The air was heavy. Lilia’s ears popped.
“What exactly is happening here?” Lilia said, low.
Yisaoh came up from below ground. Lilia watched her carefully. Her face was grim.
“What’s going on, Yisaoh?”
“You lied,” Yisaoh said. “And we are not keen on being deceived. Not the Kai, not my fellow Catori, and certainly not all the people you’ve pretended to love while you deceived them.”
“I’ve never lied–”
“Don’t,” Yisaoh said. “You told us you were gifted. You told me that.”
Lilia felt heat move up her face. “I… I am. I have been ill, that’s all. I’ve never lied.”
“Taigan was here,” Meyna said. “Not an hour ago.”
A slow, piercing knife of dread crept up Lilia’s spine. “Taigan? An… hour? How did you…?” She gazed back at Ahkio, still cowering there behind the tent flap. He would have recognized Taigan. “Are you sure?” she demanded, staring hard at Ahkio.
“If what that sanisi said isn’t true,” Yisaoh said, “show us.”
“Li,” Avosta said. “What are they talking about? You flew! You are our light!”
“We were easy to fool, weren’t we?” Yisaoh said. “No omajistas among us, so no one would be able to see if it was you using your gift. How many of those little jistas with you have done your work for you? They aren’t even proper Oras, they are so young! And you used them.”
“I didn’t use anyone,” Lilia said quickly, voice breaking. Salifa was moving forward, her mouth a wide O of astonishment.
“You said you wouldn’t lie!” Salifa said.
“It’s not true!” Avosta said. He glanced back at Lilia, on his face an expression of absolute conviction. “You are gifted! Show them! You wouldn’t lie about that.”
Lilia felt trapped: her own people behind her, and Meyna and her new friend Ahkio ahead, with Yisaoh already sneering and turning.
“Faith Ahya was never gifted,” Lilia said loudly, “and nor am I. Not anymore. I’m sorry you still thought that. The Tai Mora took that from me as they have taken your country from you.” She met Avosta’s look. “I’m so sorry. It wasn’t… I didn’t lie, I just… I didn’t tell you I lost it. I was ashamed to burn out. If you thought I was not gifted, would you have followed me? Risked your life?”
“Yes,” he said gruffly.
“Then I apologize,” she said. “I was a fool. But Meyna, listen,” and she raised her voice again. “This changes very little, doesn’t it? You and Yisaoh are not gifted. Ahkio is not gifted. Most importantly, it doesn’t change the truth of anything I am going to tell you.”
“But you’ve already lied!” Salifa cried. “Li, we trusted you. You lied about this. About this of all things! Harina gave her life for you!”
“She should be exiled,” Ahkio said, coming out from under the cover of the tent, hands trembling. “There is too much lying, too much–”
“You aren’t even the true Kai!” Lilia said. It burst from her.
The blood rushed to his face, darkening him further. “Perhaps there are some here who would question my claim, but yours is in no doubt. You are an ungifted scullery girl.”
“And you’re a bully,” Lilia said. “Some petty shadow from some other world taking advantage of these people!”
Namia whined softly next to Lilia. Lilia wanted to comfort her, to tell her it was all right, but words were running from her mind: all her arguments, her disassembling.
“Enough,” Meyna said. “Lilia, the Kai and I have already spoken about this. We discussed it with many of the people here. For your dangerous actions and deplorable lies, we have seen fit to cast you from the camp. You are putting too many of us in danger.”
The proclamation landed like a stone. Lilia felt it in her gut. She opened her mouth to deny it, but Avosta was staring at her, and Salifa was crying quietly. Elaiko simply gaped, fingers twisting the frayed hem of her tunic.
“How is it you take him in so easily,” Lilia said, pointing at Ahkio, “and toss me aside? I’ve sweated and bled for you here. We are–”
“Your schemes have done nothing but tear out the hearts of those who love you,” Meyna interrupted. “You disappoint us all again and again. And far from striking back at the Tai Mora, all your little missions and raids have done is make us bigger targets. It’s time for you to move on.”
“You are going to regret this,” Lilia said softly.
“Go,” Meyna said, “or I will have my Oras escort you.”
“I would like to say goodbye to Emlee, and Tasia,” Lilia said.
“No,” Meyna said. “Take the dog and whatever you have with you and go. Don’t come back here. Go now, before someone changes their mind.”
Lilia lost her voice. She felt numb. Namia wailed and clutched at her arm. Lilia managed a quiet, “Shh, hush,” sound to soothe her, but she could not look at any of them. Not Salifa or Avosta, and certainly not Elaiko, who had broken out of servitude only to witness Lilia’s ostracism.
“I’ll… I’ll at least see her to the edge of the camp!” Salifa said.
“No,” Meyna said. “I’m sorry, Salifa, but if you walk away with her, we’ll have no choice but to consider you a danger as well. This woman lied to you. She will lie to you again.”
Salifa’s eyes filled. Avosta offered an arm, and she nodded, said, “Please hold me,” and he did.
Lilia took the reins of her dog and stepped back over the thorn fence. Namia started after her.
“No, you!” Meyna said, and grabbed Namia.
Namia snarled and snapped at her. A great tangle of vines burst from the soil and ensnared her. Namia shrieked.
“Leave her alone!” Lilia said.
“Go!” Meyna said. “We’ll release her when you’re well gone.”
“This is mad,” Lilia said. She tugged at her dog’s lead. “You’re power mad, all of you.”
“But… you can’t go!” Elaiko said. “You don’t… I…” Another snarl of vines curled up between them. Elaiko shrieked and stepped back.
Lilia limped forward, tugging her dog after her. She had no idea in which direction to go. There was no other place for her. What of the other refugees? Could she turn back and gather them? Call to Emlee? Namia was still shrieking. Ahkio and Meyna had cut her off, kept her from going below for this reason. Banished her while she was separated from most of her allies. She kept moving, urging herself to think.
She got onto the dog and led it through the brush in circles for some time until she could no longer hear the sound of Namia’s screaming. She only stopped when she grew thirsty. Lilia had the dog sit, and dismounted. She rested along the side of a narrow creek bed. The great dog lay down beside her and put its massive head in her lap. She sobbed.
“I don’t know what I did wrong,” Lilia whispered. Though it wasn’t true. There were many things she had failed at, and many more she would have failed at, if she stayed. Ahkio and Meyna would be too terrified to risk carrying out the kind of complicated scheme that would be required for them to take control of the temples: a Key, a Guide, and a Worldbreaker! Like some riddle. They would never have believed her.
A snapping sound from the woods. The dog raised its head, let out a low growl. Lilia tensed, expecting a wild bear, perhaps, or a boar. Instead, three men approached her, men she recognized from the camp, men aligned with Meyna.
“Come quietly,” the eldest said. “Catori Meyna has another fate for you.”
“I don’t understand.”
They took hold of her. She cried out only once, at the shock of being so roughly handled without consent. They knotted a bit of cord around her hands and slung her unceremoniously onto the back of the dog.
“What are you doing?” Lilia huffed. “Where are you taking me?”
She did not have far to go to find out. After only a few minutes, they pushed her off the dog. She fell in a heap. Raised her head.
A massive bone tree sat at the center of a sparkli
ng white clearing strewn with bleached bones. It was an ancient tree, as wide as Lilia was tall, a grim, rippling thing made from the bones of its own prey. Large bear skulls and the delicate skulls of treegliders made up its base; long, snapped tibias and fibias bound by pale, clotted sap and the tree’s fibrous tendons made up its branches. The bare crown of it did not so much reach for the sky as dominate it, a crown, a throne to some dark god.
And there, a few paces from the ring of pale bones at the edge of the clearing, stood Meyna. She held the lead of a dog. Two jistas were with her, both full Oras that Lilia recognized. Meyna did not look away as Lilia gazed at her.
“Is this what you did to Mohrai?” Lilia called.
Meyna said, “No. Unlike you, we aren’t all murderers. This is something else. More personal. I meant what I said, Lilia. You are far too dangerous to the Dhai, alive. You have endangered us. And you would continue doing it. I know that, because I understand you, little Lilia. I was you, I think, when I was very young. Always seeking attention. Trying to find my place. But I’ve found my place now, Lilia.”
“Don’t do this,” Lilia said.
Meyna shook her head. She gestured to the men who held Lilia. “Give her to it.”
Lilia screamed loud and long, so loud and long she startled the dogs, which began to bark.
The men hauled Lilia up and tossed her into the bone-white clearing, well within reach of the snarling branches of the bone tree. Lilia landed with a crunch onto the discarded bones of the tree’s prey, her nose filling with the faint scent of rot. She wriggled forward, moving as quickly as she could, knowing it was already too late.
The creaking of bones. Hissing. A searing pain in her shoulder.
Her body jerked upright, lifted high, high in the air. A knotted limb of the bone tree jutted from her left shoulder, a limb made from cast-off bits of bird bones twisted together with its gooey, poisonous sap. The sap mingled with her blood and spattered the pale ground below as the tree pulled her into its crackling embrace.
A second bony limb stabbed through her lower left side, just above her buttock. She screamed again. Wheezed. Gasped. She tried to find her mahuan with her one working arm. Lost her breath. No more screaming. Gasping. Like a speared fish.
The tree shivered in excitement.
Sunlight from above blinded her. The canopy here was thin, as the bone tree’s poison killed any plant life that came too close. She swung her head, trying to see Meyna and her kin.
“This isn’t… necessary!” Lilia gasped.
“I assure you it is,” Meyna said, and it frustrated Lilia that she could not see her face. “I know you too well, Lilia, far better than Ahkio does. You won’t sit around in the woods feeling sorry for yourself. You’ll scheme something up. Play the martyr. And we are done with playing games, you and I. We are going to get out of these woods. No more raids. No more secret excursions. You want revenge. You want to fight a force you cannot win against. You care nothing about the people here, and what’s best for them. I do.”
“This is… a terrible…” Lilia said, but it came out slurred and soft. Her head swam. The poison was making her stuffy-headed already. Relaxed. Her breath came a little easier. How funny.
Dark patches moved across her vision. Numbness crept up her fingers and toes. Her wounds still throbbed, but it was very distant, like an achy tooth. She had a fond memory of watching Taigan dangling just like this, speared by a bone tree. What would have happened if she chose to leave him there? Would she still be here? Was this always going to be the end for her?
Anger burned in her belly. She struggled. But her body would not respond.
She wondered if this was how her mother felt, welded to the top of that great mirror, bound to it until death, until Lilia destroyed her. Until the world destroyed Lilia.
A sharp pain seared through her sternum. She gasped. Bent her head. But there was no visible wound. No gnarled bone branch pushing through her.
The poison, maybe. The poison doing its final work.
Oma, Lilia thought, you have a grim sense of humor.
19
Death was overrated.
But then, so was recovery.
She had done enough of both to know.
She had been mangled, mutilated, infected and left for dead before. The second time wasn’t any more fun than the first. The injuries themselves were far worse this time, of course. Or perhaps she had forgotten how excruciating the infected wounds from those wily court predators had been. The mind had a habit of dampening the details of trauma over time, surfacing them only when violently triggered.
Her mind processed her surroundings slowly, as if moving through treacle. Close quarters. Warm. Very dark. Cramped. She lay with her knees tucked up to her chest and her arms squeezed tightly against her sides, and there was something… pulsing and moving around her and… through her. Something slick and alive. She began to tremble violently.
She kicked out. Met resistance. She was in a very small space. Kicked again. Wood. A trunk? What? She began to rip at the slimy growths sticking out of her body. As she pulled them free, she felt a great sense of both pain and relief, like yanking out a splinter or a bad tooth.
More kicking. Spitting. Huffing. Then she pushed up, and the ceiling gave way. Her space filled with dim blue light. She yanked away more of the growths as she tried to sit up. They were some kind of vine. As she pulled them out, her body released pale amber streamers of ooze. Her skin closed quickly around the wounds, almost instantly. She marveled at it. How incredible.
A sharp pain in her sternum made her double over. She tipped her head over the end of her enclosure – a box? a trunk? – and heaved and gagged, nauseous. Blackish vomit spattered across the floor. She clawed at her chest, at the source of the pain, and felt a cold, raised lump in the center of her core, just below her breasts. She pressed her palm against it, triggering another wave of pain. The raised mark had three curved edges and a long tail. Her body broke out in a cold sweat.
She peered at the great round room. It that smelled of musty loam. Underground? Like a cairn.
Disoriented, she tried to get out of the trunk, and stumbled over the lip of it. Crashed onto the floor.
“What’s this? Oh!” A voice. Footsteps, soft.
“The fuck?” she muttered, trying to raise her head.
“Hush now,” a soft, airy voice.
Fuzzy images: a smear of red cloth, a distorted face. The dim orange flickering of flame flies.
“How did you wake me up?”
“I didn’t. You were a box of bones.”
“A what?”
“You were not awakened. You were recreated. That’s what she told me, anyhow. And it appears it was true.”
“Sounds complicated.”
“It was.”
“What’s the catch?”
The fuzzy image resolved itself as the figure leaned over her, showed its teeth. A little old woman with sagging jowls and loose, bare skin on her arms that hinted she had once been much more substantial. Puffy white hair crowned the skull, shot through with moss and tiny branches. Perhaps a spider. Probably lice.
“The catch,” the old woman said, “well, there is one, I think. You are bound to her.”
“Who is her?”
“She isn’t here. They exiled her.”
“I’ve already died a few times. Who’s to say I want to live?”
“Oh, I think you want to live.”
“Who the fuck are you?”
“I am Emlee.”
Her sternum ached again. She gasped. Rubbed at the raised mark again; not a mark, no – there was definitely something just under her skin, inside of her, pressing against her guts. She had a sudden urge to get above ground and go… there. That direction, behind her, whatever compass direction that was. Why? But the compulsion lingered. The thing in her chest burned coldly.
“You have any clothes, Emlee?”
“Yes, one moment. You feel something?”
“
Yeah, cold.”
Emlee brought her trousers and tunic, all very plain and musty, full of moth holes. Her body began to ache in earnest, a painful ache, like an itch that needed scratching. There was some place she needed to be.
“I have to go,” she said. “Thanks.”
“Shoes?”
She looked at her feet. Good looking feet. Clean nails. Good skin. For the first time she truly regarded her hands. Smooth skin there, too. No scars. No blemishes. That wasn’t right. There was something about her hands that she could not remember… this wasn’t right.
“What the fuck happened to me, really?” she said.
“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask Lilia.”
“Why do I know that name?”
Emlee shook her head. “I don’t know. She didn’t tell me.”
Her stomach ached. “I have to go. I need to go.” She ran past Emlee, following the desperate urge of her body.
She sprinted past startled children and skinny, malnourished Dhai faces. What had happened here? Where the fuck was she?
Up a ladder. Across a clearing. Over a narrow thorn fence. She burst into a sprint. Her body worked beneath her, free and tireless. The damp ground thumped under her bare feet and it felt good, so good, to feel the cool air against her skin, and the breath heaving through her fresh lungs. I’m alive, I’m alive! she thought. But why is that strange? Why is it so strange to be alive, as if she would be anything else?
She ran and ran, compelled to go north, following a little stream. This deep in the woods, there was little light from the moons or the satellites, but she found that she could see fairly clearly. She continued on, hungry to find what compelled her, but still not tired.
As she came to the edge of a milky white clearing, the itching ache across her skin and deep in her sternum began to subside. She gazed across the clearing and realized it glowed white because it was full of bones. And there, hanging from the great bony limbs of a twisted bone tree, was a body.
She stepped confidently across the clearing. When the tree reached for her, she simply snapped off the branch, easily as snapping a twig. Her hand did not even hurt. It tried again. She snapped it off. Again, and again. She grinned. It was a fun game.
The Worldbreaker Saga Omnibus Page 125
