The Never Tilting World

by Rin Chupeco

  Sonfei’s statement that the woods were still was not entirely accurate. The first sudden, unexpected crack had me jumping into the air in my shock. It sounded like it had come from everywhere at once, and my first instinct was to assume aggression.

  Arjun had come to the same conclusion, already readying his Howler; I could see the faint glow of its barrel as he repeatedly slammed more Fire into it. “Is this a trap? Is something attacking us?”

  But as the sounds continued, I relaxed. “I think it’s coming from the forest itself. I read about something like this once. Stop for a minute.”

  “What are you doing?” Arjun asked, as I headed for one of the withered tree trunks that squatted on the ground. I knelt down, careful not to touch it, and whipped up a fresh froth of Air, so I could amplify the sounds emanating from within. I didn’t have to wait long.

  Another rattling noise, even louder this time, sent Arjun jumping.

  “Remember that time in our old buggy when you complained about our voices being too loud for the small space?” I pointed at the trunk. “I amplified the sounds from inside it in a similar way.”

  “That’s what made that sound? It’s alive?”

  “No. The exact opposite, actually.” I sighed. “My mother had books about the world as it used to be. Sometimes when trees die, they make odd popping and cracking sounds. Desiccation, I think it’s called. And it looks like these trees have been dying for a long time.”

  “You mean . . . can they feel pain?”

  “I don’t really know. Maybe.”

  Arjun crouched down beside me, looking awkward. “Is there anything we can do for them? I mean, I know crapsack about trees, but . . .”

  I felt a sudden rush of warm affection for him. Weeks ago, he’d been complaining about having to take care of a pod of dolugongs, and now he was worried about how a forest might be feeling. “There’s not much we can do. There’s been far too many years of drought for us to solve things in just one day. We’ll just have to push on.”

  “I don’t like this place,” he muttered, rising to his feet. “Maybe ol’ Baldy had something there. Let’s get back on the rig and not stop until we’ve found somewhere safe.”

  We rode on, past more tree carcasses and shrubs dead and dying. Sonfei’s buggies were true works of art. They were fast without rattling so much you felt like the whole rig could fall apart, and sturdy enough for the demands of the weather. This one was worth far more than what we had offered in exchange, which was mainly just Arjun being chased by giant worms.

  “He believes in you,” Arjun grunted, over the wind. “He thinks there’s something to your conviction that Aeon can be healed, and it’s a small investment compared to what could happen if you actually pull it off.”

  “You’re different,” I told him, and to my surprise he froze, his brows drawn together. Why would that anger him? “That’s not an insult. It’s just that you haven’t told me I was an idiot for a while now.”

  A ghost of a grin appeared on his face. “Would you like me to call you that every now and then, just for old times’ sake, princess?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Forget I said anything. We need to figure out if we’re still heading the right way. We haven’t seen the mirage since the Liangzhu tribe dug me out of the Sand Sea, and I’m worried we might have veered off course somehow.”

  He hesitated again. “I don’t think the mirage is going to come back, Haidee.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Just call it a feeling. I don’t think anything can expend this much energy traveling halfway around the world from the Breaking to flag us down and then race back there again. Besides, I think it completed what it set out to do.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”

  “Of course not.” Arjun stared straight ahead, his hand gripping the wheel tightly. “Well, just one thing I forgot to tell you. I saw the mirage again when I was dragging my ass out of the Sand Sea. It said something about the Liangzhu’s book, then disappeared. I think it was leading us to Sonfei and his clan all along—if Sonfei knew your mother and her twin, then the mirage would have known who he was, too.”

  “That does make sense.” In the wide expanse of the Sand Sea, stumbling on the one person who possessed the information we needed had to be more than just a coincidence. “Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?”

  “Must have slipped my mind, what with almost dying,” came the testy reply. “We don’t need the mirage to get to Brighthenge. I trust the sun. As long as we’re heading directly away from it, we should be good. According to the map Sonfei drew, the Great Abyss is long enough that you can’t miss it wherever you’re traveling from.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Your dolugong friends were a big help—they dragged us faster through the Sand Sea than we would have gone on our own, and no one’s been able to document just how big that is. If even Sonfei’s surprised to see anyone make it across from the other side—and given how far away the sun is now from the center of the sky—then I’d say we’re far closer to this Brighthenge than we are to your own Golden City.”

  “So we’re really getting closer?” Dread and eagerness warred for supremacy inside my stomach, uncertainty gaining traction. What if this was all for nothing? What if I was wrong, if I’d misinterpreted my father’s letter and the mirage’s words, and there was nothing we could do for Aeon after all?

  Spotting the look on my face, Arjun patted me awkwardly on the hand. “Best we can do for everyone is see this through to the end.”

  I smiled gratefully at him. He’d changed a lot. Or maybe he hadn’t, and he was just opening up to me a little more than he had before.

  That feeling of camaraderie went away very quickly as soon as we spotted the spring.

  It shouldn’t have existed. I didn’t know much about nature as it was supposed to be before the Breaking, but I felt like I’d read enough to know what should exist and what shouldn’t, and I was certain that this hot spring, in the face of our endless drought, among the thousands of dead trees we must have passed by now, shouldn’t be able to survive in all its hot, soothing glory.

  The only indication that the spring was more than what it appeared was a forlorn, weather-beaten statue beside it, a woman whose features had long since been obscured by time.

  But neither of us were thinking. Arjun immediately killed the engine, and we both scrambled out of the rig in a mad dash toward those beautiful waters. Arjun had already shed his boots and I was in the process of tugging my shirt off before we both froze and stared at one another.

  We hadn’t had a bath in weeks. Not the decent ones I could still have back at the Golden City, the privilege I enjoyed of washing in small buckets of water where many others had to make do with a washcloth over a basin. This was a pool I could actually soak in, something I had never been able to do before.

  “Look,” Arjun said, trying to sound sensible even though he was not. “We can’t both get in there at once. One of us should stand guard.”

  “I agree,” I said, my tone every bit as polite as his was. “So I should go first.”

  He glared. “I’m not going to wait my turn. You look like the type who’d spend days up to your ears in this if you had your way.”

  “So would you.”

  “Maybe there’s some creature lurking at the bottom. Maybe it’s got a hidden whirlpool. I can’t ask you to take the risks, Your Holiness.”

  Of course the first time he’d use my title was when he could use it against me. “I can take care of myself. I can gate Water, now that there’s an abundance of it. I’ll find out if there are other things lurking inside the spring faster than you could by splashing around.”

  “Then gate some. Outside of it.”

  I glowered, but the threat of some hidden monster lying in wait finally reached the part of my brain that was still logical, so I flared my gates blue and probed the water before he could react, trying to find anythin
g alive in there. A faint tremor of exhaustion ran through me; I was slowly getting my strength back, but gating enough water for what should have been a mundane chore still tired me out.

  Still I found nothing. The hot spring was just that: a hot spring. “See? It’s safe.”

  “If you’re going in,” Arjun threatened, once I had also tugged my boots off, “I’m going in, too.”

  He was impossible. “Fine,” I snapped, trying to will my cheeks not to color. The spring was wide enough that we weren’t going to be accidentally bumping into each other. “But you get even remotely near my side, and all you’ll find is a knee to the groin.”

  “We’ve been sharing space a lot smaller than this one for the last few weeks. If I wanted to go even remotely near you, you’d have known by now.”

  That stung. “Fine!” I snapped again, briefly switching my incanta to a Mistshaper’s. The water sizzled briefly at the dead center of the spring, and a fine spray of steam rose up, serving as an effective enough screen to offer a generous amount of privacy between us. “You stay over there, and I’ll stay here.”

  “As you wish, Your Holiness.” Arjun was already climbing out of his own clothes in his eagerness to get to the water, and I flushed, turning around and hurrying over to my side of the steam-wall so I could do the same.

  The softest of groans escaped my lips the instant my toe made first contact with the water. The warmth immediately seeped into the rest of my body, filling me in the most satisfying way. It was hotter than I’d expected, but I soon grew used to the temperature without further complaint. I felt like I could stay in here forever.

  A pained grunt on the other side of the screen told me that Arjun was not as quick to grow accustomed to the spring’s heat, but even he settled down. I could still make out a vague outline of his figure through the steam; not enough to give me clearer details, but enough to spot generalities without the specifics—and maybe a shade more of the latter, if you looked close enough.

  Not that I wanted to look closer, of course.

  It was just that he was a little more muscular than I thought he would be. I knew that he was strong and that he worked hard; when we’d had no choice but to sleep side by side inside the buggy while the dolugongs pulled us along, he’d hogged enough of the space that I couldn’t help but feel muscle through his clothes.

  Not that I was looking. Or feeling.

  The spring was large enough to accommodate us both—maybe eight or ten feet at its widest—but not so large that I couldn’t reach through the screen and touch him if I wanted to. And without the mist I’d set up, I would see everything of him.

  And he’d see me.

  I shifted uneasily, not sure I liked where my thoughts were going. He was silent on his end, too—no doubt wishing he’d let me bathe first, like any decent man would have. Vanya would have been enough of a gentleman to have done that.

  But Vanya wouldn’t have bailed me out of half the messes I’d gotten into since leaving the Golden City. I hadn’t even thought about the man in weeks; Arjun was bothersome enough that he didn’t leave much room in my head for anyone else.

  “Like what you see?” I wasn’t sure, but I thought Arjun was studying me through the fog-curtain, though he didn’t sound as derisive or mocking as usual. But his voice was low, scratchy in its sudden hoarseness, and despite being neck-deep in a hot spring, I couldn’t hold back a shiver.

  I sank down until the waters were up to my chin. Could he see more of me than I could of him? Would he try to look? Shouldn’t I be angrier at the thought?

  “Don’t even think about it,” I grumbled halfheartedly.

  I didn’t think he’d heard, but his response came swiftly, an unexpectedly soft growl. “Last thing on my mind.”

  I turned away and spotted the statue again, several feet from where I basked in the water. I frowned, studying it closely. “Inanna.”

  “What?”

  “I think this was once a statue of Inanna. The spring might have been consecrated to her in the past. It could explain its presence here now. Her benediction is strong enough to survive centuries, I’m told.”

  “Huh. Good for her.”

  I scowled. So much for attempting small talk.

  We sat in near-awkward silence for several minutes more, and then he ruined it by talking again.

  “About the mirage,” he mumbled, and a faint splash in the water told me he was shifting position. Something touched my bare calf, and I squeaked, nearly shooting out of the water.

  Whatever it was immediately retreated. “Sorry,” I heard him mutter, his embarrassment filtering through the steam. “Just wanted to stretch my legs.”

  “Stretch them on your side!” Realizing I was naked and halfway out of the water, I sat back down. Surely I couldn’t stay this panicky, because something was going to break. Someone was going to break.

  “Sorry,” he said again. “Just wanted to—urgh.” It wasn’t quite a groan of pain, but something was obviously distressing him.

  “Are you hurt?”

  “No. It’s just—in between the traveling and the Sand Sea and then those damned worms—I haven’t had time to tend to my arm in a while. Aches every now and then if I don’t take the time to rest.”

  My ire disappeared. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, just—just having some difficulty trying to tend to this on my own. Normally Mother Salla or Millie would be around to help.”

  Who was Millie? “Do you . . . want me to help?”

  A pause. “I don’t want to impose.” His voice sounded wary, but he wasn’t turning down my offer outright like I thought he would. He must really be in pain to even be considering me.

  “What would I need to do?”

  “Just—I’ve got some ointment for it in my pack.”

  He’d left it on his side of the spring, but I coaxed Air to make it float over to mine. I rummaged through it briefly, then held up a small tube. “This one?”

  “Yeah. Hold on.” He lifted himself partway out of the water, and I looked away, blushing. “Just need to pat it dry first.”

  “Hold it out this way.”

  “I don’t want to impose—”

  “We’ve been imposing on each other from the moment we met, so let’s not break the habit now. Hold out your arm.”

  Another pause, and then he stuck his arm out through the steam-screen. I took it and, after puzzling out where to let it rest without using any body part I didn’t want involved, finally settled it on a smooth rock surface beside me.

  My fingers closed over the stump; it was the first time he’d even allowed me to touch it. It was a mass of scars and discolorations at the base, like it had been infected and healed and then reinfected again over the years. He said nothing else, so I squeezed out some of the ointment and slowly rubbed it in.

  “Thanks,” he said, the words sounding like they were forced out through gritted teeth.

  “Does it hurt?”

  “Yeah. Like something’s pinching from the inside. Can’t usually concentrate hard enough to do this myself.”

  “Is it okay for me to ask? About how . . .”

  “I was ten. Chased by a pack of nomads. Didn’t even know I had a gate.” He sighed. “I’d already been restless all that day. Had my whole body shaking without knowing why. I had a friend—Jerbie. They shot him right in the head and I just snapped.”

  “I’m so sorry.” Ten years old, and already being hunted down. At ten, the worst problem I’d had was Mother forbidding me mechanika lessons with Yeong-ho. Most Firesmokers didn’t survive, post-Breaking. Without proper training, they could too easily combust when their abilities manifested for the first time—especially out in the desert, where Fire was too strong for most bodies to withstand.

  “I felt like I was burning. I just let loose this inhuman howl, turned to the men, and raised my hand.” There was no emotion in Arjun’s voice. He could have been talking about the weather. “I set them all on fire. Watched them turn to ashe
s in front of me. I didn’t even know my own hand was aflame until Mother Salla started screaming.

  “They couldn’t save it, and I was in agony for days—they had to amputate, too charred for them to do much about it. Had enough medicine to save the rest of me, but not much for the pain, if you didn’t count the whiskey they forced down my throat to keep me drugged.”

  The stump underneath my hand shifted. “Was worth the hand,” he added quietly. “I got those bastards who got Jerbie. Lucky I’d directed the flames with the tip of my finger rather than just letting them loose uncontrolled. There wouldn’t have been anything left of me to bury.”

  “I’m so very sorry.” It was easy enough to take Arjun’s snark at face value. He wasn’t the type to let people pity him, and I knew he wouldn’t want that from me. “I wish you hadn’t had to go through that.”

  “Past is past. Just because I’m down a hand doesn’t mean I don’t carry my weight like someone who’s got two.”

  “You do more than that. Thank you.” Despite my exhaustion, I couldn’t help myself; I gated Aether and let its warmth seep into his skin, into the aches and pains where not even the hot springs could reach. I wasn’t very good at healing, but at least I could offer this.

  He made a strange, gasping sound. “That feels good,” he said thickly.

  I explored the stump gently, where his wrist would have been. “I’m glad you didn’t die,” I whispered.

  He stopped. I stopped. I knew that he was staring at me through the steam, and I could hear his harsh breathing. I felt his pulse underneath my fingers, speeding up. “Haidee,” he said.

  What was I doing?

  “I’m done,” I stammered, placing his arm on the stone beside me. “The spring’s all yours.” I waded out of the pool and grabbed my clothes, hoping that he would remain and not do something stupidly Arjun-ish, like run after me and demand an explanation, because I had none to give.

  He didn’t and, disappointed, I fled.