A Veil of Truth and Trickery by Analeigh Ford
Chapter Twenty-Four
Superstitious or not,it didn’t take long before I understood the hesitancy in Armene’s voice when he mentioned the valley. Though in all truth, it was less of a valley and more of a canyon. From the edge of what was left of Nyx’s forest, the plains had appeared to stretch on flat to the base of the mountain—but I couldn’t have been more wrong.
The first light of our third day on the plains made visible what nightfall and distance had hidden from us.
The old edge of the forest was lined with a rocky, gently sloping terrain dotted with wiry brush and patches of green. Tall grass grew between boulders, on the edge of streams, and really wherever it could get a foothold in the rocky soil.
At the very edge of my vision there was a large swath of green, but something about it had seemed off for days. It was too smooth. Too perfect. It was because the plains didn’t simply slope down to the edge of the mountains. There was something in between.
A massive crack in the ground ran from one end of the plains to the other, plunging down so far that the bottom of the crevasse must’ve been shaded in darkness all but one or two hours of the day.
The sides of it were so steep that it made me dizzy to peer inside, and even dizzier to imagine climbing down.
“Please, please tell me we’re not climbing down.”
Armene grimaced as his gaze followed mine. “Not quite, but the journey through isn’t going to be much better.”
He nodded on up the path to where Caldamir had led the others a few paces ahead. “There’s a path through not far from here, though …” he licked his lips, that same shadowed expression crossing his face that’d been there earlier. “There’s no saying whether or not it’d be better to add a couple days and take the long way around.”
Armene pointed out a long arm jutting out to our left. “There’s a break there we should reach just before nightfall, it’s steep but not this steep. It’ll let us pass through.”
I pulled my mule’s reins to ride further away from the edge, as far as I could without resorting to climbing over the boulders that had grown larger as we approached, and for once, he was all too happy to oblige. From further back, the whole canyon had the appearance of a giant cross scarring the land.
“What is this place?”
I leaned forward a bit to take another peek down, and immediately regretted it.
“Well, the glamour had to come from somewhere, didn’t it?”
Armene smiled just a little bit when my head snapped back to look at him. “It’s just a superstition.”
“Speaking of superstitions,” I started, peeking up ahead to see if Caldamir was close enough to overhear yet. He was not. “Why don’t you want to pass through the valley, really?”
Armene wrinkled up his nose. “You know, the early fae tried to build bridges over it, but the fiends always destroyed them before long. Eventually we just realized the bridges weren’t meant to be built.”
“Or maybe that you weren’t meant to cross through it.”
The gentle smile on his face pulled wan. “Now you’re getting it. Sometimes nature tells us what she wants. Sometimes, we’re better off listening.”
“You talk about superstitions a lot for someone who claims not to believe them,” I said.
He rode on in silence, but I saw his smile turn up once more.
The crevasse was dark, sure, but on the other side of the crevasse the plains came alive.
The base of the mountains gave way to rolling hills lined with long, grassy fields. The further from the mountains, the greener and softer they were. There was a place far to the south where I swore, for a moment, I almost caught a glimpse of a glittering sea—but I knew it was nothing more than a mirage. The mountain range extended too far, and then the hills stretched out from them even further.
Still, those green plains and rolling hills were a far cry from the barren plains we’d found ourselves picking through for days now, with nothing but the occasional boulder to shield us from an unforgiving sun. The only fae among us who seemed unbothered by it was Armene.
This was his element, after all, as Prince of the Sands.
By the time evening was fast approaching, he was the only one with energy left to ride on ahead with one of the trackers to scout out the opening to the so-called valley. They disappeared for a while as the rest of us slowed to wind along the narrow path until it dipped back around a rising set of boulders. On the other side, our path joined a new one—this one plunging straight between two sheer walls on either side.
It was just as Armene described. The rock walls were smooth and colored with streaks of red and white, making it look like the path wound straight into a massive monster’s maw.
The path only led a few feet in before it turned enough to hide the rest of it from view. Up at the top, this close to the edge, the boulders surrounding the edge of the crevasse had grown precariously large and close to that edge. One wrong step trying to peer up ahead, and it’d be all too easy to send one of those boulders tumbling down to block the path.
Or crush anyone unfortunate enough to stand below.
Once we were inside with the horses, there’d be no way but forward.
No going back.
More concerning still, was that there was no sign of Armene at its entrance.
Only the scout waited for us at the mouth of the path, perched on one of those boulders. One foot hung lazily down over the edge, but that didn’t hide the way his glance went straight to me—and lingered there just a moment too long, as it always seemed to do—as soon as we arrived.
“Armene went on ahead,” he called down, when Caldamir drew his horse up beside the entrance. “Insisted on double checking it was safe.”
Caldamir’s face worked silently for a moment as he took in the sight of the path. It was obvious to all of us that he was having doubts, if only for a moment. His head tilted up to the sky, already starting to color orange with sunset, and he swore.
“Stupid fae,” he muttered, glancing over his shoulder at the rest of the party as we filled the narrow path behind him. Nyx and Tethys were last, their faces pale and dripping with sweat. They were taking the terrain harder than the rest of us, neither of them used to the dry, barren air.
“I told him he should wait, but he wouldn’t listen,” the scout said, though the words drew a strange look from his companion.
“We should wait for him to come back,” the companion said, a little too quickly. “Bad luck traveling through that canyon at night. Wouldn’t want us to get separated.”
Something about his tone struck an uncertain cord with me, but since none of the other fae seemed to notice, I chalked it up to my own fears and said nothing.
“We’re already separated,” Caldamir snapped back, head shaking. He wiped his brow with the back of his hand, dragging down the skin on his face as he tried to think of what to do next. “No, we can’t wait. We’ll get through the first part by nightfall. Armene can’t have gone too far ahead.”
His words carried a confidence that didn’t match the look on his face.
“Maybe you should go in first, on foot,” Tethys called from where he remained astride his horse, his own face wrinkling up in displeasure at the narrow walls of the canyon. “See if Armene got stuck or something.”
“No, no, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“And I thought you weren’t the superstitious one,” Tethys said.
“I’m not,” Caldamir said, adamantly. “I just don’t fancy any more of us getting lost.” He nodded down the canyon path. “But if that’ll ease your mind … then I’ll prove there’s nothing to fear.”
He swung down off the back of Rynn, and ignoring her irritated snorts, plunged in after the missing member of our party before anyone else could accuse him of something so close to cowardice.
It was strange without him here. It left us unbalanced, too close to even with our peculiar companions. Just three of us—Nyx, Tethys, and Tallulah—to their two.
I didn’t count for anything. If anything, I balanced us out completely, taking away the one of our number who’d need to protect me in a fight.
“No reason to sit around here, acting as if we’re not going through that canyon,” Tallulah called out, after a moment. Still, no one moved with haste. It seemed no one was particularly eager to follow the two princes who’d already been swallowed by the canyon’s walls.
Tallulah fell back to my side as the slow process of dismounting began. Her horse dwarfed my mule, leaving the already tall fae towering over me. Her shadow blocked out the mid-morning sun, the chain mail helmet she never took off sending blinding little pricks of light into my eyes.
“Nyx told us what you did back in the forest, you know. That must have taken a lot of courage. I’ve seen an angry dryad before, and even I didn’t dare mess with it. I hope I didn’t offend you the other day, when I called you puny. I only called you that because you are.”
It wasn’t an apology, not in the strictest sense, but I had a feeling that was as close as it got with Tallulah. At least, where I was concerned.
She hopped down from her mare with a tired grunt, glanced once toward the scout only just starting to clamber down from his place on the rock, and stealthily slipped a knife from one of her belt loops.
This, she handed to me.
In her hands, it was barely a hunting knife. In mine, it was almost a short sword. It nearly dwarfed the full length of my forearm.
She kept her broad back between us and the scout as she pretended to tighten something on her horse’s saddle, but really she pulled out a strip of leather which she looped through part of the knife’s sheath and then proceeded to slip her hands beneath the front panels of my gown, tying the strip of leather up high enough to hide it beneath the laced-up bodice. I didn’t dare move. I’d always imagined if Tallulah chose to get this close to me, she’d be slipping a knife between my ribs, not concealing one at their side.
“None of my holsters will fit you. They’d slip right off to the ground. Lot of good a lost knife’ll do you.”
“And what is this supposed to do?” I asked, realizing too late how ungrateful I must have sounded. “It’s not like it’ll kill a fae.”
“Not in your hands, it won’t,” she said. “But if a fae really wants to kill you, then you’re out of luck.”
She glanced once toward the canyon walls. “Besides, it’s not the fae I’m so worried about in there.”
My throat went a little dry as I followed her stare. Even though we were literally marching ever closer to my death, I didn’t need a reminder that just about every living thing in Avarath would be all too happy to make that happen a little sooner.
“It’ll keep you safe from fiends. Unless you run into a great fiend, then you’re really fucked.”
She tilted back her head then and roared with laughter, as if it was the funniest joke she’d ever told.
I, meanwhile, just tightened the leather strap of my new holster a little tighter.
“What’s a great fiend?”
Our short window of privacy came to an abrupt halt as the second scout led his horse up to our side.
“We knew she was human, but we didn’t know she was dumb too.” He eyed me for a second with a mixture of pity and, unless I was mistaken, disgust. “If we run into a fiend of any kind, at least we know who it’ll pick off first.”
Caldamir chose that very opportune moment to reappear.
“No more putting off the inevitable, we need to get going,” he said, breaths panting from the heat as he started preparing Rynn to follow him in this time. “I’d like to come to the crossroads before dark, but we should catch up to Armene sooner than that. After all, how far could he have gone?”