Thief Eyes - Janni Lee Simner [16]
A small white fox padded out of the tunnel and crossed the room to sit at my feet. An arctic fox with small ears and a long fluffy tail—not a red fox or a fennec fox or any of the other species names that tumbled into my awareness. Why could I remember twelve kinds of foxes when I couldn’t remember my family or home?
“Light,” the fox said.
Never mind what species he was—I sank abruptly down on the stone bed. “You can talk.” None of those dozen species could talk.
“So can you.” The fox scratched behind his ear with one paw. I couldn’t help it—I reached out to pet him. The fox leaned into my hand. His woolly fur really was that soft.
Was I someone who liked animals? I stared into the darkness above. My name was Haley. What else? Mother and father? Sisters or brothers? My thoughts slid away when I tried to focus them, as if they, too, were beyond the light. I clenched my other hand into a fist, released it when my nails—sharp nails—dug into my palms. “Ouch!” I jammed both hands into my pockets.
My fingers brushed soft cloth in one pocket, warm metal in the other. A memory of gray eyes and hot wind shook loose from the dark, and another of losing my grip and falling—
I jerked my trembling hands out of my pockets. Maybe there was a reason I’d forgotten. I stared down at my palms. They were crossed with faint half-moon scars.
In the distance, I heard wings beat the air. A huge black raven flew out of the tunnel and into the room, wings outstretched. A half dozen small black-capped birds—arctic terns—followed in its wake.
I scrambled to my feet. The raven swooped up onto one of the ledges, perched there, and looked down at me through bright black eyes. Dizziness washed over me. Somehow I knew those eyes remembered all I’d forgotten. The smaller birds arrayed themselves on lower shelves while the fox tapped my ankle once—a friendly gesture—then curled up on the floor, wrapping his bushy tail around his paws.
The raven flapped its wings—slowly, rhythmically—and somehow those wingbeats shaped themselves into words. “So. You have chosen to wake.” He flexed his black claws. His glossy wings shone in the lamplight.
“Who are you?” Speaking—thinking—took too much work while staring into those eyes. I looked down. My sneakers were gray with gravelly dust. “Why did you bring me here? What do you want?”
The raven’s wings kept beating the air. I swayed in time to that beat. “I saved your life.”
Even without looking at the bird, speaking took effort. “Why did my life need saving?”
“It didn’t,” the raven said matter-of-factly. “But the other one, by whose spell you were caught—the fire she called on could tear the land asunder, should it be set free. Perhaps your dying while bound to her magic would not be enough to release that fire. Perhaps it would. I prefer not to take chances. The other one was young when she cast her spell. She thought it a game, a matter of her own human life, yet the earth still trembles with the memory of how she called upon the realm of fire.”
I had no idea what the raven was talking about, and my murky memories yielded nothing. “What other one?”
“I’ll not name her, lest I give her more power—for though she died a thousand years before you were born, time is a fragile human thing and can be altered to bring the land’s ending. All things must end, as my master foretold long ago. Even so I would hold off their end awhile longer. I would remember for a small time more.”
“Wait, you’re saying the world could end if I die?” Yeah right, the earth really does revolve