Racing the Dark

by Alaya Dawn Johnson

  "Why?" she asked, a little alarmed now at his intensity.

  He leaned over her and gripped her shoulder so hard that it hurt. "Because the water guardians are not like normal men. We demand far too much for our love and then, even when love is given freely in return, we never trust it. Understand me, Lana: a water guardian can only give himself to one woman, and when he does, it must be for life. If that woman gives herself to anyone afterwards, the guardian will die in slow and painful agony, unable to pass his abilities on to his son. There is no stronger bond in nature. Do you understand? My grandmother, and dozens of women before her, spent their lives imprisoned because their husbands lived in dread of the day their wives would betray them-and in doing so, destroy them."

  "Are you saying ... are you saying that you would have to imprison me here if I gave myself to you?"

  "What if I was?"

  Her wings shivered at the thought. "I would leave you and wait until you returned to your senses."

  He traced her cheekbones with his cool, smooth fingertips. For a moment, they stared at each other, and then she buried her head in his chest and breathed his scent until she thought her heart would burst. "Oh, keika," he whispered, "of course I would never do that to you. I would die and leave the shrine unguarded before I made you live like that. But ... but you would still have to bear my son. Do you really want to do this? I can give you more time to decide-"

  "Shh," she said gently, putting her finger to his mouth.

  He smiled-joyously, like a child-and closed his eyes. This time, he made no objection when she began to remove his clothes. She leaned into him and breathed his musk of seawater and sweat.

  "Great Kai," she said, and then laughed. "How many women can invoke the spirit and their lover at the same time?"

  Kai opened his eyes and moved, ever so delicately, directly beneath her. She gasped and bit her lip.

  He froze. "Are you okay?" he asked, horrified.

  "I've wanted this for so long ..."

  "So have I."

  "Then whatever you do," she said, hugging him so she could hear the reassuring beat of his heart, "don't stop."

  Afterwards, looking back at those months, Lana would marvel at how she had managed to reach such an oasis of happiness when everything she had previously loved about her life had been destroyed. She had lost her home, her family, her faith in Akua, her ability to dive, and any pretension to normalcy. She was chased by the manifestation of death itself and the wild wind had turned her into a black angel. And yet, she was happy. She supposed, later, that some of the heady joy of those days with Kai was derived from her never-articulated conviction that it must all end. That the game she had been playing-and losing-with Akua would not end here. The death had said as much to her that day on the roof. She and Kai spent nearly every minute of each day with each other, and Lana made her dogged way through the geas tome. It pleased Kai to see her study it, and that was more than enough motivation. After two months she had memorized all of wind and half of fire (naturally a much longer section). She was aware of a certain perversity in the fact that she hadn't even glanced at the death postulates, but that always brought her thoughts back to Akua. And Kai needed no help from her on that score. If there was any worm in the orange of her happiness, it was their repeated arguments about her former mentor. They began two months after she nearly drowned. Kai came to her room in the early morning, visibly exhausted from spending all night in the library.

  "I think she somehow used you to destabilize the death spirit's bonds."

  Lana didn't need to ask who "she" was. "I thought you promised not to mention it again."

  "Unless I was sure, I said."

  Lana scowled at him. "So, you're sure now? What happened, did you pay her a visit?"

  He sat on the bed next to her and turned her head to face him. "I did a scrying."

  Her stomach clenched. "What did you see?"

  He shook his head, and Lana realized why he looked so tired. The geas must have demanded a large sacrifice. "She's very well guarded. I don't know how anyone, let alone a normal human, can keep so many geas active. I've tried before, and I couldn't get through."

  "And now?"

  "I tried harder. I used ... other methods. I only caught a glimpse, Lana, but ... I scryed for Akua, and all I could see was death. She's wrapped inside it like a cocoon. It's more than an affinity. I've never seen anything like it."

  Lana swallowed. "What do you want me to do, Kai?"

  "Help me find out what she did to you."

  "Does it matter? Fine, she manipulated me, but she couldn't have weakened a first Binding. No one can do that."

  He kissed her. "Except a black angel."

  If Kai was right, Lana realized, then she had no future. She could learn as many geas postulates as she wanted, but she had seen Akua's power and she knew she'd never be a match for it. If Akua was her enemy, she might as well slit her own throat now. If wanting to hide from the possibility made her a coward, then so be it. She was too happy with him to care.

  It lasted four months. The day that was to end their idyll, Kai said that he had some cleaning he ought to do for the spirit solstice. She tagged along as he maneuvered the still-confusing pathways to a part of the shrine that she had never seen. It amazed her that it had been nearly a year since she had last seen her mother. Was she planning another feast? Did she hope that Lana might come home? Kai grew silent as they went along, but she was so wrapped up in her own thoughts that she hardly noticed. He pushed back the vine-curtain of a small, pleasantsmelling room that looked very homey. A set of colored-glass wind chimes hung from the tree above the tidily made bed. The cubbies held little keepsakes in stout wooden boxes and a few extra sets of clothes. Only a desiccated leaf in the water pitcher gave any indication that whoever owned this room had not been back recently. It certainly didn't have the long-abandoned feel of his grandmother's quarters.

  "Whose room is this?" she asked. "I didn't know there was another human living here."

  Kai had frozen inside the door and the expression on his face made her pause. His eyes looked like they had when his father died. "There isn't," he said quietly. "At least, not anymore. This was my aunt's bedroom. After my mother died ... she raised me. My whole life she did everything she could for me, and then one day last year she got terribly sick and died a week later. There was nothing I could do."

  It sounded so much like her mother's near-death. She hugged Kai until his breathing steadied.

  "Why didn't you ever say anything about her before?" she asked.

  He shrugged. "I didn't even know how to begin. She was so close to me, and then she died, just like that ... I left here to run away from it. When I brought you back, and my father died, I thought I just shouldn't burden you. But now it's been a year, and I really should put some of her things on the shrine with my mother and mourn her properly."

  He broke away from her and walked over to one of the keepsake boxes. "Do you know that she had a mandagah jewel just like yours before she died? I don't know where she got it, but she held onto it the entire time. She said it was for luck, but I think ... I think it reminded her of my mother. They were so close, but my father had so much grief I think she sometimes felt like she didn't even have a right to any of her own."

  He opened the box and pulled out a large blue mandagah jewel, strung on a line of shimmering riverweed.

  "It reminds me of yours, but I don't know why ... yours is much more striking, with all that red..." He smiled, but it wavered at his eyes. "They're like a set, aren't they?"

  Lana fell back against the wall, smashing her wings and barely feeling it.

  "Are you all right?" he said, cutting her with his gentle concern.

  She just had to be sure. "Kai, tell me, what was ... your aunt's name?"

  He rubbed her arm. "You look really sick. Do you want-"

  "Please, please tell me her name."

  "Pua," he said, looking confused. "But why-Lana! Okay, we should go back.
"

  She couldn't seem to control her limbs or the blood rushing past her ears. She let Kai pick her up by the waist, feeling like a criminal even as she reveled in his touch.

  "When did she die?" she asked, knowing she was grasping at straws. What more evidence did she need?

  "She collapsed a week after the solstice. Lana, why are you so interested in this?"

  A week after the solstice. The day that Lana had reached Essel to recite the geas that would save her mother. The day she used the linked mandagah jewel that Akua had sworn to her would be harmless-using it despite the taint Lana had somehow sensed.

  Kai had fallen in love with the woman responsible for his aunt's death.

  He left her in the bedroom with hot tea and a sweet parting glance that made her insides feel like ribboned meat. She had to tell him. He had been right all along, and far more profoundly than even he had realized. For the first time, Lana thought it likely that Akua had somehow weakened the death spirit's Binding. She had betrayed Lana, willingly and knowingly. She had insisted that the linked necklaces would be harmless, and using them had killed Pua. Lana remembered the other hundreds upon hundreds of matched necklaces that the witch had somehow linked with her red jewel. Did each of those pairs represent a dead human, drained of life for one of Akua's esoteric needs? Had she really been the unwitting party to so much death?

  The hot cup of tea spilled over her trembling hands and crashed to the floor. She had to tell him. Sweet Kai, it would destroy them both, but she had to tell him.

  She thought about what she would say as she walked unsteadily through the shrine. Kai, you were right, but please don't hate me? or, It wasn't my fault. But now that she was dealing in honesty, that wasn't precisely true, was it? Much as she yearned to lay all the blame on Akua, she knew that it wouldn't be fair. She had known from the start-even if Akua had said otherwise-that using the link would somehow hurt Pua. Wasn't that what wielding geas required, at bottom-sacrifice? She hadn't been ignorant of the possible consequences. And the fact still remained that no matter what her intentions had been, Kai's aunt was dead and Lana was responsible.

  He was in the library, of course. Probably still researching any hints about what sort of witch Akua might be. Her news would probably save him a lot of time.

  He looked up when she walked in, and then jumped down from his desk to meet her. "Are you feeling better?" he asked, keeping a hand low on her back to steady her.

  She shook her head. "We need to talk." Her voice was breathy, but it was the best she could manage.

  Kai looked like he might protest, but something stopped his words. He sat down with her on the edge of the platform, their legs dangling in the water. How many times had they sat together like this? Lana wanted to cry at the thought that this would probably be their last time.

  "What is it?" he said, quietly.

  Lana looked at the distortion of her feet through the water and clenched the edge of the platform. "I'll just say this quickly. I can't..." She took a deep breath. "I killed your aunt. I didn't know I had until now. I didn't even know she was your aunt. I didn't do it deliberately, but I had reason enough to think something like that might happen, and I ignored it. That blue mandagah jewel is mine. I harvested it with this red one when I was thirteen, just before the floods came. I met her in Ialo. She ... she asked about you, you know. I'm sure it was you. She wanted to know if she would see you again. And then I gave her the jewel and told her not to take it off. I told her it was for good luck, but it was a sacrifice. A willing sacrifice. Akua told me to do it, of course. She said it wouldn't hurt her, but ... I knew. Part of me knew, Kai. I wasn't going to use it, but my then my mama got so sick and I couldn't-" She stopped and turned to face him, her teeth clenched furiously. She felt tears sliding down her neck. "I couldn't let her die. Not after what she had done for me. So I used the necklace. It was ... strange. There was something wrong with it, I felt that. Not just Pua. Something else. The week before, Akua made me accept some kind of sacrifice. Something bound to these thousands of other paired trinkets and I didn't know what it meant! I agreed, but it was so confusing in the column ..."

  "What kind of sacrifice?" Kai asked, surprising her. His voice was flat. His eyes had turned black, without a hint of movement. The effect terrified her. "What did she call it?"

  "Make'lai," Lana said. That memory, at least, was quite clear.

  He shut his eyes. "Make'lai means death, keika. In an ancient language she was sure you wouldn't know. But languages don't matter to spirits. When you used that sacrifice, you invoked something far greater than just your mother's death."

  "What?"

  "I'm not sure. Her workings are deep and subtle. She's a master's master ... and she has played you like a flute."

  She heard the unspoken coda: like he had told her. "Yes," she said.

  For nearly a minute, the only sounds in the library were those of the water lapping against the side of the platform and Lana hastily sniffling back her tears. She tried to look at Kai, but his eyes were so black, his face so expressionless, she had to turn away.

  "You should have known," he said into that silence. "She deceived you, but you should have known."

  "She said nothing would-"

  "And you believed her!" the volume of his suddenly raised voice made her jump. She nearly cringed at his fury. "Even you, from the very beginning, even you knew about sacrifice. She couldn't hide that! You wanted to save your mother's life. So you took my Aunt's. You must have known. You can't bring someone back from the shadow of death's gate without an equal sacrifice. What did you think Akua gave you? Magic?"

  "Kai, don't. Please don't." In her panic, she tried to hold him, but he shook her off and she nearly tumbled into the water.

  "Admit it, Lana. Some part of you must have understood the sacrifice."

  "Kai-"

  His eyes flashed like lightning over the sea. "Admit it!"

  "It was my mother! What else could I do?"

  He leaned forward until their noses were nearly touching. "Let. Her. Die."

  She shook her head-a child's vehement denial-but didn't say anything. She couldn't.

  "If you knew everything you knew now-about me and Akua and my aunt-would you still do it? Would you still call the sacrifice?"

  Lana closed her eyes. Honesty, right? Could she have saved her mother any other way?

  She stood up, distantly pleased that her body still functioned properly, and walked towards the exit.

  "I'll be gone in an hour," she said quietly. "Akua is my burden. I can't hide behind you any longer. I have to find her ... I have to find out why."

  He had stood also, but made no move to stop her. She didn't know if she wished he would. "Don't tell me you still think there's some innocent explanation?"

  "I just want to understand."

  "And what makes you think she won't just kill you?"

  She shrugged. "She's kept me alive this long."

  "You didn't answer my question," he said as she reached the door.

  Even knowing what she did now, would she still call the sacrifice?

  "Yes."

  She left by the same staircase that she had discovered so many months ago during the rainy season. The death was there, waiting for her.

  "So, you finally came. I knew you would. You're too foolishly strong-willed to hide for very long."

  Lana shrugged. "Or perhaps I'm just too foolish." She fingered the flute, but did not play it. She didn't want to warn Akua of her approach.

  Kai arrived, even paler than normal, just as she was about to launch herself in the air.

  "Don't," he said.

  She settled her wings against her back. "Why not? You can't forgive me. I can't stay, knowing what she's done."

  "I love you."

  Unthinking, she twisted the red jewel between her fingers. "After your mother died ... could your father have found someone else? Could someone else have had his children?"

  Kai seemed a little confused. "
Of course."

  "Then don't worry. If I die, you won't have to deal with me again. And if I don't, I'll have your son." She felt lightheaded, suffused with a pain that had nothing to do with her body.

  "Do you really think I want you to die?"

  Her hand was still on the necklace, and she remembered what it meant. "Do you forgive me?" she asked

  A long pause. She almost hoped, but then he met her eyes. No.

  It was all she needed. A few powerful strokes and she was flying, for the first time in months. Had she actually missed it?

  "But, keika," he called out, as she soared above him. "I will."

  14

  OR THE PAST FOUR YEARS, the spirit solstice had always been the happiest time of their lives, but as this one approached, both Leilani and Kapa grew more irritable and depressed. They both knew that this year they would be spending it with only each other. After Leilani's mysterious illness (and even more mysterious recovery) last year, they had heard nothing at all from Lana. It was as though she had disappeared. Leilani knew that Lana was still alive, but she suspected that whatever Lana had done to save her life had come at a horribly high cost. And so Kapa sold his instruments and Leilani taught her swimming lessons and they both held each other very closely at night. Leilani understood that Lana had known she wasn't going to see them again. She had said goodbye for good just before she had been blown out the window like a zephyr.

  Leilani sighed and pulled her groceries tighter on her back. It was funny; she had felt so healthy this past year that she sometimes forgot that she had almost died. Of course, she had also taken off the bone necklace for the first time in four years and given it to Kapa for safeguarding. As soon as she had known that Lana was no longer beholden to the witch, she had decided it would be safe.