Nate appears at Tessa’s back and wraps his arms around her. “You all right?” he asks before connecting the terrifying sound to the massive white beasts. He curses and pulls her inside the cave.
“It’s okay.” Tessa smiles weakly.
She takes his hand, and they return to Junin’s side. The Olearon watches the scene with indifference, her muscles relaxed.
Just as the sasars are about to move on, one nervous hupper twitches its whiskers and leaps from its trunk. Not fast enough. A sasar lunges after it and bats it out of the air. The small creature smashes against the earth, changing swiftly to brown. Its small skull cracked upon impact. Its color flashes between jade and lemon, pumpkin and scarlet, slate and sky; this sequence is repeated until it becomes white to match the three sasars that feast on its sinews.
Tessa nearly shrieks when Nameris steps up close behind her.
“A word, human?”
Tessa turns to look back at the Olearon, and she shrugs and nods at the same time. Nate scowls. He looks at her with apprehension, but she releases his hand.
“Excuse us, Captain Nathanial Billows, Junin,” says Nameris.
The female Olearon nods. She and Nate return to the shelter of the cave and a pocket of orange light.
“Archibald, a moment,” Nameris calls.
Archie leaves Duggie-Sky with Ardenal and joins Tessa and Nameris at the cave’s entrance.
When Nameris sees they are alone, he speaks. “As you both know, my power, gained within Rolace’s web, is to sense the truthfulness of the spoken word.”
There is a silence as his insinuation hangs in the air like the metallic smell of the hupper’s blood. Tessa is afraid to breathe. She remembers the feel of the rock in her hand, its solidity, and then the strain of her muscles as she lofted it toward her target: the Lord.
Her mind is flooded with memories of Rolace. The man-spider’s body was massive, boasting twelve hairy legs and a spinneret that stretched through his human mouth. His eyes, when not split into four reflective orbs, were the eyes of a man much older than Archie. Kind eyes, Tessa thinks. He first spoke to her through the Creek of Secrets. His need of the Banji flowers was great. One effect of the Star’s poison flowing into the island is the lifeless stretches of desert, which choke out the nurturing power of Naiu. Rolace was desperate for the enchanted flowers needed to spin his magical cocoons and web through the white woodland.
The Banji flowers are powerful, Tessa reflects sadly. And they’re disappearing.
The scene that flashes across Tessa’s mind is grim, laced with regret. She sees the unsettled black sea beat against the eastern beach and the Bangols’ arching bridges. She smells the sickening odor of death carried on the lizard-legs of the millions of carakwas that scurried past the place where she hid in the tall grasses on the edge of the beach between slender white trees. The sound of the clicking, screeching carakwa horde was deafening, and Valarie’s taunting voice through the creatures’ mouths was nearly enough to fatally arrest her heart. Valarie murdered Rolace. Her evil outlived him, and his web would crumble to dust, returning its spell of Naiu to the island.
Tessa can feel her heart squeeze painfully as these recollections haunt her. Silently, she thanks the Maiden for sacrificing herself in the blast of flame. The Maiden saved Ella. She saved them all that night. Thankfully, Valarie is no longer a worry. Tessa exhales all the stale air she had been holding in her chest.
“Have you nothing to say?” Nameris says, interrupting Tessa’s tangle of regret and gratitude. “I know your lies,” he continues, looking between Archie and Tessa, who are both tongue-tied like guilty children. “The Lord did not pardon you, Archibald. He would never release anyone from a crime unscathed. And you”—he stares down at Tessa—“what really happened with that stone?”
Tessa and Archie begin to babble at the same time, making excuses, fumbling between half truths and part lies. Nameris clenches his white teeth, revealing them between his thin ruddy lips. “Cease this idiocy at once!” He pauses to lower his voice. “I am on your side.” He places his broad red hands on the humans’ shoulders. “I have sensed a sinister energy in the Lord since we returned from the east. He is crueler. Quicker to anger. More inclined to bloodshed. That is not the Lord to whom I pledged myself. He is a mystery to me, a terrifying contraction, and I suspect you two can help me to understand.”
“The Maiden—” Archie begins, so quietly that Tessa and Nameris lean in close enough to feel his breath. “The Maiden spoke to me. Through the Lord. It nearly scared the pants off me. But I trust the Maiden. It was her voice. She was struggling for control. She said there was another in that shell of a body, not only her and the 30th Lord.”
“The Maiden,” Tessa repeats, her relief peppered with bewilderment. “She’s alive!”
“As alive as she can be in her second state,” whispers Nameris. “However, I have never heard of a Maiden speaking through her partner’s body after her death, though she does cohabitate with him. Our Maiden, she was extraordinary—in life as in death.” Nameris rubs his brow in contemplation. “She said that the Lord is not as he seems. She confessed this to our first company. Remember, Archibald? She said she practiced lying to the Lord, which was against the truthfulness of her nature. This, she said, might one day save both her and her love.”
“I remember.” Archie scratches the blackening stubble on his chin.
“I surmise that if she learned to strengthen her will and harden her half of their shared heart, she could think and even communicate without the Lord knowing. It would be dangerous for her. The bonds of love are strong but fragile. It is the most delicate of balances. If she strains too much toward separation, it could fracture them forever. A life of loneliness, and not only now, but in every life to follow.”
“But why would she go through all this pain and sacrifice? Why risk it?” Tessa asks, as if Nameris understands the confusing web in which they find themselves hopelessly entangled. “What could she have to tell us that’s worth eternal loneliness?” The thought of that potential existence sends shivers down Tessa’s spine.
“To save us,” Archie replies. “To save Jarr. And all the worlds.”
“All the worlds,” Tessa and Nameris repeat in unison.
“All the worlds.”
Tessa finally speaks, remembering a name. “I heard the Lord, whoever he is, say the name Dillmus. That he killed Dillmus. Does that mean anything to you, Nameris?”
“There is no logic in that. Dillmus was slain by his brother, Telmakus, the 29th Lord of Olearon. Our Lord must have been confused. Were these words spoken after the rock fell from the sky?”
“Before. And I threw the rock,” Tessa confesses. “The Lord had Archie cornered against a tree. He was on all fours, beastly, and his fire was … was like a serpent slithering out of him, hungry—”
“He meant to kill me.” Archie’s voice quivers.
Tessa’s stomach churns and she wipes her sweating palms on her dress. “His hands. The Lord’s hands … there was something wrong with them, as if they’d been mangled by an animal, grown infected, and been stitched together poorly.”
“I cannot make sense of this alone.” Nameris’s neck erupts in flame, like a spark catching in gas. “We must speak with the Maiden.”
Chapter 9
Ella
I’m sure you’re as sick of the wretched vulai bread as I am, but it will calm the waters sloshing in your head,” says Luggie, smirking. “I snuck it from Lady Sophia.” He hands me a square of vulai.
I take a tentative bite—I’m not hungry but am humoring him. Immediately, I’m struck with the disappointment that the vulai is bare of the sweet ellag currants from my party. The bread creeps its way down my throat like a sled on a disappearing skiff of Seattle snow, and down farther until it settles into a hard lump in the corner of my stomach.
I smile at Luggie. He’s always taking care of me. I hope to one day return the favor.
The wryst drink has strengt
hened my body as if I’m ten years old again. Usually people get stronger as they mature, but with cancer as my companion, I’m the opposite. I’m invigorated, yet also intoxicated. My body surges with energy, but not my head, where a drumming beat refuses to let up. Luggie has it right. My ears feel plugged with water that slips from one side of my brain to the other, tipping my balance.
“You’re so small,” Luggie says. “Bones and skin holding up that beautiful face. I love you, Ella.”
My eyes fill with tears at my Bangol’s words, and briefly I wonder if the water in my head is leaking, but no—only tears. I feel the same way about Luggie. My heartbeats speak to him the same words he bestowed upon me—words like a gift, words that heal and bring hope.
I point to my mouth, which I lock shut, and shake my head. The sounds I produce embarrass me, though I can taste my “I love you, too” on my tongue. Back home, friends I thought would be lifelong eventually shied away from me when I opened my throat and let myself spill out. They said I sounded like a car crash or like our school principal’s voice during morning announcements: screeching with microphone feedback. They told me this with a laugh, as if I were a humorous addition to a Google list of the Top Ten Most Terrible Sounds on Earth. I learned to be quiet. Though they said they didn’t mind my sounds, I could tell they were relieved. Still, they faded from my life like flowers at first frost.
Luggie takes my hand from my lips and holds it between his grey palms, careful not to scratch me with his pointed nails. He brings our tangle of fingers to his chest, against the place where his rough skin and bones made of earth separate me from his heart.
“Speak,” he says. “I am not afraid.”
I can’t contain the geyser of humility and gratitude and love that erupts from me, as if the pressure has been building for years.
“Ewwwk uuugphygolfla gllleeeeckkkkkzceogidifi …” I can’t stop now. The sounds flow and cascade, smash against each other, and make a terrible racket. Olearons turn; I can feel their light shine in our direction, into our pocket of privacy at the back of the cave. Grandpa Archie and Dad rush over, and Mom too, but I wave them away. The tears stream into my smile, so long overdue that I’m sure I emit a light all my own, and they see. Everyone sees: on every freckle of my nose; in every fleck of icy blue in my eyes; in my posture, thanks in part to the wryst; in my awkward squawks that terrify Mom but also tell her I’m okay.
They leave Luggie and me alone. I talk and tell him my every thought and impression of Jarr-Wya and theories about the Star. We slip to the floor of the cave and sit with our legs wrapped around each other like pretzels. He holds my hands. He leans into me as if I’m telling him the greatest story he has ever heard. He listens without wincing, without even a flash of boredom across his great yellow eyes. He can’t possibly understand, but in my hopelessly illness-defined life, I feel heard for the first time in months, if not years.
Luggie brushes a tear from his cheek, where I can see small stones waiting to push up through his skin like molars through fleshy pink gums. Adult Bangols, in addition to the rocks growing out of their grey heads from infancy, have stones that slice out from each cheekbone. It’s a mark of maturity, a coming of age. While Luggie is young and painfully stubborn, he’s also wise beyond his sunsets. Kind. Thoughtful. Tender, too. I’m sure these stones will rise soon; I only hope I’ll be around to see it happen.
I regret every hour I spent wishing some boy at school would look at me and care, that he’d offer even the smallest fraction of Luggie’s affection. I pull him close to me, as if our breath in each other’s mouths isn’t close enough. He may not have understood my speech, but he understands my kiss. It’s my sign language to him—my translation of everything I had to say.
As we pull apart, hot against the black stone of Baluurwa, one of Luggie’s sharp incisors grazes my bottom lip. It draws a red line that soon buds with crimson.
“Oh no, Ella! I’m terribly sorry!”
I feel the burn of a paper cut and shrug it off, but the worry etched in wrinkles across Luggie’s folded brow tells me this isn’t trivial. First, I feel an itch as my blood trickles down my chin; then, I sense it drip. As if time holds its breath along with us, we watch the scarlet drop plummet in a graceful spiral through the dank cave air, until it strikes the black rock with a tiny patter that quivers before coming to rest.
That is the exact moment Baluurwa awakes.
It starts as a groan from within the jagged rocks, which unsettles them with its baritone. Cracks appear in our nook, then shift like dislodging puzzle pieces, spewing dust and pebbles on our heads. Luggie’s wide eyes illuminate the shifting mountain. We grab our sacks and dash into the orange light of the Olearons, tugging at the nearest arms. I hold tight to Duggie-Sky. Luggie realizes he’s grabbed the Lord, and lets go. There is something strange in Luggie’s expression, but it’s only a flash. Then, he’s pulling Grandpa Archie and Lady Sophia.
“Out! Out!” Luggie hollers. His voice is panicked yet commanding. “Baluurwa’s coming down!”
Our company races out of the cave’s crumbling opening. Boulders skid past on either side of us in the weak light, their smoothly cut black faces reflecting the moon into our eyes. We tumble over each other into the trees. The groan of Baluurwa turns to a growl, and the cracks and crashes are louder than the lightning that claps excitedly overhead. The night is clouded with dust, which glows like millions of stars, brightening the terrible scene. We watch Baluurwa over our shoulders. It shudders.
I can’t help but plug my ears with my fingers, worrying they may bleed at the sound like my cut lip, which I suck nervously, tasting my own life slip down my throat. Was it a coincidence that the avalanche began the second my blood hit the cave floor?
Luggie hoists me up unexpectedly and carries me in his arms like I’m a child. The company darts through the trees. On one side of me, Grandpa Archie trips over a bloody skeleton of a small recently ravaged animal. He picks himself up easily and flings Lady Sophia onto his back. I blink and shake my head. Did that just happen? It makes sense that an Olearon could carry the full-bodied opera singer, but Grandpa Archie?
On my other side, I see Duggie-Sky disappear as a boulder rumbles through the air to dent the forest floor, splintering two blue trees. The boy reappears ahead, unharmed. Again he vanishes, only to reemerge farther along in the forest. It’s obvious to all that Duggie-Sky loves his gift. He told me that Rolace’s prerequisite for someone receiving a “superpower,” as Duggie-Sky calls it, is that the person’s “will is strong and heart is brave.”
I sigh. The one shortcoming of the boy’s gift is obvious: he perceives himself as indestructible. So far, his teleportation ability has been his saving grace, but I can’t help but worry that it will one day be his undoing.
All in the company cough and choke on dust and debris. A piece of rock crashes behind Luggie and me, and I lean back in Luggie’s embrace, just in time to see Dad’s bicep slice open and blood stream out of the wound. I call to him but the screech is in vain. No one can hear.
Nate runs hand in hand with Mom, but they’re not as fast as the Olearons. Even with his injury, Dad shoves Nate away and slips Mom onto his back, despite her scowl and impassioned protests.
Dad races by us. “Faster, Luggie,” he orders.
“I can run on my own!” Mom yells, but it is a whisper among the crashes, and those who do hear ignore her.
The noise—if it’s even possible—grows louder, like discordant trumpets. The ground beneath our feet shifts and cracks into deep fissures. Luggie leaps over a gorge of broken earth and we both tumble onto the other side. He manipulates broken ground to push me away, so I don’t land on his stones or am cut by his nails. Just as quickly, he commands to alertness the grasses and mosses and stones around us. They quake with Naiu and snap together like magnets, forming a barrier above us. Boulders from the mountain crash upon our shelter and push our bodies into the forest floor, but we’re safe.
As abruptly as the eart
hquake began, it stops.
The dust remains, giving form to the wind. All rocks shuffle to rest. Luggie lifts his hand, and an invisible force cracks our barrier in two and we slip out to stand within its opening. Baluurwa has quieted, but my body continues to shake. I shove my hands beneath my armpits to still them. Slowly, one by one, our company join Luggie and me in the earthquake-formed clearing. Between us and Baluurwa, the blue forest is flattened. A large white animal, stained with red, breathes its last among the rubble. Chunks of Baluurwa puncture the ground and form a sinister slope up the western side of the mountain.
My ears are ringing. I search Baluurwa for our cave, the place where I celebrated my fifteenth birthday, but what’s left of it is buried beneath hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds of unforgiving rock.
“Our supplies are gone.” Junin says in a voice I can barely decipher.
“Argh!” Dad screams in pain—though it sounds like a whimper to my aching ears—as his friend and fellow warriors, Azkar and Kameelo, pin him to the ground to clean and cauterize his bloody arm. Junin, too, seals my cut lip with the slightest graze of one red finger. I don’t know what hurt more, the cut or the burn, but at least it’s no longer bleeding. Mom wipes Dad’s blood from her pale pink dress and paces around him nervously. She’s such a nurse. Or is it something else that causes her to stay close?
“You’re okay,” Luggie tells me, and I believe him. But I’m not worried about me. The avalanche of rock has made our hike up the mountain that much more perilous. Tears leak from my eyes and turn muddy on my filthy cheeks. I can tell, because when I wipe them away, not wanting anyone to see my despair, brown smears my arm. Baluurwa was our hope of finding my cure, but, more importantly, of saving the island I’ve come to love.
Luggie leaves me in the crack of our barrier to check on the others. Along with Nate and Grandpa Archie, they search for Duggie-Sky. They spot the boy high in a tree, the next in line to be flattened by the wild boulders. Duggie-Sky doesn’t flinch or teleport down from the nook where he sits shivering.
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