a new legacy [a kotlc tiana fic]

17

[Biana]

When we first leap to a hideout, there's nothing there. Just an empty cliff clearing in a forest. With dug up dirt, as though a hideout had been completely uprooted. Linh checks for illusions as best she could. Nothing. Sophie enhances her and they both look, but again nothing they can sense. It must have been important if the Neverseen truly had to remove it because we found the Lodestar map. 

"This feels wrong, like there should be something here but there's not," Linh says.

"Maybe it was a storehouse?" Sophie suggests. 

"Another?" I ask. 

"Probably not." 

I walk around the clearing, looking for something. Some clue that will tell us what this place was. Then, buried under some dirt and moss, I find something. 

"Sophie, Linh! I found a book or something." I beckon them over. 

I pull the book free and find that it's a journal, Umber's more specifically. We all sit, crouched together, hovering over the book.

"This must have been one of the places they had Tam training," Linh points out. 

Tam. He went through so much with the Neverseen and he's still there for me through my silly family troubles. The things I've been through in my life will never add up to what Tam has been through, and Linh. 

"I can't believe I keep ignoring that. I keep forgetting that he's not going to be the same. Take Glimmer as proof. He's gone through so much, and it's changed him," I say. 

"He has.." Linh trails off

"It's not your fault, either of you, for not being able to fix it," Sophie reassures. 

"We know, it's Glimmer's. I still don't trust her," Linh says. 

"Me neither," I add. 

"Honestly," Sophie says, "neither do I." 

"We have to help Tam. I feel like we should give him the journal, remind him who the bad guys are," I say. 

"You've already helped him," Linh tells me, "more than you know."

"I think that's a good idea. But we have to make sure it won't make it worse," Sophie says. 

"Right. Like we can't give him a creepy book if he's already scared, that won't do anything," I say. 

"He's not scared anymore, that's the thing. We need to remind him why he was scared, show him how creepy this all is. That's what Tam needs. He needs to remember why he can't trust any of them," Linh finishes firmly. She tucks the journal in her cloak. 

"And Biana," she adds, "Tam is crazy for you, you haven't let him down." 

Linh smiles at me. The moment makes me so grateful to have my two best friends with me right now. 

"Let's go to another hideout, shall we?"

We leave, and leap to a new hideout. Turns out, we end up the Neverseen's prison. We leap into the end of a long hallway, we walk through a hall of empty cells. 

"This is creepy," Sophie says.

"Tell me about it. Why's it on the lodestar map anyway? It's not all of their hideouts." 

"Maybe it's important to the stupid lodestar initiative," Sophie suggests. 

"Yeah."

We walk quietly down the hall. Not many cells are filled. We walk past one by the end where it's inhabitants are asleep. I can't help but wonder if it's a sedative. There's three of them.

"I wonder what happened to them to end up here," I murmur. 

At the very end of the hall sits a cell with a sign reading Black Swan: Believed to be dead. Keep hidden. Believed to be dead, believed to be dead. My mind is just barely functioning, could Fitz be alive? Could they have healed him to use him as bait? Only one way to find out. 

I grab a key from a rack hanging on the wall, insert it into the lock, and open the door. Sophie is the one who speaks first. 

"Fitz?!" 

I step out from behind Sophie, tears clouding my eyes. I turn my eyes away from the ground and into the far corner. 

"Fitz!" I say. "How could he have lived?!" 

"The Neverseen, they must have struck his neck in such a way that he didn't die, and they healed him here." Sophie explains. I rush up to him to check his vitals, and like Sophie said, he has a pulse! 

"Well well well. The Moonlark has come to play, and look, her little friends are here!" says a voice I'm dreading. Ruy's voice. 

"They found the wager for this bet I see," adds another voice. Gethen.