Chapter One

Caiven Asterin would turn eighteen tomorrow, which everyone else seemed to think required an opinion. His mother had opinions about what he should wear. His sister had opinions about whether eighteen actually made him an adult. Tomas had spent most of the week insisting that Caiven’s first legal act should be buying the two of them something expensive and irresponsible.
Caiven mostly wanted everyone to stop asking what he intended to do with the rest of his life. He pushed open the kitchen door with his shoulder and immediately knew he was in trouble. His mother was chopping onions harder than onions deserved.
“You’re late.”
Caiven set the bundle of kindling beside the stove.
“I brought wood.”
“You were supposed to bring yourself home an hour ago.”
“I brought that too.”
His younger sister made a choking sound into her stew. Caiven pointed at her without looking.
“Don’t encourage her.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You made a noise.”
“I swallowed wrong.”
“You’ve been swallowing for thirteen years. I’d expect better by now.”
Lilen grinned. Their mother put the knife down. Lilen became very interested in her stew.
“Where were you?”
“With Tomas.”
“I gathered that.”
“We went up near the north ridge.”
Her composure slipped for an instant, and Caiven caught it.
“How far?”
“Not far.”
“How far, Caiven?”
He pulled out a chair.
“Past the old marker.”
Her hand flattened against the table.
“The stone marker?”
“There’s only one old marker.”
“I told you not to go beyond it.”
“No, you told me not to go into the western cut.”
“And how do you think you get to the western cut?”
“I didn’t go to the cut.”
“That is not the point.”
Caiven glanced at Lilen. She had lowered her spoon and was enjoying herself enormously.
“Could we do this after I eat?”
“No.”
“While I eat?”
His mother stared. Caiven picked up his spoon.
“Apparently not.”
For a moment, nobody spoke. Outside the kitchen window, the last sunlight caught the five peaks west of Vale’s End. The Crowns.
They were so much a part of the village that Caiven rarely looked at them. Children learned their names before they learned the names of kings. Farmers judged the weather by the clouds around their summits. The westernmost peak had a long patch of pale stone near its top that Lilen swore looked like a sleeping fox. Caiven had never seen the fox.
He had told her this enough times that she now considered it a defect in his character. Tonight, his mother kept glancing toward the mountains—not admiring them, checking them. Caiven noticed because she was trying so hard not to.
“You’ve done that three times.”
She looked back at him. “Done what?”
“Looked at the Crowns.”
“I live in a house with windows.”
“Four times.”
Lilen turned to look too.
Their mother snapped, “Eat.”
Lilen turned back immediately. Caiven did not.
“Something happen?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
He knew that tone. It meant the conversation had reached a wall and his mother had built it herself. He ate another spoonful. Tomorrow morning he was supposed to report to the Hall before first bell for his Closing.
The Closing happened on every person’s eighteenth birthday. Caiven had attended enough Closings to know there was very little worth getting excited about. An old speech. A walk downstairs. A few minutes alone with Master Nohren. Then the newly recognized adult came back up while relatives clapped and somebody produced food.
His mother had spent the last month behaving as if Caiven were preparing to cross an ocean. Lilen nudged his foot under the table.
“What?”
“What are you going to do afterward?”
“After dinner?”
“After you’re eighteen.”
“Probably still digesting dinner.”
“You know what I mean.”
Caiven sighed. People had been asking him versions of the same question for months.
He had apprenticed with the miller for half a summer and hated the dust. He’d helped Tomas’s uncle with horses and discovered horses were far more interesting before you had to clean up after them. He liked maps. He liked climbing. He liked taking apart things that other people preferred remained assembled. None of those seemed like a life.
“I don’t know yet.”
Lilen frowned. “Shouldn’t you?”
“Why?”
“Because you’re going to be an adult.”
“Ah. That’s what changes tomorrow. All the answers arrive.”
“They might.”
“I’ll wake you if they do.”
Their mother smiled despite herself. Caiven saw it and relaxed a little.
Then she said, “You will be at the Hall before first bell.”
“There it is.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
“Caiven.”
“I’ll be there.”
“And tonight you stay home.”
He looked up.
“I was planning to.”
“I want you to promise.”
That was unusual enough that Lilen stopped eating. Caiven set his spoon down.
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing.”
“You just asked me to promise I won’t leave the house.”
“Because tomorrow is important.”
“It’s the Closing.”
“I know.”
The words came out sharper than they should have. Caiven watched her. She rubbed her thumb against the edge of the table. Once. Twice. Her hand was shaking. Very slightly.
“Mom?”
She pulled her hand into her lap.
“Promise me.”
Caiven could have kept pressing. Most days he would have. Instead he nodded.
“Fine. I promise.”
Her shoulders lowered a fraction. Caiven wished he had asked what exactly she’d been afraid he might do.
* * *
Caiven lasted until a little after midnight before admitting he wasn’t going to sleep. He had tried lying on his back. Then his side. Then his other side. At one point he’d turned his pillow over as if the cooler half might contain unconsciousness. It didn’t. Through the wall came a faint snore from Lilen’s room. Caiven found this offensive.
He got up. Moonlight came through the shutters in narrow strips. His clothes for the morning hung over the chair beside his bed: dark trousers, a white shirt, and the grey coat his mother had made for him. She had spent weeks on it. Caiven had spent most of those weeks complaining about the collar.
Now he ran his fingers over the stitching and felt mildly guilty. He picked it up. Something fell from the pocket and tapped against the floorboards. Caiven crouched.
At first he thought it was a coin. It was a wooden disc, no bigger than two fingers across. A symbol had been carved into one side: five curved marks around a circle, each bending the same way without touching it.
Caiven turned it over. Three words were scratched into the back. REMEMBER NOTHING BELOW. He read them twice.
Then once more because they didn’t improve with repetition.
“Makes perfect sense.”
He opened his door. The hallway was dark.
“Mom?”
Nothing. He considered waking her. Then pictured the conversation. Hello, you were already acting strange, and now I’ve found a threatening piece of wood sewn into my birthday coat. On balance, morning seemed better.
He put the disc on his desk and climbed back into bed. Several minutes passed. Then something thumped. Caiven opened his eyes. He listened. The house settled around him. A board creaked somewhere downstairs. He closed his eyes again. The sound came a second time.
Deeper. He sat up. It wasn’t loud. In fact, he wasn’t sure he had heard it at all. He had felt it. Caiven swung his feet onto the floor. The boards were cold. He put his palm down. Nothing. He waited. Ten seconds. Maybe twenty. Then, faintly, through the wood:
Boom. His fingers lifted by themselves. Caiven stayed crouched beside his bed, listening. There was no fourth beat. Eventually he stood.
“Wonderful,” he whispered. “Adult insanity. Right on time.”
He did not sleep much after that.
* * *
By sunrise, Vale’s End smelled of bread smoke, wet stone and the manure cart somebody had left too close to the square. Caiven decided adulthood could have used a better beginning. The Hall stood near the center of the village. It was the oldest building in Vale’s End, although nobody Caiven knew could say how old. Most of it had been repaired so many times that the walls looked like a history of different masons arguing.
The foundation was different: huge black stones, too smooth and too large to match the rest of the building. Caiven had wondered about them as a child, then stopped wondering somewhere along the way. He reached the entrance and happened to look up. Five curved marks surrounded a circle above the door, each bending in the same direction. Caiven stopped.
The wooden disc. He was still staring when Tomas walked into his back.
“Move.”
“Look.”
“At what?”
Caiven pointed. Tomas squinted upward.
“The carving?”
“You know that symbol?”
“It’s been there longer than we’ve been alive.”
“I never paid attention to it.”
“You’ve never noticed the giant carving directly over the door?”
“Not really.”
“That seems like a you problem.”
The carving was not new; the connection was. Until finding the wooden disc in his coat, five curved marks around a circle had never meant anything to Caiven. Now he could not understand how he had looked at the same shape for years without wondering why it was there.
“You look terrible, by the way,” Tomas said.
“Thank you.”
“Did you sleep?”
“Some.”
“You’re lying.”
“Why ask questions you already know the answer to?”
“Practice for marriage.”
Caiven pushed open the door.
“You’re an idiot.”
“An unmarried idiot.”
The main room was already crowded. Closings weren’t exactly festivals, but Vale’s End had never required much excuse for food before noon. Neighbors stood talking between rows of benches. Someone had brought sugared rolls. Lilen was attempting to take a second while their mother pretended not to notice.
At the front of the Hall stood Master Nohren. Caiven had known Nohren his entire life. The old man had taught him letters, numbers and, during one memorable winter, why setting lamp oil on fire to see what happened was not a form of scholarship. This morning he wore the long brown robes reserved for ceremonies. They made him look even thinner.
Caiven’s mother stood beside him. They were speaking quietly. Arguing, Caiven realized. He edged closer.
“…not today.”
“There’s no basis for delaying it.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Neither do you.”
His mother saw Caiven. Both of them stopped.
“Good morning,” Caiven said.
Master Nohren recovered first.
“Happy birthday.”
“Thank you. What are we delaying?”
“Nothing,” said his mother.
“Your mother is nervous,” said Nohren.
They looked at each other. Caiven folded his arms.
“Very convincing.”
The first bell rang before he could press further. People found their places. Nohren motioned Caiven forward. He suddenly became aware of how many people were watching. Lilen gave him an encouraging smile with half a sugared roll in her mouth. Caiven nearly laughed. Nohren began.
“Caiven Asterin. Today you turn eighteen and pass beyond the keeping of childhood.”
The words were familiar. Caiven had heard them at other ceremonies. They sounded different when spoken to him.
“You have lived beneath the world you were given.”
Nohren paused.
“Do you enter adulthood willing to leave childhood’s sight behind?”
Caiven glanced at his mother. Her face had gone very still. The phrase struck him as odd. He had never paid much attention to it before.
“Do I get to keep the rest of my sight?”
A few people laughed. Nohren didn’t.
“You always have a choice.”
Caiven’s mother looked down. There it was again. Something wrong in a place where nothing was supposed to be wrong. Caiven considered asking. Then Nohren gestured toward the narrow doorway behind him.
“Come.”
Caiven followed him downstairs.
* * *
The staircase went much farther than expected. By the twentieth step, Caiven was counting. At thirty-two, he stopped because he didn’t like the fact that they were still descending.
“How far under the Hall are we?”
“Far enough.”
“Useful answer.”
“I’ve had years of practice.”
The stair opened into a round chamber with bare walls, no windows, and a single torch burning in a wall bracket. At the center stood a stone pedestal with something resting on top. Caiven approached. It looked like a piece of black glass, except no light reflected from it. Oval and smooth, it was about the size of both his hands placed together.
“That’s the Closing?”
“That is part of it.”
“What’s the other part?”
“You.”
Caiven looked at Nohren.
“Was that supposed to sound ominous?”
“No.”
“It did.”
Nohren rubbed a thumb along the side of his hand, a small restless motion Caiven had never seen from him.
“What do I do?”
“Place your hand on the stone.”
“That’s all?”
“Yes.”
Caiven stepped closer. The words from the wooden disc returned to him: REMEMBER NOTHING BELOW. His hand stopped above the stone.
“Master Nohren?”
“Hm?”
“What does it actually do?”
Nohren did not answer. Caiven lowered his hand.
“What does it do?”
“Caiven, this ceremony has been performed safely for longer than anyone can remember.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“I know.”
“Then answer that one.”
Nohren looked tired.
“Some things are easier to explain afterward.”
“Why?”
“Because afterward you won’t care as much.”
Caiven stared at him. Nohren seemed to realize what he’d said.
“What does that mean?”
“Put your hand on the stone.”
Caiven almost refused. For a moment, the possibility felt real. Then the ordinary ridiculousness of turning a village ceremony into a fight won out. So he placed his palm on the stone. It was cold. Nothing happened. Caiven waited. Nohren leaned forward, his attention sharpening.
“Lift your hand.”
Caiven did.
“Again.”
He touched it again. Still nothing. Nohren took a step back.
“That’s not possible.”
Caiven looked down at the stone.
“I feel reassured.”
“Again.”
“Nohren.”
“Again.”
A deep boom came through the floor, more felt than heard. Caiven jerked. Nohren’s eyes widened.
“You heard that?”
“Last night too.”
Nohren went pale.
“What do you mean, last night?”
The second pulse was stronger. Dust slipped from a crack in the ceiling. Boom. The stone warmed beneath Caiven’s hand. He tried to pull away. His palm did not move.
“Nohren.”
The old man seized his wrist.
“Let go.”
“I am trying.”
“Caiven, let go.”
“I said I’m trying.”
The chamber seemed to vanish. Caiven could still feel Nohren gripping him and the floor under his boots, but something poured across his vision. Dark water. Roots. Stone threaded with veins of orange heat. A forest from underneath, roots descending like hair. Then the Crowns.
He knew they were the Crowns because some part of him recognized their shape. But he wasn’t looking at them from Vale’s End. He was looking from below. The five mountains rose from something pale and enormous.
Whatever lay beneath the Crowns was not rock. Caiven’s mind tried to give it a shape. For one horrible instant, it almost succeeded. He ripped his hand free. The force threw him backward. Nohren caught one shoulder and failed to catch the rest of him. Caiven hit the floor hard enough to bite his tongue. For several seconds, neither spoke.
Then the bell upstairs began ringing in the fast, uneven pattern of the Hall alarm. Caiven got to his knees. A thin golden line had appeared in the black stone. Nohren stared at it.
“It knows.”
Caiven tasted blood.
“What knows?”
Nohren looked at him. The old man seemed suddenly much older.
“You cannot tell anyone what you saw.”
“I don’t know what I saw.”
“Good.”
“Stop saying good to things that are obviously bad.”
Another tremor moved through the chamber. This one tilted the pedestal. Nohren grabbed Caiven by the arm.
“We have to go.”
* * *
People were already pouring out of the Hall. Caiven found his mother in the crowd, or rather she found him. She grabbed his face with both hands.
“Did it work?”
He stared at her. She had not asked whether he was hurt, or what had happened below. Only whether it worked.
“Did what work?”
Her hands dropped.
“Caiven.”
“No.”
The word came out harder than he meant.
“No, it didn’t.”
The fear she had been hiding all morning finally showed on her face. A crack rolled across the valley. Everyone turned west. The Crowns moved. At first Caiven thought snow was sliding from one of the peaks. Then trees began falling sideways. A whole section of mountain lifted.
People around him stopped breathing. Stone broke away and thundered into the valley. Someone screamed. Caiven’s mother seized his sleeve.
“We’re leaving.”
“What is happening?”
“Not here.”
“What are the Crowns?”
“Caiven.”
“What are they?”
The second peak shifted only slightly, but stone did not bend. This did. Caiven’s stomach turned. He remembered the impossible view beneath the mountains. The pale surface underneath. Around them, people began talking all at once.
“Earthquake.”
“That’s no earthquake.”
“The mountain moved.”
“What is that?”
“Look there.”
The ground pulsed. Boom. Caiven felt it in his teeth. Then the western face of the first Crown split. Inside lay a smooth, pale surface that was plainly not stone.
A woman near Caiven whispered, “It’s alive.”
The valley bucked. People fell. Caiven landed on one knee. A roof tile shattered beside him. And he understood something without understanding why. The words mattered because of the thought behind them, not the sound.
Hundreds of people were staring west, trying to fit what they saw into the world they had believed in ten minutes ago. The harder they tried, the stronger the pulse became.
“Stop looking!” Nohren shouted.
Nobody listened. Of course they didn’t. There was an eye opening inside a mountain, huge and golden, wet with a brightness that looked wrong in daylight. The crowd went silent as the eye moved.
It moved slowly. Caiven had the absurd thought that Lilen had been right all these years. The western peak did look like a sleeping animal. They had just been looking at the wrong part. The eye settled on Vale’s End, then on him. Caiven forgot the crowd and the Hall.
Something brushed against his mind. It was enormous but indistinct, like waking in darkness and knowing someone else was in the room. He felt confusion, pain, and fear.
Then a single word formed in him: Quiet. Caiven swallowed.
The thing beneath the mountains was afraid. Before he could make sense of that, another presence touched the edge of his thoughts. This one did not feel large. It felt empty, and the hair lifted along Caiven’s arms. The first presence belonged somewhere beneath him. This one seemed to come from no direction at all. It noticed him. Caiven was certain of that.
Then, very gently: Ask them what they are. Caiven’s skin prickled. His mother was beside him.
“Don’t listen.”
He turned. She was crying.
“You know about this.”
She didn’t deny it. Behind them, the mountain groaned. Caiven looked at his mother and finally understood that there were lies adults told children because children were children. And then there were lies built so thoroughly into a life that you could stand inside one for nearly eighteen years and mistake it for the world.