She wasn’t sure how long she crawled through the darkness, holding back her fear, trying not to think of how stale the air felt or how far she might have to continue with only the thinnest filament of hope, when she heard it. Rushing water. The sound of a river through deep canyons. The Tovasheh.
A low, keening wail escaped her lips, a noise that she would not have recognized as her own voice had she not been the only living thing in this never-ending night. Relief threatened to break her open.
She had already determined that she must be deep in the Maw, in the catacombs that dotted the bottomless crevices far from the city proper. How she had gotten here, and why, was still a mystery, but it was enough now to know she could hear the river. All Maw children were taught that if they ever got lost, they were to listen for the river. She knew that if she followed the sound of the water, she would eventually find a way out. She was bleeding and filthy, and her bones begged for rest, but she forced herself on, toward the source of the water, and of life.
* * *
Another hour passed. Or a day, or a week. She could not tell in the darkness. All she knew was forward, toward the river.
Finally, she turned a corner, and fresh air greeted her, the rush of water thundering in her ears. And in her eyes, light. She scrambled forward. The opening fell off into space, so she dropped flat on her belly and nudged closer to look. She found herself peering out of a cave situated in the middle of a sheer cliffside. The drop was straight down but not impossibly high. Perhaps the length of half a dozen men. But the waters were swift, and she couldn’t tell if they were deep enough to cushion her or hid rocks that might shatter her skull. Of course, such concerns hadn’t stopped her from leaping into the Tovasheh before, but now she was not sure she would survive the fall, let alone be able to swim the currents of frigid waters below.
She laid her head down on crossed forearms and fought off despair. What choice did she have but to fling herself into the unknown and hope fate took pity on her, again? She laughed silently, her shoulders shaking. Skies, was this pity? If waking up in one’s tomb was fate’s mercy, she would hate to know its savagery.
No. This wasn’t fate. Fate hadn’t left her in that grave-in-waiting to see if she’d wake up or not. Zataya had. Or Denaochi himself. She supposed she should be grateful, but she was not. Rage boiled low in her gut. Rage at that witch, and at her brother for listening to her, and at herself for believing in either of them.
She rolled onto her back, the top of her head dangerously close to the cliff, and stared up at the sheer wall stretching above her… and smiled.
A knotted climbing rope, the end only an arm’s length away, hung down the side of the cliff.
“Fuck you, Ochi,” she whispered. Because she was right. It was not fate that did this but her brother, and he was a man of games and tests, and Naranpa understood now that this had been a test. This test was cruel and unnecessary, and she hated him for it, but at least she knew she could pass it.
She allowed herself a few moments’ rest before scooting her body over the edge, shoulders dangling over the canyon drop, to reach the rope. She hauled herself up, span by span, out of the hole. Once she was free of the tunnel and hanging parallel to the cliffside, her old climbing senses came to her, and hand-and footholes revealed themselves in what had looked sheer and unclimbable before. Using toes wedged in rock and knees for balance, she looped the knotted rope around her waist and began to climb. She was weak, and her progress was frustratingly slow, but she was rising.
The sound of the river began to fade, and the light, albeit only the thick gloom of twilight, grew brighter as she ascended out of the deepest parts of the Maw. At last, she reached a ledge, and she hauled herself up on trembling arms to find that she was in the back room of a building. Wooden boxes and tall clay containers lined the walls and crowded the floor, leaving a narrow path to follow. It led to another room similarly crowded with goods and, finally, a front room separated from the others by a blanket hung in the doorway. There were no containers here. Instead, empty stools huddled against round tables, and on the shelves were jars of tea leaves and dried fruits and flowers. She was in a tearoom with a secret exit that led to the catacombs. If she had needed any more confirmation that Ochi was the architect of her situation, this was enough.
She found herself at the nearest shelf, her hand reaching for a clay jar marked with a drawing of a yellow blossom, each floret a profusion of lacy delicate blooms. She could almost taste the pleasingly astringent tea they made, feel the warmth of the steep clouding her face. It had been a favorite of hers in the tower.
The tower. To hell with the tower. That life was no longer hers.
She let the jar fall from her hands and shatter. She crushed the tea underfoot as she pulled another clay jar from the shelf, this one marked with a leaf she knew to be a stimulant. It would be better to brew it, but the thought of finding water and heating it and waiting for the tea to steep was too much. She pulled a pinch from the jar and chewed the leaves well before swallowing, hoping their properties would hold back her exhaustion long enough to see this night through.
Winter winds cut at her bare legs and face as she stepped onto the street, the blanket dress not enough to keep her warm. The strange twilight that hung over the Maw suggested evening, but the streets were empty. Even in winter, Maw streets were rarely empty. An uneasiness pressed down on her. Something was wrong. She laughed, silent and mocking. What isn’t wrong, Nara?
She walked past abandoned storefronts and shuttered homes. Still no people in the streets, but she caught a little boy watching her from a doorway. His mother came and swept him away, her hand slapping a drawing on the outside wall and fingers throwing the sign against evil. Naranpa studied the drawing. It took her a moment to place it, it was so unexpected. But once she realized what it was, she saw it on another doorway farther down, and there, on a wall beside a shuttered food stand. It was crowsign, the skull that marked the homes of Carrion Crow in Odo. What was it doing here? And why show her? What had happened to make them all fear?
* * *
Naranpa saw no one else, not even a curious child, until she reached the Lupine. Denaochi’s gambling den was as she remembered it—a windowless round building built into a cliff wall, only the front half of the circle exposed. Its whitewashed walls glowed in the ever-present twilight, a twilight that had not deepened to night but stayed steadily in shadow. It was strange, unsettling, but she had other things on her mind. The most important being her brother and his witch.
She climbed the ladder to the entrance, a trapdoor in the roof. Last time she had been here, a giant with a cudgel had awaited her, and she had been dressed as a man and carried a purse bursting with cacao. Now she came only as herself, a blanket across her body and dried blood and dirt flaking from her skin. She had no idea what kind of welcome she would receive, or whether her brother had hoped she would survive her tomb and his tests, or whether he had hoped the opposite. She wasn’t even sure what she would say to him. Was she grateful for his help or resentful of the way he chose to dole it out? All she knew was that her need to prove she was not the spoiled, useless elite he thought her to be was enough to drive her this far, and her own will to be something more, someone worthy, would carry her through the next.