“Wait!” Zezili said.
A massive cracking filled the room, and water from the lower end of the temple rushed in, faster and faster as the temple continued to plunge deeper into the sea. Water began to pour from the ceiling. How far under were they already? Death by Monshara’s hand, or the sea’s?
Death on all sides.
Lilia was aware of Gian breaking through the defenses. Roh had fallen. The shield of air lay broken. Gian’s forces were already attacking Anavha and Kadaan, trying to loosen them from their pedestals.
Saradyn was the last defense around Roh, and Gian cut through him like his raging, bearish body was nothing. She was fast, determined. Her hair had come undone, and blew back across her face; Gian, my Gian, Lilia thought. No, no, she is just another Gian. Who Gian could have been, in another world. I destroyed my Gian. I destroyed them all.
“Lilia!” Gian yelled. She came to the edge of the water and raised her weapon. “Don’t do this! There’s another solution. We can–”
“You’re a liar! You’re all liars! She’s taken everything!”
“Lilia!”
Lilia screamed, and squeezed.
Kirana’s back bent, her mouth open in a silent cry. Blood burst from Kirana’s eyes and nose, splattered her mouth.
Gian crumpled like a puppet with a cut string. Tumbled into a heap on the floor. Water rushed over her body, growing deeper and deeper.
Lilia sobbed and released Kirana. She fell into the water surrounding the pedestal, floating face down, not so much as a bubble of breath escaping her lungs. Blood sank swiftly through the water in whirling tendrils.
The temple shuddered again.
Lilia released the wave of power, the same way she used to release Oma’s breath. But the orrery still whirled around them, locked into orbit, waiting for someone to break the world. Or perhaps put it back together again. Was that possible? Lilia thought. Was that ever possible?
Her heart hurt. She saw Zezili flopping around on the floor like a breathless fish. Lilia sank to her knees. Luna, just behind her, shouted, “Lilia! Lilia, you haven’t stopped it yet!”
Lilia gazed at the bodies of Gian and Kirana. She cried, great gasping sobs that racked her body.
Behind her, Luna waded across the water and began to climb up the pedestal. Luna, breathless, pulled hirself onto the dais and took Lilia by the shoulders. “Lilia? You hear me? We aren’t done.”
“I’m done,” Lilia sobbed. “I’m done.”
“We’re not here for revenge,” Luna said. “We’re here to save the worlds.”
Lilia got to her feet, shakily. The chamber heaved again. Kirana’s people rushed to her body. Someone raised a bow, notched an arrow.
“Let them,” Lilia said. She raised her arms. “Go ahead!”
Light suffused the platform again, a burst of power so great it blew Lilia off the pedestal and into the water below. She gasped and paddled, crawling up beside Kirana’s body. Gazed up.
Luna drew deeply on the mass of energy, body shivering with power. Luna began drawing globes together; they crashed and sparked.
Lilia sobbed. What came after closing the ways between the worlds? Nothing. No future, for her or for any of them. She pushed over Kirana’s body and stared into her bloody face.
“You did all of this,” Lilia said. “Now you and I are done.”
Several of the Tai Mora came to the edge of the water, weapons pointed at Lilia. Lilia pulled Kirana’s head into her lap. “Let us alone,” she said.
There was a stir behind them as the orbs crackled overhead. Something… else was coming through the wink.
Great, golden-skinned figures with wasp-like waists and bulging green eyes tottered through the wink. Lilia had a long moment of dissonance, unable to comprehend what she was seeing. The figures walked on four legs, and they were tall, so tall, like giants! A woman rode through after them on a chariot pulled by two more of the figures, her eyes blazing, a misty whirlwind of power making the air around her shimmer like a soap bubble.
“No!” Lilia yelled.
Lilia had killed Kirana. She had murdered her. The body, here… Lilia held Kirana’s head, gazed into the sightless eyes, and raised her gaze to meet the piercing stare of this new version, this more powerful version, whose terrible soldiers were tearing apart Lilia’s companions and the Tai Mora with equal relish.
By killing this Kirana, all Lilia had done was free another to take her place.
A man rode the great chariot behind this new Kirana. He stepped off as it came to a halt a few paces from the pedestal.
“Suari!” this new Kirana said. “Get that one off the dais! Keep the others in place! I want control over this!”
This Kirana spoke accented Dhai, not Tai Mora.
Lilia gaped at her, but this Kirana paid her hardly a glance. A sneer at the body of the dead Kirana, but no more. Her forces were intent on controlling the device.
What did I do? Lilia thought. What terrible thing did I do? She had killed this Kirana… only to unleash another one. A darker one. Opening the way again and again to another Kirana…
Oh no. Oh no…
A wave of fire rolled toward her. She shrieked, knocked back into the water. She splashed around, and finally crawled out the other side.
Suari was riding a wave of power to the top of the dais. He knocked Luna off with a great burst of fire. Luna fell, landing hard on the stones. Lilia heard the crack of Luna’s skull. Saw the blood.
Lilia struggled out of the water, crawling toward Roh and Saradyn. The gleaming orrery shivered, waiting for another worldbreaker to operate it.
Not me, Lilia thought. It was never me. I chose wrong.
She got to her feet just as a passing Tai Mora swung her blade, catching Lilia in the side. Lilia gasped, stumbled. Blood bloomed from her belly.
43
Roh’s defenses burst. He lost his hold on Para and slid across the wet floor. Three arrows seethed through the broken defenses and sank into his guts. He rolled over, gasping. A wave of Tai Mora came at him. Saradyn roared and positioned himself in front of Roh, shielding him. The orbs of the orrery shimmered and danced in the room, obscuring his view, causing confusion and chaos. The trickling sound of water had become a constant stream, the mutter of multiple waterfalls. The water rose around him.
A wave of chittering figures burst forth from the wink that opened onto the plateau. Saradyn roared and threw himself at the figures. They hissed and broke around him, as if fearful or in thrall to him. He laughed, a great guffaw.
Saradyn grabbed Roh by the arm and hauled him up. Blood wept from Roh’s guts. Pain made him woozy.
“The circle,” Roh said. He looked back to where Lilia sat, weeping. “Get Lilia. I can go a while on my own.”
The wasp-waisted figures continued to ignore him and Saradyn. Saradyn kept hold of Roh’s arm, dragging him painfully through the water.
Saradyn looped another arm under Lilia’s. Roh noted her wound. Gave one last look to the pedestals where Kadaan, Maralah, Anavha and Taigan were locked into the device. Luna’s crumpled body was just visible on the other side of the main pedestal. The man this new Kirana had called Suari stood atop the pedestal, hand outstretched to the new Kirana.
Saradyn got them within six paces of the great green circle on the floor before an ax took him in the back. He went over, dropping them both.
Roh fumbled at the arrows in his guts. Snapped off the ends of them, and took Lilia by the collar.
“What did I do?” Lilia cried. “What did–”
Roh dragged Lilia back into the circle where they had arrived while the temple heaved around them. The stones groaned. Water continued to rise all around them. It was as deep as his shins now, rushing up faster and faster.
Roh took Lilia by the shoulders and shook her. “Listen to me! Would you listen? I told you.”
“I didn’t… I did the right–”
“You did the selfish thing,” he said. “Don’t you understand yet, Li
? There’s always another monster, another and another, behind them. You kill them, you become them, you lose everything you ever cared for.” He was crying too, remembering what he had done to the Patron of Saiduan, and the path that had brought him here. All the selfish, terrible choices. “We made poor choices, Li. We are terrible, selfish people. We aren’t Dhai at all.”
Another surge of water rolled over them. Lilia gasped and spit water. Roh’s knees weakened. He sank to the floor, arms wrapped around Lilia.
He closed his eyes. “I need to go back,” he said. “Please, back to Oma’s Temple. Not the Assembly Chamber… somewhere we can hide… please, can you do that, keeper? Can you hear me at all?”
Nothing. No voice. No help. After all this time, all this work getting them here, and they were going to let them die?
“Temple keeper!” Roh said. “You made me your Guide. We’re dying! We’re going to–”
The floor swallowed them.
Darkness.
An absence of pain. Relief. Oma, he was so relieved, he was nothing but a wave of warm emotions.
My Guide.
“We failed,” Roh said, or thought he said, because all was blackness and he could not feel his body.
Everyone does, my Guide. Perhaps we always choose wrong.
“You don’t,” Roh said. “We do.”
Always the same choices.
“Give us another chance.”
I can’t do that. I’m just a beast.
“We can make better choices.”
It’s not your choice, the temple said. It’s hers.
“Then give her another chance.”
You believe in her?
“I always have.”
A glimmer in the darkness. Brilliant white light.
44
Lilia gasped and rolled over onto a cold floor, right next to a gaping hole that dropped into a chamber beneath her. Light flickered from below, illuminating the tangled roots that stuffed the chamber. The basements? The temple of Tira? Or Oma? Were they the same?
She felt a weight around her, a heavy… Roh?
Lilia shook him. “Roh, are we–” He did not move. His body was cool. Blood continued to ooze from his wounds.
“No, no, no,” Lilia cried. “No, no.”
She panicked. Her wound throbbed. She crawled across the floor, working her way toward the tangled roots. They would be looking for her, and for Roh, that other Kirana and her strange soldiers. Lilia needed to hide, needed to get away, needed to tend her wound. How long could she hide here?
She took hold of one of the tree roots and heaved herself up. Blood gushed through her fingers. She felt light-headed, light enough to fly.
Lilia stumbled through the darkness. She got painfully to her feet and hobbled across the floor, winding her way through twining roots. Blood continued to escape her fingers. I’m going to die down here, she thought, I’m going to die here with Roh and Gian and all the rest of them.
A cry came from behind her. The sound of boots on stones. They were looking for her. How had they known where she was? They must have felt the surge of power when they came through from the fifth temple.
This had to be Oma’s Temple, didn’t it? Why had the temple deposited them here instead of back in the Assembly Chamber where they had come through?
She leaned against a massive root, spitting blood. She tried to ball up her tunic and stem the flow of blood, and her hand wrapped around something, what was… The blood. The little vial of muddy blood from the child, the one Ahkio had raised to Li Kai.
Some old memory tugged at her as she pulled herself under and around root after root. Ahkio had… lost time here. Here, he had said, roots… A stone. Placing his hands against it to call the temple keeper, only to find himself pushed forward in time… while another version of him… went back.
Her breathing came loud and fast in her ears. Ahkio had… lost weeks of time, one Ahkio. But another Ahkio had lost only a day. He had gone back a full day.
He had made different choices.
It was at the very bottom of the temple, Ahkio had told them, the obelisk, tangling among heavy roots. Would it work the same way if she placed her hands on it? Push some version of her forward and another, please, Oma, perhaps another version… back? To start again?
To make better choices.
Lilia choked on a desperate sob. How foolish to even consider some future, when she was very likely to die in a few minutes.
All she had now, as her life dripped along the floor, was this. Ahkio could have been lying about everything. He was probably an impostor. But as she bled out, the story he had told kept her moving, kept her breathing, kept her searching for the broken stone of time.
It is hope that keeps us going, she thought, sliding around in the darkness in her own blood. Everything looked the same. So many shadows.
The shouting grew closer. She saw the light of a flame-fly lantern. They must have found the trail of blood. Black spots danced before her vision. She caught herself on one of the roots, leaned over it with all her weight, trying to stem the flow of blood. One foot. Another foot.
We are all stories, she thought dimly, moved by stories, pushed forward. We have to believe we can live. We have to believe there are choices. May your… what was the old Dhai proverb? May your choices be shaped by your hopes, not your fears. She felt the rage and despair bubble up in her again. She had been ruled by fear. She had murdered everyone she ever loved. Roh was right. She had not fought monsters. She had become one.
The lights behind her gave her enough light to see just ahead.
A large broken stone lay on its side; it had settled there in the twisting mass of rocks. If nothing else, she thought it looked like a nice grave marker. A good place to rest. She was sweating heavily. Her palms were slick.
She pushed herself through the tangle of roots. Lilia crawled the rest of the distance to the stone, watching the blood leave her body. Nausea overcame her. She dry heaved.
I put my hands on the stone, Ahkio had said. I went back a day. What a stupid story. What a mad thing.
But he was Kai, had been Kai.
Lilia pressed her hands to the cold stone. It stayed firm. She laughed, and coughed up a little blood. She set her cheek against the stone. Blood.
More shouting, nearer now. Again. Someone was hacking at the tree roots. She lay on her back as the blood pumped from her body.
Lilia dug into her pocket. Fumbled at the little vial of blood. She twisted at the cap. Her hands were so weak. So very weak. The cap popped off. Rolled next to her.
Lilia pressed two fingers into the gooey blood.
A lantern swung overhead.
“Here she is!” someone cried, in Dhai.
Lilia pressed her fingers to the stone.
A chill went through her bones.
The floor rumbled.
I need to go back, Lilia thought, please, Oma, give me one more chance, like you gave Ahkio.
And then the world was filled with light.
45
“We’ve stemmed the assault,” Suari said. “We’re pursuing the last two, a boy and that girl who was working the orrery.”
Kirana Javia Garika, Empress of Dorinah, Queen of the Tai Mora, Captain of the Seven Realms and ruler – finally! – of the known worlds, pressed her hands to the wood of the great Assembly Chamber. She could not keep the smile from her lips. She had achieved her decade-long campaign to defeat her Tai Mora double and usurp her from power over Raisa, and she felt fucking fantastic about it.
She admired how similar this table was to the one she had planned and plotted out this assault from on her own world, so very, very near to this one. Her soldiers worked busily through the temple, assuaging fears and rumor. She didn’t know who had burned so much of the temple’s interior here, but her allies assured her it was well contained, and the temple secure. She had murdered all of the other Kirana’s soldiers inside the fifth temple, keeping her own identity safe, for a time.
“That girl and boy are a problem,” Kirana said. “I know them from our side, or one very like her. Lilia, the girl – I want her killed as quickly as possible.”
“Could I ask–”
“She always ruins my fucking plans,” Kirana said. “I want her body. What about Luna? You got Luna fixed up? Closed the ways? If that’s done, we can start handling the next phase of this assault.”
“It’s already done,” Suari said. “I got Luna mended and back on the pedestal. The seams between every world but ours have been closed. We no longer need to worry about assaults from other worlds, but we can still bring our people through. There are instructions on… many other things that can be achieved with that power, though. We are interrogating Luna now. We may find a way to keep Para in the sky for far longer. Unlimited power for decades! All yours.”
“Good,” Kirana said. “Let’s bring up that whole fifth temple again, though. All that quaking very nearly sent it to the bottom of the sea again. Put it out there on the plateau. It will be more stable..”
“Very well,” Suari said.
“You did well, Suari,” Kirana said.
“Being bound to you,” he said, “meant I was also bound to her. That deception worked in our favor. Remarkably well.”
“Told you, didn’t I? Keep the faith, Suari! Get the rest of those Rhea-worshipping allies of ours into the other temples,” she said. “I want to move quickly.”
Despite her stated urgency, Kirana did not go immediately to find her own Yisaoh when Suari closed the wink. She still needed to ascertain where the former Kirana’s Yisaoh and children were being sheltered, without giving herself away as… well, a different sort of Empress.
She traversed the temple, nodding to those who pressed thumb to forehead, and a little Dhai ran up to remind her that she had agreed to meet her mother for tea in the garden. Her real mother, of course, who had been here all this time, keeping her abreast of her counterpart’s plans.
Spies, indeed. This world’s Kirana had had no idea of the extent of it.
She met her mother in the garden as the double helix of the suns rose. Her mother peered at her.
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