Burn the Skies

by K. A. Wiggins

  It’s like plunging into a pile of those stinging bushes back by Nine Peaks. Warping unreality nips and rasps at the edges of me. I grit my teeth and do my best to go limp. After a moment, it’s less painful and more simply . . . overwhelming. Too much input, too fast, changing too quickly to track.

  So I stop trying.

  One part of my brain laughs at the fact that my answer to “What would (ideal) Cole do?” is apparently “Surrender and go limp,” but the rest of me is feeling out a new way forward. When I just let it all wash over me, the tsunami of chaos starts to sort itself into . . . I don’t know, exactly. Not yet. Patterns, maybe? No, not that structured. More like contrast. There is form and formlessness. There are things that snag at me, that send a jolt of electricity through me, and things that I instinctively know to let slip by.

  And then, without quite meaning to, my fingers close on a single incandescent strand of sparking energy—and the universe turns inside out.

  Chapter 23: Healer

  A mirror-smooth obsidian ocean reflects an endless sky shot through with shimmering starlight threads. I stretch and spread my fingers, trailing them through the strands, breathing through tens of thousands of memories and imaginings, longings and fears.

  This is my friend. This is the path and the form, the real and the reflection, the past and the future. This is Ange.

  And she’s dying.

  I can feel it: a twist to the strands, a snag of the weave here, a drifting apart of her fabric there. There is a hole in the midst of her, growing. Tarnishing her light. Draining her energy. Her dreams are fading, gossamer-thin, her fears growing heavy and coarse, future unravelling . . .

  I have no business seeing so much of her so deeply. Just the memory of Susan’s healing makes me wince, that horrifying moment what seems like an eon ago. Back when I first reached Nine Peaks, the way she reached into me and laid me bare. How can I do this to Ange? But if I turn back, I may never find this miraculous space again. If I don’t help her now, there is nothing in her future but death.

  To make it all worse, she’s not afraid. If anything, more threads than I’m comfortable with draw in that very direction. She’s intimate with death, both familiar and desirous of it. It’s laced through her past, woven through her present, a horror that became an obsession that became a soul-deep longing.

  It’s Cass’s ghost, waiting for her on the other side. It’s the family she barely remembers, the spectre of a sister she feared lost, fleshed out with the bodies of all those she watched fall to the monsters over the years, stone-faced and broken-hearted. It’s the peace at the other side of her long battle to sustain life in the shadows.

  I’m not sure I should take that away from her.

  I’m not sure I can.

  So instead, I knot those dark threads back into the still-living fabric of her, twining them with the beautiful and the ugly, the parts I have no right to see. I fill my hands with the fraying strands and weave her anew, using every last bit of heavy, misshapen fear and envy and hate and mad, driven obsession to bridge the hole in her fabric, looping in strands of courage and selflessness and humour and love to strengthen the weave, binding her together again.

  My fingers slip. The pads are worn raw, knuckles knotted and aching, wrists burning. Sweat drips into my eyes and my arms shake from exhaustion. The threads—no, the unravelling—fight me, wrestling away from my grip.

  But if Ange’s selflessness, her drive to rescue, to protect, to rebuild, is the brightest and strongest part of her, I must be the opposite, made all of hunger and need and selfishness. I fight the void trying to swallow my friend with anger and spite and sheer stubbornness. I refuse to let her go. I refuse to lose her here and now.

  And if a strange strand or two readies itself to my hand, a brighter thread slipping unexpectedly between my fingers to strengthen the weave, well, who has time to worry about the source or think too hard on where the love, or hope, or sacrifice forming that vibrant cord might have come from?

  Weaving a life back from the edge is a battle longer and harsher and more exhausting than any I’ve fought. But finally, moments and millennia later, Ange’s fabric is messy and knotted and uneven—but it is whole once more.

  I pull free, fingers numb, vision cloudy, knees trembling. The inky ocean below rises to meet me, closes over my head, pulls me inside out, and then flicks me back into realness again.

  “Not bad.” Ash takes a sip of tea and leans back in an overstuffed and improbably frilly chair.

  Ange extends a floral teapot toward me. A delicate cup appears in my hand.

  Fluffy reaches out a curious tendril to tap the china, setting it ringing with a high, pure note. I jolt, suddenly aware of the treespawn’s presence. Did it just appear out of nowhere? Or was it with me all along, so silent and still I forgot it was there? The forest’s gift nudges me playfully, which answers nothing.

  Ange pours without meeting my gaze. “Two sips, and then back to work. So much to do and so little time left.”

  I collapse into my own cloud-soft chair and start giggling at the tall white furry ears twitching on her head. She snaps a disc open to display what looks like a small, round, hand-held clock and frowns at it.

  “The mad tea party.” Ash tips a tall, much-patched hat in my direction. “It’s a fun one. Pops up in fever dreams more often than you might think.”

  That cuts my manic giggling short. “She’s still feverish?”

  He puts down his tea with a sigh. Reaches over and places a steady hand on Ange’s shoulder. “We’ll be taking our leave now. Don’t rush yourself.”

  Her ears quiver, her sharp expression going vague. “Oh dear. So much to do. So much to do.”

  “Not for you. Rest.”

  She nods, reaching out to take a small frosted cake from a heaping platter on the table. I don’t know where the teapot went.

  I’m still looking for it when Ash yanks me out of Ange’s dreamscape.

  “Took you long enough,” Ravel says, kicking at Ash’s knee and cursing when the silver mists shielding the dreamwalker stop his foot in midair.

  Ash stretches, unfolding in a single graceful motion. With the wall at his back, it brings him nose to nose with Ravel.

  Ravel’s golden eyes narrow, his lips thinning. He bristles, elbows out, as if it’ll make up the difference in height and breadth. Ash is solid in a way Ravel could never match even with a lifetime of training exercises.

  Ash yawns, casually sidestepping his would-be rival.

  Ravel whirls—and catches sight of Ange. “You—you really—”

  She’s still unconscious, but her colour is better, her breathing steady, even the hollows beneath her eyes less shadowed.

  Ash feels her forehead, takes her pulse, and shrugs. “Seems on the mend. Good job, C.”

  “Why isn’t she awake?” I try for diffidence and end up sounding strangled. “She’s supposed to be healed.”

  “It’s a miracle you brought her back at all. Looks like she can take it from here.”

  Lily chooses that moment to invade her aunt’s sickroom, barrelling into Ash with a happy shriek. Ravel rolls his eyes. Amy sidles in after her, murmuring vague apologies without looking up from the dusty concrete.

  I tune out the rest. Or, more accurately, all the squealing and bouncing and attempts to calm the kid down just kind of fade out for a bit. I don’t leave, not yet, but I’ll have to rest properly soon. I used up too much energy helping Ange heal. I need what passes for sleep.

  But for the moment, I let the world drift by without me in a kind of ghostly catnap.

  Reality reasserts itself like a slap in the face. “Don’t,” I gasp.

  Ravel and Ash freeze. Amy looks up anxiously, but at a wave from Ash finishes herding her daughter through the door.

  “What’s wrong?” He scans the room.

  I leave them behind, racing through walls and ceilings. “It’s Cadence. She’s—”

  “Messing with the barrier, huh? Don’t wor
ry, it’s not like it’s going to fall today or even tomorrow,” Ravel says unexpectedly in the distance.

  I pause, even though that’s not it. Call back, “You knew?”

  He shrugs. “Could feel it on the way through. Or hear it? It’s like the vibration has changed. Like it’s screaming at a really high pitch or shaking super fast.”

  Shaking—or shivering? All those disturbances yesterday . . . “That was you?”

  Ash quizzes Ravel on his impressions of the barrier and attempts to estimate its remaining lifespan. I only half listen in while speeding up into Refuge because what I just felt wasn’t Cadence chipping away at the barrier.

  “Try this one next, dear,” Maryam murmurs, swaying down a line of cots.

  The bodies are stretched out, restraints pulling their wrists and ankles against the edges. Liwan isn’t the only one stirring, or I’d have been wondering why she bothered tying corpses down. The effects of the enforcers’ bolts are wearing off, suppressants working their way out of the unconscious prisoners’ systems and giving the effect of bringing them back to life. For the moment.

  Cadence touches the arm of one of the first girls to fall during Liwan’s ill-fated rescue mission. Her eyes flicker behind closed lids, head rolling as she struggles toward consciousness.

  “Good. Just like that.” Maryam folds her hand over Cadence’s, pressing with slim golden fingers that urge Cadence’s deeper, nails denting the skin. “Anything?”

  Cadence scowls. “Not much. Stupid kid, just along for the ride, I think. That one was the ringleader, but . . . there’s something more . . .”

  She frowns at Liwan. He cracks an eyelid, finds her face, and squeezes his eyes shut again as if he’ll be able to get away with faking unconsciousness now.

  “Soon,” Maryam says, following Cadence’s gaze and tightening her grip. “Finish up here.”

  The Undergirl moans, sweat beading on her skin. Whatever Cadence is doing, it’s hurting her. And then it’s not. The body goes limp, mouth falling slack, chest deflating.

  Maryam releases her grip on Cadence, makes a fist, and pounds it over the stalled heart. A gasp lifts that sunken chest and another. The girl’s eyes flutter open for just a moment before rolling back in her head.

  “Mustn’t waste them.” Maryam beckons Cadence over to Liwan. “Not now.”

  I draw a breath to beg, to throw myself at Cadence before she can dig her claws into Liwan like she just did that helpless girl—and swallow the protest unvoiced. Maryam isn’t killing them, not yet.

  Or rather, she’s not letting them die so easily. Prisoners have one use to her: as fodder for the Mara. Sacrifice the troublemakers to protect her precious drones. Though she’ll happily torture him, she’s not going to throw away Liwan’s life to no purpose. Not unless I do something stupid and force her hand.

  “She’s found a way to communicate,” Cadence says, eyes closed, fingers digging in. “She is stirring up resistance against us. This one could hear her in his head.”

  Maryam smiles. “You are there, aren’t you, darling? Naughty child, up to all kinds of mischief. I do wish you wouldn’t.”

  “Please—” I start.

  “Ah.” She holds up a finger. “I really wouldn’t. You’ll spoil the show. If I have to waste these on a silly punishment, they just won’t go as far, will they? And we’ve been working so very hard on a wonderful surprise for our favourite monsters, haven’t we, dear?”

  “Dinner and a show,” Cadence recites in a monotone.

  “So toddle along without a fuss, won’t you darling?”

  I can’t help it. I really can’t. The air stirs, tugging at sleeves and hems, tossing Maryam’s glamorous curls and ruffling Cadence’s ragged locks. But that is as far as it goes, my fury good for little more than a light disturbance.

  Maryam cocks her head. “Refreshing. I’ll allow it this once. Now, off you go.”

  And I do, before I can damn Liwan and the other prisoners to an earlier death than they’ve already been slated for. I storm back to the depths of the Underground and rein in my frustration just enough to call a council of war.

  As Ange said: so much to do. And so little time left.

  Chapter 24: Abandoned

  Five days. That’s how long my city has left.

  Ravel thinks the barrier will hold that long, maybe a little longer, if Cadence keeps up the same pace. But she and Maryam aren’t the only ones we have to worry about. Ravel left his little flock of refugees in Nine Peaks to bring me a warning: the council has finally decided to treat our situation as the threat it is—by wiping out the city before the Mara can be unleashed on the world.

  “Can they do that? What happened to ‘we’re not warriors’ and ‘we don’t have an army?’ They won’t risk people on a rescue mission, but they’re fine with helping out when it comes to a massacre?” I’m not yelling—but only by the barest margin.

  Fluffy shivers. Ash leans away, wincing. Ravel rubs his forehead.

  “It’s bad timing as much as anything,” Ash says. “They’ve found some way to channel natural forces from a safe distance. Maximum damage with zero exposure, or so the elders seem to think. They have to protect Nine Peaks either way, so why not send the fires here instead?”

  I picture flames leaping from a cargo trailer as faceless soldiers drive through the mountains, and shake my head. “It doesn’t make sense. How can they attack us from so far away? For that matter, if the elders can pull off something of this scale, how are there any monsters left?”

  “Does it matter?” Ravel says. “We’re on a deadline. Let’s get to it already.”

  “Even if you can smuggle a few more refugees out before the attack, even if you could get hundreds clear, it’s only a matter of time before the Mara—” I start, and then we’re off again on another round of your-plan-is-worse-than-my-plan.

  Ravel refuses to accept that I can’t leave. He claims to have come all this way just to warn me of danger without realizing there isn’t anything I can do about it. Even if he stays lucky enough to always keep one step ahead of the enforcers patrolling every possible route out of the city, it’s not like I can hitch a ride out with him. If he returned to extract more refugees in a bid to grow his support base up in Nine Peaks, that at least would make more strategic sense. I could definitely see him fighting for a seat on the council, happily undermining one of the elders to nab their spot. But he seems to understand, at least, that none of us have much of a future anywhere if the Mara get free. No point jostling for power in the meantime.

  Ash is struggling with reality in a different way. If anything, his grip on it seems to be slipping. His story about the shipwreck sounds like something out of the dreamscape, courtesy of Ange’s fever, no less. Underwater kingdoms and chatty sea monsters feature large. That, plus his insistence that Nine Peaks’ attack involves powers far beyond any I’ve ever heard of our kind channelling, makes me wonder if whatever happened after his ship went down knocked a few screws loose. Or all the screws. And there’s no possibility of help from an army of dreamwalkers—he never even set foot on the island.

  Which means it’s all up to me now—not that I have any idea what to do. If the Mara are unleashed on the world, everyone dies. If the barrier goes down, the Mara will be unleashed.

  When will the barrier be sufficiently damaged for the Mara to escape? Unclear. Ravel estimates a week. Since he seems to have some uncanny affinity with the filthy thing, let’s go with that.

  So I have maybe a week to stop Maryam and Cadence. But—bonus problem—they seem to be planning something big for tomorrow. Sounds like a mass sacrifice of prisoners, including Liwan, but why now? Is Maryam doing it to mess with me or to manipulate her people in Refuge somehow? Is she simply trying to be more efficient in feeding the Mara, or is she scheming something more?

  Meanwhile, Nine Peaks is planning something big in five days, according to Ravel. Some kind of attack they think will wipe out the city. Something to do with fire . . .

/>   Which, theoretically, could be an improvement on letting everyone get slowly eaten by the Mara, except that both Ash and Ravel think that Nine Peaks’ attack runs the risk of destroying the barrier, too. And now we’re back to everyone dying horribly in the very near future.

  I’m tempted to get someone to knock Haynfyv out so I can lay it all out for him and see if my chief strategist can come up with some kind of useful plan. But the inspector has been locked in another room to keep him from wandering back to Refuge, and Ravel and Ash are fully engaged in picking apart each other’s admittedly impractical schemes.

  Which, unexpectedly, gives me an idea. An amazing, brilliant idea that will save everyone—for approximately two days, at least. Maybe longer if I play it right.

  “SURE, I’M IN.” RAVEL radiates pleasure at being the central character in this little charade.

  Ash isn’t pouting, exactly, but he doesn’t like my plan one bit. “You’re not the best liar, C. And even if you can convince Maryam you’ve switched sides, I really don’t think she can help you.”

  “That’s what I need Ravel for,” I repeat. Again.

  I wouldn’t bother trying so hard to convince him, except I really need him to sit tight and stay out of the way for this to work. All this persuading and manipulating is exhausting—I don’t know how Ravel does it.

  Ravel preens. Ash rolls his eyes.

  I sigh. “Ravel needs to be there to stall her long enough to listen and to corroborate my story. Otherwise, she’ll just start feeding people to the Mara to shut me up before I can explain.”

  “I don’t see why I can’t—” Ash starts.

  “You would just be one more hostage to use against me.” I’m proud of how well I keep the sick, wobbly feeling that idea sets off out of my voice. “Ravel might be the only person she wouldn’t sacrifice on a whim.”

  “Mommy dearest,” Ravel agrees wryly, ignoring that “might.” Along with Maryam’s history of abuse and neglect. Not to mention her refusal to acknowledge him as a son.