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From inside her room, Rosethorn could hear the children talking. Thank Mila that Lark had told them all to go play. Rosethorn's head was pounding, and maybe the quiet after the children left would help the pain subside. She squeezed her eyes shut and pinched the bridge of her nose, and while there was some relief, it was short-lived.
Rosethorn listened through the open windows as the children chattered as they moved through the garden and down the spiral path. When she could no longer hear the children, she listened through the cottage walls as Lark cleaned up breakfast and performed the morning chores.
After a while, Lark knocked and spoke through the door. “Rosie, I've made a pot of tea," she said. "Something to settle the nerves, our stomachs, and maybe our heads.”
Rosethorn smiled, despite the pain, loving that Lark could put together a tea – that Lark knew her and her storeroom well enough to do so.
"You can come in,“ said Rosethorn, and Lark opened the door, leaning on the door frame.
"Niko was sure the omens were not for us,” Lark said. “But it certainly feels like we're waiting for the executioner's blade."
Rosethorn moved in her bed, rolling onto her side with her back against the wall. She'd made space for Lark, and motioned to invite Lark in. “I don't care how hot it is," Rosethorn declared.
Lark gave a ghost of a smile, moved across the room, and eased herself into the bed with Rosethorn. “This is nice," admitted Lark. “We've been so busy with the children."
Rosethorn nodded, eyes closed again. “Mila save us from those children," she said.
Lark chuckled. “You seem to like to have someone to help with the weeding," she pointed out.
“And you like having someone to care for. As usual," teased Rosethorn, able to find some levity despite the heaviness of the atmosphere and the strange quality of the light.
Lark didn't answer, and there was a natural pause in their conversation, a pleasant moment of mutual enjoyment of the other's company. After a moment, Rosethorn felt compelled to break the silence, "The boy isn't half bad. “
"Briar,” said Lark, and she began extricating herself from the bed.
"I know his name,” said Rosethorn, a tad grumpily. The throbbing in her head was returning as Lark moved away.
Lark smiled at her love, and Rosethorn knew that Lark saw through her, as she always did. “Let me pour you a cup of tea," said Lark. She got up and went into the main room, and she moved gingerly, as Rosethorn had seen those who woke up after a night of drinking spirits.
When Lark was in the doorway, what they hadn’t known they were waiting for began. The Earth, the element they both served, began rolling and roiling as if it was water.
Rosethorn clawed out of her bed, as if she was going up a steep hill. “Briar,” she said, desperately, as she felt the green world scream around her. Lark stumbled through the main room and towards the front door, and Rosethorn did her best to follow. “Which way did they go?” Rosethorn yelled, and both she and Lark looked around frantically, hearing people scream and the sound of breaking.
“They probably went to the South Gate,” yelled Lark. And then she didn’t have to yell anymore, because the roar of the earthquake ebbed. They looked at each other and didn’t speak for a beat, almost as if they were afraid to break the new relative silence.
“LARK,” yelled Niko. “ROSETHORN.” He was running towards them, and he stopped to yell so he had the breath, and then kept running until he was close enough to speak with them in a more normal voice. “Where are they?” he demanded.
“We don’t know for sure,” said Lark. “They went to take a walk outside the walls.”
“That could be a safe place for them,” said Rosethorn, thinking that while being on the hillside would be frightening, it wasn’t likely to have injured them with debris. Then Rosethorn turned to Niko. “You said that the omens weren’t for us,” she demanded, a question not asked.
“Huath,” Niko said, shaking his head. “This isn’t the worst of it, there’s another quake coming, and it’s worse, it’s so much worse.”
“How?” asked Lark.
“There’s magic in it,” said Niko. “Huath… I’m not sure exactly, but Ragat is a new epic-center of a massive quake. We have to find the children, there’s something about this they’re all tied up in.”
“What do you mean,” demanded Lark; it wasn’t a question.
“I’m sure we’ll know in the fullness of time,” said Niko, irritably. “But right now, we need to find the children.”
“I’ll get Frostpine,” said Rosethorn, and it was suddenly very important to find him, and enlist his help, because there was something that she recognized in him – recognized from her own heart – regarding the stakes for him of finding Daja.
“Meet back here,” said Lark. Niko and Lark ran for the South Gate, Rosethorn for Frostpine’s forge.
It didn’t take long for Lark and Niko to locate the cave mouth the children had run into, and for Niko to know that the cave was a lot shallower than it had been the last time he’d seen it. The Earthquake, though, was faster, and Niko and Lark endured the magical-veined quake on the hillside.
Rosethorn had reached the forges by the time the quake hit, and she and Frostpine were forced to wait it out before running back to Discipline. They were met on the way by Lark and Niko, who brought them to the Hub. “We’ll explain when we explain to Moonstream,” said Niko.
And that’s how they found themselves digging a hole in heartfire chamber of the Hub.
–
After they had been pulled out of the Earth, the children were admitted to a temple infirmary. After the bustle of washing them, and getting medicines in them, and being examined by the healers, they were left to sleep. After Niko left to assist Moonstream in the administration of relief, and Frostpine left to help search for survivors in Summersea, Lark and Rosethorn remained to watch over the the four children, who were still silhouettes breathing evenly under their sheets.
“We almost lost them,” said Rosethorn, quietly.
Lark looked at her, surprised. “I know that you feel responsible for the students who come to Discipline,” said Lark. “You take it seriously that we’re given charge of them, and I know you’re caring enough to worry for their welfare, but I didn’t think you’d be so… attached.”
“This is different,” admitted Rosethorn. “Briar is different,” she said. Rosethorn had known how valuable she was to her Father, but also how much she had been unloved. Maybe this boy…
The rest of that sentence Rosethorn hadn’t worked out; she grasped for a meaning she had not yet divined.
Rosethorn turned to Lark. “Love,” she said, “If we weren’t Lark and Rosethorn, but Lark and Nivalin, do you think we’d have a family?”
Lark smiled gently, and reached out to touch Rosethorn’s face, stroking Rosethorn’s cheek. “Why do we have to be anyone but ourselves?”