Gannet had seen his death, then, too. I grimaced.
“I have to.”
“I know. I will go with you.”
“Even knowing why I go?”
He nodded. Rather than questioning him further, rather than conjuring an argument, I relaxed against him again. There was so much still to say, but it could wait for a breath or two. We didn’t even need words, and my grief for what I had done, my gratitude for being offered a way forward against the imposter and my resolve to take it, all of it passed into him through the places that we touched.
It went both ways. Gannet’s hands tightened where they’d come to rest on my hips. With that pressure came an urgent flood of memories.
We were in Jhosch, in the opera house. Gannet had dodged a heretic’s dagger as he turned toward the fire, not away, as everyone else had done. Knives of flame glanced away from him as he cleared a path through the fire and the fleeing, the flailing, the dying. He carved the air out of the chamber where his sister had fallen, suffocating the flame, but it was not soon enough to stop the tongues of fire from licking her cheek, her scalp.
This was not the greatest horror he offered me, though. Through Gannet’s eyes, I saw the black fury that was Theba, the wicked contortion of my face as I blasted down all who fled before me. Only when the fires had been extinguished was I the woman he knew, trembling from head to foot, ashen eyes empty as they considered the carnage before them.
I was shaking now, as I had then, and even Gannet’s arms girded tight around me could not still me. He tilted my chin to look at my face, giving me no choice but to look into his. His eyes behind the mask were as warm as the fingers that cupped my chin, the blank chill I’d once believed to be their only expression now absent. Gannet’s eyes held the warmth of secrets shared in the dark, the whispered heat of spent lovers in stories, their heads upon the same pillow.
“Is Morainn alive?” He hadn’t shown me, and I had to know.
“She was when I left. She is safe but—sleeping.”
Tears burned trails down my cheeks so hot that I wondered they didn’t boil off. She hadn’t awakened then. Would she ever wake?
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to. I would never have hurt her if I…if I had been myself.”
Gannet didn’t cradle me, didn’t coddle me, but he held me firmly before him and commanded my eyes.
“Eiren.” His voice was flat as a stone baked in the sun. “You cannot change what you are any more than I can.”
“You don’t even know what you are.”
“I know that I am devoted to you, every finger, every breath, every bone.”
I sucked in a shaky breath, searching his face.
“How can you say that? After everything I’ve done?”
“You’re not the only one who’s allowed to forgive.” His eyes cooled at my words, and he was again the icon I knew, disguising the fury of feelings from the man within. But he was irritated, and this familiar ground put me at my ease, at last.
“Fair enough,” I murmured. His declaration was something a woman in a story might have swooned for. I felt myself in danger of it with his hands on me still, his breath near enough to tease the loose hairs from behind my ears. “What do we do now?”
Gannet’s breath was audibly relieved. I felt the walls going back up around his mind, but I sensed now how necessary they were for him to get by, and how a word from me would bring them down again, if I wished it. He secured my cloak around my shoulders before stepping away under the pretense of rummaging in his pack.
“Now? Food, a fire. And then Zhaeha.”
Chapter Seven
While we ate, Gannet told me what he knew of the imposter and the state of Ambar. He had no more of an idea who she was than Adah did, though he suspected it was one of the other icons, perhaps Najat.
“The Dreamer?” I snorted before I could stop myself, feeling Theba turn over in the core of my being, sending acid creeping up my throat. I clenched my fists before continuing more evenly. “That seems unlikely.”
“Whoever she is, she has some power. Maybe it’s only persuasion. Maybe not.”
“Adah knew I wouldn’t be able to resist going after her,” I said, chewing thoughtfully. Gannet scooped another handful of snow into the vessel near the fire to purify it before filling the water bladder he carried.
“Anybody who has met you could guess as much.” Gannet wasn’t looking at me, but I heard the smirk on his lips. I smiled in response despite myself. I had missed this. Missed him.
“Do you know the way into Zhaeha?” I asked, determined to follow his lead and remain focused on the task ahead.
Gannet shook his head. “I didn’t even think it was possible to go there on purpose. There are many reasons we avoid the mountain, and these woods—they’re kin to the Rogue’s Ear. Old places, with rules of their own.”
I nodded, remembering how the paths we had taken through the Rogue’s Ear had been different for each of us, how we had all been tried by that place.
“But you’ve been there by accident?” I asked.
“I don’t know. When I was tested, I appeared to stand on a hooked peak, with no way of knowing how I’d gotten there and no path to climb down.”
“What did you do?” He’d spoken to me once before about his test, the hands within the hands when we were in the prayer garden at Rhale’s estate, but this was new.
Meeting my eyes, Gannet’s mouth was thin as a blade’s edge. “I jumped.”
I gulped the last of my tea. “I was on a cliff side, too, but there was a cavern, with a pool. My—my mother was there.”
Gannet’s brow quirked, and I continued hurriedly, wanted to lay out my whole mad plan before I could second guess myself.
“I think, if Zhaeha is like the Rogue’s Ear, and if my mother can travel there, why shouldn’t we be able to travel to where she is? To warn her and my family about the imposter’s army, to flee into the deep desert?”
“As you did when you were a child.”
“Yes.”
“And you’ll let the imposter have what she seeks in Re’Kether?”
“If I’m not there, she won’t be able to use it.”
“Eiren, we don’t even know what it is. What if we can use it to stop this?” Gannet’s expression was guarded, near unreadable with the mask.
“What good can come of freeing Theba?” I asked, heart pounding with sudden fever. “I’ll probably be dead, anyway. I can’t see any other way for her to live again as a god without getting rid of the icon first.”
I knew that he wanted to touch me, to settle or soothe me somehow. But I knew, too, that such impulses were still new enough for him that he wouldn’t try for fearing he’d fail.
“You said yourself that you couldn’t resist going after her. I know you,” he said, tone gaining strength with every syllable. “You won’t run from this. So, meet her on your own terms. Find what she seeks first.”
Even as he spoke of the imposter, I heard in his voice that he meant Theba, too. I had fled from her power for so long and had seized it to such disastrous effect in Jhosch. Perhaps there was another way.
“Well, we have to get there first,” I said, dodging the command. My heart was plain enough to him anyhow. I looked up, the morning’s wreath of snowy fog having dissipated enough for me to see the mountain’s craggy slope. I didn’t remember ever having been this close, but I knew that in my madness, I had skirted the mountain. “I was planning to find my way blind before you arrived. It’s as poor of an approach for two as it was for one.”
Gannet made no comment but rinsed his cup with a bit of water before stowing it in his bag and rising to his feet. His trim figure, in dark pants, tunic, and familiar cloak, told me that he was ready. To follow, to lead, to partner in whatever awaited us. I shook out my skirt as I rose, hoisting my pack.
“If we go to Re’Kether, what will we find?” I asked, committed to the course even if I couldn’t admit it. The last time he and I had been in
the ruin, something had attacked me, and I, in turn, had nearly struck him down with lightning.
Gannet walked ahead, seeing some path I didn’t through the unbroken soil.
“Nothing good,” he answered, tone carefully absent of any feelings he might have on the prospect. “You’re stronger now, which could mean you’ll be safer. Or not.”
“That’s comforting.”
“You won’t be alone this time.”
I noted the broad arch of his shoulders, the fair hair that brushed the collar of his cloak like snow on shadow. A hand reached to break a delicate branch from one of the trees, and he left the broken limb hanging where it twisted away. He saw me watching over his shoulder, and inclined his head toward the branch.
“If the wood turns us around, we’ll know we’ve been here before.”
“And you think if the forest has the power to lead us astray, it can’t also mend a branch?”
His expression soured, and he stopped walking.
“Do you have a better idea?”
“Yes,” I said, striding ahead of him with an unapologetic smirk. “Don’t get lost.”
He disguised his amusement from me, but only just, and allowed me to maintain the lead. It felt better, being just behind the strange compulsion that drew me to Zhaeha, without compulsion of another kind embodied in Gannet standing in the way. We had enough to occupy us that acknowledging the understanding between us wasn’t immediately necessary, but it would soon be. And I would have to confront my hesitation for what it was: fear. Fear of getting close and committing some unthinkable deed that would drive us apart, fear that if he had me, he wouldn’t want me anymore, fear that no matter how real the things we felt for each other, they would never be all that was between us. Theba was with me, every instant. Controlled at times, wild at others, but she was still there. I didn’t want to think about what she might do with me.
And I didn’t want to share him with her.
I felt a shudder pass down my spine, a charge from crown to toes, and I was grateful that Gannet couldn’t read my mind as easily as he once had. I was grateful for the companionable silence that again settled between us, though when we began to climb a few hours later, I wanted anything to distract me from the nearing certainty of what we dared to do.
“Adah said there are rumors of Zhaeha, morbid curiosities that he encourages to maintain his sanctuary. Could you tell me what they are?” I asked after a time, not wanting to be left alone with my thoughts any longer. I remembered again what Gannet had said about the witch, that she heralded death.
“You want me to tell you a story, Eiren?” Gannet’s tone was light. It was as close to teasing as I had ever heard from him.
“Yes, I do,” I huffed, blaming the exertion of soil giving way to rock and the increasing pitch of the path we took, rather than irritation.
“I can tell you what was told to me, when I was a young icon studying with Adah. But I can’t promise you drama.”
“My stories are not theatrical,” I insisted, but already I could feel Gannet building a narrative behind me, and I held my tongue for fear of dissuading him.
“Many generations ago, there were some who made Adah’s sanctuary a place of pilgrimage. Those who dared the crossing only did so during the longest days of the year. The night beyond Zhaeha could not be trusted. Some heard voices. Others woke to find their belongings moved or stolen. Sometimes pilgrims would be lost. Most times they weren’t found.
“So the pilgrims began to carry torches soaked in slow-burning oil, and to fast from sleep. But that was worse. They could see that they were not alone in the darkness. Their shadows turned on them. Some even said they traded places with their shadows, and the penitents who returned to their villages were shades, instead.”
My lips quirked. “I thought you said there wouldn’t be any drama.”
“I didn’t say I believed it,” Gannet huffed. He seemed to be waiting for me stop smiling so he could continue, but when I didn’t, he forged on instead, looking away from me, his own lips failing to maintain their usual flat countenance.
“Soon enough, the pilgrims who managed to reach the sanctuary with their wits intact were unwilling to leave. Adah, charged with the protection of young icons and the preservation of our history, could not allow them to stay. There was no work for them, no livelihood, and he found their mortal squabbles distracting.
“So Adah himself went into the wood, armed with one of the pilgrim’s torches. He was gone for three days and three nights, and when he returned, the torch was nothing more than a limb of twisted wood in his palm, still smoldering but leaving no mark of fire upon his skin.
“‘There is another world in the wood,’ he told them. ‘The world as it was, revealed only by moonlight. Living things that do not serve me cannot walk here in safety.’
“The pilgrims all insisted that it was Adah they served, above Tirce, who shaped their lands, above Dsimah, who showed them the way of plenty, above Theba, who reminded them to cherish what they had lest she take it away. Adah looked on each of the pilgrims and found only one who truly served. He charged this pilgrim with guiding the others and returning to Adah when his task was complete. He passed the stump of torch to the pilgrim and it did not burn him, for that pilgrim alone could accept Adah’s blessing.
“The shadows did not trouble them anymore, though few risked the crossing after. Fewer still returned to tell about it. Those who did committed their lives in the service of the icon of Adah, carrying the torch of justice in their hearts.”
It had all the makings of a good story and was surely the sort of tale that would appeal to the Ambarian imagination: unwavering adherence to the words of icons and gods.
“I don’t recall Adah being impervious to fire,” I said, toying with a petty detail.
“And I’ve not encountered a single shadow that wasn’t the one I walked in with,” Gannet countered. “It’s just a story, Eiren. There are others equally as likely to fall apart under scrutiny, if you’re interested.”
“No.”
He couldn’t have known how this story would sit with me, and I wasn’t angry with him. Not really.
“Antares served Adah, too,” I whispered, eyes traveling up the perilous slope, sure there wasn’t a living creature that could scale it. “Though he said it was me he really served, because Adah, along with everyone, has waited so long for Theba to return.”
Gannet didn’t put a hand on me, but I felt the weight of his thoughts as surely as if he had.
“I don’t need to tell you that what happened to him was not your fault, Eiren. He chose to walk that road with you.”
“Just like you?”
I met his eyes now, gleaming in the twilight, surrounded by the shadow of the mask. I held my breath.
“Not like me,” he answered, taking two steps forward and pulling me toward him. The scrabble of my boots on loose stone was lost in the rush of blood to my ears when he pressed his mouth to mine, when the force that parted my lips threatened to unfold me utterly. The kiss deepened for an instant before I found myself dragging a breath against his cheek, his words brushing against mine. “You left me behind. But I won’t watch you walk away again. I can’t.”
My hands clutched his shirt, felt the steady thump of his heart. I felt as if I were being pricked by a tattooist’s needle, bound to a peg like strings on an instrument. Stay, stay, stay, his heart seemed to say. And how I wanted to.
I might have answered what he didn’t even know he was asking, but I wasn’t given the chance. There was a laugh, high and rattling from stone to stone, and with it came an avalanche.
Chapter Eight
Nothing could have prepared me for the shock of the cold as my arms pinwheeled in a mad rhythm, guided by instinct. My spine turned to ice and seemed to shatter, my eyes were little more than frozen orbs spinning madly in white-blind sockets. It sounded like the sea in Cascar, a merciless rage that tumbled me over and over and then pinned me as surely as if I were tr
apped between two stones. I tried to open my mouth to scream or breathe or both but found that I couldn’t. And it wasn’t the snow that held it closed, but Theba.
Still. Be still.
Even my heart seemed to slow, the frightened hammering softening to the lightest tap against my breast. I wanted to fight her, to fight the mountain, but there was a thread of sense left in me, and I wound my thoughts about it like I might my finger around a string. If I struggled, I would die. I would waste what precious little breath was left in my lungs and what could be drawn from the spaces in the compacted snow around me. I had to wait and hope that Gannet had not been buried, that he could free me.
And if he had?
The snow around me was an airless tomb. I could not wait. I did not have that luxury.
Move. Move now.
I felt Theba loosen her hold on me. I could not take a deep breath but I dared a shallow one, the flutter of snowflakes against my lips a brush with death. I remembered carving the stone in the Rogue’s Ear, demanding passage where there was none. I did the same now, feeling the shift of my weight as my feet gained purchase and moved before losing it again, my hands clawed and scraped at the snow as though I would pull the whole sky down to be free. My head and neck emerged first, twisting in a moment of panic and the strange shock of even colder air on my frozen cheeks. And then I had vaulted above the snow, casting blindly from side to side, recognizing nothing, seeing no one. It was nearly dark now, without the benefit of sun or stars to illuminate the featureless snow.
“Gannet!”
My scream was raw, my lungs still starved for air, but his name escaped my lips a second time, a third, before being caught by some echoing rock and thrown back at me. If he was under the snow, he could not answer me, probably couldn’t even hear me. I would not find him in time this way.
I dropped to my knees, closed my eyes, reached for his heat, for the familiar comfort of his calculating thoughts. At first, nothing, but then the whisper of fear, the outrageous doubt that this could be the end, after everything.
The Dread Goddess--Book of Icons--Volume Two Page 7
