27 | Light in the Dark

Eli holds the strange glass orb in his fingers and glances into the dark.

Thinking of the monster and the strange song he felt behind his chest bone—as if it would drag him apart—he puts the glassy substance close to his face, as if it can hear him, and hums. A shiver of light ripples across his fingers. Eli stares down at it, nearly amused in an exhausted way. What a strange creature, and a stranger little remnant it left. It has been so long since he heard songs sung by another person. So, so long. He grasps for any lullaby Lyra used to sing to Abner. Many of them were in her own language, not Eli’s native tongue, but he remembers them far better than those by any of his own people.

Feeling a little silly but unable to find anything in their new existence too strange, he raises his voice and holds the little light above his head. It shimmers pale blue between his fingertips, and sends weak beams higher than the warm flames of his torch. Eli nearly smiles at the path it lights.

Returning to the safety of the middle of the tree, he takes his pack and Klia’s hand. She holds onto him without question or excitement, her tired gaze on the path beneath her feet. Whatever she sees in the darkness, it is of little use to them now, as Eli steps over tree branches and knots of strange bark nearly turned to stone.

If we are down here long enough, will we turn to stone as well?

Eventually, he helps Klia into a broken section of the cavern, into a walkway carved with familiar runes faded by time and abandon.

For a few dozen steps, they follow the tunnel at its upward slant, before Eli makes a pillow out of his backpack, and lays out with Klia tucked up under his good arm once more.

* * *

It seems to Eli, upon waking, that this place is made of eternal silence. There is a breeze, certainly, the same one that ruffled the leaves of the impossibly massive tree. But it does not howl in the corridors or disturb the small pebbles on the floor. He hears his heartbeat behind his ears with the way he is laying against his bag, Klia’s soft breathing, and little else. Soon, it will just be their footsteps on stone.

Under his shirt, Eli touches the little stone necklace and finds it cold as ever. He lets his hand drop from it. His arm still aches and stings if he moves too much, but it is strangely better than he anticipated, even after such a battle. Still, he wishes he needn’t have killed the floating Unknown. It rather saddens him.

He knows not how long they have lain here. Not very long, if the constant exhaustion in his bones is any indication, but it would be better if the girl could sleep longer. Not for the first time, he wishes he were young and fit enough to simply carry her and his supplies.

Not hungry, he puts one of the berries in his mouth anyhow and sits up carefully, taking Klia along with him.

Arm still around her, he pats her chest gently, “Klia dear, time to wake up and chase your brother.”

It is not as funny aloud as he thought it may be, not when he sounds so near death. Klia blinks and stretches and rubs her face, staring up at him. He has no particular desire for her to be able to speak but thinks it would be heartening to hear a kind voice. Instead, he smiles down at her as best he can manage.

“Are you feeling alright?”

She makes a face, then tugs carefully on his beard as if she’s wanted to for a while and is just now getting up the courage to do so. Eli chuckles wearily.

“It took a great long time to grow this out, isn’t it lovely?”

It isn’t, not with being untrimmed, uncombed, and rather beat up from the last week, but he’s only looking to make her feel a little brighter. By her half-amused expression, he seems to have accomplished it. If she were to speak, her expression says she may be as blunt as most eight-year-olds and say something rather rude. Eli wouldn’t blame her.

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“Shall we get up?” he asks, still partially leaning against his bag and not truly wishing to move.

She wrinkles her nose again—it’s almost as if she’s gotten that little trait from Eli himself—and scrambles to her feet, stretching and straightening Eli’s shirt, now quite dirty from all the climbing and sleeping on the floor. Eli misses the soft sand of that strange place already.

She shoots him a miserable look.

“Don’t worry, I’m unhappy too,” he tells her, getting to his feet and keeping himself from swearing at all the various aches and pains and straight-up injuries he’s taken on. “But when we get your brother, we’ll get back to the surface and find a nice river. I still know how to fish in all this madness. We can eat better and sleep for a long time, how does that sound ?”

He pushes to the back of his mind that he doesn’t know how they’ll return to the surface. Klia only has a heart to share with her brother, leading them to the boy. She cannot help them get back out of this place, and their way in is no longer traceable. Even the marks Eli left to indicate which tunnels they picked are far from useful.

They are well and truly lost.

If Klia has any concept of this, she hasn’t indicated. Eli certainly isn’t going to burden her with such knowledge. There will be a way out. So long as they can find it before they run out of food entirely. The extra berries will stave it off a hair.

“As far as I can tell, we’re going to keep going uphill. We fell a long way down, so the best way I can think to return to where you can hear Thistle again is to follow it up. The breeze is coming this direction as well.”

He knows he need not explain every little detail. She need not understand every decision he makes. But he wishes to, particularly after his decision to save them by running into the unblocked tunnel upset her so greatly.

She just gazes at him, so he asks, “Do you understand?”

She nods.

“Do you hear Thistle's heart at all?”

He hates asking her, for how upset it makes her when she cannot, but it is vital he knows. She shakes her head.

He takes her hand and leads her up the tunnel, “We’ll find him.”

* * *

“Did you know I used to train your father at his swordsmanship?” he asks Klia after a time. The quiet is beginning to drag at him, and he has a strange desire stuck behind his chest that these children must grasp that he truly loves Abner. That all this was not intentional. That he did not purposefully mess any of it up.

Abner has evidently told them—at least, told Thistle—enough that the boy does not like him, and Klia was certainly shy of him when they first met. The things his son mentioned must have been unfortunate. Eli doesn’t necessarily wish to argue the points, whatever they were, but only to balance them out. If his son has spent time telling the children how little he thinks of Eli, Eli will spend time telling the children how highly he does think of his son.

Klia shakes her head, blinking up at him. In the dark, he can barely see her. Their torch long since went out, and the bees are of less use than the little orb, so that is what he holds in his injured hand, still keeping Klia’s hand in his other.

“Yes, we did so every day. He was passionate about it when he was your age, he was so very happy to receive some of the same skills as I have—had, rather. He likes his little knives and tricks and subtle things, not as much brute force as I used to be. Which was perfectly fine. He made me keep up on my knife throwing.”

Klia is keeping an eye on them as they walk the smooth surface of the cobbled steps. He takes this as a decent enough indication she is not annoyed with his ramblings.

“He grew more into his drawings and sciences when he was older. He had the skills for them as well, and higher ranks at them, so it was a reasonable choice. He liked them better, anyhow. But we still trained every day. We were a warrior’s kingdom, and I didn’t want him to lose his fighting talents. Besides, I missed training with him…”

Eli isn’t certain he should’ve admitted that part, but it is there in the back of his mind, and he sees no reason not to. Everything is ruined, and it cannot be ruined more by such a little admittance.

“But…I let him spend most of his time doing his science. I think some of our fighting skills might have worked their way into all this. He was trying to do good things though…”

The last thing he wishes is for Klia to kick up something negative about her father from Eli’s little stories, so he adds on the last part. It is true, anyhow. He remembers Abner’s passion for his work, the same type Eli once had for the feel of a blade in his hand, and loved it for him. Others in the palace dragged him into the more dangerous parts of it. And wholeheartedly he dove into it, despite Eli’s warnings. It wasn’t his fault.

But it also was.

Eli so often struggles to rectify those two things in his mind. His passionate son who learned fighting for the art of it, and wouldn’t harm an insect. The part of him so willing and ready to chase power along with nobles and politicians until he not only wouldn’t listen to Eli’s cautioning but came to despise him for it.

The things that happened after.

Eli thinks of telling Klia this—that he didn’t tell Abner to give up, but only to slow down—but doesn’t wish to drag her into such complicated matters. And he is being so awfully careful to not give this girl the wrong ideas about Abner as Abner has done so concerning Eli. He must be more careful this time around, with these children. He has another chance with them, not to ruin something precious, and a lifeline back to his own child along with them. He must be careful, eternally careful, not to ruin any of this.

The silence has stretched too long. He tells Klia about many things. Her grandmother, Abner as a child, and some of the missions he went on with his brother and others in the queen’s court, and stays far from the things which trouble his heart the most.