Sky of Wind by Emily Deady

Chapter 34

Back at the bailey, Meena slipped into a side entrance, hoping to continue avoiding detection. The sun was almost completely down.

Neven would begin his ascent up the cliff side canyon any moment. Meena had given him very specific instructions on how to find the hidden path up the hill. And she had tried to explain how Sol had used the wind if he needed navigational help.

Neven said he would try it.

He then had to get past the two guards outside the cave entrance and still navigate whatever was inside the caves to find the magic receptacle.

They had been fools to even attempt this. So much could go wrong. But her heart still beat with excitement. This was something she couldn’t not do.

For her part, she had to get past the kitchen and into the cellars. Then she had to distract the guards on interior side of the tunnel system. The the most successful scenario, she would distract them, somehow ascertain if there was a key and acquire it, get through whatever door led into the tunnels, then meet up with Neven and help him find the receptacle.

The most likely scenario was simply her distracting the guards so they did not notice any sounds behind the door, and to stall for time if anyone—such as Jules or Younn—tried to get to the magic receptacle.

Hopefully Neven could handle finding and draining it. Or better yet, Sol might be with him to help.

Meena knew it was foolish to hope, but she had promised to keep her thoughts on the fun of tonight’s adventure. It was the only way fear wouldn’t freeze her.

“Princess, you’re awake.” Ezra’s voice sounded from beside her in the dim archway. “Jules said you were resting, are you feeling alright?”

Confused, Meena couldn’t answer immediately. Ezra sounded . . . genuinely concerned about her. “Yes, I am feeling much better,” Meena lied. Or, at least, she had been feeling better before Ezra appeared.

“Would you like to go back to the house?” Ezra asked. “I can have a soldier escort you.”

“No, I am feeling fine, really,” Meena responded. She couldn’t let Ezra send her home.

“Come, grab a drink with me?” Ezra asked. “I feel like we have not gotten to know each other very well. And I was just feeling like we might become great friends.” A broad smile filled her face.

Meena instinctively leaned closer to the other woman. She knew exactly how this game went. She’d been playing it since she arrived in this stifling kingdom. “What game are you playing?” she whispered, trying to be as menacing as she from her shorter height. “I can tell when someone is trying to steer me to their will, it’s my own specialty. I play it best. Did your husband send you to distract me? Where is Jules?” She glanced out toward the crowd.

“What’s game have I been playing?” Ezra shot back, dropping her sweet facade. “You have the audacity to show up at my house, demanding to be treated like a princess.”

“I didn’t show up. It’s not your house. You stole it. And Councilor Younn set it all up.”

“I know it’s not and do you think that doesn’t bother me? We couldn’t say no to Younn. He wields Gareth’s wrath.”

“What are you doing here? And where is Jules?” Meena felt more uncomfortable the longer this conversation went on. Somehow, she knew Jules’s absence was the key piece to solving the puzzle.

“What are you doing here, Princess?” Ezra shot back.

“I didn’t come all this way with a man I didn’t know just to be stopped in the end by a power-hungry woman who pretends to love her own husband!” Meena didn’t hear the harshness of her words until they were out of her mouth. They had been spoken in anger and frustration, not in jest.

But to Meena’s complete surprise, Ezra’s face relaxed into an amused smile.

“You’ve been playing it this whole time, too? Come.” Turning on her heel, Ezra beckoned Meena inside the fort itself.

Not even stopping to consider that she run in the opposite direction, Meena followed Ezra into a more private room.

“Jules and I instantly noticed that you were both suspicious,” Ezra explained without actually explaining anything. “But you were directly from the royal family, so of course we couldn’t trust you.”

Meena was still not following. She didn’t have time to play games. “Where is Jules?”

“He’s on his way to the ship to free your husband Solano, or is it just Sol?”

Meena relaxed, the tension in her body turning to excitement. “To free Sol?”

“We’ve been waiting for word from our contact in Chendas. We knew a Majis was supposed to arrive soon. And then you showed up and started poking your noses everywhere and we had to do our best to keep you occupied so you wouldn’t interfere at the fort at the same time as the mystery Majis did. But this whole time you were the Majis. Or your husband was.”

“You mean this whole time we could have been helping each other instead of getting each other’s way?” Meena snickered in laughter. “Do you want to that right now?”

“Getting in each other’s way?”

“Helping each other.”

Ezra stared at Meena. Her demeanor no longer looked cold, rather Meena realized it was thoughtful and focused. Rather like Sol’s.

“What did you have in mind?” Ezra asked, smiling conspiratorially.

Meena followedthe captain’s wife into the fort’s kitchen. “Can I have a flagon or two for the princess and myself?”

Two people instantly dropped their current tasks in the busy kitchen to answer their lady’s imperious demand.

“Or three!” Meena added.

Ezra smirked, nodding that she approved Meena’s request.

Moments later, one of the kitchen boys handed them two bottles of wine to Ezra and one to Meena.

“Our thanks,” Ezra said, leading Meena through the kitchen. “We are not to be disturbed!” she called over her shoulder as they descended another flight of stairs.

Meena pushed open the heavy wooden door at the bottom, since she had the extra hand.

It opened into a long, low-ceilinged cellar. A few more kitchen hands dashed through the space, carrying cold cuts of meat, dried herbs, and more wine bottles.

Ezra ignored them as she confidently walked through the empty aisle at the center of the room.

Meena matched Ezra’s pace and tilted her nose up just a little more than usual to match the taller woman’s stately grace.

The kitchen hands melted out of their path without a word.

Meena smiled, letting her hips sway as she walked. She felt like a powerful combination of her older brother Ian with his purposeful stride and her new best friend Ezra, who seemed confident in herself.

At the end of the cellar, hidden behind a long stack of barrels, four soldiers sat around a small table. They were engrossed in a game which involved small carved figures on a checkered board.

They looked up instantly as the women walked toward them, but they did not appear intimidated.

Rather, their interest seemed to be piqued by the two women approaching them with arms full of bottles.

“Dalir,” Ezra said, nodding to one of the men. “Faithful guards.” She nodded to the other three men.

“Lady Levek,” Dalir responded.

“It’s a pity the four of you are stuck down here while everyone else gets to enjoy the festivities,” Meena said.

“Someone has to stay on duty,” Dalir said. His eyes were still entirely focused on them. They flicked from her face to the bottle in her hands.

“The princess and I would like a few moments to ourselves,” Ezra said. “Go grab yourselves something to drink from the feast upstairs.”

Four pairs of eyes opened wider. The four soldiers glanced between each other. It looked like each one wanted to take Ezra up on her offer, but no one wanted to be the first to say it.

“Please?” Meena said, her voice soft and sweet.

“She is the captain’s wife,” one of them whispered. “Her word is basically his, right?”

“Precisely,” Ezra said, smiling conspiratorially. “Give us an hour—”

“Or two,” Meena cut in.

“And no one ever needs to find out,” Ezra finished.

“If you insist, Lady Levek.” Dalir stood up and his companions hurried after him.

Meena met Ezra’s eyes with a wide open stare of her own. She wanted to burst out laughing. “That was easier than expected,” she whispered instead.

Ezra smiled back at her, a real, genuine smile.

“Let’s keep going,” Meena said. She pulled at the latch on the door. To her relief, it opened instantly. “I was expecting it to be locked.”

“The next one definitely will be,” Ezra responded.

“I thought you said you hadn’t been down here before?” Meena stepped through the door, pulling it closed behind them.

“I haven’t.” Ezra had exchanged her bottles of wine for a lantern. “But Jules was here for two days straight when the shipment arrived. There were very specific instructions about securing it.”

“How specific?” Meena asked nervously.

“Lots of guards. Definitely locks.”

“That’s not very specific,” Meena replied, disappointed.

Ezra held up the lantern, illuminating a meticulously carved sandstone tunnel.

Meena felt like a child, exploring the tunnels under the old castle in Iseldis for the first time. A tingly feeling of anticipation sparkled across her skin. She didn’t have a map, but she was not afraid to be under the ground. Perhaps it helped that she knew the cliff face was not far away, so it did not truly feel like it was underground.

“If I had known it would be important, I would have paid more attention,” Ezra said. “At the time I was rather busy studying how to write in coded symbols.”

Meena wanted to ask how Ezra and Jules had been recruited by Robin, but that would have to be a story for another time. “You don’t happen to have keys for the locks, do you?”

“No.”

“Unfortunate.” Meena stepped fearlessly down the tunnel.

“But I might be able to pick the lock,” Ezra added.

“Oh!” Meena spun around as she walked to catch Ezra’s face behind her. “You’ll have to teach me sometime. I never could figure out lock picking.”

“Let’s see if it works first,” Ezra said.

“Which way should we go?” Meena asked, indicating a split in the tunnel ahead.

“There are likely guards at the door itself, so it shouldn’t be too hard to find. Let’s start with this side.”

The chosen branch of the tunnel turned out to be fairly short. It had multiple smaller side rooms filled with additional chests and barrels of storage, as well as a cache of swords, spears, and arrows.

They returned to check the other branch, both remaining as silent as possible.

As they rounded the corner, they could see a faint light up ahead.

Ezra quickly extinguished her lantern. The light was coming around another corner a good distance ahead.

In complete silence, Meena and Ezra crept down the tunnel. Meena carefully glanced around the corner, then stepped aside so Ezra could do the same.

Two guards sat on a bench at the end of the tunnel. A solid wood door filled the space behind them. Meena could hear the faint sound of their voices echoing down the symmetrical walls of the square tunnel, but she could not hear their specific words.

Remaining out of sight, Meena and Ezra stared at each other for a long moment, not daring to speak and reveal their presence.

Meena’s toe silently tapped the ground below her feet as she tried to come up with a plan. The ground was rough under her feet.

Leaning down, she used her finger tips to find a few small chunks of rock. That was a start.

Holding the rocks in her fist, she silently mimed her plan to Ezra.

The dim light reflecting off the side of the tunnel was just enough to see each other.

Ezra nodded, then held up a hand, asking Meena to wait for a moment.

She appeared to be deep in thought, then she looked down at the yellow dress she was wearing. Sending Meena an apologetic grimace, she grabbed at the decorative ribbons which fluttered around her waist, creating the illusion of a belt.

With a few gentle tugs, she broke some of them free from their stitching.

Meena nodded, not entirely sure what Ezra was planning.

Ezra nodded at Meena. She was ready.

Spreading her palm wide, Meena positioned a rock on her open palm. Putting her other hand into position, she prepared her fingers and leaned around the corner.

She flicked the rock from her hand. It flew in a beautiful arc, bouncing off the far stone flagstones with multiple resounding echoes.

The two guards instantly jumped to their feet, staring at the wooden door where the sound originated from.

Meena barely held in a scream as her own finger instantly stung with pain. She ignored it. Taking advantage of the soldier’s surprise—and turned backs—Meena stepped into the tunnel and threw the larger chunk of rock as hard as she could at the soldier on the left.

The soldiers were turning around, but not fast enough. Meena’s rock hit her target on the side of his head, and he fell to the ground, stunned.

She flinched, but immediately turned her attention to the other soldier. He was standing completely still, his eyes wide open with shock as he stared at Ezra.

Turning to her companion, Meena heard Ezra let out a low, painful groan. Her hands were held in front of her palm, facing forward, and her head was curled down toward her chest.

“Bind his hands,” she said. “Quickly.”

The ribbons Ezra had been holding were scattered along the ground.

Meena picked up the longest she could see and ran down the tunnel.

The soldier stood there, immobile, as she approached.

Within moments, she had his hands bound behind his back. “He’s secured,” she called.

Ezra dropped her arms, letting out a deep bellow of pain. She sank to her knees, her hands clasping her stomach.

Meena ran back to her friend. “That was magic,” she said. “Are you alright?” She reached out to touch Ezra, but the woman held up her hand and shook her head.

“I will be,” Ezra said. “I need a moment.”

Meena grabbed some more ribbons from the ground at her feet. “I’m going to secure the other before he wakes up.”

That was chaos magic. Ezra didn’t have to say it for Meena to recognize it.

Slightly ashamed of herself, Meena felt relieved to be putting space between her and the chaos Quotidian.

She didn’t think she was afraid of the woman—Ezra had multiple opportunities to harm Meena if she had wanted to—but this new knowledge did make Meena uncomfortable.

She kept her eyes on her task while consciously waiting for Ezra to recover.

“Are you alright?” Meena asked again, after the moments stretched out too long.

Ezra finally sat up. “Getting there, thank you.”

Without turning her back fully on the other woman, Meena tested the wooden door. “It’s locked,” she informed Ezra.

“I can use chaos magic,” Ezra responded.

“I noticed,” Meena said.

“That was how I planned on unlocking the door,” Ezra explained. She got to her feet and slowly walked the length of the tunnel, keeping her hand on the wall for balance. “I just need a few more moments.”

“You drew the magic from chaos inside you,” Meena said, watching her approach.

Meena’s finger still ached. Rocks were much more painful to flick than acorns. She put her finger in her mouth to dull the pain.

Ezra nodded. “The pain—or fear—can come from anywhere,” she explained. “I just no longer draw it from others.”

“That’s very noble of you?” Meena implicitly believed what Ezra was telling her, and she felt a little angry at herself for accepting it so readily.

“It hurts,” Ezra responded.

“I’m sorry.” Meena took her finger out of her mouth. Hopefully, that was the only flicking she would have to do tonight, as she didn’t think her poor finger could take another hit. “But we got past the guards without harming them too badly. I hope.”

“Let’s finish this.” Ezra held her hands in front of her, and a grimace appeared on her face.

Meena stepped away from the door.

Ezra inhaled and closed her eyes, bracing herself against the wall.

The lock on the door clicked.

As the door swung open on its own accord, Meena realized that Ezra had not yet exerted any power.

Someone was pushing through the other side!

Jumping in front of her vulnerable friend, Meena raised her hands to protect them from more soldiers.