Easy, easy. Everything in Merik’s life had been easy.
In a rough burst of speed, Vivia finished her partial undressing, yanking off her boots and peeling off her coat. Then she began her routine as she always did: she hissed, “Extinguish.”
Darkness snuffed across the cavern, and she held her breath, waiting for her eyes to adjust … There. Starlight began to twinkle.
Not true starlight, but streaks and sprinkles and sprays of luminescent fungi that offered more than enough light to see by once Vivia’s vision adapted. Four main spokes crawled across the rock, meeting at the ceiling’s center. Foxfire, her mother had called it.
There should have been six spokes, though, and there had been six spokes until nine weeks ago, when the farthest stripe—at the opposite end of the lake—had winked out. Leaving five lines for another three weeks … Until another rivulet had vanished too.
Never had the light died in Vivia’s life, nor during Queen Jana’s. In fact, it had been at least two centuries since any of the six spokes had winked out.
It was a sign that our people were too weak to keep fighting, Jana had explained. And it was a sign that the royal family was too weak to keep protecting.
So the city’s people had hidden underground, in a vast city carved into the rock. Where more foxfire grew in such huge magical masses that it was enough light for plants to grow—or enough light so long as Plantwitches were there to supplement and support.
The under-city is as big as Lovats above, my Little Fox. Powerful witches, the likes of which we no longer have today, built it centuries ago as a hiding place to keep our people alive.
Vivia had wanted to know more. How was the city built, Mother? Why aren’t there powerful witches like that now? How does the foxfire know we’re too weak? And where is the city?
These were all excellent questions, but ones for which Jana had had no answer. After their ancestors’ final use of the city, it had been sealed off. No records left behind, no clues to follow.
There was one question, though, that Vivia had never dared to ask: Will you ever show this to Merik? She hadn’t wanted to know the answer, hadn’t wanted to risk putting the idea in her mother’s head. This had been their space, mother and daughter.
And now this was her space. Vivia’s. Alone.
She stepped lightly to the lake’s edge. Green light splayed across the surface, dancing in time to the water’s flow. Flickering with the occasional fish or shell creature. The strength of the water poured into Vivia before her toes even hit the edge. Her connection to the ripples and tides, the power and the timelessness.
The lake embraced Vivia instantly. A friend to keep her safe. The waters cooled her toes, and as she dipped her hands into the vastness of it all, her eyes drifted shut. Then she felt her way through every drop of water that flowed through the plateau. This was her power. This was her home.
Vivia’s magic snaked through the lake, bouncing over creatures that lived for all eternity in this dark world. Over rocks and boulders and treasure long lost and long forgotten. Upstream, her magic climbed. Downstream, her magic swept. Time melted into a lost thing—a human construct that the water neither cared for nor needed.
All was well with the lake. So Vivia shrank back into herself, loss brushing along the edges of her being. It always did when her connection to the lake ended. If she could, she would never leave. She would plant roots in this lake and fall into it forever—
Vivia shook herself. No. No. She had to keep moving. Like the river, like the tides.
With her arms hugged tight to her chest, she stalked from the water. In moments, her boots were on—wet toes curling in dry leather—and she was scooping up her lantern once more. Yesterday, she had explored a series of caverns that spiraled above the lake. They’d ended at a cave-in, and on the other side, Vivia had sensed water. Moving water, like the vast floods that cleaned the Cisterns.
She wanted to try to clear a path through the cave-in’s rubble, for though churning rapids might wait on the other side, churning rapids were no barrier for a Tidewitch.
Vivia was almost to a key split in the tunnels, when something landed on her head.
She flinched, hands flinging to her scalp. Legs, legs, legs spindled over her hair. She swatted. Hard. A black spot flew to the cavern floor.
A wolf spider, monstrous and fuzzy. Its legs stretched long as it scampered away, leaving Vivia to catch her breath. To slow her booming heart.
An almost hysterical laugh bubbled in her throat. She could face down entire navies. She could ride a waterfall from mountain peak to valley’s end. She could battle almost any man or woman and be named victor.
But a spider … She shivered, shoulders rolling high. Before she could resume her forward, upward march, she spotted movement near her feet. Up the cavern walls too.
The wolf spider wasn’t the only creature scratching its way to the surface, nor the only creature shaking with terror. A centipede—no, tens of them—curled out of crevices near Vivia’s feet. Salamanders slithered up the walls.
Blessed Noden, where were all these creatures coming from?
And more important, what were all these creatures running from?
SEVEN
Half a day of walking.
Half a day of thirst.
The walking had been easy enough. Somehow Safi had lost her shoes in the surf, yet even barefoot, Safi had trained for this. And even with her foot smashed by an iron flail two weeks before, she could march for miles.
But the thirst … That was a new experience, and it was made all the worse by the endless brackish water slithering through the mangroves, none of it drinkable.