The Never Tilting World

by Rin Chupeco

The being had a band of blue jewels surrounding what should have been its finger, but the rest of its features were shrouded in an inky blackness. Despite Odessa’s assurances, I braced myself, guarding against a possible attack, but Odessa was languid, almost welcoming, like it was an old friend. She extended her hand when it drew near enough, and I couldn’t hold back my shudder.

  It was not of this world. Nothing about it should exist.

  The darkness shifted, and something that should have been an arm, a hand, reached out to take Odessa’s own.

  I thought I knew what to expect from my experiences with the galla at the Lunar Lakes. I was wrong.

  I was staring into an abyss, an unending spiral into unfathomable depths. I could hear myself in my own head; screaming, begging me to look away before I lost my mind completely, and with great effort I did.

  Odessa stood serenely by as, once again, the horrifying figure inclined its great and misshapen head, the jewels it wore the only source of light in this hellscape.

  Be satisfied, a voice sounded, hanging over us like some great and terrible judgment. A divine power of the underworld has been fulfilled. You must not open your mouth against the rites of the underworld.

  I saw it, then. Beasts of horrifying visages, of twisted bones and facades of flesh came tearing out of the Abyss, full of wings and brittle teeth and sharp edges. We were outnumbered, and nothing we could do would stop them from tearing us limb from limb, just like . . .

  Come, Odessa called, and like obedient children, they drew closer. As one, they fell on the hollows of their bodies that passed for knees, prostrated themselves on the ground, and cried out their exultations, in a grating, gnashing language unsuited for human tongues.

  They are calling to her, I realized, and the horror of it gripped me worse than when I thought they were going to rip us apart. They are calling her their queen.

  But a contrary rush of pleasure soared through my veins, overcoming my terror. Lust hit me like a sword through my gut, filling me up so quickly, and in that sudden shock I let go of Odessa’s hand.

  The Abyss disappeared and the flat plains returned, leaving me on my hands and knees, choking on air as sanity returned in short bursts, the world restoring itself to normalcy. Odessa remained where she stood, staring up at the night sky, ecstasy still stamped across her features. Her beautiful hair shifted in the wind, and as always I couldn’t look away.

  “Odessa.” Desire was still swimming through me, and it took everything I had to remain still. I want her, I thought ferociously, unable to stop the lurid thoughts, my own inner beast coming to life. I want to strip her naked. I want to take her hard on the ground until I’m all she can feel. I want—

  I couldn’t. I couldn’t—

  She made the mistake of looking back at me then, and I saw her lust mirroring my own.

  She flung herself at me, and my defenses fell. She kissed me, tongue demanding within my mouth, body squirming urgently against mine.

  Frenzied, out of my mind with hunger, I tore at her clothes, shoved her skirts up. She spread her legs, panting, eyes glazed. “Yes,” she breathed. “Oh yes, Lan . . .” She was attempting to tug off the light armor I still wore, complicated when compared to my easier access to the rest of her, but I was too impatient, still too caught up in this inexplicable curse to need anything else but her, her, her.

  I was rough, rougher than I should have been. Her head rolled back, her hands gripping my fingers as I kissed her neck, her breasts, her stomach, plotting a new map along her hips, between her thighs. She bucked her hips desperately, mewling for more. I withdrew, pressed harder.

  Beautiful Mother of mercy, I could drink her till the end of time.

  She thrashed, wailing up into the heavens as pleasure seized her, but I kept my mouth on hers, greedy and thirsty, drinking her in. When she finally stopped, spent and breathless, I lifted my head.

  “We’re not done yet, Your Holiness,” I hissed, still desperate for more, and she moaned her assent.

  “What are you doing?”

  Odessa reared up, alarm replacing her passion. I sat back, breathing hard, already knowing there was nothing we could do to hide.

  Gracea stood with several other Devoted in tow, and behind them a pained-looking Noelle. The look of pure horror on the Starmaker’s face, I thought, as I still fought the fading pangs of pleasure, was almost worth the discovery.

  Almost.

  Gracea pointed at me, triumph shining in her eyes. “Arrest her!”

  But Odessa was the first to recover, and the first to react.

  Something dark and clawed ripped through Gracea’s shoulder, and she fell screaming. The others turned to find an army of shadows, just beyond the group, waiting. Odessa was already standing before the fallen Starmaker, hand pressed against the other woman’s forehead. Gracea’s eyes widened, staring off at something the rest of us couldn’t see, and she screamed. She thrashed in apparent pain, squirming in agony on the ground until the goddess finally took her hand away.

  “Well,” Odessa murmured, in a lighthearted tone that nonetheless chilled my blood in its bright cheer. “The galla of beginnings and endings. I should have known. If its gift meant I was capable of granting gates to those loyal to me, then it follows that it also grants me the skill to take them away.”

  “Your Holiness,” Gracea stuttered. “I cannot let her—she took advantage of—”

  “I seduced her, Starmaker,” the goddess said with a laugh, ignoring the gasps of the others. “I encouraged her in every way. She was hesitant, thinking my rank made our relationship inappropriate, but I insisted. I chased her almost every step of the way, even when she endeavored to keep me at arm’s length. If there’s anyone here who should be sanctioned for unwanted overtures, it should be me.”

  Smiling, Odessa moved toward the dark shadows that towered over the whimpering Gracea, reaching out and patting one head like she would a treasured pet.

  “It’s over,” she said. “I’ve won.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Arjun, the Prey

  SHE HADN’T SAID A WORD since yesterday.

  I should have been delighted.

  I wasn’t.

  We passed more dead trees as I drove; hundreds and hundreds more decaying stumps, their roots and twigs crunching underneath the wheels as we tore on ahead, hoping to leave this never-ending forest for another place where some semblance of life could actually flourish.

  She stared out the window as was her habit, but instead of the usual barrage of irrelevant chatter that I had been growing used to in the last several weeks, she contributed nothing but a silence I found worse than her constant chatter.

  “Well?” I found myself demanding, irritated that I’d caved in first.

  “Hmm?”

  “You said you were going to tell me more about that book from Sonfei you’ve read. Stuff that would help us figure out what to expect at Brighthenge.”

  She made a vague gesture toward one of our packs stored in the back seat, still not looking at me. “I made some notes. You’re free to read them.”

  “I’m driving, if you haven’t noticed.”

  “I can take over.”

  “Haidee . . . !”

  “Hmm?”

  Look at me, I wanted to shout. I felt it. I sure as hell know you felt it, too. Are we gonna talk about what happened at the spring or are we never to talk about it again? Because “never” might not be that long, considering the undoubtedly shitty places we still have to bull our way through. But if you’re not interested in me the same way I am in you, at least have the decency to tell me straight to my face!

  But I couldn’t say that, either. I didn’t want to know her answer.

  “You take over, then.” Trying to make sense of Brighthenge ought to be better than staring at this barren landscape. “Gonna need to check our engine, too. Might have gotten a few dead leaves and twigs stuck to the wheels.” I’d taken to sleeping outside instead of beside her in the rig, giving
her all the space she wanted, because I knew I could do something stupid with her so close. It had been hard enough the other mornings, back when I hadn’t even realized I loved her.

  She nodded, her eyes downcast. I found a larger clearing to stop at, cast a nervous glance around to see if we had attracted the attention of some other creature that might have made this place home. The unexpected advantage of a dead forest was that when the trees were gone, you could see an ambush coming from miles away. The sun didn’t burn through skin in these parts the way it liked to melt bones back east, but I pulled my head scarf over my eyes and checked to see if my Stonebreaker armor was still as strong as ever. As much as Sonfei and his merry band of worm-gutting Liangzhu annoyed the hell out of me, they’d at least offered safety in numbers.

  Their rig, too, was a work of art. The Liangzhu were able to use Sand Sea scraps to build better vehicles, without needing to fight other clans over resources.

  Very few things could outrun us in this. Even the mirage wouldn’t have stood a—

  You will die for her one day.

  I sat back abruptly, scowling. The Liangzhu rig required Air to keep the engines running. Sonfei had explained to us how they filled the tank up with sand, then used some sort of combustion engine underneath to swirl the sand like it was water, making the wheels move in the process. They’d improved the technique enough that it could spin almost four hundred cycles a minute and not overheat. Occasionally a Windshifter or a Firesmoker had to be on hand to churn the sand again, if it clumped up. Popping the tank open, I could see that that was the case.

  I rolled up my sleeve. A faint blue sliver flickered into life at the end of my wrist.

  “Let me do it.” Haidee spoke up unexpectedly, stammering. “You—yesterday—if your wrist is still hurting—you shouldn’t overuse it and—”

  “I’ll be fine.” It would normally have taken a few more days before the last of the pain left, but thanks to the hot springs and—well, whatever the hell she’d done to me to soothe the stump—I felt better. “It helped. Yesterday.”

  She jammed her hands onto the sides of her breeches and stared at me for the first time in nine hours. “Let me do it,” she repeated stubbornly.

  I was tempted to start an argument with her just for old times’ sake, but I didn’t want to fight, either. So I shrugged and let her take over, hoisting myself back into the rig while she gated some Air. I slung myself onto the back of the buggy and fished out her notebook from one of her sacks.

  Haidee’s handwriting was neat and evenly looped, which made for easier reading. From what I’d gathered so far, every pair of twin goddesses was separated at birth, each to be raised by a different group of Devoted who attended to their needs. Each girl had a specific role to play in protecting Aeon, and it was believed that feelings of kinship would make them derelict in their duties.

  One of the twins would eventually wed, to sire a new generation of twin goddesses. The other would be privy to some sort of ritual that amplified her abilities instead. Nonetheless, both goddesses were free to enjoy their share of consorts at their discretion—

  Haidee had underlined the sentence for emphasis.

  I buried my face inside the book, hiding the sudden flush I was certain reached all the way up to my eyebrows.

  Consorts. Sweet Mother Aeon.

  I turned the page; to my relief, there was nothing else but an outline of a brief history of Inanna, which I already knew about. Imperfect creations, ran into hell to save her beloved, blah blah blah. I was sure Haidee knew this already, but I suspected she was this meticulous about everything.

  I heard her climb inside the rig with me, taking charge of the wheel, but I was too engrossed to notice beyond hearing the engine flare back to life and feeling the rig move forward again.

  Some tidbits about Brighthenge now. Haidee’s earlier theory had been accurate—Brighthenge had been built atop the alleged entrance to the underworld. Since it was a holy place, wards and magic spells were woven into it to prevent unwanted creatures from escaping and tormenting Aeon. It was hoped that regularly consecrating Brighthenge would keep it that way. Some success that turned out to be.

  I turned another page, found myself staring at something unexpected:

  Key Features of the Brighthenge Ritual, Haidee had scrawled.

  After her seventeenth birthday, the goddess shall be presented with seven galla, all of which she is to accept before she turns eighteen.

  There was a small note in parentheses underneath—Haidee’s personal opinions on the matter: (But what are the consequences of rejecting these gates? Did Mother and my aunt do so, resulting in the Breaking??)

  Seven galla—underworld demons historically nicer to goddesses than the average fiend. The galla were discernible by their lapis lazuli, a mark of their high rank.

  I read on.

  For every gift bestowed by the high galla, an equivalent sacrifice is required:

  1. The Clarity: a galla with a beard of lapis lazuli. Bestows the gift of limited prophecy in exchange for foresight.

  2. The Courage: a galla with a turban. Enhances one’s ability in the gates in exchange for caution.

  3. The Abundance: a galla with egg beads. Bestows the gift of harvest but permanently poisons the soil against future crops.

  4. The Life: a galla with a sapphire brooch. Brings the dead back into a half-life, but requires mercy in exchange.

  5. The Beginnings and the Endings: a galla with a measuring rod of lapis lazuli. Gains the ability to take away and bestow gates, in exchange for one’s modesty.

  6. The Rulership: a galla with a jeweled ring. Controls the creatures of the dark, but requires self-control in exchange.

  7. The Mother: a galla with glittering jewels for eyes. Seals the ritual and guarantees the protection of Aeon, but requires a beloved life in exchange.

  “This is ridiculous.”

  “What?” Haidee craned her neck toward me. I didn’t realize I’d said it aloud.

  “The notes on ol’ Sonfei’s book. This part doesn’t make a whit of sense.” I tapped the page. “We’ve encountered nearly every sort of monster on our way here that could possibly crave human flesh, but I don’t think any of them fit these descriptions.”

  She turned back toward the dashboard, shrugging. “I don’t know. Mother never thought to enlighten me. I figured I ought to take notes on what they looked like, just in case. This was Asteria’s journal, so I assume her experiences differed from Mother’s, if they were raised separately. Besides, those jewels they wear should make for good identification, when we encounter one.”

  “When we encounter one, and not if. I like your optimism.” She didn’t rise to the bait, though, so I persisted. “And what about these gifts? How exactly does an exchange like this happen? How exactly do you give up ‘self-control’ or ‘modesty’?”

  For some reason she blushed. “The book didn’t say.”

  “You haven’t encountered anyone wearing strange jewelry who wants you to bring back the dead in exchange for your soul, by any chance? While I wasn’t looking?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” Talking about the book was getting her to talk to me again, at least. “No, I haven’t met any galla. I haven’t exactly displayed any new skills since we started. But I suspect that this ritual forces one of the goddesses to become some monster in exchange for the gifts, from the sound of it. It could explain my father’s letter warning Mother that she would be killed. Asteria must have undergone the ritual.”

  “What’s the murder of a goddess gonna solve?”

  “I don’t know.” Haidee stared straight ahead, her knuckles white from squeezing the wheel too hard. “I reread those passages in the book several times just to make sure that I was understanding it right. Sonfei was no help—he has the book, but he holds on to it for sentimental value more than anything else. But I think the last Brighthenge ritual was the reason the Breaking happened. Maybe her twin tried to kill her, but Mother wound up killing her
instead. But how could any goddess choose to murder her own sibling?”

  Her voice broke. “I don’t think I would be able to do it. Mother can be power-mad sometimes—but I don’t know if this was something she would do, either. How can so many of my ancestors before me have made such a decision?”

  “You’re saying every goddess who came before you killed her twin?”

  “That’s what’s odd. It says nothing about what became of the other goddess once the ritual was over. I’ve read a couple of tomes that documented the lives of some of my ancestors, but none of them mention twins. There aren’t any references to them in A History of Aeon, and most of our scholars swear by that book. That’s why I always thought Mother and my aunt were anomalies, the only twin goddesses in a long line of lone daughters.”

  I glanced back down at her notes. “Wasn’t that one of the gifts offered by these high galla for the Brighthenge ritual? Resurrecting the dead in exchange for taking away her mercy?”

  She nodded. “But Nyx wasn’t a tyrant. All the history books spoke of her in glowing terms. Even in her own personal journal, her writings were sane and empathetic.”

  “Some people are pretty good at masking their insanity, Haidee.”

  “Maybe the books that do talk about both twins were burned after the Breaking. I don’t know. I . . . it’s almost my eighteenth birthday. I’ve yet to encounter any galla. Does this mean that I’ll be the one stricken from the history books?”

  “Of course not!” I growled, angry that she was even considering this. “Your aunt and your twin sister are dead. You and your mother are the only goddesses left in the world. I’d say that the ritual no longer works after the Breaking, and that’s why there aren’t any galla wandering about. No sense making wild guesses about something you don’t have any proof of.”

  She threw a startled glance back at me, started to smile—then caught herself, reddened, and looked away. “I suppose.”

  I wanted to throttle her. A part of me wanted to yell, If you don’t like me, then tell me here and now, I can take it, and another part of me was whispering, No, you can’t, you dumb bastard, and if she’s got any sympathy in her, she’s gonna tell you after you’ve lived through Brighthenge, when she won’t have to travel beside you and you won’t be reminded of her rejection every time you see her ridiculous, infuriating, wonderful face. I didn’t want to be like Sonfei, pining away for a woman who didn’t want him back.