The Never Tilting World

by Rin Chupeco

  Once Sumiko was assured that Lan was as comfortable as we could make her, the others took their leave. Only Noelle remained behind. “Surely you won’t let her travel to the breach with you in this condition?”

  “I would never force her.” I hadn’t wanted to bring her anywhere near the Abyss, to be honest, but my hackles were raised around Noelle as of late. I didn’t like that she was so close to Lan. So protective. I didn’t like that she was more concerned for her safety when she should be prioritizing mine, as her job required. How well did they know each other? Had Lan shared the same relationship with Noelle as she had with her ranger lover?

  The thought infuriated me. “Is there anything else?”

  Noelle didn’t budge. “If there’s anything I can do to help—”

  “I am more than capable of taking care of Lan on my own. I’ll let you know when I require any more assistance.”

  It was an obvious dismissal, and yet Noelle lingered briefly, uncertain. I wanted to—

  Kill her.

  It was a quiet thought, but it was loud in the silence of my mind. It would be so easy. Take out the competition. Noelle had served the Devoted, and she could be a spy. She would do anything to hurt me, even if it meant harming Lan.

  Killing her was the right choice.

  Killing her would be so easy.

  Killing her would mean that Lan never looked at anyone else but me.

  “Very well, Your Holiness,” Noelle finally said, unknowingly saving her own life. She glanced at the inert Lan, bowed, and took her leave, ducking out of the tent. I sank down beside my Catseye.

  Had I really considered that? Killing my own steward? Lan would have never forgiven me. I couldn’t have—

  No. I’m the goddess. I could do anything I want, and no one would dare disobey me. It’s only right to suspect Noelle. It’s only right to suspect everyone.

  I turned my attention to Lan, who was asleep. Remembering Sumiko’s instructions, I tried to keep her comfortable with what meager blankets we had—we’d already stripped her of her light armor, leaving only her robes and breeches. I crawled onto the makeshift cot with her, finding comfort in her warmth. “Please,” I whispered, though I wasn’t sure if it was to her I was making the entreaty, or to something else on her behalf.

  The nightmares came later. I found myself constantly jolting out of sleep, assailed by strange images of claws and lurking figures in the dark, but remembering little beyond the foul taste they left behind when I woke. Were these visions, too? Lan slumbered peacefully beside me, and I hoped none of the vague horrors that plagued me had found their way to her.

  I got out and idled by the entrance of my tent, looking up at the stars. The sky over Aranth had always been nothing but a blanket of darkness, the constant storms too dark for those pinpricks of light to break through. My eyes traveled past them, into the dark fog on the horizon, that impenetrable mist. Something lay in wait for me there, but I was uncertain whether it would be another enemy—or a means to an end.

  The seventh galla would be there. I knew it.

  A demoness is what men call a goddess they cannot control. No truth was better spoken. Gracea and the Devoted had sought to bind me with tradition and authority, attempting to make me less than what I was. I had proved to them that I was so much more.

  I looked around the camp, reassured by the quiet. None of the Devoted were misbehaving tonight. Deprived of their privileges, they huddled near the campfire, their hands temporarily freed though their feet remained bound. Surrounded by my people, they had nowhere to flee to.

  Kill them anyway.

  I had no reason to keep them alive—their attachment to my mother meant they would be more hindrance than advantage from here on out, destined to make trouble for me whenever the chance arose. It was a new order now. It was time to rid Aranth of Mother’s machinations, and that started with her most trusted—

  I raised my hands to my temples, fought to stop the thoughts from spinning, boring, tempting. What was wrong with me?

  “Odessa.”

  Lan was awake, pale-faced and trembling but completely, utterly sane, and relief rose in me. “You worried me,” I whispered.

  “I worried myself.” She stared at the ground, then back at me. “I remember,” she said softly.

  She let me bring her in, let me wrap my arms around her as she sat, shivering on the cot, and I waited for her to form the words, though they took a long time to come.

  “We were in the thick of that fog,” she finally said. “The winds came at us from all sides, sometimes shifting direction mid-gust. I wanted to retreat. We had little visibility beyond a few feet, and I was worried we might stumble up against the Abyss and fall in. The others thought we should push on ahead, relied on me to make sure we wouldn’t get lost.

  “And I did. I led us right to the edge of that cliff. There was a strange stone there—a statue of sorts, except it had been split in half like the mountain had been. Yarrow was the bravest. He forged on ahead, tried to look into the—”

  She stopped, and she began to weep. I held her, helpless and unable to think of anything else I could do to offer comfort, except wait for her crying to cease.

  “They got him first. Ripped him up from throat to groin. He died instantly, toppling over into the chasm without another word. And then more of them crawled out. They weren’t anything. They were shadows, but solid as you and me. Nothing we did stopped them. They murdered my team, until there were only three of us left—Merritt, Nuala, and me.

  “There was one demon there. Taller than the others, with a crown on its head—or something that glittered like it. It stared at us for a long, long time. ‘It is you who brings her to us,’ it finally said, though I don’t remember that it had a voice. It laid a hand on the broken statue, and it glowed. ‘Choose your sacrifice,’ it said then, and I realized it was asking me to choose between Merritt and . . .”

  She trailed off, nails digging into her palms.

  “I didn’t,” she finally confessed. “In the end, I didn’t. I couldn’t. But they did it, anyway. I couldn’t choose, so they butchered them both. The statue worked as some kind of blood sacrifice. I tried to—Nuala was the closest, and I tried to—” Her voice broke, and she covered her face with her hands.

  I rocked her slowly, murmuring soft sounds in her ear, wishing I could absorb her pain, her loss. “I’m so sorry, Lan.”

  “The statue—glowed. There was a flash of bright light. And then the Abyss was gone.”

  “And you found yourself on the outskirts of Aranth,” I finished. A portal of sorts? Was it a coincidence that Mother had founded Aranth near where Lan had been found? Or had she unintentionally—or deliberately—used such magic herself, to escape the breach when the Breaking happened, as everything around her was being destroyed?

  “Let’s return to Aranth, Odessa,” Lan begged. “I can’t go through that again. I don’t want to see the same thing happen to them that happened to my rangers.”

  I shook her head. “It will be different this time.”

  “No, it won’t! Those monsters want you there!”

  “Yes they do, and they knew sparing your life would convince me to go. They would not have gone through all this trouble only to kill me. I will finish this journey, but under no circumstances are you allowed to enter the chasm for any reason. Even if I have to bind you as I did the Devoted.” I knew her soul, knew it during those precious minutes alone out there in the wildlands, when she had just been as eager for me as I had been for her, the both of us for once completely honest with the other. She loved me. But her past was caught up in these mountains, and it pulled at her like an invisible string.

  “I cannot allow—”

  “It’s my decision, Lan. In the end, not even Mother knew what was best for me.” And perhaps Mother didn’t want me to accept the galla’s gifts after all, I thought, and my fury grew hotter. She had been a coward who had failed her own ritual. Now it was my turn, and I refused to be beho
lden to anyone else. Not anymore.

  A commotion outside shook me out of my thoughts—a wild scream. I dashed out of the tent, fearing the worst.

  Holsett stood over Nebly, who lay unmoving on the ground, blood seeping into the soil from an injury on his head. A bloodied stone lay on Holsett’s hand. “I didn’t mean it,” the Seasinger said dumbly. “He got in the way, and I wasn’t . . .”

  Sumiko was already there. She sank to her knees before the fallen boy, searching for a pulse, before giving up and sadly shaking her head at me.

  I saw red. “What did you do?” Nebly had been nearly my age. All he had wanted to do was sail on a ship. So young, with his whole life ahead of him, like Cathei and Salleemae had been . . .

  Holsett staggered back. “It was an accident, Your Holiness! I didn’t mean for—”

  “And yet you killed him all the same.” I could make a guess. Holsett had found a way to cut himself free from his bonds, and he had been in the process of doing the same for Miel when Nebly had happened upon them.

  It was easy to see what had happened. In a panic, realizing he had been caught, Holsett had struck him down without thinking.

  He deserved no mercy.

  Punishment was swift and deadly. It required no more than a thought, a wordless decision, and the shadows moved, descending on the Seasinger before anyone else could react.

  Oh, the sudden strength that coursed through me, at the power I wielded! I could feel the shadows in my head, in my blood, braying for more pain, for more vengeance. In no other instant had I felt more alive.

  There was very little noise, and that was almost a disappointment. Holsett was overwhelmed far too quickly to even cry out. In the end, a crimson stain on the ground was all that was left of him, and it occurred to me that in my pleasure I had neglected to urge restraint on my pets. Miel had fainted, a white figure on the ground, and many of the crew had doubled over, retching. Even serene Sumiko was trembling, her eyes wild.

  A pity that it had been over so soon.

  I crouched beside Nebly. I would raise him again in a few hours, once I had gotten my much-needed sleep. He would be the same Nebly as always, my trustworthy helmsman. I would give him a different kind of life now. “Holsett was lucky—he died quickly, with little chance to feel pain. A second attempt from anyone else, and it will take longer.”

  “What have you done, Odessa?” Lan whispered.

  “Asserted my authority in a way they can finally understand, as I should have long ago.”

  “This is wrong.”

  I knelt down beside her. In full view of the others, I drew her close and kissed her hard on the mouth. “On the contrary,” I purred. “I was born for this.”

  I turned toward the remaining Devoted. “You are not my enemies,” I informed them coldly. “But I will kill each and every one of you if need be. Holsett’s actions have shown me you can be traitors. Remember that.”

  I expected no protests, but it was Lan who spoke again. “Odessa. You can’t!”

  “They were rebelling against us. He killed Nebly. I had to put him down.”

  “But not like this. Odessa—”

  My anger grew. “I saved you. They could have chosen to send you out into the wildlands as punishment. Gracea would have murdered you if she could, and found a way to excuse herself before my mother. I was being magnanimous, allowing them to remain my prisoners without any further sanctions. They broke my trust.” Why couldn’t she see that everything I did was for her sake?

  But she shook her head. “Asteria would never have gone this far.”

  “She would have! Do you not see what these people are capable of? What she is capable of? I’ve been sick for almost all my life with an illness she cultivated! She knew that bonding with the galla would make me stronger! Instead, she hid them from me, allowed me to suffer, made me believe that Aranth’s storms and the never-ending darkness were responsible for my condition!” I had realized this the instant I opened Janella’s gate for the first time, saw how the trigger was at the same place the dark spot in my heart lingered. I wasn’t sick at all—it was a requirement for the ritual.

  “This isn’t you, Odessa. It’s those galla. Those gifts that they give you—they’re what’s warping your mind, making you do things you never would have on your own. You have to stop accepting them. What they take from you—it’s far too high a price to pay for—”

  “No!” I shouted. We would never have survived this long if it wasn’t for those galla. I couldn’t have brought Cathei and Graham and Salleemae back. I couldn’t have kept the crew fed and alive without their offerings. I couldn’t have gifted my people with their gates and punished the Devoted by taking away theirs. I wouldn’t have had all these beautiful creatures under my command. “If you’re not with me, Lan, then you’re against me.”

  “Your Holiness!” Noe had stepped forward, blocking my path. “Your Holiness, you cannot possibly do this.”

  Patterns whipped around my hand and I thrust my arm out, but Lan shoved the steward away, exposing herself to my fury. I stopped just in time. She stared at me, pained, but didn’t back down.

  I moved closer. I could take away her abilities as a Catseye in the space of a heartbeat. Of all the Devoted here, it was Lan who was the most dangerous, I knew. To remove her powers would have been the wisest course of action, no matter my feelings for her.

  And still I hesitated. I lowered my hand.

  “Slyp.” At my command, the man stepped forward, surrounded by the rest of the crew members. They were still clearly frightened, and I knew I had to take back control of the situation, to assert my authority before they could think to follow Lan’s lead. “See to it that they’re comfortable, but don’t let either Lan or Noelle out of your sight. Should Lan make an attempt to immobilize any of you with her Catseye abilities, I give you permission to incapacitate her without killing her.”

  “Odessa!” Noelle blurted out, trying to wrestle herself free from the others. Lan said nothing, but something in her expressionless face only made me angrier.

  “Don’t hurt her, though!” I added harshly. “Injure her, and you all will answer to me.”

  My people, at least, knew the wisdom of my words, nodding in agreement. They wouldn’t dare disobey. I was their leader. I knew what was best for them.

  I turned away, ignoring Noelle’s pleas for me to listen as the rest of my followers led them away. Lan said nothing.

  Only when I was finally, truly alone, tucked outside the camp and surrounded by the shadows that continued to watch me without words, with nothing but loving obedience, did I collapse and weep.

  I loved Lan. I truly did. But if I had to forsake her love to finish this ritual and get us all out alive, then I would. I will.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Haidee the Life-Giver

  HE WASN’T BREATHING.

  As pristine as the plains had been before our intrusion, we had left them a smoldering heap of fire and frenzy. If any of those strange scorpions had survived my wrath, they were nowhere to be seen. Nothing twitched in the aftermath; only their twisted carcasses remained, bodies still jerking spasmodically even in death, tails swaying lifelessly in the eerie silence.

  I didn’t care. I would have slaughtered each and every one of them a thousand times over if it meant saving Arjun.

  But he wasn’t breathing.

  “Don’t you dare do this to me, you asshole!” Gating had sapped most of the strength I’d conserved after the Sand Sea, and it took the rest to drag him off somewhere the ground wasn’t burning, nearer to the scorched but still-functioning sand rig. There, I fell to my knees and pressed my mouth against the wound on his side. Scorpions were toxic vermin, and the more poison I could draw out of him, the better his chances. When I thought I’d gotten all that I could, I sat up, wiping my mouth.

  He still wasn’t breathing.

  I was no Catseye, but I’d seen Franck employ manual resuscitation techniques for some of his direr cases, and he�
�d demonstrated them enough times for me to remember how.

  I wadded up some clothes and pressed them against his side, where the scorpion’s tail had done the most damage. The bleeding wasn’t as profuse as I initially thought, trickling out of two puncture marks on his waist where the pincers had struck deep, but not deep enough to be fatal. It shouldn’t have been enough to kill him. He shouldn’t be dead. The fight at the Sand Sea had knocked him around harder than this.

  I rolled him over to his back, and pushed down hard against his chest with the flat of my palms, starting a rhythm and counting quietly in my head. One one-thousand, two one-thousand, three one-thousand, four. A pause while I held his nose and blew air noisily into his mouth, then repeated the whole process again. “Come on,” I pleaded. “Please don’t die on me here. You can’t. You can’t. Please!”

  His eyes looked right past me, half-lidded and glazed, staring into an eternity of nothing. I redoubled my efforts, waiting for his chest to rise on its own, for him to blink back up at me, to recognize me and call me a fool for being so reckless. But there was nothing.

  “Please, Arjun!” I was crying. Big fat drops of tears splashed onto his pale cheeks. I summoned all the patterns I could, gated them all into him. Nyx had performed the Gate of Life on her dead bird. I could do it, too. I could. I could. . . .

  How long had I been working on him? A few minutes? More? Sometimes Franck could bring back a patient after as long as five minutes, but sometimes he would stop and shake his head and say there was nothing more he could do. . . .

  I refused to give up. I worked on him frantically, even as the minutes ticked by and stretched into what must have been an hour, and then another. Somewhere in my grieving mind, I must have thought that if I kept it up no matter how long it took, there was a chance he would survive. It took a long time for that derangement to fade, and my faith along with it.