Luminous, page 16
We had to be nearly through the forest by now. Whatever had us was undoubtedly on the other side. “Where is it?”
“There, at my waist. Near your hands.” He wrapped his arms around me so I could free mine, and I fumbled at the leather belt at his waist until my fingers found the bone handle. “Be careful.”
There was no time to be careful. I leaned forward and brought my arm down with all my strength. Again and again I struck, until, finally, the rope snapped. We skidded to a stop as the end of the rope disappeared in the darkness. It was another minute before we heard the roar.
“Now what?” I hissed as he hauled me to my feet.
“We run.” He grabbed my right hand in his and took off. I had no idea which direction we were headed, only that it seemed to be away from where the rope had gone.
My sodden cloak was so heavy it felt like a person was hanging on my neck. I was still holding Evran’s knife, so I let go of his hand and undid the clasp, immediately feeling lighter as it fell away. Mina could make me another one if we ever made it out of here. Without the cloak, the light from my arms, neck, and face was too bright, but there was nothing I could do about that now. I ran harder than I’d ever run before, my boots splashing in the shallow water, my free arm pumping with all my strength.
Another roar erupted behind us.
“It’s chasing us,” Evran said. “We’ll never outrun it.”
“What is it?”
“A Lusiri.”
A sob tore free on my next exhale. My lungs burned with effort, and my limbs felt leaden.
“Don’t slow down, Liora. We have to keep running.”
“What’s the point? There’s no way out. We’ll never find your burrow. My light will attract every hungry monster in this place.” I let go of his hand, but the rope was still connecting us. “I have to cut you loose, before it’s too late.”
He stopped beside me and took my face roughly in his hands. “You can’t give up.”
“Your mother is going to destroy the tapestry in one day, Evran!” Hoofbeats sounded on the ground behind us. “Just go, please. I can’t have your death on my hands, too.”
Before I could cut the rope, he leaned forward, his hands still gripping my face so I couldn’t look away even if I’d wanted to. In his eyes, I saw that he truly loved me, that he had never meant to hurt me. For one moment, the terror and exhaustion disappeared as he pressed his lips to mine, tender and urgent at the same time. Too quickly, it was over.
“Stars don’t just shine, Liora,” he said, taking the bone knife from my hand and stepping in front of me to face the beast.
He’d said it to me once before, but I didn’t understand what he meant now any more than I had then. A moment later there was a sound somewhere between a roar and a whinny, and the Lusiri came into view.
It balked at the edge of my light, its massive hooves pawing at the ground. I could only see bits of it, an enormous square head leading to shoulders rippled with muscle, sloping hindquarters and a tail that ended with long hair, like a horse’s mane. The entire creature was as black as pitch. Its eyes were pure black, too, not even a crescent of white at the edges, but I could see them glimmering as they rolled in its head.
“What’s it doing?” I asked, my own pathetic knife held out in front of me.
“It’s the light. I think it’s afraid to come closer.”
The beast roared again, clearly frustrated. But then it planted its hooves at the edge of my light, shifted its weight backward, and began to inhale. The large equine nostrils flattened, then flared as it exhaled, then flattened again.
In horror, I realized that Evran was being sucked forward.
I grabbed him around the waist and pulled, but I was being drawn in, too.
“What’s it doing?” I cried.
“Feeding!”
My stomach twisted in horror. I tried to brace my feet against the floor, but it was no use. The pressure was too strong. My clothes were flattened against my back, as if a wind was forcing me forward from behind and pulling me from the front. “Is there a way to stop them?” I shouted.
The silence that followed was answer enough.
Suddenly I felt myself pulled sharply to the right, and I looked to see another Lusiri standing at the perimeter of my light, inhaling. I lost my grip on Evran and grabbed on to the rope still connecting us at the waist, but it was no use. I watched the first fiber of the rope snap, then another.
“Evran!”
“Liora!”
We reached for each other at the same time, but just as our fingers brushed, the rope snapped. He disappeared into the darkness as I was pulled backward. The last thing I saw was the glowing green of his eyes. I hadn’t noticed it before in my own light, but he had an eye shine just like the animals of the forest.
Fear was replaced by fury as I came to a stop inches from the Lusiri. It exhaled sharply, blowing my hair back from my face. Beneath my skin, it felt like my blood was beginning to boil, the way it had when Darius tried to touch me back at the palace. It wasn’t possible that I’d come this far only to fail now. I may not have courage and strength like Evran, but he was right. As long as there was breath in me, I couldn’t give up.
I forced my arms in front of me, one palm out, the other wrapped around my knife, and the Lusiri tossed its head back as the light flashed directly in its eyes. I heard a human scream behind me, and the anger seething inside of me intensified.
The Lusiri pawed at the air in front of it and tossed its massive head. It inhaled again, trying to pull me forward, but I imagined that my feet were roots, that I was as unmovable as an oak. I thought of Darius’s face when my skin seemed to burn him through the fire poker. I knew it. But what did he know? What was there about me that he hadn’t been willing to let go of?
Stars don’t just shine, Liora.
A memory of the night my mother died came to me in a sudden flash. The two of us, standing at the window as the bath filled. My mother’s outstretched arm pointing to a light in the sky. The light growing and growing, until it was no longer a star but a giant ball of flame heading straight toward us. My mother’s scream. The boom as the star struck the roof and the entire house shook. The fire raining down on us from above.
Stars don’t just shine, Liora.
They burn.
I reached for the place inside of me where my light came from, pushing past my fear and ordering it to show itself now, before it was too late.
To my shock, it responded. My head thrust backward, and my arms flew wide open as my entire body erupted in white light. I barely heard the screams of the Lusiri, hardly noticed the searing heat encompassing every part of me, burning away my clothing, burning away the darkness all around me.
The smallest stars don’t shine at noon, Father said. But I had looked at the stars through Darius’s device, and they weren’t small. Far away, perhaps, but just as bright and brilliant as our own sun. I had kept my own light hidden deep inside of me for so long.
Not anymore.
* * *
The next thing I remembered was a cool embrace.
I was lying on the floor, my eyes closed, naked and shivering. I felt something slip away, like a shadow passing over me, and opened my eyes.
The floor beneath me was bare wood. That was all I saw before the morning light streaming in the window seared my sensitive eyes and I had to close them again. I was not dead. I was no longer in the tapestry. This was Margana’s attic.
I sat up, cracking my eyes open just enough to see. “Where’s Evran?”
“I’m here.”
Someone laid a blanket over my shoulders. I gathered the soft wool around myself and opened my eyes a little more.
Evran was crouched a few feet away from me. “How do you feel?” he asked gently.
“Sore,” I said, taking stock of all my limbs. “And confused. What happened?”
“You burned your way out of the tapestry.” Margana stood above me. She was as imposing as ever, her arms crossed over her chest, her fiery hair flowing over her shoulders. “You would have burned yourself along with it if it weren’t for Evran.”
I turned back to him. “What is she talking about?”
“I’ll explain later,” he said gently. “The important thing is that you’re all right.”
I pushed to my feet and turned to see Adelle standing behind me. She held her arms out to me as tears streamed down her cheeks, and I walked into her embrace, knowing she was too overwhelmed to speak. Somehow, her vulnerability gave me strength. “I’m okay, Adelle. Really.”
She shook against me as she sobbed. “When the rope came back, and you weren’t there, I thought you were gone. I thought I’d never see you again.”
“But I’m here now. We’re okay. It’s over.”
“It is not over,” Margana said, with a sigh too full of regret for a woman who’d just been reunited with her son.
“Mother.” Evran went to stand beside her, squinting against the bright light. I could see him now, all of him. He looked like a drifter with his tangled hair and rumpled clothing, not like the gentle young man who called me a star. I blushed at the memory of the kiss we’d just shared in the tapestry. My first kiss.
The tapestry was behind them, or what was left of it anyway. It hung in tatters, a gaping hole burned right through the center. It looked ruined beyond repair. I had done the hard work for Margana, twice now. So why did she look so miserable?
“You let Lusiri into our world,” she said. “Two of them. For all we know they were a male and a female.”
The heat had left me by now, and even with the blanket a chill ran over my skin. “What do you mean? How did I—”
“They came through the hole you made, right after Evran and you.” I followed her gaze across the room. There were holes punched into the wooden floorboards. The attic door was hanging by one hinge.
“They came through here?”
“They tore out of the house like demons and fled into the woods. Who knows how far they’ve gone?”
“There are two Lusiri loose in Sylvan?” I asked, my voice rising. “We have to stop them!”
“You’re not going anywhere,” Margana replied. “Not until we know you’re really all right. And I’m not letting Evran out of my sight, despite what he thinks.”
He folded his arms across his chest and glared at her, and for a moment they were simply a feuding mother and son. “The longer we wait, the farther they’ll get.”
“That’s the best we can hope for. The Lusiri hate the light. They come from the north, and we must hope they return there.”
“People will die,” he growled.
“Not as many as would have if the tapestry was completed.”
“Liora needs to eat and rest before we leave,” Adelle cut in. “I’m taking her home.” She pulled me under her arm and began to lead me toward the door.
“Wait,” Evran said. I turned to face him, and when our eyes met, the rest of his appearance faded away. He needed to eat and rest even more than I did, but he hadn’t mentioned his own needs at all. “I wanted to thank you, for doing what I could not.”
My cheeks heated as he placed his hands on my shoulders. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”
Margana stood behind him, silent, observant as ever. Perhaps the shadows he feared clung to him more than I realized and he had changed in ways I couldn’t yet understand. Only time would tell.
But Darius was coming to Sylvan tomorrow, and I had just destroyed his precious tapestry. Time was not on our side.
EIGHTEEN
That night, I perched on the window ledge, staring at the sky, feeling more grateful for the moon and stars than I’d ever been before. I never wanted to experience pure darkness again.
“Are you all right?” Jean asked from Mina’s bed. She, Adelle, and Father had taken turns waiting for me outside the tapestry with Margana. Our belongings were all packed, and Father had settled as many accounts as he could. We would leave at first light, if all went according to plan.
I was sore all over but too anxious to sleep. “I’m worried about Mina,” I said as I twisted my star pendant in my fingers. “She should be here by now.”
“You don’t trust the tailor, do you?” she asked.
I shook my head.
“You should always listen to your inner voice, Liora. It speaks to you for a reason.”
Before I could respond, there was a heavy pounding on the front door. Maybe it was Margana or Evran. But one look at Jean confirmed my biggest fear.
“Run,” I said. “Through the window. Get Evran and go to the woods.”
“I can’t leave all of you!”
“You have to, Jean. I’ll stall Darius as long as I can.”
She nodded, her wide gray eyes glimmering in the dark, and slipped out through the window. I could hear Adelle and Father rousing from their rooms.
“Open up in the name of the king!” someone shouted, banging their fist against the door with renewed vigor.
The clothes I’d worn into the tapestry were gone. The most practical clothing I had left was a simple muslin dress Mina had made for practice before she left. I pulled it on, along with a woolen sweater of Father’s. It was large and rough, but it was warmer than anything else I owned. My leather-soled slippers would have to do. I pulled a knit cap I’d made for Mina over my hair and joined my family in the parlor.
Father and Adelle were still dressed in their nightclothes. “Where’s Jean?” Father asked me.
“I sent her to get Evran. What do we do?”
“You have to go,” Adelle said. “Darius will know it was you who destroyed the tapestry. He has no use for me and Father.”
No use for them, perhaps. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t hurt them. “I can’t leave you.”
Father reached for my hands. “Adelle’s right. You should go.” I stared down at the knuckles gnarled with age, the careful fingers that had counted coins at the palace once, the strong forearms that had held my sisters and me when we were babies. “Save yourself, and don’t worry about us. We’ll take care of each other.”
I nodded and embraced him briefly, then squeezed Adelle tight before stepping into the hall. I’d barely made it a few feet when the front door exploded, sending splinters raining down on me.
“Stop right there, or your sister dies.”
I spun around, expecting to see Mina with a knife to her throat, but Darius was alone.
“Mina is in the dungeons right now,” he said.
I froze in horror as his booted footsteps rang out on our wooden floorboards like a death knell.
“I’ve already been to Margana’s. I’ve seen what you did to my tapestry. The boy escaped, but my hounds are hunting him right now. He won’t get far.” As he lifted his hand, I braced myself for his touch, but instead something sharp pressed against my neck. A knife. Adelle screamed.
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” he ground out.
I didn’t dare answer. The knife had already broken my skin, and I felt warmth trickling down my neck into my collar. Seeing the blood, he lowered the knife a fraction of an inch.
“I didn’t mean to burn it,” I whispered, trying to keep my throat from brushing the blade. “Evran was going to die. I had to use my light. And the next thing I knew, I was on fire.”
“Ignorant fool. You should never have gone into the tapestry.” His breath brushed my cheek, odorless. It was the first time I’d noticed that Darius didn’t even have a scent. “I’ve waited twenty years for it, and now it’s gone.”
I lifted my eyes to his, steeling my voice. “Good.”
His other hand came up to strike me.
“Stop!” Father stood behind Darius, his hands clasped in front of him. “Please, stop hurting her. The tapestry can be repaired. It may take another twenty years, but what is that to someone like you? Nothing.”
Darius rounded on Father. “It can’t be repaired, you imbecile! The Lusiri are extinct. I gathered every hair in the kingdom, by force when necessary. There is nothing left!”
He didn’t know about the escaped Lusiri. My eyes darted to Father’s, silently imploring him not to tell. Having the Hollow Ones back in the world was dangerous, but they weren’t as bad as the Shadow Tapestry. Without the Lusiri, Margana would never be able to complete it. Perhaps Evran and I could find a way to destroy the Lusiri on our own. I shook my head as much as I dared.
Darius turned back to me, his voice deceptively gentle, as if he’d spent his anger on Father. I didn’t believe it for a second. “What was your plan, then? Destroy the tapestry and run? I suppose if Moreau hadn’t warned me, you might have gotten away with it. For a time.”
My stomach soured at my own poor judgment. “He was never planning to propose,” I said to myself, shaking my head. Jean was right. I should have trusted my instincts.
“Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure about that. It’s possible he wanted you on his arm. A bright, shiny accessory. But a large reward for valuable information can prove too tempting, even for the most pure of heart. And we all know Luc is not that.”
“Was he the one who told you about the drifters in the forest, too?” I asked. “One of your spies?” Luc was no better than the hounds, just a pet at his master’s beck and call.
He clucked his tongue. “Try not to be too disappointed, Liora. There will be other suitors, and that boy’s morals were as slippery as silk. To his credit, he waited two days to come to me. But you had to know I wouldn’t let your sister go that easily. You must have been desperate to try something like this.”
I searched his eyes for some shred of humanity to appeal to, but I found nothing. “Mina is innocent in all of this.”
“I know that. But sometimes children have to be taught their lessons the hard way.”
