by Matt Larkin
Naresh stood and Strode into the sky. Wind and rain tore at his clothes, but he Strode again and again in an instant. A matter of heartbeats, and he found himself kneeling in the center of Pottala village.
He rose.
“Semar!”
A moment later the fire priest exited the Shrine of Sacred Flame. He walked into the rain and joined Naresh at the heart of the village. Others had begun to gather, too. He smiled at Chandi as she moved to his side.
“Much has been asked of you,” Semar said.
“Much has,” Naresh agreed. “Will you follow me?”
Semar bowed.
Naresh turned, taking in the rest of the circle. Even Kertajaya was here now, the king watching him intently.
He drew his Blessings and flared the Sun Brand, setting his eyes aglow as he took in everyone’s gaze. “Will you follow me?”
One by one, everyone bowed. The whispers had begun again. The Radiant Prince. He had run from those whispers for too long. After a long pause, Kertajaya knelt before him. Even Chandi started to go to her knees, but Naresh grabbed her arms and pulled her up beside him.
“We will end this,” he said. “I am the scion of sun and moon, and we will end this.”
“But Naresh,” Semar said, rising. “There are three dynasties of the Skyfall Isles. You must complete the circle.”
Naresh shut his eyes for a heartbeat, then turned to the priest. The man was asking him to become a Firewalker. Now, after so much time. Of course, now. Because now he was ready. Now there was no more time.
“Yes, Semar. There are three dynasties.”
“And the Ratu Adil must represent them all,” the Igni said. At that, he ordered his people to fill a pit with burning coals.
Naresh stared across the village while its people gathered.
An energy ran through him. This was going to hurt. A day of rest had done him a world of good. He healed faster now. Maybe his feet would heal, too. But this was really going to hurt.
Chandi squeezed his hand while he watched the Ignis. “You shouldn’t do this.”
“I have to.” Semar was right. He had to represent all the people. And he needed any edge against Rangda he could gain.
And his wife stood by his side, holding his hand while the fire was lit.
The flames rose off the coals half a foot into the air. The rainfall created a haze of steam over the pit, but wasn’t enough to extinguish the fires. Ignis did this to become Firewalkers, even boys not old enough to shave. They survived the pain and fear. Naresh had to face it, too.
Semar stood on one side, holding the sacred brazier. He beckoned to Naresh, who stepped up to the edge of the pit.
“Naresh …” Chandi said.
He squeezed her hand. So little time remained. Rangda would be at the Temple soon, if she wasn’t already. Her people—her demons—had taken it. Next to the dying world, his pain wouldn’t matter. Looking down at the pit, for one moment, he considered backing away. Then he stepped onto the burning coals.
Agony shot through his feet and he screamed. His skin was blistering and peeling, but forward he walked through the flames. Two more steps. And then two more.
A fire began to build within him. The burning in his feet ran up his spine and collected behind his eyes. And through it, through the pain and consumption raged an inferno before him, all around him. The fires of Kahyangan engulfed him, and he became part of them. A blasted landscape of volcanoes and rivers of magma became his world. And in that world, figures emerged. Like people, but their bodies were flame.
At their head stood a giant whose eyes were smoldering pits. Heat washed over him, but the giant held his gaze. Agni … The Fire God. One of the flame people stepped into him, and filled him. It scorched through his veins and seared his lungs.
Flames poured from his mouth and eyes and ears into a stream that wrapped itself around him. And then it was gone.
At the end of the pit, Naresh stepped out into Chandi’s arms. She had to support him, for his feet wouldn’t. The flames burning them, the flames of the pit, even the brazier went out. Flames licked at his fingertips.
Chandi lifted him up, and Semar put a salve on his feet.
“The circle is complete, Naresh.”
The salve soothed the burning, but Naresh let his wife carry him back to his house. It was funny—as many times as he’d carried her in his arms, he didn’t remember her ever carrying him. She sat him on the cot and he rested.
Outside, the rain had stopped.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED NINETY-THREE
Flames swirled around Naresh’s hands. When he drew his Blessings, he could feel them—the fires—no matter how far away they were. He could feel the burning heat of magma beneath the surface of the world, eager to escape through volcanic shafts. He could feel the fires of the sun itself, farther away than anyone knew, calling to his Sun Brand.
Far away, on Yawadvipa, his people had fallen. Kertajaya said nothing remained of the Solar homeland. Rangda had taken it all. The heat fed off his growing rage. He could see the Demon Queen before him, burning in the fires of his wrath.
He shut his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them, he released fireball after fireball over the river. Seven, eight exploded in quick succession, creating sheets of flame that blanketed the waterscape. Naresh reached out to the flames of those explosions. He could feel them too, and he shaped them with his hands. He turned those flames into a vortex, a column of fire stretching into the sky. With a push, he sent the column spinning away.
Swarnadvipa was falling to Rahu. Rangda had the Temple. The two days he’d spent in this village may have cost thousands of lives. People died while he waited for his strength to return. Because he had to destroy the leyaks. Because he had to be strong enough. His fists clenched so hard they hurt. He’d burn the world to save it.
Breathe.
He released the twister and it burned up into smoke.
His feet had healed quickly. Perhaps he would always bear the scars, but between Semar’s ministrations and his own nature as a Moon Scion, he could walk without pain after only a few days.
There was a faint presence in his mind now, though. A Fire Spirit. That’s how the Firewalkers worked. They had attuned themselves to such beings, and through them, could affect the flames. The more he used the power, the more the spirit clawed at his mind. Maybe some Firewalkers would break under the strain, become mere puppets to the things within. But Naresh knew the being was there, and somehow he locked it away in a corner of his mind.
Even Firewalkers came back to Kahyangan. They borrowed power mankind was not meant to have, and they’d pay a price for it, too. Just as Naresh paid a price for his power.
He wouldn’t need these powers much longer, anyway. The time had come.
He walked back to the village. It shouldn’t surprise him that half the populace had gathered to watch his display over the river. Anyone within miles must have seen that column of flame. Which was fine. He was done hiding from Rangda.
Chandi stood there, alongside the others, her arms folded over her chest. She was waiting for him. He could see it on her face, she knew.
“I’m going to stop the leyaks,” he said. Before he could face Rangda, he had to clear away her minions. The demons had caused enough harm.
She scoffed. “We’re going to stop them, you mean.”
Naresh shook his head. “No, Chandi. Reports say they have overrun Puradvipa. We’ll never get close to the Astral Temple unless I can diminish their numbers.”
“And you can’t do it alone,” his wife said. “You think I’d let you walk into that without me?”
Naresh tried to smile, but he couldn’t keep the sadness from his face. It would be so easy to take her with him, to keep her by his side. But he alone could face this. “You have to. Chandi, if you’re there, I won’t be able to unleash the full force of these flames. If anyone else was left alive, anyone that could get caught in the blasts, I’d have to hold back.”
&
nbsp; “Dammit Naresh, you don’t think I’m just going to stay here and wait, do you?”
No. He didn’t really think that. “You all agreed to follow me. So listen to me now. I have to do this part alone.”
“Fine. Then we’ll stop Rahu.”
He sighed, but Chandi continued before he could speak.
“You can’t focus on Rangda if he’s still around, always threatening to sneak up and destroy you.”
Pohaci took a step forward. “Besides, we have to help Malin.”
“Rahu’s still in Bukit,” Naresh said. “He’s not coming here. And I don’t want you going anywhere near that island.”
“Ah, Naresh,” Ben said, “you don’t get to play the only hero here, you know. The rest of us want some stories to win the girls, too, eh.”
“Oh, really?” Landi said.
Ben shrugged, jiggling his locks. “I was thinking of Pohaci, of course. She probably wants to win a few hearts.”
The werecrocodile turned slowly to look at the captain with narrowed eyes. After a moment, Ben took a step backward, and she smiled. “Rahu has taken Malin. I will not let that stand.”
“And we still have the Jin Laut and the Long Awaited Dawn,” Ben said. “Be a shame not to use such fine ships. I mean, they deserve to go down in legend, too. Just think, the entire crew will have a chance to win the girls with the stories we’ll shape. Naresh, you have no right to deny the hearts of so many desperate men, nor disappoint so many fair ladies.”
“You agree?” Naresh asked Landi.
“What, about winning girls?” she said. “No, not so much. But we do have to deal with Rahu, and if you won’t take us with you to Puradvipa, then Swarnadvipa is where we need to be. If you make a move on Rangda, Rahu will come. You don’t want him at your back.”
Naresh sighed. They were right. It was easy to become so focused on the leyaks and Rangda. But Rahu was out there, too. And if he stopped Rangda, Rahu would still try to take the Temple.
He clapped her on the arm. “Then take care of my wife, Landi.”
She nodded.
Naresh returned to Chandi, who now had her hands on her hips. “Don’t you think I have a better chance of taking care of all of them?”
“Probably. But you’re my moon and stars, love.” He kissed her, and she threw her arms around his neck.
“Go with the speed of the dawn,” she whispered.
“I go to bring us the dawn.”
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED NINETY-FOUR
Morning mist covered the Astral Temple and the mountains beyond it. From where he crouched on Astral Shore, Naresh watched the compound. This place that had fallen from the sky and led to such madness. His ancestors had unlocked secrets of the gods and written them on those pillars. Those secrets had given the Isles Moon Scions, the Sun Brand, and Firewalkers.
And now, in Naresh, for the first time, those powers were united. He opened himself to all of them at once. He had lit a bonfire on the beach, and its flames called to him.
Shrieks of the damned echoed through the rainforest. Once such horrid cries would have sent birds to wing, but now, perhaps none remained here. Those people and animals that lived here had fled.
The sun was rising, and the leyaks would have to return to their bodies. In human form, they were still strong, but much slower and easier to fight.
Corpses waddled toward him down the beach. From what he could tell, Rangda raised the dead as minions when she didn’t have time to call leyaks into them. These creatures seemed mindless and soulless. Surya, let them not be suffering in their state.
Naresh rose, keris in hand. It was time to clear the way to the temple. Rangda had been left unchecked here too long. Many of these corpses assaulting him had been his own Tianxian defenders. He could do nothing for them now but end their misery.
He Sun Strode behind one and lopped off its head. He was gone, cutting down another and another before the head had fallen. One grabbed him. He kicked out its knee and hacked into it as it fell.
Men began to rush him from the rainforest. Perhaps they were the leyaks, trapped by daylight in their prisons of flesh. Or perhaps they were simply men in service to Rangda. Naresh didn’t care. They would all burn.
He reached out to the bonfire, encircling his limbs in flame. The first fireball he launched exploded in the face of a charging man, leaving nothing but a charred husk on the ground. The assault faltered for a moment. Naresh launched five more fireballs, catching the men—or leyaks, by those shrieks—in groups where he could.
A corpse got too close, and he cut it down with his keris. He Strode and swept the legs out from under another attacker and rammed his sword through its chest as it fell. An uppercut shattered the jaw of another leyak, cutting off its maddening screams.
Again and again he Strode, killing leyaks with fist and sword and flame. Twenty, thirty fell. Dozens burned, filling Astral Shore with the nauseating smell of cooked human flesh.
And still her armies came on, pouring from the temple and the rainforest.
Naresh turned to face them all. At last. He grit his teeth. They were all coming for him. They came by the hundreds, perhaps by the thousands. Now was the time.
He Strode behind the bonfire and exploded it upward, shaping the raging inferno into a twister, a vortex stretching fifty feet into the sky. Just like he’d practiced. He thrust his hands out before him, sending the flame twister skittering along the beach. The vortex immolated everything it touched, turning sand to glass and leyaks to ash.
Naresh roared from the effort of holding the thing together, much less trying to steer it. He drew his Potency harder, feeding the power to the Fire Spirit he called upon. It was his life force, the same as with the Sun Brand. He was burning his own life away, just as he burned the leyaks.
And it wasn’t enough. He fell to his knees, and the twister winked out into smoke. Hundreds of corpses and leyaks still advanced on his position. It wasn’t enough. He could never stand against Rangda with these creatures in his way.
The flames of earth were not enough to burn away the corruption that grew here.
He stood, slamming his fist into another leyak, breaking its neck. There were greater flames in the universe.
He flared the Sun Brand to its limits. His body began to levitate, hovering above the shore. He could feel the fires of the sun itself. They were out there, if he could only reach them.
He Strode above the Astral Temple and hovered there, drawing his Blessings to the limit. A flare of solar fire leapt from the heavens toward him, wrapping Surya’s warm embrace around him, searing his eyes. The wrath of the Sun God burned through his veins.
Naresh roared, spreading his arms. He glowed like a second sun in the sky. Cascades of flame leapt from his body and scorched the beach below, turning all of Astral Shore into a monument of glass.
He needed more. This would end.
His body had become fire and light and rage.
Naresh clenched his fists.
Then he fell to the earth like a meteorite. Like a falling star, a blaze through the sky. Faster and faster he fell, trailing radiance behind him. In the compound, he could see Rangda. And for one brief moment, it looked like fear washed over her face. Then a dome of ice formed around her.
He impacted atop one of the temples and the force shattered stones, sending them flying in all directions. Star fire erupted from him like a volcano, a billowing cascade of explosions that swept away the temples and the walls and the pillars and hundreds of leyaks.
When he opened his eyes, smoke filled them. What had once been the Astral Temple had become a smoldering ruin. He hadn’t broken the surface, the device would still be below. But the place itself was gone, leaving nothing but rubble.
All the shrieks had stopped. His legs trembled, and he couldn’t quite stand. Breathe.
He shut his eyes again, trying to focus on Chandi. She was waiting for him. He had to get back to her.
He rose, swaying, and waded through the smoke. The
wall was gone, and the rainforest beyond had turned to ash. No living thing remained within twenty miles, of that he was certain.
None except for himself, and Rangda. She stumbled through the smoke too, steam hissing off her blue-tinted skin. The flesh on one of her hands had peeled off, and her clothes were scorched, but still she stood, baring twisted teeth at him.
Naresh drew his Blessings, refilling the Sun Brand. More years fled off his life, but there was no turning back.
He Strode behind her and swept her legs out from under her. His fist slammed into her back and sent her flying aside. His next Stride carried him before her, where his kick reversed her momentum.
“You’re going back to the frozen underworld, bitch!” he shouted, and Strode again. But she wasn’t where she should have been.
Instead, she stood by his side. Her laughter echoed off the ruins. “Yes, Naresh. Kill this body. Yours would make a rather wondrous vessel, don’t you think? All that power, combined with my own. Please take this body from me.”
Naresh hefted his keris, but hesitated. That’s what had happened to Malin. Malin killed Rahu, and the ghost took his body next. And if it was true, if Rangda could take his body and then use what he had become … He backed away, the sword slipping from his grasp. It clattered on the smoking stones.
Rangda laughed again, and frost escaped her mouth. “You begin to understand. I am Hel, mortal. I who have existed for eons longer than you can imagine—I cannot die. I have feasted on millions of souls. If you kill me, I just take the next available body. If not yours, there are others on this island. I can reach a hundred miles, two hundred! You have but one choice. Die.”
“No.” He kept backing away. If he couldn’t kill her … He had to be able to stop her somehow.
“Watch your world freeze,” she said, her laughter chilling his spine. “The device will allow me to breach the barrier separating our worlds. The mists of the dead will sweep forth, covering the Earth. My frozen underworld, as you call it, will soon become yours as well. And for all your might, there is nothing you can do to stop it.”