The Moonburner Cycle

by Claire Luana

  “I did not used to be. As a child, I was quite the prankster. I would grow plant limbs to trip people right and left. My mother was ready to abandon me to the mountain when Sarnak came to begin my training.”

  “What happened?” she asked.

  He grew quiet, his green eyes far away. “Something about your world being invaded, and your”—he paused—“loved ones dying…It sucks the joy from a person.”

  Rika understood. After seeing her father turned to ash…she would never be the same. There would always be a veil of shadow over her world. “Do you think you can ever get back there? To who you were?”

  “I will never be that carefree person,” Vikal said, looking at her. “But once the leeches are all dead…I would like to find some peace within myself. If there is any left to find.”

  “I’d like that too,” she said, her words wistful. “Just don’t ever trip me,” she added. “I hate pranks.”

  “You had a little brother,” Vikal said. “That makes sense.”

  “Koji was the worst!” Rika said. “Is the worst,” she corrected herself, trailing off.

  “We will go back before it is too late,” Vikal said, sensing what she was thinking. “I promise.”

  Even though she knew it was a promise he couldn’t make, she clung to it, wrapping her worry and her doubt in it like a warm cloak.

  They reached the end of the tunnel, where it opened into the soaring Gathering Hall. Fires danced below where they stood, casting flickering shadows on the glistening walls. A heavenly scent of roasting meat and spices perfumed the air, making her mouth water. The sound of a single wooden flute cut through the buzz of chattering voices, the melody cheerful despite its loneliness.

  Tamar bounded up to them, a tornado of enthusiasm. She grabbed Vikal’s hand, bouncing on her feet. “The deer is almost done cooking!”

  “It smells delicious,” Rika said.

  Tamar’s eyes grew as round as the full moon. “You can understand me?”

  Rika pointed to her forehead. “I’m a real Nuan now.”

  “How did you learn it so fast?”

  “I knew all along. I only needed to remember.”

  “Are you going to dance with Vikal?” Tamar asked as she led them towards the end of the hall where the rest of the gods stood talking.

  Rika and Vikal exchanged an embarrassed glance. “I didn’t know Vikal danced,” she said, raising an eyebrow at him.

  “Oh, yes,” said Tamar. “After we eat! You should dance with him.”

  “I don’t know how to do any of the Nuan dances.”

  “Maybe you can remember. Like you did with our language.”

  “Tamar, let Rika be,” Vikal said with a smile as they reached the other gods.

  “Here comes the imposter,” Bahti said to Kemala, taking a swig from a cup that had been fashioned out of a coconut. Ajij stood with them as well, in addition to two well-muscled men who looked like soldiers.

  “I go by Rika, actually,” Rika said coolly, nodding her head to the others. “Kemala. Ajij.”

  Bahti spluttered in his cup at her words, and Rika only just managed to keep her satisfied smile in check.

  “I see your time with Sarnak has been fruitful,” Kemala said with a ghost of a smile. “You are looking more Nuan by the hour.”

  Bahti turned on his heel and stormed across the cavern, joining another group of men chatting by a brazier.

  “Do not mind him,” Ajij said. “I for one am glad to see your third eye is working. The sooner you kill the leeches on the island, the sooner we can get out of this gods-forsaken cave.”

  “You don’t like it here?” Rika asked.

  “Do you?” Ajij asked. “Cut off from the sky, the stars, the mountain pressing down upon you? Bahti may feel as comfortable as a worn pair of sandals here, but I have been too far from the sea for too long.”

  Rika nodded. It did feel oppressive to be underground, as if her soul was anxious within her—anxious to be freed from this cave, to return to Kitina. “Vikal said there’s a plan.” Rika said.

  Vikal appeared beside her. “We will discuss it at length tomorrow. Tonight, we celebrate. The food is ready. We should begin the feast.” Vikal placed his hand on the small of her back, leading her towards the edge of the cavern. Her skin pebbled at his touch, and she felt a surge of disappointment when he broke contact.

  “Gather ’round,” Vikal shouted as they came to a stop next to a table ladened with food. His voice boomed through the cavern, and the people turned as one, the din falling silent. The other gods and goddesses fell into a line next to them, facing the crowd. Rika had never seen all the inhabitants together at once—it had to be a thousand people, maybe more. “This cycle has been difficult,” Vikal said, his voice grave. “We have lost many loved ones. We will not forget them. But neither will we linger in the past. The future is filled with hope. The goddess of bright light has returned to us!” Vikal hoisted a fist in the air and the crowd roared. Rika balled her skirt in her hands, stilling her urge to step back. To run. “She came from a foreign world, to help us take our home back from the leeches. She freed me from their compulsion. She can kill them. I have seen it with my own three eyes. With the gods reunited, we will be victorious!” The crowd roared again, accompanied by clapping and whistling and stomping of feet.

  Sarnak leaned over, his wizened face jovial. “No pressure, right?” he whispered. Rika gave a weak smile.

  “We do not have much, but it will be enough. Tonight, we eat, and celebrate, and remember what we fight for. We remember joy, and love, and freedom. We have each of these things so long as we have each other. The leeches cannot take them from us!”

  The crowd roared even louder this time. Vikal waved, soaking in their applause. It seemed that despite his fears, the Nuan people still had faith in Vikal as their king.

  When the noise of the crowd finally died away, Vikal turned and ushered her toward the table of food. Rika hesitated, looking back at the mass of thin, hungry faces. There was no way this food could feed all these people. “I’m not hungry,” Rika said, though her stomach ached within her.

  “We eat first,” Vikal said. “It is symbolic. They will not eat unless we do.”

  Rika sighed and helped herself to a spoonful of tana root, a plop of mashed orange that she knew would sustain her, though not be remotely satisfying. “Will this do?”

  Vikal nodded. By the meager portion he put onto his own plate, she thought he understood.

  Against the cavern wall was a low shelf of stone that had been covered with a green cloth. Rika sat down between Vikal and Sarnak—on display. It felt strange, sitting above the people who now lined up to place a few morsels on their plates. Rika’s discomfort increased when a woman came forward, and with a reverent bow, offered her a single gold bangle. Not wanting to be rude, Rika took the bracelet from her, admiring it in the light. But when she looked up to return it, the woman was already gone.

  Rika peered into the crowd. “Where’d she go? I can’t keep this.”

  “It is traditional,” Vikal said. “To make offerings to the gods and goddesses. Small tokens.”

  “Is that what those things are in the hallway outside my door?” Rika asked.

  Vikal nodded. “People started leaving them as soon as word spread that you had arrived.”

  “But they have so little,” Rika protested. “I don’t want anything from them.”

  “They will be insulted if you refuse,” Vikal warned. “And take it as a sign of your disfavor.”

  And so as the night wore on, more individuals approached Rika, handing her small tokens—a frangipani flower, a stick of incense, a strip of golden fabric, a piece of fruit. With each offering, Rika felt her heart open more and more to the Nuans, cherishing a spirit that could be so generous in the face of so little. She knew what it meant for these people to surrender some small piece of the outside world—how hard it must be to come by a flower or a piece of fruit after a month inside these caves. By th
e time the flutist began a new melody, and a space was cleared for dancers, tears trickled down Rika’s face. Vikal said nothing but took her hand in his own, hidden behind the fabric of her skirt. She knew she should retrieve her hand from his, but she needed the comfort desperately, so she sat still as stone, soaking in the warmth that flowed between them.

  The dancing began with a group of women who took to the floor, their feet bare against the rock. They began an intricate dance, weaving in and out of each other, moving towards the gods and away from them like waves. “It is the ashiak,” Vikal said. “A dance to welcome the gods. And goddesses.”

  As the melody drifted away, the women floated off the stage. Cayono stomped into the center of the space to cheers and whoops. The flutist picked up another tune, this time faster and more serious. Cayono began to move and stomp and twist, his movements captivating. “He is depicting a warrior preparing for battle.” As soon as Vikal explained, the movements of the dance sprang into context. Cayono moved effortlessly, seemingly weightless for a man so large. Emi and Nanase would have been impressed.

  Cayono finished his dance to cheers and applause, and a new individual took the stage. The dancer wore a crude mask of black cloth tied into a semblance of shaggy hair. “Normally, when these dances are done, we have elaborate masks and costumes to depict the characters. They had to make do with what they had, obviously.”

  “What is this dance about?” Rika asked.

  “The gods’ defeat of great evil,” he said.

  “So just another day on Nua?” Rika joked.

  “Exactly.”

  Rika watched as several dancers began to perform an elaborate fighting dance, sparring across the stage, several in black supporting the masked dancer, others in shades of faded green, red, blue, and white. When a woman in white battled one of the dancers in black, Vikal leaned over. “That is you. In the white. The goddess of bright light.”

  Rika turned in surprise and found her breath stolen as she realized how near his face was to hers. Her awareness narrowed to a pinpoint as the music fell away, the movement of the dancers dropped from sight. There was only Vikal. Caramel skin, dark stubble, three eyes as green as lily pads. He was looking at her with an intensity that radiated off him in waves.

  A cheer went up from the crowd and his gaze was gone, ripped from hers, leaving a lingering absence. Rika let out a breath, looking back at the center of the cave. The dance floor was empty, and the people were cheering, hollering, yelling for the king. And for her. She looked around in confusion, utterly lost.

  Sarnak rescued her. “They want you two to dance.”

  “I don’t know how to do these dances,” she said. The last thing she wanted was to stumble over her feet in front of all of Nua.

  Sarnak tapped his third eye, and Tamar’s suggestion sprang to mind. Maybe she just needed to remember.

  Vikal turned to Rika with an apologetic look on his face. “Are you up for it?” He held out a hand.

  “If you let me make a fool of myself, I will kill you,” she said, putting her hand in his. The crowd went wild with cheering and clapping. Rika stood and saw Tamar with a group of girls dancing and jumping in delight. She couldn’t help smiling.

  She took a deep breath and willed her third eye to open. Thankfully, it complied, but the surge of light and sensations made her stumble.

  Vikal was there at her side, his arm under her elbow. “Are you all right?”

  She nodded, looking at him. In her new vision, she saw the threads of silver power tethered from her, running up through the cavern and past her sight, presumably to the stars far above. But when she looked at Vikal, all she could see was radiance, a green aura of fertile soil and broad leaves and all that was right with the Earth. He was exquisite to behold—like this, she could see his immortal nature. But that wasn’t all. Between them stretched a thousand, a million tiny threads and fibers, weaving and twining and wrapping them together, pulling them towards each other. A hundred lives and pasts and loves, memories and sorrows. They were impossibly intertwined, so closely tied that there was no logic to separating. To being apart. They were supposed to be together. Fated.

  CHAPTER 21

  WHEN RIKA’S THIRD eye opened, it took Vikal’s breath away. It was as luminous and shining as a diamond, as if a star itself shone from between her brows. Her breath caught as she looked around the cavern, looked between them. Vikal left his own closed. It was too painful to see the threads that stretched between them, that tethered them in a thousand minuscule ways. Past, present, future. He wasn’t ready to face that destiny.

  He gently pulled her into his arms as the flutist trilled the first notes of their ritual dance. Rika’s body stiffened as his hand found her waist. “Do you remember the steps?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “Go easy on me.”

  “They will come to you,” he said, beginning to move across the rough cavern surface that had become a dance floor. Everything else had. Rika had taken to her heritage with effortless speed, as if it had been hovering just below the surface, waiting only for the doors to her soul’s memory to be thrown open wide. Now the light was streaming through—celestial divinity made manifest in this tiny form. Even he had doubted when she had first freed him, that this girl from a foreign land could be their goddess. It had seemed a cruel joke. Now, seeing her in Nuan dress, with her third eye glowing and his language rolling off her tongue like honey…he was ashamed to have ever doubted her.

  Rika stumbled through the steps, her cheeks flushed in a way that looked so lovely on her, though he suspected it was embarrassment. He spun her, pulling her hands and arms through and over his in the intricate dance, spinning and ducking and twisting. She laughed as they passed back to back, relaxing into the movements. When she met him in the next step, an instant before he was there, he knew she had remembered, that her soul had revealed to her another piece of their heritage.

  “Ready to go faster?” he asked, and the grin split her face ear to ear. He whistled at the flutist and made a little motion for him to speed up the tempo. And then they were flying, in and out and twisting and turning, hands and bodies meeting and parting. Their people clapped and whistled and stomped their feet to the music, and when the music finally stopped, Rika was flush against him, a sheen of sweat on her face, her ebony hair wild. Their lips hovered inches apart, and she let out a breathless laugh. He stepped back, his body too painfully aware of how right it felt to have the length of her pressed against him, his lips wanting too much to connect to hers. He bowed to her, and she nodded back, her smile tight.

  They returned to the dais and sank into their seats on the ground, leaving Bahti and Kemala to take the floor, to dance the dance that represented their union and powers. Bahti glowered at Vikal as he turned to take his wife’s hand, shooting him a look of such ferocity that Vikal felt the heat from where he sat. Vikal stifled a sigh. There would be hell to pay from his friend later. He glanced at Rika. Her face was stony. She hadn’t missed the exchange between the two men. She missed little.

  She turned to him. “Why does Bahti hate me so much?”

  “He does not hate you,” Vikal said.

  She snorted. “You couldn’t convince a two-year old with that lie. The man has never done anything but glower at me. He’d strangle me in my sleep if he could.”

  “He is the god of the deep mountain. He has a fiery disposition.” Vikal stalled. He should tell her about Sarya. He needed to. But how to explain that his heart belonged to another… yet he wasn’t sure he wanted it to anymore. And that fact alone made him feel guiltier than he knew how to handle. He owed it to Rika to work through his own feelings before he burdened her with them.

  “He doesn’t look that way at anyone else. What aren’t you telling me? I’ll find out from Sarnak,” she threatened.

  Sarnak coughed into his cup. “Leave me out of this.”

  Vikal ran his hand through his hair. “I will explain everything. But not tonight. After we defeat the leeches
, we can talk about it for days. Just know that it is not really about you.”

  Rika’s lips thinned to a line. She turned to Sarnak, who was looking at Vikal like he was trying to communicate something only through his furry eyebrows. As soon as Sarnak saw Rika’s gaze on him, he feigned innocence, taking another drink from his coconut.

  She turned back to Vikal, who also had schooled his features into a neutral expression. Rika hissed in frustration. “Fine. After we defeat the leeches.”

  Vikal suppressed a sigh of relief. He would tell Rika when the time was right.

  They watched Kemala and Bahti finish their dance, an energetic number filled with leaps and stomps and lifts. It was mesmerizing to watch Bahti’s raw strength and Kemala’s grace. Kemala was just as skilled with a sword in her hand, Vikal thought gratefully. They would need those skills before the end. He looked around at the smiles on the faces of his people, the temporary reprieve from hunger and dirt and dark. He would bring them out of this mountain if it was the last thing he did. Back into the green spaces, to the turquoise of the sea. He glanced at Rika, whose third eye had closed. With Rika, they could do it.

  Bahti and Kemala’s dance ended in an elaborate pose where Bahti held Kemala high above his head. They smiled and waved as the crowd cheered and whistled their applause, but Bahti didn’t return to his seat, instead disappearing through the throng of people.

  “Excuse me,” Vikal said to Rika, and he jumped off the platform to follow.

  Vikal jogged through the Gathering Hall, catching a glimpse of Bahti’s white shirt and red sash. “Bahti,” he called. His friend disappeared into the tunnel, and Vikal picked up his pace to catch him. He grabbed Bahti’s arm and spun him around.

  “What?” Bahti’s red eyes flared in the darkness of the tunnel.

  “Enough,” Vikal said. “I need you to try with Rika. She is one of us.”

  “She is not one of us!” He exploded, stepping towards Vikal. “She will never be one of us.”

  “Are you blind? Can you not see her third eye? Can you not see the threads of starlight connecting her?”