Endless Water, Starless Sky

by Rosamund Hodge

  Then he raised his head.

  Of course, she thought with numb horror. He is already dead.

  We are all of us already dead.

  Tybalt lunged forward and slammed her to the ground. Juliet was only barely able to hold him off as they wrestled, his jaws snapping at the air an inch from her throat.

  She flung him to the side for a moment, found her dropped sword. When he sprang again, she slashed it across his eyes; as he howled, she kicked him to the ground, then plunged her sword down through ribs and spine and earth, pinning him in place.

  He writhed, and whimpered, but the steel seemed to sap his strength. He did not rise.

  The screams were silent. All the other people had disappeared, into the darkness or into the river. The fires had died among the tents.

  The music was very soft now, a slow dirge for the end of all things.

  “It’s brave and beautiful,” said the reaper, “the festival that they built here.”

  Juliet looked up, and saw the reaper standing beside her, wings gently flexing, feet not quite touching the ground.

  “It was not wrong of them to build it. But those who linger here too long begin to rot. Eventually they overwhelm the festival, and force the rest into the river, however much they fear it.”

  Her throat felt dry and raw. It took her a few moments to speak.

  “But Tybalt—he’s only been dead two months. He was speaking to me just now.”

  The reaper looked at her and Tybalt with infinite, heartless pity. “The dead keep their own calendar.”

  Juliet remembered how his face twisted when he ripped the covers from the bed, when he tried to shame her in the festival. He had been rotting, perhaps, for a very long time.

  “What is the river?” she asked.

  “All the blood that’s shed on earth,” said the reaper. “All must wade through it, to remember what part of it they shed.”

  “Or sink beneath it forever,” said Juliet, remembering the story of the warlord.

  The reaper shrugged. “For some, it’s a very wide river.”

  And she had to cross it, if she was to find Death and save her people.

  “The people who have already changed into monsters,” asked Juliet, “if they go into the river, will it help them?”

  The reaper considered this awhile before it said, “Yes.”

  Juliet looked down at Tybalt. The music was silent. The air at her back was still, no longer stirred by wings, and she knew without looking that the reaper was gone.

  She remembered his cruelty as she knelt beside him. He was still now, his eyes wide and dazed. She looked into those eyes, remembered when they were dearer to her than all the world.

  “You wronged me,” she said. “You and all our clan. You wronged me when you made me Juliet, and every day thereafter. I do not know if I can ever forgive you.”

  She swallowed, feeling dizzy and lost. “But half the blood in that river was shed by me. So I do not know if I have the right to forgive you.”

  She drew the sword from his body.

  He didn’t spring at her. He didn’t make a sound. But he let her take his hand, and pull him to his feet.

  And she drew him, step by step, into the river of boiling blood.

  32

  THE NIGHT WAS DARK, AND silent, and very long.

  Runajo did not move from her place, kneeling before the dry remains of the Mouth of Death. Her back ached and her eyes felt gritty with exhaustion, but she did not lie down. She did not close her eyes. She watched the spot where Juliet had disappeared, and she waited. Because there was nothing left in the world that she could possibly do, except keep her promise, and wait.

  Alone.

  She had thought she knew loneliness before. But ever since Juliet had vanished into darkness, and the bond had broken—

  It felt like the close walls of her own mind were going to smother her. Even when they had both been doing their best to close off the bond, Runajo had still felt Juliet’s presence in every moment, endless and unquestioned as the sky overhead.

  Now that sky was gone. Was forever gone, even if by some miracle Juliet returned. Runajo was locked up forever in her own mind, with no company but her own thoughts endlessly circling.

  Juliet is dead. You should have died in her place.

  That was true.

  You destroyed her clan and became a murderer to save her, and she’s still dead.

  That was also true. The thought burned, but it was a familiar pain now.

  She will never come back.

  Runajo’s clasped hands tightened. She had promised to wait. She had promised to hope. She did not want to be faithless to Juliet again.

  But as the night wore on, she knew that waiting was the only part of her promise she could keep.

  It wasn’t that she doubted Juliet. If courage and will could let anyone walk into the land of the dead, defeat the reapers, bargain with Death herself to end the Ruining, and then walk back out again—Juliet surely had enough of them.

  But she remembered how desperately her mother had willed her father to live. How bravely they had both borne the pain of their illnesses, never complaining. It wasn’t enough to be willful or brave, any more than it was enough to be good and kind.

  The Ruining had covered the whole world except Viyara. Surely somewhere on one of those continents had been Juliet’s equal. And that person had saved no one.

  It was done before, Runajo told herself. There was another Ruining once, and a mortal woman ended it. Juliet can do it now.

  But the woman who ended the last Ruining had not come back alive. It seemed scarcely likely that Juliet would do better.

  And if Juliet did not come back—if the world was saved, but Juliet did not come back—

  Runajo realized that her eyes were stinging with stupid, foolish tears. Because she knew what was going to happen. There had been so many moments like this, so many long nights like this, as she waited for her father and then her mother to die. Kneeling in silence, telling herself that a happy ending was still possible.

  But it never was. She had said as much to Justiran: Didn’t you know she was mortal?

  If Juliet did miraculously come back, she would only have to leave again. No matter what Runajo did, no matter how much she learned or how desperate she became, she would lose her in the end.

  There was no other ending to anyone’s story. It was why she cut her parents out of her heart even before they died. Because she had seen the truth, that she was inevitably going to lose them.

  She couldn’t do that to Juliet. There were tears running down Runajo’s face now, as she realized that she couldn’t do that. She could bear the death of her parents, she could bear becoming a murderer, but she couldn’t harden her heart against Juliet’s death.

  And she couldn’t, here alone in the darkness, believe that Juliet was ever coming back.

  But she could keep the other half of her promise.

  She could wait.

  For the first time in her life, on this one terrible night, she could not cut the person she was losing out of her heart. She could not try to scheme a way to escape the loss. She could wait, and know what was going to happen, and still wait.

  It was all she could do now.

  So she waited.

  The night was very long.

  33

  JULIET MEANT TO BRING TYBALT with her, out the other side. No matter how terribly they had wronged each other, she owed him that much.

  But the moment the blood touched her, she forgot him, forgot everything but the pull of the river. The scalding pain couldn’t stop her. She rushed forward, wading into the boiling blood up to her neck and up to her lips and until it flowed over her head.

  She did not drown. The currents wrapped around her, dragged her down, down into a merciless crimson light that picked through her soul, finding each life she ended and saying, This one. This one. And this.

  She saw each one. Knew each one. When she crawled, choking, onto
the far bank of the river, she could barely remember that she existed; her mind was full of those she had killed or helped kill.

  Her fingers scrabbled at the ground and clutched at the little pebbles that covered the riverbank. Her breath came in whimpering little gasps.

  My fault, she thought, my fault, my fault, and shuddered with grief over the wrongs that could not be righted.

  Slowly—very slowly—she remembered those she had no part in killing, yet had to watch die. And those who were yet alive, and hoping for her to succeed.

  Juliet rose.

  Then she did remember Tybalt, and looked back. But the smooth, glowing surface of the river was unbroken; no one else stood upon the bank.

  Her heart twisted as she wondered if he suffered still at the bottom of the river. But perhaps he had already climbed out, and found his way farther down. In the end, he might have killed fewer than she had.

  There was nothing more she could do for him, either way.

  She still remember his twisted, animal face—his anger when she told him about Romeo—but she tried to think of the times she was a child, when he was the only one who hugged her and made her laugh. That part of him had been real too. She could mourn that much of him, even if she couldn’t forgive the rest.

  “Farewell, cousin,” she whispered.

  Then she turned, putting the dim glow of the river at her back.

  Before her lay a city.

  The buildings were made of stone and steel and ivory. Some were small, little cubes with one door and one window; some were huge, jumbles of rooms and gates and towers piled upon each other. Some were smooth and plain, while others were adorned with steel filigree, ivory arches carved so finely they looked like foam, statues jutting from every corner.

  All of them were moving, some swift and others slow, across the flat stone plain of the ground.

  A moment before, the only sound had been the rushing of the river and her own ragged breaths. Now all she could hear was the groan and scrape and clash of the city, as buildings plowed into each other. Some crashed thunderously, others settled to a halt, but none ceased to strive. Stairways unfolded from windows, statues moved and scaled walls, arches extended themselves and planted pillars. Two buildings would try to eat each other until one succeeded, wrapping its walls around the other, and then it resumed its course.

  It was not fear that Juliet felt, gazing upon the city, so much as a terrible smallness. This city had not been built for human comfort. It would crush her in an instant without caring, and for a moment, she could almost believe it had the right. What was she, to challenge such relentless majesty?

  She told herself, I am the sword of the Catresou. For the sake of zoura, I can challenge anyone.

  Defiantly, she straightened her spine, and cried out, “I am looking for Death.”

  But her voice was small and muffled by the din, and there was no reply.

  She had forded the river of blood. The reaper had told her it was necessary. If it had not been enough, then she simply had more reapers to face before she found Death.

  So she marched forward.

  There was a sharp line between the pebbles of the riverbank and the slick stone of the plain. When she stepped over the line, the air seemed to thicken and cling about her for a moment.

  Then the ground swelled beneath her feet, birthing a small, flat stone. When her other foot landed on it, the stone trembled and then slid free, carrying her forward. It didn’t move quickly, but the motion still caught her off guard, made her bend and wave her hands for balance. And that’s how she discovered, in those first few, dizzy moments, that cupping her hands one way turned the little stone raft to the left, while the other way turned it right. Beckoning gave her speed, holding up her palm slowed her down, and flexing her fingers just like so made little walls start building themselves up around the rim of her raft.

  At first it was dizzying and frightening, trying to control the tiny, half-made house and dodge the vast, hurtling buildings on either side. But soon it grew easier, and then it was like a game: dancing between the buildings as she once danced between the swords of the men who trained her.

  And then she saw him.

  He was very high up—she only glimpsed him for a moment, silhouetted in a window—but she would know the shape of her father’s shoulders anywhere.

  The sight distracted her, and then his house crashed down upon her. Strings of bricks whipped about her head, and she crouched; walls clattered, chattered triumphantly as they built themselves around her.

  The chaos ceased. The roar of the city was muffled now; there was only a slight vibration beneath her feet. Carefully, she rose. She was in a room made from the rubble of other rooms—windows were embedded in the floor, half-formed flights of stairs ribbed the ceiling, and flower-shaped lamps glowed from the walls.

  She had to find a way out.

  The building was an impossible jumble. Stairs wound and climbed their way straight up into the ceiling. Windows opened to reveal flat, featureless walls. Rooms were turned on their sides, or nestled inside each other. Statues hid in corners, their cold, marble faces too lifelike for her to be easy looking at them; she remembered the statues on the outer walls, which moved and climbed.

  At last, she found a stair of polished ivory, and at the top a room paved in black and white tiles. There was a great bay window, looking out on the city, and before the window stood her father.

  As she stepped into the room, he whirled, one hand rising, his face contorted into a snarl of fear. It was an expression she had never seen on him before, and she flinched from it.

  Juliet remembered when she loved her father, when she was so proud if he was the least bit pleased in her. It seemed so long ago.

  She remembered breaking his neck, and it felt only a moment past.

  Then he recognized her. His face smoothed.

  “It’s only you,” he said. “Well, then.”

  And he turned away from her.

  Juliet had braced herself for rage, but the simple dismissal was like a knife between her ribs.

  “Father,” she said weakly, but he did not turn.

  Never, in her whole life, had he cared when she needed him.

  “Father!” she called again, striding toward him.

  He whipped his hands up in a violent motion, and the building surged forward. She stumbled, nearly losing her balance.

  “If you must be here,” he said, “you might as well make yourself useful and guard the door.”

  Juliet swallowed dryly, wondering if he remembered that she had killed him. “Against what?”

  “The statues,” he said. “Haven’t you learned anything since dying? Some of them rebel, and find their way inside. They move more slowly in here, but they’re still troublesome to stop.”

  She glanced at the doorway, but it was empty.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked. “What is this place?”

  He laughed harshly. “When I’m done? The closest thing to the Paths of Light.”

  The old, bitter disappointment twisted at her heart, and she demanded, “Did you ever believe in them?”

  There was a vast thunder of colliding stone, and the floor shuddered beneath them. Her father’s house was eating another.

  “No,” he said, and the word was soft, but it rocked her back on her heels, because it was an admission she knew he never would have made while alive.

  “When has there ever been a place prepared for us?” he demanded. “A peace we did not buy with our own blood? All other peoples hate us, and death claws at the doors of our city, and yet still the magi tell us to trust in zoura. What has zoura ever given us, but death and silence? I’ll trust in what I can build. I’ll make a palace for our people right here, and invite them all home.”

  Juliet knew, with a knife-edge clarity, that he was at last speaking truth. That this was his heart and what he desired, and it was almost a noble ambition. It was almost like something Runajo might have said.

&n
bsp; She could almost forgive him for it. But she knew what he had done for that ambition—and still, still he did not look at her.

  “You can try to drag him out,” said a voice from behind, “but you’d have to build a house to do it. And then you’d just make him into a statue.”

  She whirled. A reaper stood in the doorway, watching her with calm, golden eyes.

  “He can’t see me,” said the reaper. “I’m surprised he can see you. He must not have been here very long.”

  “What is this place?” she asked.

  “You’re a clever child,” said the reaper. “Do you want to hear a story about what happens to clever children when they face Death?”

  And as the reaper told her the story, she saw it as if in a dream:

  There was a boy so clever he could talk the stars into his hands. He had a brother, and he loved that brother more than all the stars in the sky.

  Of course the brother died.

  And this boy, he decided he was clever enough to get his brother back. He found his way through the chinks and crannies of the world, down into the land of the dead. He tricked the Eyes and the Teeth into eating a cake of poppy seeds that put her to sleep. He charmed the reapers into carrying him across the river of blood. And finally, beside a pool of still, black water, he found Death waiting for him, wearing his face.

  The boy smiled and said, “If you love me so much already, I’m sure we can come to an agreement.”

  Death did not smile in return, but she loved him for his cleverness. “I can’t give you something for nothing,” she said. “But do me a favor, and you can have your brother back.”

  “I’ll do anything you like,” said the boy, “and I’ll make you laugh while I’m at it.”

  Death took him by the hand, and led him to an endless plain of stone. “I would like to have a palace here,” she said. “The stone of this plain has a special power: it can be shaped by a single thought—but only a thought from a human mind. Fill this plain with a palace from end to end, and I will give your brother back.”

  “Is that all?” said the boy. “Prepare for your kingdom to be one soul smaller.”

  He threw up his hands. Arches and columns and walls sprang out of the plain. Room by room, tower by tower, he built Death a palace, and oh, it was very fair. But the plain was as wide as thought is quick, and no matter how swiftly he built, he came no closer to filling it.