The Secret World of Briar Rose(6)
She stayed away from walking trails, ducking behind a boulder to evade a passing military tank. Once the roar of the vehicle faded, she continued stalking along the mountainside as she had for the past hour, tearing down vines that wrapped around the rocky walls, and rubbing mud over her clothes for camouflage. Thorns ripped holes in her gloves, and her palms prickled with splinters.
When she thought her chafed skin couldn’t handle more, her fingers dug into a rock crevice that finally felt different from the rest.
Cold air wafted through the small cracks. The change in temperature raised bumps on her skin. She cut through the thick vines with her dagger, shearing the tendrils that twisted around each other until a gaping black mouth opened before her.
Corin stepped back, staring into the darkness. The wind whispered around the rocks like a secret. She thought about the ones that would never be uncovered by the world, lost in time.
A century ago, refugees from Zilar dug tunnels connecting to their neighbors in Gyldan while evading the dangerous forests that surrounded the kingdom. Corin’s grandmother had been one of hundreds who survived traveling for miles by foot. But monarchy dissolved into war after the royal family died out, and as neighboring kingdoms fought to take over the land, military forces found and demolished several passageways. Now, desperate travelers used the remaining network of tunnels for a different purpose: to find the princess who fell asleep one hundred years ago.
Corin knew the story well, because it was Elly’s favorite. The other artists in the commune had told Elly about the legend, and she loved repeating it to Corin. On rainy nights when they hid inside their tent, Elly would whisper in Corin’s ear the tale of a princess cursed by a demon. As midnight struck on the princess’s eighteenth birthday, the girl pricked herself with a spindle and fell into eternal slumber. Her faerie godmothers gifted true love’s kiss as a cure, yet when time came for the prince to kiss her, she never opened her eyes. The prince was so consumed by grief that he asked the faeries to bury the castle underground, taking him with it, so that he would never live in a world without his true love.
“That’s why Gyldan is so terrible now,” Elly had whispered.
“Because some princess pricked herself with a spindle?” Corin remembered saying. “That’s stupid.”
Elly had shaken her head. Her face had been tucked in the crook of Corin’s neck, so her hair tickled below Corin’s chin whenever she moved. Corin had retaliated by tickling her stomach. Elly had shoved her elbow into Corin’s face with a huff.
“There were people who visited her tower before the castle was buried. In all their drawings, she wore a crown of moonflowers. Those only bloom every hundred years, and they bloomed on the night she fell asleep.”
“Is there a purpose to this story, or are you just rambling to annoy me?”
Corin had known the flowers were Elly’s latest fixation, their concrete surroundings etched in clumsy chalk recreations. She didn’t like the way the story clung to her sister like false hope.
“I counted the years. They’re going to bloom again in three days’ time,” Elly had said, wide-eyed and breathless. “What if that’s when the princess will wake up?”
Corin had diminished her sister’s beliefs by stamping out her chalk drawings and reminding her of reality. No one could fall asleep for centuries, let alone be the savior to a kingdom overthrown by war. Desperate travelers who ventured inside the tunnels chased after a fantasy, where skies were filled with magic and faeries instead of warplanes and smoke. Not only were these ideas foolish, but they were also dangerous. Despite hundreds of people attempting to find the princess, no one had ever made it out of the tunnels.
Corin stared at the abyss and pictured Elly walking into the darkness, motivated by inane stories and imaginary flowers. As she rolled up her sleeves, gripped onto the rocks, and climbed down into the hole, she thought about how she’d underestimated the gall that a child of twelve could have. She would not let her sister pay the price of stupidity with her life.
The tunnels turned colder the deeper Corin traveled, goose bumps prickling her flesh even as she massaged her arms with muddied gloves. She tried marking each turn she made with lines of gravel, but there were other stones in each corner, trails left behind by those who’d inevitably become lost.
“El?” she called out.
No one responded but her own echo. Corin inhaled a deep breath, gritting her teeth.
“When I find you,” she called again, “you’re going to be in so much trouble.”
? ? ?
SHE DID NOT find Elly.
Corin lost count of the hours, her awareness of time ebbing and flowing like the wash of a tide. Blisters oozed between her toes, each step in the endless tunnel laced with pain. Rocks cut through her gloves and scraped her skin.
At first, the excitement of following Elly’s trail had propelled Corin forward. She’d recognized the chalk drawings of moonflowers on the walls and the clumsy scribbles that could have only been etched by her sister’s hand. But as the hours stretched along endless passageways and wore down her body, she wondered how Elly could have survived this far. She dreaded turning a corner where the chalk no longer remained and finding her sister’s body instead.
A jagged stone cut her back as she leaned against a wall. Even breathing was difficult, the stale air thick with dust and dirt. She wanted to give up and cry. Not because she was tired, but because she could only imagine Elly walking this same path, her body hollowing from the inside out until she was nothing but bone.