Kylandra
The sound of her siblings’ voices edged into Ky’s dream. What were they doing in her room? She opened her eyes, expecting to see pale gray walls. Dark shadows danced across dark stone. She stretched her hand and felt the cold rock. Memories flooded back. The inner chamber. Her parents. The sadness of farewell. Tears filled her eyes, but she forced them away. There’d been a promise she had to believe.
She unrolled her cloak and stretched. Her fingers brushed the sheath of the flame sword. The numbing grief, screaming fears and furious anger she’d felt before falling asleep had been dampened. Had Bran taken them into himself again? She probed her memories of the journey through the dark passage. Not Bran. She’d discharged the worst of her feelings by calling fire to the sword. She staggered to her feet.
“Morning,” her siblings chorused.
Ky laughed. “How can you tell what time of day it is? ‘Tis dark as night here.”
“We ate, slept and woke,” Jay said. “Has to be morning.”
“Shouldn’t we be on our way?”
“We haven’t much further to go,” Ash said.
“Are you sure?” Jay asked.
“I think so, but ‘tis hard to know. We’ve gone faster than Mama and I did. Come and break your fast.”
Before joining the others, Ky went behind an outcropping to use the hole Jay had made. She wiped her hands on a cloth she wet with water from her flask, then heated her journey bread.
Bran looked up. “Before we go, I’ve something to tell you. I may have betrayed us.”
Ash grasped his hand. “You wouldn’t do that.”
“I didn’t mean to,” Bran said.
“How could you do that when you were always with us?” Jay asked.
“’Twas when you napped in that cavern. I wanted to scry for Mama and Papa.”
“Did you see them?” Ky asked. “Are they all right?”
Bran told them how he’d seen the corridor outside the inner chamber. Then he spoke of the army and the opening of the first wall of the henge.
Ky’s heart beat faster. She felt anger begin to rise and touched the red crystal. “Then what?” When Bran mentioned the Dom, she shivered. How could one from the high lands think to betray one of their own? In all the tales she’d heard, Doms and Domas were heroes. The idea of one embracing evil troubled her. “How long did he have you in his sight?” she asked.
“Not long,” Bran said. “I was so scared, I dropped the cup.”
“Do you think he knows where we are?” Ash asked.
“Don’t know.” Bran rose. “We’d better go. He might come hunting.”
“And maybe forget about the attack on the henge,” Ky said. “We should call him. Wouldn’t that help Mama and Papa?”
Bran shook his head. “They told us to go to Cedris, hide and wait. We must do what they said.”
“Do you remember what this Dom looks like?” Ash asked.
“I’ll never forget his face.”
Ky grasped his hand and reached for Jay’s. “Show us. I would know his face.”
Ash completed the circle. Moments later, Ky stared at the face of a man with long fair hair. He sort of looked like their mother, but his pale eyes were cruel. She would remember him. She broke the circle and stamped on the tiny fire.
Ash lifted the torch and set off. Jay and Bran were on her heels.
Ky followed. Darkness closed around her. Would they ever escape this place? She felt as though the mesa pressed down on her. All she could see was the wavering light Ash carried. She heard the tapping of claws on stone. Die they belong to some nasty creature? Like the ratis that lived on the dead or the scorpons with poison in the barbs of their whip-like tails. She wanted out of here, to see the sun, the sky. She wouldn’t even mind a heavy autumn rain storm.
A shrill scream startled her. She grasped the hilt of the flame sword and raced toward the flickering torch.
When Ky reached her siblings, she saw Ash sitting with her back against one of the passage walls. The blazing torch lay on the ground. Ky ran to pick it up, but even the leather grip was aflame. She pulled one of the torches from her bundle. When it took fire, she joined the others. “What happened?”
Ash raised her head. “The web.”
Ky saw a thin red line on the back of Ash’s hand. “What web?”
“Around the bend. Blocks the passage.”
Ky lit a second torch and handed it to Jay. With the first one in her hand, she edged around the bend and stared at the pulsating mass that blocked the way. In the light from the torch, the fibers glistened like strands of old blood. Shaken by the sight, she retreated.
Bran knelt beside his twin. He pulled a cloth from one of his inner cloak pockets. After soaking it in water from his flask, he bound her hand.
Ash sighed. “That feels better.”
“Tell us how this happened,” Bran said.
“I saw the web and thought to burn it so we could get past. I touched the torch to one of the strands fastened to the rock. It caught fire, but the end lashed free and touched my hand. Burned. Hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt. Some of the web got on the torch. You saw how brightly it burned.”
Ky walked to the gutted torch. “It’s ashes now.”
“Was there anything like the web when you and Mama came this way?” Jay asked.
“The passage was clear. There was nothing like the color of that thing.”
“Then it was set to trap us,” Bran said. “The Dom must have come while we were sleeping.”
“Why?” Ky asked. “If he came last night, why didn’t he look for us? He could have caught and carried us off.”
“Then how did the web get here?” Ash asked.
“You and Mama were here in the spring,” Jay said. “’Tis autumn. There was time.”
“But Mama and Papa must have come this way to put supplies in the canyon,” Bran said. “They would have seen something like that.”
“Maybe he watched them,” Jay said. “Then he entered and laid the trap.”
Ky nodded. “Mama and Papa said the secret of the openings in the henge walls had been discovered. The bad Dom would have known about this road and laid the trap before he came to the henge.”
“How can we pass it?” Ash said.
“I could move the rocks,” Jay said. “But that would take a long time. I’m just learning.”
Ky rose. “This task is mine.”
“How?” Bran asked.
“With fire.”
Ash shook her head. “Fire did destroy some of the fibers, but look what happened to me.”
“I’ll use the flame sword. That’s different than a torch.” She handed her cloak to Bran and unsheathed the sword. As she thought about sending fire through the blade, she hoped she could master the flame. The only time she’d used the lessons her parents had given her had been when she’d set her fear, anger and grief free. “Fire can help and fire can harm.” The web was a thing of evil. Could she call forth anger without triggering other emotions?
Jay touched her arm. “Will the twin bond help?”
She shook her head. “Don’t think so, and you’d better all stay here. I don’t want to burn anyone by mistake.”
“Be careful,” Ash said.
Ky walked around the bend and for the second time confronted the web. She jammed the torch in a crack in the rocks and studied the intricate pattern. She wished she’d asked Bran and Ash if a living creature had spun the web and if it lingered. She had no desire to face something from a bad dream.
Ash had tried to burn away the strands that clung to the rocks and had been burned. The center, Ky thought. That’s where she’d start.
She raised the sword and called fire. Tiny flames danced along the blade. She drove them together until a line of fire extended from the sword’s tip. As she glided toward the web, the strands seemed to quiver. Was the web a living thing? If so, ‘twas evil.
The tongue of flame touched the circle in the center of the weaving. A puff of dark smoke stained the air. Then with a rapidity she could scarcely believe, the center blackened. The darkness spread along the web lines. The smoke grew heavier, billowed and flowed toward her. She coughed. Her eyes watered and the sword wavered.
Back, she thought. The smoke stole the air she needed to breathe. Help!
A gust of wind came from behind her. The smoke cleared. Ash, thanks, she thought.
The fire had gutted a large part of the web. A few strands still formed a barrier near the ground. Though exhaustion threatened to swamp her, she gathered the flames and moved to clear the rest away.
The flame touched the red line. One end of it whipped toward her. The end touched and wound around her wrist. Ky screamed. The flame from the sword moved in a blinding pattern of light.
An exquisite pain shot from her wrist to her shoulder. The sword fell from her hand. Ky felt dizzy and she wanted to lose the contents of her stomach. Blackness engulfed her.
“Ky.”
The voices sounded from a distance. She tried to sit up. Something cool touched her arm and the pain diminished. She looked around. Her siblings knelt beside her. Torchlight cast shadows on their faces. She raised her head. “My sword? Where is it? Was it destroyed by the web?”
“It’s here,” Jay said.
“Help me up. We have to go.” Ky wasn’t sure from where the sense of urgency arose, but she knew speed was essential.
“Can you stand?” Jay asked.
“I have to. What if the Dom knows we’ve escaped his trap? What if he closes the passage again and we’re trapped in the dark forever?” Her voice quavered with fear.
“She’s right,” Ash said.
Ky grasped the sword and with some effort sheathed the blade. Jay and Bran helped her stand. They each put an arm around her waist and followed Ash around the bend where a patch of soot marked where the web had blocked the way.
“Look,” Jay said.
Ky turned her head and saw the tendrils of dark red on the rocks. She breathed a sigh of relief as they passed by the re-forming web.
Walking jolted her arm. The pain returned. Though now ‘twas just a dull ache, the throbs reminded her of what she’d done. She felt hot, then cold, then hot again. Her head felt fuzzy. The voices of her siblings sounded like they spoke through feather pillows.
“She needs a potion,” Bran said. “And something to leach the poison from her arm.”
“Mama and Papa are sure to have packed herbs with the supplies,” Jay said.
Ky sank into her stupor and continued to move one foot after the other.
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