“Out?”
As soon as I ask it, I hear my own mistake. If the tunnels lead out, no one would be here at all. I look away from Nessa and Conall before either can respond.
Nessa steps up beside me, her fingers going to an etching where she traces the first letter. “These tunnels offer their own type of escape. Conall and Garrigan taught me to read by these memories. It’s important to read them,” she tells me, and Conall, who looks a little less annoyed. “Just in case.”
“Just in case of what?” I ask, but I already know.
When Nessa speaks again, her voice is sad. “Just in case no one who remembers survives.”
I turn away so she can’t see the tears brimming my eyes. Because when a sixteen-year-old boy becomes Winter’s king, and there are no records to show him Winter’s history, we will have to rely on our people’s fading memories to show us what to do.
Those seem like trivial problems, though. Problems we would be grateful to have, normal issues about the competency of rulers and the succession of traditions. Not like whether our people will even survive to have traditions.
I run my hand along one etching, wishing I knew which person had written what, and that I could memorize these words so I could tell Mather all of this. Were he and I placed in bowls of snow when we were five days old?
One last etching catches me, the letters coated in dust.
Someday we will be more than words in the dark.
It’s hard to walk under these etchings, but Nessa takes my hand and pulls me forward. Clearly this isn’t our destination. How can something be more important than this? I want to stay down here, memorize every single word until I can’t think or feel or breathe anything else—
But we reach the door, a few sad pieces of old wood nailed together, and Conall swings it open, showing me something that is infinitely more important than words in the dark.
People in the light.
Nessa blows out her candle and I squint in the sudden brightness, one hand up to shield my eyes. She pulls me through and Conall throws the door against the tunnel, closing us inside a great circular room carved into the earth, rocks poking out of the walls and floor and ceiling, too big or cumbersome to move during construction. Candles stand in clumps of long-melted wax, mountains of creamy white that flicker with orange peaks. They’re everywhere, filling every crevice, giving the room a delicate glow. More doors lead out all around the walls, like the room is the center of a wheel and the tunnels are spokes. From those doors, spilling in and filling up the cavernous room, are more Winterians.
“Ow.” Nessa pulls at my hand. My fingers have dug into her fragile arm for support.
“Sorry.” I jerk away. “What is this place?”
“We carved this room to connect to all the remaining basements and cellars.” Conall answers instead of Nessa, his deep voice stoic and hard. “We’re in the middle of Abril, too far to tunnel out under the city itself, so this seemed like the best alternative. Had to keep busy during sixteen years of imprisonment somehow.”
I swallow. “Why are we here?”
He flashes a tight glare at me. “You survived the first week; they want to meet you. However stupid it is to have so many people down here at once.” He pauses as he reevaluates my question. “But the better question is, why are you here?”
I stare at him, eyes hard, and say the only thing I can. “I should have been here all along.”
Conall pulls back, his eyebrows lifting.
“Is this her?”
The voice echoes through the room, silencing the murmurings around us. All eyes are on me, and I wonder how long they’ve been staring. Probably from the moment they got here. With no soldiers to cower from, no punishment to fear, they’re free to gape and wonder and hope, so long as they’re in the confines of this haven they’ve built.
The owner of the voice pushes through the crowd. It belongs to a woman, her old frame hunched under sixteen years of hard labor. But the moment her clear blue eyes lock on mine, she straightens, throwing off any exhaustion.
“You,” she whispers. Her withered fingers extend when she reaches me, and she puts one hand on either side of my face. She stares at me, through me, seeing something deep behind my eyes that makes her face relax in satisfaction. “Yes,” she says. “You are Meira.”
I pull out of her hands. “How do you know that?”
The woman smiles. “I know everyone who escaped Angra that night. The last ones who came here told us about all of you.”
Crystalla and Gregg. I back up as if I can get away from the pang of memory. The woman’s face is serene, calm. She still hopes for rescue too.