by Rin Chupeco
No.
The urge passed, and the voices drifted away, and I breathed easier again. Lan looked at me questioningly, knowing by some sixth sense what I was going through, but I schooled my face into impassiveness.
“All I need from you, Mother,” I said, “is to tell me how to save Aeon. If you won’t do it, then let it fall to me.”
“The sacrifice . . . ,” Mother began.
“Anything but that.”
“I don’t know any other way, Odessa. Why did you think breaking the world was the choice we made?”
“I won’t sacrifice Lan!”
“I never accepted that final gift, but the Abyss’s mark left me all the same. Perhaps the same can happen to you, too!”
I paused. Mother might have rejected the galla, but that hadn’t saved my father. Didn’t that fulfill the seventh galla’s requirement, even if she hadn’t been willing?
“Come back to our camp, you and Haidee. We can figure this out together.”
So not even Mother knew of another way. I tried not to give in to despair. “No. Not unless you revoke Janella’s authority and keep her under guard.”
“I can’t do that. We need her still.”
“Did you know what she’s done? You condone her actions?”
“I confessed everything, Lady Odessa.” If I hadn’t known Janella for what she truly was, I would have actually thought her contrite. “I did what I thought I could to save your life. Her Holiness commanded me to ensure an easy transition of the galla’s gifts to you, even if you were unwilling. I am sorry about the others, I truly am. But the whole expedition would have turned on me had they known.”
“I should strike you down this very second.” The voices were right in one thing; I had given her a fire-gate, and I could take it away. That was the only time she had ever shown me genuine emotion—the tears that I thought were for her chance to rise from her lowly position and make something more for herself. I now knew they were from realizing she would be able to wield the cudgel herself in a far crueler manner than even Gracea had.
“You will do no such thing, Odessa,” Mother said sharply. “I have forgiven Janella for her actions, distasteful as they may have been. She was desperate. I was—”
“If you were so willing to kill your own people to ensure my safety,” I shouted, “then why didn’t you simply open the portal from Aranth and enter Brighthenge yourself? One life would have been an easier choice!”
A shudder racked Mother’s form. “I can’t—you have no right—”
“Your Holiness,” I saw Catseye Lenida glide forward, place her hand on Mother’s bare arm. Mother froze, then slowly relaxed.
“Your Holiness”—the Catseye nodded at me—“the journey has been exhausting for your mother. I must ask that you postpone this conversation for another time.”
“What happened?” There was something they weren’t telling us.
But the suggestion that she was somehow weak made Mother’s shoulders stiffen, the old flinty spark returning to her eyes. “My offer to your group stands,” she said, her old arrogance back at the fore, “You have tonight to think it over. I will send some of my people to you tomorrow, and we can determine our next move.”
“Asteria?” Haidee’s voice was soft, unsure. Mother glanced at her, and her eyes softened. “Yes, Haidee?”
“We . . . if you are to help us, we need both you and my mother on the same side. Help us convince her that there’s a bigger world beyond her city that needs saving.”
Mother paused. “I am open to whatever overtures Latona wishes to make,” she finally said, “though I won’t hold my breath. She thought I would sacrifice Aranth to earn that last gift. I could never—Aranth wasn’t—”
“Asteria?”
Sonfei stood behind us, the yearning on his face painful to see. “Asteria,” he echoed, taking a few shaky steps toward her. “I never dreamt—I had always hoped that you would—”
Mother had been frozen to the spot, her face even more ashen as she stared at Sonfei. But when he moved toward her, she turned away quickly. “Leave me be, Sonfei.”
“I cannot. Asteria, please. You cannot know how much I have wished to see you—”
“I have no wish to see you.” She inclined her head and the others gathered around her, some of them looking apologetically back at us as Mother led them away. Only Janella remained behind. Sonfei lifted a hand, his throat working as if about to call out after her a second time. Finally, he let his hand drop instead.
“You must be more considerate of Her Holiness’s feelings, Lady Odessa,” Janella chided. “You don’t know how much it took out of her to come here.”
I wanted to strangle her. “I can still take your gate away.”
“You need me, Your Holiness,” the girl said cheerfully, flicking her fingers to summon a tiny blue flame. “You may not think so, but I am fond of Her Holiness. All I do is for her sake. And yours, even if you may not appreciate it. I am sorry that we weren’t able to resolve our differences before we parted ways. Sumiko sends her regards, by the way.”
Lan froze. “Sumiko?”
“She is eagerly waiting for word from me, and hopes you will accept Her Holiness Asteria’s offer. She would be quite inconsolable if anything prevented my return. The journey to the Great Abyss left her quite distraught. I worry she might do something rash.”
“If you hurt her—” Lan snarled.
“I said nothing of that sort. If anything, you’ve all been threatening me. I wouldn’t want Lady Haidee to think poorly of me.”
“I trust Odessa and Lan,” Haidee said coldly. “I have no reason to trust you.”
“Too bad, Your Holiness. I’m the only one who can tell you everything Asteria knows about the Breaking. Everything she is ashamed to tell you.”
I was astounded. Ashamed? That didn’t sound like Mother at all.
Janella sighed at my expression. “Yes, ashamed. You shouldn’t have done it, Your Holiness.” She sounded almost scolding. “There was a reason why Asteria thought it would be safe for you to go to the Great Abyss. The galla never would have caused you harm, as long as Aeon didn’t turn. For Aeon to flourish, a goddess must be sacrificed. Latona and Asteria refused, so Inanna sent the galla to collect her due. The twins’ instinctive response was to stop the world from spinning. To buy themselves time. Asteria believes that, anyway, though the solution escapes her even after all these years. Their sabotage kept Inanna from claiming a sacrifice, but it kept Aeon from flourishing, too. But now that the world turns? Well, Inanna wants what she’s owed. Did you think it would be simple? Heal the breach, and things will go back to normal?”
Both Haidee and I flinched. “And if we return to the Abyss to undo what we’ve done?” Haidee ventured to ask.
“I’m not quite sure Aeon can survive coming to a standstill a second time, Your Holinesses.”
I gritted my teeth. “Is Aranth truly gone?”
“What remains of the city lies under the waves now. Asteria had no choice but to open a portal to save everyone that she could, lest the water consume the rest of us.”
I knew how I looked, knew there was a smoothness to the expression on my face that was too artificial for my liking. I didn’t want to think about my city. I didn’t want to think about my people’s last moments. When I finally forced myself to speak, the words came out slow and measured, as I weighed the gravity of each one before I shaped them aloud. “How many died?” I tried to recall the number of our people I’d seen out in the desert. Did those numbers match up to half of the population? A quarter? Less than even that?
Janella hesitated. Her smugness disappeared. “Enough. As I said, Asteria saved all that she could.” She sighed. “At a great cost to her. You were right. She had no desire to return to Brighthenge. She was . . . afraid.”
“Mother? Afraid?”
“Even goddesses know fear, Your Holiness. And the Great Abyss had taken away almost everyone she had loved. Or so she thought.”
>
“And Mother couldn’t tell me this herself?” How cold I sounded to my own ears. I could almost believe I didn’t care.
“Your mother is too busy protecting what remains of your people against her tyrant-queen of a sister to assuage her daughter’s tantrums, Odessa.” I froze. “She is not interested in a war on two fronts; her hands are full enough with Latona’s army. You, she feels, would see things her way. She is taking a chance that Lady Haidee would be more amenable to an alliance than her mother. Or will you fight Aranth’s survivors now?”
“Odessa would never go against her own people,” Haidee snapped.
“I imply nothing of that sort. Although it would pain the citizens of Aranth to learn that Asteria’s daughter had turned against them in favor of a horde of desert barbarians, wouldn’t it?” Janella smiled, all teeth and artifice. “Did you know the original Devoted intended to tell Asteria that Latona passed away from natural causes? Her body would have been thrown into the Abyss at the completion of the rites. Asteria would have been asked to give up Aranth’s life for the seventh gift.”
I’d never met my father, but the callous way she referred to him, like he was nothing more than fodder for the ritual, made my blood boil. “And the gifts that she did accept?”
“Those disappeared after the Breaking. Only her visions remain—many goddesses have had that gift, though the galla’s radiances give them more accuracy. Personally, I believe that these gifts disappeared because her responsibilities have now been passed on to you. But saying so makes her angry, and so I do not mention it in her presence.”
“You know far too much about my mother, even for a spy.”
Janella shrugged. “Would it surprise you to learn that my mother was a Devoted? A minor one—a documentarian. I was old enough to remember her stories.”
“Monsters,” Lan growled.
“Latona was ambushed at Farthengrove; she killed her assassins, and she and Aranth raced to Brighthenge to warn Asteria of what Devika had done. I can only imagine what happened next. The galla arrived to claim one of them, and in the ensuing battle, Aranth was killed; grief drove both goddesses to blame the other; in their anger, they stopped Aeon from turning. Perhaps Aeon’s split symbolized their own estrangement.”
I nodded slowly, saw Haidee doing the same.
“Latona had brought her babes along; foolish, I suppose, but after the attempt on her life she was convinced that you and Haidee could not be entrusted to anyone else. Latona’s side of the Abyss was swarmed and overcome, and Asteria believed her sister and Haidee were lost. She only managed to rescue you.”
“So that’s the only way to truly heal Aeon? For me to sacrifice Lan?”
“And to sacrifice me as well?” Haidee asked softly.
“Asteria of all people understood. She gave you the choice to sacrifice Lan. You may not believe me, but I suspect she knew you would take after her and refuse the final gift. She believed your rejection would change nothing for Aeon, which would continue as it was, frozen. But she thought it would heal you.”
“And what does she expect me to do now?” I demanded. “Fight Haidee like she probably did Latona? That’s never going to happen.”
“Never is a long time to be certain, Your Holiness. So many things can still happen.” Janella bowed to us. “Lady Lan. Lady Haidee. Lady Odessa. Thank you for your hospitality. I suggest joining forces before the next onslaught. I will return on the morrow to help facilitate.” Janella drew her red-trimmed cloak around herself, glancing at some of the clan members who had come to watch them. “How noble you all are,” she called out gaily. “So many of you who continue to die willingly for the goddesses’ sake. A pity that neither are willing to do so for you.”
With a loud curse, Arjun stepped toward the other Firesmoker, but the damage was done. With another laugh, Janella left, the faint mutterings of the crowd trailing in her wake.
“We’ll need to find a way to open the portal back to the Abyss again,” Lan said quietly, “but without taking another life. We need to find that final galla.”
“I won’t, Lan!” I exploded furiously. “I won’t sacrifice you!”
“You may have to, regardless of whatever Asteria hoped. Too many lives have already been lost when it could have just been mine. You can’t look at these people and tell them my life isn’t worth it, Odessa.”
“Or mine,” Haidee said softly. “The galla will grow stronger with every defeat. We staved them off today. We can probably stave them off tomorrow. But how much longer after that?”
“If you’re going to throw yourself into the Abyss,” Arjun threatened, coming up behind us, “I’m jumping in right after you.”
“Arjun!”
“How are you gonna stop me? I told you I’d follow you wherever you go.” His eyes were red from weeping. “I’ll cross whatever circle of dead that mirage was talking about, or descend into the Cruel Kingdom myself, if it comes down to it.”
“Stop it!” I cried. “Stop talking about sacrificing yourselves. Stop saying you’re all leaving me. Stop saying your lives have no worth to me just because they have none to you!”
That gave them pause. “Odessa,” Lan said softly.
“I’m tired, Lan. I don’t know what the galla want me to do. I don’t want them to tell me what to do.” This was all my fault, and everyone was to suffer for it. Lan had forgiven me. How could she forgive me? “I’m trying, Lan. I’m trying so hard. I don’t want to hurt anyone else.”
“We’ll need to move.” Lan cast a glance back at the crowd. “Our presence isn’t exactly appreciated at the moment, I think.”
“Odessa,” Arjun said, hesitant. “You said that you could—bring people back from the dead. I wondered—if you could—”
“I’m sorry,” I said helplessly. “I can’t. They—they don’t come back the right way. It will look like Faraji, but it won’t be him. I don’t think you’d want to see that.”
“Can’t—can’t you try? Maybe it could be different. Faraji’s a tough bastard, he’d shake off any—”
“Arjun.” Haidee took his face in her hands, pressed her forehead against his. “Please don’t do this to yourself,” she begged.
A pause. Arjun closed his eyes. “Yeah,” he rasped. “You’re right. I don’t think I could bear that. Shouldn’t have asked.”
“Excuse me.” There was a strange expression on Lord Vanya’s face, his eyes screwed up like he was struggling to recall something else. “The circle of dead. Why does that sound—where did you hear that?”
Arjun frowned. “From—well, from the mirage. What are you—”
But Vanya was already making a beeline for his tent, looking determined.
Lan hugged me, pressed the palm of her hand against my temple. She was warm and light and as steady as a heartbeat, and her touch melted away some of my anxiety. Her presence was enough to ease my pain, made me feel like I was worth the effort. “The galla will attack again, if Odessa’s visions and the last few battles were any indication,” she said. “We need to find out when and where they’ll come again, if we’re to have a chance. Let Noelle and I put our heads together, think of something.”
“You were supposed to protect Faraji!” a voice cried behind Haidee. Imogen’s hands were clenched so tightly together she was shaking. Kadmos, Derra, and Millie stood with her, the latter sobbing on Kadmos’s shoulder. “You promised you would!”
“Immie . . . ,” Arjun began helplessly.
“Imogen!” Mother Salla said sharply, her own eyes still wet.
Imogen turned and fled. Arjun moved as if to follow, but then paused, resigned, as he caught sight of others looking our way, resentment and suspicion and distrust clear in their faces.
“I should have protected him,” he muttered. “She’s right. I should have.”
“She is right,” Haidee agreed, voice down to a hoarse whisper. “I should have done more. I chose to put everyone in danger. But the fault is mine alone. Arjun . . .”
; “Your H-holinesses.” Vanya was back, and his hands were shaking. “I might have found something.”
“What, another poem?” Arjun snapped.
“‘When the dead find words, the goddess and the Devoted son will meet atop a fish not a fish, on a sea not a sea. It is she who travels to the endless Abyss, and it is he who guides her. When the galla comes, the ranger shall protect the goddess. It is she who travels to the endless Abyss, and it is she who guides her.’”
Arjun’s head swiveled toward the lordling, an incredulous look on his face. “How did you know?”
“Is the passage familiar to you?”
“That’s how Odessa and I first met. Mother Salla recited those words verbatim to me weeks ago. She said it was one of many predictions my mother made about Haidee and Odessa.” Arjun halted, his face suddenly stark white. “Is this my mother’s book? Are these a collection of prophecies she foretold?”
“I’m not familiar with prophecies in general,” Vanya said. “But it confirms the link between this book and Brighthenge. You also asked me to find another temple that might have been dedicated to Inanna, one that contains the healing spells both Lady Lan and Lady Odessa had asked about in the past. Well, I think I found it.”
Chapter Sixteen
Haidee and the Circle
“I ALMOST MISSED IT,” VANYA continued, pacing the ground in the erratic, pent-up way he did when he was excited about something. “Most of the other poems—I’ll refer to them as poems for now, to simplify things—don’t refer to Inanna by name, and even Brighthenge is rarely mentioned. The only reason I paid attention to this one is because it mentioned the Abyss. And then there was that whole ‘sea that’s not a sea’ reference that I thought could be the Skeleton Coast. Mother Salla has been helping me look through the rest. . . .” He trailed off and looked to the Oryx clan leader.
“A few sound like things I’d heard Devika cite before,” Mother Salla conceded. “But I wasn’t privy to all the prophecies she made.”