“What was the prophesy about?” I asked, to pass the time.
“You,” An’alepp said.
I laughed.
“No, it was about you, Tylira. I didn’t believe it myself. I didn’t believe it fully until just now, but all the rest is exactly as Drusica said it would be. I believed her enough that I shut down the ship and left the systems running until the day you arrived. She was correct.”
“About what?” I asked, humoring her, but my eyes were glued to Rusk. He was so beautiful that I wished the shield would lower so I could touch him. But would I want to touch the killer of my mother? As if by my wish, the shield dropped suddenly, the arms retracted, the blue light faded and a white light replaced it.
Rusk’s eyes fluttered open.
“Rusk!” I said, not knowing what else to say. Should I hug him or kiss him or kill him?
An’alepp’s next words didn’t help.
“This world is ending.”
Chapter Thirty-Three: Teeth of the Gods
“Rusk,” I said huskily. “You’re healed.”
He laughed in amazement, running his hands over his body, and then he stood up and rolled his shoulders.
“What happened?”
“Some kind of magic,” I said, wrapping my arms around myself. Where did we stand now after everything? Could I forgive him for murdering my mother? Could he forgive me for the life he was living now?
“It’s really not,” An’alepp said from behind me. Sometimes I thought it was a good thing that no one but me could hear her.
“It’s called an autodoc and it healed you, and we’re on something that the ancestors call a ship. They told me it brought them here from another world.” I was babbling, trying so hard not to get to the part that came next. “You flew us on a Giant Roc! You didn’t tell me you could ride birds.”
He grinned, running his hand through his hair casually. “I didn’t know that I could. It was great, wasn’t it?”
He looked like he did the night he took me dancing. I choked on a sob.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, reaching out to take me in his arms.
I stepped back and looked up into those honey warm eyes. He must not remember, but I did. I paused, not knowing how to say it, not knowing what I wanted him to say in return.
“You killed my mother.”
His hands fell to his sides and tears flooded his eyes, trailing down his cheeks as his lower lip quivered. He was like ice in the sun. He crumpled slowly, sitting down hard on the autodoc, his shoulders sagging, head falling into his hands.
“I knew I should have told you,” he said. “I knew it.”
Why, of all things, did I feel compassion for him? The faces of the people I’d killed flashed across my mind one at a time. What if I had to face their families and confess? My own lip began to tremble.
“But you didn’t.” I took a step towards him and laid my shackled hand on his shoulder. He felt so solid under my hand. How did someone who was crumbling feel solid as the earth?
He looked into my eyes with his deep pleading gaze. “You’ve become everything to me, my whole light., my life. And so quickly. How can that even be? Telling you would have been like banishing the sun.”
I looked at him for a long moment, our broken expressions mirroring each other. I knew that in this moment our fates were in my hands. I should make him pay. I should hate him forever and make him suffer. And if I did, then Toure’s family should make me pay, and Jakinda’s, and the man in the palanquin’s. Where would it stop? At what point would it be enough?
Deliberately, firmly, I took his face in my hands, leaned down and kissed him. Our tears mingled together for a moment and neither of us dared breathe. Me, because I felt exposed while offering forgiveness, and he from the shock of the offer.
Then, all at once, he took me by the waist and set me on his lap. His hand caressed my cheek and I leaned into it, feeling bittersweet pain and love all intermixed. His fingers wound into my hair and his thumb stroked my cheek as his gaze burned into mine in equal parts agony and gratitude.
I kissed him, hard and passionate, trying to channel my own sharp pain and intense passion into one kiss. His other hand wrapped around, pressing into my lower back and drawing me in tight so that our bodies, hot with passion, were pressed against each other as our hungry lips sought absolution.
Could another person heal your hurts? Could he seal up the fissures in you so that you became whole again? Recreate me! My heart begged for him, and my body leaned in tight and hot and passionate. If anyone could kiss me whole again it, would be him. If anyone’s caresses could sew up my gashes, it was his. I poured my heart into his, kissing him and wrapping my arms around him with every shred of feeling in my soul. I desperately needed to feel healed, to feel whole, in a way that no magic could make me.
“Would you cut it out with the lover’s knot and get over here?” An’alepp called. “I want you to enter the sequence into this computer so the ship can speak to you in English. It will sound archaic to you, but at least you will be able to understand it. And then I want you to launch my welcome video so you and your san’lelion can understand what’s at stake.”
I didn’t want to deal with business. I didn’t care about her ambitions or this ship or the Teeth of the Gods. I just wanted Rusk.
We broke apart.
“Is this forgiveness?” he asked, his eyes vulnerable and desperate. “You can’t forgive me. Even though you must realize I had no choice. Not for that.”
I squared my stance. “I can do anything I want to do, Rusk Hawkwing.”
He bit his lip. “You can say the words, Tylira, but why would you forgive me ... especially when I killed your mother?”
I sighed. “Who else do I have, Rusk? I don’t want to hate you. My mother is gone and nothing can bring her back. Jakinda is gone. Alsoon is gone. You are the only person I have left, and maybe only because you can’t leave.”
“Not true.”
“I don’t want to be angry with you. I don’t want revenge. All it would get me is empty hands and a broken heart.”
“So, this is forgiveness after all,” he said, wonder in his voice.
“It’s more than that. It’s a promise that I won’t walk away.”
He smiled slightly, still clearly torn and agonizing, but he jingled our tether lightly and joked, “I’m betting on that. I’m not going anywhere either.”
I felt empty and whole all at once as I returned his smile with my own ghost of one.
“An’alepp says I need to do something urgently,” I said, quickly following An’alepp’s instructions. The ghost above the table flickered and the spheres and writing disappeared.
Rusk leaned against the table, took my waist gently in his hands and drew me in towards him. My heart sped up. I felt my eyes going big and I swallowed.
“You surprise me. Every time I think you’re bigger and bolder than life you do something even greater,” he said, leaning forward so I could see the twinkle in his eyes before he kissed me. His lips were cane-sugar sweet and mine clung to them. Ancestors could deal with their own problems. I was happy right where I was. When we broke apart he drew me in close and breathed into my hair. “Who would ever have expected that you could forgive me? My wild girl.”
“That’s what Alsoon called me.” A pang of sadness shot through me, painting the moment bittersweet.
“Where do we leap next, Wild Girl?”
The huskiness of his voice had me breathing deeper, but we both jumped when a voice spoke from behind him. Above the table another ghost had appeared, but this time it was a small woman with a crooked nose, dressed in a military uniform so foreign that I couldn’t identify it. After a moment, I realized that it looked like the clothing An’alepp wore, but darker and cut more rigidly. She stood on the table and spoke.
“I am Commander An’alepp Bhatia of the Event Alura.” It was An’alepp! I could see it if I squinted hard enough. “This message is to our descendants who find o
ur ship in future generations. We will try to leave enough clues in the culture we establish that you will be able to find this place and utilize our ultimate treasure—the God’s Teeth Flyers. We have secured them as best we can in preparation for that coming day.”
Did she mean that the Teeth of the Gods were here? Now that I was no longer even looking, had I accidentally stumbled upon them?
“Our data is conclusive. This planet is unstable—or will be in a few hundred years, give or take a generation. Something we are currently referring to as “the cataclysm” will eventually shake the planet apart. By this time, you have likely felt the beginnings of it. Earthquakes, increasing in strength will continue. The seas will rise and continents will divide and drift. But we fear this is only the beginning. Nothing can be done to save this world, you can only escape it. Unfortunately, we have only a few small quantum transporters, and they are unsafe for humans. Hopefully over the coming years we will devise a plan to proceed, but until then this ship will be put on standby and power conserved as best as we can manage. We will keep the quantum transporters secure as well. One can take messages to Axum if that planet is settled on schedule. If not, well, let us hope that we come up with an alternate solution before then.”
“Who is this?” Rusk asked, gesturing to An’alepp.
“That is An’alepp. She speaks to me in the mediation.”
“She says the world is ending. Do you believe her?”
I frowned. Why hadn’t she prepared me for this? “Yes.”
“What plan did she eventually devise to save it?” he asked. He seemed so calm, like he was certain that these magicians from the past would have a way.
I wasn’t so sure. If An’alepp hid this from me, maybe she never found a way out of it.
“An’alepp?” I asked.
She ignored me.
“I’d be embarrassed, too, if I left this for my descendants to deal with.” I scoffed. Like everything else in life, the answer seemed to be, ‘make Tylira suffer until she figures it out.’
“We hoped that in time there would be new ideas,” she answered weakly.
“And on that note, did you just say that those doors aren’t safe for people?”
She didn’t answer that question either.
“She has nothing,” I told Rusk.
He scrubbed a hand through his hair, frowning.
“Well, while we’re thinking about it,” I said, “let’s look for the Teeth of the Gods. If they’re here after all this time, we might as well take a look at them before the world ends.”
“Because priceless artifacts are always around when you wake up from a dream fully healed,” Rusk said, “and with a beautiful woman. Wait. Is this a dream?”
“Hardly,” I said, looking at the schematic of the ‘ship’ on the table. It had various levels and on one there were twelve long glowing white things that looked remarkably like teeth. They were beneath us. Perhaps there were stairs. Ah! There they were. “The world is ending. If that’s really true then it’s a nightmare. Come on, I think I see how to get there.”
We exchanged one last longing glance. I’d stay forever with him talking out how we felt, but for now I had to put that aside. Together we exited through a door cut into the wall so it wasn’t flush with the floor and then took the turn to where the staircase was pictured. There it was: black, metal, but pebbly in texture so it was easy to grip as we walked down it. Eerily, the glow of light in the walls followed us.
“Now entering Level Two. Berthing, Mess, Quartermaster,” that soothing voice said—this time in words I could understand if I concentrated very hard.
“She sounds almost enough like us – but completely unlike us,” Rusk said. Despite the fact that we’d moved on to business he lingered close by, letting a hand rest on my back whenever we paused to get our bearings.
“Do you really think these are the voices of our dead ancestors?” I asked. I thought they were. Was I crazy?
“What else could they be? All I know is that I want to figure out this place and then I want to get out. Preferably with a weapon that I can use to defend us from that insane relative of yours.”
“Agreed.”
We continued down the stairs to the next level. It was hard to pick out anything about the ship with the light levels so low, but it had an inviting feeling, as if it were designed to be a home as well as a water-vessel.
“Imagine floating on the sea in this monstrous thing,” Rusk said, echoing my thoughts.
“It’s so hard to imagine,” I agreed.
“It was never for the sea,” An’alepp said, showing up to irritate me again. “It’s for space exploration.”
“We’re exploring spaces now,” I agreed.
“No, space, like the stars.”
“Are you saying this structure floated on the stars?” I asked.
“Exactly.”
“That’s nonsense.”
She sighed.
“An’alepp said this place floated on the stars,” I said.
“Like a bird, flying on the air, only farther away,” Rusk said, his voice distant. “I wonder if we could make it set sail again.”
“I think it’s broken,” I said.
“Now entering Level Three. Small vessel bay, Maintenance, Ship’s stores. Weapons Morgue. Quantum transporter.”
“Maybe we can fix it,” Rusk said. His eyes were bright. He wanted to fix it? Well, he did have a strange relationship with birds. Perhaps the opportunity to fly like one was too much to resist.
A table like the one upstairs was bolted to the floor at the entrance. I placed my hand on it, and the room lit up. It was much larger than I ever suspected. At least as large as the Blue Feather had been—perhaps as large as three Blue Feathers. To one side stood a metal door like the one we’d come through at the waterfall, but three times as tall and thick. Across the length of the room were two rows of long, curving white things. They looked almost exactly like elongated fangs and they gleamed like polished ivory. It came to me suddenly and certainly.
“The Teeth of the God’s,” I gasped.
“Activating God’s Teeth Flyers,” the table said.
Little lights appeared along the teeth. Rusk’s mouth hung open. He looked at me, and his eyes were as wide as I was sure mine were.
“Come on, let’s look!” he said, grasping my hand in his palm. We ran to the closest one like children.
“There isn’t time to go chasing around the boat bay,” An’alepp complained from beside me. Fortunately for her, she hovered nearby me no matter how quickly I went. “The world is ending, and our time is limited.”
I ignored her, focused on the Teeth. They were real! After all this time they were real and they were like nothing I could have ever imagined. The desk had called them flyers. Could they really fly? Perhaps among the stars like this ship? I was almost giddy.
When we reached the side of it, I ran my hands along the surface. It was smooth, but it caught at my hands in a way I couldn’t explain.
“Look!” Rusk exclaimed, tucking his hands into hidden holds and then climbing up the side of the Tooth. I scrambled up behind him, and then he touched something and the top of the Tooth lifted. With a laugh of delight, Rusk disappeared into the Tooth, and I followed. There was a ladder on the other side and when I dropped down into the Tooth I was amazed. What had appeared to be a white exterior on the outside was completely transparent form the inside. I could see the Bay and all around us on three sides, though the wall behind us was opaque. At the front of the Tooth were two seats with another dark table in front of them, and then behind that, seats lined either wall, as if they were expecting a dozen people to sit in the Tooth. The back wall had a hatch, but I didn’t have time to explore it. Rusk was at the table at the front in a second, pressing his palms to it. A ghostly apparition appeared again, this time it was so complex that I could barely understand what the figure meant to portray.
It had bird-like features, and arcs and spirals coming out from
it. To the side, writing trailed in a ceaseless waterfall. It was truly a thing of the Gods.
“I think it’s meant to fly,” Rusk said.
“I think you need to focus on saving the planet from cataclysm,” said An’alepp, the world’s most cheerful ancestor.
“I think we should try it,” I agreed, grinning at Rusk. After all, we were here, right? And if the world was going to end anyway, there wasn’t much we could do about it right now.
We both stared at the apparition, brows furrowed, trying to decide what to do first. I was so engrossed in figuring out the diagram that when the clatter of hooves sounded I jumped.
“Rusk,” I whispered, my voice hoarse with panic.
The metal door opened and out of it Amandera’s armsmen poured through, horses and all. Amandera stood at the table beside the staircase, peering at the apparition there. She looked up and I thought it was an illusion that she could meet my eyes until a thought occurred to me—perhaps when we activated the table, the side of the Tooth really had become transparent.
She pointed right at us.
Chapter Thirty-Four: Don’t Let Me Down
“Mud in a bowl! She came through the portal!” I yelled, whirling to face An’alepp. “Why didn’t you tell us she could get in here?”
“I assumed you realized all the doors could connect to one another,” An’alepp said as I scrambled to close the hatch into the Tooth.
“But how could she know how to do that?” I closed the hatch with a snick. Where was the lock on the door? “I can hardly keep track off all of this madness, let alone figure out how to use it!”
“Her ancestors help her, as I am helping you.”
“Great. And who was her ancestor?” I asked. Why couldn’t I get this door to lock?
“Drusica was one of them, although there have been many.”
“The one who could tell the future? Splendid. Anything else I should know?”
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