The Skybound Sea

Page 49

“There is only one way.”

In the distance, he could hear something. Echoes of war cries carried on the gloom. The rattle of armor. Growing louder.

Whether the corpse was being intentionally cryptic or not, he was right. There was only one way.

They made their way down into the pit, amongst the many frozen bodies and the dead. And still the man in the ice spoke, his voice as clear and close as it had been a moment ago.

“He still calls to you, brother. He scratches at the back of your head. He tells me this. He can heal you. He can make you strong. If only you let him back in.”

He almost turned to look back at them and answer. He would have, if Kataria were not right there, seizing his neck, forcing his eyes down and his feet forward.

“You’re not them,” she snarled.

“Down there, brother, you will find him,” the voice called after him. “Or you will find her.”

And his voice echoed in the darkness. And his lights lingered in the darkness. As they walked farther, following the sound of rushing water.

I’m doing it.

The hope came, despite the blood trickling into her eye.

I’m stronger than her.

Despite the muscles in her arm breaking beneath her skin.

I can do this.

All ten of her fingers wrapped around Xhai’s fist, keeping it and the massive blade it clenched trembling over their heads. Xhai’s boots scraped against the rock. Her cursing stained the chamber’s still air. She pushed against the priestess and found the woman unyielding.

I can do it. I am doing it. I’m going to beat her and I’m going to survive and I’m going to save Denaos.

The thought came with a sudden waver.

Denaos.

She tossed the scantest glance over her shoulder, trying to catch the barest glimpse of the rogue.

It wasn’t clear how much of a mistake that was until she felt the netherling’s boot. It slammed into her belly, shattering her grasp and hurling her away. Somehow, though, she summoned just enough to curse him.

“Even—” she paused to gasp, collapsing to a knee, “—when I think about the bastard . . .”

“I don’t appreciate that kind of negativity.”

His hands were on her arms, hoisting her roughly to her feet, heedless of her glower. “Doesn’t make it less true.” She tried to find her breath. “She’s strong.”

“I really hadn’t figured that out when she beat me hard enough to make piss come out my nose.”

“But she’s not invincible,” Asper said. “If one of us can occupy her while the other one . . .” Asper paused, watching him run past her. “Where the hell are you going?”

He didn’t have to answer. The loud cackle that came from behind her did that well enough.

Scantest glance, barest glimpse. Sharp teeth in a wide, black-lipped smile. And she was running, too.

Breathless, staggering, struggling to stay on her feet. The sikkhun trotted after her, clacking claws and giggling wildly. It could have taken her in one pounce, but chased her with all the urgency of a child skipping through a field of dandelions.

There was, apparently, no aspect of netherling society that wasn’t, in some way, completely messed up.

“Thakh qai yush!” Xhai’s voice carried across the chamber. The sikkhun broke off suddenly, galloping toward her.

Asper came to a halt at the shattered doorway of the chamber where Denaos was trying to catch his breath and leaned against it, doing the same. She glanced at the beast as the Carnassial leapt atop its back.

“That thing could have killed me,” she gasped. “But it didn’t.” She looked at Denaos. “You should be dead by now.”

“Dead by the sikkhun or some other reason?” The rogue spat. “Not that I disagree.”

“Why didn’t it kill you while I was fighting her?”

“It’s complicated.”

“You don’t say,” she muttered.

“She doesn’t want me to die unless she can do it herself. And she’s not going to kill me unless she can take her time with it.”

“How do you know that?”

“Did I not just tell you it’s complicated? Look, I know her, so I know how to get out of this.”

“Listening.”

“Well, I don’t know it now. Give me time to think. Keep her busy.”

“Why do I have to keep her busy?”

“Because she wants to kill you first.”

“AKH ZEKH LAKH!”

Like that wasn’t obvious. The ground shook with the sikkhun. It was focused now, jaws wide and laughing as it charged toward them. Xhai spurred it on, sword over her head, snarl painted on her face.

They split, Denaos running one way, Asper the other. True to his word and Xhai’s fury, the Carnassial whirled her beast upon the priestess. It squealed in delight, rampaging after her.

She twisted and turned, forcing it to follow her erratic movement with its clumsily eager bulk. But each time she darted away, the beast had a smaller gap to close.

“Do something!” she screamed.

In answer, a stray rock came flying. It struck the Carnassial upon the brow. She grunted, rubbed her head. The sikkhun did not stop.

“What the hell was that?” Asper shrieked.

“I said give me time! That was fifteen breaths, tops!” the rogue cried back.

It might have been worth it, she thought, to try to strangle Denaos before the sikkhun killed her. That might be more satisfying. But before she could catch sight of him, she saw something else.

The statue with the outstretched hand, lying amidst the rubble in the archway. Cracked, but not broken like the pillars. Sturdy stuff, that particular stone. Sturdy enough to give her a single, desperate idea.

She ran toward it. She felt its breath on her heels. She felt its laughter in her spine. She felt its jaws widening.

She leapt to the side.

The sikkhun’s giggle twisted into a shriek. Stone screamed and she could feel it, through the cold earth and in her stomach.

Asper picked herself up and turned about.

The sikkhun lay before the pile of rubble, whining pitifully, trying to scrabble to its feet with a brain that couldn’t remember how feet worked. Shards of granite jutted from its face in thick points from brow to snout. Its ears folded against its head as it whimpered, staggering away, drooling a thick black liquid.

Not dead.

It wasn’t half as gruesome as what had happened to Xhai. Asper looked up and saw the dark red streak painted upon the wall. The netherling slid down the stone on a thick trail, limp as a slug, to settle upon the rubble. The Carnassial groaned.

Not dead.

She should be worried about that.

She should be looking for Denaos, she should be reaching for the sword in her belt and going to finish Xhai off, she should be doing anything but staring at the pile of rubble and the body upon it.

But she couldn’t do anything but stare at the shattered rock.

And the two black eyes staring back at her.

The statue lay in pieces, divided neatly down the middle. The extended left arm lay upon the ground. The head lay atop the rubble.

And between them, a body lay.

A man made out of paper. Long and skinny, ragged around the edges, cut out of a parchment with a sticky pair of scissors. It did not lie upon the rubble. It unfurled. Its limbs had been folded to fit in the statue and now its limbs spread out, twitching, like a wadded-up piece of paper uncurling itself.

Its only solid pieces were its eyes. Black. Glossy. Alive. And blinking.

And it was looking at her.

And she felt its gaze in her, in her arms, the pain searing, the blood boiling, the skin tightening. As though something inside her was looking back at it. As though something inside her was desperately trying to get out of a statue made of flesh.

It moved. All that it had left, everything in it, pooled in the tip of a long left finger that twitched exactly one-half of the length of a hair from a man about to die, to point briefly at her.

And she felt herself erupt from within.

The stone beneath her. The blood weeping from her temple. His arms around her as she fell. She could feel none of it. The world swept into her, all the feeling drawing into her blood, beneath her skin, setting her on fire.

It knew her. The thing in the statue knew her. It knew she hated the taste of alcohol. It knew she slept with a candle burning for fourteen years of her life. It knew she once held hands with a girl named Taire. And it reached into her with a voice without words and said with a smile without a mouth.

How are you, my friend?

She was screaming. She was screaming and she couldn’t hear anything else above it as she lay back into his arms.

Denaos wasn’t talking. Maybe there was something in his eyes, some question he wanted to ask, some fear he wanted to voice. But she couldn’t tell. He was wearing a mask now, pretending to understand, pretending that she needed nothing more than his arms around her, pretending that he was the kind of man that could pretend hard enough and everyone else would believe it.

And maybe it worked. A little.

She found her breath. She held it inside her. She tried not to feel. She tried not to hear.

“Get away from her.”