Burn the Skies

by K. A. Wiggins

  My skill at healing people from the inside out is growing. Maybe, just maybe, there’s a chance I can make a future for the both of us and everyone else too.

  The hours drain away like spilled Noosh, sticky-slow and queasy-making. Though every viscous second that passes weighs on me, whispering that I’m too slow, too weak, too new at all this, I am getting faster at slipping through the inner dreamscapes to that deeper reality at the heart of people, at mending the tears in the fabric of their bodies and minds. I can heal minor injuries all the way now, prisoners waking up to marvel at skin that’s suddenly smooth, broken bones strong and pain-free. I can pull the dying back from the brink, far enough for them to heal if Maryam doesn’t end them first.

  My endurance is growing, too. I run out of prisoners in Refuge to heal and start ranging further afield for people to practice on. Ravel’s betrayal has come with one unexpected advantage—he really has gotten Maryam to take a break from chipping away at that barrier. But Nine Peaks’ attack will hit in two days. We need that wall stronger than ever.

  I think I can do something about that.

  But first, I need to try to heal a ghost.

  Ravel calls out to me before I can choose a victim—or practice subject, if we’re being optimistic.

  “Testing. Testing. Hello? Can you hear me?” he says from over twenty floors away. “Quick as you can, flame. Not to rush you but we’re a little short on time . . .”

  It doesn’t take long to shoot up from Under to Maryam’s opulent suite. Ravel has wedged himself into a corner between his bed and the wall. He whispers his summons into a pillow again; looking so ridiculous I could almost forget this is the scum who betrayed me—all of humanity, actually, come to that—just to grab the last couple days’ worth of power for himself.

  Finally getting into Maryam’s good graces doesn’t seem to have done him much good, though. Under his richly woven and excessively ornamented uniform, his skin is pallid and dull, bruise-dark shadows underscore his golden eyes.

  He raises an eyebrow and sniffs. “Rude. And after all I’ve done.”

  I should know better than to let him bait me into an argument by now. I really should. But— “After all you’ve done, you deserve more than a bit of exhaustion. What’s wrong—mommy overworking her little man?”

  His lips thin, but all he says is: “Still so untrusting, darling? You wound me.”

  “Not enough, apparently.”

  “Don’t.” He twists, wedging himself more comfortably in the corner. “It was the only way. You know we’re almost out of time. Your plan never would have worked. Maryam has had lifetimes of manipulating those around her into dancing to her tune—and outlived generations of those who would have manipulated her if they could. She’d have seen through your story in a heartbeat, even if your little doppelganger hadn’t been there to bust the scheme wide open. But me? ‘Mother dearest’ was all too ready to believe I’d do anything to get in her good graces, especially if it meant more power for myself. Consistency, you see, and human nature. It all fit.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “See? See? You bought the story. I impress even myself.” His grin fades. “But give me a little credit, flame. I’d hardly trade less than a week’s worth of power over this decaying tower for a lifetime of opportunity outside it. I don’t need the mayor to hand over the key to her city when I’ve already started building a base outside these walls. If you won’t believe that I’d be on your side because I want to, because that’s always where I’ll be, believe this much: playing Maryam gets me further ahead than pleasing her.”

  Smooth talker, as usual, I’ll give him that much. But his false earnestness is less convincing than he thinks. “So you’ve been on the side of the good guys all along? I guess you have managed to get Maryam to back off the barrier . . .”

  He nods eagerly.

  “On the other hand, you completely failed to stop Liwan’s execution. You and Cadence handed over those kids to the Mara in cold blood.”

  His eyes darken. “Cole, you have to understand—”

  “Is wasting my time just another part of your plan? ‘Keep the enemy occupied until she runs out of time?’ Or is this just recreation for you, some quick mind games before bed to cap off another successful day?”

  “You want to hate me? Fine. I had to make a tough choice, flame. It’s part of being a leader. You should try it sometime.”

  “Oh, is the game over so soon? Don’t give up now—surely there’s something you can say to convince the stupid, clueless girl that—”

  “You really haven’t been paying attention? Why would I have bothered to come back here for—I mean, come on, Cole. You know me better than this. You know I’d—For you, I’d—”

  “You’re right. I do know you. I know you’re a shameless, desperate loser who will never amount to anything more than a pathetic shadow of the dictator he so desperately wants to be. Maryam’s right. You’re not her son. You’re not anything.”

  His soft inhale almost stops my heart. I brace against the coming onslaught.

  But all he says is, “I forgive you, flame. When this is all over, I hope you’ll remember that.”

  “Don’t you dare—”

  “Go see Ash, Cole. If you can spare the time from whatever it is you’re up to. He needs to talk to you too before the end.”

  “What—”

  “I have to get back to work now. There really is no time. Go see Ash.” He levers himself up with a sigh and marches, head down, through all my protests and insults. Cadence isn’t waiting for him, but Maryam is, smiling a small, secret smile as if she has been listening in on our bickering. Or maybe she’s just pleased at the increasingly panicked reports being mumbled in the general direction of her shoes.

  If Ravel’s mission was to distract me and waste my time, mission accomplished. But as much as I would like to check in with Ash and see how Ange is doing, there’s only a day left before Nine Peaks’ attack, at most, and I still haven’t tested my theory. Obviously, the barrier needs to be as strong as possible if it’s going to protect us. Cadence hasn’t chipped away at it in a few days, which is good. But damage has already been done. It’s weakened. Not enough to let the Mara out, not yet, but even at full strength, it might not have been able to turn back the level of assault Ash claims is on its way.

  In Maryam’s efforts to destroy the barrier, she’s made a mistake. Through Cadence, she has exposed more than she knew about the source of its power. She probably has no idea that part of Cadence’s heritage, the part I seem to be able to tap into now, is not just the power to strike down monsters, but the power to heal. If I go deep enough, I can see—and manipulate—the threads of people’s inner selves. It’s just a guess, but if I can do that with living humans, what if I could do something about the other kind?

  It’s a huge stretch, but if my ghosts are ghosts indeed and not just nightmares, can I dig inside of them to restore them to wholeness—whatever that means to a ghost? And, even more of a stretch, but what about fragments of people? That tortured, undead mass of threads that makes up the barrier itself?

  If Cadence can reach into that and rip the threads of its “life” free, can I find a way to re-weave it and restore what has been damaged? Even strengthen it beyond what it was? Maybe it’s because of what I am, because of the weirdness of my existence, that I even have a chance to try this.

  It’s a lot of ‘ifs,’ but they all add up to a future I hardly dare dream of—one where maybe, and only just maybe, not only could I stop the world getting destroyed, but this city and those I care about within it will get to keep going just a little longer.

  And for that tenuous promise, I’m willing to throw myself into the heart of a ghost and challenge whatever awaits me there.

  They’ve been waiting for me all along, surrounding me, clamouring for my attention. Nightmares, perhaps, at least to me, but ghosts nonetheless.

  I just have to pick one.

  Chapter 27: Undead


  Liwan has joined the crowd in the seam between realities. Black ichor drools from the edges of a twisted grin; eyes a pinprick of red in a sea of shadow. Suzie is there too; a childish form cobwebbed with wrinkles, old and young at once. But it is Cass who I reach out to in the end because I can’t bring myself to touch the children, even one that only masquerades as a child, and also because if it’s Cass, I will not allow myself to fail.

  He died because of me. I can’t let whatever is left of him be destroyed too.

  The monster he has become feels solid. His flesh scorches, his grip bone-crushing, broad fingers tipped in claws. That warm grin of his has become a fanged snarl, his wide brown eyes, so soft and adoring when he gazed at Ange, have become hollow pits flickering with flame, threatening to pull me under when once they extended that steady lifeline I so needed in those early days in Freedom.

  Instead of tearing away from the horror he has become, I lean into that painful embrace. I let myself be burned, torn, drowned, devoured whole, clinging to that tiny “if” of hope through the pain and the horror. If I can do this; if I’m not wrong; if there is another side to reach, a deeper reality to dive into, a true Cass to find and make whole once more . . .

  The ghosts are gone. This is not the seam between worlds. This is nowhere. The tension between one gasp and the next; a flicker between thoughts. Void and greyness shot through with the barest of sparks. A slow, muddy churning.

  Out of habit, or instinct, I reach for that island of stillness that I first found with my fingers buried in the rich earth of Susan’s garden in Nine Peaks. The same bubble that Ash formed around us in Ange’s dreamscape.

  It resists my call at first, but it comes. I strain to hold the island in place, strain to balance between peace and surrender in the midst of what remains of Cass’s dreamscape. That this place exists at all, that I can even be here, is a miracle of such magnitude I can hardly take it in. But I can’t stop and marvel at the implications.

  There is a pattern to healing. First find stillness in self. Then embrace the chaos of otherness. Finally, a sudden bursting through to that deepest level, that innermost layer. The one that may no longer exist in him. The one that I am terrified to reach because this is Cass, who Ange loved, and who, in hindsight, I adored, and who almost certainly blames me for setting fire to his deepest and most precious dream of a future with her.

  But because this is Cass, I let my bubble of safety dissolve. I find him in the muted chaos of death almost instantly. All I have to do is look for the brilliant cord that leads back to Ange.

  The obsidian ocean that underlines his deepest self is shattered, splintering cracks marring its surface. The endless expanse above is more dark than not; a bare handful of fraying threads drifting apart instead of the myriad glowing strands of the living. What is left of him can hardly even be called fabric. There’s no frame to fill in; more holes than weave left to patch. And the light of what threads remain is mottled and tarnished.

  I reach for the brightest cord, offering up a silent apology for whatever this meddling might bring. I imagine Cass’s flesh has long since been devoured, reprocessed into nutrient slurry. There is no healing his physical form. And strengthening whatever else is left of him could simply make the monstrous thing he has become more dangerous. But I don’t hesitate in wrapping my hand around the pure light of his lingering love for Ange and reaching for the next piece of his soul.

  If healing the living was draining, taking me to the very limits of my endurance, reweaving the dead is like being sucked inside out and liquefied alive. And, because it is Cass, every shred of memory and hope and longing and desire I catch hold of is a fresh stab of guilt.

  But it’s also a gift.

  I knew him for such a short time. Back then, I was so caught up by my own fear and confusion and anger that he and Ange had barely registered. In Freedom, everything was strange and new and overwhelming at first.

  Now, glimpses into his past and dreams for the future round out those faded impressions, adding depth and dimension. I had made him into a saint in my imagination, a martyr to the ongoing saga of ‘Cole’s Quest for Power and Revenge.’ He wasn’t, quite. He had frustrations and resentments and regrets and failures. But his fears were more for others than for himself, and he gave his life more gladly than not.

  I keep those fears and failures, using them to brace up the love and the devotion, turning the fraying ends of thread back into a fine, tight woven patch of fabric drifting in the dark night. The effort to gather and bind the fragments of what’s left proves beyond me.

  I lose myself for a time, opening eyes I don’t remember closing to see the fabric fraying once more; picking myself up off the cruel edges of the cracked sea to gather his loosened threads back into a rough mat and begin again, finding yet one more unexpected thread in my hands each time I think I’ve finished. But, finally, beyond pain, beyond exhaustion, I run bloodied fingers along a patch of knotted and spliced-together fabric and nothing more comes loose in my hands.

  I drop, then, the black glass shattering beneath me, the once bland void of Cass’s dreamscape now sparking with unexpected light. But I can’t stay, can’t linger too long or I may never leave . . .

  And he holds out a hand, draws me into a crowd of ghosts, and gives me a little push through to the other side. Cass smiles, teeth even, eyes clear; whole and human. He waves and steps back into the crowded band of the lost that linger in the void between sleep and waking.

  I did it.

  I—well, I probably didn’t save him, exactly, but I restored his ghost to some semblance of what he once was. And if I did it once, I can do it again. And again. Not just for the haunted horde surrounding the dreamscape, but for the band of death that circles us all in the waking world as well.

  I might just have a shot at saving the world after all—if I can only find the energy.

  Satisfied, helpless, I rest.

  “WHAT DID YOU DO?”

  Ash shakes me. I yawn in his face.

  “You don’t look so good, C.”

  It takes both arms and some rocking, but in the end, I manage to stagger to my feet without his help. “’M fine.”

  “You’re practically transparent.”

  I take a closer look at my hands, at the way the scenery bleeds through at the edges, and shrug. Crystal is still a type of stone. There are worse things to be. “Neat?”

  “It’s not a good thing. Whatever you’re doing, stop it.”

  I busy myself brushing bits of gravel and grit off. I must’ve unconsciously summoned an echo of Refuge’s rooftop again.

  Ash flicks a breeze around me to speed things up. “Ravel said he talked to you.”

  “Since when are you and Ravel chatty?”

  “Since he started smuggling people to safety? He tried to tell you he was on our side.”

  Unlikely. “That liar is on no one’s side but his own.”

  “Look, if you’d just take a moment to come see—”

  “And waste what little time we have left?”

  He runs a hand through his hair, making it stick up in clumps. “Or you could just trust me when I say he’s helping us.”

  “It doesn’t really matter, not if I can’t do something about that barrier. Which is what I should be doing. Right now. So listen to me or don’t. Trust slimy Ravel or don’t.” I hold up a hand in the face of his objections. “On the balance, I really don’t want any of you to die, but stopping you from committing suicide by idiocy is not my first priority right now.”

  I make for the ghosts. If Cass is there, I can show him to Ash in passing. One glance will be more convincing that any amount of argument.

  On second thought, better not. Don’t want news getting back to his new best buddy Ravel.

  But Cass isn’t waiting among the ghosts between worlds—and Ash yanks me back before I can call out to him anyway.

  “Just listen for a minute,” he says, tightening his grip. “Ravel is only posing as a traitor so he can s
muggle people past the enforcers. I know it looked like he betrayed you, and yeah, people died. I'm sorry about that, Cole, I really am. He is too. But we’re working like crazy to make it all worthwhile.

  “Ange has been rounding up people across Under. Haynfyv is working with Amy to get messages to the ones in Refuge who are ready to go. Lily’s even helping Sam scout for stragglers on the streets and guide them to temporary shelters. Ravel has been spending every night ferrying people across until he can barely stand.

  “We’re talking about dozens of people safe and free because of him, C. Hundreds, with your help. We can’t afford to slow Ravel down with the sick and wounded, but if you can heal them enough so they can walk and he doesn’t have to carry them—”

  I am stone. I will not be swayed. “And then what? You want me to spend all that energy getting everyone all nice and healthy so the Mara have more fun hunting them down after they break free? I’m done getting other people tangled up in this, Ash. Do what you want. Just stay out of my way. I have to go.”

  I leave him standing there, stammering a protest. I know I sounded harsh, but it was for his own good. I hope he gets through this in one piece; I really do. I hope Ravel is actually getting people to safety, however tenuous and temporary it might be. I hope he can continue even after I heal the barrier. If I can stop Nine Peaks’ attack and Ravel can clear the city, we have a real chance at saving almost everyone.

  But Liwan’s ghost wrenches at me in passing, glaring a venomous reminder that, no matter how many lives Ravel does or doesn’t manage to save, it can never make up for throwing him and his friends to the Mara.

  I almost stop to heal him then and there. Maybe I should practice once more with a ghost, just to be sure the power works properly . . .

  But that is mostly the guilt talking. Even if I spend every last moment and every spark of energy I have left strengthening the barrier for whatever time is left, it might not be enough. And if it goes down, we all do.