Song of Blood & Stone (Earthsinger Chronicles #1)(26)

She opened her eyes to Jack’s fraught face. “Did you die again?”

“No,” she said, this time in Lagrimari. How could she not have understood the language before? She sat up, putting herself just out of reach of the cradle Jack’s arms provided. Embarrassment tinged her cheeks.

“You’re not going to pass out again?” he asked. His touch calmed some of the mortification. His palm against the back of her neck was a balm. She longed to lean into it, but the ground was cold and hard beneath her, and she was self-conscious about what had just happened.

She’d never fallen unconscious from singing before. And to have it happen not once but twice? The elders hovered over her, and she rose on shaky legs.

“Are you all right?”

“Can you understand us?”

“What happened?”

Jack kept a stabilizing hand at the small of her back. A tiny point of contact, but one that anchored her. “I saw— No, I was— I was one of the Cavefolk. I’d been chosen to be sacrificed to the mountain.”

While the others looked at her dubiously, Jack frowned. “The Cavefolk practiced human sacrifice? And you were there, you say?”

She nodded. “I wasn’t me, though. I was a girl being led up to the altar. A girl they killed.” She shuddered, thinking back to the vision. “Mostly I just remember the feelings. The betrayal. The anger. The fear. They were using my blood for magic, a protection spell.”

“The Cavefolk had magic? Earthsong?” Jack’s voice was incredulous.

“No, something else. Something darker. When I was . . . there . . . my Song was silent. The magic needed the sacrifice.”

Everyone in the cave fell quiet. Jack appeared lost in thought. Gerda and Turwig gave her piteous looks that said they didn’t quite believe her. She wasn’t mad; she knew what she’d seen.

The Cavefolk were among the original inhabitants of Elsira, from a time before recorded history. Just a few tools and skeletons had survived to tell their story. Her books had not included much about them other than the fact they dwelled in the mountains. Elsira had been a harsh and unforgiving terrain, a rocky desert that barely supported life. Before they mysteriously died out, the Cavefolk and the nomadic clans eked out a meager existence. And then the Founders arrived—the Lord and Lady from some distant, unknown place—who transformed Elsira into the lush, beautiful land it was today.

They and their descendants ruled for millennia, years of peace and bounty. The Queen Who Sleeps was last in their line, but She was betrayed by the True Father and cast into a deep sleep. Her last act was to create the Mantle, protecting her people from the worst of the True Father’s power.

The fate of the Founders and the Cavefolk was lost to history. Jasminda had long been fascinated by the mystery, as had many scholars. She’d ordered and read every book on the subject she could get her hands on, but the secrets of the ancients remained hidden.

She kneaded her forehead, searching her memory for anything that would bring what she’d seen into focus. Why that vision? Why her?

“As long as you’re all right,” Gerda said, patting her arm.

“Can you sing, child?” Turwig asked, his brow drawn low over his eyes.

She drew in a shaky breath. Though part of her was afraid to try again, another, bigger part was curious as to what would happen this time. The foreboding she’d felt when first entering the cave was still there, but curiosity won out over the fear. She opened herself once more to Earthsong. The normally strong pull of the power was near overwhelming; the tide tried to pull her under, harder than ever before.

“I feel untethered. I can barely hold on.”

“Can you lead us through the tunnels or not, girl?” Lyngar snapped. Jack shot a warning glance in the old man’s direction, but Jasminda saw it as if from far away.

Her attention was on her awareness of the cave, the tunnels beyond, and the mountain surrounding them. Ghosts of the ancient inhabitants brushed the edge of her senses. There was power in this mountain, but it hummed with a different pattern than Earthsong.

Still, a thread of life wove through this place. Insects and creatures too small to see, and mosslike vegetation that needed no light. She pulled the energy inside her, and it formed a path, though faint, that led through to the other side of the mountain.

She let the power slide away. “I can sense the route, but it’s long. I’m not sure I’ll be able to stay connected and sing for the whole journey, though.”

“Of course the feeble halfling is the one we must follow,” Rozyl said from her position against the wall. Jack’s breathing turned heavy as he glared, lighting a spark of satisfaction within Jasminda at his reaction.

“Perhaps she can link with someone,” Turwig suggested.

Rozyl gave him a look that could shear the shell off a beetle. “Why can she sing and no one else? What is wrong with her? I’m not linking with her.” Jasminda flinched internally at the bite in the woman’s voice, though she had no desire to link with Rozyl either.

“What’s linking?” Jack asked.

Gerda patiently began to explain. “It’s when two Earthsingers share their connection. They—”

“It’s when one Singer gives control of their entire Song to another to do with as they please,” Rozyl interjected. “And that is not going to happen.”