I know it's taken me forever to update and I'm sorry for it. To my credit, this is a LONG chapter. Have fun with it.

Chapter Fourteen

My sleep was ruined by someone shaking my shoulder. I jerked up, instinctively grabbing the man's arm and pushing it away from me. When I realized who it was, I quickly let go.

Master Salmalín blinked at me, then began to speak. "Adda, there was an earthquake up north. One of the villages near there took the worst of the damage. The Riders are going to help clean up. They can use you to lift rocks and debris."

I was already pulling on my shirt. "I can do something useful?"

"I should hope so." He sniffed. "I've been teaching you for three months."

I yawned. "But it's all been reading and fundamentals and nothing really useful."

"Now you're going to apply it." Master Salmalín stood. "Pack a small bag."

"Wait!" I stopped him before he left my room. "I can use magic without you being there?"

"No, silly." Master Salmalín smiled at me. "I'm coming along. Someone's got to keep you from starting another earthquake."

I did feel a little foolish. I knew how dangerous my Gift could be. I quickly stuffed my clothes into the bag that Master Salmalín tossed to me. I slipped into my new cloak because it was still chilly in early spring. I hopped down the hallway alongside Master Salmalín as I tugged on my boots.

The sky was still dark and only a hint of light peeked over the palace wall. The Riders in the stables were saddling their horses and checking their equipment. Some were alert, like me, and others were sluggish.

A young stable girl rushed towards us, leading two tall horses. "Sir, miss, these are your horses. Stefan sent 'em."

I mounted up quickly, settling into the saddle with a groan. Stefan had been making me use saddles lately. He said it was all part of my education, but saddles weren't as comfortable as riding bareback.

Master Salmalín looked slightly awkward on his horse and I held back a smile.

"Here." The stable girl held up a saddle bag to me. "Stefan said to give these to you. It's all stuff for the horses, picks and whatnot. Let them graze on the grass, but keep away from anything that isn't grass."

"Thank you." I handed a copper to the girl. It was a small part of the money that I had earned from working in the stables.

The girl grinned satisfactorily. "Thanks, miss. Have a nice trip."

Master Salmalín squeezed his legs together and his horse began to trot. The mage shifted uncomfortably, but soon settled down. "The Riders left less than an hour ago. We won't be able to catch up to them, but we may reach the village by nightfall."

I relaxed and held the reins with one of my hands, letting the other rest by my side. This wasn't so bad. I liked to ride. I caught a glimpse of the scowling mage out of the corner of my eyes and couldn't hold the grin back.

We reached the village an hour after nightfall. The Riders had set up tents and bedrolls for themselves. They looked comfortable enough, but the headman who greeted us at the rickety village gate offered us rooms in the inn. A mage as powerful as Master Salmalín received royal treatment, even if the village was half-destroyed.

I took Master Salmalín's horse from him and prepared to lead him to the stable, but a boy took both horses from me. He ignored my protests.

A nearby Rider laughed at me, her blue eyes sparkling. "Take advantage of it. You're Salmalín's student, right?"

I nodded.

"You'll get treated well enough." The Rider smiled kindly. "Are you sore from riding?"

I thought about it and shook my head. "I ride a lot. I don't get sore anymore."

"Adda?" Master Salmalín appeared at the doorway impatiently. "They've got a meal for us. Are you coming?"

I reluctantly began to nod.

The Rider saw my hesitation. "Sir, we can take her. We'll feed her and rest her up."

Master Salmalín looked at me and when he saw my eyebrows rise, he nodded his approval. "Thank you, Rider."

The Rider gestured for me to follow her. "I'm Jessa and this is the Twelfth Rider group. We're called Spiderdeath, all cause of an incident that happened before any of us were in the group. You like beans?"

I nodded and Jessa served me up a plate from a pot on the fire.

"New recruit?" A dark-haired man with a nice smile raised his eyebrows teasingly.

"You'll have to talk to Salmalín about that one." Jessa shot back.

I spooned my beans into my mouth, savoring the taste. It had been a while since I'd had rough cooking and I'd missed it. The burned beans tasted like home, to be honest.

"Who cooked these?" Jessa groaned once she tasted the beans. "If it was Ronnie, I swear I'll-"

"It was me." A short woman with blond hair admitted. "Forgot about them. Sorry about it."

Jessa shrugged. "Long as it wasn't Ronnie."

"It's not like the new recruit minded." The dark-haired man indicated my empty plate. "Either that or she's starving."

"I don't mind it." I answered shyly. "I like it."

"Don't tease her." Jessa ordered the dark-haired man. She tossed me a bedroll and took my plate from me. "Bed down wherever you like. I think that tent has room. We'll wake you early."

I spread out the bedroll in the tent and took off my boots before climbing in. I was snug and fell asleep quickly.

The morning's work was hard. There was rubble to drag away and houses to fix, animals to round up and wood to chop. There seemed to be no end to the work, but I found a spare moment and sought out the headman.

"Have you got anyone with the Gift around here?" I asked the headman curiously.

The headman nodded and pointed to a small cottage. "Fatine Elderberry. She does most of the healing and easy spell work. Why?"

"Just wondering." I shrugged. "Would she mind if I talked to her?"

The headman shook his head. "She's kind enough."

I thanked him and headed to the cottage. I knocked softly on the door frame and peered through the open door.

"Come in." A pretty, plump woman greeted me. She smiled tiredly and she looked as if she hadn't slept in a while. "You're the student, right?"

"Yes." I nodded, watching her return to her worktable.

"Can I help you?" The woman was working with a mortar and pestle, grinding plants and herbs to a fine powder.

"I need to learn a curse." I told her. "Something simple, but workable."

"What would you want this curse to do?" The woman continued grinding the herbs, not looking at me.

"I don't know." I shrugged. "What have you got?"

The witch sighed and set down the pestle. "You've been hurt, haven't you? It seems like killing him will make it better, but it won't. It'll do worse."

"It'll keep him from hurting anyone else again." I was surprised by the ferocity in my voice. I was also a little disturbed by her reading of me. Maybe she was a seer as well. "And it'll get him what he deserves."

"He'll find his own in the Dark God's realm." The woman reminded me. "Vengeance is not intended for mortals."

"Auntie!" A towheaded boy ran from another room and hid behind his aunt's skirts. "Macey's gonna whup me!"

"He's being rude." An older girl, probably my age, stalked in from the other room with a thin switch her hand. "Stole a pie from the Widow Tanner and wouldn't apologize. You wanna do it, Auntie?"

"I wasn't sorry!" The boy yelped as his sister made a grab for him. "The Widow's an old cow and she already whupped me! Auntie, make her stop!"

The witch sighed and took the switch from her niece. She grabbed her nephew by the back of his shirt, beginning to scold. I sneaked out by the back. The hedgewitch would not have given me the curse I wanted, even if I had stayed longer.

Maybe there was something to be learned from it. I had assumed that Master Salmalín was just being prudish. I was a commoner and could do the dirty stuff that nobles didn't want to. If a commoner like me wouldn't teach me, maybe it just wasn't dirty work.

I'd have to get Stone Mountain a different way.

I tried not to think about it as I helped repair a house. After the house had begun to look like a house again, I headed towards the center of town. The villages had set up tables and I was hungry.

I caught sight of Master Salmalín. He looked as if he was looking for someone and he looked absolutely furious. Fear stirred in my stomach.

I turned quickly, praying that he had not seen me. My midday meal would have to wait. I slunk away and ran when I was out of his sight.

A little ways down the path leading to the village, I stopped near a group of people. Five townspeople and the headman were standing around a hole in the ground, talking in low whispers.

"What's going on?" I asked curiously.

The frantic woman wrung her hands as she turned to me. "My baby girl's down there. Climbed in there with two older brats who didn't know what they were doing."

"It's an old mine shaft." The headman explained, his brow furrowed. "Twas all boarded up, but the earthquake knocked things around. Is Master Salmalín near?"

"Yes." I answered reluctantly.

"Someone's got to go down there." Another man told me, winding a rope around his hands. "Your mage can widen the hole without disturbin' the loose dirt."

"I'll go." I offered, reaching out for the rope. "I'll fit through the hole without it being widened."

The headman hesitated.

"The children will be scared." I persuaded. "I can make light."

The headman nodded and handed me the rope. "Go carefully and if you start feeling like somethin' is wrong, yank and we'll pull you back up."

I nodded and took the rope. There was a loop on the end. I climbed into it and fitted it around my waist. I wriggled down through the hole, feet first and was lowered deep into the darkness. Darkness would hide me from the mage who wanted to kill me.

I made light in the palm of my hand and the shadows around the cave danced. I saw three children huddled on the bottom of the pit.

"I see them!" I called up to the men. "I think they're fine!"

I climbed on the broken planks and beams that had once lined the walls of the old mine shaft. The earthquake had knocked them loose, but they had probably slowed the fall of the children and saved their lives.

Once I was on the floor, I climbed out of the rope and tugged on it to let the men know that I had reached the bottom. I was only about fifteen feet down.

"Hey." I whispered, reaching out for the children. "You all alright?"

The three children were covered in dirt from head to toe. The whites of their eyes shone, opened widely in fear.

A boy cleared his throat and pointed to the smallest girl. "She hurt 'er foot."

The young girl whimpered and rubbed her eyes. "I want my mama."

"Let me see your foot." I crawled over to them and carefully felt the girl's ankle. It didn't feel right. It was probably broken. "Your mama's waiting up there for you."

"Is everything all right?" The headman called down to me. "We're ready."

"You first." I lifted the little girl into the sling. "Pull her up! Careful, her foot's hurt."

I guided the girl around the beams until she was lifted high enough to avoid them. I looked down at the other children. "Who's next?"

Suddenly, I felt shaky on my feet. Dirt began to trickle down on me and I turned up to look at it.

"Earthshake!" The boy leaped to his feet and pulled me down.

The girl jutted her chin out determinedly, fear in her eyes. "Thought your mage man said they were over."

I watched the beams nervously. "Me too."

"Ain't so bad." The boy tried to grin. "First one was worse. This one's a baby compared."

The ground fell out from under us and we dropped like stones.

I grabbed for anything solid as we fell, managing to grab hold of a root and the girl. I couldn't hold to the root for long and my shoulder popped from its socket. I yelped and let go.

We rolled further down the hole. Miraculously, the tunnel was not straight down. It was steep, but not so as we would die when we hit the bottom.

Either way, hitting the dirt wall at the bottom hurt. Soil and rubble made a cloud of dust as it settled in around us.

"Where's Dann?" The girl demanded. "Make your light."

I struggled to concentrate and bright grey light filled our hole. Dann was to the side of us, seemingly unconscious.

"He won't wake." The girl patted his cheek repeatedly. "He's breathin' but he won't wake."

"Might be hurt real bad." I told her. "Leave him until he wakes."

The girl obeyed. "Is there a way out?"

"I'm looking." I raised my arm as high as I could. Our end of the tunnel hadn't collapsed, but was a dead end. The tunnel had a sharp incline up ahead and ended with a barricade of beams and rocks. There were spaces between the beams, but not even the boy could have fit between them.

The girl gestured to the walls of our cave. "I seen rocks like them afore. We've got cliffs on the south side of our village. There are rocks like these at the bottom. That means we're in deep. Right?"

I shrugged miserably, trying not to move my shoulder. It was definitely dislocated. "Sounds about right to me."

The girl pulled her legs up to her chest and looked younger than her ten years. "They won't dig us out for hours, even with that mage of yours. It might take days."

The boy began to stir and the girl put all her attention on him. I tried to think. We'd have to get ourselves out.

I leaned against the dirt wall and closed my eyes. I wasn't sure what I could do with my Gift. I didn't want to risk collapsing what little tunnel we had left. I might be able to burn our way out, but the flames would use up oxygen that we needed. I didn't want to burn up the two children, either. That would be hard to explain, although I didn't necessarily need to tell the truth once I had escaped. I could always say that I had lost the children in the cave-in.

I shook my head with bemusement. Maybe my plan might work, but it wouldn't settle with my conscience and I knew it.

"Found a way?" The girl asked hopefully.

"Not yet." I told her. "I'm thinking."

I ran through every possible scenario, aware that we would start to run out of time. There was also the chance that another earthquake would finish what it had started. The stress made it hard to concentrate and I began to panic.

I took deep breaths and let them out slowly. The boy and the girl were whispering to each other and sneaking glances at me.

Time was impossible to tell in the ground. I had no sun to determine the passage of time, just the foreboding silence of the earth.

Finally, after what seemed like eternity, the children crawled towards me.

"Tell us a story." The boy tugged on my arm. "Please?"

"Alright. Once there was a princess and she was locked-"

"No." The boy scoffed. "A real story."

I thought hard. "One of my crew, my friend, was named Saul. He used to be a sailor, before he got taken to be a slave."

"You used to be a slave?" The girl's jaw dropped.

I nodded. "Saul was a pirate, actually. He was nice enough, but he'd played some fierce games before he gave up his old life. Didn't work out for him in the end, 'cause he went to Corus to make an honest livin' and was made a slave."

"What kind of fierce games?" The boy raised his eyebrows. "Thievin', right? And murdering?"

I could corrupt the children, since we wouldn't make it out of here. I leaned in, lowering my tone dramatically. "All that. Womanizing, too. Had a girl in every port. Probably all still waiting for their pirate king to come back. Saul had a whole entire fleet of ships and captains that answered to him alone."

"Is this true?" The girl asked suspiciously.

"Every word." I lied. Saul had been a pirate, but he had not been very successful at all. "One day, Saul was in an awful position. He was marooned on a desert island. Pirate crews are never very reliable."

I waited as patiently as I could, sitting in the dark. I told stories until my throat grew hoarse and dry from the dust. The walls of the tunnel seemed to close in on me and I could tell that the children were on edge as well.

We lay there so long that we almost didn't realize when we became sleepy and light-headed.

"Air's runnin' out." The boy panted slightly, thin rivulets of sweat dripping down his face. "We gotta get outta here or we gonna die."

"Shut it!" The girl snarled. "We ain't gettin' out of here and you whinin' won't make things squat."

"He's right though." I leaned forward, forgetting about my hurt shoulder. I pulled my weight off of it, holding back a cry of pain. "I'm going to burn us out. I was stupid to wait, but I thought that Master Salmalín would get to us."

"You'll cause it to cave." The boy pointed out as I began to crawl.

"If someone's coming down, they'll get burnt up." The girl raised her eyebrows. "You can't burn us out."

"I've got to." I crouched by the other end of the tunnel and wriggled the wooden beams. "I'll go slow."

"Try calling up, just to check." The boy crawled next to me. "Help! We're down here!"

The girl and I joined in, adding our voices as we cried for help. There was no answer.

We fell into a dejected silence, until I gritted my teeth and created a fire in my closed first. "Back off as far as you can and take a deep breath."

The children hastily obeyed and I sent my fire shooting up the tunnel. I slowly burned away the beams, frowning as I tried to keep my fire from producing smoke.

"Dirt's falling!" The girl cried out fearfully. "The tunnel's going to fall in!"

"Get to me now!" I shouted back. "Close to me!"

They scrambled to grab hold of my tunic, pressing their frightened bodies to mine. I crawled upwards as I burned the beams, leaving them smoldering behind me. After about ten feet, the beams and planks became sparse and we were able to maneuver around them.

Our progress was still slow. We were tired and didn't have enough air. We were also afraid of moving too fast and disturbing the walls of the tunnel. The children didn't complain, although their hands slipped on the ground and they skinned themselves on the sharp stones.

The tunnel leveled out and we pulled ourselves to the flat part. I lay on my back, staring up at the beams and dirt above us.

"Don't fall asleep." The girl punched my shoulder, my hurt shoulder. "Wake up! We've got to keep goin'!"

I whimpered with pain and grabbed my shoulder. "I'm coming."

We would have to climb straight upwards. The planks might be loose and we could fall to our deaths after nearly reaching the top.

"Lift me up!" The boy reached for the beams above him. He brushed them with his fingertips, but couldn't a grip on them.

"C'mon." I lifted the boy up, feeling the strain deep in my arms. He squeezed through the hole easily and swung himself up. I helped the girl up as well and they began their climb to the top.

I was bigger than them and although I was still thin, I had a harder time of it. I had to pull myself through and twist to get free. Every time my shoulder got stuck, I had to carefully yank it free and endure the pain that followed. Whining about it wouldn't make a difference to anybody.

"Hurry up!" The girl slipped on a beam, but caught herself. "We must be almost there."

If we were getting closer, the air should have been fresher. The air was still thin and my chest burned with every breath I took. The boy's grip grew weaker and he began to slow down. I caught up to him and kept a close eye on him.

The girl shouted up ahead of us. "You need to start a fire! We're stuck again."

The boy's eyelids fluttered and he faltered. I wrapped my hurt arm around his chest, because I would my good arm for lifting us.

"What's wrong with him?" The girl asked once we had reached her. "Is it the air?"

"I can't burn us out. He'll die." I told the girl. I was beginning to feel dizzy myself.

"We'll all die if not!" The girl answered fiercely. "Burn us out!"

I shook my head angrily. "I told you I can't." I grabbed my magic and shoved it through the wall of debris, blowing pieces everywhere. I held tight to the boy and shielded him.

When the dust and dirt were cleared from the air, I took stock of the situation. We were all cut up from the falling rocks, but none the worse for wear. Better yet, the air smelled fresher and we could breathe easier.

"You did it!" The girl hooted excitedly and hurried upwards.

I was careful to choose secure footholds and grips. My Gift was beginning to give me headache, from making light for so long and blasting away the rubble.

"There's another one!" The girl pointed towards a large stone lodged in between roots and boards. "Give it what for!"

I gave it what for, first cracking it and then lifting all the pieces away from us carefully. It was hard to keep control but I didn't want to hurt anyone standing outside the hole.

The moonlight and soft lantern-light shone down on us as we pushed upwards through the soil. The fresh air hit us like a soft breath of life.

Hands reached for us. They took the boy from my arms and pulled the girl and me from the hole. The hands laid us on the ground as a couple women fussed over the children.

I sat up and reached for the canteen that someone offered to me. I drank deeply, clearing the dirt from my throat and coughing when I inhaled some.

"Stupid girl." Master Salmalín knelt next to me. "Do you need a healer?"

I started to shake my head, then nodded. "It's my arm. Hurts real bad."

All of the mage's earlier anger had dissipated completely. I hadn't known that near-death experiences could get me out of trouble.

Master Salmalín suddenly grew stern. "If you're not dying, I've got to speak to you. After you see the healer, come find me."

"No, milord." I disagreed weakly.

"No?" Master Salmalín questioned.

"Well, I've been to the deepest crevice." I avoided his gaze. "It wasn't that bad. Anyways, you can stop using it as a threat. I'm through with curses."

"Are you sure?" The mage raised his eyebrows.

I nodded meekly.

"Alright." Master Salmalín stood. "On our way back to the palace, we might as well make a small detour to Dunstable, if you want."

"Really?" I jerked up and the healer pressed me back down to the ground.

Master Salmalín smiled and nodded.

I smiled and yawned as I settled back onto the ground. I could see my crew again...and Trom.