Mud

  “But… ”

  Before I can pull the words together to ask him anything more, a strained cry echoes out of the cave. Rona.

  The Hunter hears it too. He rushes into the cave. “No—” I chase after him, but by the time I’m there, he is already standing over her, his face blank with shock.

  I see her now with fresh eyes. The way the Hunter must see her—not by how far she’s come, but how far she is from well. Pressure rises from my toes, over my legs, my chest, my neck, and finally my head.

  So small, all shriveled and rotted, she lies limp from exhaustion, her chest just barely rising and falling enough to prove she has life. Her face is vacuous, sallow, and shrinking into her skull. The wound across her stomach is even smaller now, but she is covered in rusty, caked red. The stench of death still lingers, trapped in the cave’s dank air.

  The Hunter’s eyes snap to me as I enter. He stands between us, as if he could block me from her. “I will ask again. What have you done?”

  A seed of rage hardens in me against the Hunter. He should not be here.

  “What have you done?” he demands.

  My head grows hot. My fingers itch to snap his throat. His words bore into my conscience. The truth is I don’t know what I’ve done.

  “I know what you are here for,” I growl, shoving him away from Rona, “This does not concern you. Leave now and I will spare your life.”

  “All innocents concern us,” he says. “We knew something was different when you reappeared. What have you been doing? What have you done to her?”

  He leans over, stretches his arms out to take her.

  “Don’t move her!” I growl. “You’ll do her more harm.”

  I’m all too aware of the suffering I have brought on her, the starved half-life she’s living. Every flinch of pain, every drop of blood that surged out of her, every cry. But I swore to bring her back to him. I’m too close to lose her now.

  “I am taking her with me.”

  “No. You will die first.”

  Rona moans, her eyes roll open. When she sees the Hunter standing over her she fights weakly against him. Looks to me. “Help.”

  The Hunter steps back. Looks to me, stunned.

  Rona’s head lies limply to the side, her cracked lips too dry, and her tongue dry as it rolls over them. She needs more water.

  Enough.

  I step over Rona and dig my fingers into the Hunter’s neck, lift him close to my face so he can feel my height, see the glint of my teeth as I form the words.

  “You will not take her,” I spit the words into his face. He writhes and twists to keep the life inside of him. “You will come with me, and you will stop meddling in what you do not understand.”

  I give him a hard stare, and then put him back down. I loosen my fingers, but keep my hand around his neck. He coughs and gags.

  “I will tell you what you need to know, and then you will leave.”

  I tighten my grip on the Hunter’s neck, sticky and writhing for gasping breaths, and steer him out of the cave to the waves. I stare at the moonlight glistening off the water for a moment, realizing I must let go of him to scoop up the water. Reluctantly I loosen my fingers, reach down, and fill my cupped hands.

  “Follow me.”

  The Hunter keeps his lips pursed tight, his eyes darting wildly, taking in every movement.

  Back to the cave. I hold my dripping hands over her for her to drink.

  “What are you doing?” he exclaims.

  That question again.

  The Hunter’s hand is stretched out hesitant, confused. I can smell the fear coming off him in sweaty beads.

  “She needs water.”

  “Not salt water! She’ll be sick.”

  His words yank through me as if a hook were plunged into my side.

  Sick?

  The water drips between my hands and splatters at my toes.

  “What do you mean?”

  “She needs fresh water. She can’t drink from the sea. It won’t help her. It will make her worse.”

  “Fresh water.”

  “Yes. A river. Or—” His hand idly drifts to his head and pulls at a fistful of hair, pushing his hood gently away. “Where do the rest of them get their water?”

  Haven.

  I squeeze my eyes shut and reach back deep into my memory. Before the Underworld. In the village. They brought us buckets filled with water. Where did it come from? My jaw clenches with the strain to dig back. The woman brought it to us. From behind the huts.

  I open my eyes.

  There’s a well.

  I passed it when I first carried Jordan here. Behind the village.

  “You’re coming with me.”

  I lead him out of the cave by his neck. I don’t grip as hard this time.

  The well. It was just behind the last row of houses. But that was then. Before I left and ten years passed by. Before the village expanded and the rings of huts grew. We’ll have to walk right through them to get to it now.

  I guide the way around the huts until we’re at the farthest point from the shore. I stay to the soft sand and out of the reeds that rustle and snap. Grains of sand rub at my feet and stick between my toes. The moon is just starting to tip down in the sky over us, swollen, just shy of a full circle. There’s no movement, no sound but chirping crickets as I lead us between the huts. Urgency and resolve prickle across my skin.

  We’re exposed here. Nowhere to hide should one of these villagers hear us, or simply come out to take in the breeze.

  Ten years.

  I have to stop myself from reaching out and running my fingers along the fresh wood of the huts we pass along Haven’s outer rings. A full decade. Yet another that’s slipped away from me like no more than a deep breath. But for humans it’s an age. No wonder I couldn’t find Jordan among the children. He’d be a man by now. There’s no telling where he’s gone in so much time.

  A bucket dangles over the well with a reel. Just as before. I lower it down, each creak of the wooden spool quivering through my fingertips. The Hunter stands by, studying the huts. He stands steady, but I can hear the fast unsteady rhythm of his heartbeats. He hasn’t asked about the box again. But he will. The dread quivers inside me with his every move.

  A splash echoes up from the well, weight tugs at the reel as the bucket fills.

  I wind the rope back up, reach my hands into the bucket to carry back what I can. But the Hunter stops me and pulls out his knife.

  Choking anxiety clenches at my throat. Not here, not now. A struggle here could wake the whole town. It could ruin everything.

  But he just whispers, “More than that.”

  He presses the blade against the rope to free the bucket. Then he returns it to its sheath. My muscles relax, I take a slow breath in, not sure what I was scared of. He can’t hurt me, not here in Terath. After all, he’s the one on the right side in all this. I’m the monster who keeps killing them. And I don’t have to do that anymore.

  The way back is slower. I move deliberate and steady, hold in my breath, determined not to lose a drop. The Hunter stays at my side.

  When we are back, I go back into the cave, drop to my knees at Rona’s side.

  “Here. This will be better, I promise.”

  She pushes her arms under herself, tries to raise her head, but she is too weak. I place my hand behind her neck, using the other to scoop the water to her mouth. The sharp bones of her spine, her shoulder blades, tighten against my hand as she takes it in. I cup my hands in the bucket and bring it to her to drink, again, and then again.

  “That’s enough.” The Hunter is watching from the cave’s mouth. “Give her more in a little while.”

  She lets out a sigh, rolls her head back. I lay her back across the rock. I watch her a while longer, waiting for the awful struggle to start again. It doesn’t.

  A soft breeze makes its way into the cave and eases the tension across my shoulders. But it’s not over yet.

  I step around where
Rona rests and face the Hunter.

  “Come.”

  I lead him out of the cave into the turning dawn.

  Chapter 24

  WHEN THE SEA breeze touches our faces, the Hunter whips around on me.

  “Now it’s my turn,” he demands. His shoulders are tense and bulging. His fingers hover over his blade.

  “What do you want?” I ask.

  But I know what he wants. What they all wanted. And I don’t have it anymore.

  “I want to know how,” he snaps, his hands balling into fists. “How did you do it?”

  My mind goes blank. I don’t understand.

  “I didn’t—I—” The words won’t come together. “Do what?”

  “You know what,” his eyes narrow with impatience. “You cloaked the magic’s trace from us. For years. Even now we cannot see all that we could before.”

  A trace?

  The pieces come together in a rush. So this is how they have found me time after time. Just like Abazel and the Keeper, the Hunters can sense the box’s magic. Maybe even mine.

  Of course, they can. My slow, dense brain—I should have understood this ages ago.

  “I did nothing.”

  “We know you did,” he spits back. “The Sworn have traced all sorts of rogue magic, through Terath for ages. Never have we lost one before.”

  The Sworn?

  It’s the same thing the last Hunter called them. The questions pile up and wear on me like bricks, weighing me down. Always, always more questions.

  “I was not in Terath.”

  The Hunter’s mouth pulls into a tight line. I hear the quiet rumble of grinding teeth. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

  I wrestle for an explanation, for pieces I can give him. The Hunter bores into me with a hard stare, and I’m tired of the secrets, the not knowing, and the dragging it all with me like so much dead weight. It wears me down like the all-encompassing fatigue of the Underworld, and it’s too much to bear. But how, how to explain any of it?

  A thick pause settles between us as I wrestle with the words, trying to find the right ones. Then the Hunter gasps, looks back toward the cave.

  “Again.” He whips back to me. “You said you couldn’t let her die again. She was already dead. You brought her back.”

  “Yes.”

  Confessing to it loosens the knotting in my gut.

  “Impossible,” he accuses. He whips back to me, his face pulled into a fierce glower. “Impossible.”

  “I… ” But I don’t have any words for him.

  “Impossible!” he yells. “You broke into the Underworld? How? Do you understand what you’ve done?”

  He paces the sand, crosses back and forth in front of me, one hand tangling in his hair.

  “Oh Gods.” He stops pacing, his face going blank. “What will we do?”

  “There is nothing that needs to be done.” Cold resentment creeps up from my toes and grips tight across my shoulders. “I saved her. And now it is done. Just leave us.”

  “How could you dare to so blatantly defy the Order?” His voice is empty now, drifting.

  “The Order?” My growing resentment explodes into roaring rage. “I have heard enough of the Order. What have the Three ever done for me? What were they doing for Rona? What have they done for anything, all these ages, or during the Realm Wars? If you could have seen—” I grope for a way to explain it. Rona’s soul rotting among the Pits. The terrible piercing cold. The desolation. But I can’t find the words. “One of Theia’s own angels asked me to do this.”

  The Hunter’s eyes are blank and aimless. He shakes his head slowly side to side and back again, over and over. His eyes pull back to focus, and looks up to me, his face still blank.

  “The Order isn’t just a set of rules. It’s what holds everything together. All the realms… Do you understand what you’ve done? You have started the chain that will lead to the final Realm War. You broke through the barrier. Gods, you broke through it twice. Now that the barrier is weakened, it’s a matter of time before the Rebels break free. Before it all begins.”

  He kicks at the sand, sends grains flying.

  “No.” The cold tightens its hold like a rope at my throat. “No. I’ve done nothing wrong. I’m helping.”

  But Abazel. What was it he said? A heavy wave sloshes through me. It was too much like what the Hunter says now.

  But no. All of that was a lie.

  Wasn’t it?

  “You’ve gotten it all wrong,” the Hunter presses. “Every step of this quest of yours was wrong. Everything is shifting because of what you did. We have been seeing it in the wind, the sky, the ground under our feet. The entire realm. It’s all been shifting. And now I know why. Oh Gods. Who knows where it will settle.”

  But Abazel wasn’t the only one who said it. I drop to the sand under the weight of it all. “He tried to warn me.”

  “Who?”

  “Ceil. This is what he was trying to tell me. But I couldn’t understand.” My thick, slow, worthless brain. “And Ky—”

  And Kythiel stopped him.

  “Who is Ceil?” the Hunter asks.

  It crashes over me like a fierce wave in a storm. He knew.

  “A prophet. In Epoh.”

  Kythiel knew all this would happen, and he wanted Rona so desperately he didn’t care. Why else would he stop Ceil from warning me of it?

  “And… what about him?” The Hunter calls me back.

  The truth rushes around me, a flood of trouble that is already well over my head.

  I turn to the Hunter. “What do I need to do? How do we stop it from happening?”

  The Hunter lets go a soft laugh. Shakes his head. His eyes are glassy and bitter. “This is not something that can be undone.”

  My fists cry to be used, to shatter something to pieces the way these truths are shattering me. It’s exactly how Abazel said it would be. It was all true. And I didn’t listen. I can see it now, so clearly it hurts.

  What else was Abazel right about?

  For a pause neither of us speaks. Ocean breezes waft at my cloak. Waves pound nearby. The entire world crashes quietly around me. There is nothing to be said.

  Then the Hunter breaks it, clears his throat.

  “And what happened to the magic you carry?”

  The box. Just when I thought I could not feel any deeper shame.

  “It’s gone. I lost it.”

  I lost it, I lost it, I lost it, and now Abazel has it. A phantom twinge pinches where the demon ripped my finger away.

  The Hunter’s expression empties. “What was it? What happened?”

  “You don’t know?” I frown. All they’ve sacrificed. All those lives lost. And they didn’t know what for?

  He waits.

  I owe him the truth, after all I’ve done.

  I dig into my pocket and lay out the pieces of the box’s shattered remains. All I was able to snatch away with the necklace when Abazel shattered it in our struggle. Though it didn’t matter, in the end.

  “I didn’t know either. I never would have, if I hadn’t… ” I swallow the rest of my words. I never would have lost it either, if I hadn’t gone to the Underworld. “It was a necklace. A gold chain with a large emerald on it. Big.” I show him, rounding my fingers so it would fit just inside. “And rough. Not cut or polished.”

  I tell him all that I can. How I couldn’t stop from killing the other Hunters they sent. How I couldn’t protect the box in the Underworld, how I wanted to just leave it there. How the Keeper tried to take it, and then Abazel. I show him the smooth nub at the edge of my hand where my finger used to be, the one the demon bit off. I try to explain the hurt, the awful hurt, and the deep, deep cold of the realm. As I speak, the Hunter’s brows knit tighter and tighter together. As he listens, the Hunter’s eyes drift off, lost to something beyond me. He shakes his head.

  I keep talking. The burden of it all lightens with each word. “He said,—Abazel—he said that it didn’t belong to me. That
it belongs to Calipher.”

  The Hunter pulls back, sharp and hyper alert. “Calipher? It can’t be.” He frowns. “He said it belongs to Calipher? Or belonged?”

  I shut my eyes tight, try to dig up Abazel’s demand.

  The Hunter grabs my cloak and jerks me forward, leans over the box’s pieces toward me.

  “Is Calipher alive?”

  His face is inches from mine, a cluster of stiff creases, his eyes quivering under the pressure. I strain to dig through all the moments. What was it Abazel said?

  “I can’t remember.”

  His hands writhe and twist in my cloak, his breath hot on my face. “Try harder.”

  “I can’t remember,” I growl.

  I resist the urge shove him away. He can’t harm me. Not here, not this realm. A last strain of tension, and then he lets go, slides away. Deflates in defeat.

  “Who is Calipher?” I ask.

  “Nothing but a myth. At least that’s what the Sworn believed.”

  That name again. The Sworn.

  The Hunter presses his thumb and forefinger over his eyes. “It was never proven he was real. But the story goes; at the Beginning, Calipher was among the angels who grew too attached to a human. When Theia called them back, he tried to follow Her Order. He left his love and returned to the Host. Before he departed, he gave her a necklace that he had charmed with the power of Gloros. So she never had to be alone and would always be loved as he had loved her himself.”

  Gloros. “The Goddess of Love.” It makes sense.

  “Yes. And of passion, lust, desire, obsession, mania. Cycles and interconnectedness,” he frowns. “After Calipher left, the story is, he could not forget his human partner, and it eventually drove him mad. When he broke free, his human was aged and had long ago moved on. His disappointment fell into a rage, and he killed her and the man that she’d chosen to replace him, leaving only their young daughter alive, who he took and convinced himself was his own.

  “Many ages ago there used to be rumors of such a necklace. But those died out long ago. He was a cautionary tale, we thought. There was nothing to even suggest an angel named Calipher had ever truly existed,” the Hunter says. “Until now.”

  “Is that all the necklace did?”