Sarah Driver - Storm

I brush my tangles out of my eyes. It can’t be. Can it?

Sparrow slithers off the bed and yanks open the door. Kestrel steps into the chamber, face flooded with concern, coppery hair threaded with firelight. ‘How is she, Sparrow?’

I watch them watching me from the doorway. A little spark flares in my belly. ‘Aye, and who might she be? The ship’s cat? The shark’s mother?’

‘She’s as prickly as ever,’ announces Sparrow, ducking under Kestrel’s arm and marching from the room.

Kes bites the corner of her mouth to keep from laughing as she hurries to my bedside. My heart rolls over in my chest and all in one beat I’m kneeling up, bed-furs and blankets flying, and my arms are wrapped tight around her neck. ‘Is it really you? Am I still dreaming? What you doing here?’

‘So many questions!’ She laughs, returning my hug just as fiercely.

We pull away, checking each other over. She’s thinner; her plain garb is slack and her cheekbones jut. Her light brown face looks tired, her freckles are pale and there’s no gold paint on her catlike green eyes. But they glow with more heart-strength than ever.

‘You have grown, sea-sister!’ she says. ‘And your scar continues to heal well – I wonder who stitched it so finely?’ Her lips quirk into a grin.

I laugh, more loud and pure than I feel like I have in an age. Thaw thuds onto my pillow, stretching out her long neck to peer at Kes, blood glistening in the feathers beneath her hooked beak. Hoodwink-high two-leg girl home?

Aye, Thaw!

A strange look crosses Kestrel’s features, seabird-swift, but she blinks and the look melts away and then she’s clasping my hands. ‘So, to answer you. Yes, it is really me. No, you’re not dreaming. And I came to meet with Mother, to reassure her all is well and beg more provisions – not that there are many to be had. I hear more goats have frozen to death, so now Butter and Bone rule the hearth-sides, hogging the heat.’

Butter and Bone are the oldest goats on the mountain – two sisters who do as they please and bite anyone who challenges them. Cantankerous bleaters, both, and forever underfoot. I nod. ‘But how is your mission working? Have you reached many of the Trianukkan youth yet?’

Her face grows flushed, burning with a look of hope and excitement. ‘We’ve been camped with the Tree-Tribes at the edge of Nightfall, sneaking into the colleges when we can. Staying safe and hidden takes so much of our energy, and I tire of hiding,’ she tells me with a small smile. ‘But we’ve left scrolls full of our writings for folk to find, spreading word that the draggle-riders have returned and are seeking unity, not war. Also, about how women should be permitted to study, and about what Stag and the Wilder-King have been doing. We have met with young ones fleeing the city, helping them escape slavery, teaching them medsin and rune skills. And we’ve met with poor people on the outskirts, teaching them to read runic script. But it’s all so much harder than I had thought! I must have been so naïve,’ she says, burying her face in her hands. ‘Our words have been discovered by angry, powerful people. I believe—’ She pauses, studying her lap. ‘They have begun to search for us.’

‘Have you told your ma?’ I ask, dread tumbling in my belly.

She shakes her head. ‘And I beg you, please don’t tell her! She would keep me here, and even if I were willing to stay for her sake, I could never leave Egret.’

I nod, slowly, the breath turned to iron in my lungs.

‘You know, Mouse,’ she says, like a conspirator. ‘Even when you’re stuck in one place, you can still make waves. Think of all the allies you have, right under your nose.’

She’s misread my look – for once, I weren’t feeling heart-sad at being left behind. I was fretting for her .

‘Mother and I thought we would give you a present,’ she says brightly, fishing in her pocket. She pulls out a tiny stub of silver, worn and smooth. I take it from her and find that my thumb fits inside a groove in the silver – it’s an old key. ‘It unlocks the Opal Chamber, so you can visit the stones,’ Kes tells me, grinning.

‘Let’s go, then!’ I put my head under the blankets and dig my fur-lined slippers from the bottom of my bed. A fool that climbs out of bed barefooted is a fool that loses toes to winter’s jaws.

We step into the crooked corridor outside. Thaw glides by my shoulder, throwing the cloak of her shadow over the glittering stone floor.

As I glance sideways at Kes, her words buzz in my brain. You can still make waves . I can feel the seed of an idea throwing roots into my blood.

We wind our way up three stairways hewn into the mountain, past sputtering lanterns that cough up oily wreaths of smoke. We reach a small wooden door and fit the key into the lock.

Kestrel has to stoop to fit through, but inside, the space yawns wide into a cavernous antechamber. Another door, much bigger, is flanked by two guards with crossed spears. The Opal Chamber. Leopard waits with the guards. She smiles at me when I thank her for the key.

The warriors uncross their spears.

We step into the storm-restless feeling of the Opal Chamber. Kestrel gasps. Leo stands by my side, breathing fast. The walls are charred black, seeping fire-worms from tiny pits in the rock. The air tastes charred, too. The fire-worms thud against my heavy cloak like scraps of burning black silk.

A pulsing silver ghostway gloops through a crack in the wall, so the guards can hear if anyone is trying to get too close to the gems.

The Opals hang from the ceiling inside two round iron cages, etched with glowing protective runes. Even though there’s no breath of wind, the cages sway and the chains creak and groan. As I watch them, my skin itches on the inside. The Opals pull on my spirit, and I wish I could free them from their cages. Thaw rockets high in the air and swoops wide circles around the cages, feathers spiking. Shinystones! Glintofgreenbluesparkles!

I step slowly closer to the cages, dragging my fingers across the rough wall. There’s a sour smell in the chamber. ‘Are you making stinks cos you hate being trapped?’ I whisper. The smell in here reminds me of how my armpits get when I’m nerve-jangled.

In answer, the Sea-Opal glows bright green and weeps chips of ice. Gold flecks swirl in its depths. It throws shadows on the cavernous walls, shadows in the shape of seals that writhe and twist and float together, sliding sleek dark skins across the damp rock. Salt rides the air. I stick out my tongue to taste the tang.

The Sky-Opal’s blue deepens like dusk, as it splutters puffs of smoke and flurries of blue sparks that print pictures of clouds and birds and bats and the night hunts of owls on my vision. Shadows shaped like feathers dance across the walls. The cages holding the jewels pull towards each other, creaking.

‘They hate being separated,’ I murmur. Leo stands close by my side.

‘I am sorry for it,’ she says. ‘But we decided that together their power was too great.’

I chatter to the Opals, imagining they’re listening to me. They throw a fire-spirit glow onto the wall and I try to read the pictures. They twine together in ribbons of silver, like a plume of hair caught in a sea-wind. Hair like Grandma’s.

Thaw rasps a cry, wrenching me from my thoughts. A scuffling sound makes my skin twitch.

‘Who’s there?’ demands Leo, face sharpening to full alert as her fingers wrap around her spear.