The room was ablaze with sunlight shifting over polished wood walls. Dev's clothes stuck to his skin with each twist of aching muscle as he pushed himself upright, his fingers sinking into the lofty featherbed in Rondan's sparsely furnished guest room. His mouth tasted like blood and excrement, an unwelcome reminder of the previous night. At least Rondan would be out of the villa by now, and Dev wouldn't have to endure another awkward conversation with his hard-nosed captain.
He took advantage of the rare opportunity for privacy, pilfering a sweet bun from Rondan's larder–not that he had much of an appetite–before taking a quick shower and scrubbing his teeth. The improved weather meant less clean water, and Dev felt a twinge of guilt for depleting his captain's stores. Rondan hadn't exactly come to his defense last night, but the man wasn't all bad. Not like Elder Fex... or Calan. At least Rondan hadn't been the one to cry murder.
Stepping outside, it occurred to Dev that he'd never spent so much time at one of the Lightkeeper villas, and he couldn't help but wonder if he'd just glimpsed his future or kissed it goodbye. It was yet to be determined whether one was preferable to the other.
The sky was clear and cloudless, the dry air burning his eyes. It was odd to be on this side of the village midmorning. Usually he was at the sparring field, or making rounds if he didn't have training. The warm weather was no good either, inspiring the opposite reaction one might expect. It was like he'd woken from one distorted nightmare into another, and not for the first time either. The last two days had gone from bad to worse to godsawful.
A flurry of movement in front of the sacral tent caught his eye as he crossed the village. His head was swimming, and it took a moment to remember the commotion wasn't for an upcoming celebration. Which could only mean the Council had already announced Liss' death. It seemed hasty, but Dev had slept in late. If he didn't find somewhere to hide soon, he'd be inundated with weeping juniors. Liss didn't have many friends–come to think of it, maybe he was her only one–but the death of a peer would inspire tears in almost anyone. Especially a violent death.
But where could he go? Not back to the villa. Rondan would return eventually and drag him to Liss' memorial service. And there were sure to be Lightkeepers guarding the mountain crevice. He'd never make it past the entrance. Apart from sneaking into the forest and hoping the changeling bird would show itself in broad daylight, there weren't many options.
A decision was made for him when a small hand tugged on the back of his shirt, spinning him around. Rana's eyes were bloodshot, glittering stone surrounded by pools of despair. She was among the last people Dev wanted to see, and he braced himself for the worst.
"I can get you back inside that tunnel," she whispered. "Follow me."
Dev blinked and blinked, but the look on the girl's face only grew more desperate. "You're serious."
"Yes. That's where Liss went, isn't it? Through the mountain?"
"How did you know?"
Rana shook her head. "Not here. I'll explain when we get there."
Heat from the shining grass and baking cobblestones seeped through his boots as he followed her. The sensation was almost as unsettling as the fact that they were heading farther into the village instead of away from it. Instinct screamed at him to be wary. Rana was the one who'd told Calan everything that happened at the mountain. But a smaller voice closer to the surface whispered a different argument. Rana was Liss' twin; naturally, she would be concerned about Liss' disappearance. The two girls shared blood, and at one time they'd shared their Bearer's womb. Whatever bond lingered between them wasn't coerced or superficial. Maybe Liss only bristled against it because the Council had used Dev as a replacement for a much deeper bond, and he and Liss had been too entangled to notice.
Rana stopped in front of a cluster of small cottages Dev had never visited, just past the much larger Healer's Cottage. Sprigs of herbs hung above the doors, some flowering and green, others dried out and disintegrating. The door of the nearest cottage opened before they reached it, and Mell waved them inside.
The old healer was typically cheerful, but worry etched deeper wrinkles than usual along her forehead this morning. The moment the door clicked shut behind them her arms came around Dev's waist, hugging the breath from him.
His hands stuck out like branches, hanging awkwardly over the wood floor. He'd always liked Mell, but they didn't know each other that well.
"Thank Hona she found you. Where have you been, young man?"
Dev stood back and composed himself. Mell's home was smaller than Rondan's, but the layout was identical. The wide trunk of a hollow tree poked through the ceiling, serving as the cottage's center point and fireplace. A colorful woven rug edged up to his feet at the threshold, extending to the hearth. Cozy cooking and seating areas faced each other on either side of him. Dev supposed the sleeping and bathing areas were in the back, like they were at Rondan's, down the shadowed hallways flanking the fireplace.
He contemplated how to answer Mell's question in mixed company. The old elf and Rana weren't alone: two more women and a man also gathered in the room. Their faces were familiar, but that was as far as Dev's recognition extended. There were hundreds of adults in the clan, and he knew less than half by name. The two women smiled at him from the couch, sipping from shallow glasses of honey-wine. The man stood by the fireplace, an elbow propped between clutches of leafy plants decorating the mantle. His shaggy hair was the color of an unpolished blade, curling above piercing green eyes.
"I was sleeping," Dev mumbled, averting his gaze to the unlit firebox.
"Not the whole time. We heard what happened last night." From the corner of his eye, he saw a shiver ripple across Mell's narrow frame. "So now you know the truth."
Not the whole truth, clearly.
"Are you her Seed?" He figured it went without saying who his question was for.
"No." Mell spat out the word as if it tasted bad. "We don't use those terms here. But no, Wesly is not Liss and Rana's father."
"I'm their uncle," the green-eyed man said. "Their mother–their Bearer–and I were born to the same woman." Dev didn't think it was an accident when the man's gaze slipped to the couch, to the woman with white hair and fine lines around her eyes. Too old to be Liss' Bearer, though she might have been Wesly's. His smile was tight-lipped and somber. "Lera was my sister."
Was?
Rana put her hand on Dev's arm. "Our mother died in childbirth."
Dev twisted away from her, acid rising in his throat. "Why are you here?" Rana didn't favor Mell as much as Liss did, but there were enough similarities to make him feel like an idiot for not putting it together. He turned and glared at the old healer. "Liss needed this. She needed a family more than anyone, and you hid it from her. Worse, you told Rana instead."
Mell wrung her knobby hands together. The bluish-white wisps of hair escaping the bun at the back of her head added to her frazzled appearance. Maybe she was as concerned for Liss as he was, but that didn't explain the secrecy. The lies.
Was the old elf playing favorites, like the Council?
"Mell didn't tell me. I found out when I started apprenticing with the Carers." Rana's voice was soft with guilt. "Many of us double as midwives, and it's important we know the bloodlines... Some of them, anyway."
"We were going to tell both girls everything after Liss' Sixteeth," Mell said, dropping her hands back to her sides. Her glistening eyes found Dev, begging him to hear her out. "But the Council's announcement changed things. Liss was already desperate and upset. We weren't sure how she would react to finding out about Rana and the death of their parents. I thought it best to wait a few weeks for things to settle down."
Dev remembered a little about what family had meant Before, thanks to Liss' stories.
"Are you saying her father is dead, too?"
Mell nodded, the weight of a memory heavy on her shoulders. "Ran was a Lightkeeper. A wildcat attacked him while he was patrolling the forest, not halfway through Lera's pregnancy. It devastated her."
Once a year, the Lightkeepers held a vigil for their fallen comrades. There weren't many who had died in service, and Dev remembered most of their names. It had never occurred to him that Rana's name was in honor of the fallen warrior, which was yet another detail that seemed all too obvious now.
"We brought you here because we want to help. What the Council did to you–and Liss–was wrong." This came from the other woman on the couch. Her golden-brown hair hung in a long braid over her shoulder, like Liss often wore, but the two shared little if any resemblance otherwise. This woman had sharp features, dark brown eyes, and sat half a head taller than the white-haired elf beside her.
A satchel rested on the cushion next to her, which she lifted onto her lap and covered with her hands.
"And just what did the Council do to me?" Dev's thumbs tightened over his closed fists. There was something about the dark-eyed woman's stern expression that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand. If she knew about the Council's influence over his heart, and why they'd wanted him Engaged with Liss, her offer of help was long overdue.
"My name is Marin. I was an apprentice to Bett, but I forfeited my seat as her successor years ago." Her deep sigh suggested a tale existed behind those words. "When I was young, I feared and admired Elder Fex and the Council, as I think most of us do. Like you, I trained with the Lightkeepers. Bett approached me before my initiation and convinced me that training as her apprentice was a higher calling. I learned things I never dreamed possible during my apprenticeship, including secrets they're unaware that I know." Marin fidgeted, drawing her knees together and apart again. She rubbed the back of her neck and gripped the base of her braid, tracing the thick plait back to her lap. "Everyone on the Council is related to Fex, myself included. No one has a hope of rising to the top of the clan unless they share his blood. They've even distorted medical records, so none but those in the Council's inner circle might know the truth. Worse than that, they hide the true history of our people."
It was a filling meal to digest on an empty stomach. Still...
"How does any of that relate to what the Council did to me and Liss?" Dev demanded.
Marin stared at her hands. "There's a long history of the Council influencing Engagements, and the results haven't always been as pleasant as your case. There have been times they've threatened men into Engaging with women of the Council's choosing. Times are truly desperate for them to entertain letting women decide." A cynical sneer twisted her lips. "We're not as easily persuaded as our male counterparts."
Dev didn't think she'd meant it as an insult against him, but her choice of words stung.
"If you all knew this was happening, why didn't you speak up?" Although he focused on Mell, Wesly and the white-haired woman were also in his line of fire. Dev knew little about family, but he knew this was wrong. "You let the Council rip Liss and Rana apart. Did you enjoy watching them suffer?"
"They did what they could," Rana murmured, rubbing her arms as if the oppressive heat Dev felt left a chill in its wake.
"What they could?!" His hollow laughter rang through the cottage.
"Your anger is justified. But we have our reasons." Wesly took a slow step forward. "It surprised you when Fex confessed about pairing you with Liss, didn't it? It was hard to believe. I'm sure it still is." He held up his hands–I'm not a threat. Dev wasn't so sure. "Imagine what would happen if we went out there, right now, and told everyone the truth. Including things we've yet to tell you. Do you think anyone would believe us? Would you have believed it, if Fex hadn't told you himself?"
Dev cursed, raking his hands through his hair. "You could have done something! If they've been forcing Engagements all this time, there must be enough people in the clan to start a rebellion."
The white-haired woman shook her head. "No one will risk it, especially now, when women can choose for the first time." Her timid smile was like Rana's, slightly conceited. "Even I would not speak up. My granddaughters are Engaged to men they selected themselves."
"Because they had to! Neither of them wanted..." He trailed off, remembering that as of last night he was officially Engaged to Rana.
Goddess but this was a colossal disaster!
"Dev," Rana whispered, touching his arm again. This time he couldn't be bothered to shrug away. "We don't have to obey the Council. Remember–? We're going to get you into that tunnel."
"How? The mountain will be guarded. But even if it wasn't, I don't know if I'd be able to go through like Liss did. She used a rune, and I... I've never tried it."
But he'd been keeping paper and graphite in his pocket since yesterday, just in case.
"The incomplete tome," Mell mused. "It really worked."
"Yes." Dev described what had transpired in the mountain two nights ago. "The Council asked me to recall runes I saw Liss drawing and report back to Fex. They seemed terrified and fascinated by them, and disappointed that Liss took the book through the mountain. But they wouldn't let me go after her, even when I lied and said I'd bring the book back to them. They're so adamant she's dead."
"We don't know that she's not," the white-haired woman muttered.
"Oh, Tally, listen to yourself!" Mell clucked her tongue, shuffling across the room and laying a hand on the younger woman's back. "Liss is not Lera, my dear. We'll find our girl, our little Lightkeeper. I know this boy can do it."
She meant him, but they had yet to explain how such a feat might be possible. And what did Mell mean by 'little Lightkeeper?'
Wesly smirked. "The glowing hair and eyes you mentioned, and the mountain lighting up around Liss... None of that registered as Lightkeeper for you?"
"But Lightkeepers–"
"Used to be the Darkbane's most powerful magic-wielders. Those brawny fools taught you that much, I hope?"
Dev bit his tongue at the indiscreet jab. Whatever mistakes he'd made, and however different his life might be from here on, he didn't regret his training. Not all of his superiors were reprehensible pricks.
"We're getting off topic." Marin sounded like one of his officers. Dev could believe she'd trained with the Lightkeepers. "We can get you into that tunnel, but I don't want you using runes unless absolutely necessary."
"Again, how are you going to get me there?"
"I'm approaching that." She patted the satchel on her lap. "While most of my relatives live to kiss Fex's gnarled feet, a small group of us carries on independently of him. Bett was trying to sway me to Fex's side by offering an apprenticeship, but in the end it wasn't for me. There are too few of us left to carry on our ancestor's knowledge, and although I'm quite fond of Mell's family, certain things should keep within the lines."
Marin unbuttoned the satchel but Mell stepped in front of her, cutting off Dev's view. "Promise me you won't use runes. Unless, like Marin said, it's absolutely necessary. And then, only the one Liss used. The others may do worse than burn your hands."
"Fine," Dev grumbled. "But if you knew runes were so dangerous, why didn't you take the book away from Liss? Tell her to stop drawing, at least? I know she told you about it."
Mell pushed wispy hairs behind her ears, studying the rug's woven rainbow. "I should have made her stop, but I didn't want to take away her one happiness. You must believe, I never thought the runes would work. If I'd known, I wouldn't have indulged her. The real tome, the original, went missing over a century ago. Few remember it existed, and the Council would rather none did. I'm sure that's why they want it back."
"It sounded like they wanted to use it, not destroy it." Although Kane had said something about runes being blasphemous. Or maybe that had been one of the other councilmen. Things were getting blurry. "If magic is capable with runes, why would the Council hide it?"
"Runic magic is a human construct." The disgusted look on Marin's face reminded Dev of the bespectacled councilman. "It's beneath elves to defile nature in the pursuit of magic, but that's what runes require. A blood sacrifice. This knowledge was lost to the ages, but not for all of us."
Mell glanced up from the floor. "When I was a girl, a... Shadow came to Cradelow. We called it a Shadow because it resembled the shadow of a man and spoke as humans do. The Shadow brought a spell book–the Tome of Runic Ethos–and convinced the Council that it meant to release us from the valley. Although it wouldn't say where it came from or how it had gotten here, its promises were grand and many were enthralled by it. Days before the Shadow was to demonstrate its magic and free us, it went missing with the tome. When the former Elder Fex stepped down, his son denounced the Shadow as conspiring with the devil against Hona and ordered all transcriptions of its text destroyed. I thought he had succeeded... until Liss..."
"She found the tome in the Children's Cottage. It wasn't exactly hidden."
Mell smiled. "Sometimes things are found by those who need to find them."
That sounded like an even more dubious sort of magic than runes and blood sacrifices. But Dev was realizing just about anything was possible.
Mell stepped out of the way, finally, and Marin opened the satchel. The dark-eyed woman reached into the shadowy recess and slid her hand back out in a fist. But her fingers didn't meet her palm, and her thumb hovered above her knuckles, as if she had a limited range of motion. She raised both hands to shoulder-height and snapped her wrists forward, proving him wrong.
Dev's brain had trouble keeping up. Marin hadn't extracted anything from the satchel, yet her body language said otherwise. Before he could ask what in the name of Hona was happening, the dark-eyed woman crossed her arms in front of her face and disappeared behind a black wall. Except it wasn't a wall, it was indigo fabric with a velvet sheen, and Marin's fingertips hooked over the edges of a garment.
A few more strategic movements, and the rest of the garment appeared, rolling down her knees and hanging toward the floor.
"A robe?" Dev was still uncertain what he was looking at.
"A cloak," Marin corrected him. "Enchanted by my ancestor. While you wear this, no one will see or hear you. Getting through the mountain will be simple."
Two days ago, Dev would have doubted his eyes. Now all he could do was marvel at the care this woman must have taken to preserve and conceal such a delicate, powerful item from the Council. Unless Elder Fex was also in possession of an enchanted cloak and the Council's reach extended further into the clansfolk's lives than he'd known.
"You're giving it to me?"
Marin raised an eyebrow. "I'm letting you borrow it on good faith that you'll return it when you make it back with Liss."
"Of course I'll return it." If he made it back.
"You'd better get going, then. We've wasted enough time already." Marin stood and circled him, draping the cloak around his shoulders. She was tall standing too, almost the same height as Dev. Her hands were a little shaky, her voice unsteady as she leaned toward his ear. "Please be careful."
Tally and Wesly were silent, their expressions unreadable. Rana fell back a step, staring through Dev's torso with wide eyes. Although the cloak made him invisible from the neck down, Mell found his shoulder and gave it a squeeze.
"She's out there, Dev. I know it. Find her and bring her home. Tell her she has a family and we miss her." The old healer's weak voice cracked, falling a few notes. "Tell her I'm sorry for letting her down, and that things can be different now. We'll make the Council listen." A tear wobbled in the cradle of her eye, slipping down her thin cheek. "But first, just tell her I love her."
Dev nodded. "I will."
"You tell her, too."
Tell her what exactly? That he loved her because the Council had steered his life from the time he could remember–? That his love was a trap meant to erase everything that made her special?
Mell patted his back. "No matter when or why it happens, even if it's lost or changes shape, love is never in vain. Remember that."
Dev forced himself to smile. "That's a mouthful, but I'll try."
How else could he have responded? Rana was staring at him like he was a treasure chest with the lid cracked open, and he didn't need anyone else pillaging his mind. She followed him outside while Mell chuckled wistfully from the doorway.
"Good luck, son. You keep yourself safe, you hear? You're family, too." Her muddled green eyes were soft on his face. "You know that, right?"
Maybe he did, or was starting to.
Over the years, Liss had tried to explain what family meant dozens of times, but the concept had never made much sense to Dev. The Council didn't want it to. Bearers and Seeds and sacred records, this was all the Darkbane were supposed to understand. But like Liss' improbable discovery of magic, maybe family had never been completely eradicated from the valley either. Maybe more of the Darkbane kept their relationships alive, hidden beneath the surface, shining on the periphery, waiting for the day they could finally step back into the light.
And if Liss really was a Lightkeeper, then who better to guide their people toward freedom?
Dev's mission was no longer for his own satisfaction, for the selfish relief that would come with finding Liss and confirming she was safe. Everyone–all the Darkbane elves–needed her. The very future of the clan rested on him finding Liss and bringing her home.