I examined a particularly thick crystal tooth, wondering what sort of benefit the shiny material might have offered crushed up. Leroi would have known.
‘As opposed to?’ I asked Cam, ducking low as I moved away, so as not to be speared by the tip.
‘Well,’ Cam said, lowering his voice. ‘Since the Great Drought, there’s a negative connotation involved with the word.’
Shilah glared back at us.
‘Not that I think anything is wrong with it,’ Cam said quickly. ‘It’s just that I’ve heard my brother and uncles – and obviously my father – say “Jadan” with such hate. They make it sound worse than saying slave. Is there something else you want to be called? Because I’ll call you that if you want.’
‘What brought this on?’ I asked.
‘I figure if we get out of here alive then—’ Cam got flustered, the crystal cones gently reflecting the redness of his cheeks. ‘I don’t know, I thought that maybe you’d want your people to be called something else. And I could be the one to start it now. It’s dumb, sorry. Forget it.’
‘When we bring things back to how they were supposed to be,’ Shilah said with a snort, ‘just don’t call us Nobles.’
Cam adjusted the bags of supplies on his shoulder so he could avoid a crystal pillar more easily. I imagined the bags must have grown quite cumbersome after so long, not as much as my burden, but unwieldy nonetheless.
‘Just forget it,’ he said.
‘It’s considerate of you.’ I tried to sound consoling. ‘But Jadan is something to be proud of. If anything, we’ll just have to change the connotation.’
‘Whatever you need,’ Cam said, giving an agreeable bow, as low as he could manage without spilling everything. His eyes went to Shilah. ‘Just let me know.’
I stared back at him, blinking a few times. The lantern light barely reached him, and his shiny yellow hair now looked black from all the dirt and dust it had attracted.
‘What?’ he asked.
‘Nothing.’ I nodded, noting his eyes had moved to the Coldmaker. ‘I believe you.’
I licked my finger and touched the nearest pillar, bringing it back to my mouth. My tongue recognized the delight better than my eyes.
‘Salt,’ I said.
Cam immediately reached up and cracked off the tip of the nearest pillar, stuffing it in the bag. Shilah shot him a look, as if reminding him we shouldn’t be drawing attention to ourselves.
Cam licked his dry lips. ‘When we get to Langria we’ll have to have a feast, and I can say I brought the free Jadans salt from the Coldmarch. As a gift.’
I smiled, although it didn’t climb past my lips.
‘And,’ Cam said with a glimmer of pride, ‘you need salt for the Coldmaker, right? To keep the Charge.’
‘Good thinking,’ I said with a nod. ‘Let’s get a few.’
Shilah shrugged, and we all snapped off a handful of salt each, adding it to Cam’s supply bag. I pressed my hands to my nose afterwards, but there wasn’t any scent.
‘Salt and Abbs and revolution,’ Cam said as we started moving again, following the alder. He immediately stopped and then gestured for Shilah to lead us, giving her a respectably wide berth. ‘It should be quite the feast.’
Our next stop took place beside a tiny stream, which had carved a shallow bed into smooth rock as it cascaded endlessly into the darkness. We’d heard the rushing waters from the alder path and wound our way to its shores to fill up our waterskins. Gentle currents had brushed the endless tunnel wide, making the passage seem both frightening and serene. The waters were some of the most delicious I’d ever tasted, possibly because they’d been kept away from Sun for an eternity. We only needed to add the smallest slices of Abb to get them to cool.
The journey had already begun to thin Cam out, his voice hollow and cheeks sunken. I asked him to sleep. Begged him even. It ended up taking three direct commands to get him to agree to shut his eyes for one hour. I gave him much longer. While he snored, one foot hanging limp in the waters, Shilah and I talked of fragile things. She kept dipping one finger in the water and bringing it over my hand, letting the single droplets fall on the back of my palm. She did this until the puddle at my feet trickled its way back to the source, rarely meeting my eyes as we spoke.
We talked of meeting out in the dunes behind my barracks, when I invited her to join our family, but instead she disappeared out into the sands. She told me she used the Rope Shoes that I’d traded her for the Khatmelon quite a bit, which is something I’d always wondered. We joked about the days working with Leroi back in the Tavor tinkershop, hiding under the floor grate whenever anyone unfamiliar came knocking. We discussed at length all the plants she’d cultivated for Little Langria. About where she got the soil and seeds, and vines. About the humour of the weaver beetles that lived on her persimmons. She asked about the feather I’d scratched into the wall, and I told her about Matty and the board game we were creating; how close we’d come to finishing. About how Moussa, Matty, and I lessened the harsh tinge of the day by playing ‘whatsit’, where we made up stories to go along with the shapes of our bruises. She told me of the time she visited the Hotland Delta, having stowed away on a merchant ship. About how the High Nobles there had a certain ritual that they performed each night to pay tribute to the Crier. Each Sundown they would fold little boats out of Droughtweed and sail them along the Singe, a single Wisp floating in each hull. Shilah’s smirk was stupendous as she told me how she would wait downstream with a net to collect the boats. Over the course of a week she’d made a small fortune.
I told her what it was like with such a large family.
She told me what it was like to live alone.
We didn’t mention my father or her mother once.
Some things can live delicately in memory, but shatter when put into words.
We didn’t have much fuel left for the lantern, so I had to wake up Cam sooner than I would have liked. He whimpered at my touch, but when he grew conscious his face hardened and he sprang to his feet, grabbing our supply bags and empty basket of figs, leading us back to the path.
Finally, after more endless tunnels, the single red line led us to our escape. The sleek and spindly cave once again widened into a proper chamber, funnelling us towards an actual way out. The wooden slab was slanted so much it was nearly horizontal, and no light spilled in through the cracks on the sides, but it looked like salvation nonetheless.
Wiping the layered crust of dirt from my forehead, I debated thanking the Crier for getting us here alive – but I decided that I was only ready to open one door at a time right now.
Cam pointed to the tilted door in front of us and the buckets sitting at its base, lowering his voice. ‘Where do you think it lets out?’
‘Honestly,’ I said, matching his volume. ‘I’ve been so turned around this entire time I have no clue.’
Shilah brought the lantern over to the door, where something was written in more alder. As she scanned the lines, her lips moved and I couldn’t help but notice how full and plump they were. My focus shifted to her hair, long and tattered and matted with dirt. And her eyes, spilling over with all the sad things she’d already seen in this world.
‘Imagine if we didn’t have a lantern,’ Cam said quietly. ‘And we had to do this whole thing in the dark.’
‘We almost did,’ I said, pointing to the oil reserves, which were dangerously low.