Storm. Sarah Driver

not war. Also, about how women should be permitted to study, and about what Stag and the Wilder-King have been doing. We have met with young ones fleeing the city, helping them escape slavery, teaching them medsin and rune skills. And we’ve met with poor people on the outskirts, teaching them to read runic script. But it’s all so much harder than I had thought! I must have been so naïve,’ she says, burying her face in her hands. ‘Our words have been discovered by angry, powerful people. I believe—’ She pauses, studying her lap. ‘They have begun to search for us.’

      ‘Have you told your ma?’ I ask, dread tumbling in my belly.

      She shakes her head. ‘And I beg you, please don’t tell her! She would keep me here, and even if I were willing to stay for her sake, I could never leave Egret.’

      I nod, slowly, the breath turned to iron in my lungs.

      ‘You know, Mouse,’ she says, like a conspirator. ‘Even when you’re stuck in one place, you can still make waves. Think of all the allies you have, right under your nose.’

      She’s misread my look – for once, I weren’t feeling heart-sad at being left behind. I was fretting for her.

      ‘Mother and I thought we would give you a present,’ she says brightly, fishing in her pocket. She pulls out a tiny stub of silver, worn and smooth. I take it from her and find that my thumb fits inside a groove in the silver – it’s an old key. ‘It unlocks the Opal Chamber, so you can visit the stones,’ Kes tells me, grinning.

      ‘Let’s go, then!’ I put my head under the blankets and dig my fur-lined slippers from the bottom of my bed. A fool that climbs out of bed barefooted is a fool that loses toes to winter’s jaws.

      We step into the crooked corridor outside. Thaw glides by my shoulder, throwing the cloak of her shadow over the glittering stone floor.

      As I glance sideways at Kes, her words buzz in my brain. You can still make waves. I can feel the seed of an idea throwing roots into my blood.

      We wind our way up three stairways hewn into the mountain, past sputtering lanterns that cough up oily wreaths of smoke. We reach a small wooden door and fit the key into the lock.

      Kestrel has to stoop to fit through, but inside, the space yawns wide into a cavernous antechamber. Another door, much bigger, is flanked by two guards with crossed spears. The Opal Chamber. Leopard waits with the guards. She smiles at me when I thank her for the key.

      The warriors uncross their spears.

      We step into the storm-restless feeling of the Opal Chamber. Kestrel gasps. Leo stands by my side, breathing fast. The walls are charred black, seeping fire-worms from tiny pits in the rock. The air tastes charred, too. The fire-worms thud against my heavy cloak like scraps of burning black silk.

      A pulsing silver ghostway gloops through a crack in the wall, so the guards can hear if anyone is trying to get too close to the gems.

      The Opals hang from the ceiling inside two round iron cages, etched with glowing protective runes. Even though there’s no breath of wind, the cages sway and the chains creak and groan. As I watch them, my skin itches on the inside. The Opals pull on my spirit, and I wish I could free them from their cages. Thaw rockets high in the air and swoops wide circles around the cages, feathers spiking. Shinystones! Glintofgreenbluesparkles!

      I step slowly closer to the cages, dragging my fingers across the rough wall. There’s a sour smell in the chamber. ‘Are you making stinks cos you hate being trapped?’ I whisper. The smell in here reminds me of how my armpits get when I’m nerve-jangled.

      In answer, the Sea-Opal glows bright green and weeps chips of ice. Gold flecks swirl in its depths. It throws shadows on the cavernous walls, shadows in the shape of seals that writhe and twist and float together, sliding sleek dark skins across the damp rock. Salt rides the air. I stick out my tongue to taste the tang.

      The Sky-Opal’s blue deepens like dusk, as it splutters puffs of smoke and flurries of blue sparks that print pictures of clouds and birds and bats and the night hunts of owls on my vision. Shadows shaped like feathers dance across the walls. The cages holding the jewels pull towards each other, creaking.

      ‘They hate being separated,’ I murmur. Leo stands close by my side.

      ‘I am sorry for it,’ she says. ‘But we decided that together their power was too great.’

      I chatter to the Opals, imagining they’re listening to me. They throw a fire-spirit glow onto the wall and I try to read the pictures. They twine together in ribbons of silver, like a plume of hair caught in a sea-wind. Hair like Grandma’s.

      Thaw rasps a cry, wrenching me from my thoughts. A scuffling sound makes my skin twitch.

      ‘Who’s there?’ demands Leo, face sharpening to full alert as her fingers wrap around her spear.

      ‘Protector?’ calls one of the guards, knocking on the door.

      Thaw dives past our startled faces, hurtling towards the floor. I turn around and see a small furry creature wriggling away through a gap at the bottom of the wall. Thaw shrieks her anger, her claws scraping against the stone floor. ‘Oh! It’s just a lemming,’ says Kes.

      Leo’s shoulders sag. ‘It’s nothing, we’re fine,’ she tells the guard. She and Kes begin to laugh.

      But a chill spreads through me. I breathe, trying to work out why I’m getting the fear. Notjustlemmingnotjustlemming, croaks Thaw.

      Slowly, the knowing trickles into my veins.

      ‘I didn’t hear that lemming’s beast-chatter,’ I tell them. The beast had the same empty hole where beast-chatter should be that Crow has. What if that lemming was a shape-changer?

      ‘Perhaps you had no time to notice it?’ suggests Leo.

      I shake my head. ‘I can tell when it ent there.’

      ‘Right,’ says Leo, eyes darkening. ‘I will have a word with the Elders about this.’ She nods to us and strides from the chamber.

      Kestrel frowns at the place where the lemming vanished. Then she fixes me with troubled green eyes.

      ‘I feel like something’s changed, about the chatter,’ I tell her slowly. ‘Da’s been fretting about it. He told me to keep it secret, and he’s never said that before. It’s like it’s suddenly a thing of shame.’ Thaw glides towards me and I hold out my arm for her to land. Then her head nuzzles my jaw. ‘I’ve heard folk say mean things, too. Like Coati, and some of the older girls that hang round Lunda. I’m not telling tales – I can handle myself against them, I just—’

      ‘Mouse,’ she interrupts gently. ‘I know you can. But you’re right to ask about this – I know I would. And I know something about it. Now seems as fine a time as any for the telling.’

      ‘Go on,’ I whisper.

      ‘Since I stepped into the great wide, I have heard many foolish opinions of beast-chatter. Some view it as a sickness. A disease of the mind. It is an idea that is spreading.’

      I stare up at her. ‘A disease ? But I ent sick.’ I touch the blade at my belt, and Thaw shrills a cry of outrage.

      ‘Of course not,’ she adds quickly. ‘But in times like these, folk distrust anyone marked out as different. Especially those with a connection to things they can’t understand. Some powers are so ancient that they are feared. I remember my mother teaching me of the old ways. She said there were once other chatterings, kinned with the same power, but different strands of it. Green-chatter, wielded over the plants, and wind-chatter, which is sister to the weather-witch powers, but more potent.’

      Other chatterings?

      ‘It takes its toll on you, doesn’t it?’ she asks, brow puckering. ‘Is that why you fainted on the Sneaking?’

      ‘It don’t normally, no. That’s the point – I feel like it’s different.