Lily’s presence turns out to be useful—she is not about to let Ash go off on adventures without her, and he’s not about to bring her into the monsters’ den. So Ravel sets off alone to save the world.
Well, not quite. But if he can help me persuade Maryam that Nine Peaks’ betrayal has forced me to her side, united against a common enemy whose attack might just be turned back by a stronger barrier, there is a chance I’ll be able to buy us all a little more time.
Or that was the plan. But although, as Ash pointed out, I am not a terribly accomplished liar, Ravel is.
“I’m back.” He lounges against the doorframe, two fingers raised in a careless salute, ankles crossed, both singsong tone and insouciant stance calculated for maximum irritation.
One of Maryam’s eyebrows arches in mirror image of his. “Oh? Had you gone?”
Cadence rearranges her skirts as if acknowledging his presence is entirely beneath her.
Ravel’s lips stretch in a brief, humourless smile. “I see you missed me, mother dearest.”
The temperature in the room plummets, but all Maryam offers in return is a slow blink.
“I assume you’re here, too,” Cadence says to me, examining her nails. “You do realize, even if he’s speaking on your behalf, the same terms will apply?”
I have rehearsed what I want to say next, trimming and shuffling the order of the words to get the highest impact bits out before they can drag someone in to feed to the Mara.
But before I can get a word out, Ravel says, “Flame isn’t here today, dead girl.”
He strolls up to Cadence’s throne-like chair and braces one hand against its tall back, leaning in, almost nose-to-nose with her. She refuses to flinch. Maryam watches without expression. What is he—?
He inhales and wrinkles his nose. “Do you smell something? Smells like . . .”
Cadence’s eyes widen, her own nostrils flaring as if checking for the odour of decay. It’s almost endearing how good he is at getting to her.
Ravel pulls back, fanning himself leisurely. He turns to Maryam. “It’s okay. You don’t have to expose your soft side in front of the help. I know you love me. Why else would I go to such lengths to infiltrate the enemy camp for you?”
Another slow basilisk blink.
Ravel pulls an exaggerated grimace. “Oh no, you didn’t think I had gone and deserted you? Oh dear, how embarrassing.”
“Are you done yet?” Cadence snaps, apparently, recovered enough to bristle at being ignored. “You can skip the games. I’ve already told her everything.”
“I’m sure you thought you did, dead girl,” he says without taking his eyes off Maryam. “But mother dearest knows me better. She knows I would never desert her.”
Maryam extends a hand, chains and bangles chiming. He leans over it in a mannerly kiss. She slaps him.
His knuckles whiten. “Or perhaps she knows me best of all. Knows I’m a survivor.” He levels a white-rimmed stare at her. Smiles, all teeth. “Knows I will do whatever it takes to win.”
Maryam’s laugh is low and rich with scorn. “Perhaps. But I rule here, and you waste my time with childish games.”
He bows. “If my lady mother wishes brevity, she shall have it. As I have said, I infiltrated the enemy’s stronghold, a torturous journey of many—” he breaks off with a cough at the warning lift of her finger. “Ah. Well. The enemy is distant but strong, as you had feared. But not so distant that they haven’t heard of the Mayor of the Towers of Refuge, nor so strong that they do not fear her. They intend to attack first, to pre-empt the threat before Your Worship can bring their stronghold under your gracious rule.”
His antics would be more amusing if I could see where he’s going with this. He was supposed to be the mouthpiece, nothing more. His travels were proof my story was true, not part of some long con.
Right?
“Her people cannot attack,” Maryam says evenly, flicking a glance at Cadence, who nods. “Their representative foolishly bargained away that right for her freedom. Even if they had not, my enforcers will take them the moment they cross over, their powers weak and useless.”
“Their power is unfortunately very much greater than my lady mother has anticipated. They have no need to send soldiers to be captured. Instead, they send fire from the mountains to shake the very foundations of our city.”
What is he doing? He was supposed to hold the nature of the attack in reserve, a bargaining chip against the lives of Liwan and the other prisoners.
“Impossible,” Cadence scoffs. “You forget I know those old fogeys. They can do no such thing.”
“Can’t they?” Ravel says, holding Maryam’s gaze.
She doesn’t respond to his challenge, or Cadence’s. Her gaze drifts to the ceiling, vacantly canted toward nothing of interest that I can make out.
Ravel looks momentarily disconcerted. Whatever it is he has been planning, it’s spinning off course by the second, and I can’t even yell at him about it with Cadence listening in.
My frustration stirs the air. Maryam’s focus snaps back to this infuriating boy she has created.
“It is possible. What proof do you bring me?”
He shrugs. “You’ll have to take my word for it.”
Cadence snorts. “Dream on.”
Maryam simply holds his gaze. “And?”
He spreads his hands. “And I hear dead girl has been chipping away at the only thing that protects us from our enemies, so I thought I better come home and help shore up the walls, so to speak.”
“I am not—” Cadence starts.
“Is that all?” Maryam interrupts. “You heard about a plan to attack us and came back to help defend your home? This is the story you wish me to believe?”
“Would I betray my darling flame for anything less than the utter destruction of everything I have built and stand to inherit?”
And even now, I’m not sure if he is really doing this, really turning on me and throwing his lot in with her, or if he thinks this absolute mess of an improvised audience will actually turn out better than the version we rehearsed.
“He’s lying.” Cadence hops out of her chair to jab a finger into his chest. “She’s here. I know she is. I don’t know what game you’re playing, Cole, but it’s not going to work. I won’t let you screw things up. Not now. Not ever.”
Ravel grabs her wrist with one hand, her chin with another, and squeezes until she yelps. “You took her away from me, dead girl. Made her little more than a memory. She’s gone, and all that’s left is trash without the wits to know it’s rotting. So I’m telling you: go rot quietly in the corner and let the adults fix the mess you’ve made, hmm?” He shoves her, turns, doesn’t even flinch when she hits his back with impotent rage.
“Sit down,” Maryam says. “I have indulged the both of you enough for today. We have work to do.”
“No,” says Ravel.
“No?”
“You will not treat me like this child. You will not dismiss or ignore. You will take my warnings seriously, and what’s more, you’ll follow my lead. This is my time now.”
Chapter 25: Usurped
I gasp. Cadence’s jaw drops. Maryam cocks her head, eyes narrowing.
“I see. You wish to give your poor old . . .” she omits the word mother with a faint smile. “Well. You propose to give me a break in my decrepitude to take my mantle upon yourself, is that it? Leave me to enjoy my twilight years without the relentless burden of responsibility?”
She stands, gesturing to the chair she just vacated. “By all means, then: show me how you lead. You will sit in my place, rule in my stead. You will keep this child in line, choose the sacrifices and see the Mara fed, monitor the condition of the dome and turn back any attack. What, did you think I would recoil in horror? That I would refuse any respite extended me?”
Ravel offers her his arm. When she takes it, he ushers her to Cadence’s chair and waits until she is seated before arranging himself on the foremost throne.
“I understand you have your uses,” he says to Cadence. “You may stand in the corner until you’re needed.”
She sputters, looking to Maryam for support that fails to come.
And still, I hold back. Has he betrayed me just as she did, or is it all a trick? Ravel grew up under Maryam’s thumb, knows her better than anyone. He must have seen this would be the best way to gain control of the situation. He hasn’t shredded our plan, merely tweaked the details. He’s going to pull it off after all, going to save Liwan and the other prisoners slated to die today, and then the barrier, and then, maybe, just maybe, the world.
If I’m a little jealous, a little irritated at having my role in this triumph erased, that’s just the cost of using others to get the job done.
Ravel goes about taking up the reins of power and reorienting Maryam’s domain around himself. His manipulation is masterly, his orders hardly distinguishable from the mayor’s own at the first. Tedious to watch, but I just have to remind myself how delightful it will be to have a front-row seat to Maryam’s face when his deception finally comes to light.
Really, this is a win for me. Even as little more than a ghost, powerless to affect the waking world, look what I’ve accomplished, the forces I have brought to bear, the last-minute rescue I’ve orchestrated—
“Dream for us,” Ravel says with unwavering confidence, his hand firmly planted on Liwan’s sweating forehead.
Liwan, who Ravel was only supposed to have summoned to be sure he was still alive. Liwan, who is little more than a child. We’re meant to be protecting him. Even Ravel, veteran of many ceremonial sacrifices before he mended his ways, knows better than to risk . . . than to risk—
The ritual completes. The monsters come. The prisoner falls.
One more hollow husk to join the growing heap, Cadence and Ravel working side by side through the ranks of the prisoners as the Mara feast on the lives of innocents offered up to sate their monstrous hunger.
Roaring fills my head, drowning out stammering protests, pleas for forgiveness, attempts to keep count (four dead, five) and dawning realization that I had never even bothered to learn all their names (six dead and Liwan makes seven). I knew better than to trust him. (Nine dead and Liwan, ten) I should have fought from the start, should have tried to reach Cadence, at least, even if my words never made it to Maryam’s ears.
But the press of the gorging Mara crowds me away from the carnage. I have no choice but to swallow the rage, the betrayal, choking on bitterness. Gagging on my own helplessness.
I have to tell Ash what happened, (dead, so many dead and gone and—) to warn him that Ravel has betrayed us, could send enforcers after us at any time. He will need to—he is burning through prisoners at an alarming rate. The Mara only grow hungrier. Today’s orgy of death sets a new baseline for tomorrow.
But exhaustion drags at whatever is left of me, slowing my progress, dulling my thoughts. Helping Ange heal earlier was draining. Everything since has just been burning through energy I didn’t have to begin with.
Maybe Ash could feel it, from all the way in his hidden far corner of Under, because before I can make my way to him, he reaches out and pulls me to the other side.
“THERE’S NO TIME.” MY words slur with fatigue, even under the crisp starlight and sudden snap of night air.
“Shh. Everyone is safe for now. Just rest.” He dials the light down to a cool dimness, muting the edges of the landscape until everything is as soft and blurry as I feel.
“Liar.”
“Sleep,” he says, though he knows I can’t, or at least I shouldn’t.
Everyone is not safe. Everyone is dead, or about to die, and I’ve wasted so much time trying every possible way to save them without getting my own hands dirty . . .
But exhaustion takes over, and fear and regret subside into muttering darkness.
TIME WITHOUT SPACE.
Pathways, branching, splitting, curling in on themselves. . .
Not paths—threads, tangling. I need to do something, to go somewhere.
I don’t exist. Only the threads exist.
Ash is Ash. Cole is Cole. Ange is Ange . . .
Flames, rising like a tide, crashing over everything, scorching—
Not scorching. Pleasantly warm. The light is bright without burning. Soft, dry ground beneath me with ticking strands of tall grasses and the fluttering edges of exotically scented wildflowers kissing my skin. I sit up, shaking off the nightmarish vision.
Ash walks toward me, bringing with him the sharp tang of sea air and a rocky cliff overlooking the waves to replace the meadow. “Sleep well?”
“Ravel betrayed us.” My voice is flat, my eyes dry. I am stone, and I will remain stone until the crushing weight of everything I cannot afford to feel, every mistake I could not afford to make, is gone.
“Did he?”
“He was on Maryam’s side all along. You have to warn everyone before—”
“We changed locations as soon as he left, Cole. We’re being careful, staying hidden. I won’t say it’s safe—nowhere is safe, not now—but we’re not taking stupid risks, either.”
I pace out over the open air, ignoring the drop from rugged heights to the sea below, and back, in no mood to bother with make-believe physics. “I should have known. I should have—”
Should have what? Taken Ash along, only to be captured and fed to the monsters instead? Gone alone, leaving the traitor with Lily and Amy and all the other helpless fools who followed him back into this deathtrap of a city?
What about the fools who followed me to their deaths? Does that make me as much a traitor as Ravel? Or is it mere incompetence that twists every single one of my plans off course?
“Why did you come back?” I ask Ash, still pacing. “You survive a shipwreck, and the first thing you do is throw yourself back into danger?”
“What do you want to hear?”
I freeze, one foot on the cliff, one off.
“If I told you I did it for love, what face would you make?” he says in that same strangled tone. “If I told you I couldn’t bear to stay away, that if the world’s ending, I might as well spend what’s left of it with you, what would you say? No, don’t look like that. Don't—”
He steps off the edge of the cliff after me, chasing me through the sky, and then, when I drop, beneath the waves. “Would you just stop running? Why is this so hard for you to accept?”
I cover my ears, eyes streaming, chest burning even though I know—I know—it’s not the lack of oxygen, or the salt in the illusory water. I don’t have any answers for him. I don’t know how to even begin to describe the endless gulf between what I want and fear, between what he offers and what I can accept. “I’m not her,” I finally choke out.
“You think I don’t know that? I never asked you to be. Either you’re trying to insult me or you’re running out of excuses. Which is it, Cole?”
I shake my head. I can’t let him distract me.
“She was more fun.”
I stop.
“Is that what you wanted to hear? That Cadence was stronger, brighter, prettier, more full of life and power and all that’s good in the world? Fine. She was a paragon of virtue, the perfect being. She’s also a child, Cole. She’s a memory of days spent under an endless sun and the watchful eye of parents, of naptimes and sweets and harmless mischief and dreams of a boundless future. She is not you.”
My hands lower, my body swaying with the current. “But she—I’m not—”
“Stop telling me what you aren’t! You think I can’t see you? Can’t think for myself? Just because I haven’t known you forever doesn’t mean I don’t know you.”
I shudder. He sounds so certain. He still doesn’t understand. “You’re wrong. You haven’t seen—”
“Haven’t seen what? That you’re a mess? That you won’t stop punishing yourself? That you’ve done things you’re ashamed of, and you’re not sure you can stop? That you’re broken and powerless and lying to yourself th
at there’s any chance left to be anything but a failure? Is that what I haven’t seen?”
I can’t swallow past the lump in my throat, my breath shallow and ragged, barely stirring the stately dance of particles in the water that surrounds us. An instant later, the rubbery fronds of a kelp forest spring up from the ocean floor.
“Stop hiding!” Ash roars. His breath is a little ragged too.
Some small part of my mind, the part that isn’t drowning in irrational panic, worries about him, about what I’ve put him through.
His voice softens. “I don’t need to see you to know you, Cole. You’ve made mistakes. Done things you’re not proud of, and honestly, I’m not that happy about all of it either. You’re stubborn to the point of insanity when it comes to the things that matter to you. You try way too hard. You give everything and do whatever it takes to save the people you care about, and that scares the shit out of me . . .
“But it’s also one of the things I love about you. You see exactly how bad things could get, but you don’t stop trying to make them better. You’re not just angry—you’re motivated. You’ve suffered more than most, but you keep getting back up. And maybe you’ve been trying so hard to be and do what you think you’re supposed to that you don’t know how to just be. But I see you, Cole. I’ve always seen you—just you. You’re more that you realize. And I’m not going anywhere.”
I shrink into the kelp bed, drawing the fronds close for cover. “Why? Why won’t you just leave me alone?”
“You don’t want to be alone,” he says. “You just don’t want to be scared anymore. But we can learn how to let go of the lies we’ve been taught. Even if the whole world is crashing down around us, we can choose a better way for as long as we have left.”
That ‘we’ cries out with the parts of his story I’d forgotten. The loss of his parents—he’d hoped to find them still living, before his ship went down. The oppressive expectations of the overbearing grandfather who raised him, who sent his mom and dad to their exile, or death. Dead like Liwan and all the other kids I failed . . .
Burn the Skies Page 16
