“Irtike?” Conor asked, trying to keep his balance. But the girl had gone back into her trance. Her eyes rolled back in her head as she swayed.
The hush of the falling sand became a roar. Conor watched, paralyzed by fear, as the cliff edge began to cascade away. “Conor,” Rollan said, “we need to get moving!”
More and more of the cliff side fell, until it was a landslide. Conor took one step away, but his heels sank into the sand. His body was tugged backward, and he only just managed to get hold of Rollan’s and Irtike’s hands before he tumbled.
Above the roar of falling sand, he heard the screams of the plummeting Conquerors. Then he pitched to one side and saw nothing but a wide yellow rush, as if they were drowning in a sea of sand. The beating waves of it pounded his skin, scouring it raw. Conor tried to keep his mouth closed, hoping to keep the earth from entering his lungs.
He pivoted in the darkness, riding the avalanche of sand, clenching his friends’ hands as tightly as he could. They gained speed as they went, and his head began to wrench against the tumbling soil — all it would take was one bad hit for his neck to snap. But just as he began to wonder whether he’d die that way, or by passing out and suffocating under the weight of the crumbling sandstone, he began to slow.
Miraculously, hot sun was on his face. He felt it warm his eyelids, and breathed in the sweet air. Conor opened his eyes and was relieved to find Rollan and Irtike laid out beside him, gulping in air.
The oasis was gone.
Where there had once been a paradise shielded by a cliff, there was now only a blank slope, like a giant bowl of sand. Everything that had made up Cabaro’s animal kingdom — the lagoon, the trees — was buried. The last plumes of sand that were still airborne settled over the land. Then all was still.
Until it began to move.
The sand rippled. It made a wave, over a dozen feet long, and then a long black shape started to emerge, many yards off. Gerathon.
The Great Serpent was clearly disoriented. She faced away, scanning the flattened landscape as sand rained from her scales.
“Guys,” Conor whispered, “we need to run. Now.”
Irtike struggled to rise. Rollan was motionless, his mouth hanging open. “Rollan?” Conor asked as he staggered to his feet. “Are you okay?”
For a long moment, Rollan was still. His face was covered in sand, the whites of his eyes the only parts that weren’t yellow. He shook his head, as if to clear it. “Could you help me get up?”
“Of course,” Conor whispered. He pulled on Rollan’s arm, and Rollan winced as he stood. The wound in his side had reopened in the landslide. Blood soaked his shirt.
“Can you run?” Conor asked.
“I hope so,” Rollan whispered back.
They took off through the sand, legs kicking high to stay clear of the loose earth. Conor’s whole body screamed — it felt like his skin had been flayed in the landslide. But all it took was imagining Gerathon slithering over the dunes toward them to find the will to move forward.
Essix kept pace with them, high above. “I’m realizing,” Conor said as he puffed forward with his struggling friends, “that there are a lot of advantages to being a bird.”
As the sand grew shallower, their going became easier, and they were soon able to trek more quickly. Conor risked a look backward. A few figures were struggling out of the sand, but they were having a slow time of it. “No more sign of Gerathon,” he reported. “She must have gone the other way. And we seem to have a head start.”
There was no answer.
Conor looked to his friends, and the first thing he saw was their stricken faces. He followed their gazes, worried that he’d made a mistake, that Rollan or Irtike had seen Gerathon bearing down on them after all. But what he saw was worse.
It was Tarik.
The elder Greencloak’s body had been carried along in the cascading sand and was half-in and half-out. Only the head and shoulders were above the ground.
Lumeo lay still beside him. The sand had carried the otter so that he was curled beneath his companion’s neck, cradling Tarik’s chin. They looked … peaceful.
“Oh, Tarik,” Conor said softly, turning away and covering his face. The Golden Lion was even heavier around his waist. He shifted his fingers over the talisman, thinking about how much they’d lost to get it. How much more could this quest possibly take from them?
“We should bring their bodies with us,” Rollan said numbly.
“We can’t,” Conor said, hating himself for it. “We have so many miles to go, and once the Conquerors get organized they’ll be on us. We don’t have Tarik to protect us anymore. We need to get out of here as fast as we can.”
“So is that how things are now?” Rollan asked sharply. Conor turned and saw his friend’s eyes were still on Tarik, but his face had clouded over. “Kind, gentle Conor finally gets hard? He starts making the tough decisions? Now that Tarik’s dead, does that make you our fearless leader?”
Conor’s voice caught in his throat. “Please, Rollan,” he rasped. “Don’t do this right now.”
“I liked you better the old way,” Rollan snapped, his eyes flashing. “I liked the sheep boy.”
Conor nodded. “I did too,” he said softly. “But he’s gone.”
Rollan’s anger seemed to deflate all at once. He dropped his gaze back to Tarik and stayed silent.
Irtike held Snake Eyes up and peered into his beady little eyes. “I can use my power to bury him, if you want.”
Conor deferred to Rollan, who nodded.
At first nothing happened. Then the sand around them rumbled. It caved in, sinking Tarik and Lumeo into the earth. Conor watched, hands pressed tight over his heart, as the body disappeared.
“Thank you, Irtike,” Rollan whispered.
As the sand fell in, Irtike broke her trance and faced them. “I’m not sure how many more times I can draw on my earth affinity today,” she said. “I don’t feel so good.”
“We’ll do our best to avoid it. And thank you,” Conor said. “He deserved to be buried.”
“Yes, he did,” Irtike said. “I only knew Tarik for a short time, but I could already see his kindness and honor.”
“Snake Eyes isn’t the right name for that mole rat,” Rollan said, petting the groggy rodent. “I’m sorry for anything bad I ever said about him. He saved our lives.”
“I was thinking about that,” Irtike said. “I’d like to name him Mikak. It’s a word in my language that’s hard to translate. It means both ‘soil’ and ‘home.’”
“I like it,” Rollan said. “Thank you, Mikak.”
In response, the mole rat lowered his head and fell asleep.
“Let’s go,” Conor said, gently touching Rollan on the back. “Tarik’s sacrifice will only be in vain if we don’t make it back safely.”
Rollan nodded, wiping away tears.
“And your mother,” Conor added quietly to Irtike. “She gave her life fighting the Conquerors in Nilo too.”
The group began to walk away, back toward the pass that would lead them to northern Nilo, and eventually to Greenhaven. Essix flew above them, her sharp eyes scanning for danger.
They hadn’t gone more than a hundred yards when Conor noticed a dark shape reaching out of the sand. “Wait, is that … ?”
Irtike whimpered, and Rollan’s hand was immediately on the hilt of his dagger. “Gar,” he growled.
“Relax,” Conor said, his hand on Rollan’s arm. “He’s not moving.”
They moved closer to the body, which lay completely still. The general’s dark armor was caked in bright yellow sand. Blood had dried over a grievous neck wound.
Gar was dead.
“Tarik must have killed him,” Rollan said. “Or he died in the avalanche.”
“No,” Conor said, peering down. “Look at this.” The wound was covered in sand, but he could see bite marks all along Gar’s throat. There was only one explanation. “Lumeo,” Conor said, the world wavering as his e
yes filled with tears. “He avenged Tarik’s death after all.”
“Wow,” Rollan whispered. “The Devourer … is dead. Lumeo killed the Devourer. We stand a chance because of that brave otter. Way to go, little guy.”
He kicked out, shoving Gar’s body farther into the sand. As Gar rolled forward, a dark, furry shape was revealed, crushed beneath him.
“What’s that?” Rollan asked.
Conor kneeled and squinted, then sucked in a breath. He tried to process what he was seeing, but it didn’t make sense. What was it doing here, with Gar?
He peered up at Rollan and Irtike.
“It’s a wolverine,” he said.
DURING THEIR DAYS AT SEA, ABEKE WONDERED SOMETIMES why Shane’s spirit animal wasn’t some aquatic creature instead of a wolverine — he was so natural onboard the ship, with an uncanny sense of currents and squalls. Whenever they hit doldrums he’d cleanly dive into the ocean, cutting through the salt water only to emerge with a tropical fish writhing on the end of his spear. He’d ably climb a free line to get back to the deck, and kill and scale the fish before wriggling back into his shirt.
Abeke was used to being the hunter and provisioner among her friends. It felt new and strange to be cared for so completely. She found herself enjoying it.
They were lucky to be on Shane’s family’s ship, which he clearly knew so well; otherwise they could never have managed an oceangoing vessel with just the two of them. Truth be told, they made a great team: Whole hours would go by wordlessly, Abeke tying off lines the moment Shane tossed them to her, scaling the mast to lower the bib before he’d even asked for it. In her moments of rest, Abeke would watch the passing shoreline. The first region they passed as they voyaged their way up the continent of Nilo was the great desert, where Cabaro the Lion was rumored to live — then the jungles, and then the steppes where Abeke had grown up.
She was shocked at how close they’d been to Cabaro. The Great Lion would likely have been the next talisman her friends sought. Had they … Could they possibly have been close by?
It was a small blessing to have so much to do. Otherwise Abeke would have stewed. There was so much to worry about: what was happening to Meilin; whether Conor and Rollan and Tarik made it out of Oceanus; what they’d find when they arrived at Greenhaven; how to make sure she could keep her promise to Shane that the Greencloaks wouldn’t harm him.
He’d been their enemy for so long. He was with the Conqueror teams in Oceanus, and Samis, and even at Dinesh’s temple. It was hard to predict how Olvan and Lenori and Tarik would react to him. How could Abeke show them all he’d sacrificed?
She wouldn’t have long to wait. Already there was a rim of green visible at the blue lip of the horizon: Greenhaven. The winds were low, though, and the sky was pinking. They wouldn’t be able to dock before nightfall.
Shane and Abeke hadn’t needed to speak all afternoon, going about their tasks in companionable silence. The wood of the deck, still hot from the afternoon sun, seared the soles of Abeke’s feet as she gutted the day’s catch — dinner would be two flying fish and a few unlucky squid that had come too near the surface to feed.
When he saw the distant shore, Shane turned listless, standing at the bow and peering into the cliffs of Greenhaven, stubbled with bright green shrubs.
Once she’d gotten the embers up and the fish and squid were on the grill, Abeke stood beside Shane and looked out at the cliffs. Part of her soared with relief at the thought of Greenhaven, but worry bubbled insistently beneath. What was she leading Shane into?
“Have you ever seen Greenhaven before?” she asked.
Shane laughed. “Are you kidding? It would be the first and last time if I did.”
“They’ll understand,” Abeke said softly. “I’ll make them understand.”
Shane closed his eyes, the lids pink-orange in the reflected sunset. “I love that you think so. That you have that much faith about people.”
“Hey,” Abeke said. “You were raised to believe that your uncle was doing the right thing. It was all you knew from the time you were a child. How could you have seen what the Conquerors were doing when you were inside it?”
“Yeah,” Shane said. “I guess you’re right.”
“It was like my family,” Abeke said. “I’d always suspected that my father liked Soama more than me, that he always expected lesser things from me. But I didn’t know it was true until I summoned Uraza. I know now that in that moment my father should have been proud. But instead he was suspicious. You helped me see that I was special, even when I couldn’t.”
Shane turned to Abeke. The fading sunlight lit the fine lines of his brow, his nose, his throat. Abeke swallowed. “People can change,” she said. “And the Greencloaks are no different. They’ll see what you’ve done to help. They’ll hear what Gar did to your sister, and they’ll understand why you’ve come to our side.”
“You really are amazing,” Shane said huskily.
Abeke cast her eyes to the deck, her face flushing. “I don’t know.”
“I can’t believe … that he killed her. That my uncle would let Gerathon do that to Drina. I miss her. We fought plenty, but I loved her.”
Abeke looked at Shane, startled. It was the first time he’d spoken about Drina’s death. Whenever she brought it up, he’d say he didn’t want to talk. But now he was finally opening up, and she was honored that he’d started feeling safer with her. “It’s terrible, Shane,” Abeke said. “I can’t imagine what you’re going through. It’s one thing to lose your sister, but another to see that it was your uncle who took her. We were accustomed to death in Okaihee. But not death … in that way.”
“Drina bonded to her spider without the Nectar,” Shane said. “And she was sick for years afterward. Back then, I took care of her every day. She was such a strong person, I think sometimes she resented me for her own weakness. That was why she took the Bile, to cure her bonding sickness. But ever since then, she was … defensive. She came on too strong, even when she didn’t need to. I tried to convince her that she was overstepping her bounds around Gerathon, but she was tired of me taking care of her. Instead, she blundered forward in her usual way, taking on more than she could handle.”
Shane let out a deep breath. It sounded like one he’d been holding for a long time. “I’d have made a similar mistake eventually, and it would have been the end of me. I … hope I’m doing the right thing. What other choice do I have?”
Abeke laid her hand on his forearm. It was strong and warm, the hairs bright golden blond and the skin pink from sunburn. “You did. I owe you my life for the decision you made.”
“Your friends should imprison me,” Shane said. “If I were in their position, that’s exactly what I’d do.”
Abeke smiled encouragingly. “Maybe they will, for a few days. But I’ll come take care of you, like you’ve cared for me. They’re good people, and once they understand where you’re coming from, they’ll relent. The Greencloaks are merciful.”
“I hear what you’re saying, but all the same I can’t really feel it. I’ll have to let your faith stand in for mine,” Shane said.
Abeke nodded, staring at the skyline. Greenhaven was getting larger on the horizon, a beautiful clean square of pebble gray, gleaming in the twilight. “I wish we could go ashore tonight,” Abeke said. “But the docks are unlit, and I’m afraid that if we arrive in the dark, a guard might hurt us before we can explain. I want them to know we’re not sneaking up on them.”
“It’s okay,” Shane said. “What’s one more night, right?”
They dropped anchor a few hundred yards from the castle walls, and ate their grilled dinner as the sun fell. The stars gradually emerged, their bright swaths more familiar to Abeke by now than the constellations of her old home, far to the south. Abeke remembered the evenings she’d stood watch for her companions, Uraza at her side. The leopard had sat bolt upright throughout the night, peering into the sky.
Once they finished their meal, Abeke summo
ned Uraza and gave her the remainder of the fish. Shane hadn’t summoned his wolverine the whole time they’d been on the ship — apparently it got distressed around water. Abeke suspected that maybe Shane’s connection to Renneg was weaker than he’d care to admit. Perhaps his reassurance wasn’t enough to keep the creature calm on the boat. Not wanting to embarrass him, she didn’t force the issue, and kept Uraza in dormant form more often than not.
Abeke ran her fingers through Uraza’s sleek fur and stared deep into her purple eyes. Uraza conspicuously avoided looking at Shane. “It’s okay,” Abeke said, “we can trust him now.”
Uraza allowed herself to check out Shane, then returned her gaze haughtily to Abeke. Evidently she wasn’t as sure.
Stroking the leopard, Abeke’s thoughts wandered to the next morning. With luck it would only be a few hours before she’d see everyone again. She couldn’t wait to embrace them, tell them all that had happened, and get working on a plan to rescue Meilin. She wondered how it would feel with Shane there — Rollan especially would lay into the former Conqueror, but Conor would probably come to understand. They all would.
TARIK’S FUNERAL WAS HELD IN THE GREAT HALL OF Greenhaven. It was a brilliant, sunstruck morning, and as the sun rose in the sky, its light cascaded through the open circle in the roof, pooling golden light around Tarik’s ceremonial sarcophagus. Olvan had initially placed Conor and Rollan at the front of the assemblage, in a position of honor, but Lenori, with her usual wisdom, had quietly ushered the boys to the back of the hall so they could grieve in more privacy. “You’ve been through so much,” she’d said. “If you need to leave during the ceremony, it will be easier this way.”
At first Conor hadn’t felt the need to move to the back, and had done so only for the sake of Rollan, who still seemed dazed after their trials in Nilo. But now, as the ceremony entered its second hour, he was glad to be at the rear. His head nodded while the Greencloaks came up one by one to praise Tarik’s accomplishments. He’d had one good night’s sleep in a familiar bed, yes, but it had still been less than twenty-four hours since they dragged themselves into Greenhaven, the boys’ skin still red and scratched from the whipping sands of Nilo.
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