She met the woman’s eyes, a certain coldness overtaking her. “Syren Herrin died because she healed without restraint or self-preservation. She was a dead woman long before I helped her along.”
The dark-haired woman moved fast, her strides hard and purposeful, but a lanky young man with bright blue eyes flung out a hand, a gust of wind knocking her back.
“Sit down,Jessa.” Mari’s light, breezy countenance shifted, and Elysia quickly surmised that all the muscle packed onto hershort body wasn’t just for show. Magic or mundane, the woman looked confident and ready to hold her own.
Eyes like slits, the dark-haired woman made her way back to her seat. She sat down with a huff, knees spreading wide as she leaned in. “Mark my words, we’ll regret bringing a traitorous Crown bitch in our ranks.”
Elysia ignored her now. She would carry her shame and regret over Syren Herrin until the day she died. But that wasn’t anyone’s business but her own. She hadn’t come here to make friends, anyway. The twinge in her chest negated this, but she ignored it, plowing ahead. She needed information, plain and simple. Information to save her own neck and then she’d never darken their doorstep again.
The room, much like the door she had come through, was a large circle. The only way in or out was that very same door that led back to the stairs and the sea. Lanterns hung off the sides of the chairs, giving the room a quiet, cozy light. A myriad of faces sat in the old, worn-out wooden chairs. Pale like the moon, coppery and rich, to deep smooth brown—the crowd reflected that Relaclave had once been a place that people from all over the world made their home. Now, people avoided Kava, given the strange mundanity of their land.
The walls of the rebels’ refuge were made of dark slate, white scribbles and notes etched onto them all. Elysia’s eyes ran over the chaotic notes, wondering how long this place had existed. Volumes and volumes of books were neatly stacked atop each other and pushed up against the walls. She was willing to bet those books were amongst the titles that had been burned long ago.
Mari gestured to a chair and tossed Elysia a towel. “Sit. We’re adjourning soon, given the hour, but I promised you information. And it sounds like you need all the help you can get.”
Elysia squeezed out her hair with the towel, then patted it down the length of her. Dropping it to the ground, she stared at Mari impatiently, not bothering to sit. She gestured with her hand for the woman to go ahead.
Mari took a deep breath and began. Pride filled her words, and Elysia felt the room swell in response. “We are the ones the curse could not break. This land was once filled with every magic and gift you could imagine. Magic touched our food, our land—and every single heart and soul.”
She paused, staring poignantly at Elysia, her mouth tightening. “And then it was stolen. The undead gods are alive and well. Even now, when we do not recognize them, they carry on both serving and preying on humanity. They may have lost their foothold in Kava, but trust me, they are not gone.”
Elysia’s heart thumped. “You’re trying to tell me?—”
“That our magic was stolen by a jealous god from a realm that does not know the sun but only death. Victoria”—Mari pointed to a slim brunette with round dark eyes—“has seen visions of a realm with a bloodied sky and river of charcoal waters.”
Fear sluiced through Elysia, icy as the waters of the sea around them.
Mari closed the distance between them, clutching Elysia’s wrists, fervent and impassioned. “Is this where you go? To where our magic has been stolen?”
Her throat closed and mouth remained half-open, but wordless. She finally choked out a response. “How is that supposed to helpme?”
The mountain of her problems had just grown exponentially if this was true. The realm of a god who hadstolen their magic?No, absolutely not, she wantednothingto do with that. All she wanted was to be fixed. For all of this to be fixed. Her fingers clutched back at Mari as she stared incredulously.
Disappointment dropped Mari's full cheeks lower, but her voice was gentle. “We can hide you—but we need to know you’re after the same thing as us. The restoration of our people.”
Her voice broke off at the sound of an incessant thumping from above. Everyone in the room froze like rabbits in sight of a fox. It sounded as though someone was trying to break through the trapdoor.
Elysia’s gaze went wild, darting around even though she knew there were no windows or exits, only the singular round door.Could someone break through the trapdoor?She had no idea how something mundane like man-made iron tools fared against a magically reinforced trapdoor, but it sounded like the wood was splintering the same as any other.
Elysia looked to Mari, but the woman with the long black hair had pushed to the front of the room, and this time no one held her back. They were all thinking the same thing.
That she’d betrayed them just as easily as she had Syren Herrin.
“What did you do, you Crown piece of shit?” Jessa’s words were a growl, but she shoved past her, checking Elysia’s shoulder as she went. The woman didn’t waste another breath on the traitor amongst them. She stood tall and boomed her orders, preventing the panic that would turn into senseless chaos.
“Quiet.”
The room halted, terror filtering through the room like a paralytic. Jessa met their fear boldly.
“We prepared for this.”
Heads around the room nodded grimly.
“Nowmove.”
She called out to a pair who were obviously siblings with the same sandy hair and clear blue eyes who were already taking hold of other rebels by the wrists. “Remember, take those whocannot fight first.” Jessa spun, already addressing someone else. “Belinda, the masks!”
The siblings' faces pinched in concentration, and then they popped out of existence, taking their precious cargo along with them. Elysia stared openly, stunned at what she had just witnessed. The thumps continued above them, the beat out of time and frenzied now. As if they knew they were close to breaking through.
