The Broken Heavens

by Kameron Hurley

  “I don’t understand.”

  They took hold of her. She cried out only once, at the shock of being so roughly handled without consent. They knotted a bit of cord around her hands and slung her unceremoniously onto the back of the dog.

  “What are you doing?” Lilia huffed. “Where are you taking me?”

  She did not have far to go to find out. After only a few minutes, they pushed her off the dog. She fell in a heap. Raised her head.

  A massive bone tree sat at the center of a sparkling white clearing strewn with bleached bones. It was an ancient tree, as wide as Lilia was tall, a grim, rippling thing made from the bones of its own prey. Large bear skulls and the delicate skulls of treegliders made up its base; long, snapped tibias and fibias bound by pale, clotted sap and the tree’s fibrous tendons made up its branches. The bare crown of it did not so much reach for the sky as dominate it, a crown, a throne to some dark god.

  And there, a few paces from the ring of pale bones at the edge of the clearing, stood Meyna. She held the lead of a dog. Two jistas were with her, both full Oras that Lilia recognized. Meyna did not look away as Lilia gazed at her.

  “Is this what you did to Mohrai?” Lilia called.

  Meyna said, “No. Unlike you, we aren’t all murderers. This is something else. More personal. I meant what I said, Lilia. You are far too dangerous to the Dhai, alive. You have endangered us. And you would continue doing it. I know that, because I understand you, little Lilia. I was you, I think, when I was very young. Always seeking attention. Trying to find my place. But I’ve found my place now, Lilia.”

  “Don’t do this,” Lilia said.

  Meyna shook her head. She gestured to the men who held Lilia. “Give her to it.”

  Lilia screamed loud and long, so loud and long she startled the dogs, which began to bark.

  The men hauled Lilia up and tossed her into the bone-white clearing, well within reach of the snarling branches of the bone tree. Lilia landed with a crunch onto the discarded bones of the tree’s prey, her nose filling with the faint scent of rot. She wriggled forward, moving as quickly as she could, knowing it was already too late.

  The creaking of bones. Hissing. A searing pain in her shoulder.

  Her body jerked upright, lifted high, high in the air. A knotted limb of the bone tree jutted from her left shoulder, a limb made from cast-off bits of bird bones twisted together with its gooey, poisonous sap. The sap mingled with her blood and spattered the pale ground below as the tree pulled her into its crackling embrace.

  A second bony limb stabbed through her lower left side, just above her buttock. She screamed again. Wheezed. Gasped. She tried to find her mahuan with her one working arm. Lost her breath. No more screaming. Gasping. Like a speared fish.

  The tree shivered in excitement.

  Sunlight from above blinded her. The canopy here was thin, as the bone tree’s poison killed any plant life that came too close. She swung her head, trying to see Meyna and her kin.

  “This isn’t… necessary!” Lilia gasped.

  “I assure you it is,” Meyna said, and it frustrated Lilia that she could not see her face. “I know you too well, Lilia, far better than Ahkio does. You won’t sit around in the woods feeling sorry for yourself. You’ll scheme something up. Play the martyr. And we are done with playing games, you and I. We are going to get out of these woods. No more raids. No more secret excursions. You want revenge. You want to fight a force you cannot win against. You care nothing about the people here, and what’s best for them. I do.”

  “This is… a terrible…” Lilia said, but it came out slurred and soft. Her head swam. The poison was making her stuffy-headed already. Relaxed. Her breath came a little easier. How funny.

  Dark patches moved across her vision. Numbness crept up her fingers and toes. Her wounds still throbbed, but it was very distant, like an achy tooth. She had a fond memory of watching Taigan dangling just like this, speared by a bone tree. What would have happened if she chose to leave him there? Would she still be here? Was this always going to be the end for her?

  Anger burned in her belly. She struggled. But her body would not respond.

  She wondered if this was how her mother felt, welded to the top of that great mirror, bound to it until death, until Lilia destroyed her. Until the world destroyed Lilia.

  A sharp pain seared through her sternum. She gasped. Bent her head. But there was no visible wound. No gnarled bone branch pushing through her.

  The poison, maybe. The poison doing its final work.

  Oma, Lilia thought, you have a grim sense of humor.

  19

  Death was overrated.

  But then, so was recovery.

  She had done enough of both to know.

  She had been mangled, mutilated, infected and left for dead before. The second time wasn’t any more fun than the first. The injuries themselves were far worse this time, of course. Or perhaps she had forgotten how excruciating the infected wounds from those wily court predators had been. The mind had a habit of dampening the details of trauma over time, surfacing them only when violently triggered.

  Her mind processed her surroundings slowly, as if moving through treacle. Close quarters. Warm. Very dark. Cramped. She lay with her knees tucked up to her chest and her arms squeezed tightly against her sides, and there was something… pulsing and moving around her and… through her. Something slick and alive. She began to tremble violently.

  She kicked out. Met resistance. She was in a very small space. Kicked again. Wood. A trunk? What? She began to rip at the slimy growths sticking out of her body. As she pulled them free, she felt a great sense of both pain and relief, like yanking out a splinter or a bad tooth.

  More kicking. Spitting. Huffing. Then she pushed up, and the ceiling gave way. Her space filled with dim blue light. She yanked away more of the growths as she tried to sit up. They were some kind of vine. As she pulled them out, her body released pale amber streamers of ooze. Her skin closed quickly around the wounds, almost instantly. She marveled at it. How incredible.

  A sharp pain in her sternum made her double over. She tipped her head over the end of her enclosure – a box? a trunk? – and heaved and gagged, nauseous. Blackish vomit spattered across the floor. She clawed at her chest, at the source of the pain, and felt a cold, raised lump in the center of her core, just below her breasts. She pressed her palm against it, triggering another wave of pain. The raised mark had three curved edges and a long tail. Her body broke out in a cold sweat.

  She peered at the great round room. It that smelled of musty loam. Underground? Like a cairn.

  Disoriented, she tried to get out of the trunk, and stumbled over the lip of it. Crashed onto the floor.

  “What’s this? Oh!” A voice. Footsteps, soft.

  “The fuck?” she muttered, trying to raise her head.

  “Hush now,” a soft, airy voice.

  Fuzzy images: a smear of red cloth, a distorted face. The dim orange flickering of flame flies.

  “How did you wake me up?”

  “I didn’t. You were a box of bones.”

  “A what?”

  “You were not awakened. You were recreated. That’s what she told me, anyhow. And it appears it was true.”

  “Sounds complicated.”

  “It was.”

  “What’s the catch?”

  The fuzzy image resolved itself as the figure leaned over her, showed its teeth. A little old woman with sagging jowls and loose, bare skin on her arms that hinted she had once been much more substantial. Puffy white hair crowned the skull, shot through with moss and tiny branches. Perhaps a spider. Probably lice.

  “The catch,” the old woman said, “well, there is one, I think. You are bound to her.”

  “Who is her?”

  “She isn’t here. They exiled her.”

  “I’ve already died a few times. Who’s to say I want to live?”

  “Oh, I think you want to live.”

  “Who the fuck ar
e you?”

  “I am Emlee.”

  Her sternum ached again. She gasped. Rubbed at the raised mark again; not a mark, no – there was definitely something just under her skin, inside of her, pressing against her guts. She had a sudden urge to get above ground and go… there. That direction, behind her, whatever compass direction that was. Why? But the compulsion lingered. The thing in her chest burned coldly.

  “You have any clothes, Emlee?”

  “Yes, one moment. You feel something?”

  “Yeah, cold.”

  Emlee brought her trousers and tunic, all very plain and musty, full of moth holes. Her body began to ache in earnest, a painful ache, like a scratch that needed itching. There was some place she needed to be.

  “I have to go,” she said. “Thanks.”

  “Shoes?”

  She looked at her feet. Good looking feet. Clean nails. Good skin. For the first time she truly regarded her hands. Smooth skin there, too. No scars. No blemishes. That wasn’t right. There was something about her hands that she could not remember… this wasn’t right.

  “What the fuck happened to me, really?” she said.

  “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask Lilia.”

  “Why do I know that name?”

  Emlee shook her head. “I don’t know. She didn’t tell me.”

  Her stomach ached. “I have to go. I need to go.” She ran past Emlee, following the desperate urge of her body.

  She sprinted past startled children and skinny, malnourished Dhai faces. What had happened here? Where the fuck was she?

  Up a ladder. Across a clearing. Over a narrow thorn fence. She burst into a sprint. Her body worked beneath her, free and tireless. The damp ground thumped under her bare feet and it felt good, so good, to feel the cool air against her skin, and the breath heaving through her fresh lungs. I’m alive, I’m alive! she thought. But why is that strange? Why is it so strange to be alive, as if she would be anything else?

  She ran and ran, compelled to go north, following a little stream. This deep in the woods, there was little light from the moons or the satellites, but she found that she could see fairly clearly. She continued on, hungry to find what compelled her, but still not tired.

  As she came to the edge of a milky white clearing, the itching ache across her skin and deep in her sternum began to subside. She gazed across the clearing and realized it glowed white because it was full of bones. And there, hanging from the great bony limbs of a twisted bone tree, was a body.

  She stepped confidently across the clearing. When the tree reached for her, she simply snapped off the branch, easily as snapping a twig. Her hand did not even hurt. It tried again. She snapped it off. Again, and again. She grinned. It was a fun game.

  She broke off every branch of the tree but those that held the body. Then stepped back to regard it. A lone bird sat atop the tree, just above the body, eyeing her as if she would steal its meal.

  “You alive?” she asked. The girl was very familiar. Twisted foot, a soft new left hand, and a forgettable face covered in shiny little scars. Was this Lilia?

  The body’s eyes opened.

  “You Lilia?” she asked.

  The girl gave a sluggish nod. “Yes. You…” Her eyes widened. “You aren’t… No.”

  “What have you done to me?”

  “I don’t… know?”

  “I was in a fucking box!”

  Lilia huffed and gagged. She thought the girl was having convulsions, a stroke, but no, she was laughing.

  “The box… it was you in the box…” Lilia said. “Oh, Oma, you think you’re so funny.”

  “Why is it…” She stopped. A thunderous understanding came over her. A tree. A mirror. This girl’s scarred face. She sank to her knees. “Oh no,” she said.

  “I didn’t know,” Lilia said. “I didn’t know it was you in the box. You were supposed to be some great warrior.”

  “I hope you didn’t overpay.”

  Lilia wheezed again. “Please get me down. This tree is killing me.”

  “Why should I, after what you’ve done?”

  “Because we’re bound, that’s what Kalinda said. If I die, you die.”

  “Maybe I want to die.”

  “Do you?” Lilia huffed. Closed her eyes. “How many times do you really want to die, Zezili Hasaria?”

  Zezili pressed a hand to her own throbbing shoulder. A searing pain began to work its way into her back. The same places Lilia bore injuries.

  “I chose to die,” Zezili said. “But it was under false pretenses.”

  “So get revenge,” Lilia said. “That’s what I am going to do.”

  “If I get you down from there, what’s next?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “What if I just want to murder everyone who wronged me?”

  Lilia huffed and snorted. “I can help you with that.”

  20

  Anavha sat at the end of a large bed that took up most of the narrow room that the man called Suari had shoved him into. A slim window gave him a glimpse of the world outside, but only just. It didn’t make it feel less like a cell.

  He was already shivering, clutching his hands in his lap, conflicted about what he should do.

  Natanial had told him he would be free, not some slave. He hadn’t understood much of what was said with the Empress, but getting hauled off by Suari and shoved into a room, alone, with no explanation, did not bode well. He desperately wanted to trust Natanial, but who was Natanial next to the Empress? How much power did he truly have? Anavha knew he had a very limited amount of time to make a decision, and the knowledge of that made him sweat.

  He always waited too long, until it was too late. Zezili would have been bold. Zezili was always so good at making decisions.

  The wall in front of him trembled. Anavha shifted his gaze and stared at the rippling surface. Was this another quake, like that one when the mountain fell from the sky? No, he wasn’t shaking. Just… the wall…

  A boy tumbled out of the wall.

  Anavha shrieked and leapt onto the bed.

  The boy on the floor groaned and rubbed at the arm he had fallen on. He sat up. It was the boy from the foyer, the one with the broken knees who spoke Dorinah, like all the Dhai seemed to.

  “How did you get in here?” Anavha said.

  “I… Oh no,” he said. “This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Dasai… he’s going to murder me. They’re going to kill me for this. Sina, take me swiftly.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Keep your voice down,” he said. “Please. They are going to be looking for me. And when they find me…”

  “What did you do?”

  The boy struggled to his feet. Anavha got up and helped him.

  “Thank you,” he said. “I’m Roh. You’re Anavha?”

  Anavha nodded.

  “Did you understand what they were saying, up there? About warding you?” Roh asked.

  “No. They just threw me in here and–”

  “They are going to ward you like they did me,” he said. “You will be bound to the Empress. You won’t be able to hurt her. Betraying her will cause pain. It’s terrible. I want to… do terrible things, but I can’t… I can’t…”

  “Natanial said nothing bad would happen to me. He’d protect me.”

  “That soldier up there? He’s a mercenary,” Roh scoffed.

  “He’s looked after me–”

  “Has he? If you had not believed that, where would you be right now?”

  Anavha sat back on the bed, distraught. He would have been home in Aaldia, cooking or curled up in bed with Nusi. “He said I was free. It was my own decision.”

  “Well, I’d make another decision on your own, now,” Roh said. “I need to find a way out of here.” He went to the window, peered out. Tried to shove his shoulder through, but it was far too narrow. “Do you have any extra clothes?” he asked. “Maybe I could–”

  “I can get us out,” Anavha said.
>
  “How?”

  “I just… I don’t know where we’d go. Home, for me, but… people are falling from the sky. Natanial said if I joined the Empress, I could stop it. Now, I don’t know…”

  “Listen,” Roh said, and he took Anavha by the shoulders and peered at him. He was a beautiful boy, Anavha saw, sad and broken, with large eyes and long lashes, skin dry and flaking from too much stress and sun, but very pretty nonetheless. Anavha knew very well what those with power did to pretty boys. “There’s a Dhai resistance. You know who the Dhai are? Before the Tai Mora came–”

  There was a shout from the hall. The sound of pounding feet.

  “Where exactly are these Dhai?” Anavha asked.

  “What? I… I don’t know. The Woodland? Somewhere.”

  “I can only take us to places I’ve been,” Anavha said. Roh’s frantic movement and warbling tone made him anxious. “Well, sometimes I end up… elsewhere, but that’s if something is wrong. But I’ve gotten very good at taking myself places I’ve been.”

  Roh ceased his pacing. “Where in Dhai have you been?”

  “We arrived on the plateau, out there, near the camp with all the soldiers in it.”

  “Directly onto the plateau?” Roh gaped. “You… you opened a wink? You’re an omajista!”

  Anavha winced. He still did not like that word. “That’s what they say. I suppose so. I can’t get to other worlds, though, just… this one. Places here.”

  Roh went to the wall and pressed his forehead against it. Then his palms. He murmured something in Dhai that had the reverent tone of a prayer of thanks.

  “All right,” Roh said. “Can you take us to the plateau?”

  “But, there are soldiers there and–”

  “From the plateau, you’ll be able to see into the valley, right?”

  “I… suppose, yes.”

  “Then you can wink us into the valley. And from the valley you can see–”

  “Woods. Oh!” Anavha considered that. “You are very clever.”

  “I know,” Roh said. More shouting from the hall. “Can you hurry? What do you need from me?”

  “I don’t… I’m not sure…”