CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The Scholar, The Ledge

Leta woke feeling disoriented and panicked. It took a minute for her to remember where she was. The room was pitch black, and several glasses of wine at dinner left her feeling hazy. And then she remembered a small detail—she had been declared dead. Leta plopped down on her back and stared up into the darkness, trying to make sense of it all.

Westin hadn’t turned up to The Hole the night before, and Leta slept and woke in one of the spare bedrooms. Kiran informed her that there were many people who were associated with their group, “The Cattoleirin Underground,” or TCU for short. A few people, like Reina and Rodin, lived in The Hole full-time, but most didn’t. When they came to stay to update the others on what they’d been doing or to work on certain projects, they would stay in one of the extra bedrooms.

Something Reina said stayed with her: “You’re a dead girl.” But why? Why go through the trouble of announcing her death when she still felt more or less alive?

There are two options, always two options. Either the crown knew she wasn’t dead, or they just assumed she was. Sifting through the wreckage would be a long and tedious task. Identifying bodies buried under hundreds of years’ worth of stone and dust would be a monumental undertaking, but if the crown had one thing, it was manpower. Certainly, if they wanted to find Leta, they would. Not to mention that, thanks to her cuffs, she would be the easiest person in the Sjlunroca to identify. Dagna was a careful and persistent person. She wouldn’t leave a stone unturned. So they must know that she is not dead, only missing.

Leta imagined, or maybe just hoped, that many people would have walked away unscathed. Certainly, the crown would know that, too. Then why declare her dead? Her time inside the Sjlunroca had given her a very limited understanding of the greater world. She’d have to check in with Kiran or Clark about it later.

Leta sat up and felt around her. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for, but as she moved her hands around the table next to her bed, a light turned on. She pulled her hand away reflexively, then scanned the room for others. No, she was still alone. Then who turned on the light? The source seemed to be a small ball sitting on her table. She wanted to reach out and poke it to see if there would be another response, but she was afraid she might be burned by it, so she left it alone and added another question to her ever-growing list.

It had been less than twenty-four hours, but Leta’s relationship with magic—with song—as the Cattoleirin called it, was becoming complicated. The display she’d seen the night before stayed with her. It was like a piece of her had been missing her whole life, and she had just noticed it now. And at the same time, there was a deeply ingrained part of her that feared song. How could she not? She was taught, from the youngest age, that song is what drove the Cattoleiri mad and caused them to nearly destroy the world. That power was in Leta, the power to destroy the whole world. She knew many people who would kill for that kind of power, but for Leta, it was terrifying. And to see it all around her made her uncomfortable.

It wasn’t that she thought that the underground was lying to her, but it was as if someone had told her that even though she’d always known that they lived above water and breathed air, they were actually at the bottom of a giant lake, and she could breathe in the water just fine.

Recognizing that she was unlikely to make any headway or get any answers sitting alone in her room, she exited for the kitchen and, hopefully, breakfast.

Leta’s relief at the smell of food wafting from the kitchen was quickly replaced with anxiety at the sounds accompanying it. Last night, she’d met three new people in addition to Clark and Kiran, but now Leta was faced with the sounds of many people. Rodin had provided her with more comfortable—and better smelling—clothes, but Leta found herself wishing for something to cover her face. Leta could tolerate meeting the slow trickle of hand-picked new people, but the idea of being in a crowd was terrifying.

Only, she had no options. Unless she wanted to hide in her room until someone dragged her out screaming, she would have to enter the kitchen and face everyone. She took in a steadying breath. She could do this.

While in her mind, there would be enough people in the kitchen to fill the grand ballroom of The Aria, in reality, there were only about two dozen people. However, she was right in one thing: each eye locked onto her as she entered the room. It was only for a minute before everyone found their manners and returned to a stilted conversation, but their gaze on her lingered, and she felt it even as she crossed the room and sat down across from a waving Kiran.

“Good morning!” he sat at one of the round tables, already dressed and fully awake. The same could not be said of Reina, who sat beside him with her hair piled on top of her head and an oversized tee shirt that she had clearly slept in.

“Morning,” said Leta, looking around for food.

“Oh! You can just go over to the kitchenette and grab something to eat. The eggs are particularly good this morning.”

Eggs? How did they get eggs down into a place like this? But as she had no more room on her “questions” list, she simply walked over and helped herself to eggs, toast, and even a large helping of berries. Fresh fruit was something she hadn’t seen in years.

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By the time she got back to the table, Kiran and Reina had been joined by another person. And he was enormous. Leta was pretty sure he was sitting, but even in a chair, he was as tall as she was. He wasn’t tall and lank like Rodin but broad and sturdy, as if he were more dense than the average person. She took a second to feel bad for his chair.

“Leta, this is Westin Captes. Westin, Leta Tallum.”

Westin stood to his full height and reached out his hand to shake with Leta. “Pleasure,” he said.

Leta hurried to put down her tray and shake. She didn’t want to offend the giant person and risk getting smushed like a skitter.

“Westin just returned from the ledge last night.”

“Quite a journey, Kiran,” he said. His voice was melodic, and he managed to lengthen each word while decreasing the number of syllables. “Good to be back in the ‘barrens.”

“Would be better if you brought back some gida. I could have made a nice gida loaf for dinner,” said Reina.

Westin laughed. His smile carved well-worn lines around his eyes. “Jain is a special place—too special to take things away from it. They all wilt before you even get to Central Umara.”

Reina sighed. “I know, I just miss it up there. The air here is so chill and thin. We should move the underground to Jain.”

“Well, next time, feel free to come up with me, but I think you might be, well—“ He cut himself off with a frown. “We should probably sit down with everyone later to talk about it, but the ledge…something ain’t right. To be honest with you, I don’t think I saw a gida plant the whole time I was there.”

A tension washed over the table.

Westin nodded towards Leta, then turned to Kiran. “I don’t know how much I should say…”

“Leta’s on our side,” said Kiran with more confidence than Leta had about the decision, but she was too interested in what was going on to correct him.

“I think it’s coming back. The soil is becoming overgrown with desert plants, and crops are starting to fail because of it. I also saw a mean outbreak of saddlepox.”

“Saddlepox?” Reina nearly yelled. “There hasn’t been an outbreak of saddlepox since, well, not in my lifetime.”

Westin nodded. “Was a terrible sight. No one knew what to do about it. They tried to contain it, but many people died. I managed to stay away from everyone, but it was a scary time.”

Reina looked to Leta. “It’s coming back.”

Leta kept her face neutral, wanting Reina to continue, not wanting to say the wrong thing and make them all stop. Then at the same time, she didn’t want to hear any of this while being surrounded by song. How could they be so sure they weren’t part of the problem?

Reina continued. “The Rot. The signs are everywhere. We know far too little about it—primary texts are extraordinarily scarce. But if word of mouth through the generations is anything to go by—it’s coming back.”

“And you think that you can stop it?” asked Leta, too nervous to hold in her question.

At this, Westin bobbed his head side to side. “We don’t know. From our studies, we believe it was the Cattoleiri who got rid of the Rot, even if we’re not too clear on the details. That’s why we’ve been trying to gather people who have large amounts of sparks. We’re hoping we can find a song that will help us if we have enough people.”

“But you all seem to have gotten song figured out. Why would you need me?”

Kiran shook his head gently and looked down at his plate. “I’m sure after coming from The Aria—and especially the Divine Sjlunroca, it looks like song is everywhere here. The truth is, everyone has a small number of sparks, and they seem to regenerate at a pretty regular rate if you use some for song. But the things we can do—like the divining bowl from last night, it only works with multiple people bringing their sparks together at once. We’re pretty limited other than that. Songs involving light and illusions tend to be the easiest to do, as well as sound-related songs. But doing things like creating the ice ring or banishing the Rot are far outside of our skill set for now.”

“That’s why we have to find people like you,” said Reina. “But it’s not easy.”

“There’s a reason why the crown kills anyone suspected of being rooted—or almost everyone,” Kiran added.

Reina coughed into her napkin and then sipped from a steaming mug.

Kiran rubbed her back. “We had someone else like you. He could use creation song, and he was quite powerful at it, but he got himself caught in The Basti. And he was hung—publicly.”

Reina’s eyes were becoming red, but no tears fell.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Leta. And she was sorry they lost their friend. But she was becoming even more worried about her own safety.

The four sat in uncomfortable silence until Leta couldn’t take it any longer. “So, if the rooted aren’t the ones bringing back the Rot, why is the crown so determined to kill them all?”

“Power,” spit Reina. “Imagine how easy it would be to take over the government if you had the power of the gods.”

Leta conceded the point. She wasn’t convinced, but the argument held water.

“What else is happening by the ledge?” asked Leta, trying to steer the conversation away from her potential magic.

“The ash.” Westin shook his head. “It’s become terrible.”

“Excuse me,” said Reina, and she left the kitchen, leaving her steaming mug on the table.

Westin looked to Kiran.

Kiran followed Reina out of the room with his gaze, then turned to Westin. “It has to be done. Even if it’s painful, she’s going to have to hear about it.”

“You’re right. It’s just been so soon after we lost Pock. It’s a lot.”

“Reina’s tough,” said Kiran, “she’ll be okay. What about the ash?”

“Right. I’ve spent a good amount of time in the Ashbarrens over the course of the past twelve years or so, but I’ve never seen ash like this: thick and dark. Ash around here tends to be light grey, almost like snow. But up there, it looks more like soot. I was scared to breathe it in—and I wasn’t the only one. Almost all the Jainish were wearing bright kerchiefs wrapped tight around their face. Even the man with the ashless face would be covered up there.”

Leta felt a chill at the name. The man with the ashless face was another piece of nightmare fuel for young Leta. There were legends that a prisoner lived in the deepest bowels of The Aria’s dungeons. A prisoner so evil that they were covered head to foot in shackles so they couldn’t harm others. It was said to be the only thing that could contain them.

Westin continued. “The ash covers the plants, worsening the crop output. Between that and the sicknesses, Jain has become almost a wasteland. I know I said I would take Reina, but to see her homeland destroyed like that…well, it would nearly kill anyone.”

Kiran ruffled his hair. “Time is growing short.”

Westin nodded sadly.

“I don’t think we can put it off any longer, then. I need to go check out something in The Basti. I felt it after I got together with Leta.”

“And what would that something be?” asked Westin.

“I think there’s another—another—“ Kiran looked at Leta uncomfortably, “Cattoleiri.”

He knew she didn’t appreciate being referred to as a Cattoleiri, even if Kiran swore they used the word for lack of a better one, and no one would start worshiping her. Leta kept her mouth shut because she wanted to see this for herself.