Brian Staveley - The Providence of Fire

“This is it,” Kiel said.

Kaden glanced over at Triste. She was trembling, staring at the pool as though into the maw of some great stone beast.

“There’s no other way?” she asked, her voice tiny, terrified. “What about the ship that Kaden mentioned? The one Tan suggested?”

Kaden hesitated. Staring into the dark water, it was tempting to double back, to break out through the main door of the prison, to hope they could hide Triste during the long walk to the underground harbor. It was tempting, and foolish. Triste’s tattered Aedolian uniform did nothing to conceal her identity, less than nothing. Even in shadows, even at a glance, it was obvious that she was a woman, and there were no other women in the Dark Heart. They could sneak into the corridors above hoping for the best, but Kaden was through hoping.

“Too much risk if we go the other way. This will take us straight to the kenta chamber.”

“But the men,” Triste said. “The ones with the bows…”

“Will never see us,” Kiel said. “They’re outside the pool, waiting on the ledge above it. We’ll never break the surface.”

“And they don’t guard this?” Kaden asked, gesturing to the pool.

Kiel raised an eyebrow. “Would you?”

“What’s down there?” Triste asked.

“Tunnels. Rooms. Old halls. When the Ishien flooded the kenta, they flooded dozens of the lower passages, too. It was a reasonable decision. No one’s likely to navigate that maze after stepping through the gate, not underwater, not before their air runs out.”

Kaden stared bleakly at the still surface of the pool. “No one except us,” he said.

“Well.” Kiel spread his hands. “We’re going to try.”

“How far?” Triste asked.

The Csestriim paused, eyes going distant and unfocused for a moment, then nodded. “One hundred and eighty-seven paces. Give or take.”

Kaden stared. “Did you measure it?”

“In my mind. It’s been thousands of years. I could be off.”

“Two hundred paces,” Triste groaned, shaking her head. “I’m not sure I could swim that far above water.”

“You don’t have to swim,” Kiel replied. “Not much. I’ll guide you, pull you.”

“And what about you?” Kaden asked, shaking his head. “It seems almost impossible, even without the extra effort.”

“There are techniques,” the Csestriim replied, “to slow the heart, to use the muscles more judiciously.…”

Kaden paused, realizing all over again that the man beside him was not a man at all. The Shin, with their training and their discipline, could manage amazing feats, could sit nearly naked in the winter snow or stay awake for a week, but compared to Kiel, the Shin were children, fools, tiny creatures exploring the first rooms of a vast city, the scope of which they could barely apprehend.

“And me?” Kaden asked.

“You will enter the vaniate here,” Kiel replied. “That will do something to slow your pulse and keep you from panic. If you are judicious with your breath, it will be enough.”

“If,” Kaden said, shaking his head. “ If you remember the distance correctly, if I can follow you down there, if I can hold on to the vaniate … It’s all ifs . I’m starting to wonder if we shouldn’t risk the ship.”

Kiel cocked his head to the side. “Nothing is certain. If we travel the tunnels above, you trust to luck. If we take this route, you have only yourself to rely on.”

“And you,” Triste said, rounding on him, her voice high, close to hysteria. “You’re Csestriim . Now that Kaden’s broken you out, you could take us down there and leave us. We don’t even know the tunnel leads to the kenta !”

Kiel nodded. “I could. And you don’t. What you do know, however,” he went on, indicating the lacerations around Triste’s wrists, the blistered fingers of her right hand, “is what will happen to you if they capture you again. The water may kill you, but not like this.”

Triste blanched, glanced down the corridor the way they had come. Kaden followed her gaze.

“I don’t like leaving Tan,” he said, shaking his head. “The Ishien don’t trust him any more than they do me. When we disappear, they will put the pieces together. They’ll know what happened.”

“So will he,” Kiel said. “Rampuri Tan is more dangerous and resourceful than you know. He will find his own way.”

“And if he does not?”

The Csestriim met his eyes. “Then he does not. There is no easy path, Kaden. You can save Triste, or you can save Tan, not both.”

Kaden looked over at the girl. She was hugging herself, shivering in the chill dark.

“All right,” he said slowly. “The vaniate .”

“I don’t know the vaniate, ” Triste said, voice crumbling. “I don’t know how to slow my breath.”

Kiel nodded. “I’m not sure you’ll survive to the kenta, but the choice is yours.”

She turned to Kaden, eyes wide, pleading. “What do we do?”

He hesitated. He didn’t want the decision, didn’t want the responsibility that came with it, but wanting, as the Shin had told him hundreds of times, was just another way to suffer.

He set aside the fear and emotion both, tried to see the situation clearly, coldly. If they escaped, if he retook his throne, he could come back for Tan. More, if Triste was Csestriim, he needed her, needed what she knew, to understand the plot against his family. It was a hard choice, but Rampuri Tan had taught him something about hardness.

“There is a strength inside you, Triste,” he said. “Something even you don’t understand. It’s why they imprisoned you in the first place. You ran through the mountains. You passed the kenta twice already-”

Furious shouts split straight through his words, cleaving the calm he had so carefully guarded. He tried to count the voices. There were three, no … five, and loudest among them, Matol, bellowing his fury.

“… want them found, and I want them found now . Two men in each cell, take this fucking place apart . And someone find Rampuri Tan, that treacherous bastard.”

Boots clattered on the stone. Steel hinges screamed. Men barked commands back and forth.

“It’s too soon,” Kaden said, staring down the corridor. “They shouldn’t be here.”

“There is no should, ” Kiel said quietly. “Only is . Prepare yourself.”

Kaden measured a long breath, holding it in his lungs, but before he could exhale, the first Ishien rounded the corner, blades bright with the light of their lanterns. For a moment, no one moved. Then the leader-Hellelen, Kaden realized, the same man who had first challenged them at the kenta -smiled.

“Here!” he shouted over his shoulder. “They’re here, cowering in a corner.”

“Quickly,” Kiel murmured.

Kaden reached for the vaniate, but it was like clawing at cloud. His mind passed through the emptiness, but failed to enter it. The gong of his heart tolled in his ears.

“I can’t,” he said, shaking his head.

Triste had turned to face the men, teeth bared, hands twisted into claws as though she intended to rend the skin from their faces.

“They cannot follow us,” Kiel said. There was no fear in his voice, no urgency. “Find the trance.”

“I’m trying, ” Kaden replied, but the Ishien were already advancing, moving slowly down the hallway, obviously enjoying the sight of their trapped quarry. And there were more behind, more than enough to kill them all a dozen times over. Even as Kaden stared, another figure rounded the corner at a full run, sword spinning in his hands.