The Fire Children by Lauren Roy Read Free Book Online Page B

against one wall, across from where she’d entered, were the rotted remains of benches. Tattered tapestries hung on the walls, which explained why the echoes had been so muffled when she’d called out earlier. They were similar to the ones in the Worship Hall, but instead of showing Mother Sun and the bounties of the desert—camels, palms, dates—Yulla saw blue waves stitched into the cloth, gulls and fish, and ships like the merchants spoke of when they brought their wares from the far-away sea.
    It made no sense. None at all, unless—
    A shadow flickered across the cavern. Yulla glanced up.
    A face peered down at her, distorted by the thick glass. Yulla recognized that wide slash of a mouth from the last night of the feast: not one of the Fire Children, but the witch-woman who’d smiled at her while her sisters argued.
    They stared at each other. Yulla willed her feet to move, to run, to get away, but her feet refused to obey. She stood there until the witch-woman turned away, maybe to say something to someone nearby, and Yulla got hold of her panic. The spell broken, she fled back into the tunnels, running as fast as she could for the cave-in. For home.
     
     
    T HE BLUE LIGHT coming down through the Seaglass illuminated her path, making her long, thin shadow race ahead of her. Then came the rumble of machinery within the walls, and the light dimmed, dimmed... and was gone.
    Yulla thought she’d grown used to the dark over the last day, but those few minutes she’d spent in that strangely lit cellar—was it the witch-women’s crumbling tower of a house, or somewhere different?—seemed to have made her forget how to move in it. She staggered to a stop, trying desperately to see again. Anything—a shadow on a shadow, the tiniest hint of movement— anything would have been better than the uninterrupted black.
    She forced herself to get moving again, her arms flung out before her the way she’d walked that morning. She found the rope guide and clung to it. If anyone was following her, she couldn’t hear them over her panicked breath. Once or twice, she thought she heard a stealthy footfall, or the skitter-spray of pebbles kicked along the corridor, but when she paused and strained her ears, no further sounds came back to her.
    When she reached the rockfall, she didn’t hesitate. Up she went, scrabbling for handholds and footholds, squeezing through the opening at the top, scuttling down the other, steeper slope. Debris tumbled in her wake on both sides, but Yulla reached the ground unscathed. She whispered a prayer of thanks to Mother Sun, found the rope guide, and left the cave-in, the Seaglass, and the witch-women behind.
     
     
    T HIS TIME, WHEN Yulla heard voices she announced herself. Their worried, buzzy tone had just registered with her when one of the grown-ups came swooping out of the darkness to take her by the shoulders.
    “Yulla!” The rumble of his voice and the smell of flour told her it was Hatal, the baker. “Are you all right? Where have you been? We’ve all been looking for you.”
    Her thoughts felt sluggish, as though she’d woken in the middle of the night and couldn’t figure whether she were truly awake or still dreaming. “All of you?” Now she heard the echoes travelling from other tunnels: people calling her name over and over. “Yulla! Yuuuuulla!”
    How had she not heard them while she was running away from the Seaglass? Could the witch-woman have cast a spell on her, so she couldn’t hear the shouts and follow them back to where the people were? I’m here now, safe. She swayed as relief washed over her.
    Hatal turned to someone else in the room. “Tell them we’ve found her. I’ll bring her home.” Bare feet slapped away in the other direction, and at what Yulla assumed was the entrance to the cellar, a child paused to shout the news. Someone farther along picked it up, using the echoes to propel the announcement faster than they could run.
    Cloth rustled as Hatal