by Rin Chupeco
But the goddess was no longer listening. I could see her rage in the Fire patterns around her as they erupted into a fiery, white-hot heat, and Haidee was in no shape to rein in her sister’s fury.
A blaze took out the unlucky gunner, the flames burning too hot and too quick for him to do more than call out his shock before his ashes crumbled down at Arrenley’s feet. Lightning lanced through a couple more soldiers, striking the walls and crumbling chunks of stone. If the temple had been stable before, that was no longer the case. We had to leave.
But rather than heed the warning and retreat, the lord barked out more orders; his men turned their attentions to the goddess, guns raised.
“Stop!” a voice rang out, and Vanya was pointing his Howler at his father, finger already on the trigger. “If any of your men fire again,” the lordling said, his voice giving away his fear as it shook, “I’m going to shoot you.”
Behind us, Sonfei and Pai were fighting the galla, and Lisette was shooting at where the shadows were at their densest. Despite their efforts, the army pouring out from the hole showed no signs of slowing down. Was this the next wave of galla due to attack, or something else? Were Tamera and the others fighting them aboveground, too?
And then I realized that it didn’t matter. We would be overwhelmed soon. And with Arrenley and his men blocking the exit, there was nowhere else to go.
Arrenley laughed, full of derision. “Do you think you have the guts to actually shoot your own father?” he taunted. “You haven’t the courage, boy. You are nothing but a—”
Vanya shot him. The lord gave a stunned gasp, his hand clasping at his thigh, sinking down.
“You’ll live,” Vanya said coldly, in the exact same tone Arrenley had used on him back at the Citadel.
“What are you doing?” Lisette asked when I rose to my feet, holding Haidee securely in my arms.
“What I have to do.” Haidee was incapacitated, Odessa too distracted by Lan to think rationally. The only options were to rush Arrenley’s men—which would only kill us quicker—or . . .
“Haidee,” I said, trying to keep my voice low and soothing. “I want you to reach out toward the cave ceiling and figure out which part of it’s the thinnest. Then I’m going to blast through the rock. Haidee?”
She blinked at me, her eyes still unfocused, but I could detect a glimmer of recognition there. I repeated my request, and kissed her forehead. “Haidee love, we’re not getting any younger. The way things stand, we might not get any older, either. Please.”
She took a deep, shuddering breath, her eyes falling shut. “There,” she whispered, and I saw something spark against the darkness above us, a marking point for me.
“Thanks.” I pointed my Howler at the spot, pushing everything I had into the gun, until it overflowed with Fire. “Hold on,” I said, and aimed.
The ceiling exploded outward, and warm sunlight spilled into the cavern for the first time in centuries. I could see the sky, and maybe it was because we’d been down here longer than we wanted, but it was even bluer than I remembered. “How far can you throw us?” I yelled over at Sonfei.
The big man looked puzzled at first, until he glanced up. “I am strong enough. I will toss you all out, without a problem.”
“Send me first,” Noelle said. “I can assess what the situation is like outside.”
“You’re injured, too,” I protested.
“It’s only a flesh wound. This is nothing to me.”
I could believe that. Noelle crouched down at Sonfei’s instructions. The Liangzhu man had clearly done this before. “We will put buffers around the ceiling, so you can expect to land safely above,” he told her. “Still, it might be jarring your first time. Are you ready?”
“Do it, Sonfei.”
With a fierce howl, Sonfei’s eyes flared, and Noelle was launched nearly a hundred feet up into the air. His aim was true; she passed directly through the hole I’d made in the ceiling. I saw her shove her spear into the ground, stopping her momentum and allowing her to roll to safety. What the hell kind of training do tower stewards undergo on the other side of the world, I wondered.
“We’re clear!” I heard her call down to us. “Tamera and the Saiga are holding against Arrenley’s men!”
Sonfei’s companions followed shortly after, and then Lisette and Vanya together; the boy hung on for dear life, screaming as they hurtled through the empty space, until he was promptly caught by Noelle and some of Tamera’s people.
I turned to Odessa next. The goddess was still holding on to Lan’s unconscious form, still scouring both the galla and Arrenley’s men in deadly fire. She had destroyed many of the shadows, but the men were seasoned fighters and were retreating behind the enclave’s entrance, out of her reach. “We have to go,” I said, adopting a sterner tone with her than I had with Haidee. “Lan needs treatment.”
That brought her back to her senses. “Yes.” Odessa’s face was streaked in tears. She glanced back at the men, and I could have sworn there was a tiny, vicious smile on her face as she took in their dead and wounded. “Yes, let’s go.”
Sonfei was still strong enough to toss both Odessa and Lan up at the same time—a good thing, because the goddess showed no inclination to let go of her injured Catseye. That left Haidee, Sonfei, and me. I was about to suggest Sonfei send us off in the same way, when a sudden earthquake nearly knocked us off our feet.
The hole underneath the shrine was growing, the ground no longer able to bear our weight and the growing number of galla filling the cavern. We were slowly being backed into a corner. A terrible cracking sound echoed above us; the rest of the ceiling was also collapsing. The whole structure was falling apart.
“Now!” I yelled at Sonfei. With a shout, he propelled himself up into the air, and I felt Air incanta seize both me and Haidee along with him.
A surge in Fire patterns caused me to look down. I saw death blazing toward us in a wrath of flames that, if it reached us, would not leave much of us to bury.
With a loud curse, I shoved Haidee into Sonfei’s arms, and spun around to face the new threat.
There wasn’t time for my Howler, so I used my limbs instead. The heat was unbelievable at this proximity; I would have been burned alive had I been a regular Firesmoker. I kept my grip firm on the stone still in my hand and shoved back against the patterns, stomping out the blue flames with my will before most of them got too close.
But one got past me, caught Sonfei on the shoulder. His concentration broke, and I fell.
I knew how to roll and bear the brunt of a fall from great heights, but this was too far. The crack of bone in my ankle as I struck ground knocked the wind out of me. I groaned in pain, forced myself up to one knee, trying to keep as much weight off it as I could.
Janella was waiting. “A pity,” she said sweetly, her Howler leveled at my face. “I was hoping the fall would have killed you if my flames didn’t. Give me the stone.”
“Over my dead body.”
Her smile grew. “That can be arranged,” she said, and fired.
I was already moving before she’d pulled the trigger, swinging my own Howler up so that its barrel struck her in the face. Her head whipped back, and then it was my turn to fire. She caught the flames in time, grinned as her fingers closed, extinguishing them entirely. “That won’t work on me.”
“You’re mad. The cave is collapsing.” She had to be. Even Arrenley’s men were gone, carrying their injured leader away.
That only made her laugh. “What does that matter when we’ve got immortality, boy?” She punched me hard in the face, and grabbed for the stone in my hand. I kicked at her, and we wound up tumbling across the floor. I’m going to die here, I thought. There’s no exit, and the damn demons are surrounding me, and I can’t—
I swung my Howler again, and it caught her hard across the midsection. She went down, and I scrambled up, biting back a cry at the sharp pain running up my leg.
“Arjun!” I heard someone scream. I looked up
and saw Haidee’s face, her eyes wide. Air spiraled from her fingers, reaching out to yank me up to safety. I reached toward her, relief breaking through.
And then more pain punched through my side. I staggered, clutched at my chest, and felt sticky warmth leaking down my shirt.
“You’re not going anywhere,” Janella panted, and pulled her knife out of me. I fell, and she reached past me, to pluck up the stone that had fallen out of my grasp.
And then, with a gasp, she reeled away.
The mirage hadn’t been there a few seconds ago. Blue smoke steamed from underneath its cloak, and it watched as Janella screamed, her hair and scarlet-piped cloak aflame. She lashed out, but my mother said nothing even as Janella’s fires surrounded her. For the first time, she lifted her head to look at me, and I saw the faintest glimpse of a rosebud mouth, startlingly dark eyes, and hair as stringy and black as my own.
Arjun, she said, and the flames swept through her.
I could hear shouting above us, but that no longer seemed to matter. With the last of my strength, I lunged and tore the rock from Janella’s grip. At the same time, I planted my Howler right between her eyes.
“You’re not going anywhere!” Janella had been horribly burned, her face a mask of rage, hands still reaching up for the stone I’d reclaimed.
“We’re not going anywhere,” I corrected her, and fired.
And then the ground beneath us gave way, and we were falling.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Lan’s Regrets
AWARENESS RETURNED IN FOLDS, IN shades of white. As my vision cleared, I found myself stretched out on the ground, my head in someone’s lap. There was a throbbing pain on my right side. There were sounds that made me think of stones grating against each other, followed by a heavy thump.
I tried to sit up, was immediately pushed back down. It was Odessa; her face was tear-stained and blotched, eyes red from weeping. “Don’t move, please,” she begged. Noelle appeared beside her, and I realized only then that my arm and side had been heavily bandaged.
“Why is it so bright?” We were in a cave; that was the last thing I remembered. Someone had aimed a gun at Odessa, and I had moved to . . .
“Please.” Odessa’s voice sounded so raw. “We need to get you back to camp, and you should lie still.”
We weren’t at the neutral grounds. We weren’t on any of the rigs. “Why”—my lips felt parched, but I persisted—“aren’t we doing that right now?”
A sob was her answer. There was something else she wasn’t telling me—something far worse than even my injuries. I fought the dizziness and raised my head.
Haidee had stripped out of her mechanika jacket and was down to her undershirt. She gestured, and chunks of detritus rose from a hole before her. She flung them dismissively to one side, echoing the thuds I’d heard earlier.
She did it again, and then again. Her pale eyes were blank, her movements almost mechanical.
Sonfei was by her side, using his own air-gate to help, assisted by a few people from other clans. The Liangzhu man was openly crying. The rest watched Haidee with a mixture of fear and helplessness; even Tamera looked drawn, sympathetic. Lisette was bereft of her usual snark, pity evident in her gaze. It was clear even she had been weeping.
I sat up anyway, waving Odessa’s protests away. “Was there a cave-in?”
Noelle was silent, arm freshly bandaged and face downcast. Vanya was fidgeting with his fingers. Everyone watched Haidee like she was a powder keg ready to explode, and Arjun . . .
Arjun . . .
“No,” I whispered.
“You need to lie down,” Odessa insisted, her voice raw.
Haidee tossed away more debris.
“How long has she been doing this?” I asked quietly.
“Almost two hours,” Noelle said, after a pause.
I didn’t need to ask her why nobody had tried to stop Haidee. If Arjun was underneath all that rubble, he could not have survived. But that would mean nothing to someone desperate for proof.
“Arjun and the stone are gone,” Noelle continued. “I saw them fighting over it, and saw them both fall—him and Janella.”
I knew what she was saying—that Janella, too, was dead. The ground had given way underneath them, and no one could know who had gained the upper hand in those final, horrifying moments. But the loss of Inanna’s immortality paled in comparison to the loss of Arjun.
Finally, finally, the goddess had hauled most of the wreckage out. We found ourselves staring down at what was left of Inanna’s shrine—but there was no trace of the chasm that had opened up at the rocky cave floor below us. The altar still lay in shambles, but the ground before it remained intact. It was like we had all hallucinated the ravine the demons had crawled out of. The fight had also demolished the ceiling over the adjoining chamber, where the cinnabar-dusted coins and jewels had been stored. Those, too, were gone. The gorge had claimed those treasures also before, inconceivably, closing back up.
“Haidee,” Odessa said.
Her sister didn’t answer. Her hands were clenched tightly and I could see patterns wrapping angrily around her fists, sparking against each other.
“Haidee.” Odessa laid a hand on her arm. “Haidee, we have to—”
“We need to search the rest of the caverns,” Haidee said crisply. “The other areas appear to be intact. He could have retreated back to where the river of quicksilver flowed, maybe all the way to the stairs back at the entrance.”
“Haidee—”
“We’ll need some buttresses to stabilize the walls, but that shouldn’t take longer than an hour to set up. The Stonebreakers should be able to construct something adequate for our purpose.”
“Haidee—”
“Some of Lord Arrenley’s men might still be skulking about. The hole must have been an illusion, just like the temple oasis. I’m sure he’s wandering around down there, irritated and—”
“Haidee!”
The Sun goddess fell silent, shoulders rigid.
“Haidee, I’m so sorry.”
“I won’t leave him, Odessa!” Haidee snapped. “I thought him dead once, and I’m not going to make that same mistake again! I’m not leaving until I see his body!”
“Haidee—”
“This would never have happened if you had better control!”
Odessa looked like she’d been slapped. I jerked toward her.
Haidee realized she’d gone too far. She turned away. “I can’t leave him,” she said hoarsely. “I can’t. What would you have done if it had been Lan, Odessa?”
“I would have done everything in my power to rescue her. But he’s not here, Haidee.”
Odessa’s twin paused, nodded decisively. “You’re right. I’ll need to go after him.”
She jumped into the hole, her terra-gate shimmering. The cave floor broke apart, the bedrock shattering beneath the force of her will.
But Odessa had anticipated her move. Haidee stopped, suspended in midair, only halfway down. “Let me go, Odessa.”
“What do you intend to do?” I cried out.
“The Abyss closed up after him, so all I need to do is break it open again. I’ll punch my way to the center of the world if that’s what it’s going to take.” She lashed out, again and again, and the ground rocked from her fury. But all she uncovered were more layers of stone.
The goddess was past caring. She tore through the slag, digging deeper.
“I know how much you love Arjun, Haidee.” Odessa was crying. “But I can’t let you do this.”
“I’m the Sun Goddess!” The ground splintered, fractured, burst. “I can do anything!”
“You can’t. We can’t. Our strength is finite, and you’ll die at the rate you’re going. You’ve seen the paintings. You’ve read Inanna’s instructions. She couldn’t put the world back to rights because she needed her twin. I need my twin. We can’t heal Aeon without you. Please, Haidee.”
Haidee had stopped struggling but her eyes rem
ained closed, desperate not to listen. She said nothing as Odessa pulled her back up into the desert.
“I am so sorry, Haidee,” Odessa said again.
“You can’t tell me you wouldn’t do the same thing.” Her twin sounded so impassive; her voice used to always be so warm.
“I know. I would have done exactly what you did. And I . . .” Odessa’s voice broke. “I would have lashed out at you in much the same way, I think. But I would also hope that you, had you been in my place, would have stopped me from doing more harm to myself. Reminded me about our duty to everyone else.”
Haidee stared at her for a long moment, her face a study in detachment. “Duty,” she echoed. “Inanna said to take her immortality and journey to the Cruel Kingdom, didn’t she?”
But the stone was gone along with Arjun, and no one wanted to say that out loud either, for fear of making things worse. There was a cold fury to Haidee now that I’d never known her capable of. I remembered Odessa’s white-hot rages when she’d been in the grip of the galla’s influence, compared them to the icy, almost inhuman goddess now standing before me. No monsters were influencing Haidee now. Haidee, who had always been so cheerful and happy and hopeful.
“Duty,” she said. “I’ll do it for duty.”
It almost felt like we’d lost Haidee, too.
We were quiet on the ride back. Noelle had taken over the driving in Arjun’s place; seeing someone else behind the wheel only drove his absence further home. Haidee sat in the back seat. Her eyes stared out, unseeing. Odessa sat beside her. Something had passed between the sisters, unseen, and I feared, irreparable. This felt like the first break in their relationship, and I didn’t know how deep that fracture went.
This was not how I wanted to enter Asteria’s camp, where tensions were already running high. Odessa was in no shape to face her mother. Haidee was in no shape to do anything. I had no idea how Asteria would react to being told Janella was dead.
That turned out to be the least of our worries.
Even from a distance, I saw the battle already in full swing. In lieu of an air-dome, Asteria had chosen to barricade her camp with high, heavy sand walls that the galla were now busily slamming themselves against. Parts of the defenses had already fallen where the horde was at its thickest.