Fanfare

A Glimpse

The moment they get to where the light doesn't continue, Trenna pauses. "Do you want me to turn on the lights?" she asks. Jack's rocks rest at intervals throughout the tunnel, but they are dull and lifeless, just rocks.

Pierce shakes his head. "I'm getting used to the dark," he says. She can tell he's lying, but she shrugs and continues walking.

Kieran stops moving, his chair no longer able to be moved by his magic. "Help me, girl," he says. Trenna summons the image she's assigned to Kieran; the feather. Now, it lies on the cave floor, small and dark and shimmering, lifeless. She imagines a breeze, light and swirling. It lifts the feather up from the cave floor and into the air, where it twirls and shimmers. Kieran jolts and looks at her. "Thank you," he says.

There is something odd in his voice, but Trenna just inclines her head and watches him roll ahead, following the markers she and Hugo placed on the walls when they were testing people. For good measure, she makes the stopped hands of Pierce's watch spin, and he smiles at her, a strained smile, his hands trailing along the walls in the dark. His eyes are open. She wonders what it costs him and why he doesn't just use his magic, but holds back the questions on her lips.

When they come close to the hole, Trenna calls ahead. "Stop, Kieran." She grabs Pierce's hand and runs ahead to see Kieran, a few metres from the hole, his hand on the wall to help guide his passage. "Are you strong enough to lift yourself and the chair across a hole in the ground?" she asks, a hand on the back of his chair.

"How far?" he asks. 

She looks at it speculatively. "About four metres." 

"Tell me when to stop," he says. Trenna watches his chair lift into the air, very slowly, and drift across the hole. She holds her breath, gripping Pierce's hand so tightly she's sure she's hurting him, but he doesn't complain. She doesn't like to admit it, is surprised to realise it, but she has come to actually like many of the rebels. Including Kieran. And Pierce... well, she's not sure how she feels about him.

She only tells Kieran to stop once he's a good few metres away from the hole. Then she practically drags Pierce along the thin ledge of rock and goes to Kieran's side, kneeling by the side of his chair. "Are you alright?" she asks, concern filling her voice as she takes in his wheezing breaths and the unhealthy rattling sound coming from his chest. 

The old man waves away her question before collapsing into a fit of coughing. Trenna feels Pierce disappear from her side before he's back a moment later, glass in hand. He stands, holding it out uncertainly, unable to see. His magic turned off the moment he re-entered the cave, and Trenna absently flicks it back on, taking the glass and giving it to Kieran as she places Pierce's hand on the   back of the old man's chair. She takes one of Jack's rocks from the ground by the side of the trail and turns it on so they can see. Despite Pierce's earlier words, he looks relieved, his tense shoulders relaxing. Wordlessly, he takes the empty glass from Kieran, and it disappears from his hand; Trenna can only assume it's back where he got it from. It doesn't matter though, because now he's pushing Kieran's chair down the tunnel, taking a sharp turn. And there's the gap. She turns off her magic so she can see it like they do as she sets Jack's rock down on the ground. It's bright, golden and searing like sunlight, firelight. She narrows her eyes at it suspiciously.

"Can you move them?" Pierce asks, letting go of Kieran's chair. The old man looks at the rocks speculatively.

"Can't you just send yourself over to the other side, boy? Isn't that part of your magic?"

"I have to have been there first, or at least seen the place I want to go to," he says.

Kieran makes a noise. "Alright. But I'll need somewhere to put these rocks."

"You could put them in the hole," suggests Trenna.

"Perfect," Keiran says, rubbing his aged hands together. Trenna's heart starts to beat faster in her chest. This is really happening. This could be a passage to the outside. This could be escape. Escape from a place she's lived her whole life, a place she believed was the whole world, despite her dreams and fantasies.

And it scares her. A place where the monsters who killed her father, Pierce's father, Joss's father, all roam freely, turning to her city only for a meal. She sees again the snowy-haired girl, crouched on the man's chest, the magic being sucked out of him, the bright blue of his eyes fading with his life; the frighteningly handsome boy grinning unsettlingly from beneath the hood of his cloak as the tarp falls closed on him. The flash of his surreal golden eyes. She shudders, pushing the image away.

She focuses instead on the fact that her father, Pierce's and possibly Joss's, were a part of the rebellion. That they were a part of the cause that she is now a part of. She wishes Kina and Joss and even her mother were here to see this.

She reaches out blindly and Pierce takes her hand. He laces his fingers through hers and they watch as, rock by rock, Kieran demolishes the wall, stopping it from collapsing as each large boulder drifts past them and drops with a soft thud to the bottom of the hole. Until every last rock is gone, and the old man is breathing hard, and they have a glimpse of freedom. Trenna gasps and steps back. Pierce wraps his arm around her as the three of them, eyes wide, stare out at the sight the absence of rock has revealed.