Page 55 of A Promise of Peridot
“I thought it might help to pass the time,” Fedrik said, pulling the instrument out. “But I’m not very good.”
“Kane is,” I announced. “He’s exceptional.” I thought back to the night in his quarters when I was sick with fever and he strummed me a melancholy lullaby.
Mari whirled to face him. “No... You? Have a hobby?”
A dark rumble of a laugh spasmed out of Kane. “Yes, but it’s been a long time.”
“Play a song for us, please,” I asked him. I had meant it to be bratty, playful, but it came out so sincere I was almost embarrassed.
Kane’s gaze was like liquid heat, and he stood without another word and strolled over to Fedrik.
“May I?”
Fedrik handed him the wooden instrument and Kane sat back down next to me.
He strummed tentatively at first, his large hands still finding purchase on the strings. His rings were near luminous in the firelight, especially the silver and onyx signet that always graced his left pinky. Those hands continued to move and then halt, testing chords and tuning strings, until finally the music took on a rhythmic cadence. A gentle, melodic song weaved through the balmy night, a symphony among the crickets and bats and croaks of frogs. I could feel Kane’s notes in my bones, like a story I knew word for word.
I studied Kane’s concentrated face, his soft yet focused brow, as his deft fingers played a tune I thought might have been about rolling hills and birdsong the day after a horrible storm. About forgiveness and rebirth.
I had probably just had too much ale.
But nobody spoke while he played. And when the song ended, and none of us uttered a word, he played another. This one more of a bright and joyful jaunt that conjured images of dancing and clinking glasses and spilled liquor. And after that another, and another. I fell asleep to the sound of Kane’s lute, my head against the indulgent moss of the forest floor.
17
arwen
The map etched into the wooden desk leg that Kane had found was a mystery to me, but took Mari only a few minutes to figure out. She had smothered the peg in mud and turned it out onto parchment like a rolling pin, revealing a fairly basic map to Reaper’s Cavern and then how to find the treasure within.
We left an hour before sunrise, when it was cool enough to hike but light enough to see our way. The trek there took us through a near-impenetrable expanse of palm trees and over steep, grassy hills. After wading through a lukewarm river and climbing across fallen, algae-covered trunks, I was dirty, damp, and covered in all manner of bug bites and scratches. I had thistles and twigs lodged in my hair and leathers, and despite leaving with the moon at our backs, the sluggish heat was now back with a vengeance, and I was coated in sweat.
And all the while, my thoughts were elsewhere. I had woken up to a handful of jungle flowers—two pink orchids and a bird-of-paradise—tied to the inside of my tent, despite being sure I haddrifted off beside the campfire. I had dropped them in the jungle when we left camp, unable to keep them, nor crush them like I had the others.
“We’re here.” Kane’s voice cut through my wandering thoughts and pulled my eyes to the mouth of the cave in front of us: a wide pitch-black expanse like the open jaws of a primordial beast, wreathed in wilting vines and ancient sage-green moss.
Griffin retrieved three torches from his pack and lit them, two of which he handed to Kane and Fedrik; the last he kept for himself.
“It doesn’t even look that ominous,” said Mari before stepping into the cave. Griffin didn’t hesitate to follow after her, and Fedrik after them.
Kane stepped closer to me, and I was reminded once again of his looming height. “How are you feeling?”
“I’ll be fine. Why?” I was anxious enough as it was. “Does something look wrong?”
“Did you get my flowers?”
“Which ones?”
“Either of them.”
“No. Now answer me.”
He shrugged. “I was just checking. If you faint, I’ll be the one who’ll have to carry you for miles through the tunnels.”
I made a face. “You’d love that, wouldn’t you?”
It was only a joke, but Kane cut a harsh line with his lips. “Sometimes your naivete baffles me.”
His words stung, as they so often did when they struck a nerve. “I used to prefer things that way,” I admitted. “Not knowing the truth.”
