Where the Wind Goes

Chapter 12 - Tien

A/N: Enjoy the longer chapter with 2 POVs!

The councilors were out scouring the forest for the Queen and her changelings. They had invited Iri to join them, but to the Herald's disappointment and Artemis' apparent relief, she declined the offer. She had somewhere else to be, and it was a long trip outside the city walls. The cart rattled passed quarries and down into the canyon where the oldest town in Veralia was nestled.

She called for the driver to let her off and then stood shivering in the rain, staring at the rough-hewn buildings. They were ancient, carved from sandstone, and she wasn't sure if the collapsing walls and pock-marked stones were the result of age or a broga. She picked her way down the street, head bent low. The throughways were blocked with the tents and caravans of people who'd yet to give up the nomadic lifestyle.

It was cold, but at least that meant the area was quiet. The fewer prying eyes the better. Iri felt like she was in a ghost town.

She snuck around a narrow side street, deftly sidestepping a pool of greasy water, and came to the door she was looking for- it was made of dark wood and reinforced with wrought iron. Burned into the wood was the small symbol of a honeybee, just as Delly had said there would be. Let him be home, she prayed, knocking once, then twice, on the door. There was no answer and she cursed to herself, shaking water out of her eyes. What if Delly was wrong? What if Tien hadn't really returned?

Someone poked their head out a nearby window, and Iri pulled her hood lower. As far as she knew, everyone still thought Tien was missing. It suddenly occurred to her how suspicious it must look to be poking around the home of a missing man. If he really was lying low, she doubted he was still coming and going through the front door.

She had just turned to leave when the door soundlessly opened.

"Oh!" She said with a start. A mountain of a man with scaly skin the color of bleached bone looked down, surveying her without a word. She'd been smart enough not to wear anything with a council crest or iris symbol. She'd tried to dress as casually as possible so that Tien would know she'd come on her own, not on the behest of the Council.

The man looked at her expectantly. She wasn't sure if the passcode Delly had given her was still good. "When might I find the bees in the hive?" she asked haltingly.

"Not while the sun shines," the man recited gruffly, as if bored of the words. "There's work to be done, and the wasp's sting is sharp."

"But the honeybee's collection is sweeter?" If the guard noticed the uncertainty in her voice, he didn't respond except to stare at her levelly and then closed the door.

This was starting to feel like a very bad idea. Iri suddenly wished she'd brought someone else with her.

A moment later the guard returned and gestured for her to enter. He propped the door open with his arm and she ducked in under it. Two other people were waiting for her inside. They led her down a narrow hallway with bloated floorboards, passed an abandoned kitchen, then a room with molding books, and stopped before a closed door. The guard opened it, and Iri peered down into a dark cellar.

"Um..." she hesitated, but the guard impatiently gestured her forward. "This is a little creepy, don't you think?"

In the cellar, one of the men pushed aside a large barrel of sloshing liquid, revealing a hole in the wall just large enough for a person to crawl through.

"Oh, great," she muttered to herself. The guard squeezed through first, a ball of flame hovering just above his palm to light the way. Iri went next. The air on the other side was clammy.

"This is cozy," she said. They were standing in a tunnel supported by wooden arches; flickering lights were strung along the stone walls.

As they walked, she could tell they were descending. Left and right she glimpsed paths that broke off; she imagined a sprawling network a branching tunnels, and wondered how far into the canyon this extended.