by Rin Chupeco
Still it said nothing.
“Mother Salla said you recorded Haidee and Odessa’s prophecies. You know how to fix Aeon.” Taking hold of all my courage, I reached out to grab it by the cloak.
It spun to face me, and I lost all ability to move. There was darkness behind its cowl, nothing to tell me that it even had a face.
If any other gods or goddesses were still out there listening, Please oh please oh fucking please, don’t make me look at my own mother’s headless corpse.
I am sorry, it said, in a voice that I knew only I could hear.
“That’s not good enough!” I was still too angry. “Devoted like you killed goddesses for centuries! Can you bring them all back with an apology?”
Thankfully, no light could pierce through that hood. This must be what Odessa meant when she described an endless night. Arjun. A skeletal hand reached up to linger at the edges of my headwrap. My Arjun. Cross the circle of dead. The stone will light your path. The stone will show you your way.
But first, you must die.
Images coursed through my head, so quick and fleeting that I had no capacity to comprehend any of them until it was over. When I came to, I was flat on my back, gasping up into the empty sky.
The sand was softer than I’d expected it to be, until I realized it was Haidee cradling my head in her lap, her worried pale eyes looking down at me. The relief on her face was apparent when I groaned.
“What happened?” she whispered, pushing a canteen of water against my mouth.
“I don’t know just yet.” My lips felt dry and cracked, and I drank greedily, gratefully. That done, I took a glance back at the mirage. It continued to regard me detachedly. “I told you to stay behind,” I grumbled weakly.
“She did,” Noelle said. “Right up until you fell.”
“I’m fine. I’ve just got a splitting headache.” With Haidee’s help, I eased myself into a sitting position. “They’re guarding something.”
“I would imagine. I thought we were here to find out what.”
“No, I mean they’re guarding the location of something.”
“Where?” Haidee looked around. “There’s nothing else here for miles.”
“I saw it. A temple. A smaller one than Brighthenge, but even more ornate. You’re going to have to tell Vanya to look up more passages in that damned book. Tell him to look for something about a room, red with the blood of treasures. And a—” I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to remember more. “A stone. The answers to life and death that lie inside a stone.”
“You sound like one of those mysterious prophecies you all go on about,” Lisette said.
“Like hell I’m a prophet.” But I didn’t like where this was going, either.
Haidee had risen to her feet, staring hard at the mirage. Before anyone could stop her, she marched right up to the ghost and deliberately placed her hand on its arm.
“Haidee!” I groaned, scrambling to my feet.
“I don’t see any visions. Either she chooses the people she allows to see them, or . . .” She looked right at the darkness hidden under the cowl, unafraid. “Please, if you still have any love for Aeon, I beg you. Tell us what to do to set things right again. Is sacrificing either myself or my sister truly the only way?”
A shudder ran through the mirage. It caused a ripple, spiraling out and affecting the other mirages in turn. I felt the hairs on my neck stand again.
Slowly, the mirage lifted its arm, and I saw to my revulsion that there was no skin left on it, only bone and muscle. It pointed.
I saw it, then. Another blanket of darkness, coming up on the horizon—faster than anything I’d ever seen. I swore, scrambling to my feet. This was the moment we’d been dreading for days, and now that it was here it had still somehow taken us by surprise.
“Move!” I yelled at the others. Lisette was already reaching over to gun the engine as we began to run back toward them. They were too close. So close that I wasn’t sure we could get away, even at the speed of a jeep.
I heard a scream behind me. I turned and saw Faraji being thrown to the ground, soon lost from view as the galla swarmed over him.
I was shouting, though even I couldn’t make sense of what I was saying. I turned back to help him, saw Kadmos already ahead of me. The Howler was in my hands and I was firing, blue flames consuming the demons wherever they landed.
A howling wind tore through the bulk of the shadows, and many of the galla were tossed away, shredded into ribbons. The swarm retreated, and a second mirage channeled its incanta, the sandstorm it manifested slicing through the creatures even as the mirage itself slowly dissolved into the air, its energies expended.
Kadmos reached Faraji, hoisting our brother over his shoulder. With Haidee pushing the closest of the swarm away with winds and me firing everything I had into the ones that escaped her grasp, we all managed to pile into the rig, Sonfei lifting Faraji into the back seat while Lisette took the wheel, sending us speeding away from the thick of the swarm, wheels throwing up clouds of sand.
Another mirage’s sandstorm took out another swath. It was enough to make our escape, but not enough to completely stop the tide. We would still have a fight on our hands when we reached camp.
I turned my head one last time and saw my mother, staring out at us from the distance before the hard winds shielded her from our view.
“Shit,” Noelle gasped, as our jeep drew closer to theirs. I’d never heard the steward curse before.
Faraji wasn’t breathing. Sonfei was hard at work pushing air into his lungs, but even I knew it was a hopeless cause long before he finally stopped, looking sad. Kadmos was already crying.
“I’m sorry,” Haidee whispered. “I’m sorry.”
I couldn’t answer her. There was no answer. All I could do was cradle Faraji’s bloodied head in my lap, and weep.
Chapter Fourteen
Lan Among Prophecies
HAIDEE WROTE IN LOOPS AND whorls. Her handwriting was neat and tidy and easy to read, and in many ways it helped highlight the differences between her and Odessa. Her pencraft flowed and skated across the parchment, the roundness of her letters pleasing to the eyes, her o’s properly curved.
Noelle told me that she used to berate Odessa—gently—on her penmanship; my goddess’s words scratched at the paper like hens, vowels shaped like dying declarations and consonants made of hurried slants. She was too eager to put her thoughts down on paper, Noe had said, and her hand couldn’t quite keep up with her thoughts. A minor distinction when taking everything else into account, but it made me feel better. Haidee and Odessa were alike in so many ways, but many other things set them apart, too.
I wasn’t one to complain, though. My handwriting was even more atrocious than Odessa’s, much to Noelle’s despair. Still, I felt restless. I was used to action, to reacting. Sorting out the words of long-dead people wasn’t my forte.
None of this was my forte: the desert, the clans, the changing weather. That was what frustrated me the most. I didn’t want to be stuck in some strange new territory with no concrete plan. I didn’t know anything about the sunlands. My brief time inside the Golden City hadn’t given me anything but a general idea of how their security worked. I hated knowing less than the others, and it didn’t matter that they’d spent their whole lives here when I hadn’t. It made me feel like I wasn’t doing a very good job of protecting Odessa.
Everyone was restless. Many were still distrustful of Odessa and Haidee, and also unnerved by the thought of more galla coming to attack camp. People were carrying their Howlers with them everywhere, ready to defend themselves at a moment’s notice. Some had, in their frustration, even pulled their guns on someone else. A few injuries were reported, though thankfully without any casualties, and I decided then that it would be best to keep Odessa out of view. I wasn’t very good at research, but staying inside meant she’d be safer.
A loud slap broke through the quiet. Odessa looked dazed; her hand still hovered below her face,
a red mark on her cheek from where she’d hit herself. Across the room, Lord Vanya Arrenley looked up from his own papers with startled concern.
“Odessa?” I swallowed the instinct to scold her, to demand that she stop harming herself, knowing well enough that this wouldn’t make things any better. I’d struggled to make peace with my own demons, and it had been uphill work; Odessa had to contend with both that and actual devils.
My touch soothed, as always, though it never healed to the extent I hoped it would. I could feel the patterns knit around the black spot by her heart, felt it shrink just enough for me to relax, but I knew I couldn’t remedy the ones that had taken root in her head. “What are you doing?” My knuckle grazed her bruised cheek.
“Sorry,” she mumbled. “I know I promised, but . . .”
“Is this the only way to stop those thoughts from intruding? Thinking about your books isn’t enough?”
“The books help, but every now and then I require something more . . . robust. It’s a far better alternative to just throwing myself into the Abyss.”
“Odessa.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know why I said that. I’m very tired.” There were dark circles under her eyes; they’d grown the last couple of days. Sleeping was hard enough, especially when there was a sun in the sky now. But her exhaustion was more than just the difficulty of adjusting to the cycle of light. Sometimes she would wake up in a cold sweat, grabbing blindly for me, in a panic over dreams she couldn’t remember.
“Is Her Holiness all right?” None of us quite knew what to do with Vanya. I had been expecting more demands from the lordling, considering his father’s entitlement. But he had made no complaints about his new surroundings, was content to stay in his little corner reading every bit of information we had regarding the Cruel Kingdom, distilling it into summaries he could explain to the clans. Nobody had thought to inform him about Odessa’s struggles with the galla; it was a conversation for later, though later was vague at this point.
“I’m all right,” Odessa insisted. “My apologies, Lord Vanya. If you find anything of note, please let us know.”
“I will, Lady—uh, Your Holiness, I mean.”
“Do you want to take a break?” I asked her.
“No, I’m almost done with Haidee’s notes. I can rest after that.”
“Odessa . . .”
“I promise I’m fine.” She smiled at me, and that was genuine enough. “Reading actually helps distract me. I wish I’d thought to bring along my other books . . . but this is almost as good. Haidee has been very meticulous with her notes. She’s listed every scrap of text we found at Brighthenge, including those strange eulogies for the goddesses and the complete Inanna’s Song. Remember this one? A demoness is what men call a goddess they cannot control. Those are the same words I saw scribbled on the margins in one of Asteria’s books, the volume I brought along with me when I snuck aboard the Brevity. Something about the passage has always struck me as odd.”
“How so?”
Odessa pointed at the text comprising Inanna’s Song, which I’d read countless times by now:
A demoness
Is what they call
A goddess
That men
cannot control
There is no shame
In goddesses falling
Into the Abyss
When they find new purpose
In rising up
As darkness
Praise the women who fly
And fail and succumb to
Night;
Death sustains Inanna,
Who is One and Whole,
Who sacrifices her life into the Below
To save her life in the Above
Who is the sacrificed and the sacrificer,
The demoness and the goddess
Are one and the same
And both shall rule the heavens
And the Cruel Kingdom
As two, but One
As the enduring Above,
So shall the Great Below.
“There are some differences in the wording from the passages we’d seen in Brighthenge, but it’s obvious that they’re both talking about the same thing. And this stanza jumps out to me in particular: ‘There is no shame in goddesses falling into the Abyss where they find new purpose in rising up as darkness.’”
I shuddered. “That’s Inanna, then.”
“I wish I still had that book. I left it at camp at the foot of the Great Abyss, before I ventured out into the mists with Lorila and Tamerlin—” She stopped, stricken.
I knew why. Lorila and Tamerlin had never made it out of Brighthenge. Janella had murdered them to open the portals; we’d found their remains afterward. With the galla approaching, we’d had no time to give them a proper burial.
I could feel my own palms start to sweat as more faces flashed across my head: Nuala, Wricken, Aoba, Madi, Yarrow . . . so many more people dying without the honor of a funeral.
I forced those thoughts away, with much effort. It was easier to nowadays, after Sumiko’s help. Their ghosts were easier to ignore when I could focus on Odessa’s troubles instead of mine.
“It could still be there, abandoned for all I know, since the others returned to Aranth, after . . .” Odessa looked down. “After Janella’s betrayal.”
Janella. It was hard to bite back my anger, the way she’d stood with Asteria against Latona and brazenly inquired after Odessa like she was never at fault.
“Saffra and Gareth,” Odessa said.
“Who?”
“Saffra and Gareth. Her Majesty’s Knight. Saffra, mourning her rejection by her protector, was told a story by her nanny about a goddess who had constructed a man out of clay; he was a replica of a lover she had once lost. But no matter how much she tried, the patterns couldn’t breathe true life into him. He would forever be something not quite human, unresponsive to her affections. Saffra’s nanny wanted to convey that, like the clay-man, Gareth could not accept her love, because he was a ruthless man, not quite human himself.”
“But they overcame the odds and lived happily ever after, anyway,” I guessed.
She smiled, though that turned into a scowl as she glanced down another page. “‘Test your worth; offer to her, Inanna’s immortality.’ It doesn’t make sense.”
“Very little of this does.”
“No, I mean these two lines in particular. Inanna didn’t have immortality. That was the whole point. The only constant was death, or so all the legends stated.”
“Is Her Holiness a student of literature?” Lord Vanya asked, catching the tail end of the conversation. “It appears to me that you have a very keen grasp of elegiac poetry such as this.”
“I read a lot of romance novels,” Odessa said, straight-faced, and Lord Vanya blinked. “You told me before that works of fiction are rare in the Golden City. That’s quite the opposite where I grew up. We were abundantly blessed.” A swift tremor stole along her mouth; she was thinking about the lives lost at Aranth. I covered her hand with mine and my aether-gate flared, hoping to soothe her.
“Romance novels,” the lordling repeated, in the tone of one who has found a new species of insect he didn’t particularly want to learn about. “I was referring to books that talk of the political and social—”
He broke off. Odessa was looking a little murderous.
“I’m sure they’re very good books, Your Holiness,” he hastily amended.
“You learn a lot of nuance with romance and other fiction. You should try it sometime.”
“I hope there will be an opportunity to, in the near future.” He sounded more genuine there, at least. “May I assist in your analyses? I’ve had some experience in this area.”
“Are you a scholar yourself, Lord Vanya?”
“Not in any official capacity, I’m afraid. I have a penchant for old languages like Aeona, and I have read every history book in the family library. I would have liked to dedicate my life to academic pursuits, but my father
said it was a fool’s profession. That there was nothing to study after the Breaking but sand.” The lordling’s face fell somewhat at that admission.
“I am very sorry that you are estranged from your father,” Odessa said as gently as she could. “It could not have been easy to make the choice to come here, and we cannot thank you enough.”
“I am glad I can be of use, milady. I should have made that choice earlier, when I had a better chance to prove my mettle.” A wistful look crossed his face. “Her Holiness Haidee, and that other desert nomad. How long have they been . . . ?”
“Any questions about Haidee would be best addressed to her, I think,” I said carefully. “I wouldn’t dare to claim any knowledge of—”
“She loves him, Lord Vanya,” Odessa broke in. “And if you’ve come here with the intention of breaking them apart, then you will have to answer to me, regardless of your help with these passages.”
“Odessa.”
“He deserves a straight answer, Lan. I don’t want him relying on false hopes, especially when we owe him our gratitude. I learned that the hard way during our courtship, remember? I wasn’t as forthcoming, and tried to pretend I was someone else so that I could avoid the consequences a little while longer. I’ve always regretted it. I am sorry for being so blunt, milord, but I think you have the right to know.”
“Thank you, Your Holiness.” Lord Vanya had recovered, though his face was still scarlet. “I bear them no ill will. I have no claim on Lady Haidee. We had only met twice before. I had every expectation then that we would marry, but my disappointment is no one’s fault. And it does not change my desire to help you two.”
“You’re a good man, Lord Vanya.” Odessa clasped his hands and beamed at him, which made him redden all over again. My girl looked too much like her twin for him not to be reminded of that fact. “Have you any guesses with regard to The Ages of Aeon?”
He took a deep breath. “I have a few theories. Do you mind if I take the lead?”