by Kaye, Rainy
Randall left his untouched plate to the side, as well.
We had run out of time. We couldn’t stay here any longer, because we couldn’t eat—or drink, since the substitute for water was berry juice grown in the same morbid garden—and even in this world, we wouldn’t last long without either.
“So,” I said, and the room stilled, all eyes turning to me, their prophetess. “Let’s plan a war.”
15
Drop in the Rock didn’t have a war room, which said a lot about their military. As it turned out, they didn’t have one of those, either.
“The Fire Lords used to do all the preparations,” Gray said with a grimace from where he stood, leaning his hip against the kitchen counter. He swirled the juice in his glass, as if it were a fine wine. “We had never opposed each other, until now.”
Now being the last fifteen hundred years. The Fire Lords really had put them in a bind.
Questions crossed Randall’s face; his lips vaguely moved as if he was testing out the first inquiry. I shot him a look. We needed to stick to the basics. Everything else was sure to leave us with acres of more questions. We didn’t understand this world, and we had no point cramming for a test that wasn’t going to happen.
“Right,” I said to Gray. “So these people use fire. What did you use?”
“Earth,” Gray said. “Marlowe is from the Air Lords but she has lived with us for a long time.”
“There’s a lot of people in this world,” I said, not sure I understood my own point.
Gray stared at me as if he were looking directly into the sun. “The other Air Lords and the Water Lords will not join us until the path is cleared so they can appease the idols. If we could amass and fight off the Fire Lords together, we would have already, but—”
“It’s a hopeless cause,” I finished for him. “No one from this world can manipulate the elements without the idols being appeased, so you’re all just basically wearing pots and pans on your heads and using couch pillows for shields to defeat the Mongolians. I got you.”
He nodded. “Once we appease our idols and they raise their hands, we can take over from there. The Fire Lords will back down when they realize balance has been restored. We just need you to clear the path to the idols.”
“Great…” I stretched my upper back against the couch, but it did little to relieve the tightness in my chest. “How do I go about doing that?”
“It’s your magic, prophetess,” Sahir said. He puttered around the room, doing nothing of substance.
A war general, he was not.
I met everyone’s gaze in turn, hoping for someone to throw an idea into the hat. None gave.
“Alright,” I began slowly. “Given you know the Fire Lords better than I do—used to be friends with them, it seems—then what would you say their biggest weakness is? Just rapid fire here.”
“Ice,” Hava said from the floor, not looking up from her game of Tin Elephants with herself.
Were there no other children in Drop in the Rock?
I tipped my head as she continued.
“The Fire Lords have control over the lava, over everything left in this world,” she said with a shrug and moved a green piece up the board. “You can’t beat them at fire. You have to use something that makes them give up.”
I frowned at the row of Tin Elephants at the top of the board, opposite of where she sat.
“I’ll go first,” I said. “Once I clear the path, then you set out across the lava lake.”
Randall sat forward in his seat. “Saf, we should bring everyone at once. That way—”
I held up my hand, pushing down the heat of embarrassment that I had to silence him like that in front of the others. Truth was, he was probably right—if I had intended to liberate the idols.
Had I not been clear to him about my intentions, or was he just planning to go through with what they asked of us?
Of me.
Gray and Aella exchanged looks, but I could tell by Sahir’s nod that it didn’t matter what anyone else said. I was the prophetess. They would do as I requested.
Guilt twanged in my chest, deep inside, back behind my heart. Maybe that was where my soul lived.
Blinking back tears I had not expected, I tried to swallow, but my throat constricted. Saliva puddled slowly in my mouth.
“So, when do we leave?” Randall asked, but his words were like a drawn-out sigh.
Aella shifted her gaze to me. When I didn’t respond, she prodded, “Prophetess?”
“When the Fire Lords sleep,” I said, voice hoarse, just above a whisper. “Randall will come with me on the first boat.”
Strain tensed his face, but he said nothing. Not with his mouth. I could read him though, maybe always had been able to and just tried to ignore it.
He didn’t like this plan. I didn’t either. Waiting until the Fire Lords were asleep sounded like a basic but solid war-strategy, but Randall and I both knew the truth—it would give our followers from Drop in the Rock time to flee when they realized we had betrayed them.
As if to inflame my guilt, Gray perked up, turning to Randall. “Come with me, and I will get you a sheath for your sword.”
Randall stood, stiff legged, and followed Gray out of the room. Coldness drifted toward me from where Randall had been, not a sign of parted lovers or romantic heat, but I now sat alone in a room full of people who, in a few short hours, would have a lifelong grudge against me—however much time that might wind up being.
I needed to get the keys.
I clung to that thought as if it were my friend, and when Randall returned, catching me with a brief look of scorn when no one noticed, I realized it may have been my only friend left.
We didn’t speak as we led ourselves back to the witch’s house, to rest and prepare for whatever passed as nightfall in this place.
The sheath fit Randall’s sword perfectly, and he tried it out without looking at me. Suppressing an unwarranted sigh, I trudged up the stairs to the loft and flopped down on my pile of blankets and pillows, provided by the people who had entrusted me with their lives.
Everyone seemed to these days, whether they realized it or not. The world back home—or at the very least, large portions of it—didn’t even know that they needed me, but they would die if I let them down. I didn’t like the feeling. Whoever thought being a superhero would be fun was sorely mistaken—and not just figuratively.
Everything hurt. My body, my brain, and now quite literally whatever made me, well, me. How had I gone from someone who took relatively lofty risks to help unwitting clients, who had set out to rescue her best friend from a horde of evil magic-wielders, who chased and confronted the deadliest mages and witches in the world, to someone who was going to…run away?
I scoffed at myself and closed my eyes, but unfortunately, I was still there.
When I awoke to someone knocking on the door downstairs, below the loft, I picked up my thoughts right where I had left off. No momentary confusion, no slow dawning of what was to come. Instead, my brain had paused to rest but not forget.
Next to me, Randall made a noise akin to a moan as he rolled from sleep and then, rubbing his hand down his face, pushed upright to hands and knees. His expression clearly registered when he realized where he was and what was to come. His brain had allowed him a short reprieve.
The knocking came again, and with a glance at me—mainly because he would have had to look at the ceiling on his way down to avoid doing so—he climbed to the ground floor and crossed the room in a few long strides to open the door. I scurried over to the loft edge and rested my hands on the railing, chin on top, to stare down.
Gray stood outside, and behind him, several others I did not recognize. They peered inside, apprehensive but kind. I smiled and, freeing one hand, gave a short wave. A woman with long hair tied back with a scarf darted out of sight with a shy smile.
Some of these people had not touched their magic in centuries. Now here I was, their prophetess, meant to retur
n what was rightfully theirs.
Maybe I could take on the Fire Lords. I had to make it to the tower anyway. The idols weren’t much farther, were they?
Kind of. The problem was, I would have to actually bypass the tower to clear the path to the idols, to defend the people from Drop in the Rock and beyond, until they reached their destination. Only once they appeased the idols—however that was done—would I be able to loop back around and return to the tower to find the keys. A lot could happen in that time—including my unfortunate and untimely demise.
“Are you ready?” Gray asked, voice calm and sincere. “We have gathered the others who will join us for their respective idols and have begun to ready the boats.”
“How long did I sleep?” I blurted, and then shook off the question and started down the steps to join them on the ground floor.
With their appreciation and devotion nearly a tangible greeting, I convinced myself that maybe I could take the few extra paces to secure their idols before I retreated to the tower. Randall and I had pulled off some amazing feats already. What was one more?
I nearly laughed at myself. At the rate we had been going, we were going to die sooner rather than later. We just seemed certain on taking down as many wrongs with us as we could.
Joseph only had one portrait under his belt. We had two, working on three, however the situation with Yuto would pan out.
Maybe we could add the Dark Land’s cause to our resume too.
As I approached the door, Randall moved aside. A small smile softened his face, and for a moment, I thought he was mocking me.
Then I stepped outside, just on the other side of the threshold.
People fanned out from the front of the house, over the bridge, and across the town. Up on balconies several stories above ground, across the rock edges of the canyon that blocked part of the ember-smoldering sky, they stood as sentinels, as waiting soldiers, as devotees.
When Gray had said they had gathered others, he hadn’t mentioned he had brought everyone. I didn’t know how many people inhabited this world, but before me stood more people than I had realized had resided here, had suffered here. Had placed their last hope on me here.
I knew for sure then that Randall was, in fact, mocking me.
He knew all along I was going to fight the Fire Lords.
The problem was: I wasn’t sure I knew myself that well. As much as I appreciated the vote of confidence from everyone, I couldn’t say for sure I wasn’t going to chicken out when I got to the shore. Being that close to the tower, to my one chance at the keys—and the damn vault I needed so desperately—I might just run.
In the end, I might turn out to be an awful person.
“Prophetess?” Gray asked with a solemn bow of his head.
I returned the gesture. If he knew the horrible thoughts I’d had in the last few hours, he would not have been so keen to act like I deserved respect.
Randall darted to the table where he had left his sheathed sword. He fixed it around his waist and then joined me as I followed Gray across the yard, toward the bridge. The others turned and fell back, allowing Gray—and Randall and me—to march through their midst, toward the path Marlowe had brought us through when we first arrived at Drop in the Rock.
We filed through the canyon and up the incline to join with our comrades on the top of the slate stacks. Those from the town flowed up behind us, not in strict formation but in dazed, intoxicated happiness, dancing behind me as if I were the Pied Piper.
As a loose group, we swarmed toward the lava lake. There, an endless line of boats, sans sail or oar, waited on our shore.
I squinted as we neared. The boats were mottled gray with lavender veins, and lines had been scraped in the hard black earth from where the ships had been dragged into position.
“Are those stone?” I asked Gray as I veered toward him, but even as I asked, something chewed at my thoughts. Just as I identified it, he replied.
“Yes, air stone,” he said. “Before our magic vanished, we worked with the Air Lords and forged with the earth elements a material that was as durable as stone but as light as air.”
“The skipping rocks Hava used,” I muttered more to myself than anything. I perked up as we came to stand next to one of the boats, and I reached out to touch them. It felt a bit like Styrofoam, but when I pressed my nail into it, I couldn’t even leave a mark. “It just sits on the surface of the lava lake?”
“It floats,” he said, and I started to nod before I realized the distinction.
“You mean, it floats along, so we don’t need to guide it.” I turned to stare off toward the far shore. “What if we want to go another direction in it?”
“When we designed them, we used the wind to guide them,” he said.
He didn’t mean sails, not that mundane. Their buddies, the Air Lords, had used their air magic to propel their snazzy little invention.
“Right, but given the current, um, situation, shouldn’t we bring an oar? I can sing something in Italian,” I said, trying for some levity but failing.
He brushed off my attempt at humor, which was probably for the best for both of us.
“The boats will float toward the idol shore,” he said, “and when we are ready to return, the air magic will have been restored. The Air Lords will direct us.”
Was he that confident in me, or was he trying to make a point? I didn’t really have a foothold to stand against him, not really. Either he was right, or I was going to mess this up. Both of those were my problem, somehow.
“Okay,” I said.
There was no way I was going to suggest we bring some of the Air Lords along for the ride. We already had more people involved than I wanted. At least the Air and Water Lords had deigned to stay on this side of the lake until the war was won. We wouldn’t need them, not in the end.
I turned to scan the distance for Randall. He stood with Marlowe and Aella several yards away, talking. They leaned in, one by one, and hugged him as if he were a son, and I had to wonder if it was more for them or him.
He returned their embrace before heading toward me. His expression revealed nothing.
So much for convincing myself I could always read him.
When we got back home, one day, he was going to have to take up poker. He could make a killing.
I started to ask him what he had been up to. Under the murmuring of people around us and the soft, out of rhythm sound of their footsteps, came a scraping noise. I looked up as men worked together with ropes to tug a monstrosity of a ship toward the shore. An enormous mast, encircled by sculptures of women on ledges, held no sail, but stood as a defiant testament to the magic that had crafted it and that would once again propel it. The figurehead depicted the bust of a woman bigger than my entire body with her hair carved in a windswept motion that seemed to be moving despite being etched forever in stone.
As the bow touched the lava lake, I realized this was not just any ship.
It was for me.
Gray gestured forward with a bow and an arm out, and I looked up, startled as rows of people formed around us, parted to provide a clear path to the stairs that led to the deck. Randall stood a few feet away, in the path, and he reached out one hand for me.
There was so much in that offer, more than there should have been. He wasn’t just helping me onto the boat. He was joining me—again. He was entrusting I would do the right thing.
He was assuring that nothing about the past mattered, that nothing would ever wash away these moments, never dilute what we had, even if we didn’t know what that was.
He was offering his everything, if I wanted it.
I took his hand.
Together, we followed the dark earth path to the stairs and climbed them, step by step, as one, to the deck. As we reached the top, the ship slid forward, propelled by the team that had amassed behind it. With a heave ho, they glided the stone ship into the lava lake. Sparks and orange arches of magic danced in our wake.
It wasn’t until
we had left the shore that I realized I should have feared the ship would sink, that the air and earth magic welded into it would fail.
The ship swayed forward, headed for the distant shore.
For the tower. For the idols.
My magic swirled up and around me, and I did not have to call it forward. It just was.
I tipped my head to the sky and watched as the clouds threatened to rain fire. Even if I could not help these people, I hoped they would find another way to reach their idols. That someday their sky would hang heavy with water again.
We had crossed halfway in the lake. In a few minutes, we would reach the distant shore. The boat did not feel as if it was cruising along, but judging by how the lava welled up on either side far below, and the speed at which the shore was approaching, we had to be moving at a fast clip.
The smaller boats on the shore we had set out from began to push into the lava, following our trail.
“No.”
My heart sank down, down, and my knees tried to collapse.
I put my hand on Randall’s arm. “They can’t follow us. I told them not to follow us.”
I watched in horror as boat after boat set forward behind us, coming up. The occupants stood tall.
They were ready to fight for their idols.
We couldn’t run now. We had no choice but to wage war, or these people would be trapped on the side of the lake with the Fire Lords, with no way to return.
And the Fire Lords would know why they had come.
Noises behind me, in the direction of the idol shore, collapsed my will altogether. The sound came again, a distinct thudding, provoking me. Goading me. It wanted to be acknowledged.
Slowly, I forced myself to turn around.
Row after row of people marched up and out of the valley below the idols, coming from two directions and merging near the shore. Dressed in rust and yellow armor that flared out at the shoulders, they resembled the flowing streams of lava they controlled. What little of their skin was visible was marked with swirling tattoos.