Amaya is rubbing her lips with the back of her hand just as a cat does. “The handsome prince is sweet on you, Jes,” she purrs. Her meanest smirk peeps out. “How did that happen?”
“Shut up!” I crouch by the shaft, trying to decide how far the drop really is.
“I’ll go down first,” she says unexpectedly. “You need to stay here to lower down the others because you’re stronger than I am.”
“Are you sure?” This isn’t the fussy Amaya I know.
As if my thoughts are words she shows her teeth, and a faint hiss escapes her. Then she smiles. “I’m not afraid, Jes.”
And she isn’t afraid. Without a complaint or a whine or a demand for attention she swings her legs over the opening. When I’ve hooked my elbows under her armpits I lower her as far as I can, then let go. Her splash resounds in an echoing space. She laughs.
When I lower the lamp toward her I can dimly see her staring up at me from where she sits with water eddying around her waist. Twice she slaps the water just to make it jump.
“It’s shallow. Wait!” She flounders out of view.
“Amaya!”
Her voice drifts out of the darkness. “The water is just a narrow channel. I’m already up on a stone floor. It’s easy, Jes! We just need more light!”
Voices murmur down the passage behind me, and Ro-emnu backs into the space. He cradles Mother’s head, while Coriander moves her legs. Mother’s eyes are open, tracking vaguely, and her mouth forms my name when she sees me. I kiss her.
“You go down first,” I say to Ro-emnu, “and we’ll lower her.”
Amaya is right: it is easy. Coriander and I lower Mother into his arms. One by one we transfer the others: the listless, mute oracle; Maraya with our baby sister; Cook; Coriander with the boy and the other lanterns. Last, Kalliarkos rests a hand on my shoulder. Flame sputters as the lamp that has brought us this far flickers, catches a last flare of oil, and drives back the shadows.
Exhaling, I lean against him and shut my eyes. Just one breath to gather my strength and my courage for the last push. His lips brush mine. They’re cool and a little dry and their touch makes me so warm that I can’t help but remember Father ordering me never to speak to him again.
“Jes!” Maraya shouts as if she disapproves of our embrace, not that she can see us. “Hurry! Bring the light!”
Just as I open my mouth to reply, the lamp at our feet spits one last spurt of flame and dies. A soldier’s curse snaps out of me. A faint flame wavers below.
“Go, and I’ll follow,” he says.
I feel my way over the edge, hang, and let go. Water sprays up around me as I absorb a landing in knee-deep water and then jump back blind. He hits right after me, water flung into my face. Flailing to orient myself I slap first a wall and then his arm.
I shout too loud and my voice cracks back from a cavernous space. “Merry? Where are you?”
“Over here!”
When we wade in the direction of her voice we push out of the channel up onto a stone floor covered with rubble and layered with dust. There huddle Maraya, Amaya, Mother, Cook, the babies, and a lamp that flickers and goes out, emptied of oil.
Ro-emnu and Coriander and the oracle are gone, and they have taken the last lantern with them.
31
Kalliarkos and I stand side by side. I am too bewildered to speak.
He elbows me. “There! Do you see the light?”
A golden glow sways in the distance, rising and falling like a boat drifting in the well of eternity. Then it vanishes.
Cook sobs once and then stifles her fear. At least the babies aren’t crying.
“I can’t believe Ro just did that to us,” cries Kalliarkos. “I used my rank and my name to get him released from prison into my custody! He said he would do anything to help his sister, that an Efean man is not an honorable man if he abandons his family.”
“We aren’t his family.” The words roll tartly off my tongue. The Rings spin in my head as I recollect his words in the tomb. “He came to help his sister. But now he wants the oracle. After the way she seemed to recognize you, he must believe she has something to do with the royal family. He must hope that she knows secrets he can use to write his scandalous plays. So much for being a noble poet! Oh gods. We’ve come so far and yet we are still trapped!”
Despair crashes into me so fast I can’t stop my souls from sinking into wretched misery. Collapsing to my knees, I begin to weep.
He kneels beside me, crushes me against his chest. “Jes! It’s all right. We’re almost there.”