Maybe she’s more accustomed to separation from her animal, since she’s bonded to a sea creature. Conor thought about her dolphin, and how strange it would be to have to go into the water every time you needed to train or communicate with your spirit animal.
And how does it feel to become queen of your people so young, and in such a sad way? he wondered. He envied her air of confidence and leadership, but not her story.
“The sun’s finally setting,” Abeke murmured, stretching as well as she could in the cramped space.
“How are we going to look for the conch?” Conor whispered. “What if it’s right in the Conquerors’ camp or something?”
Kalani opened her eyes, and he wondered how long she’d been awake. “There’s a system of caves that runs under the island,” she whispered. “I think we should look there first. If I were hiding something on Sunlight Island, that’s where I’d take it.”
“That makes sense,” Abeke agreed softly, and Conor nodded too.
As soon as darkness had spread its quiet wings over the island, the three of them lifted the palm fronds and crept out of their hiding spot. They could still hear voices and a cacophony of screeches and animal sounds down in the camp.
Abeke released Uraza immediately and Conor did the same, feeling his whole body relax as his fingers touched Briggan’s fur. Instantly he could sense a million more details about the night. He could smell the burning palm fronds in the campfires and the cracked coconuts some of the men were sharing. He could hear hissing underneath the loud voices, and the splash of some large predator moving through the bay. He could feel a light breeze lifting the hair on his arms. And even as the night grew darker, it seemed like his eyesight sharpened.
That all made it easier to follow Abeke as she crept through the trees, although she moved so lightly, it was often impossible to see or hear either her or Uraza. Kalani pointed in the direction of the caves and Abeke led the way, pausing now and then to listen, or signaling them to wait while she scouted for lookouts and spies.
If she was the mole, I could be in a lot of trouble right now, Conor thought on one of these occasions, when Abeke had disappeared soundlessly into the brush. What if she came back with a platoon of warriors to trap him? He had the Slate Elephant tucked in his pocket, given to him by Tarik when he’d heard their plan.
On the one hand, it was nice to have the security of a talisman in case a fight broke out. On the other hand, it was a big responsibility. If they got caught, that would mean one more talisman in the Devourer’s hands.
He shook himself, feeling guilty. Abeke isn’t going to betray me. She’s not the mole. She wouldn’t do that.
But . . . who would?
“Coast is clear,” Abeke’s voice breathed from the shadows, and they crept forward again, edging down a slope. At the bottom Conor spotted a yawning hole in the side of the hill. If this was the entrance to the caves, it was a lot smaller than he’d hoped for. They’d have to crawl inside.
It was, and they did. They crawled several feet, in fact, before reaching a spot where they could stand, where Kalani lit a torch and Conor was able to study the caves around them. The damp rock walls pressed in close, giving Conor that same claustrophobic feeling he got inside castles like the Earl of Trunswick’s. Here there was a lot less space and no soaring ceilings, but the sensation of being trapped inside, too far from freedom and air and light, was the same.
Now Kalani went first, marking the turns they took with a stick that glowed faintly in the dark and left luminescent trails on the stone walls. Conor wasn’t sure what system she was using for the symbols. He felt instantly lost in the winding, labyrinthine tunnels, and it seemed like they kept circling back to the same marks, but Kalani walked on confidently with an unworried expression.
They searched methodically, exploring each branching tunnel and dead end. Sometimes they could walk upright; more often they had to crouch, and a few times they crawled on hands and knees through unpleasantly tight spots. Uraza and Briggan squeezed along behind them, both of them sniffing the air and pawing at dark corners.
It seemed like hours passed before they came across something new: a trickling stream flowing along one of the side tunnels and down into darkness. “How big is this cave system?” Conor asked as they stopped to refill their flasks.
Kalani shrugged, sending firelit shadows dancing and jumping behind her. “No one has ever mapped it. I don’t know.”
All at once, Uraza growled. Abeke scrambled to her feet and peered upstream. “What was that?” she whispered.
Conor and Kalani fell silent, and Conor’s sharpened hearing caught the sound too: footsteps, coming this way.
There was no time to hide; the tunnel was straight enough that whoever it was would have already seen their torch. Conor drew his ax and reached for Briggan. At least it sounded like only one person. One Conqueror.
The approaching figure reached the edge of their circle of light, paused, and stepped forward so his face was visible: nut brown as Kalani’s, with the same nose and wide eyes. He had closely shaved dark hair and tattoos like waves winding across his nose and cheeks.
“Timote!” Kalani cried. She thrust the torch at Conor and jumped forward to wrap her arms around the young man. He swayed slightly, blinking in an unfocused way, and then shook himself, pulled her away to arm’s length, and squinted at her.
“Kalani?” he said. “What are you doing here?”
“We were looking for the black conch,” she said. “But I didn’t know you were here! I thought — I was afraid that — Where’s Piri? Are you both all right?”
“Better than all right,” he said, letting go of her and stepping back. “You shouldn’t have come here.”
“We can get you out,” Kalani said. “These are my friends — we have a canoe — we can be gone before morning. We can take you home.” She tried to clasp his hand again, and he moved out of reach. “Brother? What’s wrong?”
“I’m not one of you anymore,” he said in a hoarse, strained voice. “I know that you’re the queen now. Do you expect me to come back and bow down to you? Or were you planning on handing the crown right over to me?”
Kalani stared at him, then drew herself up to her full regal height. “I’m not worried about that right now. What’s important is to get you and Piri to safety.”
“You can’t take us anywhere near the tribe!” Timote exploded. He paused, flexing his tattooed fists. “And we wouldn’t go, in any case. Do you remember my spirit animal, Kalani?” he asked.
“Waka?” she said uneasily. “Of course.”
His face muscles twisted into a bitter smile. “Do you remember how he resisted me? How he refused to go into dormant mode? How he would stand there watching me with mocking eyes every time I asked him to do anything?”
Conor had an awful feeling he knew where this was going.
Timote turned and snapped his fingers at the tunnel behind him. There was a slow, painful scraping noise, and a few minutes later an emu hobbled up to stand beside Kalani’s brother.
Abeke stiffened beside Conor, pressing her hands to her mouth. He just barely managed to hold back a gasp himself.
The bird was taller than either Kalani or Timote, but his long neck drooped and he shuffled in an awkward way. His shaggy brown feathers were patchy and ragged and his eyes were half-closed. One of his claws was jaggedly broken, which explained the limping and the scraping sound.
“Oh, no,” Kalani whispered. “Timote, what have you done?”
“My animal does what I tell him to now,” he said smugly. “I always knew he could be a strong, vicious weapon if he would stop fighting me and start fighting whomever I told him to. Now I can make him attack anyone I want.” He glanced meaningfully at Conor.
“But he’s hurt,” Abeke said. Her hand lifted, as if she couldn’t stop herself from trying to help the wounded bird.
“That’s why we’re here,” Timote said. “This stream is supposed to have healing properties. I’m not a monster, Kalani; stop looking at me like that. I fix him up again afterward. It’s just such a relief to have Waka listen to me now. You can’t understand; you and Katoa fit together like fish scales. But for me — imagine, no more pleading, no more bargaining or useless flattery — just, hey, emu, go kick that tiger, and it’s done. And all thanks to this little drink the Reptile King gave me. Is it any wonder I’m happy to stay and fight by his side?”
Kalani shuddered. “What about Piri?” she said softly.
“He’s happier too,” said Timote, as sharply as if he were trying to drive a knife into her chest. “He’s always wanted a spirit animal, and the Bile gave him one. In fact, he got to pick. He chose a killer whale — it’s great. If I could start over and choose for myself, I’d pick one of those too.”
The emu’s head hung even lower, and Conor felt like his heart might break for the once-proud, once-independent bird.
“So that’s it,” Kalani said. “You both work for the enemy now, even though they killed Mother and Father.”
Timote stood looking down at her for a moment. Kalani’s brother swayed slightly, then caught himself and frowned at her.
“Mother and Father belonged to the old world,” he said. “The Reptile King is going to change everything. He’s giving the power of the spirit animal bond to everyone! He’s uniting the continents and his army is —”
Kalani punched him in the face.
It was so powerful and so fast, Conor didn’t quite realize what had happened until Timote keeled over backward and crashed to the floor.
“Oh!” Abeke yelped with surprise.
“That should shut him up for a while,” Kalani said calmly, shaking her hand out. “That no-good shark-faced backstabbing son of a jellyfish.” She turned to Waka, who was nudging Timote mournfully with his beak, and rested her hand lightly on the emu’s back. “I’m so sorry, Waka. Would you — would you escape with us? I promise I’ll look after you. You can hide in our village as long as you want.”
The emu lifted his injured foot and warbled something, then slowly lowered himself to sit beside Timote. Even after everything Timote had done to him, he wouldn’t leave him.
Conor rubbed his teary eyes. He couldn’t imagine someone getting the gift of a spirit animal and then abusing it this way. He reached for the comfort of Briggan’s fur and the wolf leaned into him, as if he needed comforting as well.
“We’d better get out of here as fast as we can,” Abeke said. “If the Conquerors can get inside the heads of anyone who’s drunk the Bile, they probably know we’re here now.”
Kalani nodded and gave her unconscious brother one last, heartbroken look. Then she turned to take the torch again, setting her chin in a determined, queenly way. “There are a lot of tunnels still to search,” she warned them.
Briggan growled slightly, and Conor had a sudden thought.
“Briggan used to be called Pathfinder, back when he was a Great Beast. Maybe he has some . . . vision skills that could at least narrow down the search.”
He crouched so he was nose to nose with the wolf. “Any ideas? Please help us,” he whispered. “We could really use it right now. A black conch — that’s like a giant seashell. Is it even in these caves?”
Briggan sat back, grinning his wolfish grin, and put one paw over Conor’s hand on the floor.
Conor closed his eyes and breathed deeply. He waited for an image to appear in his head. A long moment passed . . . and then something new caught his attention.
Not a vision . . . a smell.
It was faint, but different from the other damp underground earthy smells of the caves.
It smelled like the deep ocean, like giant ancient sea snails sliding quietly along the bottom of the sea.
He opened his eyes and looked into Briggan’s deep blue gaze. The wolf tilted his head.
“Let’s look down here,” Conor said to the others, pointing to a narrow tunnel that sloped in the direction of the scent.
Kalani opened her mouth, perhaps to argue, but Abeke touched her shoulder lightly and nodded at Conor. He felt a twist of guilt for his earlier worries. She had faith in him. He ought to have the same faith in her.
They left the emu and Timote by the stream. Conor went first, trying to move faster despite slipping on the damp rocks. At the bottom, he breathed in until he figured out the smell was coming from his left, and then he led them in that direction.
More twists, more turns, more dark cave walls pressing in on them. Conor hoped Kalani was keeping track of where they were going, because he wasn’t sure how they’d ever get back.
And then, all at once, the tunnel opened into a small, perfectly round cave. Up above them, moonlight drifted down through a circular hole in the ceiling, illuminating the space. Another tunnel led away from the cave, and at the end of it Conor could see more moonlight glowing — a path to the outside.
But more importantly: A shelf was carved in the back wall of the cave, and perched on that shelf, directly in the light of the moon, was a giant black conch shell.
Conor darted over to it with a gasp of triumph. Its edges rippled like frozen black water, and the points were wickedly sharp. He lifted it with caution. It weighed as much as one of the silver serving bowls in the Earl of Trunswick’s castle.
“It’s beautiful,” Kalani whispered reverently.
“Let’s get out of here,” Abeke suggested.
They ran down the tunnel that led toward the moonlight. But as they felt the night wind on their faces, suddenly Briggan growled and Uraza stopped, crouching and flicking her tail.
“What is it?” Conor asked, his heart sinking.
A horrible hiss answered him from the cave entrance.
Kalani raised the torch and they all saw what their animals had sensed first.
Blocking their exit was a huge and deadly Komodo dragon.
ROLLAN REMEMBERED STANDING IN THE FOG WITH HIS ARM around Meilin. He remembered being tired all the way through his toes. He remembered waiting in silence; he remembered staring helplessly into the dark, which was resolutely empty of giant pandas.
He did not remember how he’d gotten here, to the outskirts of a circle of white trees. The fog was gone; the sun shone thinly from behind pale morning clouds.
This couldn’t be Nightshade Island. Plants were growing here, and small animals rustled in the undergrowth. Everything smelled clean and fresh.
Everything, that is, except for the horrifyingly enormous silverback gorilla, taller than the walls around Concorba, looming in the center of the clearing.
He smelled pretty awful.
The gorilla squinted in Rollan’s direction, as if he’d heard that thought.
Rollan flinched. He might not have had tutors and years of studying, but he certainly knew who the only giant gorilla in the world was.
This had to be Kovo, the Great Ape, who had been aligned with the Devourer in the war.
He was quite definitely on the bad guy list.
But shouldn’t he be in prison? Rollan wondered. How and when did he get out? And where are Tarik and Meilin?
If the gorilla saw Rollan, he ignored him. Instead Kovo turned back to the far side of the trees, where a boy stood, warily watching the gorilla.
The boy, who looked barely older than Rollan, wore a short travel cloak of fine, deep red velvet, and on his head was a crown. Despite his age, he held himself like a king — a nervous king, facing such a menacing Great Beast, but a king nonetheless. Opals set into the gold crown glinted in the sunshine. His eyes were hard and brown, and he had an arrogant way of holding his head. Something about him was vaguely familiar.
The boy king drew his cloak closer around him. “You . . . you propose we go to war with our neighbors?”
/> Rollan realized he’d arrived mid-conversation. Oh. I’m dreaming. This had to be a dream — but it felt awfully real.
“War is inevitable in your species, I’m afraid,” said Kovo in a dark, rumbling voice that seemed to echo both inside and outside Rollan’s head. “The question is whether your people will go to war with you — for you — or against you. Now, do not look so crestfallen. There is plenty of time to turn things around.”
“My father spoke of war as a great evil.”
“Your father lived in simpler times. That’s not really fair either, if you think about it. He left all of Stetriol’s problems to you. But I come to you now with solutions. Take the land you deserve. Arm your people with iron and steel . . . and this.” Kovo held out his hand, revealing a small glass vial.
“Go on,” he said. Rollan could feel the weight of the power behind those words. Who could say no to Kovo? Who would dare?
The king hesitated only a moment, then stepped forward and accepted the vial. He clutched it to his chest and took three steps quickly back. Then he stared down at the amber liquid inside, greed and ambition written across his face, but also hesitation.
No! Rollan wanted to scream. It’s a trick! Once you drink it, they’ll control you! He clenched his fists, thinking of his mother. If only someone had been there to stop her. If only the Bile didn’t exist in the first place.
Kovo moved his mouth into something horribly like a smile, but not.
“The Bile . . . the bond it brings,” said the boy. “It will make me stronger? Faster?”
“The gifts vary from bond to bond. But each bond does bring gifts. And you . . .” Kovo spread his massive, hairy arms. “You have the pick of the litter.”