Empire of Ashes

Chapter LIX - Alisa

And this one goes to @pond1963 ! Thank you for all your support.

The tunnels were darker than I remembered, and the air was thicker and staler. I crawled on my hands and knees, each movement waking a dozen screaming complaints in sore muscles and mending skin. But it was all worth it when I caught a glimpse of a silhouette crouched in front of me.

The girl stared at me, and I could see her shoulders rising and falling with every breath. She was scared? Well, that made two of us. I showed her my palms so she knew I didn't mean any harm. The last time we had been in this tunnel, she had tried to kill me, but I was no longer sure I blamed her.

"Alisa, right?" I asked quietly.

Her eyes widened, and she flinched away, confusion twisting her face. It was easy to see from here that she had been beautiful. Underneath all the grime and scars were wide brown eyes, honey-coloured hair and full lips.

"I don't think we have been properly introduced. I'm Lyra," I told her. "And I came to tell you that you're free. We killed the soldiers. You can go home now."

She shook her head.

"You don't have one, or you don't want to? Where did you live ... before?"

Alisa shrugged, letting her fingers walk along the tunnel floor. She wasn't looking at me, her eyes skirting mine every time they came close to meeting. She hummed to herself and walked her fingers across a second time, and when I still failed to understand, a third time.

"Music," I realised. "You were a travelling musician."

I got a nod this time.

"What did you play?"

She tapped her own throat, shrugged, and then mined a harp.

"Ah," I said. "Are you any good?"

Alisa offered me a tiny little smile and another nod. I was beginning to shiver because the chainmail was almost better at letting heat escape than it was at trapping it. Hesitantly, the girl put a hand on my arm and rubbed up and down. She was warmer than a furnace, even though she was dressed in rags.

"Shall we ... go outside? Everyone will be leaving soon, and we don't want to be left here..." I tried, after a while.

She hesitated, her entire face blanching at the suggestion.

"We can get you some proper clothes," I went on, "and something to eat, maybe, and uh— do you like horses?"

The smile was back.

"Okay, good, well, you can have one of those."

That didn't entirely reassure her either, and it took another few minutes of coaxing and shivering before she would follow me back through the tunnel and up the ladder. The climb was difficult because my shoulders were stiff and throbbing from all the fighting.

Eventually, I hauled myself onto the scree and waited for Alisa to join me. The wind had picked up, and it was chasing the afternoon heat towards the Sapphire Lands. I tipped my head back and let the sunlight warm my face for a moment, eyes closed against the glare.

When I turned back around, Alisa was standing by the shaft entrance. She was hugging herself and swaying gently, but there was a look of quiet amazement on her face. She spun slowly, blinking, taking in the blue sky and the sun and the rolling green hills on the horizon.

As much as I loved him, Tommas had been wrong. There was no such thing as a person damaged beyond repair. There had been people in these mines who had gone away inside, and there had been people who had gone mad to keep themselves sane. And even if they could never go back to the way they had been before, that didn't mean they were incapable of becoming something else, something equally whole and functional.