Across the Green Grass Fields (Wayward Children, #6)(37)
“You’re starting to understand!” said Gristle, sounding proud of himself. “You’ll be a wonderful dinner, after you’ve saved the world. Wisdom seasons the meat.”
“I’m not meat, I’m Regan,” said Regan. The castle wall was in front of them now. It was a smooth unbroken gray, the stones stacked so carefully that there was scarcely a seam between them. Regan kept walking, paralleling the wall, until she saw a place where the stones didn’t quite fit. They gapped, not much, not enough for even Zephyr, who was slim, with her doe’s body, to fit through.
But it was wide enough for Regan.
“Thank you,” she said, turning to face both the strange creatures who had become her traveling companions. “I wouldn’t have made it this far, this fast, without you. But now it’s time for me to keep going on my own.”
“Let me check first to be sure it’s safe,” said Zephyr, and launched herself into the air before Regan could object. The peryton gained height with surprising speed, banking and wheeling above the castle walls, and perhaps there were advantages to being thought of as an unthinking monster, because no one raised any alarms at her presence. Regan stayed where she was, watching her fly, suddenly understanding how a peryton could be considered beautiful. Zephyr was lovely in the air.
When Zephyr landed again, she shook her head, like she was chasing away the last slivers of the wind, and said, “There are guards in the high battlements, but they won’t see you if you enter from down here. Your way is clear.”
“Thank you,” said Regan again. “I’m ready to continue.”
“Good luck,” said Zephyr.
Gristle didn’t say anything at all, only watched as Regan turned sideways and squeezed into the break in the wall. He stayed there, silently watching the space where she had been, until Zephyr spread her wings and leapt back into the air, and he was alone. He paced a circle, then lay down in the grass, head resting on his forelegs, and waited.
Inside the wall, everything was darkness and stone, pressing down on Regan until it felt like there was no air left, and she would surely suffocate and be forgotten. Would the door that caught her in the first place go hunting for another human child to sweep away, leaving them here to save the world? Or would that take too long? She was supposed to save the world, but the world had done just fine for five years while she was happily running through the woods.
She worked her way deeper into the narrow tunnel, until every trace of light was gone and she was simply squeezing her way into infinite shadow. Just as she thought she could go no farther, her questing hand hit open air, and she was able to force her way out of the wall, into the cool, draft-ridden open space beyond.
Still there was no light. Regan grimaced, put her hands in front of herself, and began feeling her way gingerly through the darkness, stopping when her foot struck what felt like the base of a stairway. They were deep, narrow stairs, cut to suit a human’s tread, and not the longer stride of a centaur or kelpie or other four-legged creature. It was strange, but not strange enough to keep her from feeling around until she found a bannister and beginning to pull herself up into the darkness.
It had been long enough since she’d had cause to climb a flight of stairs that she stumbled several times, catching her toes against the steps, nearly falling into the dark. How many other aspects of being human had she allowed to slip away from her while she was running through the forest? It was an impossible question, and so she kept going without stopping to answer it. The light began to return, a little bit at a time, the world going from utter blackness to gradients of gray, still dark at first, but thinning, until she could see her own hands, until she could see the carved shape of the bannister winding its way upward, into the highest reaches of the castle.
Regan kept pressing onward, until the light was bright enough to read by, until the stairs leveled out at a small landing, connected to a long hall. Unslinging her bow from her shoulder, she swallowed hard and walked on.
The air in the castle was cold and stale, nothing like what she expected from a palace. It should have been warm and bright and filled with life, scented with cake and tea and other delicacies. This didn’t feel like walking into a castle. It felt like walking into a tomb.
The thing about walking into a tomb is that it leaves plenty of time to consider what a foolish idea that is. As she walked, Regan remembered Pansy telling her about Queen Kagami, back when she’d first arrived in the Hooflands.
Regan stopped.
According to Pansy, Queen Kagami had been assisted in reclaiming her family’s castle from a wicked kelpie king by the last human to come to the Hooflands. But Zephyr and Gristle agreed that a kelpie had never held the throne, and said the crown was passed by a challenge, not along family lines. Why would they lie to her? Why would Pansy, who was a second mother now, have lied to her? Unless the centaurs weren’t lying, just mistaken—but then why did they have one history of the Hooflands, while the kelpies and perytons had another? It made no sense.
It made no sense unless Gristle and Zephyr told the truth when they said that there was one set of rules for the people who agreed that they were people, and another for the monsters who everyone else agreed couldn’t be people at all. It made no sense unless the Hooflands had been unfair since the very beginning.
“I can hear you breathing,” called a voice from somewhere up ahead of her, old as the grave and dry as dust. “Come in, little intruder. Come in. I’ve been waiting for you. I’ve been waiting for so long.”