The Never Tilting World

by Rin Chupeco

  But I didn’t want to go back out there. Cowardly as that made me, I didn’t want to see the blood-soaked ground that had haunted me for months, to see any evidence of the team I had left behind. I had no choice.

  At this point I believed the gateless crew preferred Odessa’s leadership over Gracea’s, as did most of the clerks. I suspected some of the Devoted thought the same, but their vows bound them to Asteria and therefore Gracea, too. I couldn’t blame them.

  But some of the other Devoted did resent those shifts in loyalty, adding to a tension already at a breaking point. Sumiko had informed me that Jeenia had a bruised arm but wouldn’t admit to how. She’d found another, Salleemae, crying some ways from camp, because Holsett had been verbally abusive, yelling at her for packing his things the wrong way.

  “Was I away for too long?” I asked Noe at one point.

  She raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

  The last three months had been the longest I’d spent in the company of the other Devoted. Was this how they always treated their subordinates? Why hadn’t Asteria stopped this? And despite the time I spent away—why hadn’t I noticed?

  That’s how the game is played. Pitting them against each other means they’ll be too busy to plot against me. Hadn’t Asteria told me that? Did she deliberately allow this simply so they’d be too busy fighting to plot against her?

  Odessa would never have done this. Though she had been acting odd as of late . . .

  “Never mind.” No one had reported anything to me, and I realized that my mistake was assuming they would. The Devoted’s hold on these people was stronger than the clerks’ fear.

  Still, the guilt remained—how many of these instances had I been witness to in the past, in Aranth, and how many had I ignored?

  I sought the goddess out while the final preparations were underway and found her hidden behind more of the fresh new vegetation she had grown for the forthcoming journey. Her eyes were closed, her fingers tracing the ground.

  “I can feel another one,” she said, without opening her eyes. “Another galla. Toward the lakes.”

  “What is your relation with these galla, Odessa? Neither you nor Asteria has ever deigned to go into details.” I’d been doing so many things wrong on this expedition, and my mistake with Odessa was treating her like she knew nothing. Because I’d thought her mother knew best.

  She smiled archly at me. “If I tell you more, will you finally listen?”

  “I will.”

  “I knew you wouldn’t approve, just as I knew I couldn’t refuse. In Mother’s day, goddesses performed many rituals. Rituals to protect the world, rituals to grant us more powers to do just that. But since the Breaking, Mother thought they no longer worked. One in particular called Inanna’s Song states that in my seventeenth year seven galla would come to me bearing gifts—radiances, they called them. For every radiance I accept, I must also accept a terror—a sacrifice. Something about myself that I must give up. Four galla have already offered their gifts.”

  “And what happens if you don’t accept?”

  She made a halfhearted gesture, at everything around us.

  I clutched her shoulders. “Was this how the world broke, Odessa? Did Asteria refuse any of their gifts?” Hadn’t the goddess hinted as much before? The idea that Asteria hadn’t been as forthcoming to me as I’d thought—that I was just another piece to manipulate in her games of politics—was like a stab to the heart. She’d taken me off the streets, and I owed her. But she had no right to fool me like this, either.

  “What sacrifice did you offer in exchange for their gifts?” I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, but—I had to.

  “I don’t know. I don’t feel like anything’s changed. But I feel stronger, more confident in myself. I’ve never been that back at the Spire.” She shifted languidly, and her dress slipped slightly, exposing a slim, pale shoulder. “I don’t know what they took from me, but it was well worth the rest. I can sense them now, you know? This is the real reason Mother wouldn’t let me out of Aranth. How ridiculous. The first galla caught me right in the city, where she thought I would be most protected. They’ll follow me wherever I go. Mother simply refuses to accept the inevitable.”

  “Odessa—”

  “Am I still infected, Lan? Is there a darkness inside me still?” She took my hand and pressed it against the curve of her neck. “Have I been healed?”

  I let my gate flare and probed at the darkness inside her. It had not increased in size, but neither had it diminished from my last healing. I started to withdraw, but she pressed my hand more firmly against her. The collar of her dress slipped down just an inch more.

  “Your Holiness—”

  “You only call me that when you feel trapped,” she whispered. “When you need the distance to remind yourself that I am your goddess. You used to call me Ame, and I wish with all my heart that I was still the merchant’s daughter I pretended to be, because when I was with you, I was better at being Ame than I ever was being Odessa.” Still with a tight grip on my hand, she pushed my fingers lower.

  “I’m not frightened anymore,” she purred, her eyes glowing. “I have no regrets. Anything that could make me live my life a little fuller, that could make me serve my people better, would be better than the safe prison of the Spire. We’re not going to die. The galla wouldn’t have sought me out only for me to die, right?”

  “Odessa . . .”

  “I love you,” she said, and my whole being centered on those words, at the sudden wild rush of euphoria they inflamed in me. “And I know that as Odessa I can’t,” she murmured, and I’d realized belatedly that she had somehow wormed her way into my lap again. If anyone could see us, it would have been a scandalous sight; her atop me, my hand down her dress. “But as Ame, I want to. I need to.”

  “Ode—”

  “Call me Ame.” Her mouth caressed my neck, and I bit back a groan. “Is that what you really want, Lan? Will we survive these wildlands only to return home and have my mother marry me off to some man? Will you still stand guard over my room every night of my married life, hearing him behind my door? I was raised to know my duty, my love. I’ll welcome his attentions and bear his children, but I’ll close my eyes and think of you every time. But not if you say no. Not if you’ll tell me you’ll defy my mother and claim me for your own.”

  “Odessa—I—”

  “But you can’t. And you won’t. And I understand why you won’t. We’re all broken in some way, but the fracture is deeper in you. You don’t think you’re good enough for me. You thought Ame was good enough—so why not Odessa, too?” She smiled. “Catseye Sumiko told me you’d been refusing her treatment. I need you to be in the best shape to protect me, Lan, and this isn’t that. You have a duty to me, and to the people here, and to yourself most of all, to accept her help. Please.”

  “Odessa—I—”

  She nipped at my throat. “If you pledge to talk to Catseye Sumiko, right here, right now,” she murmured throatily, teasingly, her hand stroking the back of mine, “I’ll let you do more than touch.” I could feel her take hold of my other hand, slowly sliding it up her leg, underneath her skirts.

  And like a besotted fool, I was letting her.

  “You feel so far away sometimes. Sometimes I see your gaze turn inward, and I wonder if you think about her. Your Nuala. You tell me there was nothing serious between you, and perhaps the love between you was not as strong as ours, but I think you lie. You care about people you involve yourself with. That’s how compassionate a person you are.

  “But I—I am beginning to find that I am not so good a person after all. Sometimes I grow so very jealous. Sometimes I let darker thoughts take over, and imagine Gracea cowering on her knees before me as I finally take command of these Devoted who mistreat their subordinates and treat me like a child still. Some nights I—I’m even glad that your Nuala is dead.”

  “Odessa—!”

  She stopped, her beautiful eyes flying open. Quickly she was
off me and smoothing back her hair, like we had done nothing at all, just as Noelle and Salleemae came stepping through the small thicket. “We’re ready to leave, Your Holiness,” Noe reported.

  But Odessa’s eyes were already trained on the horizon, toward the Lunar Lakes behind us. “No, we will not,” she said softly. “Tell the others that we’re to head back to the lakes.”

  “Your Holiness,” Noelle began uncertainly, “I don’t think we have enough time to—”

  “That’s an order, Noelle!” Odessa snapped. “Be ready to move in five minutes, if you’d rather not be left behind.” She stole a quick glance at me, and her mouth curved up. “We’ll talk again,” she whispered, before walking back to the camp.

  “She grows more like her mother every day,” Noelle murmured.

  I didn’t answer. Around us, the greenery Odessa had summoned swayed in the wind.

  “Bright Lady.” Salleemae had lingered behind, her earnest face confused. “Something has been puzzling me.”

  “What is it?”

  “She was wrong, milady. About Cathei.”

  I lifted my head. Salleemae was chewing her lip and staring off into nothing. “What do you mean?” I pressed.

  She started. “What she said about Cathei, milady. It wasn’t right. How she went off like that.”

  No, it wasn’t right for Odessa to be off chasing shadows and raising people from the dead. Everyone but Odessa knew that by now. “What do you expect me to do about that, though? She’s practically in charge now.”

  She gazed at me in awe. “You’re right,” she said. “She is. Even despite Gracea.”

  I was growing impatient. “You’d best start preparing, too.”

  “Yes, milady.”

  Once she had left, I pushed back an overly large stalk and spotted unhealthy black rot along the ground. The same rot had gotten to the roots of many of the other plants; it was already turning the once-green stalks a withered shade of yellow.

  Odessa was barking orders to the rest of the group, a faint ethereal glow cast over her lovely face.

  I paused, looking at the ground again one last time, and stepped away.

  There was something about the glittering surfaces of the Lunar Lakes that made me think of things unseen lurking underneath, despite their placid appearance. What short time I’d spent here had told me that the most innocent terrain often held the worst dangers. A breeze wafted out at us from their direction, almost as cold as those back in Aranth. Save for Gracea’s and Odessa’s channelings, there were no other visible lights.

  “I see nothing of note here.” Gracea was already eager to be off.

  Graham strayed closer to the lake, his eyes flaring blue. “There don’t seem to be any . . . creatures around here.”

  “Are you sure this is where you wish to stop, Your Holiness?” Janella asked nervously. Ever since Cathei’s death, the young clerk had been staying closer and closer to Odessa’s side.

  Odessa nodded confidently. “I’m sure.” And then, to my horror, she started to strip.

  “What are you doing, Your Holiness?” A conniption did not sound too far off in the Starmaker’s future.

  “I need to reach the center of the lake,” the goddess said matter-of-factly. “I can’t have my clothes getting wet, and we’ll need to move quickly afterward.” She grinned coyly at me. “Will you keep me company, Catseye?”

  “Not like this, Your Holiness!” She frowned at the title, but I pushed on. “We’re not going to swim out into a lake several thousand feet deep and possibly filled with creatures that could kill us!”

  She giggled. “Spoilsport.” The ground around her began to shift, plants sprouting and growing and twisting until several oak trees stood before us. “Perhaps we can fashion a raft from all these lovely trees?”

  “We are wasting time here!” Gracea seethed.

  “I will do whatever I want,” Odessa said coldly, “and you won’t stop me.”

  “We are leaving! The danger grows every moment we linger here. You may have been a spoiled little brat in the Spire, child, but your insolence will not be tolerated while I’m in cha—”

  Odessa punched her.

  Stunned, we watched her fall, crumple to the ground.

  “Ow,” Odessa said mildly, and rubbed her knuckles.

  “Odessa,” Holsett said, wavering. “You can’t—Gracea is—”

  “Sumiko, attend to Gracea once we’ve gotten a raft ready. Inform her that my ‘insolence’ is all that keeps her and the rest of you from falling prey to the beasts that roam these parts, and she would do well to remember it.” The goddess spun around in a circle. The air changed, and I thought I saw strange shadows gathering around her, like the wildlands themselves were ready to stand with her against the rest of us. “Does anyone else have a problem?”

  No one spoke.

  “Good. Now let’s get to those trees.”

  Several more gates and half an hour later we’d lashed a few logs together for a sturdy-looking raft. Odessa and I were aboard, as were Graham, Noelle, Miel, Janella, and some crew members—Graham and Miel to channel their Seasinging, the others to help steer the raft. The rest of the Devoted remained ashore, watching over their still-unconscious leader.

  “She won’t forget this, Odessa,” I warned her.

  She shrugged. “A worry for another day. For now, the galla.”

  We pushed off. Noelle sat down on the side of the raft with her beloved halberd and stared stonily down at the water, like the force of her gaze alone would prevent anything from surfacing.

  “This is ridiculous,” Graham muttered, but unlike his leader, kept the words mostly to himself.

  “Are there any markers that would tell us we’re getting closer?” Noelle asked.

  “I’ll know it when I see it,” Odessa said tersely. Underneath her calm, she was just as worried as the rest of us. “Graham, scan the area.”

  “Your Holiness . . . this is a most unusual—”

  “Are you questioning me?”

  Graham sighed, resigned.

  “There are many legends about this place,” Janella informed us quietly. “Some say that a siren lurks within one of the underground caves, luring men to their deaths with song. We do know there were a substantial number of unexplained deaths from the communities that used to live around the area.”

  “I’m not sure this is the best time to be talking about unnatural deaths, Janella,” Noelle pointed out quietly.

  The clerk flushed. “I didn’t mean to. My apologies.”

  “It’s still too quiet,” muttered one of the crewmen, a young man named Bergen. He shivered. “And too dark. I didn’t think I’d miss the roar of the storms and the waves back in Aranth, but this is harder on my nerves.”

  “Mind your tasks, lad,” said Slyp. “We got enough on our plates. Don’t add inattention to it.”

  “Thank you for accompanying us, milords,” Odessa said to them.

  It was the older man’s turn to redden. “Our pleasure, Your Holiness. After everything you’ve done—we don’t get to see much of you or your mother back in the city, and sometimes we forget. But in the last few days you’ve put the faith back in us. We’ll follow you to the ends of the earth if need be.”

  “Better hope it doesn’t come to that,” I muttered.

  With Graham and Miel’s Seasinging coaxing us along, we reached the middle of the lake without incident.

  “I’m sure of it,” Odessa insisted. “I can feel it.” She began to strip again. “It’s directly below us.”

  “You’re not going down there!” I exploded.

  Janella was already expecting the worst and had lain flat against the raft with her hands clenched.

  “What exactly are we looking for?” Noelle asked.

  Odessa braced her hands on the edge of the raft and peered down at the water, glaring at her own blurred reflection. I placed my hand against her elbow. “There’s something here,” she muttered. “I know it’s here. I just need�
�”

  A pair of dark arms rose from the water without warning, shadowy hands planting themselves on both sides of Odessa’s startled face, and then pulled her underneath the surface.

  “Odessa!” Ignoring Janella’s startled gasp and Graham’s swearing, I kicked off my boots and cloak, and plunged into the lake after her, desperate. The water was clear, but the lake was deep enough that I could see no bottom. Still, I spotted the trail of bubbles drifting up in Odessa’s wake and followed it grimly down, moving as fast as I could.

  Twenty seconds in, I saw Odessa’s hair floating like colored smoke, saw her struggling against a strange creature. It was not a shadow, but something close to it; long, dark green hair and thin, almost bony arms, scaled and midnight black. Its lidless eyes bled a stark red. It appeared anchored to one spot; a wealth of roots climbed down from its waist and onto a large boulder that overlooked a deeper trench, the mass of tangles spreading around the bedrock like a broken spiderweb. A bright, peculiar light surrounded the monster; it seemed to emanate from within the stones piled around the creature’s territory.

  I dashed to her side and found her arm. With my other hand, I grabbed at one of the tree roots wrapped around the goddess, realizing they must be an extension of the monster’s body, and allowed my gates to flare gold and silver.

  What I felt sickened me. The creature itself was personified sickness, a never-ending whirlpool of miasma and hate; attempting to cleanse it would be like bailing water out of an ocean, and attempting to add more maladies would make no difference.

  It grabbed for me.

  Lan.

  All of a sudden I was surrounded by drowned specters, all of them wearing my dead rangers’ faces. They stretched their hands out to me, imploring, pleading. You left us, they mouthed as they floated closer, and though I’d been holding my breath I swore I could smell their stench, the decay that accompanied bloated corpses. You left us.

  Every part of me wanted to swim away, to make for the surface and forget I’d ever come here. The Good Mother knew how close I came to doing exactly that—until I saw Odessa. Her face was pale, her struggles weaker by the second.