Queen's Hunt (River of Souls 2)

Without waiting for the other two, she felt her way toward its source. Her hands encountered a spiderweb, an outcropping of rock, then a gap where a steady breeze filtered down from an unseen opening. She lifted her face and saw a wedge of light far above. “Here,” she said. “I’ve found our exit. An exit. Look.”

The argument behind her stopped. Galena came to Valara’s side and craned her neck, trying to see up what Valara meant.

“Do we try to go on, or do we try this exit?” Valara said. “If it is the right one.”

“We have no choice,” Ilse said. “Galena, what about patrols?”

Galena shook her head. “It depends. We’re supposed to be dead. Or sailed away in boats before fire took. But if the commanders think we headed north, they’ll make sweeps all the way up the coast and inland.”

Not a comforting answer, but Ilse was right. They had little choice.

The tunnel slanted upward gradually for a distance. It was slow miserable going. They had to crawl on hands and knees, scrabbling through loose dirt and debris. The dirt filled their noses and choked their already dry throats, but the sight of the sunlight far above encouraged them. As the passage narrowed, they had to crawl on their bellies. The last section was the worst, the floor of the tunnel covered in thick layers of filth and bones.

At last, the entrance loomed ahead, a bright patch of sky and sun.

Galena crawled out first. She paused to scan her surroundings, then signaled to her companions to follow.

Ilse and Valara tumbled out of the passage into the open air. They were high above the shore, on a narrow spine of rock. A fresh breeze, sweetened by rain, washed against Valara’s face. She blinked, dazzled by the light darting off the green waters of a bay to her left. Down below, a highway followed the larger bends of the coast. “Where are we?” she said.

“Two or three miles from Osterling,” Ilse said.

Not nearly far enough.

Ilse and Galena began a swift discussion on what direction to take. Valara collapsed onto her back. Her hands were bleeding from cuts. Her trousers were ripped and her knees raw from scrabbling through broken rocks and paving stones. It didn’t matter. She was out of that miserable tunnel and breathing clean air. Off in the distance, she heard a gull cry, the soughing of waves against a shore. Galena was saying something about patrols and magic sniffers. It took all her self-control not to make the leap into Autrevelye right away.

Tonight or tomorrow. Once I’ve eaten and slept. Then I won’t make any mistakes.

A mistake would be fatal. She might fall into the wrong world. Or into the gaps and voids between them. There were accounts in the old histories of companions who dared to journey between worlds. One came home. The other remained lost forever.

They drank the rest of their water and started off along the ridge. By noon, they came to a cleft that snaked down the ridge into a ravine choked with pine trees and coarse grass. A stream gave them water to wash and to refill their water skin, but then they marched on. Soon the ravine opened into a wider valley surrounded by low hills. They plunged into a forest of yellow grass, which swelled from short clumps to a thicket that rose above their shoulders. Warm rain spattered them throughout the rest of the afternoon. The ground had turned into a treacherous bog, and they made slow progress along a narrow path.

A cluster of lilies, its blooms like russet stars against the pale grass, was the first sign that they had crossed the marshes. Beyond, a stand of pines made an island in the muck. As the land rose from the marsh into new slopes of red clay, the filament of a breeze washed against Valara’s face.

Galena called a halt under a stand of pines. “We’ll camp here.”

Valara slumped onto the bare earth. She cautiously touched her swollen feet, chafed by the miles in too-small boots. “How far have we come?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Ilse said. “Five miles?”

“Ten,” Galena said. “I used to hunt here with my brother. We should make the next valley tomorrow afternoon. Then come hills and more hills until we reach the Gallenz River.”

Ilse refilled their water skin from a nearby stream while Galena gathered pine branches and covered them with their blankets. When she had done with their bedding, Galena washed her hands, then picked a heap of marsh grasses, which she started to braid together.

“What are you doing?” Valara asked curiously.

“Making snares. With luck, these will bring us lunch tomorrow. For tonight, I’ll have to forage a bit.”

So many things she had not considered before her desperate flight. Valara absently rubbed the wooden ring. She’d not heard anything from the emerald during their long trek. Even now, the ring felt lifeless to her touch.

Daya? Can you hear me?

A wisp of magic’s green scent, then Valara felt a cool wind aga

inst her face, heard the shriek from a startled gull, tasted the heavy tang of salt from the bay. Below her, she saw a figure running through the underbrush. He stooped, threw a glance over his shoulder, before he darted across the bare patch. Something in the man’s height, the way his night-black hair swung around, reminded Valara strongly of Karasek.

Impossible. He died. I know it.

She blinked and found herself back in the swamp. The sun had already sunk beneath the hills, the sky had darkened to violet, and the full moon shone bright and sharp against it. Once more, time had sifted away.