I shook my head clear of the image. In any case, at least we had an image to put to the specters—unlike the lord, whom no one had ever seen.
The heartless monster. She called him that. Was it all just Ingrith’s delusion?
“Damn you, you crazy ol’ crone! Ingrith!”
There was no mistaking that voice, muffled and angry and distant though it might have been. Fish Face. I wondered if this time someone in the quarry had gotten hurt—or worse. And they would come with their anger, itching to find Ingrith, and they would find me. Just me.
I released the shawl from my fingers and stood up, ignoring the soreness in my muscles. Before I could even stop to think, my feet kicked up the dress and flew farther into the fields. If I could just get out of sight before they came. If I could just pretend I’d been long gone before the second earthquake.
They knew you were with her beforehand. They’ll see you running through the fields. There’s no reason for them to keep their eyes down.
I ran, though, as if there were no other choice. I couldn’t deal with all of the questions. I couldn’t deal with the stares, the hatred. Not on this day.
Thanks to the hills, I might have gotten out of sight before they found her clothing. I made for the eastern dirt path as soon as I could, ready to insist I’d just been walking homeward. Home was so close. I was running at a speed I’d thought I’d lost, staring at the ground all the while, fighting through my body’s struggle to breathe. Ready to pretend I’d never even cut through the fields.
My dress! There were tears and grass stains all over the skirt.
Home was right there. Mother and Father might still be inside; there had to be a little time before dusk yet. I could cover the skirt up with an apron. I could grab another dress when Mother wasn’t looking. They’d notice. We don’t have any other nice dresses.
I kept running, straight past the house and into the woods. The trees kept the castle from view, so I looked up at last. I found the well-worn foliage to the side of the path and burst through the trees. I didn’t care that stray branches scratched my arms and ripped at already-torn seams. I was going somewhere where I could rest and think, where I could quiet the insanity running through my head, where I could figure out what choices were left to me, if any at all.
A shriek, or more like a giggling squeal, tore through the air as something fast and hard slammed against my abdomen. I felt a sharp poke in my leg and heard a snap.
“Noll!” The little girl whose bushy, twig-filled head had just rammed into my abdomen stepped back and looked up, rubbing her forehead with one hand. In her other hand, she held a branch. The top of it dangled by a thread.
My pulse was still racing, and I shut my mouth, worried my heart might escape through my throat. I ran a palm over the pain in my side, swallowed my heart back inside me, and spoke, breathless. “Nissa.” A farmer’s daughter. A friend of Luuk’s. We’d all played together before. “What are you doing here?”
It was a dumb question. I was the one who’d shown her the cavern in the first place.
Nissa tilted her head, pointing the branch at the cavern’s dark mouth behind her. “Slaying monsters.” Her mouth pinched. “It broke.” She tossed the branch onto a nearby pile of moss and rocks.
I smiled, even despite everything. “Elgar’s always broken. It’ll mend next time you pick it up.” Pick it up somewhere else entirely. My smile faded. “Were you in there alone?”
Nissa shrugged and clutched both hands behind her back. “Everyone else is getting ready for the Returning.” Her gaze fell on my dress. “Aren’t you going to get ready?”
I was ready. But maybe I’ll never be ready, not really. “I will.” I stood beside her and nudged her gently onward. “You go get ready, too.”
Nissa walked a few paces, then stopped and turned around. She stared at me quizzically with her large, brown eyes. “Aren’t you coming?”
I shooed her onward. “Not just yet. I’ll be there soon. Go on.”
Nissa shrugged and skipped forward through the foliage, humming a tune as she went. I watched her until she blended into the trees and vanished from sight.
Vanished. Right in front of me.
I walked over to the broken branch Nissa had discarded and picked it up, turning the wood in my fingers. It’d been so long since I’d been the one to clutch Elgar. But there were monsters ahead; there were monsters behind.
***
When the queen and her retainers were brave enough, they’d chase monsters into the blackest pits. The cavern off the main path in the woods held countless monsters and endless secrets, and the queen, who lost her retainers one by one, had never explored all its vast depths.