Chapter 62: The Choir's Welcome
The ravine was a mouth of shadows. They stumbled through it, a procession of ghosts, the palace’s blind spot at their backs. Brambles tore at already-ravaged silks and skin. Leo fell twice, silent tears cutting tracks through the grime on his cheeks. Callum scooped him up without a word, settling the boy against his shoulder. Vincent led, a phantom in the gloom, his sword a pale sliver in the moonlight as he picked a path over the slick, moss-covered stones.
The safehouse wasn’t a house. It was a crack in the world, a deeper shadow where the ravine wall folded in on itself. A figure detached from the darkness as they approached.
“Took your time,” a woman’s voice rasped. Anya. She stepped into a sliver of moonlight, her face all harsh angles and watchful eyes. She was older, hair streaked with grey, built lean and hard like a whip. Her gaze swept over them, not missing a detail—the tattered gowns, the bare feet bleeding on the rocks, the wide, shell-shocked eyes. It lingered on the children. On Kya, leaning heavily against Seraphina’s side. On Mia, asleep now in Seraphina’s arms. On Leo in Callum’s grasp.
Her expression didn’t soften. It just… focused.
“Inside. Now.” She turned, vanishing into the crevice.
Inside was merely an extension of the cold. A shallow cave, maybe thirty feet deep, smelling of wet rock and old smoke. A tiny, smokeless fire of blue-burning crystals cast a weak, cold light. Another figure, a hulking man named Rook, was checking bundles against the wall. He nodded at Callum, his face grim.
“Patrols are doubling on all southern roads. They’re not even being subtle about it. They’re turning people back at the city gates, checking wagons for…” His eyes flicked to the women. “For anyone who looks like they don’t belong.”
Callum lowered Leo to the ground. The boy scurried to Kya’s side. “The Archduchy?”
Rook handed him a scrap of oilcloth—a map, hastily drawn. “The official gates are sealed. Imperial garrison’s been reinforced. But here,” his thick finger stabbed at a point southwest of the city, where the imperial cartography blurred into forest. “The old postern. The one from the Second War. Stone’s mostly rubble, portcullis is rusted shut. But the hinges… they remember southern hands.”
Callum frowned at the map. “Remember?”
“Archduke Harold’s personal guard used that passage during the insurrection fifty years back. The mechanism… it’s keyed. Needs a certain weight, a certain touch on the release. Southern iron. Southern stone. His people might get it to groan open an inch.”
“Might,” Vincent said flatly, warming his hands briefly over the cold fire. “A lovely gamble.”
“It’s the only one not swarming with Alistair’s new pets,” Anya said. She had approached Seraphina. Her movements were efficient, not gentle. She peered at Mia’s sleeping face, then at Kya’s exhausted one. “You need to see to your people. And you need to see to yours.”
Seraphina’s breath caught. She knew. The letter from her father had listed names, codes. The ones taken from Blackwood after she’d been moved to the palace. The children born from her, sold before she could even hold them.
“Where?” The word was a scrape of stone. She hadn’t allowed herself to wonder which were hers back there, but she knew the one she’d seen first was hers. The little one who resembled Mia.
Anya jerked her head toward the rear of the cave, where the shadows were deepest. “Back there. Gave ‘em some food. Fed ‘em. They’re quiet. Definitely yours. They have the same aura about them.”
Seraphina’s legs felt like water. She passed Mia to Callum, who accepted the sleeping girl wordlessly. She felt Callum and Vincent’s eyes on her, but their attention was a distant thing. The world had narrowed to that pool of shadow.
She walked toward it.
The blue light didn’t reach here. She saw shapes, huddled under threadbare blankets. Three shapes.
One sat up. A girl. Long limbs, too thin. Eyes that reflected the faint light like an animal’s. She was maybe eleven. Liana. The one who had helped her lead the group before.
Next to her, a smaller bundle stirred. A boy. Finn. Eight years old. His face was a perfect, heartbreaking echo of Leo’s, but sharper, hungrier.
The third shape didn’t move. A tiny mound. Nessa. Two years old.
Seraphina knelt on the cold stone. She couldn’t speak. Her throat had sealed shut. She reached out a hand, trembling violently.
Liana flinched. Just a tiny jerk of her shoulders. Then she stilled, staring. Her eyes were empty in a way Kya’s never were, even at their most terrified. It was a hollowed-out emptiness, a space where a person should be.
“He said you’d come,” Liana whispered. Her voice was rough, unused. “The old man with the sad eyes. He said our mother would come and take us south.”
Seraphina’s fingers hovered, not touching. “I… I’m so sorry.”
“Are you her?” Finn asked. His voice was clearer, younger, but just as flat. “He said you had green eyes. Like us.”
She nodded, a helpless jerk of her head. A tear hit the stone between them with a faint pat.
Finn studied her face. “I don’t remember you.”
“You were… taken. When you were very small.”
“Oh.” He considered this. “They said you were dead. At Silks. They said it didn’t matter.”
The words were a physical blow. Seraphina folded forward, a silent sob wrenching through her. The sound seemed to unlock something in Liana. The older girl’s empty eyes flickered. She uncurled a bony hand from her blanket and, with terrifying slowness, reached out. She didn’t touch Seraphina. She touched the obsidian dagger still clutched in Seraphina’s belt. Her fingers traced one of the pearl panels.
“Pretty,” Liana murmured.
It was that small, broken word that undid the last of Seraphina’s control. She wept. Soundless, shuddering waves of it. For the stolen years, for the hollows in their cheeks, for the dead ones who weren’t in this cave. For herself. The grief was a black tide, and she let it drown her for a moment.
A small, warm body pressed against her side. Kya had followed. Her daughter didn’t say anything. She just looked at Liana and Finn, her own green eyes wide and solemn. Then she sat down beside her mother, a solid, living anchor in the dark.
Back by the fire, Callum watched the shadows swallow them. He saw Seraphina’s back convulse. He saw the skeletal shapes of the two older children, their stillness more unsettling than any cry. He saw Kya, a small bastion of fierce calm, holding the line.
Vincent came to stand beside him, his arms crossed. “Five taken alive,” he said quietly, repeating the Archduke’s intelligence. “Only three remain… we should’ve warned her…”
Callum’s jaw worked. “We need to move. Dawn’s in a few hours. They’ll send hounds to the ravine.”
“They can’t move like this,” Vincent said, his gaze on the huddled forms. “Some of the women can barely walk. The children are in shock. Seraphina is…” He trailed off.
“She’s holding together by a thread,” Callum finished. He looked at the map again, then at the cave entrance, a sliver of less-dark against the pure black. “We rest here until the moon sets. Then we move. It’s twenty miles to that postern. Over rough country.”
“If we’re caught in the open—”
“If we stay here, we’re dead,” Callum said, his voice low and final. “Alistair won’t just kill us. He’ll put us on display. He’ll make a spectacle of it. Those children…” He didn’t finish the thought.
Anya appeared beside them, handing Callum a waterskin and a hunk of hard bread. “The little one, Nessa. She’s feverish. Breathing’s wet. Might be lung-sick.”
Callum closed his eyes. A sick toddler. A twenty-mile forced march. Imperial patrols with hounds. The math was brutal.
“We carry who we can’t walk,” Vincent said, his tone leaving no room for debate. He was already divesting himself of unnecessary gear. “We go slow and quiet. And we hope the archduke’s people are waiting at the other side of that rusted gate.”
“Hope,” Callum snorted, but there was no humor in it. He took a savage bite of the bread. “Get what sleep you can. An hour. No more.”
He turned back to look into the dark. Seraphina was just a silhouette now, her head bowed over the three small shapes. One of them—Finn—had shifted closer. He wasn’t touching her, but he was near. It was something.
Callum leaned his head back against the cold stone wall. The blue crystals hissed. Somewhere in the ravine outside, a night bird cried, a lonely, piercing sound. He counted the breaths until he could tell his people to get up and walk again into the dark.
Sera wiped her eyes best she could, but the tears didn’t stop. “I’m so sorry… I’m so so sorry… I couldn’t do anything… I was trapped myself… I didn’t even know… I didn’t even know you were alive. They told me you were dead, too. All of you.” Her blurry vision focused over the sick toddler. Her gut clenched, what if she lost her to this fever? Another child lost. She had given birth fifteen times. Six remained. It was devastating.
Kya wrapped her arms around her mother silently, resting her head against her as an anchor. “She’s a good Mama. She did a lot to keep us safe. If she knew about you… she would’ve kept you safe too. She loves you so much, she says your names in her sleep. The names she gave you.” She encouraged her newfound siblings, there was no jealousy there for sharing her mother. She knew her mother needed them as much as they needed her. “She’ll keep you safe from now on. But Mama is hurting, too. So you have to be patient with her.”
Liana’s fingers still rested on the pearl inlay. She looked from Kya’s earnest face to Seraphina’s shattered one. “What names?” she asked, her voice barely a breath.
Seraphina swallowed a sob. “Liana Rose,” she managed. “For the flower that grows on the southern cliffs. Finnian Wyatt. Nessa Gale.” She touched the sleeping toddler’s forehead, wincing at the heat. “I’m so sorry.”
Finn shifted again. “Finnian,” he repeated, testing the weight of it. It sounded foreign, like a word from a story. He didn’t reject it.
A shadow fell over them. Callum crouched, his presence a solid interruption to the grief. He held a dented canteen and a rag. His eyes, usually so sharp with strategy, were just tired.
“Fever?” he asked, his voice low.
Seraphina nodded, unable to speak again. Callum soaked the rag, wrung it out. He handed it to her, his fingers brushing hers. The contact was brief, warm against her icy skin.
“Cool her head. Her neck. We have maybe an hour,” he said. He didn’t offer false comfort. He stated a fact. Then he looked at Liana and Finn. “Can you walk? It will be far. In the dark.”
Liana’s chin lifted a fraction. “I can walk.”
“Me too,” Finn echoed, though his thin legs looked like twigs.
“Good.” Callum stood. “Stay close to your mother.” He said it simply, as if it were already an established truth, and moved back toward the fire.
Vincent was repacking the scant supplies. He glanced up as Callum approached. “The little one?”
“Sick,” Callum said, grabbing his own pack. “We’ll have to carry her. Rotate shifts.”
“Maps show a creek bed about three miles west. It winds close to the old postern road. Good cover, but a bottleneck.” Vincent’s mind was already racing ahead, calculating risks. “If they’re using hounds, the water might confuse the scent. For a while.”
“Might,” Callum grunted, echoing Vincent’s earlier skepticism. He ran a hand through his hair. “We need to move before the moon sets. That’s our last bit of free light.”
From the other side of the cave, Elara began crying again, a soft, whimpering sound. Tess hushed her, but the panic was a contagion. Anya stalked over, her movement abrupt.
“Enough,” the older woman snapped, her voice cutting through the murmur. “You can weep when you’re free. Right now, you need to tie your damn shoes. Anyone who can’t keep up will be left. That’s not a threat. It’s the truth of this.”
The harshness worked. The whimpering silenced into ragged breaths. The women began checking each other’s makeshift bindings, helping where fingers were too numb to function.
Seraphina dabbed the cool cloth on Nessa’s brow. The child stirred, letting out a faint, distressed whimper. Her small hand flailed, gripping Seraphina’s thumb with surprising strength. That tiny, fierce hold anchored Seraphina more than any words could.
Kya leaned in. “The water in the rag. It’s… listening to you.”
Seraphina hadn’t even realized. The dampness on the cloth felt strangely alert, a focused coolness seeping into Nessa’s skin, seeking the fever’s root. It was a feeble trickle of her power, unsummoned, responding to her desperate need. She felt the wild hum of the ravine outside, a chaotic chorus of roots and stone and flowing water, but the dagger at her hip grounded her, funneling the noise into this single, manageable task.
“It helps,” Seraphina whispered to Kya.
“I can try,” Kya offered, her small face serious.
“Not yet.” Seraphina caught her daughter’s hand. “Save your strength. The woods ahead… they’re loud. You’ll need to listen, too.”
The hour vanished like smoke. Anya extinguished the blue crystals, plunging them into a darkness so complete it felt physical. They shuffled toward the cave mouth, a chain of blind souls. Seraphina carried Nessa, a burning weight against her chest. Callum took point with Vincent. Liana and Finn held onto Seraphina’s torn skirt, their grips tight. Leo’s hand was in Callum’s free one. Kya held Mia’s hand.
“Stay close. Step where I step,” Callum’s voice came from the blackness ahead. “If you hear anything, stop. Don’t make a sound.”
They entered the ravine. The world became sound and feeling: the crunch of gravel underfoot, the rush of a far-off stream, the labored breathing at her back. The moon was a sliver now, casting only the faintest silver edges on the world.
They moved for an eternity, a slow, torturous crawl over uneven ground. Nessa’s fever burned through Seraphina’s clothes. Her own arms began to shake with fatigue. A root caught her foot and she stumbled, biting back a cry as she fought to keep the child from falling.
An arm snaked around her waist, steadying her. Vincent. He took Nessa from her without a word, cradling the toddler against his own chest. The sudden absence of heat and weight made Seraphina stagger.
“I can—”
“Your turn to guide the others,” he said, his voice a low vibration in the dark. “Just walk.”
They traded burdens in silence. Up ahead, Callum halted suddenly, a raised fist visible as a slightly darker shade against the night. Everyone froze.
The sound was faint at first. A distant, rhythmic baying. Hounds. It was coming from the east, from the direction of the palace grounds. It wasn’t close. Not yet.
Callum turned his head, his profile sharp against the gloom. “They’ve picked up a scent. Could be ours. Could be a deer. Pick up the pace.”
The walk became a desperate, quiet rush. The baying seemed to hold its distance, but it didn’t fade. It was a pendulum swinging in the dark, marking time they didn’t have. Seraphina felt the forest around them, a vast, sleeping entity. She reached out with her frayed senses, not to command, but to plead.
Don’t tell them where we are, she thought into the rustling leaves, the damp earth. Just for a little while.
A breeze stirred, lifting the hair from her neck. It swept down the ravine, east to west, carrying away from them. The baying sound subtly changed pitch, hinting at confusion.
Next to her, Kya let out a small, controlled exhale. Her small hand was outstretched, palm facing the tangled undergrowth. A single vine had snaked across the path behind them, its leaves trembling.
The creek bed appeared as a jagged scar of slightly lighter stone. They half-slid, half-fell down its bank into ankle-deep, icy water. The shock stole their breath.
“This way,” Vincent whispered, adjusting Nessa in his arms and leading them upstream. The water would hide their tracks. It would also soak them to the bone and slow them to a trudge.
They waded into the black, liquid cold. The baying of the hounds finally began to fade, swallowed by the gurgle of the stream over stones. For now, they were ghosts again. But the dawn was a tightening noose, and the rusted gate felt a continent away.