Starrlings 1: House of Fire

chapter 97

A R I

She was thrown into a cart and taken underground, to a dripping cave. There were metal bars dividing cages, and Ari could see a handful of Vastiens held in each cage. Their legs and arms were bound with rope, and they were locked inside the metal bars.

Ari was thrown into her own cage, and the light starrlings who had dragged her into the cage locked it and left her there. As they left, the light they had brought with them disappeared, until she was left sitting in the darkness.

"What's your name?" someone asked, in the Vastien language.

"Ariane," she breathed out.

"What happened up there?" someone else said.

"The prince is dead," Ari whispered. She was already pulling at the ropes that bound her arms, wondering if she could pry herself free. If she could, then maybe she could use her magic.

But the ropes binding Ari's hands were so tight that she couldn't slip her hands free. She wiggled over to a metal bar and tried to rub the rope against the bar in an effort to cut the rope.

As she worked, her eyes adjusted to the darkness and she could make out the other figures around her.

"How long will they keep us here?" someone wondered aloud.

"As long as they wish," another girl replied.

The chatter continued, but Ari stayed silent as she worked, listening to the voices around her.

The voices were young, and mostly female. They were Vastien-Lombardian girls who had been captured after creating the tidal waves of water that reached up from the ocean towards the cliffside arena, and the downpour of rain from above. They were the Water Dancers who the lions had attacked so viciously. Most of them were teenagers.

It was impossible to tell how long she was there, but Ari worked on the rope around her wrists until she felt blisters forming from the chafing on her skin, and she was forced to stop. She was cold, she was thirsty, she was hungry, and her body hurt from where the lionriders had wrestled her to the ground.

The other girls around her were in the same condition, or worse. There was one girl who was lying on her back, and Ari thought she was asleep, but after a while Ari realised the low moaning she heard was coming from her. She was in pain, and there was nothing that anyone could do.

Maybe Sanna would remember her. Surely Sanna would realise she was missing, and she would alert the authorities, and someone would come to rescue her. Surely Tom would notice she wasn't there. Maybe Katja, even through her grief, would wonder where her ward had gone.

"What's that?" someone whispered, and it made Ari sit up.

She could see a flickering light, like a candle, coming from deeper within the cave.

The girls all went silent, watching as the flame came closer towards them.

Ari knew who it was when the light from the gas lamp lit up his face, and she saw the locs that he was so famous for.

Pythos Savvas, the Water Dancer.

"How many of you are down here?" he asked, in a low and intense voice.

"Sixteen," someone else whispered. "We're mostly fine except Maria. Her leg is broken."

Savvas sucked in a breath. "I've got about ten minutes to get you out of here, before the next Garde comes. There's a way out, but it's through an underground river, and you'll need to swim."

"Have you got a key?" someone asked.

Pythos held his lamp up to the locks on the bars. The metal shimmered under the lamplight. "No," he said. "But we've got Ariane."

"I need you to cut these ropes," Ari said quickly.

Savvas pulled a knife out and reached through the bars to cut through the rope binding Ari's hands. She gasped out as the rope tore against her chafed wrists, and then she was free.

"Stand back," she instructed. She was good at this now. Freezing metal so that it shattered. The lock wasn't particularly strong, and it only took her one try to open the lock on her cage.

"Brilliant," someone whispered. "Why didn't we think of that earlier?"

"I didn't know she was a winter starrling!"

Ari moved quickly between the cages, shattering the flimsy iron locks and freeing the girls. There were a couple of boys, too, who had remained largely silent.

"Follow," Pythos instructed them.

Sixteen of them, kids or teenagers, followed the Water Dancer through the winding tunnel of the cave, and into the depths of the caves. Eventually the tunnel was too small to walk and the tallest of them needed to crawl to get through. Ari could hear running water up ahead, and she felt a shiver of panic.

Without Savvas's flame, the cave would be pitch dark. They would be diving into the water of an underground stream, and from there, somehow, they would need to follow the cave out. It seemed like a dangerous mission, especially for the one girl Maria, who was barely conscious and carried by two other girls.

"There are dragons waiting on the other side," Savvas instructed them. "You'll hear them calling through the water. Follow the dragon song."

• Author's Note •

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Thanks for reading!

elle xx