Vessel

by Sarah Beth Durst

  Liyana felt a shard graze her arm. She bit back a cry. Shielding her head from the falling glass, Liyana recoiled. Both Korbyn and Jarlath were forced to dodge as well.

  Mulaf got to his feet and raised his hand to point at them. Korbyn and Jarlath lunged at him at the same time. Korbyn hit first, and then Jarlath knocked them all backward. They crashed onto the edge of the cliff. Mulaf’s torso extended over open air. Liyana dove forward to catch Korbyn’s legs, adding her weight to keep them from tumbling off the cliff.

  Bayla yelled, Watch for—

  Korbyn and Jarlath were tossed backward by wind. They slammed into the granite wall. Still prone, Mulaf defeated another sky serpent. He then rose and advanced on the two boys. “Fools!” Mulaf said. “You could have saved yourselves. Now, you and the lake will be buried in this valley.”

  “Don’t hurt them!” Liyana stepped in front of them. She felt Bayla pour magic into her.

  “Desert princess, your magic cannot hope to compete—”

  He expected her to use magic against him. So she didn’t. She slammed her fist into Mulaf’s face. Blood stained his upper lip. As he teetered backward in surprise, she pulled out the sky serpent knife and stabbed him in the stomach.

  Her hands shook as she stared at the blood that spread over his clothes. Dark, it blossomed over his torso. Releasing the hilt, she stumbled backward.

  He pulled the blade from his stomach, and Korbyn and Jarlath dove at him. His flesh was beginning to heal as they both rammed into him. He toppled over the edge of the cliff, and they fell with him.

  “No!” Liyana shouted. She ran to the edge and used Bayla’s magic to send the wind screaming underneath them. It swept them toward the grasses and away from the deadly lake. She leaped into the wind, and it blew her down with them. She hit the ground and rolled.

  Healed, Mulaf walked toward the edge of the water. It reflected the moon in its ripples. He raised his hands toward the cliffs. Rocks began to shake. Liyana got to her feet and ran toward him. Jarlath and Korbyn were on their feet and running too. Above, sky serpents circled and cried, looking for their prey.

  Jarlath reached him first. He tackled Mulaf from behind.

  Mulaf fell forward. His hands slapped the water. Ripples spread from them. His body submerged face-first, and then Jarlath’s arms sank into the water, pushing Mulaf down. Jarlath’s body stiffened, and he collapsed into the water. “No!” Liyana shouted. As she reached for him, the lake water splashed onto her hands.

  She died.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Korbyn

  Korbyn dragged Liyana’s body away from the shore. She lay peacefully, as if sleeping in the greenery. Returning to the lake, he pulled the emperor by his ankles out of the water. Drops splashed onto Korbyn’s hands, but as a god, he didn’t need to fear the water. Dragging the body over the pebbles, Korbyn laid the emperor next to Liyana. He touched the emperor’s neck.

  There was no pulse.

  Liyana opened her eyes. “She’s gone,” Bayla said with Liyana’s voice.

  “She’ll return,” Korbyn said. “She’s resourceful.”

  “She is in the Dreaming,” Bayla said gently.

  “She will return with him, and she will not forgive me if he’s dead.” Korbyn judged that he had not been soulless too long. His skin was still warm.

  Bayla knelt beside him. She wrapped her arms—Liyana’s arms—around him. “He is already gone. It is over.”

  Korbyn shook his head.

  “Even if he were to return, his body . . .” She trailed off. “No, Korbyn. Korbyn, look at me. We are together now. You cannot do this.”

  “We will be together in the Dreaming,” Korbyn said. “We will be together forever.” He closed his eyes. He had never tried this particular trick before. In theory it was sound. The emperor’s body wasn’t dying from any bodily harm, merely lack of a soul.

  He gathered the magic that was his own soul, and he poured it into the emperor’s body.

  Korbyn took a breath and opened his eyes. His chest felt different. He was lying in the grasses. Water had dampened his face and his clothes. He opened his eyes and saw his former body in Liyana’s—Bayla’s—arms.

  She was crying. “How could you do this to me?”

  “She will return,” Korbyn said. His voice sounded different, deeper. “I believe in her.”

  “You love her,” Bayla said.

  He thought about that. He remembered how he’d met her in the oasis. She’d been throwing sand and screaming at the desert. He remembered how she’d taught him to dance. He remembered guiding her through magic lessons. He remembered how he’d felt when she woke as herself, not as Bayla. “I think I do.”

  “You don’t love me.”

  “I know I do,” he said.

  Bayla cradled his former body. “Your body will die in minutes if you do not return to it. And say that you are correct and your Liyana returns with her emperor’s soul. . . . How will he inhabit that body if you are in it? He is not trained in magic. He will not be able to coexist with you. Your sacrifice will be for nothing.”

  “That body is not the sacrifice,” Korbyn said gently.

  Bayla stared at him, and he saw the realization spread over her face.

  “Our time here is stolen and will come again. These people . . . they deserve to finish their natural lives. They deserve it more than we do. This is their world. These are their lives. We exist for them and because of them.” He attempted a smile and tried to make his voice light. “Besides, you have never seen Liyana when she is angry. She would not like to go through the trouble of saving her emperor only to have him die again here.”

  “You truly trust her,” Bayla said.

  Korbyn watched the lake. “Yes, I do.” Beside him, in his lover’s arms, his body died.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Liyana was in the desert. She rotated slowly, scanning the horizon. To the east she saw a tamar tree with branches that stretched seemingly for miles. To the west she saw rock hills. It was day. The sun was directly above her. There were no shadows.

  She felt no heat. The wind caressed her skin and touched her hair. She wore braids and her ceremony dress, even though she’d lost this dress in the emperor’s camp.

  “Jarlath!” she called.

  There were no birds or creatures of any kind. She tried to expand her soul to sense others. . . . But she felt no excess magic, nor did she feel the familiar swirl that was her goddess. Bayla? she thought tentatively.

  She heard no answer.

  “I’m dead,” she said out loud. The words tasted strange in her mouth. She didn’t feel dead. She rubbed the fabric of her skirt between her fingers and thumb. The skirt felt real, and it felt as soft as it had on the morning of her ceremony, without any of the rips or stains.

  She walked toward the tamar tree. Around her, sand swirled in the air. She stared at the flecks of sand. Each glinted in the sun like a tiny jewel. Ruby, emerald, sapphire. She touched the glittering air, and she thought she heard the sound of laughter. It tinkled like broken glass and then dissolved. She inhaled the scent of milk and honey carried on the light breeze. Under her feet the sand felt warm, as if it had been heated but not scorched by the midday sun. Her feet, she noticed, wore the same beautiful shoes, tattered from her journey.

  “Hello?” she called. “Jarlath? Pia? Fennik? I know you’re here!” In fact, thousands of souls should have been there—all the deities who weren’t in the desert plus all the dead from prior generations, including Jarlath. And Mulaf.

  Mulaf sat on a rock with his face in his hands.

  She halted. He had not been there an instant before. Staring at him, she wondered if she should speak to him. He hadn’t noticed her. Stepping softly, she backed away.

  “He can’t hurt you here,” Pia said. “I will not let him.”

  Liyana pivoted. Standing next to her, Pia smiled. She looked as beautiful as she had on the day that Liyana had met her, perhaps more beautiful. She seeme
d to glow with a soft light, like the aftereffect of staring at the sun. Her eyes did not focus on Liyana but instead seemed to drink in the entire desert. “You still cannot see,” Liyana said. “I’d have thought . . .” She trailed off because Pia was smiling with a joy that lit her like a flame. Behind her, the sky rippled with amber, rose, and purple light before it returned to brilliant blue.

  “I could always see,” Pia said. “Just not with my eyes.” She reached with a surety of what she would find, and she touched Liyana’s face. “You, however, are blind. Like Oyri was. She needed true blindness before she could see beyond our clan.”

  “I can see him,” Liyana said. “He wants to kill the gods.”

  “Gods cannot die,” Pia said with her familiar conviction. Liyana had missed that certainty, even as she wanted to shake Pia and yell that this man was dangerous. Pia continued to smile, and her unseeing eyes sparkled like opals.

  “But he could trap them here,” Liyana said. “He planned to destroy the mountains and bury the lake in the rubble. Without the lake the deities cannot leave the Dreaming, and magic dies in the world.”

  “He cannot destroy anything from within the Dreaming, and I will not let his soul leave.”

  Liyana knelt in front of him. Mulaf did not seem to know she was there. She waved his hand in front of his face. He did not respond. He looked as if he was staring directly through her. Tears ran down his face, curving into rivulets in his wrinkles. “He doesn’t see me.”

  “He sees her,” Pia said.

  Liyana turned but saw no one, only desert stretching on and on.

  “His lost love, the Cat Clan vessel who sacrificed herself, his reason for everything that followed,” Pia said. “I found her, and we have been awaiting his arrival. Thank you for delivering him to us.”

  “But he could find a way to leave—”

  “He won’t,” Pia said. “Not now that he has found her. Besides, as I said, I will not let him.” She smiled again, and the glow around her brightened. She skipped around Mulaf and dropped into the sand next to him. She patted his shoulder, and he started. “Mulaf and I will become friends.” Liyana thought her smile had a sharpness to it, as if she were a cat with a mouse.

  Another voice spoke. “Here, you are as strong as your soul.” Fennik walked toward them. He looked as he had on the day she’d met him, dressed in his clan’s traditional body paint and loincloth. He had his bow and arrows strapped to his back, and he held a waterskin as if he had been on a hunt. “Pia’s soul is very strong. She will contain him.”

  Pia beamed at Fennik. He planted a kiss on the top of her head. Reaching up, she looped her hand into his, and his hand enveloped hers. Their smiles at each other seemed to exclude all else. Pia had never smiled that fiercely when she was alive.

  Here, she was not ephemeral.

  “Fennik . . .” Liyana searched for the right words.

  “The rules of the living world do not apply here. You should see the horses!” Fennik swept his arm open. Behind him, across the sands, a herd of horses ran. Their jewel-like hides gleamed in the sun, and their manes and tails streamed in the wind. “I am in the process of creating my own herd.” He smiled at her, and Liyana thought he exuded light too, a leak around him that blurred the air. The horses vanished like smoke. “You will love it here, Liyana. Release your worries. You have finished your task.”

  “Nothing is finished!” Liyana said. “The sky serpents are attacking the clans and the empire’s army. They will destroy everyone! I must find Jarlath. His people need him more than ever, and I cannot leave until I know my clan will be safe.” A horrible thought occurred to her. “Jarlath’s soul is here, isn’t he? He dreamed of the lake. He must be a reincarnated soul. Please tell me he is here. And Raan. Where is Raan? Did she find her way?”

  “Right here,” Raan said with a wave. She was perched on a rock near Pia as if she’d been there the entire time. Lush grasses ringed her rock, and purple flowers grew beside her. The blossoms swayed in the wind, and the grasses were bright green, incongruous with the sand all around. “Glad you finally remembered me. I was beginning to feel unloved.”

  Liyana felt a tightness in her chest loosen. At least Raan was whole. “Don’t tell me you forgive me, too, and that the Dreaming is happy meadows and bubbling brooks and that you’ve released your anger at your death and embraced eternity?”

  “Of course not,” Raan said. “But I can torment him until I feel better, so that helps.” Raan punched Mulaf in his shoulder. He flinched, but he did not look at her. His eyes were fixed on an empty patch of desert. “He can see his lost love, but he can’t talk to her or touch her. We won’t let him—and truth be told, neither will she. She has watched him through the years and hates what he has done in her name.”

  Liyana studied the empty desert and tried to imagine what he saw, a woman he’d loved and lost so long ago. In the distance the dunes seemed to rise and fall, undulating like water—a trick of the light, or a trick of the Dreaming.

  “Do you remember the stories of the Cat Clan? How they suffered tragedy after tragedy until they were extinct? He caused those tragedies, as revenge for her death,” Raan said. “We will make sure he does not find peace too easily.”

  “But you will.” Gracefully Pia rose and embraced Liyana. She smelled like honey. “If you try, you will find peace and understanding here. All you must do is look for it.”

  “I don’t need to find peace,” Liyana said, pulling away. “I need to find Jarlath, and I need to find a way to take him back.”

  “If finding him will grant you peace, then you will find him,” Pia said serenely.

  “But you can’t take him back,” Raan said. “It is . . . too difficult to return to one’s body.” Liyana heard the pain in her voice. “Besides, his body must be dead by now. Don’t seek him for that reason. You’ll only break your heart.”

  “I healed Sendar,” Liyana said. “I can heal him.” She strode away across the sands. She didn’t want to hear any more about peace or the glorious wonders of the Dreaming. She wasn’t finished with the real world yet. “Jarlath!”

  Behind her, she heard Pia say, “Let her go. She will return soon enough.”

  “Jarlath, appear!” She felt tears on her cheeks, and she didn’t wipe them away. He must be here, she thought. He’d dreamed of the lake.

  She walked for miles. Above, the sun crossed the sky. Shadows blossomed over the sand dunes and then spread. The sand shifted in color from red to gold. She didn’t feel the heat or thirst or hunger.

  Liyana stopped. She took a deep breath. “You aren’t real,” she said to the desert. She thought of Korbyn. He’d raced Sendar across this desert, and he’d won by moving the finish line.

  Cresting a sand dune, a gray mare trotted toward her. She could have been a twin of Gray Luck. Her saddle and bridle were already in place. She slowed in front of Liyana and whickered in her hair. Liyana felt the horse’s hot breath on her ear and neck, and the tickle of the horse’s lips as Gray Luck’s twin nipped her shoulder. Liyana patted the horse’s neck, and then she swung herself into the saddle.

  It felt so familiar to ride across the sands, and yet at the same time so foreign to ride alone. Ahead she saw an oasis—it shimmered into view as if the wind had blown it into existence. She saw a collection of tents, familiar tents in the style of the Goat Clan. Liyana kneed Gray Luck’s twin into a trot, and then she reined in.

  “I want Jarlath,” she told the desert firmly. She would reunite with her clan in the real world. The oasis wavered as if it were a mirage, and then it vanished.

  In its place she saw a solitary figure sitting with his back toward her. She nudged Gray Luck’s twin into a canter. Reaching the figure, Liyana dismounted. As she moved to care for the mare, the horse vanished. She spun around, afraid that Jarlath would have disappeared too. But he remained, unmoving.

  He sat by a pool of water. The water was a perfect circle in the sand. Its surface reflected the sky. “Jarlath?” She pla
ced her hand on his shoulder. “Can you hear me?”

  He did not look up. “You’re dead. I had hoped you weren’t. Too many are.” Jarlath pointed to the water. Distorted, she saw the clans’ camp in its reflection.

  Bodies were strewn between the tents. Sky serpents attacked the living from above. She couldn’t hear the screams, but she could see the faces twisted in pain and fear. Children were plucked from the ground, and warriors lay beside their elders in pools of blood and dust. Soldiers plunged into the mountains only to die at the talons and teeth of more sky serpents. But worst of all, as the serpents continued their relentless attack, squadrons of soldiers and desert warriors fought one another.

  “What are they doing?” Liyana cried.

  “Some in my army blame the clans for the fact that I haven’t returned. . . . Perhaps my guards remember my order: If you kill me, they slaughter.” His voice was wooden. Dead. “Others seek to find me, further enraging the sky serpents.”

  “Come with me,” Liyana said. “We have to leave.”

  “You cannot leave death.”

  “Our souls have left before,” Liyana said. She put her hands on his shoulders, wanting to shake him into life again.

  A sad smile ghosted across his face. “Always so brave and so stubborn. I am not a fool, though. I know what happens when a soul leaves a body. I have no living body to return to.” Then his eyes lit up. “But you do! Bayla is in your body, keeping it alive. You could return!” He grasped his arms. “Yes! You must stop my people from fighting yours. . . .” The light faded from his eyes. “Until the sky serpents kill them all.”

  Both of them watched through the pool.

  “The gods must stop this,” Liyana said.

  He pointed at Maara. Sweat poured down her face. Deep in a trance, she deflected a sky serpent from above her. “Even they are not strong enough.”

  “All the gods must stop this.” Liyana rose to her feet as an idea shaped within her. She scanned the desert around her. “We need an amphitheatre with stone steps. Cascades of flowers. And the sound of birds.” Closing her eyes, she visualized it exactly as Bayla had once described it—the gathering place of the deities. She placed the steps in a semicircle around them. She chose every desert flower she’d ever seen plus some from the valley, and she pictured them spilling down the sides of the steps. She imagined the trill of birds.