Breath of Angel (18 page)

“Roots of the forests,” Melaia mumbled. She pushed her pack onto her back, then crawled into the tunnel, bracing her hands against the rough stone walls. Jarrod half crawled, half waddled ahead. She copied his movements awkwardly.

They did not go far before his light flooded a sparkling cavern. Elongated fingers of rock, pink and green, hung from the ceiling and jutted up from the floor.

“You’ll find it a bit roomier for a while,” he said.

Melaia slowed, grateful for the space and amazed to see that a desk and stool had been carved out of the fingerlike rock formation on one side of the room. Scroll niches and shelves of books lined the wall.

“Is this where you keep your archives?” she asked.

“The Angelaeon’s archives, but I’m the keeper. And in case you’re wondering, I checked it last night for Benasin’s book.” He slipped into another tunnel.

“I wasn’t wondering,” said Melaia, following.

This tunnel was large enough to stand in, but it was steep and slippery, and they had to watch their footing. Melaia couldn’t tell east from west as they wound back and forth, ’round and ’round, always downward. It was cool, but sweat trickled down her front and back.

At last they emerged into another cavern, smaller than the first but with a pool of clear water at one side.

“I wonder what the malevolents want,” mused Jarrod.

“Probably me. I know Lord Rejius is poisoning the king.”

“Good.”

“Good?”

“That means they don’t know about Dreia’s book.” He lifted the lantern and gazed at Melaia. “Do they?”

Melaia bit her lip. At Treolli she had said, “I’ve seen a cup made of kyparis and a book covered in it as well.”

“I told Trevin,” she croaked.

“Who the drak droppings is he?”

“Son of Lord Rejius.”

“Lord Rejius has a son now, has he? The way our fortune has been running, malevolents will find the book where we failed.”

“No, they won’t. I found it last night.”

“And you have it with you?”

Melaia patted her pack. She kept the Archae’s visit to herself.

Jarrod continued through the tunnel, this time so fast Melaia was hard-pressed to keep up.

Just when she began to think she was doomed to the bowels of the earth forever, fresh air began to mingle with the dank of the cave. Moments later they stood squinting in the bright outdoors. Melaia drank the air.

Jarrod shaded his eyes and scanned the sky. “No draks.”

Melaia shuddered. “Lord Rejius threatened to turn me into one of those vile creatures.”

“He would have had to transport you to the Dregmoors for that,” said Jarrod, “but he could have done it. Or sent his son to do the job.”

“No doubt his son would have complied.” Trevin might have protested, but she had no doubt that, in the end, he would have done exactly as Lord Rejius wished.

Jarrod eyed the western horizon. “The river ahead should afford us some protection if we can make it there undetected.” He headed to a rocky outcropping and after that a copse.

By the time they gained the cover of shoulder-high rivergrass, dusk had fallen. Only then did Jarrod pause. He broke off dried grass fronds, popped a few seeds into his mouth, and handed some to Melaia. She followed his example, chewing the sweet seeds and sucking nectar from the stems.

Then Jarrod stopped chewing. He crouched among the grasses and motioned for Melaia to do the same. Quietly he parted the stems and pointed at two riders headed toward Aubendahl at a full gallop, followed by two dark birds on the wing.

“Talonmasters,” he said. “Malevolents from the Dregmoors.” He closed the gap in the grass and crept south along the riverbank.

Melaia followed at his heels, anxious to reach the Durenwoods. It was terrifying to think they might be tracing her. Worse, she was afraid Lord Rejius had discovered Dreia’s heir was not a son but a daughter.

Jarrod’s whistle split the quiet of the darkness in the Durenwoods. An answering trill rang from the treetops. “All’s well,” he said.

The night was so black that Melaia felt blind. All was not well. Not at Navia. Not at Redcliff. Not at Aubendahl. And not in her heart. She was small and weak and not at all brave. Why had she ever wanted to be free from the Navian temple? Life had been so much simpler as a priestess with just one city to care for.

Priestesss. Priestesss
, echoed the trees.

Melaia clung to Jarrod’s cloak with one hand and felt her way with the other. At last he came to a stop. A cushion of moss lay beneath her, and she gratefully sank to the ground. She could hear Jarrod scrabbling about; then a flicker of flame illuminated the hollow around them, formed by the ragged roots of a towering tree. The undergrowth was so thick it enveloped them in a dense arbor. Melaia could feel the pulse of the tree, strong and secure, but she warned herself that it might be a false sense of safety. Even the Wisdom Tree had been vulnerable.

Jarrod eyed her for a moment, then ducked out of the hollow. Melaia folded her arms around her pack, lay back in the moss, and found herself thinking about Trevin. She wished he were here instead of Jarrod. The old Trevin, her traveling companion. Not the Trevin of Redcliff, lackey to Lord Rejius.

She groaned. Her feet were numb, her bones were weary, and she wanted sleep. But when she closed her eyes, she saw again the talonmasters galloping toward Aubendahl.

Leaves rustled. Melaia jerked up in alarm. Jarrod sat a few feet away, splitting open a pealmelon with his dagger.

“Were you asleep?” he asked. “I thought you might be hungry.”

Melaia rubbed her temples. “I must have dozed. Bad dreams.”

Jarrod pulled the fruit in two and began scooping out seeds. Yellow juice oozed into the hollows of the melon.

“Where did Livia go?” asked Melaia.

“To Pym.”

“Where was Pym?” She frowned as Jarrod shelled groundnuts over the melons. “Don’t let the shells fall in.”

“Don’t worry.” He tossed a handful of shells on the ground. “Pym went to Navia, remember?”

“So his message came from Navia? Is Hanni all right?”

“The message didn’t say.” Jarrod handed her half the melon and a fistful of groundnuts.

Melaia munched on the groundnuts, thinking of Hanni and the girls and the temple. She thought of the night the hawkman came and ordered her to tell the tale of the Wisdom Tree. He had asked for the end of the story, but as yet, it hadn’t ended. She wondered if she would be part of the ending.

And what about Benasin? She eyed Jarrod, who was drinking juice from his pealmelon. “Would you know about the Firstborn?” she asked.

“Lord Rejius?”

“And Benasin, the Second son?”

“Perhaps.”

“I thought Benasin was immortal, but I saw his spirit leave his body. He died.” Melaia sipped the melon’s flowery sweet juice.

“You’re a death-prophet, then.”

She nodded and took another drink.

“Did you see Benasin’s body decompose?”

Melaia shuddered. “I’ve never seen anyone’s body decompose.”

“But you know they do. Yet Benasin doesn’t. He has been killed before. His spirit wanders for a while, then reenters his body, and it lives again.”

“Do angels do the same? Will Dreia return?”

“Angels are forms of light, invisible to human eyes unless the angel takes on a fleshly body—or near flesh, as with the Archae. If an angel’s physical form is killed, the spirit remains but doesn’t enter the body again except by divine directive.”

Melaia licked a drip of juice from her finger. “But Benasin is different.”

“His mortal body gained immortality,” said Jarrod.

“So he’s not dead.” A great sense of relief washed over her. She had gotten Benasin killed, but she hadn’t. She leaned back, suspecting she wasn’t thinking too sharply. “Perhaps he’ll go back to Navia.” She eyed the juice. It coated her throat like honey.

“You can be sure Lord Rejius will transport Benasin’s body to a place where the Firstborn holds advantage before Benasin’s spirit reenters it.”

Melaia licked her lips. Her tongue felt thick. “It’s like a game.”

“And the world is the prize.”

“The prize …” Melaia blinked heavily. “You put dreamweed in my melon juice, didn’t you?”

“Just to help you sleep. You seem agitated. We’ve a long journey ahead of us, and you’ll make it easier if you’re rested.”

“And you?”

“I need to be alert and keep watch. I thought maybe you’d allow me to take a look at Dreia’s book as I sit here.”

“I’ve not even looked at it myself,” Melaia said. Or perhaps merely thought. Or dreamed.

M
orning came with sunlight streaming through the branches of the forest canopy. Birds trilled their sunrise songs, and bushy-tailed squirrels foraged under leaf piles to gather winter stores. As Melaia tramped through the woods behind Jarrod, All’s-Well whistles echoed from sylvan to sylvan, oak to elm.

Assssk. Assssk
, the trees whispered as she wondered if Jarrod would let her ask a few questions. She decided the real question was if he would answer.

“Jarrod,” she said, “what powers do you have?”

“What kind of question is that?” he asked.

“Livia said you’re a warrior angel.”

“I can protect you, if that’s what you mean. I can wield a sword.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “I’m death with a dagger.”

“But those are human skills.”

“Where do you think the sword came from?”

“Humans?”

“Their proud, lethal legacy.”

“But the Firstborn can change shapes,” she pointed out. “The Second-born too.”

“Earth-magery. Sorcery. Alchemy. The immortals have had almost two hundred years to craft their chaos.”

“You know a lot about it, don’t you?”

“I’m just a font of knowledge,” he said.

And one who’s tired of answering questions
, thought Melaia. She asked no more.

A strange yip rang out. Jarrod yanked Melaia into a clump of bushes and drew her cloak all the way over her. She peered through a space where the edges overlapped. Jarrod crouched beside her, covered in his own cloak. He was so still it was as if he had disappeared.

A flutter of wings sounded above them. A dry leaf drifted down. Melaia could barely see the tail of a drak on a branch directly overhead. The bird rasped a raucous call that drew a harsh echo from another drak nearby. It flapped its wings, changed its position. Melaia could no longer see it, but she could hear its cry, closer now. Again the strident echo came. It, too, was closer.

The ping of a bowstring sounded from above. Then another. The two draks tumbled to the ground, where they rooted and sprouted into black-barked saplings.

Melaia held tight to her pack. Sylvans scrambled back up into the trees, their bows at the ready. Another leaf drifted down, and the All’s-Well warbled through the woodland again.

Jarrod emerged from his cloak. “Let’s get back to Wodehall,” he said. As they left the grove, he pointed to the new saplings. “Sylvan power. Earthbound. And way beyond me.”

By the third night after reentering the Durenwoods, Melaia was safely back in her bower room at Wodehall. Dreia’s book lay before her on the mat where she sat listening to the comforting
shush
of tree-thought. She ran her fingers over the sign of the Tree carved into its cover. A warm
thrum
met her touch. As she eased the book open, she glanced around the room, wondering if the Archae would appear again. But all was still and quiet.

She read again the first line:
For My Child
. Then she turned the page.

Freedom
, Melaia thought. Was this Dreia speaking of herself? If so, did her death nullify the saying? Having no answers, she turned to the next page and found:

Melaia shivered and murmured, “Me.” At least according to Livia. Maybe Livia could help decipher the other sayings as well.