Chapter 27

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Chapter 27

There it was: her secret out in the open. One of them, at least. Andala was keeping so many nowadays that she could barely keep track. Kitt had heard it. All those stupid men at Tomas's side had heard it.

And Oriane. Surely Oriane had heard it too.

And now she knew that Andala had betrayed her, before she'd even known her.

Andala fled towards her quarters. Torches flickered in her wake, as if she were a ghost haunting the halls. Kitt had tried to catch her as she left the ballroom, but she had bolted away without stopping. She didn't feel like talking. Not to anyone. She had not been planning to leave just yet, but as much as she had been dreading the journey before, she could not wait to leave the palace now.

The servants' quarters were quiet. The workers seemed to be taking the situation better than those upstairs; none of them were up drinking and panicking at all hours. Andala slipped inside her small room and shut the door, collapsing back against it, eyes closed, thoughts racing.

King Tomas had not been malicious in saying what he did. It was true, after all. It was she who had brought Oriane to him, she who had set off this chain reaction of events. There was blood on her hands, visible even in this darkness she'd brought down upon the world. 198

Andala didn't know when she had sunk to the ground. The stone was like ice beneath her, an aching cold seeping into her already tired bones. She made herself rise. She did not deserve to collapse into guilt and regret. She did not have time to dwell on the way she'd come to know Oriane, to care about her.

She couldn't go back. Only forward. And if she wanted to even begin to make up for what she had done, she needed to get them out of this mess. The first step was saving Oriane from whatever the king's men wanted to do to her to make her sing. There was only one course of action left.

Hauling herself to her feet, Andala began to pack for the journey. Her mother's face floated in her mind like a mirage as she worked. She had not seen the woman for ten years. Longer than that. She dreaded doing so again, but now she had no choice.

It was time to visit her mother, and to find out what she knew of the skylark and her song.

‘Leave the candle burning, Mama, please.'

The girl's tone was pleading, her eyes wide. She had drawn the covers up past her chin. She looked beseechingly at her mother from beneath them, her gaze flicking anxiously every few seconds towards the candle she held – the only source of light in the room.

‘You know I cannot do that, my love.'

The girl's mother smiled down at her apologetically, shadows flickering about her face. The child didn't know why she was smiling at all. This was serious. She needed her mother to listen. 199

‘If I leave the candle burning, it might fall over in the night. And then the house might catch alight, and we would all be in very grave trouble indeed.'

‘I'll make sure it doesn't fall,' the girl said desperately. ‘I'll stay awake all night and make sure.'

‘But I thought you said the light was to help you sleep? That you couldn't do so in the dark? What good will it be, then, if you do not sleep even when the light remains?' That smile was still there. Perhaps her mother found this funny. The girl, terrified as she was, could not imagine why. Her confusion only magnified her fear, and cast a sharper edge to the pain that accompanied it.

Her mother bent to smooth her hair back and kiss her brow. ‘It's only night, my darling. It will do you no good to pretend the darkness does not exist. I do not do this to hurt you, but to help you.'

And before the child could react, grab her arm, call out for her to stop, her mother had blown out the candle and swept quietly from the room.

The click of the door closing was the loudest sound the girl had ever heard. She lay there, not daring to move, to breathe, even to close her staring eyes against the dark. It pressed in on them, and seemed to do the same to her body, so that she found herself forced down into the mattress, trapped beneath the heavy covers. They lay upon her like a block of stone, making it hurt to breathe.

The girl did not know why the darkness scared her so. She did not know what it was that lived in the shadows. All she knew was that it watched her. Waited for her. Called her name in the night, made her chest ache, stole her sleep.

Outside her window, the night stretched out black and unbroken, and the girl did not sleep a wink until dawn's first light kissed the sky. 200

Andala's head nodded forward onto her chest, waking her with a start.

She gasped, startling her horse, as she was shaken from the memory. Or had it been a dream? It had seemed real enough – her mother's face had looked just as she remembered it.

Leaning forward a little, she stroked the neck of her mount, murmuring soothing words until the gelding's ears relaxed and his pace evened out. As soon as her things were packed, she had gone straight to the stables, knowing that Kitt would not mind her borrowing his horse, Cricket. Andala had told him she was going somewhere and was sure he would piece together what had happened when he found the stall empty.

With Cricket calm again, continuing his steady pace down the deserted road, Andala took a deep breath to steady herself. It had shaken her, the dream, the memory. But she needed to focus. To stay awake. She had not come across anyone else yet, but one never knew who might be lurking just off the roadside in the middle of the night. Andala wondered whether people were already taking advantage of the perpetual black. Robbers, vagabonds. Maybe worse. The darkness always drew those with intentions to match.

Was that why her mother had given up her power over it?

Andala pushed the question from her head. Her mind had to be clear by the time she reached the house. There would be no time to rehash the same arguments they'd had before. No time for talk of anything other than the matter at hand: Oriane.

A sudden pressure seized Andala's chest, as if someone had reached behind her ribs and taken hold of her heart. 201

She was deep in the woods now, far from the city, farther from the palace. She would need to stop and rest somewhere soon. It was another day's ride to the little village where her mother lived. Andala would have ridden it through if she could, but she did not want to exhaust Cricket.

Relief flooded through her as, an hour later, the woods began to thin and they came upon the town she'd planned to pass. There was an inn here, and in a stroke of good fortune, she had not yet sent off this month's wages, so had money for a room. The town appeared deserted, eerie in the faint glow of starlight. A few shops and scattered houses lay about. All looked dark and empty. Andala shivered, from cold as well as nerves. The temperature was still dropping. The air felt crisp as winter now.

As the town's largest building, the inn was easy to spot. Andala steered Cricket closer to it, relieved to see light glowing in its windows. She could even hear some low chatter from within, the sound carrying easily on the still night air. Tethering Cricket to a post, Andala took a steadying breath and made her way inside.

The inn was brightly lit, and blessedly warm. A fire crackled welcomingly in the large hearth. It smelled of ale and roasting meat. There were a handful of people scattered about, some at tables, some seated before the bar in conversation with the innkeep. Every head turned towards Andala as she entered.

‘Hello,' she said to the man behind the bar, forcing a note of confidence that she did not feel into her voice. ‘I wonder if I might have a room for the night.'

‘Ye'll need to be clearer than that, love,' came the innkeeper's gruff reply. ‘If I agree to give ye a room for the night, it might never end and ye might never leave.'

This drew a few chuckles from the patrons. Andala did not find the remark amusing, but forced a stiff smile upon her face nonetheless. 202 ‘Just for the next few hours, then. I only need to rest a while before I return to the road.'

‘The road?' The innkeeper blinked at her a few times. ‘Where are ye going, love? The road ain't safe out there, not in …' He waved a hand vaguely towards the windows. ‘Whatever this is.'

Andala kept the smile plastered to her face, though it grew tighter by the second. ‘It's only night,' she said, trying to keep her tone light. ‘Those of us who need to travel can still do so in the dark.'

The innkeeper continued to regard her warily. She could feel the others' eyes upon her too. Her calm veneer was beginning to slip. If she did not get away from them soon, she would surely scream.

‘Please,' she added eventually, unsticking her gritted teeth. ‘I can pay. I'm just in need of some sleep.'

Finally, the man nodded, and reached below the bar for a key. Trying her best to ignore the rest of the still-staring patrons, Andala politely refused the innkeep's offer of food and ale, requesting only that Cricket be seen to and stabled.

As she made her way up the rickety wooden staircase to her lodgings, she could not stop herself eavesdropping on the whispers of conversation that had resumed.

‘… heard the king is going to kill it.'

‘ Kill it? What good would that do? Then we'll be stuck like this forever—'

‘No, no, not the skylark , you fool. The other one.'

‘The other one?'

‘The one what does the opposite. Sings to bring the darkness down of a night, or what have you.'

‘Aye … I'd forgot there was two. What's that one called? I don't remember its name—' 203

‘Never mind its name. If he kills it like he says he will, the spell will be broken!'

Andala had paused on the stairs to listen, but now she had heard enough. She hastened to the end of the hallway to find her room. Fumbling with the key in the lock, she threw herself inside, slamming and locking the door behind her.

This was not a good sign. That people this far from the palace were talking about her – that people anywhere were talking about her – was the last thing she needed. And where had those rumours started, anyway? Who had been spreading word that the king planned to kill her? Andala knew how these things got distorted as they passed from ear to ear. But she also knew that there was usually some kernel of truth to that kind of talk, however deeply buried it may be.

Her breathing had grown fast and uneven. She forced herself to stand there until it slowed. Then, after lighting the candle the innkeep had given her, she undressed to her underclothes and crawled directly into bed, exhaustion dragging at her bones. The covers were surprisingly thick and warm. Perhaps she would sleep better than she had hoped.

The flame of the lone candle flickered beside her bed. Andala looked at it with tired eyes. Then she leaned over and blew it out, plunging the room into black.

She did not fear the darkness anymore. She merely despised it.