Chapter Five
Something snarled next to Bethany in the darkness, along with a distorted voice that said, “I'm changing. I'll grab you and run!”
Seconds later, a big, hairy hand swooped her up. Yelena's gasp joined with Bethany's, and then they were off, with Yelena's glow necklaces flickering back to life. Again, she'd tugged on the threads of dying light and returned them to their resting place.
“Sorry,” she muttered, before bracing herself on Ronan's back. Riding like this was uncomfortable—Bethany much preferred a horse. At least her head wouldn't whip about quite so much, and the ache in the back of her scalp might stop at last.
No one wanted to wait around long enough to see what had made the noise. Bethany dug her fingers into Ronan's fur, feeling his muscles jerk and contract at the tips.
No sooner had they traveled for more than a few minutes when Ronan gave a startled yelp and pitched forward, flinging both women into sticky, gloopy mud. Instantly, Bethany latched her light onto anything within range of her vision. Ronan lay half buried in the mud.
He let out another whimper, and disappeared from view.
What? Bethany struggled, finding herself sinking rapidly. Yelena screamed, flailing, but before Bethany had time to react, the wet mud reached her face, sucking her down, and she slid in the tight, suffocating darkness, unable to yell, her heartbeat thundering in her neck and ears.
No, this wasn't possible. This shouldn't be happening. Her blood crystallized. She tried thrashing again, but a moment later, her legs dangled, then her waist, and she slid out of the sand, thumping onto solid ground. Yelena joined with a pained whimper, having lost the energy to scream. Ronan growled and coughed to the side, saturated in mud. Above them, the ceiling seemed to hang, bulging ponderously. The gaps which they fell through resealed themselves, but not after chunks of mud tumbled down on top of them.
“Wha—” Bethany wheezed. Her chest squeezed, making it hard to inhale properly. “What in nights just happened?”
“That's no quicksand,” Yelena said, slumping onto her elbows, spitting out mud. “Quicksand sinks only a meter at most.”
Coughing, Ronan transformed into his human form. “It's... magically held together. Look.” He pointed at the ceiling. For the first time, Bethany noticed the wisps of darkness that oozed out of the mud. Hard to see when the world was dark, obviously... “I've heard of these places before. They're cave seals. Hiding entrances to the catacombs. Which are supposed to be where many night horde creatures dwell. Not that anyone plans to risk themselves trying out every swamp pit they happen to find.” He wiped his hands. “Ugh.”
Yelena crawled a short distance. “Water. Here.” They edged over to her, and used the brackish water to wash themselves off, churning some of the silt in it. Bethany threaded their clothes with warmth, aiming to dry them off and make sure no one caught hypothermia.
Not having any other choice, they progressed through the newly revealed tunnel, since the ceiling was too high for them to reach and probably impossible to crawl through anyway. Within moments, they stumbled across an underground orchard, fed by the black smoke, stretching out in a large, cavernous expanse.
“People definitely live here,” Yelena muttered, her eyes slightly wild. But no houses or structures revealed themselves in the light. Just the twisted, uneven fields of fruit trees, and little trickling rivers.
“It doesn't look well tended to,” Bethany said. Everything had been allowed to grow wild.
Exhausted, apprehensive, they chose to settle in this place for now, to eat, drink, and sleep upon the highest point of the cave, Bethany's warmth enveloping them. After resting, they gathered what fruits they could fit into Yelena's backpack, the purple and green fruits in particular, and tentatively edged forward into unknown territory. To night horde territory.
The darkness bathed them, and their lights were painfully visible in this place that had perhaps seen no light in centuries. They slept long and quiet, taking it in turns to stay awake and watch the darkness for movement. Tempers frayed until they took the time to relax. No sense pushing themselves when they already had been pushed for a while. Even if they risked running into whatever lived down here.
“Wonder what it must have been like to live here,” Ronan said in a sleepy voice, startling Bethany out of her vigil. “Tending the fruits. Growing things underground without any need for light.”
Yelena snored lightly near Bethany's feet, her blonde hair flopped out in a mess.
“Maybe a group of humans moved in here,” Bethany said with a shrug. “After the sun went out. They tried making something of themselves here.” She rubbed her tired eyes. She didn't want to talk about whoever might have dwelled here once, though. “Ronan, do you miss your family?”
The werewolf's yellow eyes turned from jovial to grave. “Of course. Thinking about them helped me through the worse times. Thinking about how they must be looking for me. Wondering.”
“Did you feel disappointed that they didn't come?”
He sighed. “I don't see how that's relevant. But yes. I was. Though I understand. What's with the suddenly personal questions?”
“I just want to know more about you. Who you are. How you coped.”
“You'll get plenty of time to know who I am when we get back, Princess.” He gave her a gentle smile, and reached over a hand to envelop hers in warmth, mixing with the heat transference.
“How can you be sure? Because our luck's been pretty awful so far.”
“Oh, I wouldn't say that.” The smile grew. “My luck changed when you came into my life. Did I mention that I'm terribly grateful about not being enslaved?”
“Maybe a few dozen times.” Bethany didn't move her hand away. She liked the feeling of his big palm cupping hers.
Her eyes locked with his. Such earnest eyes. For a moment, Bethany imagined herself crossing the small distance between them and kissing those lips.
Then, just as quickly as the thought appeared, she banished it furiously from mind.
No.
She wasn't going to kiss someone she'd only known for, what? Three nights? Four?
Though it seemed much, much longer than that.
Already, the carriage on the lightwoven path seemed aeons ago. That past belonged to a different Bethany. One who would never contemplate breaking the law in making necessary sacrifices. In deliberately, perhaps coldly, choosing her own life.
She wasn't sure if she liked the Bethany that had replaced her.
Yelena stirred in her sleep, before opening bleary yellow eyes. “Oh, good,” Yelena said. “You're not kissing.”
Bethany flushed. Ronan laughed, before helping the girl get up to her feet. Refreshed after drinking more water from the little streams, though Yelena needed to cough out some of the dark fluid in her throat due to her ongoing swamp fever, they continued their wanderings along the catacombs.
Such an eerie place. Past the orchards, they were greeted with long, winding tunnels, some that ended abruptly in deep, deadly drops. Others that were caved in with rock. Several times they passed skeletons.
Ronan didn't opt for carrying them this time. In such a tight, unfamiliar place, he wanted his limbs free to protect. And it gave Bethany ample opportunity to study the network of tunnels, thinking about what Ronan had said about living underground.
She would hate it. Having the walls close in like this, like the twisting body of a worm.
Parts of the tunnels had lightwoven paint upon the walls. Paint that had cracked and faded with time.
Eventually, they saw a faint light ahead, and approached cautiously, Ronan in his wolf form, Yelena holding her dagger like she meant to use it. They entered a dome-like cavern with faint light coming off the sloping walls.
Patterns adorned the sides. Murals, paintings of a long ago dwelling. Lightwoven paint that had stood the test of time. Perhaps a temple dedicated to some ancient god. A civilization lost when the endless dark came. Such beautiful, if faded, pictures. The images glowed with fluorescent light—the paint itself had a lumpy, blotchy quality to it, but it allowed the images to tell a story.
In succession, the walls showed an image of the mythical sun—yellow in a painted blue sky, juxtaposed by the moon, a dark gray object with a tinge of red on the side.
Like the corona of red seen in the sky in the warmest part of night. She held her breath, eyes absorbing the images. Trying to comprehend what they meant. The images that gave her most pause, however, was one of a single figure, black silhouetted hands straining towards the sun. The light funnelled off the sun, taken by the shadow man, until nothing remained but a dark spot in a dark sky.
Bethany stared, stunned.
She thought about the way she had taken all the light from the camp. From the fires.
According to the painting, the sunlight had been stolen.
An old poem stirred to mind.
“And the sun went out,” she recited. “And the moon moved in.” Her hands traced over the next image. Where the dark gray moon had been moved in front of the sun. Because, of course, even if there was no light, they could still get the sun's heat. The sun's rays. “And the stars were gone...” The glowing dots in the black sky disappeared in the pictures—the shadow man taking them all.
“How did we never discover this before?” Ronan's nose was practically pressed to the images, his eyes ablaze with newfound knowledge. With realization.
Other images showed after the darkness. People holding burning light swords. Conjuring light monsters. Fighting against those who oozed the anti-light, the darkness. The shadow man's people. People who fought, with agonized faces, weeping eyes.
“What does this all mean?” Yelena traced her fingers over the warm and glowing wall. “And why doesn't anyone know about this?”
The last image showed the warriors of light surrounding the shadow man. Defeating him.
And yet the sun remained lost.
No. Not lost. “The sun never vanished,” Bethany said softly, eyes upon the shadow man, who kneeled with spears of light bursting from his chest. “The light was stolen.”
“Like what you did,” Yelena hissed.
“Yes. Except... what he's done here is impossible. No one can steal that much light. And the heat—we'd still feel the heat. We'd just be in the dark.”
“Not if you do this.” Ronan tapped the moon. “Not if that's blocking the main part of the heat.”
“Some still gets through, though.” Bethany chewed her lip.
“Not much. The moon must move, though. Since we see that red in the sky, like a giant banana.”
“Banana...? Really? That's your description?” Yelena frowned.
“Well...” Ronan shrugged. “I think it's accurate.”
“Bananas aren't even red.”
“We need scholars on this,” Bethany said, cutting off whatever argument the others were about to start. “I know a few people who would give their right hands to be in on such a treasure trove as this. Can you imagine that? Seeing in plain sight what happened?”
“That's assuming it's real. It could be someone's fanciful idea of what happened,” Ronan said, instantly deflating Bethany's hopes.
For a wild moment, she had seen in these images a potential solution to the disappearance of the sun. A way to fulfill her secret fantasy of returning it. Back to a time when light wasn't a precious commodity, but something taken for granted. No one needed lightweaving. Not when half the time, the shadows had been chased away.
But who was this shadow man? What did he represent? An actual figure who stole the light? A group? Or just a fevered mind's explanation for what had happened?
It did make a kind of sense, though. The sort of sense that dug into her soul and whispered an unseen truth. That what she did with her magic was similar to what this creature did, a long time ago.
Well, aside from the moving the moon incident. Bethany felt fairly sure she couldn't even move a speck of dust in that manner.
“If we can get out without dying, then sure,” Yelena said. “You can lead your scholars to this place.”
Right. The dying part. Ronan gently placed a warm hand on Bethany's shoulder. “We'll be fine. We've survived so far. The gods aren't done with us yet.”
“That's nice. I'm done with all this.” Bethany threw her hands into the air. “I just wanted to go and help my damn sister. Nights, is that a crime? It's like the world is punishing me for acting out against my parents.”
“Maybe it's not all punishment.” Ronan's eyes locked with hers. Her breath caught in her throat. Something passed between them. A bolt of electricity. An unspoken secret. Something, anyway.
Her lady parts also had an interesting and rather inappropriate reaction. She flushed furiously and coughed to break the tension. Yelena started laughing from the side.
“Man, you two have got to get a room. It's getting embarrassing.”
“Oh, we will. Mind moving into the next one?” Ronan winked at her, and she snorted.
“Judging by Bethany's face, I think she wants me to stay here,” Yelena said, and Bethany let out an audible sigh.
“We're in the middle of a labyrinth and you're cracking these jokes?”
“Where else? Always time for some light.” Ronan smiled again. “Otherwise life would be rather gloomy, wouldn't it?”
“But it is gloomy,” Yelena pointed out. “On account of everything being so damn dark all the time.”
“And people being bastards,” Bethany added.
“Is Yelena a bastard? Am I? Is your sister?”
“That's not what I meant.”
“Cheer up,” he said, nudging her. “We'll be out soon.”
“Says the guy who was chained up for three years.”
“Still got out, didn't I?”
Bethany decided not to press the issue. Ronan threw back everything she said anyway. Bethany didn't know how to handle such an attitude. Not that she really minded it—the only other person she saw it in was Kiara.
And she never understood Kiara. How she could rate unimportant things as important. How she smiled all the time, even as she fell behind in her lessons and got mocked by the other women at court, because she wasn't developing into a proper lady.
Bethany, though, acted poised, proper, and dignified. She gave polite and thin smiles, showing nothing of her real feelings, and people applauded her for it.
Fake applause, really. A lifetime of always keeping her real thoughts behind a thin veil. Of always following the laws, upholding them as if the rules of society were the only thing that mattered.
And then she abandoned all those principles in a ridiculously short space of time.
Perhaps anyone would, if faced with the same things as her. Perhaps what really mattered were not the laws of society at all, but the life that breathed inside her. The desire to stay alive, to do anything to keep it.
In a way, I'm no better than those bandits. They just lost their illusions a long time ago.
Her heart gave a pang at this. If Ronan found out what sort of thoughts really lurked in her brain, she doubted he'd be so interested in her. A “god” like him wanted one of the proper women to marry. Bethany only pretended to be a proper woman. She fed the illusion like she fed light to objects. She made it bright enough for others to see, but there was nothing inside but that black mist.
“Get your brooding face off,” Ronan ordered, “and get your walking boots on. We're moving.”
Bethany slipped out of her reverie and followed Ronan and Yelena. Well, maybe she could allow herself to dream a little longer.
To wear that mask until everyone saw her for who she really was. A shallow woman, stuffed full of ideas that were never hers, but the product of her parents. Her limited world.