Court of Fives (Court of Fives #1)

He eases me back. We are face-to-face with nothing between us. “Listen to me, Jes. You’re exhausted. But it’s all right. We can do this.”

He can’t see the sparks. As they fall, flash, and vanish, the bridge fades until I can no longer see the chamber, only breathe in its ancient salt-dust odor. Did I hallucinate it all? Yet when I touch my chest the sling hangs limp because they took the baby. My brother is alive.

The pressure of Kalliarkos’s hand on the small of my back makes me so aware of how close he stands. His breathing quickens.

“Jes,” he whispers as softly as a promise I never knew was made. I have been yearning for such a promise all my life.

“I don’t have to hide behind a mask when I’m with you,” I say.

“Jes! Where are you?” Maraya’s frantic tone cuts between us, and I pull back from him.

She stands at the edge of the lamplight. The boy nurses industriously in Mother’s arms as Cook supports her. Amaya clutches our sister as if she means to shield her from malevolent spirits. Ro-emnu has an arm thrown protectively around Coriander but it is he who looks stricken and she who seems to be whispering reassurances as they look nervously around the chamber. The oracle lies facedown on the floor.

“I’m here,” I say as Kalliarkos and I walk over.

Amaya grabs my arm, shaking it like she means to yank it off. “What were those sparks, Jes?”

“You saw them?”

“Of course I saw them! They passed right through my flesh. I thought I was turning to smoke. What were they?”

“What sparks?” asks Cook, looking up.

When Ro-emnu and Coriander nod at each other I know they saw them too.

“Do you have some boring Archivist’s explanation, Merry?” Amaya demands.

Maraya shakes her head slowly. “No. I can’t explain that with ropes and pulleys and wires. It was like the hearts of a thousand stars pierced my body and flew right through me.”

Mother whispers, “The land is the Mother of All. She gave birth to the five souls that bind us. The souls arise from the land. If we forget Her then She will forget Her children.”

To hear such a superstitious utterance pour out of my mother’s lips shocks me. By the sweating shine of her face I see that she is feverish.

“Why is it so cold?” she adds.

We three girls look at one another, for while it is cool here beneath the earth, it is not so cold as to make a person shiver as she is doing.

Ro-emnu kneels, offering her a flask. “Honored Lady, will you drink in honor of the five?”

“I’m so cold,” she says. “I’m not thirsty.”

“Amaya, get Mother to drink.” I stand. “Kal, help me look for a way out.”

He frowns as Cook and my sisters fuss over Mother and the babies. “We can only use one lamp at a time. We risk running out of oil now that we’ve lost the reservoir.”

So he and I and Ro-emnu leave them in the dark and with a single lamp we discover five passages leading out of this chamber: two lead down, one up, one is level, and the fifth is the bridge. I enter the closest ramp, one of the two leading down. A few steps into the featureless passageway, I take in a deep breath of the musty air to see if I can smell sky or sea, but it is all dust and silence.

Light throws wavering shadows on the wall. They stretch with monstrous limbs reaching out for me, and I jump back.

“Careful,” says Kalliarkos, coming up behind me with the lamp. I know he has my back.

Now that he’s brought up light we can see that both ceiling and floor drop away in a jumble of collapsed masonry: the passage is blocked. As we retreat the light glimmers over four lines like pointed caps gouged halfway up the passageway’s opening.

“Doesn’t that look like the mark for Rivers?” I say.

“Kal, let’s try the one that leads up,” says Ro-emnu. I follow them, and as they enter I can’t help but glance at that same spot halfway up the right-hand wall where, at the entrance to each Fives obstacle, its identifying mark is carved. There it is! As they go in I pause to trace five interlocked circles incised into the stone: Rings.

Inside the passage, their voices crow in triumph. “Stairs!”

Light chases shadows as they hurry back, congratulating each other, but when they reach me I grab the lamp out of Kalliarkos’s hand.

“Come with me!” The other passageway leading down is marked with four parallel lines of uneven length: Trees. The arches overlooking the cavern are marked with the doubled inverted pyramid of Traps. The last passageway, the one that is level, spans a ditch and then cuts straight into what seems to be solid rock, not part of a building at all.