Barb Hendee - Through Stone and Sea

Hrädwyn had lived past twenty-three, though she'd never left this place in those nine years. Sea-lorn madness had finally killed her. And from what Leofwin had told Reine, Frey was more afflicted than his aunt, though it had set upon him later in life.

Reine clamped a hand over her mouth, refusing to cry.

Without the comb with its hidden droplet of white metal, Frey could never open the gate or the door. She'd become his prime jailer—for his safety, for the future need of him, like some tool or weapon harbored in secret for fear of a long-forgotten enemy.

Unless the Dunidæ let him out, and that would happen only if he asked for it.

How many times would his love for her keep him from doing so?

"Danyel!" Tristan barked, shifting toward Wynn and gesturing across the pool. "Make certain the gate is locked."

Reine came to her senses.

Danyel was nearest to Wynn, but when he began moving, the wolf snarled and clacked its teeth at him. He stopped, raising his sword for a thrust at the animal. Wynn reached up quickly and clamped her hands over the wolf's muzzle.

Danyel took a step closer to the sage.

"Get away from her!"

Reine and Tristan both turned at that maimed voice.

Wynn's guardian stood with Saln's sword point pressed against his chest. Pale skinned and pale eyed, the tall man bore a scar that ran completely across his neck. Some old battle wound had taken his true voice forever. More disturbing was that he never even glanced down at Saln's sword.

What had Wynn called him—Chane?

He ignored the weapon as if it weren't there. But the expression on his face, as he looked between Wynn and her captors …

Reine read it clearly, like a finely inked letter. She caught his tone beneath the written words. Chane was no mere guardian. And if she knew one thing intimately, it was the pain of impossible love—and the lack of awareness to escape it before it was too late.

Again, it made everything worse for what had to be done.

Reine turned on Wynn as the sage shook her head at Chane, warning him off. It didn't matter. At the slightest flinch, Saln or Tristan would kill him without hesitation.

But then, Master Cinder-Shard's massive form appeared in the doorway, and Wynn's wolf spun, snarling at him.

He ignored it, demanding, "Who opened the tunnel gate? Where is the prince?"

"I opened it," Chuillyon answered. "We have visitors… and not the usual ones."

Cinder-Shard's eyes fixed on Reine and then drifted beyond her. He relaxed just a little upon spotting Frey, but his expression darkened when his gaze fell upon the young sage.

"Princess …" he began, turning his cold eyes to her.

"Highness?" Tristan asked.

The captain stood halfway to Chane with his sword poised. Danyel and Saln waited as well.

Reine knew what was expected. They held back only for her command to confirm it. Suddenly all she could think of was Frey, somewhere behind her.

No one must ever learn he was alive or where he was. But he would never approve of what she had to do—for his sake and the family's ancient secret, for a world's hope—or for all that was hinted at in Wynn Hygeorht's damnable texts.

Reine looked up to Chuillyon standing on the pool's rear ledge.

The elder elf took a visibly hard breath. He dropped his eyes, as if whatever he might say wouldn't matter. No trace of sly humor remained on his old face.

"Your order, my lady," Tristan said, and it wasn't a request.

Reine retreated one step. A few quick sword thrusts and it would be over. Then her back bumped into someone, and she dropped her saber. As it sank in the pool, she whispered too faintly to be clear.

Tristan's eyes widened. "Highness?"

"Arrest them," Reine said clearly, anger rising to choke off fear. She spun, wrapping her arms around Frey as the captain's voice grated in her ears.

"My lady, we cannot—"

"Do it!" she ordered, and buried her face in Frey's back. "Get them out of here!"

Amid splashing, barked orders, and the wolf's growls, Reine slid her hands around and over Frey's chest. She felt one of his hands settle over hers.

"It'll be all right," she whispered. "It will pass … again."

But those weren't the words filling her head, the ones that made her small fingers curl in his wet shirt until the fabric began to tear.

Don't you ever leave me!

Sau'ilahk slid slowly down the lift's shaft wall, pausing often to listen and peer into the depths below. He waited until any light at the bottom faded before he completed his descent.

The duchess, her entourage, and their Stonewalker guide were gone, but she had led him far enough. That assistance was all he required, for he was here, in the underworld.

By all Wynn's bumbling efforts to locate this place, the texts had to be here as well. What would be safer for the guild than to hide them in the hands of the Stonewalkers?

Ahead … and see!

At his command, the stone-spider clicked down the passage's roof.

As he waited, he called the stone-worm out of the wall, making certain it had kept up. Once the spider returned, confirming that the way was clear, he slipped onward. But when he came upon a three-way branching of the passage, he halted to study each path.

He could not linger long enough for his servitors to scout all three. There was no knowing when someone might come back or the lift would be called for others to descend. Before long, the outer guards' bodies would be discovered.

Straight ahead, down the main passage from the lift, he spotted a faint glow.

Sau'ilahk turned full circle, examining all ways, and finally pushed on toward that dim light. Finding just one lone Stonewalker seemed the only way to learn what he needed. Soon, the rough-hewn tunnel spilled into a natural cavern.

Aside from the dull glimmer of phosphorescent minerals in glistening walls, there were smaller, steaming orange crystals dotting the cavern. Their light broke upon merging stalactites and stalagmites. Shadows cast every which way made the place a maze of dark columns. He could just make out other black openings to other places.

The underworld looked—felt—so different from what lay in the seatt far above.

Less excavated, it was a realm of natural spaces rather than those expanded and formed to meet the will and need of the dwarves. Some might have found the place unnerving, but it left Sau'ilahk melancholy with its sense of permanence. As if it had been, would be, always here—like him.

He drifted in a straight line, slipping through natural columns toward one opening better lit than the others. The hollow beyond was smaller than the main space, and only dripping stalactites hung from its low ceiling. Some had been broken off for clearance, and the floor had been cleared and leveled. In its center stood a stone rectangle chiseled perfectly smooth. In repose, atop it, lay the corpse of a warrior thänæ in full battle dress.

Sau'ilahk slipped in, briefly lingering over Hammer-Stag's body.

The dwarf had been washed and dressed in clean clothes and a polished hauberk, but his pallid features still held a trace of his last moment of fury and agony. Strangely, his eyelids were open. The great ax that had given Sau'ilahk moments of trouble was clutched to the thänæ's chest in his large hands.

A stone trough filled with murky water rested against the platform's side.

Sau'ilahk spotted a pallet leaning against the far wall, made of a wood frame and interwoven leather straps. Four long iron bars leaned near it. He was familiar with dwarven cairns for their dead, but he had no notion what was taking place here. Did Stonewalkers immerse their dead before final burial? Were they preserving the body?

He needed a live Stonewalker, not a dead thänæ. And whoever had been preparing the body, where had they gone? He returned to the main cavern, but had barely reached its center when a thunderclap rolled through the underworld.