Haven (War of the Princes) (6 page)

           
“Don’t go,” the disembodied voice begged. “It’s dark in here. I saw your light.”

           
I crouched there and covered my lantern with my body. Breath didn’t dare escape my lips. I didn’t move a muscle. After everything I’d gone through, would my story end here? Katelyn Kestrel, discoverer of the outside world, eaten alive by ghouls.

           
“Are you a ghost?” the voice asked. His accent was unlike anything I’d heard before. It pulled at his words in curious ways.

           
I could hear my own heart pounding in my chest. I wanted to get up, but if I did, whoever it was would be able to see me again until I got to the back of my passage.

           
“Are you a ghost up there?” he repeated. His voice was unusual in the relative quiet; it was not overly loud, but filled the cave, echoing faintly against the stone walls of its passages.

           
“No,” I answered cautiously, breaking his waiting silence. Funny, I had been wondering the exact same thing about him.

           
“Are you sure?” he pressed.
 

           
“Very,” I replied. “Are
you
?”

           
“No,” he said.

           
“Are you a… umm… monster?” I asked, fully aware that the question made me sound childish. “A blood-sucking… something?”

Yeah, it was a dumb thing to say, but I’d just crawled around a graveyard crypt and climbed into a dry, glowing pool. A little reassurance couldn’t hurt.

           
“Of course not,” he answered. He was quiet for a time. “I haven’t heard a voice in three days. I only saw you for a moment. I thought my fever returned.”

           
My ears soaked up the strange accent. Something about it made me want to hear it more, just to study it. The timber of his voice was enticing on its own.

           
“I’m not a fever,” I assured him. A cautious person would have kept her mouth shut, but I was blissfully naive. I was from Haven Valley, after all. “Why did you have one? A fever, I mean. And what are you doing in this
cave
?”

           
“I’m healing. I was wounded fighting
Lurchers
, forced to hide here until my companions return for me. I’m still waiting for them,” he answered freely.

           
My heart started at the word “fighting.” I hadn’t the slightest clue what a
Lurcher
was. The dark cave was feeling more frightening by the minute. I couldn’t continue this strange conversation without a little assurance that I wasn’t talking to a wraith. The hair on the back of my neck stood up.

           
“What are you doing here?” he called up to me.

           
“Exploring. Look, can I at least see you? So I know you’re not a seven hundred year old zombie?” I asked suddenly. A disembodied voice in the darkness was too eerie a companion for my reckless imagination. I watched the ground with morbid fear, expecting to see a body of bones held together by leathery sinew go shambling by.

           
I heard the shuffling noise again and leaned forward over the cliff to get a better view.

           
A young man, maybe a bit older than me, limped into view below. I could barely see the outline of his features in his flickering lantern light. He was lean in a muscular way, his skin was a warm brown and he had closely cropped black hair. His right arm was in a makeshift sling.

           
A little sigh of relief escaped my lips. There was nothing to fear after all. He was just an injured guy, and he was way down there. I sat up a little more and held up my lantern so he could see me.

           
I waved. He waved back.

           
Under the circumstances, I probably should have been afraid. I wasn’t. Maybe it was because he was injured, or because of the vertical distance between us, but there was also something about the tone of his voice and his posture that was disarming.

           
“Are you from
Rivermarch
?” I asked, seeking more verification that I had really found the outside world.

           
“Where?” he asked, confused. I didn’t elaborate. I could hardly think clearly anymore.

           
When silence was my only reply, he asked a different question. “
Lurchers
are thick in this region. Are you in any sort of trouble?”

           
I was just as confused with his question as he was with mine. I had no idea what to say.

           
“Are you wounded?” he asked, craning his neck to get a better look at me. It was clear that he was pretty battered. One hand gripped the shoulder of his bad arm. “Do you need help?”

           
The injured guy was asking me if
I
was hurt.

           
“No, no. I’m fine,” I assured him.

           
I don’t know what first gave me the idea, but I reached into my bag and felt around.

           
“If you’re stuck in here waiting for your friends, and it’s been three days, how are you on food and water?” I asked.

           
“Not so good,” he admitted. “Water, I have in plenty.”

           
I could hear a little “plink” as he tossed something into the pool below.

           
“Ah, yeah, I should have thought of that,” I said, scratching my head with mild embarrassment.

           
“No, you’re right, some water isn’t safe to drink. But this is okay,” he informed me.

           
Grabbing my wrapped sandwiches out of my bag, I flung them each as far as I could over the side. Two of them plopped to the ground, but one hit water.

           
“Food,” I said.

           
“Thank you,” he called up to me. “Don’t worry, I’ll fish that one out. I have a walking stick around here somewhere.”

           
Lit by his meager lantern in the gauzy darkness, I could see him sit carefully down with a sigh. He unraveled one of my wrapped sandwiches and began to eat.

           
“They’re not gourmet or anything,” I said, interrupting the quiet.

           
Only after finishing the first sandwich did he reply. “They’re excellent. I feel better already.”

           
For some reason that made me happy.

           
“Did you make them?” he asked.

           
“Well, no,” I said, wishing all at once that I could take credit for them. “My, well, my step-mom made them. I just kind of… took them from the kitchen.”

           
Just that quickly, I went from feeling happy to feeling stupid. I could have lied, but it hadn’t seemed worth it. I mean, why be embarrassed that I didn’t make some sandwiches for a stranger?

           
“And if you hadn’t, I would still be starving. Thank you for your generosity,” he said eloquently.

           
Completely quelled, my embarrassment crept away, replaced by shy self-satisfaction.
 
“No problem,” I said, unprepared to be treated with such appreciation.

           
Exhaustion began to catch up with me. My limbs were feeling very heavy. I had to get back. My mind and my body had been through so much strain. It was a lot to digest.

           
“I have to leave now,” I told him, rising to retrace my steps.

           
“Wait,” he called me again. “What’s your name?”

           
“Katelyn,” I replied, beginning to understand just how shocked and dazed I was from the evening’s events.

           
“Katelyn, the ghost of the cave,” he muttered, sounding even more tired than I was. “I’m Rune.”

           
“Rest up Rune,” I said before turning to make my way back home. “I think you might still have a fever.”

Maybe I had one too. I’d made a groundbreaking discovery that could make history, trespassed over the dead, interacted with a magical pool that I didn’t have words to describe, and then ended the night having a very simple conversation with someone outside of the world I knew. It wasn’t electrifying or impossibly fantastical, it was
real
.

And it’d all happened on a school night.
 

Chapter 8: Facing Reality

           
Nothing short of the end of the world could have kept me awake through Advanced Literature class. My adventures the evening before had been more than a diversion from my problems with Calvin, they utterly consumed my thoughts and even my dreams.

           
What little sleep I had the previous night was plagued by visions of tombs and ghosts. I had two short dreams in which I’d never even gone to the graveyard or crawled into the mausoleum. In both of those, I was convinced that my discovery was a dream I’d had while reading The Settling of
Rivermarch
. When I actually did awaken, the only things to assure me that the events
had
occurred were the dirty clothes on my floor and Dad’s mild complaints about a muddy pony in the stable.

           
I should have gotten an award for how quickly I’d gotten ready for school and how hard I tried to stay awake through my classes. I guess my collapse was inevitable, but I wished it had been during lunch. After skipping breakfast, I was too hungry to sleep.

           
Dozing in Lit. class got me some extra homework and the taunts and teases of other students. On a normal day, I would have been embarrassed. I would have stewed with hurt feelings or tried too hard to counteract my shame. But that day was different. I wasn’t going to care what people said about me. They couldn’t reach me now. There were more important things going on. I hurried in step with Ruby on our way to the class I had been waiting all day for: Advanced Valley History.

           
“I didn’t see you at lunch,” I said to her, practically bursting on the inside with the untold story of my adventure. Ruby and I didn’t keep secrets, and this one was dying to get out. No pun intended. I hadn’t seen Kyle either, but it wasn’t unusual for him to eat in the Hobby Shop while he tinkered with something.

           
“I know, I was in the nurse’s office,” she winced, pushing her glasses up. “Where’d you get that bruise on your shin? It’s huge! You should have gone with me. I wanted to tell you before I went, but I didn’t see you this morning.”

           
“I was late,” I said simply. An explanation should have followed, but I paused. I didn’t know where to start. I wrung my hands, suddenly awash with nerves. How could she believe what I was about to tell her? It would sound ridiculous. Unreal.

           
My shin and elbow still throbbed with the bruises I got from thrashing away from the spider in the stone tunnel the night before. What would she think if I told her I’d spent the night crawling through an empty tomb hole?

           
I didn’t need to explain. A pause was all she needed to rush into what was bothering her. Ruby Rush. Not a coincidence.

           
“Kat,” she put both of her hands on my shoulders and stopped me dead in my tracks. “Sterling hung out with
us
last night.
Sterling Mason.
I still can’t believe it. I keep replaying all the stupid things I said last night in my head. And when I think about it, I just feel… nauseous. I don’t know what to do when I see him. I’m
afraid
to see him.”

           
I sighed. It wasn’t that I didn’t care. I did. I knew how much she liked Sterling and for how long, but it just seemed so trivial.

I
knew something that could change Haven Valley.

           
With a tug on her arm, I forced her into motion so we wouldn’t be late for class.

           
“Relax
Ru
,” I heard myself say. “It’s what you wanted. Just be yourself.”

           
I felt as guilty as a liar. Sterling’s descent from the lofty throne of clouds Ruby imagined him on was the last thing on my mind. I said what a good friend should say, but I was so grandly preoccupied. My discovery was just too important.

           
“
Ru
, listen,” I said anxiously. “About last night…”

           
My second pause was yet another opportunity for her to jump in. “I know, I shouldn’t think too much of it. We hardly know each other. I mean, we did have those classes together in seventh grade, but we were totally different back then,” she blurted, opening the classroom door for me. “Why does he make me so nervous?
I’m
usually the collected one.”