The Endless Solvent

For hours they wandered the dark. The musty smell permeated the air and Nilda couldn’t get used to it. The twins would be tired and hungry, but neither of them complained as they stayed close to her and Rask, light sticks clutched in little hands. The silence was unnerving - they were quickly discouraged to talk as the sound of the voice echoed loudly against the stone walls.

A few times Nilda had to widen the passageway to allow Rask and herself through. A few more times, they all froze as one of them heard muffled shouts or voices - since sounds traveled down the passageway, it was difficult to determine where they were coming from. Did they find the cave entrance? Were they hot in pursuit?

But the sounds quickly faded to the echoing drips of a damp cave and the scuffle of shoes on the ground. There was no other option but to move forward and to see where the tunnel led them. They reached a huge cavern at one point with a dark pool of water covering most of the floor, stalactites hanging down and dripping water from melting snow from the mountains and stalagmites poking out from the smooth surface of the water. There, by the dark pool, they stopped briefly to rest.

“Where are we going to go?” the princess finally asked. They huddled together and spoke in hushed tones but the voices still echoed in the great space.

Nilda stared at her glowing stick, thinking. “Taurin thought that you would join the Academy,” she finally said. “Said that a professor there would be interested in training you. That might be a good option for the two of you.”

“Would it be wise to bring them to someone who knows them?” Rask asked, crossing his arms. “I have been constantly doubting people’s loyalty today.”

“I don’t know,” Nilda said. “But Taurin had said the Academy was a place of political neutrality.”

“Perhaps it would be safe there,” Rask said. “But then again, perhaps nowhere is safe at the moment. Not before we understand what happened back at the castle.”

They fell into somber silence.

“Mama’s dead, isn’t she?” the princess whispered. “And Papa.”

The little prince gave a hiccuping sob and Nilda hugged him close, patting his wild mane of hair.

“Why did they get killed?”

Neither Nilda nor Rask had an answer. It made her feel sick seeing the princess asking that question with that level of calmness.

The twins have many more years before they truly grow up.

Taurin was wrong. They had to grow up now while they weren’t even nine years old. “I don’t know,” Nilda said. “Somebody wanted to overthrow the Caelis kingdom.”

“And they succeeded,” the princess stood up suddenly, her voice agitated. “Now that papa’s dead - ”

“You’re still here. And your brother,” Rask said. “Aren’t you two the heirs to the Caelisian throne? So no, they didn’t succeed.”

“And what if they kill us?” the princess pressed. “Then… then…”

“We’re not going to let that happen,” Rask said firmly. “Right, governess?”

In the dim lighting, she saw the princess turn to her. Nilda smiled despite knowing the girl probably couldn’t see it. “Of course. I won’t let any harm come to you, little moon.”

The answer seemed to be satisfactory. The princess sat back down on the ground, clutching her glowing stick. “I’ll come back,” she finally said fiercely after a stretch of silence. “We’ll come back and punish those who killed mama and papa.”

Nilda wanted to agree, but who would they punish? The question hung in her mind. The Solaris had thousands of men under his orders - he and Rask had somehow been outmaneuvered so that the castle was ill guarded. And then there was the matter of the emissary and the Gate…

Somehow it was connected - the Gate, the murders, Vartu, the emissary, and the Being in Smoke. Somehow the Great Solvent had drawn them all together in a flowing line but refused to show who drew that line in the first place. All Nilda knew, all she could feel, was that the twins had to stay alive.

Survive until the world burns. In her mind’s eye, the Caelisian map burst into flames again and again and Nilda couldn’t help but feel her time was running out.

“Alright, we need to find a way out of here,” Rask finally said. “We need food and water, but we also need to know where we are.”

He had been remarking that they were probably headed north-east away from the castle, but heavily doubted it due to the dark and winding trajectory of the tunnel. They had been walking for a long while, it may be safe enough to surface if they could find a spot.

Nilda carefully felt out the stone through the mountain, avoiding pockets of water or snow. She picked a section Rask thought would be west and tried to determine the thinnest parts of rock and experimentally pushed her way through, creating a smooth arch above her as she slowly ‘dug’ out a hole.

It required a lot more focus than simply shooting out spikes. She had to make sure there wouldn’t be debris falling on them and pushing rock out of the way was difficult as she had to ‘move’ the material into an empty space. If more rock surrounded them, she needed to clear the rock out into the cavern. It made for slow, heavy work. Suddenly a burst of cold air shocked her as she slowly tunneled out to an opening.

Gasping from exertion, Nilda sank to the ground, limbs trembling; it felt as if she had tried to push all that rock with her bare hands.She could see the outside through the opening created. The clear sky was darkening to an inky blue color. Immediately around them were a few rocks that plateaued slightly outwards and trees amongst some shrubbery, but then the mountain sloped steeply into a valley.

Rask leaned out of the hole she made past her, then clapped her on the shoulder.

“Nice job, governess,” he said. “I know where we are.”