Send Me Their Souls (Bring Me Their Hearts #3) - Sara Wolf Page 0,124

passing guard beneather. “Where’s your adjudicator?”

The beneather narrows his ruby eyes through his helmet. “Who’s asking?”

A dimness creeps into Malachite’s gaze, stifling the usual bite and wit in them. “The Malachite of House Olt’reya.”

The change is instant. The guard goes from suspicious and low-stanced to tall, clutching his spear rigidly and his visor almost too comically falling with his shock.

“Mala—” The guard chokes. “Second Son Olt’reya! Faldinis arn!”

“Tor-arn faldinis cet,” Malachite sighs back. “Now, pretty please tell your adjudicator to get these people processed and inside the road as soon as you can. And if he asks who’s being bossy, it was me.”

The guard nods and whirls on his heel, ushering the people of the crowd forward and into the massive mouth of a distant cavern with more fervor. I’ve never seen beneather armor before—I thought it was all chainmail like Mal—but their native design seems a lot more organic. Ivory, but of what? Every piece of their armor is made of smoothed bone, ribbed at the joints with a rubbery substance for what must be great mobility.

“Valkerax, in case you were wondering,” Malachite answers my lingering gaze. “That Bone Tree’s a pain in the arse, but it’s got the right idea—nothing stronger than valkerax bone. And it pulls double duty in disguising our scent from them.”

“It isn’t easy to shape,” Yorl chimes in beside me. “It requires years of precise acid-soaking to make it bend even the slightest bit. And to remove the glow it incurs in the dark.”

“So it’s sturdy, but hard to replace or repair,” I muse.

“Exactly.” Yorl’s green shining eyes look almost…proud of me?

“Are we going to ignore the part where you hold considerable sway around here, Malachite?” Fione asks innocently. “Did he forget to mention something, Lucien?”

Lucien looks over at his bodyguard. “Should I tell them?”

“What does ‘second son’ mean, anyway?” I frown.

Yorl is practically vibrating, gaze a little less hostile toward Mal all of a sudden. “Each house has a hereditary hierarchy. Tourmalines are the first sons of a house. Malachites are the second sons of a house. You’re…Malachite Olt’reya. I thought the name was ironic—no second son would leave Pala Amna.”

“Kept it out of sentimentality, I guess.” Malachite massages between his feathery white eyebrows. “It’s not even a big deal. I’m technically disowned in all the chronicles.”

“Thankfully, beneather politics are quite petty, and branches hoard information from other branches for years hoping to gain political edge in the ancestral council,” Yorl murmurs.

Malachite’s ruby gaze softens at the celeon for once. “Yeah. Can’t get past the bloodpriests or the orators, but the advocates and adjudicators apparently still don’t know shit.”

I nod like it all makes sense when it absolutely doesn’t. “We move quick like bunnies, then, before anybody catches on.”

Malachite steers us through the sickly gray forest, great boulders becoming more and more frequent, small rocks making it difficult to walk without pain. An ancient riverbed, maybe. Lucien maneuvers with ease, but Fione and I lag behind, helping each other pick out sturdy surfaces. Up an incline and around a dusty corner of the forest, the dried riverbed carves a path straight to the mouth of a cave, the stone overhang worn blade-sharp smooth by old water. The darkness inside looms as deep and indecipherable as a throat.

And Yorl was right. It’s slightly well-defended. Sixteen beneather guards in their bone armor stand at the ready, spears and swords aloft, and five more pace atop the cavern with intimidating longbows at the ready.

“Is it always like this?” Fione marvels.

“No,” Yorl asserts before Malachite can. “This is very unusual.”

“High alert.” Malachite makes a tsk noise. “Probably because of the refugees.”

“Not like they’d shoot them, right?” I ask nervously.

“Nah. But the Fog Gate is ceremonial—which is as close to ‘sacred’ as beneathers get.”

“And it’ll kill anyone who goes in unwittingly,” Lucien reminds us. I smile.

“Including us!”

“Especially us,” Malachite corrects. An extravagantly robed figure walks through the guards and he ducks farther behind the boulder. “Vachiayis. Bloodpriest.”

“What are they doing upworld?” Yorl’s whiskers droop with his frown.

“No clue,” the beneather spits. “Sorry—can’t wave the bloodline around here. They know.”

“How bad would it be if you walked up and tried it?” I ask.

“I mean, my aunt had my father’s side of the Olt’reya house branded an eternal traitor to the spiral—”

“Sooo…” I trail off. “You’re a criminal, then?”

I practically hear the cogs line up in Fione’s mousy-haired head next to me. “Perfect, Zera.”

“What’s—” Yorl stops, mouth twitching. “Oh.”

Lucien laughs a little, shoving Malachite out from behind the boulder. “Go