The Ever Cruel Kingdom

by Rin Chupeco

  “It’s not that bad,” Odessa said mildly.

  “Speak for yourself. I feel like I’m being slow-cooked over a fire the size of a lunar lake.”

  “Worse than being on a ship?” She was grinning. I knew she was teasing me, trying to get me out of my bad mood.

  I couldn’t help it; I’d thought I was prepared for almost anything the extremes of Aeon could throw at me, but I didn’t account for searing heat. “Worse. I can throw up on a ship and get the sickness out of my system. There’s no escaping this.”

  “What’s a ship?” Millie asked.

  “It’s a bit like a rig, although it’s very large and has no wheels. It takes us over water.” Odessa tugged at her sleeves, then rolled them up. “What do you need us to do?”

  “Derra and Mannix—those are our Mudforgers—are trying to squeeze as much water as they can out from the sand before this”—Kadmos gestured at the sky—“rain passes and the sun dries everything back out. But it’s a lot of work for just two—”

  Odessa wove Air patterns, her eyes glowing blue.

  The rain around us paused, hung suspended in the air, slowly collecting into an invisible container made of wind that stretched out over our heads. “You won’t have to pull it out of the ground this way,” she said. “Bring out all the jars and basins you want me to put this in.”

  “I love her already,” Mannix breathed, as the others stared at her in awe.

  “Are you sleeping with Arjun, too, or is it just the Sun Goddess who is?” Imogen was even blunter. “Is it like a two-for-one deal?”

  “Imogen!” Arjun barked, turning scarlet.

  Haidee burst into laughter. “I’d drop a whale on him if he tried!”

  “I’m not with him. I—I’m with—I’m with—” Odessa glanced at me and quickly looked down, blushing.

  Imogen grinned, and whatever tension still lingered disappeared. “I mean no disrespect, Your Holinesses. I just wanted to be sure that my brother here was a decision you made out of choice and not out of necessity.” She danced out of Arjun’s reach, dashing outside to the sounds of laughter from her siblings.

  “Sorry about that,” Arjun muttered.

  “It’s all right. They’re taking to me better than you did the first time we met.”

  “How exactly did you meet?” Noelle queried. “If you will pardon my curiosity.”

  “He tried to kill me,” Haidee said cheerfully. “I changed his mind, though.”

  Arjun opened his mouth, let out an exasperated sigh instead.

  There were fresh sounds of mirth by the entrance; the rest of the group had ventured out of the cave, and now found themselves soaked to the skin.

  “That’s enough,” I ordered, stepping forward. “You’re all going to catch hypothermia if you’re not careful.”

  “Hypo-what?” asked Faraji, a dark-skinned boy with a mop of thick hair and an earnest face.

  Right. They wouldn’t know what that was. Several days ago, I wouldn’t have known a barren sunland like this could exist, either. “Hypothermia. You can die from getting too cold. You can also get chills and develop problems with your breathing.”

  “Out of those wet clothes,” I instructed, turning to the nearest Oryx clan member—Millie, who, despite the thick humidity, was already shivering. “I’m a Catseye,” I began, unsure if an equivalent rank existed in this part of the world, but she looked startled, and then grateful, as she extended her hands willingly toward me. I forced warmth into her, drawing the cold out from her lungs, her sinuses, and everywhere else that could pose a problem. “You’ll still need to get out of those clothes.”

  “No need,” Mannix said, somewhat sheepishly. His eyes shone a golden brown, and droplets dripped off her, snaking out of her clothes. “I’m a Mudforger. I should have done this earlier.”

  The whole clan had taken to us like old friends by the time we were done. Mother Salla had once been a Devoted, Arjun said. She was the Oryx clan leader. She might have taught them to resent Latona, but that dislike didn’t seem to extend to Haidee, or to Odessa.

  “This is a sign, innit?” Kadmos asked. “The world really is turning.”

  “It’s more complicated than that.” Salla sounded weary, sipping her tea. “There will be more rain, and more unexpected phenomena as Aeon changes.”

  “Shouldn’t we be celebrating?” Imogen asked. “We’ve got water! We won’t have to squeeze every clean drop out from Salt Sea dregs anymore!”

  “Should we be celebrating?” Salla asked Arjun. “As much as the rains give me hope, your account of your experiences at Brighthenge also fills me with dread.” Her gaze moved to both Haidee and Odessa, who traded nervous glances. “I knew your mothers. It would take considerable strength to undo the chaos they caused.”

  Haidee raised her chin. It still felt odd to look at someone who looked so much like Odessa yet was not like her at all. “I’d like to know exactly what happened at the Breaking, for us to know if we’ve helped mitigate the damage or done worse. I . . .” The resolute expression on her face faltered, leaving her looking suddenly vulnerable. “I—I thought we were doing the right thing. But now Brighthenge’s overrun with galla, and I know that wasn’t supposed to happen. And Mother . . . Mother’s convinced we’ve made things worse. I’ve never seen her this furious before, or this afraid. Did we? Do worse, I mean?”

  Arjun scowled. “Don’t let her words get to you.”

  “Too late for that. And . . . I’m afraid she may be right. I thought getting the world to turn would solve everything.”

  Salla smiled faintly. “Don’t second-guess yourself, Your Holiness. Your actions pale in comparison to those of your elders. How much of the Breaking do you know about?”

  Haidee bit her lip. “Only what Mother told me. That her sister caused the Breaking, and that she was killed in its aftermath, along with my twin.”

  Salla looked at Odessa. After a moment’s hesitation, Odessa also nodded. “I was told the same thing, except that my aunt was responsible, and that she and my twin were killed.”

  The older woman leaned back against her seat and closed her eyes, pondering her next words. Latona and Asteria couldn’t both be their mothers; an answer meant that one of the goddesses had been living a lie all this time. Would Asteria be capable of lying to Odessa over something this important? I thought about my relationship with her over the years, the ruthlessness she’d displayed when her position was threatened. How she frequently manipulated the Devoted into scheming against each other.

  I hated that the answer was yes, she absolutely would.

  Salla didn’t bother to mince her words; all the better to lay out the truth without the trappings of comfort, I supposed, all the better to dissect and analyze it in its entirety. Normally I would agree, but it didn’t stop my stomach from clenching when she said, “You are both Latona’s daughters. It was she who was to be sacrificed before the Abyss. Asteria possessed the mark of the galla near her heart. Only the leaders knew what that meant, back then. That was how they knew it was Latona, and not Asteria, who was the sacrifice. The galla’s gifts would cure Asteria’s mark, but at a cost.”

  “The cost being her sister’s life,” Arjun said bleakly.

  That’s not true! I wanted to cry out. Asteria would have told me—

  No, she wouldn’t. In fact, she’d been lying to us all this time.

  The goddesses’ reactions were subtle enough, but still telling; a stiffening of Haidee’s shoulders, and the sudden hunching of Odessa’s, like she wanted to shrink into herself and disappear. I moved to where Odessa sat, kneeling beside her and taking her hand. In the brief time I’d seen mother and daughter together, Asteria had always displayed a certain detachment toward Odessa, more so than even her pragmatic personality required. It had none of the fiery anger and frustration that marked Haidee and Latona’s relationship, as had been clear during the brief encounter we had witnessed near their strange, domed city in the desert.

  Haidee turned to
Odessa, reaching out to bridge the space between them. Odessa hesitated, and accepted her hand as well, gratitude clear on her face.

  “I am sorry,” Salla said, “that you were both made to suffer for your mothers’ foolishness. Perhaps I should have told you all about this earlier, Arjun, but I never thought I would see both younger goddesses alive. Nor had I thought that I would ever see rain again. What do you wish to know?”

  “Is that how callously people treated all the goddesses before us?” Haidee’s hand, still enveloped in Odessa’s, was shaking slightly. “A mark was enough to merit an execution? Didn’t anyone fight for them? Were they so willing to watch them die?”

  “Most people weren’t even aware that two goddesses existed. Every pair of twins was separated at birth and each raised without knowledge of the other. That was the custom.”

  “But you knew. The Devoted who served the goddess who was to die,” Odessa whispered. “How could they allow this?”

  “We were told that her sacrifice was our duty. That it was the price to pay for Aeon to flourish. But many who served Latona resisted. Devika forced some to resign their service. We never heard from them again. It was her way of cowing them, we knew, so the rest stopped resisting so openly. But now . . . I wonder what truly happened to those others she dismissed.”

  “They should have done more,” Odessa said. “The ones who knew what the ritual really meant should have done more!”

  The older woman smiled faintly. “You are presuming,” she said, “that those few familiar with the secret would put the goddesses’s best interests before their own. I only learned the worst of it during the Breaking. The surviving goddesses often left the day-to-day administration of Aeon to the Devoted. They ruled on her behalf. In hindsight, I should have known better, should have questioned the strangeness of such a hierarchy. But I was too invested in my own comfort to protest.”

  Arjun swore angrily. “They could pass off the surviving goddess to the rest of the people like she’d been the only one all along, and no one would be the wiser. Those lying scum.”

  “Everything changed with Latona and Asteria. They found out about each other, and from that instant they broke every rule.” A thin smile graced Salla’s lips. “They had both snuck off to the city on their own, unaware of the other’s existence, and returned together, holding hands. Devika’s wrath knew no bounds, but they refused to leave each other’s side.”

  Arjun’s face was set. “So my mother was responsible for all of this.”

  “Your mother?” I asked.

  “Devika. The leader of Asteria’s Devoted,” he said candidly.

  The woman sighed. “She forbade the goddesses from seeing each other, yes. And when they disobeyed her, she tried to physically separate them, by sending Latona away.”

  “What did my father say about all this?” Arjun asked, tight-lipped.

  “He had passed away when Devika was pregnant with you. He was a low-ranked Devoted, but I knew very little of him. Devika didn’t like to talk about her husband. I’m sorry, Arjun. This is why I never told you much about your mother over the years.”

  “Did she have a Fire gate, too?” Odessa asked softly. She looked frail and vulnerable and sad, and all I wanted to do was wrap my arms around her and swear that everything would be all right, though I feared I might not be able to keep that promise.

  A part of me was also furious at these people, at all these horrible decisions that had been made for the twins long before they’d even been born. Knowing that expressing my anger right now would be useless was all that kept me from punching the wall, from yelling at Salla.

  “Yes,” Salla answered Odessa. “She was a rare Firesmoker who could wield blue fire.”

  “Like me.” Arjun didn’t sound surprised. From the way his jaw clenched, it was almost like he was expecting it.

  “Back then, those who could command blue fire were exalted above the rest. It was believed to be a sign of Inanna’s favor. In Inanna’s time, most served as the vestal virgins of her temple, her closest confidantes.”

  A loud snort came from Imogen, who was eavesdropping. “Arjun doesn’t strike me as someone you’d call a vestal virgin.”

  “Shut up, Immie,” Arjun growled.

  “What I don’t understand,” I said, “is how Latona and Asteria went from being as close as sisters can be to attempting to murder one another.”

  “Neither Asteria nor Latona knew that one of them had to die. They didn’t know generations of twins had come before them, or what had befallen them. They thought they were the first, that a civil war might break out, with factions springing up around each of them. I’m not too knowledgeable about the details, but the sisters had a personal falling-out, and Latona left the city, giving up all claims to rule. She was already pregnant by then. The goddess with the mark was supposed to have carried on the line, so you two were unexpected.”

  I frowned. “Wouldn’t the prophecy written at Brighthenge have foretold all this?”

  “It said that Latona and Asteria would change the world, but only in the vaguest terms. Your prophecy held more details than theirs.”

  “Who—” Odessa’s voice wobbled. “Who made these predictions?”

  “They’ve been etched within Brighthenge since Inanna’s time, I’m told. Yours and Haidee’s were the last of them all.”

  The last of the prophecies, implying that there would be no other goddesses to come after them. Odessa grew pale at the revelation; Haidee, angry and resolute.

  “The Devoted under Devika planned to kill Latona and claim she had died of natural causes, hoping their estrangement would prevent Asteria from investigating too closely. Devika even tried to turn them further against each other, claiming that one twin intended to have the other killed.”

  “That explains the letters,” Haidee said quietly. “My father realized they were being lied to.”

  Salla turned away. “My conscience finally got the better of me, though I had little power to stop the rites. Asteria was still too closely guarded. But I managed to send a letter to Latona. I warned her of what the Devoted had planned. She and your father rushed to Brighthenge to warn Asteria. Forgive me, Your Holinesses.”

  “You tried to save our mothers,” Haidee said softly. “There is no fault here to forgive. Thank you.”

  “I told Latona not to come. We’d learned that the final galla required your father’s life, and I thought it better that he stay away—though in the end, they ignored the advice. Devika’s machinations had worked well on Latona. Asteria had always been more studious, more at ease with people, while Latona was awkward and preferred solitude. Devika was good at playing on her insecurities. It crossed my mind afterward that she might have deliberately caused the Breaking . . . I hoped it was not so. But when she built the Golden City and drove many people out into the desert, delighting in her power as she did, I knew. I swore I would fight her for Asteria’s sake.”

  I squeezed Odessa’s hand gently. The goddess had been quiet this whole time, looking at the floor and biting worriedly at her lip. “Are you all right?”

  She squeezed back. “Mother Salla,” she finally said, looking up at the woman. “If you know about the sacrificial rites, then you surely know about the ritual involving the galla.”

  The older Firesmoker’s expression changed. “I didn’t then. I was at the temple, but was not allowed to bear witness to the rite firsthand—a decision that might have saved my life. I only remember a strange light. I saw Latona stumbling into it, and then it, too, encompassed me. And then I was in the desert.”

  “The portal,” Haidee murmured, her mechanika mind still hunting for solutions. “So many people dying—it must have triggered both portals inadvertently, without anyone meaning to. . . .” She trailed off, shuddered.

  “It was whispered even back then, how those portals required human life to open. They were allegedly the portals that Inanna had used to gain access to the Cruel Kingdom. None of us had ever dared try it befor
e.”

  “How did you two do it?” Imogen asked the twins. “Did you just cast an incanta and command the world to start up again, or . . . ?”

  Haidee and Odessa looked at each other. “I don’t know,” Haidee confessed. “We weren’t thinking about it when it happened. We—”

  “—reached out toward each other, and everything moved,” Odessa said. “And the instant we touched—”

  “—some strange power sparked between us, like we could do anything. We wanted to cleanse the Abyss and heal Aeon. But then we—”

  “—actually felt the world quake and turn. We don’t know how we know. We don’t know how we did it, either. We just did. And we don’t know how to replicate it.”

  Everyone was staring at them. “Fascinating,” Noelle finally said.

  “The same might have been true with your mothers. You must both try to recall as much of what transpired as you can,” Salla instructed. “Perhaps the other clan elders can offer some insight.”

  “Clan elders?” Arjun asked. “What clan elders?”

  “In the days after the Breaking, we survivors came to an understanding. We had marked out a large patch of land as neutral territory, back when we were optimistic enough to believe that the world might still be healed. Should any more extreme changes occur, we would all return. I’ve no doubt that the others have seen the rains with their own eyes. They will come soon enough.”

  “They’ve always hated the Sun Goddesses, too, Mother,” Arjun said dryly. “I doubt they’re going to welcome them with open arms.”

  “They must. They have just as little choice as we do.”

  “Why do your clans live separately, when it seems to me numbers would offer more safety?” I asked.

  “Resources are few and far between here in the desert, Lady Lan. We choose to divide our people not out of hostility, but for practical purposes. But I expect them and others to arrive before the week is out.”

  “Clan Addax?” For some reason Arjun looked horrified.

  Mother Salla’s eyes twinkled. “Yes. I’m sure Lisette will be happy to see you again, despite the circumstances.”