by Rachel Dunne
He left them, somewhere along the tunnel, and found himself kneeling in a small chamber, a closed space with nowhere to go but back, and he wrapped both arms around himself, bent in two as he gasped for air, and his tears were hot where they fell upon his arms.
I am not my own.
There was a twisting in his mind, like a serpent coiling to sleep, like a beast pulling back its fangs. A releasing of something held tight, a cornered mouse, a caged bird, allowed to live because it would be there waiting when the serpent woke, when the beast hungered.
Keiro’s hands, red and awful, smacked against the floor. He vomited between them, and it felt like something inside him tore away. The murmuring certainty was gone like a closing eye, his mind clear of the whispering he hadn’t even known wasn’t his own. He felt both more himself, and less. A caught thing, helpless and shaking and paralyzed by fear.
I am not . . .
Somewhere, sometime, a small piece of warmth pressed against his side. A hand-sized scaled head nudged at his bloodied fingers, and Keiro opened his arms. Cazi curled into them, curled around him, long tail wrapping his waist like an embrace and the mravigi’s heavy head leaning against his own. “I am sorry,” Cazi said in his soft new voice.
Keiro could not find any words, not yet. In the darkness, he could see only the eyes, all the eyes, wide and staring, and the smooth empty pits where eyes had once been.
I am not.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Joros stood at the top of the hill he had chosen for them to make their stand. It was just as unremarkable as any of the other hills, and he had chosen it mostly because it was as far away from the largest hill as he could get while still having a decent chance of seeing what the Fallen bastards were doing over there. He’d ordered Anddyr to make the hill hidden, unfindable, and safe, and the mage had used it as a teachable moment, showing Aro the proper finger-waves and mutters. Aro had repeated everything, and the air surrounding them had gone dark and heavy—too heavy to breathe. Panic had registered in Anddyr’s eyes a second before it did in Aro’s, and they’d frantically scrabbled at each other’s hands. The pressure had built in Joros’s chest, and if he’d been able to draw breath, he would have shouted at them to fix whatever stupid thing Aro had done. Luckily Anddyr’s twitching hands swept everything away in moments, so at least one of them wasn’t entirely useless. Aro had pouted for a good long while, sitting with his arms around his knees and watching Anddyr with sad eyes, until the mage had Aro start practicing his barriers within the shelter of Anddyr’s reliable protective shield.
And then there was little else to do but sit upon their hill, and stare at the shadows walking across the far hill, and wait.
Rora had grown more restless—she wasn’t one inclined to inactivity, and this was inactivity incarnate. She paced constantly, circling the hill again and again. She’d tried to walk out of the circle of protection, and Joros had snorted laughter as she’d run face-first into one of Aro’s clumsy barriers. He’d needed that laughter, but it had been days ago now. Just the other day she’d thrown herself at the barrier with fists and feet, pounding and screeching like a cornered cat, until she’d noticed her brother flinching with each blow, as though she were hitting him. She’d been more docile since then, contenting herself with pacing and staring at the distant hill.
Across the rolling hills, the Fallen had been digging into their hill, straight down from its crown. Joros had Anddyr cast his seeking again, holding the blackened toe between his shaking hands, and the mage had been cloud-white when he’d opened his eyes. Joros had known before he’d even said, “It’s not a limb there, cappo.” He could feel it in the air, reaching across the hills. The Twins were so very near, and their call was powerful. Joros had begun idly digging down into his hill with his short sword in foolish, ineffectual imitation.
In a twisting sort of way, Joros had brought the Fallen here—with Anddyr, he’d given them the tools to find the Twins. He’d brought them here, and now he sat near helpless as he tried to think how to stop them. It was his doing, his responsibility if the Twins were unbound—and it was starting to feel as though that was a heavy responsibility he’d have to shoulder for the rest of his likely-to-be-short life.
Joros wondered briefly how different things would have been if he’d stayed with the Fallen. He would have been squarely under Valrik’s heel, true, a powerless lackey, stripped of purpose and meaning . . . but at least he would have been on the right side. He would have been one of the multitudes surrounding the hill, waiting for their greatest hopes to come true. He wouldn’t have been here, a single stalk of wheat standing against a whirlwind, with no hope and everything to lose. He would have, perhaps, been standing beside a fiery-haired woman . . .
He’d made his choice, though, made all his choices—wrong as they’d turned out to be. His singularity of purpose—to ruin the Fallen in general and Valrik in particular—had lined up so nicely with the Parents’ cause. Joros wanted with a violent passion to keep the Twins bound, wanted it as badly as any follower of the Parents, and so he’d placed his hopes in them, sure the Parents’ devotees would stop their fears from being realized, sure they would keep the Twins bound. With their sheer numbers and Joros’s quick mind, he’d been sure of a resounding victory. They would sunder the Ventallo, set Patharro’s cleansing fire to Raturo, and Joros himself would kill Valrik, whisper a single name in the man’s ear at the height of his vengeance. And when it was over, he would go his separate way from the Parents’ followers, a mutual truce, and he’d gather up the sad, lost remnants of the Fallen, who would need a new name and a new leader and a new purpose . . .
But he hadn’t counted on being the only one who knew there was a problem that needed to be stopped. He hadn’t counted on being the only one fighting for this cause.
Regret served no purpose. The past was as it was, and all he could do now was pray that the Parents cared enough about their world and their people to grant him a miracle.
Anddyr was standing at the barrier, his hands splayed flat against the solid air, muttering as ever. Joros watched him idly, checking occasionally to make sure his fingers weren’t twitching—so long as he wasn’t trying to cast any spells, he could be as foolish as he pleased. He noticed Aro watching the mage, too. Aro had grown very skilled at sensing when the mage was taking a sour turn, and containing him before he became a danger.
Anddyr’s bouts were coming more and more frequently, he was sinking deeper into his madness. Multiple times, Joros had ordered the mage to tell him what was happening, why he was acting so strangely, but each time—mad or sane—Anddyr had stared at him with eyes that were at once distant yet clear as the sky. Years and years ago, another life ago, Dirrakara had given him a jar and a mage and named them both his. His, for as long as the mage’s mind could withstand the madness. “He likely won’t live long,” she’d whispered, her lips tickling his ear, the scent of her strong in his nostrils. He pushed the memory away, vicious and uncompromising. He wondered instead if Anddyr was nearing the very end of his sanity, and hoped the mage could keep his mind together long enough to do one last useful thing.
Occasionally some of Anddyr’s muttering came out clear and loud enough for them to hear: “I should go over there,” or “I need to get her back, I promised,” and then over and over, “Etarro, Etarro, Etarro.”
“There’s something coming,” Rora said, as faithful a guard dog as he’d ever met.
Joros lifted his eyes from his dirt-scratching and looked where she looked—not toward the large hill but south, beyond the hills and beyond the Plains, south where death lurked like a specter in the shape of shimmering sand. And there was indeed something coming from the dead-lands.
From this distance, it was little more than a smudge, a blur against the horizon, but there was no denying that it was moving, and moving steadily closer. Joros watched for a time until he realized whatever-it-was was moving as slow as mud, and he went back to his irritated scratching. Rora could
stand watch for the both of them.
Anddyr slunk to Joros’s side, his eyes down and his hands shaking. “Please, cappo,” he whispered, and then dropped onto his face, prostrating himself like a supplicant before a god. “I need to be there. I need to go.”
Joros aimed a halfhearted kick at the mage. “Shut up.”
“But Etarro . . . he’ll . . . I promised . . .”
Joros ignored him.
“It’s people,” Rora said after a time.
Joros grunted—of course it was people. Nothing lived in the Eremori Desert, and only people would be stupid enough to walk willingly into its hot maw. More minutes passed, the tip of Joros’s sword digging deeper into the ground, biting and burying. Maybe turning up the smooth surface of the hill would turn his thoughts over in a similar way, jumbling them up like throwing a deck of cards into the air. Nothing could be organized if it wasn’t already disorganized.
“They’re pulling something.”
That got Joros to lift his head, and he stood once more, using the sword to lever himself to his feet. He went to Rora’s side, and after a moment her brother stood to her other side. He was looking more haggard by the day, doing well over half the work in keeping them hidden and silent, his newfound powers pushed immediately to their limits. That sparked a bit of worry in Joros—he couldn’t afford to lose either of the twins. There was little enough to be done yet, perhaps they could retreat to the lee of the hill and leave Rora to watch, let Aro drop his shields . . .
“What is that?”
Joros blinked, focused on the smudge that had resolved itself into actual shapes. There were people, no more than a handful, and they were indeed pulling something . . . something long and black and bent that his eyes and mind couldn’t make any sense of. He squinted, tilted his head, but still it looked like nothing natural, nothing he could place . . .
A laugh wheezed out near his feet, startling him so that he nearly stomped on Anddyr, who was gazing up crazy-eyed and twist-necked from his stomach. “Arm,” Anddyr gasped, and flapped his own arm, the long limb thumping against the ground, sending up a cloud of dust that made the mage choke and cough and laugh.
Joros kicked the mage away, and when he looked back at the slow-moving procession, they did indeed seem to be pulling a monstrous arm, three times the size of any human arm.
Joros felt very cold, though the sun beat heavily against his back on its way down the sky, and then a fever-bright heat twisted through his gut. His fingers were tight around the hilt of his short sword, his other hand curled into a fist so tight he thought his nails might draw blood from his palm. Quietly, he asked, “How many is that, Anddyr?”
The mage gurgled, spat out, “Four,” and then screamed as he beat himself around the head with his own fist.
“Four what?” Aro asked. His sister stayed silent; she’d likely already put together the pieces.
“Four limbs of a god,” Joros said. “Four pieces to make Fratarro whole.”
“How many are there supposed to be?”
“Anddyr was able to track six, counting the hand we burned.”
Aro’s fingers twitched at his side and his lips moved, as though he were weaving some spell—though Joros rather guessed that was how he counted. “So they’re still missing one, yeah?”
“No,” Anddyr moaned from the ground, “no, no, no . . .”
“If I had to hazard a guess,” Joros said grimly, “I would say the missing one is already under that hill.”
That shut Aro up well enough.
They stood together—save Anddyr, who writhed at their feet, caught up in his private madness—and watched the newcomers with their arm approach the hill. They were greeted warmly by the main column, welcomed with cheers. As the sun stretched shadows long across the hills, countless hands pulled the arm up the side of the great hill, to the very top where, he saw now, the digging had halted. They worked together, smooth as water turning a wheel, and soon they were lowering the arm into the hill itself, dropping it down the great hole they had dug, perhaps dropping it down to the very center of the earth.
“So what now?” Rora asked, the question she never stopped asking.
The moon already hung in the sky before him, pale against the bright streaking colors of the setting sun. It was a full moon, perfectly round, and it would color the night like a second sun. He nudged Anddyr with his foot, and when the mage blinked up at him with watering eyes, Joros turned his hand in a certain way. “Now,” Joros said heavily, the tip of his sword biting into the hill, “now it begins.”
Rora barked out a curse as Anddyr’s arms flailed against her legs, buckling her knees, knocking her to the ground; she continued cursing steadily as Anddyr drew stilling designs in the air, weeping next to her immobile form. Aro stared hang-jawed, his hands half-raised, and it was simple fear—cowardice, perhaps—that held him still. Joros pressed his foot to the back of Aro’s knee and the man fell easily, crumpling so that Joros could grab a handful of his hair. His other hand lifted his sword to rest against Aro’s throat.
Rora lay with her limbs splayed and held by the power of Anddyr’s spell, but he hadn’t stilled her tongue. She swore at him, all the vile words known to humanity and more he guessed she made up on the spot, and she glared at him with a pure and burning hatred that he hoped would be enough.
“Truly,” he said over her cursing, and it was one of the rare times the words that followed were indeed true, “I am sorry.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Keiro stood at the crest of the large hill, at the edge of the open shaft that had been dug straight to the beating heart—hearts—of the hill. He gazed up, at the stars poking through the darkening sky, at the heavy moon watching like an enormous eye, at Sororra’s Eyes shining their red light over the earth. Looking up was easier, far easier, than looking down.
He no longer had the luxury of avoidance, though. There was so much to be done. So much ending, so much beginning.
Keiro looked from the sky down to the hole into the hill, his dirty toes nearly touching its edge. In a moment of complete mundanity, he thought how strange he must seem, walking black-robed and barefoot among the Fallen, but Saval’s boots hadn’t fit him, and anyway, they’d needed too much cleaning . . .
Better, by far, to think of his own hardened feet.
There was no stopping this, and only so long he could delay the inevitable. He didn’t need the whispering certainty to tell him that, though it had—though Sororra had. He understood, now, that there was no avoiding those not-quite-his-own thoughts, just as there was no avoiding what he must do now. Dragging his dirty feet would not help them—there was nothing, anymore, that he could do to help them.
Keiro made himself look at them again, one last time. The young twins, their faces a perfect match, bound to either side of the great pit. They lay on their backs, with their legs and arms spread wide, lashed to stakes driven deep into the earth. They hadn’t struggled when the ropes had been brought out—they’d gone to their fates willingly, as though they’d known this was coming.
“Avorra,” Keiro said softly. “Etarro.” His voice was heavy, but his purpose was firm. There was no other way.
Keiro had fallen to his knees when he saw them—he’d been sure, at first, that his good eye was lying to him, or that it was some trick of his missing eye. But no, they were real, real as life. The girl’s brows had shot up and the boy had taken a surprised step back, and Keiro had pressed his face to the ground before them. In that moment, after everything that had come before, they were the perfect thing to lift his heart.
The young twins had grown so much since he’d last seen them. Then, they’d been small children, hardly more than babes. Now, they stood almost as high as Keiro’s shoulder, and their eyes and faces were full of more years than had gone by. In all his walking days after being banished from Mount Raturo, Keiro had almost convinced himself he’d seen false, that there hadn’t been living twins inside the mountain, that he’d thrown his
life away on a pain-born hallucination . . . but no. They were real and true, and they made everything—all of it, every step and every drop of blood—worth it.
They’d both looked at him curiously when he’d lifted his head from the ground, and when he’d held out his hands toward them, they’d willingly pressed their palms to his, the girl a fraction of a moment after her brother. “Please,” Keiro had said, sure he was weeping like a fool and not caring, “I have wondered for so long. What are your names?”
“I’m Avorra,” the girl had said, and if her eyes had held any uncertainty looking at him, her voice showed none of it. “He’s Etarro.”
“Avorra,” Keiro repeated, savoring each syllable. “Etarro. By the gods, it is good to know you.”
“And you are?” Avorra had prompted with stiff formality, beginning to tug her hand from his.
“I am Keiro.”
“Keiro Godson,” the boy had said softly. When Keiro had looked at him in surprise, he’d seen how pale the boy’s eyes were, and how wide. Keiro had had no idea how he’d known the moniker, but the knowing had seemed to draw his face down, add more years to his eyes.
Cazi had chosen that moment to appear—for as big as he had grown, he was still excellent at hiding and sneaking. Avorra had recoiled, but the boy’s eyes had gone wider, this time with wonder. “Is that . . . ?”
Keiro had hefted the Starborn, a grin stretching his face. “This is Cazi.” It had felt good to smile, and it had hurt that the smile felt so strange on his cheeks.
Etarro had reached out, fingers gently tracing the curve of Cazi’s nose, the ridge between his eyes, the spines that fanned around the base of his skull. The joy that had suffused his face had done much to smooth the deep-etched sadness, and the years had peeled back as Cazi had leaned into his touch.
They had that one moment at least. And then there was no more time for joy.