Colibrí had heard the word before. She snorted and gave him an incredulous look. “Spare me the spectacle.”
“Oh, it’s no spectacle.” He drew close, hands moving with sudden passion. “In Casteón, where your foreign allies hail from, they worship twelve saints, each bearing one virtue above all others. In Ordland, they worship the Dreaming Mother, believing her dream to be our reality, and our dreams to be hers. In northern stretches further than you even know exists, the mountain lords have a divine caretaker for every little aspect of nature, as did the fallen Vanadylans. What remains the same among all of them?
“They do not change. They’re ideas frozen forever in place. A god of war is the very incarnation of war, forever. He can’t grow too old for battle. He can’t decide to become a gardener. If he’s forgotten or remade, it’s because the minds keeping this being alive have changed—not the god. That’s exactly what we’ve become. An unchanging idea, a mind, spirit, and body all frozen within a drop of eternity, Stillness in every way. And, like the halja and these foreign gods, we are pared down to what drives us above all else. What drove us even while we were a part of the motions of Creation—but we’re merely focused, not hollow.
“Colibrí, I’m offering you the chance to spend eternity embodying what is already fierce within your heart. You could be with Narune forever, and together we might all become ambassadors to show the world that the Stillness is only something different.”
Oh, seas and skies aflame and may her days remain stormless, Colibrí thought about it. The words were honey-sweet and tempting, the vision they painted a thing of potential beauty. But she knew it was also wrong deep down in her heart. Death was part of life, and she’d neither be here, or have Narune, if others hadn’t made way for them or if beasts and plants hadn’t passed their strength along into their bellies.
Creation was a cycle that allowed many the chance to laugh, cry, hate, and love, and part of its frightening, terrible wonder was that it was anything but focused.
“What would happen if all the world became still?” she whispered, fully curious and a little awed. “Would anything new ever come?”
Peacemaker didn’t bother lying. “No,” he said immediately. “Stillness and Creation are both incomprehensible forces that refuse to turn as one, like oil and water. Growth, birth—all movement both literal and figurative—would mostly cease to exist.”
“And how would you even achieve this dream?”
At this, Peacemaker hesitated. “It wouldn’t be so difficult for you or the other Halfborn.”
“And for those who aren’t Halfborn?
“We’ve found a way, but I admit that it’s imperfect. Not many will likely survive the process, though perhaps we can improve on it with time.”
Colibrí considered everything he’d told her so far, then finally asked, “If you intended to win us over from the start, then why the gardens of corruption?”
“I had hoped to spread Stillness uncontested for as long as possible—to the point where the war would appear hopeless to even the most zealous warrior, if nothing else.” Peacemaker slowly explained. “With the fragile stalemate against the Stillness toppled at last, the tribes would likely be more open to listening, especially as the corruption continued to spread. From there, I had hoped to convince those beyond the islands to join us in embracing ascension beyond life and death, one realm at a time.
“My brethren, however, believe that to be a story that can only ever be told and never lived. They instead intend to fight for every stretch of land and hold it until Stillness roots, all while accelerating the spread of corruption through the talents gifted to us by this form.”
Colibrí didn’t need him to tell her what that would mean, because it was easy to imagine. Unchecked Stillness, bringing with it more halja swarms and less true land, which in turn would drive forward a wave of famine as everyone fled the corruption. It was the same nightmare shared by every warrior—by all of the Islandborn—and what drove them to so desperately hold onto their oaths.
The Guardian unfurled her wings and hissed from above. Colibrí had almost forgotten the serpent was there, and felt her face flushing with embarrassment.
“You underestimate Creation,” the Guardian said. “And you underestimate us. I promise you that though we may never defeat the Stillness, neither shall we ever lose to it. Those words formed the same furious warcry that left Vanadyl a scar—and yet, only a scar.” The air filled with the sound of the Guardian’s hiss. “But enough of this. You cannot see what you and your brethren have become, Peacemaker. You are nothing but a new breed of halja, an extension of the Stillness, devoid of meaning and all that once made you human. It is you and your kin who need saving.”
“And what would that salvation look like?” he asked. “Us kneeling and surrendering our lives in the hopes that you will somehow outmatch the Stillness?”
“Yes,” the Guardian said. “Think whatever you wish of that. Use whatever sweet words you want. The Stillness is invader, parasite, and infection. It does not belong—and neither do you, and I say this understanding all too well that you were taken from us unwillingly.”
Colibrí stared up at the serpent in awe, then looked back down at peacemaker when his featureless face also lowered, but she shook her head—the Guardian was right.
Peacemaker watched them for a moment, as if considering what else he might say, then he slumped. “It seems as if we are all determined to continue along our own paths, then. Thank you for allowing me this audience, and know that I am sorry for what I must now allow to happen.”
With that, Peacemaker turned and strode away from the coral lantern between them until he was once again swallowed by the gloom.
Chapter 30
It had only been a few notches since Narune had fought the other spiritseers, but it felt like he’d been fighting for moons. He sat on the benches above the Proving Ground with a frown. Tessouat spoke quietly with Sanemoro and the cacica a short distance away. They had been at it for a while now.
The other spiritseers had followed Narune to rest. At first, he had tensed, tail hooking around his waist, ears perked, but the other youths kept their teeth to themselves this time.
None of them said anything to him, instead giving him looks and shoulder squeezes or thumps, but it said enough that Narune trembled from the joy.
Even better, he and Kisari had gotten Ixchel back.
Ixchel sat between them now, soaked from the rainwater that continued to fall from the dark gray sky, clumps of damp hair that had come free from her braid now plastered across half her face. Kisari had a hand on Ixchel’s thigh as if holding her in place, but Ixchel looked as exhausted as Narune felt. Neither of them were going anywhere anytime soon.
Ixchel had been speaking since the three of them sat down, and was still mumbling. Trying to explain herself and apologize further, it seemed, but she stumbled over her words and looked as if she thought them worthless. There was a fear in her eyes, the fear of not being understood, Narune guessed.
She didn’t seem to understand that they had already forgiven her.
“So… didn’t know what to think when you went wild,” Ixchel said numbly. “I thought I knew the both of you so well, then suddenly there’s this whole side of you I knew nothing about, and it was so frightening.” She smiled at nothing, staring down at the floor of the viewing platforms. “Worse was how everyone looked at you, like it was no surprise, and then at me, like I was an idiot for not knowing. Then everyone started talking… well, it wasn’t much of a secret that I, uh, maybe didn’t like being told what I could or couldn’t do.”
Kisari snorted, and Narune turned to Ixchel with a frown.
“Oi, I get it, but you two weren’t really ever part of that.” She paused and glanced between them. “After the Ritual, everyone kept saying it was my fault. That I’d known this would happen and even wanted it to, and that I was still a sproutling who didn’t understand what honor was…”
“Stand
ing beside me when no one else would is honorable,” Narune insisted with a flick of his tail.
“Well, no one else saw it that way. It all made me so angry. I’m not a sproutling! I know what honor is, and I’m ready for my warrior oaths, ready to be a spiritseer, but everyone doubted me, so I began to doubt too.”
“And then you started walking around rump-first, all bite,” Kisari said coldly, one hand sweeping back her loose hair and flowing vines. “For what? To prove you’re better at being crueler than everyone else? You wounded my heart and stood aside as your ‘friends’ hurt Narune. Would you have watched if they had hurt me, a warden? Where’s the honor in that?”
Some of those ‘friends’ were around them now, and they winced. Narune watched them without emotion, but inside he was pleased to see the shame on their faces. It was good that they realized the truth and had heart enough to regret what they had done.
“Oi, we were stupid and acted like sproutlings,” Ixchel admitted after a long breath. “And I was the cacica of stupid. I know that.” She glanced up at Narune, then around at all the other spiritseers. “But we’ll make it up to you two. I swear it. We have to, or the shame will rot us from the inside out like Stillness.”
The other youths around nodded, several of them voicing agreement, surprising Narune.
“You’ll see,” Ixchel said passionately. “The Spiritseer Circle will have to adopt you now and the other novices are only half as bad as they seem. Well, most of them; some are little terrors.”
“Oi!” one of them said. “No we’re not!”
Kisari cleared her throat before Narune could respond and looked around them. “The bite marks you gave Narune are deep. It’s going to take more than air to make him forget them.”
“Oh?” Ixchel said with a laugh, and she glanced at Narune. He shrugged back at her. “Well, how about if we name ourselves ‘Narune’s Howling Coyotes’? Our warcry can be their call, and our warband’s charging sign can be this—” She made ears with her fingers while grinning.
Kisari glared at Ixchel, but the girl’s grin only widened, and several of the youths around them laughed.
“Stop it, Ixchel,” he said with a laugh of his own. “You’re going to make Kisari angry.”
“I already am angry,” she said with a huff. “Ugh, warriors. You can’t tell the difference between hurting each other and loving each other.”
“Oh? Want to teach me and Narune the difference, then?” Ixchel asked while waggling her eyebrows.
Kisari’s face reddened. Everyone else laughed a moment later, which prompted Kisari to jab Ixchel hard in the side.
“Ow,” Ixchel said, rubbing herself. “Your love feels awfully a lot like hurting. I’m not sure I see the difference.”
The laughter grew louder, and Narune felt a pang that was difficult for him to describe. This is how it should be. He had felt a little of it with the foreign youths, but now, with the other novice spiritseers, it was like he had always dreamed.
It was a good feeling.
They talked for a few more notches in spite of the rain, neither Sanemoro, Tessouat, or the cacica seemingly in a hurry to leave, and by unspoken agreement the novices knew they were waiting for commands from Tessouat.
They probably would have stayed there longer if not for the sentinel that sprinted into the arena. The sentinel threw himself down to a kneel with such force that he slid on the mud, his spear held outward.
“Halja sighted at forest line,” he breathed over the roar of wind and the distant canopy, the churning of the sea behind Kayuya Village, and the patter of rain.
Everyone turned to where Cacica Yabisi was already on her feet, hands on the slick wooden railing of the platform, her hard gaze looking down at the sentinel. Conch horns started calling out warnings from the war towers.
“My warmaster already scoured the edges of the forest,” the cacica said slowly. “Even if they missed a nest or two, there shouldn’t be too many. I’ll call the wardens toward the heart of the village and send Tessouat and his novices to your pathfinders.”
Narune watched the spiritseer elder bow, and even though he was exhausted Narune still felt his heart begin beating furiously. The other spiritseer novices were already standing up, Blades slipping free but still slumbering.
“A thousand apologies,” the sentinel said hurriedly, his head lowering. “We are already gathering the wardens. I am to bring you and the elder to the central war tower immediately while they do so. My pathfinders aim to beg you to abandon the village while we hold as long as we can.”
A chill ran down Narune’s spine. Abandon Kayuya Village?
Cacica Yabisi said nothing for a hundredth of a heartbeat, then she snarled and leaped over the railing. Somehow, her personal sentinels landed before her and Tessouat floated on a single sphere of water above her. He watched as the cacica ran with the sentinels, toward the war towers at the western edge of the city.
Tessouat turned to glare at them. “What are you doing?” was all that he said.
They all scrambled down and sprinted after their cacica.
Chapter 31
The pain and exhaustion had condensed together into deep numbness by the time they finally reached the Primordial Wound. Colibrí proudly walked at the front of the warbands in spite of it, Yabisi’s orders to refrain from battle all but forgotten and left unchallenged by the two sentinels watching over her.
The Wound was still the most miserable place she had ever been, a throbbing expanse of wrongness that scraped against body, spirit, and mind; she could feel the war between Creation and Stillness in every breath. The Jurakán was here too, but it no longer tried to breach the peaceful heart she resided within—there was no need. The screams were a white-hot wall now, and so loud that she struggled to hear her own thoughts. A headache thudded against her skull in steady intervals, filling her with nausea worse than when she had Narune in her belly. It all but murdered her already fragile patience.
They approached one of the mighty safeholds ringing the Primordial Wound, each a place for warriors alone, the camps free of wardens and usually sentinels. Oversized caney that housed entire warbands perched wherever they could, and storage lodges filled the center. Elaborate war towers were everywhere, rising from the root-roads, hanging from layers, jutting out from the trunks of tree-lords, or built into the platforms and catwalks that supplemented the forest’s tangled expanse.
Blockades of wood and jagged bone granted them control over the easiest approaches to the safehold, but there were warriors everywhere anyway, each with spear, bow, and conch horn. They watched the forest without pause even as Warmaster Jhul’s warbands approached, but then they were hard to miss—the glow of so many coral lanterns lit their procession like a cascade of stars.
Warriors saluted as Colibrí and the others passed, fist to chest, the single beat of a heart and a war drum.
This particular den sat on the eastern side of the Wound; the rest of their warband clusters would go to other dens nestled along its edges. If things turned out well here, they would go to the western safeholds, rest a little, and then move on to sweep the far half of the island.
Colibrí could only think of Peacemaker’s words. …know that I am sorry for what I must now allow to happen.
She left Warmaster Jhul to speak with the den’s elders and made her way through the camp. Jerrico joined her without asking, but she didn’t mind. Colibrí had grown a little fond of the foreigner, and he seemed to put in the effort to at least try and respect their ways, which is more than she could say for most of them. Yes, he was definitely plump with arrogance and a little prickly, but then, so was every warrior from time to time.
Jerrico’s own warriors and apprentices also followed, and Colibrí led them across the catwalks, platforms, and reinforced root-roads until they reached the end of their world.
The war towers were thick here, so she went to one of them. The warriors on watch said nothing as she glanced down into the Primordial Wound.
The border between the forest and the Stillness was a thin splattering of gray, but beyond was nothing but a smooth expanse of silence. The gray lattice of corruption was everywhere, all shaped into hollow shadows of tree-lords, plants, root-roads, and even soil. They were poor imitations made worse by a lack of life’s chaos. There were far fewer tree-lords here, and their canopies didn’t move at all. Faint light—what little escaped the storm clouds—trickled down, crowning the corruption oddly. There was no detritus, no stray vine or patch of moss, no stretches of grass, or bird nests, or insects, or coquí, or anything.
Just a hollow thing that was supposed to be a tree-lord, an expanse of stuff like sea sponges that was supposed to be the ground, weird braids of sinew that were supposed to be root-roads. On and on it went, as far as she could see, and she knew the Primordial Wound was too vast to see at once, an island within an island. The actual Wound itself was said to be at the very center, a gigantic chasm that bore down to the heart of the land, but Colibrí had never seen the rift. No living Islandborn had.
Maybe it really was like rotting flesh, weakening the entire body instead of just the spot, and that was why sores opened beyond the islands. If so, then the stronger the Stillness grew here the worse it would become outside.
Well, ever since the Vanadylan survivors had spoken their story, one that told of how they had erupted the volcanoes around their own home to deny the Stillness, the Islandborn had decided to believe it.
“Well,” she said to Jerrico. “Welcome to the Primordial Wound.”
Colibrí scowled, thudding her spear against the wooden floor of the tower, tail snapping and ears flat, and watched Jerrico and his foreigners stare and gasp. It was the same response all warriors had when they first arrived—a slight shivering of the body, darting eyes that squinted as if staring at the sun, and either slackened or clenched jaws as their minds swallowed and digested the truth.
Cradle of Sea and Soil Page 32
