by Jae Waller
“I don’t know.” I covered my face with my hands. “I don’t know what I want.”
“The Iyo ain’t perfect, but it gets harder the longer you’re gone from your own kind. I see it when people come back from Caladheå. Like they can’t call Toel home anymore.” Dunehein frowned. “This Tiernan fellow. I’m not sure how to feel, Kako. Everything going on lately — it’s not good, you know?”
“I trust him, Dune. More than I trust most people.”
“I’ve got nothing against the man. I just want you to have somewhere stable when things get worse out there. You’re strong, little cousin, but even the strongest bird has to land eventually.”
I bit my lip. “What’s happening here? Will the Iyo join the war?”
“Nei. Not this time. We used to have our own military regiment in Caladheå, but Tokoda disbanded them. No more fighting itheran wars, she said.”
“It could spread. Crieknaast isn’t doing well.”
He shrugged. “Maybe. But I don’t blame her. Both her kids died in the Third Elken War, the eldest only nineteen. That’s why her brother Wotelem is Okoreni-Iyo.”
I glanced at the families by the hearth and pictured Toel Ginu empty, the peninsula quiet except for wind and waves. I shuddered. It felt too much like Aeti Ginu.
Dunehein lay back on the bed, his light hair sprawling across the black fur. “Aeldu save us. I’m scared, Kako. What am I doing, bringing a child into this world?”
“You’re doing a good thing. If we die, let it be to protect the people we love.” I lay next to him and gazed at the vaulted ceiling. “If you have a girl, she’ll get your tiger lily crest. Your bloodline shouldn’t end with you.”
He sighed. “None of this shit was happening when Rija and I decided to have a kid.”
“Yeah, but that kid will have the toughest parent ever to protect it.” I grinned. “Plus you, I guess.”
Even his laughter sounded like a roaring bear. He shoved me off the low platform with a sweep of one arm. “Who knew you’d grow up to be such a brat?”
•
Night had fallen by the time we tracked down Tiernan and Rikuja. The stone bridge to the shrine glowed with torchlight, a fiery path through the fog. The gate fluttered with blue and white flags. Muffled music blended with the crash of waves.
A woman stood in the centre of the shrine steps as people flowed around her. Her silver braid draped over one shoulder. She wore a sleeveless shirt to show her numerous tattoos. If the interlocking lines on her arm didn’t give her identity away, the respectful way everyone greeted her did. Her gaze glided over us, but she made no move to speak with us.
Airedain was right. Skaarnaht paled in comparison to the spring equinox. The shrine was packed with people dancing, drinking, hanging over balcony railings to watch the drummers in the centre of the room. Drumbeats pounded the walls and spilled into the night. Airedain wasn’t onstage, so I squeezed along the edge of the ground floor until I found people serving drinks out of casks.
“What is this?” Tiernan asked as I handed him a frothing mug.
“No idea, but I’m positive it has alcohol.”
He gave me an amused look. “You are a bad influence.”
I clinked our mugs. The sap-coloured liquid tasted like spiced ale, a half-successful attempt to mask the swamp aroma. “To a night of bad influences and worse decisions.”
I danced up a staircase and into the surging crowd. People pressed in from all sides, skin and cloth rubbing together. The spring equinox was the one night when no one cared about touching anyone’s hair. I held my mug in the air and took Tiernan’s hand as I moved my hips to the music. “Come on. Stop being uptight for once in your life.”
“I don’t dance.”
“You do now.” I spun, tossing my hair and kicking up my feet. He laughed and relented, moving with me until we were swept up in the current.
I closed my eyes and soaked in the noise, heat, smell of bodies in motion. For the first time in months, it was warm enough to wear my cropped shirt and leggings, my bare stomach and thighs kissed by the muggy air. The music was as familiar as my name, but the Rin shrine had never felt so alive. Neither had I. When I opened my eyes Tiernan was watching me. I grinned and turned sideways, one hand folded into my hair as I swayed back and forth.
Dunehein and Rikuja passed by and raised their mugs in silent greeting. I saw Rikuja’s three brothers with their wives and children. Airedain pressed against an Iyo girl with his hands on her waist. Segowa pretended not to notice. Airedain’s sister, Lituwa, danced with a man I guessed was her husband. Falwen stood stiffly by a pillar. There were people from every Aikoto jouyen, and a couple I thought might be from the Nuthalha and Kowichelk confederacies.
When Tiernan and I retreated to catch our breath, Airedain waved from behind a clump of people. “Back soon,” I said into Tiernan’s ear.
Airedain met me halfway. He had black cloth around his wrists and swirling blue lines painted on his skin, the Iyo drummer regalia, but wore his standard black tunic and breeches. He wrapped an arm around me, holding a mug in the air to avoid spilling it. “Rin-girl! Having fun?”
I scrunched up my nose and pushed him away. He smelled like alcohol and his skin was slick. “Gross. You’re all sweaty.”
He grinned. “Now you are, too.”
“Ai, weren’t you seeing that Sverbian girl, Britte? Do you have a lover in every town?”
“I’ve only been to three towns.” He took a swig of ale. “So yes.”
“Sleaze. I’m sure Segowa raised you better than that.”
Airedain looked unfazed. “Britte doesn’t care what I do outside Caladheå. Honesty’s good for you. You should try it.”
I crossed my arms. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He used his mug to point at Tiernan, who was watching us. “Why bring an itheran unless you’re tapping him?”
My jaw dropped. Airedain threw his head back and laughed. I smacked his arm. “It’s not like that. It’s complicated.”
“So uncomplicate it.” He poked my ribs. “Does he even know?”
“M . . . aybe? Yes? I think so?”
“Aeldu save you. No wonder it’s so fucking complicated, ai?”
I shoved him lightly. “Don’t you have somewhere to be? Aren’t you playing tonight?”
“Soon. When those old folks get tired. Wait — shit.” Airedain stood on his toes to peer at the lower floor. The drums had stopped, replaced by a loud hum of voices. He downed his ale, pulled off his tunic, and thumped a hand on my shoulder. “Make that now. Get down there, this is gonna be good.”
Tiernan gave me an odd look when I returned, but I ignored it and pulled him downstairs. The next drummers were onstage by the time we got there. Airedain winked as he strapped his drum around his waist. They raised their mallets—
Music pulsed through the shrine, a fast and heavy beat that rattled the window shutters. The floorboards vibrated until the building moved with the crowd. Arms and legs and heads churned around us. I pressed my back against Tiernan’s chest, feeling his sweat on my skin.
“Kateiko—” His hands went to my arms as if to push me away, but there was no room to move. So I stayed, tipping my head back onto his shoulder to gaze up through hazy torchlight as drumbeats resonated through our bodies.
A drummer shouted something. As people began to push backward, I realized what was happening. Space was cleared near the stage. Dancers spun into the empty circle, showing off to the cheers of onlookers before diving back into the fray.
“Rin-girl!” Airedain called, twirling a mallet and pointing it at me. “Show us what you can do!”
I froze for a second before someone pushed me forward, and then it was too late. I spun on my heel. As my arms sailed out, ribbons of water flowed from my hands and snapped through the air. I lifted my arms, twisted the whips tog
ether, and let them rise toward the high ceiling. The crowd blurred. I heard cheering, but I only saw Tiernan, his eyes fixed on me—
—before the shrine splintered and he was gone.
The faces behind him smudged. I fell and fell and fell. Everything slid out of view. The roof vaulted overhead. My body collided with the ground and the air burst from my lungs.
•
I awoke on something soft and smooth. Everything was dark except for warm light off to my side. I turned my head and saw Tiernan sitting on a stool, enveloped in firelight from a vellum lantern. Faint drumbeats and the smell of seawater drifted in on the breeze. “Where are we?”
“Dunehein’s home. His bed, to be precise. He carried you here.” Tiernan gave a faint smile. “Airedain came, too, with Rikuja and others I do not know. Many people care for you here.”
“Where are they?”
“They just left. I asked to speak to you privately.”
I sat up and groaned. My hands trembled. The entire world felt shaky and my insides felt tangled as a bird nest. “Why does this keep happening? I thought—” I knotted my fingers into my hair. “Kaid! I thought I left this all behind in Anwen Bel.”
Tiernan looked at his folded hands, his hair falling into his eyes. “I assume you saw into the shoirdryge again.”
“Yeah. You were there, then you weren’t anymore. Because in that world, I didn’t bring you here tonight.”
“I . . . have a theory. But this time, it really is just a theory.” He rose and paced away. “The most likely sites for a rift into the shoirdryge are those that seem . . . damaged. The death of so many saidu means the sites are not being repaired from our side, and the barriers grow thinner.”
“But most of my visions didn’t happen anywhere damaged.”
“Not all are as obvious as the wasteland. Everything we do marks the earth. Plowing fields, lighting fires, digging wells. There is a common thread with your visions. Every one occurred while you used magic. Perhaps you pulled water from the shoirdryge without even realizing.”
“That . . . would explain how I found water in the wasteland.” I swung my legs over the side of the bed. “Are you saying I’ve been springing tiny leaks in our world for years?”
“Not exactly.” Tiernan turned back to face me. “It requires an enormous amount of power to create a rift. Think of your magic as absorbing water into a sponge. It weakens the barrier enough for you to see through, but does no real damage.”
“So why don’t I get visions every time I call water?”
He rubbed his forehead. “That is where my theory comes in. I believe you are simply in the right mindset sometimes. Our minds focus just like our eyes. You expected to see another world and you found one.”
“But I didn’t expect to see Aeldu-yan tonight! I haven’t in months!”
“Maybe not consciously. But your mind already learned how to see shoirdrygen. You were on sacred ground during a gathering of your people, just like your first vision.”
“So this might happen every time I visit a shrine?” I tried to stand. My knees gave out.
Tiernan caught my arms. “Honestly? I do not know.”
I leaned against him, burying my face into his shoulder. He was so warm I felt dizzy. “I don’t want anything to do with other worlds. I want to live in this world with you.”
“Kako,” he whispered. Not once had he ever called me that. “I cannot ask you to stay with me—”
“I’m asking you, Tiernan. Stay with me in this world.” I searched his grey eyes. “Please. I’m not asking for anything else.”
Tiernan put rough fingers under my chin. He brushed his lips against my hair, sending lightning through my body. When he spoke, his voice was heavy. “I am sorry, Kako. I cannot give you that promise.”
20.
SACRED GROUND
Tiernan, Dunehein, and I walked along the cliffs the next morning while Rikuja finished her carving. Wind battered the trees on the island until they bowed under the strain. I latched onto Dunehein’s arm, partly so I had an excuse not to walk near Tiernan.
“My little barnacle,” Dunehein chuckled. He must’ve noticed Tiernan and I had barely spoken all day. “You used to follow me and Emehein all over. Your tema sure showed us the back of her tongue after we swam in a river during the snowmelt.”
“And then I wasn’t allowed to swim with you anymore, so I went with Nili.”
“Aeldu save us, I don’t know how our parents coped. I could use you around when my little one comes.”
I held my hair out of my face as gusts tossed it in every direction, the brown strands blending with Dunehein’s. My cloak battered my legs. “I doubt Tokoda will let me stay.”
“I spoke to her last night. She’s willing to meet you.” Dunehein glanced at the sky. “Stay another day, at least. Storm’s blowing in.”
The ocean had turned steely grey, its steep waves crested with white foam. The sky was scrubbed of colour like a worn rag stretched over the earth. I searched for dark clouds, but there were none. The wind seemed to come from everywhere at once.
“Something is wrong.” Tiernan stopped, his face blank. He pointed down the peninsula. “There.”
I squinted at the island. At first I couldn’t see anything — then I noticed the curl of black smoke rising from the grove.
“Rija,” was all Dunehein said.
Then we were running. Dodging boulders, tearing through scrubby grass, leaning into the wind. Onto the stone archway as smoke swelled into the sky. Under the log gateway with its leaping dolphins.
The thought flickered through my mind that the equinox was over. Not my shrine, not my jouyen. I threw that thought into the ocean and kept going.
Dunehein took the steps two at a time and wrenched open the doors. Searing heat and acrid smoke poured out. Flames consumed the far wall. I could just make out Rikuja on the second level, trapped between a burning staircase and a gap in the floor. She yelled to us over the crackle of burning wood.
I raised my hands — and remembered last night. My water fizzled into steam. I swore, choked on ash, and clamped my sleeve to my mouth. The charred stairs began to crumble. Boards crashed to the floor, spraying out embers.
Suddenly the heat faded. Tiernan stood next to me, glowing like the sun. Tendrils of flame pulled back to the corners of the shrine.
Dunehein pressed into the opening. Rikuja swung her legs over the railing, hung from the ledge, and fell into Dunehein’s arms. He staggered and set her on the ground. I waved through the orange haze. Rikuja dashed toward me—
—and the balcony gave out with a groan of cracking wood. A pillar toppled and slammed into Dunehein, knocking him flat. A chunk of glowing timber landed on his arm.
“Dunehein!” Rikuja shrieked.
We sprinted forward. Rikuja pulled burning debris off his body while I grabbed the massive pillar, straining to lift it. Dunehein twisted around, but couldn’t get a good hold on it. My eyes watered so much I could barely see.
“Watch out!” I spun my flail and smashed it into the smouldering beam over and over until it fractured. Sparks spat out in every direction.
We heaved the splintered fragments aside. Dunehein tried to stand, but one leg gave out. Rikuja and I swung his arms over our shoulders. The smell of scorched flesh made my stomach twist. Something crashed to the floor, showering us in embers.
I chanced a look back as we neared the open doors. Tiernan was silhouetted by blazing red and gold, hands up as if straining against an invisible wall. Flames closed in, swallowing the gap where Rikuja had been. I tried to shout, but there was no air in my lungs.
We stumbled outside. People flowed into the grove, Wotelem and Tokoda at the front. Someone helped us ease Dunehein onto the ground. Rikuja collapsed, gasping for breath.
“Rija.” Dunehein kissed her forehead and placed a hand on her
stomach. “Rija, are you both—”
“I think so.” Her smile trembled. Tears streamed down her cheeks.
I spat ash and rubbed my sleeve across my eyes. “Tiernan!” I yelled. Figures passed by in the swirling black haze, fanning out around the shrine. Wind shrieked through the trees. I turned back and forth, ignoring the embers landing on my skin.
I didn’t see Tiernan striding across the rocky ground until he was right in front of me. His skin was raw, hair damp with sweat, clothes streaked with soot. He caught me and pressed his hands to my head. I smelled my hair scorch at his touch.
“Kako. Are you all right?”
“Ow — yeah—” I said between coughs.
He turned to Rikuja. “Do you know what caused the fire?”
“Nei. I didn’t notice until it was too late. A candle must’ve blown over—”
“Bøkkai,” Tiernan swore. “Call off your mages!” he yelled as waves rose from the ground and crashed against the blazing building.
“Have you lost your mind?” Tokoda called.
“This fire is Suriel’s doing! Fighting it is a death wish!”
Everyone stared at him. “Why should I believe you, itheran?” Tokoda asked.
“It’s burning too fast to be an accident!” Tiernan knelt and pressed his hand to the dirt. A pulse of light shot across the ground. The shrine flashed blinding white. Plumes of smoke shifted in the sky, coalescing into the outline of a kinaru.
Cold fear washed over me. “Tiernan’s right! They have to stop!”
“Let it burn, Tokoda,” Dunehein said, grimacing in pain. “It ain’t worth the fight.”
Tokoda didn’t respond. The top level of the shrine caved in with a terrible grating sound, launching sparks into the air. Flames rose from the yawning gap and collided with the onslaught of water. Steam drowned out clouds on the horizon.
“Suriel!” I shouted. “If we let the shrine go, will you let us live?”