by Kira Brady
Corbette was silent a long moment. “Not yet.”
“Gods, it feels like I’ve been skinned alive.” For all that she resented the prophecy, she loved the Crane. Without it, she was less. She was practically human. It was amazing Corbette, with Aether in his veins instead of blood, hadn’t died on the spot. “How do you stand it?”
Slowly, he sat up. “I stand it because there is no other option.” He turned to look at her, his black eyes unfathomable. “We must set ground rules.”
She became keenly aware that she wore next to nothing: a ripped shift, bloomers, and stockings. Lacy things suited to a boudoir, not a dark beach at the border of Death. Ties and ribbons, designed to be undone. She was soaking wet too, and the fabric clung to her body like a second skin. They were two half-clad people on a beach without a soul in sight. No witnesses. She remembered that kiss in the tunnel all too clearly. She felt some color leech back into her cheeks. “What sort of rules?”
“We can’t have an incident like before.”
“An incident?”
“No touching. You’re in an emotionally vulnerable state—”
She bristled.
“—and we can’t let our animal natures get the best of us. Look what happened.” He gestured around to the barren river. “You almost died. Twice. We must have our wits about us, and for that you must follow my lead. If I say run, you run, no questions.”
Lucia felt her blood boil. “I don’t see the Raven anywhere, so I’m not sure where you get off giving me orders.”
He stood and pulled her up. Even without Aether crackling from his being, his body was imposing. Tall and strong, he could force her to do his bidding if he stooped to physical intimidation. He never had before. “You’re right. My totem is gone, I can’t touch the Aether, and there is no sign of the Gate.”
“I’m not afraid of you.”
He didn’t move, but danger radiated from every pore. Even stripped of his magic, he could crush her like a bug. It became apparent that he was also keenly aware of the state of her undress. The wet wool of his trousers rose in interesting places.
She took a hasty step back.
“Big words, little warrior,” he said, voice dark as chocolate. He tilted his head in the Raven’s curious half bow. “You will follow my lead, and maybe we will get out of this alive.”
Chapter Six
Corbette’s head felt strangely light. He watched Lucia from outside himself, this beautiful, bedraggled girl that he’d taken to death’s door. He’d never seen her so mad or so vibrant, and it took every inch of his willpower not to take her in his arms and kiss her into willful submission.
But he was not himself. The Aether, so long a storm through him, his bane and the source of all his power, was gone, leaving him like a bone-dry riverbed. Never had there been a punishment so damaging or so soul-wrenching. This he would have wished only on his worst enemies. His second soul had been completely stripped from his body. No wonder evil filled Sven Norgard and his dragon kin. Without a soul, the vessel of the body was primed and waiting to be filled. Sin rushed in.
“Corbette—” she began.
“Emory. I am not the Raven. Not anymore.” His totem, his power, his very identity—all gone in the space of one long slide into darkness. One final mistake in a long series of terrible mistakes. He turned from her so she couldn’t see the anguish in his eyes.
“Look!” she said.
A bird cry came from overhead. Glancing up, he saw two birds: a white crane with red feathers at its temple and a raven, black as soot. They flew west, away from the river. “Raven!” he shouted and ran after them. His totem gave him no notice. He tried to reach through the Aether, but it was like trying to catch starlight. Picking up a rock, he hurled it at the bird. The rock missed by a mile and clattered down to the beach. The Raven simply flew on as if he didn’t exist, as if they hadn’t spent more than a century sharing one body. “Raven!” he screamed. He dropped to his knees. “Raven!”
A gentle hand touched his back. He shrugged her off. Now he really had nothing to offer. Without the Aether, without his totem, he might as well be human. Weak, vulnerable bits of clay. Lady damn them.
He couldn’t protect her. He couldn’t even protect himself.
Lucia gave him space. “Let’s follow,” she said after a long moment. “Hopefully they’ll show us the way to the Gate.”
Corbette rose. It was cold on the river’s shore. He realized he was shivering. His wet clothes had begun to itch. He couldn’t fathom this discomfort. To not pull dry clothes from the Aether—it was unthinkable. And Lucia—he could do nothing to ease her cold, freezing state either. What would he do if someone attacked them? He had dropped his knife after freeing Lucia from her waterlogged skirts. His cane with its hidden sword and the rucksack had vanished beneath the waves too.
Leaving the river behind, they followed the beach west. Garbage littered the landscape. There was no plant life or pleasant smell of mulch and green things growing. Instead the air had a metallic tinge. He detected oil and rust and the dust of long-forgotten corners. His vision had altered. No longer did he have the crisp, far sight of the Raven. The distance seemed blurry, the ground beneath his feet strangely far away. He was so used to sight being his primary sense that he was off balance. And his feet—never had he walked so far on human legs. For a hundred years, he’d had wings. There had been no need to develop hard soles to walk over uneven, junk-filled earth.
As they hiked, they passed half-buried souvenirs of bygone eras. He started to identify the flotsam and jetsam. Roman goblets made of lead. Harpoons still rusted with blood. An early rigid diving suit with a copper helmet and iron belt. Small, partly smashed silver balls that he realized were bullets.
Silence lengthened the walk. He kept his eyes on the sharp bits of discarded metal and not on the scantily clad damsel in distress with her pert nipples and watery eyes. He didn’t know himself in this state. He couldn’t trust the passion in her eyes any more than the fear.
She walked a distance behind him. He could feel her anger scalding his back. She could stew all she liked as long as she followed his orders when the time came.
The birds led west to the base of two mountains, where the landscape truly turned into an antique junkyard—smashed Model Ts; a four-masted schooner with its hull caved in; and an entire steam train, each car brimming with cast-off metal and wire and broken gears.
Between the two mountains was a thin sliver of a canyon, no more than a crack between the stone. Ancient symbols had been carved into the limestone at each edge. As they drew near, they found two stone giants blocking their way. They stood watch, the eternal sentinels of the dead. At first, Corbette didn’t think they were alive, but when he tried to walk beneath their crossed spears, they animated and barred the way. He watched uselessly as the Raven and the Crane flew through the narrow gap and disappeared from view.
“Only the dead may enter here,” one giant said. His voice was the whisper of wind through the mountain pass.
“The Raven may pass,” Corbette said.
“Only the dead may enter here,” said the second giant. Her voice spoke of the womb at the beginning of the world and the blood they would all return to.
Corbette tried to call the Aether to him to blast his way through the Gate. He grit his teeth against a roar of frustration. His powers were gone. A creak and scratch answered him, the sound of two rocks sliding together, and he realized the giants laughed at him. “I seek the Queen of the Spirit Realm. Both worlds are in danger. Tiamat has risen.”
“What do we care of mortal tidings?” the first giant asked.
Lucia came to stand by his right shoulder. “Stay back,” he told her.
“You need a gift,” she whispered.
“Let me handle it.”
“Who is that behind you?” asked the second giant. “Be on your way. Only the dead may enter here.”
“But the Raven walks between the worlds,” Corbette said again. “You
have to let me through.”
The giant shook her head. “I don’t see the Raven. Do you, Upshantmaan?”
“No, wife” said Upshantmaan. “Just a man.”
“Just a man. Go!” The female giant pounded her stick on the ground, and rocks fell from the mountains above. Corbette dove to cover Lucia with his body. The earth shook.
Lucia clung to his shirt. “You’re doing it wrong. Give them a gift!”
“I have nothing!”
“Tell them a story.”
“Who is that with you?” the female giant asked.
Corbette scowled. “I know what I’m doing—”
“Do you? I might not have done well in Aether studies, but I listened in folklore class. In every folktale around the world there must be an exchange. A gift for passage, and there’s nothing the gods love more than a story. So get off your high horse and let me do this.” Lucia pushed him off. Standing, she faced the giants dressed in little more than wet lace. She threw her white braid over her shoulder and lifted her chin. “Noble guardians, I bring you a gift! A story to ease your long wait.”
Tensing, Corbette waited for the giants to start another avalanche, but they stood expectantly.
“In the beginning,” Lucia said, “there was darkness. The land was dark and the sky was dark and the sea was dark. Raven flew between the worlds, and saw the humans and animals shivering in their lodges in a sea of mud. He flew out of the realm of the birds, the spirit realm, and found a single long house glowing with the light of a hearth fire. He waited until three young maidens came out, the Sky God’s daughters: first the pale Lady Moon, then the bright Lady Sun, then the Dark Lady who sparkled with a million tiny souls. The Moon was too pale. The Sun was too blinding. But in the darkness of the third maiden he found a light that would unlock the joy of a thousand stars.”
Corbette watched Lucia. Her spine straightened, her elegant hands danced with the words, and her face softened, inviting, as she wove her tale. Her voice took on a melodic quality he’d never heard her use, and for the first time he could see her as a Spirit Seeker.
“So Raven turned himself into a droplet of rain and slipped between the Lady’s lips and down into Her belly. She returned to Her father’s house and gave birth to a baby boy—Raven—reborn as the Sky God’s grandson. Inside the lodge he found the secret box where the Sky God had hidden his tools: fire, spindle, and glass eye. He knew the world needed light and heat, so he opened the box, grabbed the tools, Changed back to himself, and flew out through the fire hole in the roof. The Sky God in a wrath burst through the front door and chased Raven through the sky. The fire burned Raven black as coal. He dropped the fire, the spindle and the glass eye, but still the Sky God came after him, and there was no place in the dark and the mud for him to hide. The Dark Lady took pity on him, for she had loved the babe he’d pretended to be. She threw herself between Raven and her father and Changed to make a safe place for Raven and all his people to live. Her milk-filled breast became the mountains and her tears the sea. Her shining soul fire became the molten core of the planet, and her womb the fertile valley of the earth. She renamed Raven and his people the Kivati—those who Change—and told Raven that because he’d risked all to make the world a better place for humans and animals, he would forever be responsible for their keeping. She gave him the Sky God’s tools: fire to heat the lodges, which Raven taught to the humans; a spindle to weave the Aether and the glass eye to see the Aether’s sparkling webs, which Raven kept for himself. Forever after, the Kivati, humans, and animals have had a place to live, and when they grow weary of flying, they return to the bosom of the Dark Lady. Even in the darkest night, when we, Raven’s children, close our eyes, we can still see Her sparkling water calling us home.”
The giants were crying. Upshantmaan went to his wife and held her. “Go, go! Do not speak to us anymore.”
Corbette had to clear his throat. It had been a long time since he had heard the origin story so eloquently told. Lucia had a gift. Maybe not weaving the Aether, but there were other ways to bring people together. She bowed to the giants and walked on through without a backward glance. He hurried to catch up with her. When they’d passed through the narrow gap and the stone giants were out of sight, he spoke. “I didn’t know you were a storyteller.”
“The things you don’t know about me could fill an ocean.”
He forced himself to swallow his surprise. Perhaps he owed her an apology. He’d watched her for years, but he’d never made the effort to get to know her: the real girl, thoughts and feelings and peculiarities. If anything, this journey would provide time to remedy that. He just had to figure out how to start.
Death didn’t arrive in a thunderstorm. Death walked up the Hill and through the Kivati front gates. The guards were helpless to stop her, and no alarm sounded before it was already too late. The worst part, Kai reflected as he watched Zetian stroll confidently through the front door like a monarch returning home, was that the Kivati had been warned. Corbette’s dreams. Kai’s run-in—he wasn’t calling it more than that. Lucia’s frantic message that Tiamat was here, now, and coming their way.
But no one had thought Kivati Hall would fall without a single shot.
And so their castle became their coffin. But no one realized it soon enough.
Lord William Raiden was the first to die. Unbendable as steel, Will’s right and wrong were carved in the cliff face, not like Kai’s in the sand where the tide moved the line as it saw fit. Will took one look at Zetian and ordered the women and children out and the men to fire. Zetian—Tiamat—smiled. A slow curve of her lips as if the prospect of blood excited her. She raised one jewel-encrusted hand and a ball of Aether coalesced, blue with the fire of the gods. The ball she created was like his thunderbolts, but so much more. His thunderbolts materialized and were gone, with only seconds between the zap and the fizzle, but hers stayed strong.
“In the beginning,” she said, madness in her eyes, “there was Chaos. So shall there be again, when the Gates fall and the two Worlds join as one. You will sacrifice yourself for me, and your children will sacrifice themselves for me, and your children’s children. All will serve Chaos, and the earth will call out for blood, until darkness covers the land.” Tiamat tossed her ball of blue fire into Will’s chest. His body absorbed it. Every hair shot straight out and his arms were thrown up, frozen for a long second as the energy burned through him. Blue fire radiated across his skin. His mouth opened in a silent scream, his eyes rolled back in his head, and then William Raiden was no more, just a charred bit of ash to float in the air of the room.
Lady Alice, standing at Kai’s elbow to witness the atrocity, swore, and Kai, never one to sacrifice himself meaninglessly, heard himself say, “I’ll buy you time.”
The screams and pounding of running feet dimmed to static. Kai swaggered forward. He knew it for a swagger, because it involved his whole body, oiled hips and a lazy smile and just enough cock-sure to let his audience know he was willing and ready to turn that vertical dance into something of a horizontal nature. He didn’t turn to see if Alice made it out, or which warriors fled and which made a stand, or who might glare daggers at his back as he waltzed up to the enemy. It was important for the lady to know that he had eyes only for her. And he did. Zetian-Tiamat was a firestorm of Aether, beautiful and brilliant in the soft gaslight of Kivati Hall. He’d always imagined the gods and goddesses to manifest in a more ethereal nature, but Tiamat was an earthy sort. Energy seemed to radiate up from her toes, drawing from deep within the earth. He had to admit Zetian was truly beautiful. Hair black as a raven wing. Lips like coral from the sea. Her figure was slender and features dainty, but her eyes blazed power, and he had reason to know that body wasn’t as delicate as it pretended. She could beat him in a fight, and the knowledge both shamed him and drew him in.
If he didn’t know she was Drekar and deranged Babylonian goddess, if he hadn’t seen her kill Will only seconds ago, in another galaxy, in another life, he’d put a
ll his energy getting into her bed.
But because she’d killed and would kill again, he still put all his energy into getting into her bed, because he knew what she was after, and he could distract her until the others got away.
You figure out what needs doing, and then you get it done, his brother used to say. But Jace had always been the better twin. Ironic, now, that Kai’s less virtuous skills were finally useful to the Kivati.
“Tiamat, love,” Kai said. He let his eyes wander down her silk-clad figure and back up to her face. The red sheath dress looked as if it had been stolen from a High Priestess of Ishtar, and she wore gold bracelets up to her elbows.
Her hands were stained red with clay.
Chapter Seven
Through the narrow gap of the Gate to the Land of the Dead, Lucia found a lush jungle rising out of the scrap metal and discarded artifacts. Almost Jurassic, with giant mangrovelike trees that tangled together from a briny bog. She recognized none of the plants, but could easily imagine an allosaurus pushing its way through the thick brush. The path was wet. When there was a path.
“I always thought the way was clear through the otherworld,” Lucia said. Now that the adrenaline from facing the giants had passed, she found herself shivering again in her wet underthings. The silence of the woods was full of menace. No bird song. No scurry of animals. Just wind tussling the canopy. “I thought the Aether lit a shimmering path to show souls the way.”
Corbette pushed a branch away and helped her over a gnarled root the size of a giant’s foot. “Maybe the Land senses we don’t belong here. It looks like there was a path, but it’s been overgrown with this rubbish.”
The plastic casings of printers and laser discs piled on top of small altars and offerings to long-forgotten gods. She found books too, some so burnt only the spines were left. “What are all these things?”