“Are you dead?”
“Not yet.”
I scrambled out of the door, up the bank of crumbling earth. Clearly, I was more terrified of being caught than I was of walking underground.
“I think that there are trails here, under the ground,” I said. “We can go almost all the way to Glorious Ingvar using them! No rain. No Osprey. No chance of being caught.”
She raised a hand with a skeptical look on her face. “Tunnel collapses.” She turned a finger down. “Poisonous gases.” Another finger. “No water.” Another. “No air.” A fourth finger. “No way out when we get there.” That was the last finger. She stuck up her thumb and immediately pushed it down, too. “No light if our magic doesn’t work. Oh, and we might get lost with no way to navigate. And it might take longer than it would out here. We could wander lost until we die. There’s no way I’m going in there.”
I swallowed. I couldn’t leave her here, but my plan was better.
“Without me, you can’t navigate,” I said. “You don’t know this land, and your woodcraft is terrible.”
Her face went stony.
I crossed my arms. “And I’m taking this underground trail.”
“At least think it through, you stubborn girl!” Her cheeks flushed with emotion.
“I have. And I’m going.”
I pulled the saddlebags and saddle from my horse, setting them on the ground, and began to remove the bridle. She nickered happily at the freedom.
The problem was, Zayana wasn’t wrong. Any one of those things could happen. I wasn’t even sure this was a good idea, but what else was I going to do? I felt this constant pressure weighing on me, like it was up to me to turn everything right and I hadn’t done it yet. And that meant that I needed to take some risks, right? I needed to try things other people hadn’t tried. I needed to succeed, or everything would be lost.
“Stubborn and nonsensical,” Zayana said. Were those tears I heard in her voice?
I patted my horse’s nose as I removed her bit. “There’s a girl. Hopefully, you can find your way home.”
I opened the saddlebags and rummaged in them, taking out the sack of food and the waterskin. There was nothing else in them, so I slung the rope holding the waterskin over my shoulder and made my way back to the entrance.
I didn’t say goodbye to Zayana as I slid into the tunnel again. She would come with me. I knew it. Cautious as she was, worried as she was, she was someone who followed a leader and I was that leader.
I studied the map as I waited for her. Was this as simple as it appeared? It seemed straightforward enough. Hopefully, I was guessing correctly.
We just had to make the trek on foot and in soaking clothes and in the dark. No problem, right?
I opened my palm and watched as my bees spun round and round to make a globe over it. They would light my way. I felt a flicker of uncertainty but quickly suppressed it. If I spent my time worrying about what could go wrong, I’d be just like Zayana.
“Nice work, you fuzzy creatures,” I whispered to them. “Now, be bright and beautiful!”
I heard the sound of slipping and quiet cursing. I smiled but I didn’t turn. No need to spook her before she was fully committed.
Okay, time to go. Fixing the map in my mind, I strode toward the correct entrance to the tunnels. Each was shaped – horrifically – like the mouth of a snake, its incisors pointed downward. The yawning gapes of their mouths were pitch black – even the light of my bees didn’t penetrate the dark – which was worrisome. It was just like the Hissan to make you feel like you were being swallowed up into the belly of a snake when you were only trying to travel somewhere. But I couldn’t complain too much. They’d brought me here. And this was a chance that had potential.
I stumbled right before I reached the door and a heavy memory of those warriors weighed on me again.
“I always hate this part,” one of the warriors said with a shudder. He was looking at the door on the right. “It feels as though it robs me of the years.”
“An illusion, brother. It will speed you on your path and honor the Great Snake. Just step through quickly before you talk yourself out if it.”
Zayana caught my elbow in a muddy hand and I flickered back to real life.
“Don’t change your mind on me now,” she said wryly. “I’m already coated in mud.”
“Of course not,” I agreed, sharing a grim smile with her. “Are you ready?”
“You’re a terrible influence on me.”
I took that as a yes and stepped into the mouth of the carved adder.
The very air grabbed a hold of me once my foot crossed the threshold, seeming to fold me into it – almost as if I really was being swallowed. I held my breath as Zayana gasped beside me.
“I’m already regretting this, bee girl!”
The ground under us shuddered and folded again and then my bees went dark.
Chapter Five
“BEES!” I WHISPERED. “Come back to me!”
I could still feel their buzz in my chest, but my vision was completely dark. Zayana clung to my elbow and I reached up and grabbed her hand with my free hand. If she was speaking to me, I couldn’t hear it. If she was breathing, I couldn’t hear it.
The ground rumbled again and that feeling of folding seemed to pull me along, but it was as if a candle had gone out in the blackest of nights, as if I was adrift in the depths of a sky without stars. A prayer broke from my heart.
Flight of wind protect us, mercy of the skies fly over us, give us peace and protection, let us soar from this terror on the wings of eagles.
I found myself repeating it aloud. There was something about prayer that made me feel braver. As if just acknowledging that there was something in control beyond me was a step toward believing it could keep me safe.
“Skies send mercy. Wrap us in your depths cloud upon cloud, hold us fast with the might of your winds.”
Something shifted in the folding.
I grew bolder in my prayer.
“In the ever-changing nature of life, in the storms and stillness, shine your light on us.”
The folding became faster and with it, the buzz in my chest increased until I could barely hear my own words as I said, “Make us fast as we ride your zephyrs, make us pure as we bathe in your rays.”
The rumbling was constant as if my words had sped everything up. Was it possible that I was somehow invoking this passage like we invoked our manifestations?
I spoke again.
“Bind us together like your flocks of birds and your clouds of bees.”
I felt Zayana’s hand pressed against mine and tried to will confidence into her. She was going to be so mad when we came out again.
It felt like a gathering now, like when dough is kneaded – folded first and then forced back on itself. We were being kneaded. Pain flared inside me as memories bubbled up to the surface in little flickers and then dissipated. Each flicker carried an aftertaste of what I’d felt when those memories were made. The sweetness of my mother singing over me ran right into the searing rawness of watching my father killed before my eyes. The warmth of my siblings’ smiles crashed into the sharp fear of being snatched in the air by a snake. And in it all, the buzz of the bees carried on and the folding and kneading continued.