Page 104 of The Demon Tide

The doorway just past the hallway’s bend slams open just as an archway of glowing purple runes bursts into being beneath Or’myr’s stone. Or’myr pushes against the archway’s interior and the stone dissolves, revealing a spiral staircase cut into the mountain.

Wrenfir urges me forward and I frantically slip onto the staircase’s small landing, followed swiftly by Or’myr and Wrenfir as footsteps sound from the curving hallway’s far end. Or’myr swiftly touches his wand’s tip to the runic arch, murmurs a spell, and the vanished stone bursts back into being. We all still, breath suspended and cast in the blue rune light of a single hanging rune lamp as muffled boot heels thud by then rapidly fade.

Or’myr puts one finger to his lips for my continued silence and grabs the lantern. I follow them both down the stone steps, then through a long tunnel, the blue light from Or’myr’s lantern swinging over us like a fitful pendulum.

We round a sharp bend in the widening tunnel and I halt before the blue-lit military skiff waiting just ahead, a tall, muscular Vu Trin soldier aboard it.

Apprehension tightens my gut as I meet the emerald eyes of my former kitchen enemy, Bleddyn Arterra, a glowing blue rune stylus in her hand. Her craft is no larger than a rowboat and hovers a trace above the stony ground, a sapphire rune rotating beneath it.

Bleddyn’s verdant hue is brightened almost to turquoise by the skiff’s rune light, the multiple green-metal piercings edging her pointed ears and brow glinting. Her long green hair is styled in the same heavy coils she wore at Verpax University, but now she’s garbed in Vu Trin blacks. My mind spins, our situations so wildly altered.

“You’re lucky I was here early,Ny’laea.”Bleddyn’s mouth curls around my false name with unmistakable sarcasm, but her gaze is urgent as she holds her hand out to me.

“We’ll come for you as soon as we can,” Or’myr assures me as she pulls me aboard, then taps her stylus on the controls. Runes blink into existence on the skiff’s sides and begin to whir, my uncle Wrenfir’s spider tattoo eerily wavering in the brightening light.

“My fastlines,” I tell them, the desire to get back to Lukas burning hot in my chest. I hold up my glamoured hand. “Vogel is running magic through them, just as we thought.”

“And we’ll run our own through them soon enough,” Or’myr firmly counters, a glint of defiance in his forest green eyes.

“We need tomove,” Bleddyn chastises, effectively silencing us all. “Hold on to these,” she orders as she hastily passes me some folded papers. I slide them into my tunic’s pocket as she taps the control board again. The glow of the skiff’s runes intensifies.

“Thank you,” I tell Wrenfir, voice quavering as the skiff rises, “for getting medicine to Nym’ellia and her family.”

Wrenfir’s blackened lips twitch. “You’re welcome, Ren.”

“Hold tight to me,” Bleddyn demands and I throw my arms around her broad waist.

The skiff abruptly darts forward like an arrow loosed and my heart leaps into my throat. I cling to Bleddyn and we zoom into the mountain’s depths, switchbacking through tunnels at breathtaking speed.

Eventually, we burst through a narrow gap of stone and out over the Vo River. My lungs seize, our sudden height a shock to my senses. It was one thing to fly over the Vo on Trystan’s skiff, quite another to be on this tiny skiff zooming straight off a mountaintop cliff, no railing surrounding us. The skiff swoops down toward the water with alarming velocity.

“Ancient One,”I gasp, looking down at the impossible distance to the black river rushing below.

“Stop that,” Bleddyn snaps over her shoulder as she swoops lower and levels the skiff out. “You’re not Gardnerian anymore. You’d best remember that.”

Chastened, I glance behind us toward where I imagine Fain’s estate was, but it’s no longer visible. We skirt closer to the river, our skiff’s runic glow reflecting on the water as Bleddyn hugs another mountain curve. The two island-mountains of the Wyvernguard and the sparkling city of Voloi come into view—and what lies before them triggers a jolt of alarm.

A newly erected blue line stretches across the river’s expanse, east to west, military rune skiffs patrolling it. Three gaps in its breadth appear to be heavily guarded, gluts of runic ships massed near the gaps in small queues, waiting to be allowed passage.

“What’s this?” I ask Bleddyn, foreboding rippling through my gut.

“Quiet,” Bleddyn grits out as she veers toward the most eastern checkpoint.

We draw up to it as a young Vu Trin soldier waves through the two ships directly before us in quick succession, her slender form backlit by the sapphire light emanating from the runic barrier. The luminous wall of runes extends down past the water’s surface as far as the eye can see, eventually disappearing into a rippling, hazy glow of blue.

The heavily armed soldier is attractive, with long-lashed eyes and dark brown skin. Her full lips are painted a variety of purple hues, and violet glitter is brushed over her eyelids and cheekbones, her long black hair decorated with iridescent purple moon and filigreed heart medallions.Xishlon festival ornamentation, I realize, as I send up a prayer that the upcoming holiday is enough to keep this soldier distracted.

“What’s this, Yu Zo?” Bleddyn congenially asks, her hand waving in a broad arc.

Yu Zo frowns, glancing west before settling her sharp gaze on Bleddyn. “Another hunt for the Black Witch. Ung Li has ordered a massive search of the city and all river traffic.Again.”

Bleddyn huffs out a laugh. “Good luck with that so close to Xishlon.”

Yu Zo nods with an arch look of agreement. “Third search in a month’s time. Papers?” She holds out her hand to me with only a cursory glance, her attention more fully set on Bleddyn.

Bleddyn gives me a tight, prodding look. Forcing calm, even breaths, I fish the papers Bleddyn gave me out of my pocket and hand them to the soldier. Yu Zo rifles through them, pausing when she gets to the third sheet, her lovely, sharp eyes seeming to snag on something.

Bleddyn leans toward her, hand propped rakishly on her hip. “Have you found the moon yet, Yulon?” she asks, her lips turning up in a dazzling smile.

---