Somewhere in the Deep by Tanvi Berwah

Author:Tanvi Berwah
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks

TWENTY-SEVEN

Thayne and Raksha have been arguing for what feels like a thousand years. Across from us, Yara, her breaths slow, keeps her head bowed as if in prayers the way Thayne was doing before. Thayne, I understand, but what does she have to ask for anymore? I try to remember what I did after my parents were gone.

Nothing comes to mind except blurred skies and storms, as if I’m on the ground staring up. That can’t be all I did. But try as I might, I can think of nothing else.

Soon, I will have remembered my parents more than I have lived with them. If I live.

Thickness swells in my throat, and I shake my head to get rid of the feeling.

Maybe Yara is just waiting for this ordeal to finally end.

I catch the last words from Raksha. “—and Harren wouldn’t agree to this.”

“How can you be so sure? Your son may be a leader up there, but if they lure them down with the promise of freedom… Why else did any of us agree? They’ll be just as naive as us,” Thayne barks.

Raksha snarls and looks away.

She believes Harren can keep those rebels from being swayed to come down until they see proof of Raksha’s return. But I agree with Thayne. The dust of this island has a way of getting to your brain, making you believe what you want to believe. And once Beyorn reaches the surface, he can make up any story. If they bring in miners to dig in the origin well…

“Some miners have Shade blood in their ancestry somewhere, and they’ll be fine, which will convince them to continue,” Thayne says. “But the others?”

“They will all end up like Siril,” I say quietly.

An end that no one deserved, least of all the girl who was so brilliant that she taught herself to read. So excited at the novelty of the ancient architecture and, of all things, a rock. A color she had never seen before. The rock was still in her backpack that Beyorn has taken away. My hands tremble in their confines. It doesn’t matter if Siril is dead, only that I will take that oceans-damned rock back from that bastard.

All Siril wanted was to earn extra money to free her sister and niece from the salt pans. Who would inform them of their doomed fate now?

All of us should have been smarter. That need for silver—for freedom—clouded all of our judgment. Made us trust those Landers and let our guard down.

But the Shademan from before… He sensed the danger in Beyorn, of an invasion even. Beyorn said he might be a spy. So where are the others? Who has he gone back to?

The thought of Shade blood being fine is rich irony. But I can’t even laugh. The Shadefolk have been dying for generations, leaving the caves vulnerable. That is what my mother always said.

If I hadn’t agreed to this mission, would something be different? Perhaps Ansh would be alive too. It doesn’t matter now, I guess.

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