by Rin Chupeco
“Like hell I won’t.” Even as I said the words, I knew them to be bluster. I had no weapon and no backup. For all I knew, the mirage was still hiding nearby, and I didn’t want to stick around for it to say hello again. “You owe me a gun.”
She smiled. “Send me a bill, then.”
Air patterns kicked up the soil, briefly obscuring her from view. When the dust settled, I was face-first in sand again with a mouthful of gravel.
Spitting out pebbles and cursing, I scrambled up, but she was gone.
“Arghh!” I snarled at the sky, frustrated and embarrassed that I’d been bested by a little slip of a girl, goddess be damned. Salla would probably yell at me if she knew I’d let her live.
If she knew, I reminded myself, returning to the whale remains. I was angry, and humiliated—and relieved, when I thought about it. If she’d really wanted me dead, I’d have been just as gutted as that whale.
Besides, I had almost-fresh meat, so it wasn’t like I’d be returning empty-handed. Despite the explosion, this whale alone could last the whole clan many weeks.
I remembered the eyeless mirage, the way it sounded out twins and breach and heal us without ever using a tongue. Its words sounded far too similar to the Sun Goddess’s claims that she could bring things back to life.
Not possible. The world’s too broken to repair. And they don’t get points for wanting to revive something they destroyed in the first place.
I could think of reasons why it knew the Sun Goddess’s name.
But how in the sand-encrusted hells—and this’d be the catalyst for all the bad dreams I’d be having in the coming days, that much I was sure of—had it known mine?
Hell and sandrock.
I retrieved my knife, rubbed off the worst of the blood against the side of the aspidochelone, and, grimly, set to work.
Chapter Three
Odessa, Breaker of Storms
I WAS GOING TO TELL Lan I was in love with her at that dinner.
I still am.
If I tried to make it up to her, would she accept? Would she even forgive me? I’d only ever been courageous that first time we met, when I had looked up from the pages of The Queen and Her Hunter and found her staring at me the way Erik the huntsman might have looked when he’d glimpsed Queen Rahne for the very first time. That had been two and a half months ago, not long after I’d started sneaking out.
That first time had been such a rush. I remembered how my hands shook, how I’d been convinced I was going to be caught. But I always timed it well; easy enough to put the guards to sleep for a couple of minutes or so, as they were already exhausted from overusing their Stonebreaker armor. Easy enough to disguise my hair, to locate the lone city bookshop where I’d occupied myself before Lan had sauntered in and changed my life.
Easy enough to hide my condition; I was never gone from the Spire for long. I actually felt better in the city than back in the tower—time spent with Lan gave me the energy that the other Catseyes’ healing couldn’t—which only stiffened my resolve to keep playing truant.
And then the kiss. Sweet Mother, I’d been dreaming of the kiss every night since it happened; the way the book spines dug into my back, the mortifying noises I made, the look of pure lust on Lan’s face as she stumbled back, unwilling to scandalize Mr. Wallof any further, long enough to ask me out.
Have dinner with me, Ame, she’d whispered, still as formal as a graveyard despite my swollen lips, like she hadn’t been the reason for them. Stay the night.
I was thrilled.
I was frightened.
But Mother just had to decide another Banishing was imminent on the morrow and placed me under heavier guard. I was to have a new Catseye, she told me, one of the best in Aranth—except every Catseye unlucky enough to be assigned to me was the “best in Aranth” until they couldn’t heal me, so I had little faith in her assertions.
I was going to miss Lenida. Catseyes could heal everyone but themselves, and Catseye Lenida had both horrible eyesight and a narcolepsy problem, so it was easy for me to sneak out while she snored for three hours. A new Catseye was going to make playing truant harder.
The new Catseye had wound up being the very date I’d stood up.
It would have been the best-case scenario for my situation, actually, if it wasn’t for all the lying I’d done beforehand.
Was that the real reason you never showed up? she’d asked me in that quiet voice.
I don’t know, Lan. I don’t know if I was going to show up at dinner even if Mother hadn’t posted more guards. Because I couldn’t promise you forever. Because it was only a matter of time before you learned that I lied, and you’d despise me for it. And I was right.
But I wanted to make things right now. Now, after realizing that I could actually lose her—
A wave of exhaustion passed over me. Don’t get too worked up or you’ll get sick again, I told myself, rolling over till I was facedown, groaning into my pillow. My intended apology/confession had wound up strangling itself in my throat instead, at the look of genuine hurt on her face. I had a lot to make up for before she’d trust me again.
I knew it was ridiculous. I had literally battered down seas, dispelled storms. Surely coming clean about my feelings was an easier task.
That’s because you wouldn’t care if the seas rejected your affections, Odessa. You didn’t lie to the storms about not being a goddess of Aranth.
Confessing was not as spontaneous or easy as I thought it would be. The girls in the romances I’d read never seemed to go about planning their love admissions like they were strategizing for a bloody war. More common for them to blurt it out in the heat of the moment, like the words would burst out of them eventually anyway.
I’d been trying to work out a plan to apologize: complete the Banishing, set up a lovely candlelit dinner afterward to make up for the one I didn’t get to, then confess as honestly as I could. Beg her to give me a second chance. Tell her yes, I wanted to spend the night. Eventually. One day. But I needed more time to process everything she meant by that, once I stopped dissolving into a heady mess of dirty thoughts and mentally flailing every time I let my mind slide in that direction.
I mean, she was right next door now! I could sneak over in the middle of the night and—
You know you haven’t the guts, Odessa!
But first things first.
Twenty minutes later, once the dizziness had passed, I sat on the bed, wearing my best defeat-the-Banishing dress—a blue silk affair that flattered my too-skinny figure and flared around my hips, with sleeves that ended at my elbows so I didn’t have to keep pushing them back from my wrists. And there was lace involved—by the Mother, so much lace. I had no idea what Lan’s preferences in clothes were, so when dressing for seduction, I’d opted for the tried and true.
I crossed my legs and tried to push my chest out, but it was not the most comfortable position. I considered lying down on one side while propping myself up on a forearm, but that didn’t feel right, either. Upright and stiff-backed, like a queen? Leaning back on my elbows, all come-hither-like? Should I tug the garment down to expose a shoulder? All I had to go by were the raunchy covers of my romances, and it occurred to me now how extremely uncomfortable all those women had to be to pose for those paintings.
A knock sounded and I scrambled for position, pushing the cloth down to let a collarbone show. The door opened and Lan peered warily in. She didn’t look as angry as she had the night before. She hadn’t quit, either. That was a good sign, wasn’t it?
“Good morning, Your Holiness. The rain’s let up. I’ll let the others know—” She paused, staring at me. Her face was expressionless. Did she like what she saw? Or was the come-hithering not working?
“Is your leg bothering you?” she finally asked.
“No-o-o.” I swung both feet to the side of the bed, beet red. Miss Merrilyn from Capturing the Prince made it look so easy. “I’m okay! It was a—there’s nothing wrong with my—I’m okay!”
“Your mother’s waiting. The Devoted have gathered, and I don’t think we should prolong this any more than necessary. It’s not good weather to stay out in.”
It was never good weather to stay out in for me. “Lan. I . . .”
“Yes?”
Tell her. Tell her. Tell her.
“I’m ready,” I whispered.
“Good. Best not to keep your mother waiting, Your Holiness.”
I rearranged my skirts and hopped out of bed. If she’d noticed that I was wearing flower pins in my hair, or a goodly amount of rouge on my cheeks despite my limited supply, she made no comment. I felt quietly disappointed as I followed her out of the room.
As always, Mother was the epitome of elegance, in a serene white dress with no adornments. I felt overdressed standing beside her. “You’re looking very lovely this nightspan,” she pronounced, beaming. “Isn’t she, Tianlan?”
Lan shrugged. I saw the faint dark circles, the slight redness in her gold-and-silver eyes. She didn’t look like she’d slept at all, and I felt ashamed of my selfishness, horrified I hadn’t seen it sooner. Was there something they weren’t telling me? “The water’s rising fast, Asteria,” she said. “Janella thinks the floods will come within the next three hours.”
Mother smiled. “This is your first time witnessing the Banishing this close, isn’t it? Just follow our lead; Odessa is quite good at it.”
We performed the Banishing whenever necessary, which used to be once a year, twice if needed. Now we do it every three months. Aranth was built atop the only strip of land under habitable weather, close to bordering the large ocean that extended eastward into nowhere. But both water and ice were encroaching on our small patch of territory, clamoring to break through our frozen dyke.
I was not averse to performing the Banishing. Knowing that the sea and sky would stop at my command was a potent feeling, one of the few times in my life when I didn’t feel so helpless in my sickly, fragile body. But there was also another, more selfish reason I looked forward to the rite: the Banishing was the only time I was ever allowed out of the tower. I always felt guilty about it, but the days I looked forward to were also the most dangerous times for the rest of Aranth.
For all they said about goddesses who could do anything, I knew there were limits. I couldn’t use aether-gates like the Catseye to make others better. But I could inflict other curses instead—poison, lethargy, a host of other ailments—and sometimes I wondered if my ability to curse rather than heal was a character flaw, some defect I had beyond the physical. But my mother, I knew, had the same shortcomings.
All the other elements were mine to command, and I could use them with ease where others struggled. There weren’t a lot of things in life that I was good at, but I knew I was good at this.
Mother squared her shoulders, as Lan wrapped a thick cloak around me. I shivered when I felt her warm hands brush against my neck, oblivious to the cold. “Let’s begin, before we have to deal with floods along with everything else,” Mother said.
The Spire was built on a cliff that faced the worst of the endless waves. It was a visual reminder for the citizens below that we goddesses were the city’s bulwark, the one thing standing between them and utter destruction.
We walked down the steps hammered into the stone, a path that led to the base of the ice wall that encircled most of the city limits. Torches showed us the way; the night was just as dark in the Third Hour of Waking as it was in the Thirteenth. The area was closed off to the rest of the citizens; any careless vandalism could cause the walls to disintegrate and water to flood the city within minutes. I stumbled a little; try as I might, I always found myself winded and out of breath despite the short descent. But this time I had Lan’s hand on my arm, gently steering me, and I clung to her gratefully.
A cluster of Devoted waited, along with several of their assistants. Gracea was the first to step forward, the first to curtsy. As Aranth’s only Starmaker and leader of my mother’s Devoted, she took her role seriously. I’d had little interaction with the rest of Mother’s council, but Gracea had always struck me as a little too smug for her own good. “Your Holiness,” she murmured calmly, though the constant tugging at her gold-piping-edged hood revealed her nerves. Like her, the other Devoted wore their official robes, colors marking their cowls to indicate their respective abilities—blue for Icewrights, yellow for Windshifters, and so on. “We are ready.”
I stared out into the endless sea. I’d felt restless since leaving the tower, an uneasiness that I’d never experienced during previous rituals. Why did I feel like there was something out there, hidden within the wind-tossed waters, watching me? I shuddered at the thought.
The other Devoted appeared to share my unease. Seasinger Graham always had a kind smile for me and a friendly word, but it was clear he was more worried than usual. Windshifter Filia kept glaring at Lan for some reason. Several Icewrights were monitoring the floes before us, exchanging hushed opinions, and a half dozen Stormbringers were already channeling their gates, attempting to appease the rain by lessening its impact around us. Only Mistshaper Gareen seemed relaxed, flirting with one of the other Devoted women—today it was Miel—like nothing was wrong.
Mother looked out at the raging sea, her prismatic hair flying around her. “Janella, how fast is the wind today?”
Gracea’s assistant, a girl with doe eyes standing at the back of the group, spoke up. Like many other citizens, she had been born with muted gates, the red tinge around her irises marking her as a dormant Firesmoker. Only Mother and I could channel Fire nowadays, but even for us it was difficult—there weren’t enough of the patterns in Aranth for the average user. “Nearing forty knots, Your Holiness.”
“A dozen knots too many for my taste.” She extended a hand toward me. I accepted it, felt her strength flow through my fingers and bolster my own. “It’s your turn this time, Odessa.”
Mother usually helmed these summonings, but she’d been encouraging me to take the lead of late. I took a deep breath, snuck a quick glance back at Lan, who looked worried but also strangely expectant.
I turned back to the angry sea, and my air-gate glowed. I pulled in every pattern I could muster from the waters and channeled them into the frozen ice walls, and soon felt Mother’s own magic adding to mine.
Water was easy enough to draw from; it was everywhere. Mother and I forced the temperatures around the ice barrier lower, far beyond its normal freezing point until the ice stopped expanding when it solidified and began contracting instead. The result was an extremely dense, nigh-impenetrable, glacier-like dike that could weather most of what the sea could throw at us.
For the time being, anyway; our creation required constant vigilance. We’d had to contend with large chunks of permafrost drifting closer to the city, where a collision with the dike could prove fatal for Aranth. Sea creatures, too, were a danger, and their increasing presence over the years meant we had to replenish and reinforce the dike with greater frequency. Some of the Devoted spent most of each nightspan monitoring the dike’s status, marking down places that needed further buttressing. Mother relied on their reports to decide when to perform the next Banishing. But the seas had been getting worse, the permafrost drawing ever closer, and the time between Banishings was growing shorter.
Breath left my mouth in faint puffs, turning into icicles halfway out. I didn’t feel the cold, even as a thin sliver of ice formed up against my skin like brittle armor. The Devoted rattled off the list of chinks they’d detected in the barrier.
“A vertical cut along column five, five inches in length and an inch in diameter—”
“—three crisscross marks on column twenty-three, water trickling through—”
“—gouge in column sixty-five, five feet in diameter, ice crumbling—”
I closed my eyes and let instinct take over, patterns of Water flowing through and manifesting as hard crystallized ice along the dike’s borders, letting the Devoted’s calls direct my aim.
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br /> I’d done this exactly thirty-six times since the night I turned eight and my gates opened for the first time. It was exhausting work, but reinforcing the dike was half of what made up the Banishing. The hard part came right after.
“All clear,” Seasinger Graham said. He turned to his assistant, Merika. “Inform the others,” he barked, tapping her on the shoulder. She flinched, eyes wide as she glanced back at him, then nodded briefly before dashing off. The other Devoted had seen the Banishing unfold many times before, but they sighed their relief each time like it was the first.
“Are you okay, Your Holiness?” Graham asked me gently.
I nodded. I wasn’t tired; it was strange to have a disease growing inside me, yet feel stronger with every pattern I wove for the Banishing despite it. I looked back at Lan; she was smiling. “Well done, Your Holiness,” she said, and my heart soared.
I was going to tell her tonight.
“Odessa.” Mother gestured. Obediently, I followed her and the others back to higher ground, back to the Spire. The city was protected for now, but that alone was no longer enough.
It was a balancing act. Even the sturdiest walls would buckle from colliding with permafrost that stretched on as far as the horizon allowed. But melting too much of it would bring more tsunamis and floods, damaging the wall more quickly. Too little, and the thaw could release strange diseases that had been hidden within the ice for millennia, to ravage the city. The trick was to burn the ice hot enough to dissolve immediately, without giving it a chance to add to the sea and before any airborne sicknesses could be introduced into the wind.
Noelle had come prepared, the dry driftwood lying at our feet. “Lan,” Mother said, but my Catseye already had her flint ready. One spark, two, and the driftwood began to burn. Seasinger Graham was already drawing in his own Water patterns, the water-gate in his eyes a bright, shining blue while he sapped the moisture from the air around the small fire, letting it burn longer than it should have.