by Rin Chupeco
I didn’t have a chance to tell her any of those things, because she’d gone deadly silent in her seat. I followed her shocked gaze out into what looked like the entrance to hell itself.
We’d long since left the dead forest and its decaying tree stumps behind. I’d been too busy looking at Haidee’s notes to pay attention. Instead, what we saw were literal holes in the ground; in many, fountains of hissing, steaming, boiling water were shooting up noisily. The humidity clawed at my skin, and the faint rumblings of the ground underneath us indicated that this area had been spitting out steam for a long time.
“Geysers,” Haidee whispered. “That explains the presence of the sacred spring from a while back. They’re hot enough to boil the skin of your back if you get caught in the spray.”
That was a comforting thought. “Any chance we can turn around and find another way through?”
She nodded. “I think that’s for the best. We can drive the rig north and see if there’s someplace where these aren’t as abundant. It might mess up our engines if we attempt to push our way through here.”
I had no arguments there, and soon she’d shifted gears so that we were running parallel to the angry geysers in a tract of land as vast and as abundant as the forest had been.
“You think this was where some of Sonfei’s men were killed?” I asked Haidee nervously, keeping a wary eye around us, in case there was something else lying in wait.
“If he just sent them to scout around their camp, I don’t know if they made it this far out.”
Lucky us. “What if there are geysers all over? What if there isn’t a way around?”
“You’re the one telling me I shouldn’t be formulating any wild guesses when there’s no proof, right?”
For close to two hours we headed north, the deadly fountains going on for miles with no end in sight. I wondered briefly if these had existed long before the Breaking, or if it was that cataclysm that had destroyed this landscape, too. I suspected the latter.
I was about to suggest trading places to let Haidee rest when she let out a loud whoop of joy. We had reached a stretch of land where nothing was angrily spewing forth water hot enough to kill. It was an odd plain where even a small bump would look out of place—it was far too even, far too unnaturally symmetrical. I caught a glimpse of shapes in the distance, which Haidee said were mountains.
“I’ll take over,” I offered.
“I can keep going,” she insisted. “Just stay alert.” She summoned a wave of Air, passing out of the rig and stirring up a faint breeze around us, before rippling out to survey the sky. “The air’s too thick here, and I’m not able to gate as far as I’m used to,” she said, her voice strained.
“You need rest.”
“I’m fine.”
“Stop the bullshit.” I couldn’t help it; the bitterness managed to seep out into words, after all. “You’re stuck with me until we get to Brighthenge, whether you want me here or not, so at least let me be useful.”
She looked down, biting her lip. “Arjun, that’s not why I . . .”
I said nothing, realized belatedly that I was holding my breath.
She exhaled. “I’m sorry about the spring. I didn’t run away because I was mad. I just didn’t know what to say without . . .”
My spirits sank. “Can we talk about it after we get through this place in one piece?”
“Okay,” she whispered.
“Let me drive.”
She nodded again, the fight gone from her.
Our precautions made our travel slower, at a far lesser speed than we had gone through the forest. Every half hour or so Haidee made a perfunctory stop so she could reassess the wind, figure out if we were sharing space with something with enough sentience to kill us. There wasn’t much time to rest in between but we didn’t have much choice, and the look on her face told me she wasn’t interested in another argument.
I scanned the area, but found nothing. The ground sank a little underneath us as we drove, not quite sand but still not completely solid. We didn’t talk much for the rest of the ride, either. Haidee looked embarrassed, maybe a little ashamed, but I was trying my best not to feel anything, like she’d never spoken up.
We’d made about five or six of those stops when Haidee froze. “Wait,” she said, her lips barely working. “Don’t move. Don’t say anything.”
I didn’t see anything amiss, if you considered the silent plains to be nothing amiss.
Haidee frowned. “There’s movement in the wind—something abnormally large, it feels like—and it’s not coming from this rig or from either of us.”
“Is it heading our way?”
“I’m trying to figure that out. It almost feels like it’s coming in from all direc—” Her eyes widened. “Arjun, get us out of here. Get us out of here. Get us out of HERE—”
I’d already hit the gas before she’d finished the second sentence, and just in time. The rig lurched forward, just as a long, spiny, and heavily segmented tail burst out of the ground beneath us and lashed at the empty air where we should have been. I kept my eyes in front of me, turning my head briefly when I heard Haidee cry out in fear. It was only a glimpse, but it was enough for me to whip my head back around and slam my foot down, urging us faster.
It was an abomination. I’d seen my share of small scorpions out in the desert; chop off their poison-filled tails and what remained were tasty snacks, if grilled just right.
This scorpion, however, was exactly how nightmares were born. It was easily four times the size of the rig, and its pincers were more than enough to swallow either of us whole. Its deadly looking tail arched high over its head, and it lunged again, meeting empty ground as I swung us out of its way.
A fireball left Haidee’s hands, hitting its side like a small explosion. It chittered, worrying at its injury as we placed more distance between us.
“What the hell,” I panted. “How did it—”
There was another explosion, but this time it was us sailing through the air, and I had no idea what had made us airborne in the first place. I twisted the wheel hard to the right, felt Haidee frantically gating Air to push us back upright, and we managed to land back on the ground with us still on board. The left wheel on the back of the rig paid for our flight, though; I could feel it come off, making control tenuous.
Another scorpion had appeared right underneath us, even larger than its friend. By some stroke of luck we had avoided its tail when it sent us flying, but with one wheel down to scraps, there was no way we were going to be able to outrun two of them. I swore.
Both scorpions made for us, only to be hit full in the face by two separate blasts of my Howler. They veered away, the things I was optimistically calling their faces burning, and stumbled away. For a moment, I thought we would actually make it—and then saw more of those crawlers scuttling out of the sand behind them. By the dozens.
We’d tripped over their lair.
Haidee stood, eyes bright and pale.
“You’re not healed yet!” I shouted. She hadn’t attempted anything harder than steam since leaving the Liangzhu.
“Of course I am! You’re the better driver—keep us out of their claws!”
I fired my Howler one last time, then complied, driving as fast as the rig allowed while blazing patterns shot through the air above me, aimed at the cadre of scorpions literally crawling out of the sandwork. I turned my head long enough to see Haidee shoot down one of the nearest scorpions with an impressive display of lightning she’d somehow summoned from the sky, frying the creature until it was a steaming pile of shell and carcass. That did nothing to deter the others, who continued to press on toward us.
For several minutes we stayed ahead, me making sure we didn’t fuck up the rig any more than we already had, and Haidee concentrating on shooting down any scorpion that got too close. But soon I heard her gasp, felt the patterns wilting in the air before they made impact, and I knew she was weakening again.
“Haidee, take ove
r.” There must have been at least two dozen of those bastards after us now. Already one was lumbering up beside us, pincers snapping dangerously near our heads.
“Arjun, no . . . !”
“It won’t take long.” Grimly, I set my sights at the center of the writhing mob, allowing the patterns to fill up my Howler, waiting until it hit maximum capacity, and then taking in even more. “Ram its ugly ass.”
“Arjun . . . !”
“Ram it!”
The scorpion lunged for us, and Haidee swerved hard to the right, ramming against its midsection. It squealed and fell away, but not before its tail swung down and stung me on the hip. Pain exploded—it felt even worse than when I’d lost my hand.
“Arjun!” Haidee was screaming.
Through the blinding agony, I could feel the spells swirling around us, gathering at the back of my neck—a danger signal telling me I’d filled the Howler too much, too fast, too close.
But there was no other choice.
I pulled the trigger.
And everything exploded.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Odessa the Gatebreaker
DURING QUIETER MOMENTS I RELIVED Gracea’s downfall over and over again in my head—I had not known how pleasurable it could be, to take everything from the person you despised most.
I remembered the little croak she made when I took her vaunted gate. I could feel my shadow-warrior’s teeth like they were my own, tearing into her flesh, and I swore I could taste her blood then, as sweet as the finest wine. My fingers flexed from the memory, as if they, too, were claws.
A pity. I should have done more damage, drawn it out a little more—but I had been too invested in her humiliation to risk her death.
There would be more opportunities to play later.
Gracea still screamed even after they bound her. Spat all manner of curses our way as she struggled and strained to break free. But the clerks had endured similar treatment before, from petty passive-aggressiveness to outright harassment. They were used to it; if I had my way, this would be the last time.
Because without her ability to channel, Gracea was powerless.
The rest of the Devoted were not as combative and acquiesced easily enough, sensing that the tide had turned in my favor. One by one, I took away their gates, and it was so easy. So easy to take something someone else had built their whole life around.
I had to. This wasn’t politics anymore. This was justice.
It felt right.
I had won.
It was a logistical nightmare, traveling with a string of prisoners trailing in our wake, though we managed. The ship’s crew were used to dealing with rowdy subordinates, and the occasional cuff on the back of the neck was enough to quiet most of the Devoted. Unlike the Starmaker, who had threatened to leave Lan out in the wildlands for nothing more than an insult—but I refused to stoop to her level. Goddesses ought to have standards.
She’d threatened Lan. Everyone else had stood aside and let her. They would pay, but in the time and manner of my choosing.
The goddess Asteria didn’t have much in the way of standards, though.
Mother had lied to me.
Mother had manipulated me.
I was just as much her pawn as I was her daughter.
How much of my illness had been real, and how much of it a ploy to keep me close to her until the time came to wield me like a weapon?
How much of her concern about Lan and me was manufactured?
The rage grew.
I pushed it away, for now. Mother was in Aranth, and my anger was impotent here.
I cautioned my own people from taking too much of their frustration out on the Devoted, though I didn’t reproach them too stringently when they disobeyed. It was easy to see which clerk had suffered their abuse under which particular Devoted. Lorila took particular glee in tripping over Filia’s food rations, forcing her to scavenge for scraps in the dirt. Tracei kneed Gareen twice in the groin without ever pretending that it wasn’t deliberate, and Miel had been shoved into some spiny bushes when my back was turned.
Janella had not been the only assistant Gracea had taken her frustrations out on, and many of the clerks handled the woman more roughly than was necessary, as did some of the ship’s crew. Apparently, the Starmaker had wasted no time inflicting her own notions of discipline on the men and women she had hired for the Brevity.
“Filia liked to slap Lorila around,” Janella murmured quietly to me one nightspan, as we ate our meal. “Literally. She was brutal a few nights before we left for this expedition—accused Lorila of stealing one of her brooches. Gareen wasn’t the horrible lecher that Graham had been by comparison, but that’s not saying much. He was the old man’s protégé and had learned several of his perversions from him. You’d think he would have been satisfied by the female Devoted willing enough to give him their attention. Talk to the rest, and you’ll find similar stories about the others.”
“And no one thought to tell my mother?”
The girl bowed her head. “We tried, Your Holiness. But Asteria did little in the way of punishment, and they took it out on us worse when they found out.”
I closed my eyes. Mother had known all along. “I will not make the same mistakes, Janella.”
“It’s why the others love you, Your Holiness. You have no idea how hard a life the gateless lead. We have always been treated as something less, and yet are expected to be grateful. Many would die for you if you’d asked.”
“I hope it would never come down to that,” I murmured, hiding my pleasure at her remark. This was how true Devoted should act.
I conducted my own experiment that night and ordered Sumiko over. I had made the decision not to strip her of her gates, unwilling to burden Lan with the role of our only healer. I had decided to spare Noelle as well. Still, I made sure to separate them from the rest of the prisoners. Noelle and Sumiko might not have been part of the Devoted’s inner circle, but they might entertain some foolish honorable notion to free them, for Asteria’s sake if nothing else.
I didn’t want that. I didn’t want to have to punish either Sumiko or Noelle.
Slyp had volunteered as a test subject, his trust in me absolute. He made no sound when I gently took away his gate again, closing his accessibility to the patterns that floated around him. “I am not sure what this is about, Your Holiness,” the Catseye said nervously, watching the proceedings.
“Heal him, Sumiko.”
“Pardon me?”
“Bring back his gate, allow him use of his patterns again. I would like to know the extent of a Catseye’s healing.”
The dark-haired girl obeyed. Her gold-and-silver eyes glowed, and I watched as the patterns stole back into Slyp, his eyes regaining their green aura. I nodded, satisfied. The Catseye could reverse my sanctions, bring Gracea and her ilk back their abilities.
All the more reason to kill Sumiko where she stood, before anyone else found out.
No. Lan could not do this on her own. Separating the Catseye from the prisoners should not be too difficult a task.
“I trust that you will tell no one about this, Sumiko. Or there will be repercussions.”
She gulped. “Understood, Your Holiness.”
Oh, Lan. The risks I take for you.
We resumed our trek toward the mountains. The skies had lightened even further, now with an odd infusion of color beyond just blacks and grays. Depriving Gracea of her gate had come at a fortuitous time; we no longer needed her light to see around us.
Those twin peaks puzzled me at first; compared to the unnatural symmetry of the region, their odd, lopsided features with their awkward slopes stood out like sores. Their mismatched sides broke the monotonous perfection of the wildlands.
A long, terrible cry rang out, and it came from Lan’s throat. She collapsed, shaking, and I dashed to her side immediately, Noelle not far behind. “They were there,” Lan wept, clinging to my robes. “They were dying . . . !”
“Sumiko!
” I called, and the other Catseye was beside me, hand raised. My love no longer thrashed but was breathing heavily, her eyes distant.
“She’s remembering,” Sumiko said soberly. “We need to give her time.”
“Strike up camp here,” I ordered. “Give her time to recover.”
“It’s not two mountains, is it?” Nebly whispered, stunned by the discovery. “It’s one mountain split into two.”
I didn’t know what kind of abomination existed with the power to cleave nature down to its very foundations like that. The idea that we might encounter that very being once we reached that fearsome mountain had put everyone on edge.
But the worst of it was the darkness that we could see emanating from the mountain, even this far away.
The miasma around it was like a fog, thick and opaque, hiding what I know we’d find—a gaping hole in the ground that stretched for thousands of miles on either side. It was said that the pit was endless, spiraling into the center of the world, where horrible things dwelled and shifted—some said straight down into the Cruel Kingdom itself.
Here lay the breach; the Great Abyss. This was what we had sacrificed so much to find.
“Surely you cannot think to enter that accursed place, Your Holiness,” old Slyp uttered. Traveling to the breach sounded like an adventure until you finally saw the extent of the Abyss with your own eyes. We would not reach it for several more days, but I could practically feel the courage leaching away from my followers.
“That is my destiny, Slyp, and not one I would force on anyone else. We will figure out a more cohesive plan tomorrow. In the meantime, I require rest for everyone. The next nightspans will be our hardest.”
Easier said than done. The Abyss cast a pall over the camp. I had not left Lan’s side; the Catseye appeared to be in a catatonic state, and once my tent had been set up, I ordered Nebly and Sumiko to bring her there, intending to nurse her back to health myself. I no longer needed to order people to stand guard; my loyal shadows were more than competent for the task, and it was their presence that prevented Gracea and her ilk from protesting their imprisonment too much.