartbeats before sliding the window open and stepping out onto the flagstones. Moving around the puddles, she slipped past the darkened windows. Cinder saw no one but swore she could feel eyes on her.

  At the gates, the guards looked up. “What are you doing out this late, miss?” one of them asked.

  “I need to head home before my parents catch me gone,” Cinder said. It was the story Darsam had instructed her to tell.

  “One of Darsam’s girls,” muttered the other guard.

  Exactly how many girls sneak out of here in the middle of the night? she wondered.

  The guard on the left pursed his lips in disapproval. “There are thieves and thugs roaming the streets of late.”

  “I am far more afraid of my father than any thief,” Cinder replied. “Please let me pass.”

  Begrudgingly, the guards unlocked the gate and let her through. She stepped into the heart of the city, all pristine buildings and shops. Jatar had not told her where to go, just that he would find her. Instinctively she headed towards the bowels of the city, toward the tanning district, where she’d first met Durux inside a building lined with desperation and hopelessness.

  Just before Cinder moved out of sight of the palace, she turned back and studied its dark towers, wondering if Darsam was watching her. She was tempted to wave a final goodbye, but then shook herself at the ridiculousness of the idea. He’d promised to follow her to Jatar’s lair, so he was probably close. On a rooftop, perhaps. Or shadowing her from one street to the next.

  Cinder hurried along. She’d counted 599 steps when a door squeaked open to her right. A man stood in the shadows of some kind of shop. He leaned forward just enough for the moonlight to illuminate his large ears. Durux. She took an automatic step back. The breeze took that moment to blow up from the west, bringing with it the stench of the tanneries.

  She steeled herself, promising she would kill him if she had to. He stayed in sight just long enough for her to get a good look at him before disappearing back inside. She swallowed hard, every instinct demanding she turn and flee. She reached out and brushed her fingers at the bulge in her robes and felt a little reassurance at the pressure of the snake around her arm. Reminding herself that she wasn’t alone, she stepped inside the building. Ahead of her, Durux was rapidly disappearing down a long corridor.

  Cinder cast a glance back at the street, hoping Darsam wasn’t far behind. That this would be over soon. But turning back revealed the man was already nearly out of sight.

  Tapping her fingers to her thumb to soothe herself, Cinder hurried after him. At the back of the building was a crooked door. She pushed through it into a narrow alley. Durux’s shoulders were hunched as he slipped into a derelict building. Coming up behind him, she stared into the windows housing jagged bits of glass. Beams had fallen in, crisscrossing the interior like an orb weaver’s trap.

  “Is Darsam far?” she asked the spider—Tix, she thought her name was.

  The spider said something in a sticky voice Cinder didn’t understand.

  “I don’t speak spider.” In response, the spider poked her with one of her spindly legs, leaving behind an itchy spot.

  Resisting the urge to scratch at it, Cinder stepped into the shadows. She could feel hard bits of broken glass and the hollow cracking of dead bugs under her feet. She ducked under a beam, wondering where Durux had gone.

  “Hello?” she called out. There was no answer. Looking back and forth, she thought she caught a bit of light off to one side and started for it. She hadn’t taken five steps when the floor gave out beneath her. She fell through smoke and shadows.

  Cinder landed in a heap. Above her, a trapdoor snapped shut, leaving her alone in the dark. She lay on the ground and tried to regain her bearings. She held her hands out to feel the walls around her, but there was nothing. Suddenly, she was a little girl again, shoved in the cellar. Alone for days in the dark.

  Counting to calm herself, she reminded herself she wasn’t a child anymore. And she certainly wasn’t helpless. She reached for the spider and felt an unmoving lump in her shirt. She shifted her focus to the snake and realized she no longer felt its reassuring grip around her arm.

  On her hands and knees, Cinder scrabbled around until she felt something cold and smooth. She picked it up, but it was limp and unmoving. “I think Siseth is dead.”

  She waited for Tix to poke her again, but the spider was as unmoving as the snake. Cinder started at the sound of rushing footsteps and reminded herself to remain calm. After all, she wanted to be taken to Jatar. Not knowing what else to do, she shoved the snake into her robes with the spider. Arms snatched her, hauled her up, and searched her. Then she was led down a narrow tunnel.

  “Welcome, little clanwoman.” The voice belonged to Durux.

  Cinder shuddered, unable to see anything in the darkness. It was hard to breathe through the smoke, which left an almost sweet taste in the back of her throat. Incense, she realized. Idarans used it to keep fairies away. Judging by the limp bodies of the fairies tucked into her robe, it worked.

  She counted 168 steps before a door appeared. Light lined the seams, smoke curling away from the edges. Cinder could make out pickaxes and buckets of ore lining the tunnels. A guard hauled open the door, and Durux pulled her inside. She blinked at the sudden light and instant change of her surroundings.

  It was a lavish room of red and gold, the rough-hewn walls almost completely covered in beautiful tapestries. Pacing before a long table, Jatar squinted suspiciously at her through hooded eyes. “Is the goddess dead?”

  Cinder steeled herself. “Yes.”

  “And the fire show earlier?”

  “Her son nearly died. She was angry.”

  Jatar’s eyes flicked a question to Durux. “We’ve been unable to confirm anything, save the goddess retired to a room.”

  Jatar nodded. “Find out for certain.”

  “And if our spy is discovered?” Durux asked.

  “Then our spy is no more use to us.”

  Durux pivoted and left without another word. The guard gave Cinder a warning glance and shut the door behind him.

  “You’ll forgive me if I’m skeptical,” Jatar said. “It’s only been a few hours since I released you.”

  Cinder shrugged like she didn’t care. “Where are Ash and Storm?”

  “Alive. For the moment.”

  She wet her lips. “You promised to let us go.”

  “Once it has been confirmed that the queen is dead.”

  Cinder’s gaze shifted to the bowls of incense lining the room, just like in the cellar earlier. She bit the inside of her cheek. The goddess had said to kill the spider, but Cinder didn’t know how to get her out of her robes without alerting Jatar to the fairies’ presence. “Can I see my family?”

  “No,” replied Jatar.

  She turned away from him, pretending to wipe her eyes. With her other hand, she grasped the spider fairy. It was the size of her hand and covered with spindly hair. Suppressing a shudder, she pulled the creature free. It looked at her with a hazy yet eager expression.

  Cinder dropped the spider and crushed its head. It squirmed, the limbs scrabbling. She pushed harder, shuddering when something gave with a pop. The spider’s limbs curled up just as Cinder felt a presence behind her.

  “What are you doing?”

  For a big man, Jatar could move with surprising stealth. Cinder whirled around. “Nothing. I—” She froze when she saw the knife gleaming in his hand.

  “You didn’t betray me to them, did you, Cinder?”

  She opened her mouth, but her tongue couldn’t seem to grasp any of the words her lungs tried to force through it. She managed to shake her head.

  “Because the g
oddess is blind to anything underground. And the incense makes both her and the fairies weak. That, along with her family, is the only weakness I have ever been able to discover. The only weaknesses I have ever been able to exploit. She won’t be able to find you here. You and your grandmother and your mother are all alone, helpless against me.”

  Cinder had to delay him as long as possible. Give Darsam time to reach her. “I gave her the poison.”

  Jatar grabbed her throat and roughly pushed her against the wall. “Zura has told me all about you, little companion. About how many dozens of men bid for you.” He stepped closer and said in her ear. “Durux can have you for free.”

  She squirmed, trying to get the snake to slide to the back of her robes before Jatar felt it. Beside her, the door opened. “The goddess is dead,” Durux reported.

  Jatar released Cinder. “It’s confirmed?”

  Durux nodded.

  Jatar lifted his chin, excitement flashing across his eyes. “Good. Move the men into place. Give the signal for the other cities. Tonight we take back what is ours.”

  He started toward the door, having completely forgotten Cinder. “Wait,” she exclaimed. “What about my family? You promised to let us go!”

  He paused long enough to glance back at her. “When I see the queen’s body for myself, little clanwoman. Then and only then.”

  The door slammed in her face, and she heard the lock turn. She knew what happened next. Jatar and his forces would move on the palace. When they found the Immortals prepared for them and the goddess very much alive, they would retreat. Any who survived would be heading back to this hideout. Back to Cinder’s mother and grandmother.

  She didn’t know how long it would take Darsam to find her. How long until Jatar realized she had lied. Cinder pulled her tools from her breast wrap, bent before the lock, and inserted her tension wrench and rake pin. More difficult than the lock at the garden gate, this one took her a lot longer to pick. Finally, it gave with a snick. She shoved the pins back into her wrap and cast a glance back at the dead spider fairy.

  Cinder grabbed a lamp, then eased the door open and peered down the empty corridor, which gave way to blackness. She had come from the left before, so now she slipped into the corridor and turned right. Holding the light to the side, she strained to listen as she rushed down the hall. When she came to a place where one tunnel branched into three, she had counted 878 steps. Smoke curled along the ceiling of one tunnel, which led up. In the second, Cinder could see pickaxes and buckets. The other tunnel, branching off to the right, smelled like human waste. Taking one of the pickaxes, she hustled down the tunnel to the right. She had to duck to not hurt her head, while making her way through rubble and debris.

  In front of her, a light began to grow. Cinder blew out her lamp, slowed her steps, and crept forward, pickax raised just in case. What she saw stopped her cold. A man sat at a rickety table with a lantern, a game of white and black stones spread out in front of him. He wore a sword at his waist and was smoking something that smelled sweet. Just before him was an open pit with a rope ladder coiled at the side. They must be keeping the slaves here.

  Staying in the shadows, Cinder shifted her grip on the pickax and slipped her other hand into her robe to pinch the snake. “If you’re still alive, now would be the time to slither out and bite him,” she whispered. The tongue flicked out, touching her fingers. The snake was alive, but barely able to move. “If I die, tell Darsam what happened to me,” Cinder said softly.

  She slid forward one step at a time until she was just out of range of the light. The man sat with his back against the wall—he’d see her if she took one more step. Steeling herself, she sprinted into the light, pickax raised. The man gave a startled shout and grasped his sword. He had it halfway out of his sheath when Cinder let the pickax fall forward. The point impaled the man where shoulder met neck. Blood sprayed Cinder, staining her in a way that she would never be able to wash away. He gasped and struggled to pull his sword free. But his knees buckled, his blood gushing down and spreading toward Cinder’s feet. She let go of the pickax and jumped back before it could touch her. She turned her back on what she had done—what she’d had to do.

  Hadn’t she had to do it?

  She dropped to her knees and called down the dank hole. “Ash? Storm?”

  “Cinder?” her mother’s voice called back.

  Weak with relief, she dropped the end of the rope ladder into the pit. She watched it snap and undulate, hissing as it fell one rung at a time. Watched as filthy, ragged hands appeared, pulling up equally ragged people—one of them an old man. He paused to catch his breath.

  “Who are you?” she asked, wondering if she needed the pickax.

  His haunted eyes met hers. “We dig the tunnels. How do we get out?”

  Why did Jatar need tunnels? Cinder swallowed her horror and pointed the way she’d come. “Follow the incense. It will lead you out.” She hoped.

  People appeared in a steady stream, but her mother and grandmother did not. “What’s taking you so long?” she called down.

  “Some of these people need help,” chided her mother from below.

  Cinder closed her eyes, trying to ignore the smell of the old man’s blood mixing with rock as it ran in a diminishing stream into the pit. But the more she tried to ignore it, the louder it seemed to become. Drip, drip, drip.

  Her mother and grandmother were the last to appear, as they were helping an old man climb out of the hole. Ash saw the dead guard, and her gaze flashed with horror and sympathy. Storm simply grasped Cinder’s upper arms and shook her as if to dislodge the horror. “In war, to live is to kill. To protect is to kill. Remember that.”

  Cinder nodded and then followed her grandmother out the last few steps. They stole the man’s lantern and ran steadily upward through the corridor. Cinder followed the smoke, only taking enough time to snatch another pickax from the ground. Finally, the low-ceilinged tunnel came to a dead end, with a hole above it. She jumped to catch the edge. Careful not to impale herself on the pickax, she pulled herself into what appeared to be an empty bedroom, a loose tile sitting off to the side.

  She set the pickax aside and turned to help her mother and grandmother up. They carefully slid the tile back into place and peeked out the open doors. Dozens of doors stood open to what appeared to be empty rooms. From somewhere far away, Cinder could hear the sounds of fighting.

  “Where are we?” Ash asked.

  “I don’t know.” Adjusting her grip on the pickax, Cinder eased into the hallway, where light came in from high windows. She crept forward, straining to identify the objects in shadow. At the end of the hallway, a large golden pivot door stood slightly ajar. On the other side, a fountain trickled gently into a geometric pool. Cinder’s mouth fell open as her gaze landed on the object in the water: a glass idol of the Goddess of Fire.

  “We’re in the temple,” Ash whispered.

  “That’s right next to the lord’s palace,” Cinder said. She suddenly understood why Jatar had needed all those slaves; he’d been digging his way toward the palace. What better way to move his insurgents undetected?

  “Where are all the priestesses?” Ash asked.

  Cinder had no idea where Darsam was or why he hadn’t come for her, and she had no time to find out. “Come on. We have to escape before Jatar returns.”

  They crossed the bethel and hurried into a courtyard of pools of water and trees, all of it surrounded by a short wall, not designed for defending against an army so much as keeping the populace out. They hadn’t even descended all the steps when a dozen men rushed into the courtyard and slammed the gate behind them, sliding the bar over it just as something crashed into it from the other side. The group whirled toward them.

  “Back inside,” Ash hissed.

  “You!” a familiar voice shouted. “You led us into a trap!”

  It was Jatar, and he had spotted Cinder. Not daring to let go of the pickax for even a moment, she put her back into the heavy
pivot door while her mother and grandmother pushed with all their might. They dropped the bar into place. She glanced around, relieved to find the dozens of other pivot doors between the columns shut and bolted tight. But her relief was short lived as an axe slammed into the door.

  “What do we do?” Ash cried.

  “The tunnels,” Cinder said. “I think I can find my way back to the abandoned building.” If they could just keep ahead of Jatar and his men, they could disappear into the city.

  They ran back into what must have been the priestesses’ bedrooms in the center of the temple, but in the dark, each one looked exactly like the others. The three women spread out, searching for the one with the loose tile. In the fifth room Cinder tried, the tile beneath her heel sounded hollow. She set down the pickax, then knelt, dug her fingers under the tile, and lifted it to reveal darkness below. “Here!” she cried, turning.

  A hand buried itself in her hair, wrenching her off her feet and throwing her into the opposite wall. Her side throbbing and her scalp on fire, she looked up as a dozen shadowy figures slipped into the darkened room. She darted forward and grabbed the pickax before rounding on them.

  “Back into the tunnels,” Jatar growled to the other men. “Make for the warehouse. We’ll slip out of the city as planned.” The men dropped down into the darkness. From below, light appeared—someone must have lit a lamp or a torch. For the first time, Cinder could see the blood and gore that coated her captors, as well as herself. More men came into the room, two holding Ash and Storm.

  “Let them go,” Cinder growled, her pickax cocked back.

  Lunging, Jatar brought the back of his sword down on her wrist. Her hand went numb, and the ax clattered from her grasp. He took hold of her hands, shoved them into a loop of rope, and pulled it tight. He pushed her into Durux’s arms.

  “You want us to kill the women?” A man asked.

  “No,” Jatar answered. “We’ll take these three with us as hostages in case we run into any more trouble.” Cinder shot her mother and grandmother a look of desperation as the slavers pushed them down the hole. The last man dropped in after them, leaving Cinder alone with Jatar and Durux.