by Claire Luana
Rika slammed her vision shut as sorrow overcame her, rushing like a wave. “The forest,” she gasped, looking at him. “Does it hurt?”
“Yes. And no,” he said, his gaze set on the devastation before them. “It is a phantom pain. I feel what has been lost, though I know it is no longer there.”
“It can grow back, right?”
“Yes. But I fear it will never be the same.” Vikal hurried down the hillside, and she understood that this was as much as he could say. Could admit to himself.
She fell into line behind Ajij—Cayono and the human soldiers bringing up the rear. Her thoughts turned to Yoshai, to Kitina. Were the fields of blue grass burned, people driven from their homes? Had the walls fallen, the people sucked into ash or enslaved, destined to kill their families while their trapped minds screamed at them to stop? Out here in the open, she almost imagined she could reach far enough to see, to pull at threads that led all the way to Kitina. But when she tried, she felt herself stretched too thin, too far from herself. Who knew how far the soul-eater’s astrolabe had brought them when delivering them to Nua. “I wish I could see,” she whispered to herself. “If I could just ask the black tortoise that guards the north star…or the clever fox. He must see it all. I wish I knew what was going on,”
“I know the clever fox,” Cygna chirped at her side. “It considers itself a trickster. Even if it sees, it might not speak the truth.”
Rika’s heart leaped. “You know the clever fox? The constellation. You know where to find it?”
“It lives far along the star-paths. A long flight from here. But the goddess of bright light and I have been on many journeys, some to the end of the cosmos.”
Rika let out a delighted laugh. Vikal turned back to look at her with a questioning eye, but she ignored him. Was it truly that simple? Had the solution been sitting on her shoulder all this time? “Cygna, can you visit the fox? And the land it watches over? The soul-eaters are attacking my home. It’s a city called Yoshai. Can you travel there and find out what’s happening?”
“Certainly. If this is what you wish.”
Rika seized Cygna from her shoulder and kissed its feathered head. “It is what I wish more than anything. Fly as swift as an eagle. My mother is the queen. Queen Kailani. Find out if…she still lives. If she still fights. And bring news back to me as fast as you can.”
Cygna shook itself, its feathers fluffing up until she held a fat little puff-ball in her hands. “This sparrow is swifter than the eagle. But yes. I will go.” And it took to the air, its shimmering light disappearing into the night sky, one more pinprick of light against the black, bearing her hopes with it.
They walked for hours under the light of the full moon, navigating their way down towards the sea. They eventually found their way onto a road, which made the travel significantly easier. It had the unwelcome side effect of taking them past abandoned homes, burnt-out shells that had once been thatched roofs, empty woven cages that had once held chickens. They passed a fire-ravaged temple—its once-proud three tiers leaning precariously, a breath away from collapse.
“Meru Karkita,” Ajij said, pausing to stare, glassy-eyed at what was left of the building. “This was once our most glorious temple.”
Little piles of ash littered the courtyard in front of the temple, scraps of clothing intermixed with the gray powder. Rika looked away, her stomach churning, the memory of gray cracks running through her father’s skin filling her mind.
“We saved as many as we could.”
“Why do they take some…?” Rika asked.
“And eat the others? We can only speculate. Those they think will be useful to the war effort, fighters or those with special knowledge…they keep. The rest…” Ajij trailed off.
Gods. What monsters.
“Will we stop soon?” Rika asked, hastily changing the subject. Her feet ached from walking in flat sandals and she felt weak from hunger.
“An hour or so. We will camp by the beach, lay low and try to avoid the attention of the leeches.”
Rika nodded, rallying her strength. Every step brought her one step closer to Kitina.
Rika woke to a flutter of soft feathers against her cheek. They had made camp by the beach about midnight, and Rika had dropped gratefully into a heavy slumber. She squinted, shielding her eyes from the brightness that hopped before her on the ground. “Cygna?”
“I did as you asked. I found the clever fox.”
Cygna’s words banished all traces of sleep. Rika shot up, pushing strands of hair from her face. “Tell me.”
“It showed me this Yoshai you spoke of. The soul-eaters lay siege to the city. They surround it like flies on a carcass. Much of the city is overrun.”
Rika’s hand flew to her mouth. It was no less than she had expected, but still, to hear how bad things were… “What of my family? Queen Kailani?”
“I could not tell one person from another. But there is a walled structure that has not been taken.”
“The palace?”
“Perhaps. There are many soul-eaters and thralls surrounding it. It is vulnerable.”
Rika could see it in her mind’s eye—the sandstone walls of the palace swarming with black-clad thralls with the glowing green eyes of the soul-eaters. If her mother were still alive, she must be despairing. And what of the people in the rest of the city? Rika shut her eyes, willing the images to leave her. They were too horrible to contemplate. “What of the constellations? The fox? The black tortoise? Can they not help?”
“The stars do not concern themselves with the rise and fall of men. Unless they have a goddess to demand it of them.”
A goddess. Her. She needed to be in Yoshai, not here. She didn’t know how to command constellations a world away. It already might be too late. She couldn’t wait any longer. Rika looked around, resolve growing in her. The sounds of measured breathing and soft snores marked the rest of the party, who were stretched out on the ground, arms thrown over eyes to shield them against the morning light. Vikal and Bahti sat by a fire, talking in low tones, spinning some sort of small creature on a spit.
She stood and made her way over to the fire and settled into a cross-legged position. She wanted to shout at them, to flail her arms about the plight of Kitina, but she tried to remain calm.
“Couldn’t sleep?” Vikal asked.
“I asked Cygna to travel to Kitina to see what has become of my family. Our city.”
“It can do that?” Vikal interrupted.
“It can. And it did. The soul-eaters have breached the walls of Yoshai. The remaining survivors are barricaded inside the palace. My family’s probably in there. They can’t hold on much longer.”
Vikal paled, his thick eyebrows furrowing. Bahti avoided her gaze, writing words she didn’t recognize in the soft sand with a stick.
“I am very sorry to hear that,” Vikal said.
Rika bit her lip, trying to quell her panic. “I need to leave now. We need to find a ship with an astrolabe. They can’t hold on much longer! What if the soul-eaters break through? I’ll get there too late.”
“You swore you would help us,” Bahti growled, looking up. His red eyes glowed bright as the fire.
“That was before I knew helping you would result in the deaths of everyone I know!”
Vikal held up his hands to calm her, shooting a look at Bahti. “We do not know that. And you cannot return without your totem. You forget, I have been to your land, and I was near powerless without my staff. Your Nuan powers will not be strong enough to make a difference without your totem.”
“Then let’s go. Now. I can’t wait any longer.”
“We are not going to go off half-cocked just because your mother is in trouble,” Bahti said, and Rika lunged at him, fingers curling into claws. She was done. Done with his abuse, done with playing the meek girl.
Vikal caught her around the waist, heaving her back towards his side of the fire.
“Scary,” Bahti said, and Rika lunged again, trying t
o slip through Vikal’s grip.
“Bahti, enough,” Vikal snapped. “Imagine how you would feel if Kemala and Tamar were about to be killed by those things. Have a little empathy. And Rika, calm down. We have a better chance at slipping in under cover of darkness. You know we are not powerful enough to go up against the leeches and their guards man to man. We need the element of surprise. It will not help your family if you get yourself killed.”
“Argh,” she cried, collapsing back onto the ground. “Let me go,” she said, and Vikal released her, holding his hands up as if she had burned him.
“Fine,” she said. “But the second I get my totem and end the soul-eaters here, we’re gone. Promise?”
“I promise,” Vikal said. “Now, I need you two to make peace. We are going into battle together; I need you on the same side.”
“I’ve never been the problem.” Rika crossed her arms. “I didn’t ask for this, you know.”
“Hush.” Kemala appeared, hands in the air.
Vikal stood, suddenly alert. “What are you looking for?”
“Two of Cayono’s soldiers are missing,” Kemala said. “They were here when I went to sleep, but now they are gone.”
“Have they gone to scout? Forage?” Vikal asked.
Cayono joined them around the fire, shaking his head. “I gave orders for nobody to venture off alone.”
“Kemala, see if you can find them.”
Kemala stilled, peering into the skeletal graveyard of trees. Was it Rika’s imagination, or was that a branch snapping? She narrowed her eyes, trying to see through the mass of blackened limbs.
“Someone is coming,” Vikal whispered.
Kemala hissed. “Thralls in the woods. Everyone to me. I will try to confuse them.”
In an instant, the party gathered around Kemala. Cayono’s men had scrambled to their feet at Cayono’s urgent call and now stood looking into the forest through sleep-bleary eyes. A line of ten black-clad men emerged from the edge of the trees. From behind them, like a creature from a nightmare, stepped a soul-eater.
Rika’s lip curled at the sight of the black chitinous armor and deep shadowy pit where the creature’s face should have been. She hadn’t seen a soul-eater since the ill-fated battle her first day on Nua. The sight of it set her blood singing with thoughts of vengeance. Finally. No more waiting. She could do something.
The line of soldiers faltered, seeming to balk at coming any closer. Perhaps Kemala was filling their mind with horrors that even the bravest man dare not face. The soul-eater hissed in its low tones, screeching at them, no doubt to move forward. Vikal winced, seeming to steel himself against the sound. He slowly unsheathed his two swords, tightening his grip around their hilts.
“Anytime, bright light,” Bahti grunted, his hammer at the ready above his shoulder.
Rika opened her third eye. The threads were harder to see during the daytime, the rays of the sun turning them translucent. But she could feel them and their sure strength, and she tugged at one now, inviting the star to join her, to lend her its light.
It came to her, barreling towards them like a comet. Rika lifted her hand, trying to direct its path, steady it, guide it towards its target. The leech didn’t see what was coming until it was too late. The pearlescent starlight barreled into its chest, tossing it off its feet like a leaf in the wind. The light burrowed into the creature’s chest through the seams of its armors, sending it into convulsions. Its screams of agony were mirrored by the soldiers, who grasped their heads and fell to their knees, crying out against the pain of the cleansing magic.
Finish it! Rika thought with a bloodthirsty impulse, and the light flashed, breaking the soul-eater into a hundred pieces. Rika held up her hand to the glare. In the after-glow of the explosion, she saw that three of the soldiers’ eyes still grew green. “Those three! Subdue them!”
The men turned and ran into the forest, compelled by some master other than the soul-eater she had just killed. Cayono and the human soldiers dashed after them, returning quickly with the howling men—still thrashing in the power of the leeches’ thrall. Rika strode forward, power of the star filling her with its nearness.
The group stood, chests heaving at their near-miss. Rika turned to the others and saw Bahti, red threads streaming from him into the Earth, looking at her with a newfound respect in his two open eyes. “These ones must have been turned by another leech,” Bahti growled.
“What do we do with them?” Ajij asked. “Tie them up?”
As Rika looked at the men struggling against their captors, her third eye revealed something she hadn’t noticed before. A tether running from these men into the depth of the woods—faint, but very real. She stepped forward, examining it. It glowed the evil green of the soul-eaters’ power, throbbing and vibrating with unnatural movement.
Kemala stepped up beside her. “You see the thread of their compulsion, tying them to their masters,” she said. “I have tried but have never been able to affect it.”
“Do you think…maybe I could do something? It could backfire, though,” Rika said.
“Try it,” Bahti said. “They are dead to us anyway as they are.”
Rika looked to Vikal with a questioning gaze, unsure if he would be so cavalier about the men’s lives. He gave a resigned nod.
She called to the star that had attacked the soul-eater, for it still hovered, waiting for instructions. She gestured at it with her fingers, willing the star to slice through the connection, severing it as it had destroyed the soul-eater. And it did. The man convulsed before her, but then fell still, the green light slowly draining from his eyes. “Dewa,” he sobbed when the fog of compulsion had fully burned away. “Thank you.”
Rika quickly willed the star to sever the other two men’s’ tethers. When it was done she thanked it for its assistance and released it back into the sky. When she closed her third eye, the world was quiet and still. Almost disappointingly normal.
INTERLUDE
“HOW LONG CAN the gates to the inner city hold?” Kai asked, squinting at the task at hand.
“Maybe twenty-four hours,” Emi said quietly, though her tone said otherwise.
“Hand me those scissors?” Kai asked, pulling the needle through the man’s flesh, the last in a series of neat stitches. Quitsu sat at her side, his black nose twitching.
Emi complied, and Kai tied off her thread, unrolling a patch of gauze to cover the wound. She tried to ignore the cries and groans of those in the hospital ward still waiting for care. So many. Too many. The room was bursting at the seams, the bedsides of patients crowded with family members. Normally, she’d shoo them away, but they had nowhere to go. The inner city was overwhelmed with the citizens they’d managed to evacuate from the lower city before the walls had fallen. So many, but still not enough. So many left behind. Twenty-four hours. Twenty-four hours until all these people were sucked dry by the soul-eaters.
Emi watched silently while Kai finished dressing the man’s wound. Kai stood and stretched, her knees popping. She nodded to Emi and they walked silently through the throngs of people to the washbasin, where Kai rinsed the blood from her hands.
“There has to be a way to get these people out of here,” Kai said, her voice low.
“They’re surrounding the inner city. The time for evacuation has passed.”
Kai hissed, wiping her hair from her eyes with her forearm. “You’ve sent burners to the seishen elder to ask for any aid it can give us? To the gods?”
“Yes. I already told you. They left yesterday.”
“Of course.” Kai closed her eyes for a moment. “I forgot.”
“Kai, you need to rest. You’re no good to us if you collapse of exhaustion.”
“Thank you,” Quitsu said. “I’ve been trying to tell her for days. You know when I’m feeling tired, things have gone far enough.”
Kai looked at Quitsu crossly. He did look ragged, his silver fur gray and dull. “I have a few more injured to see,” she said. “Then I’ll res
t for a few hours. I promise.”
Emi crossed her arms, arching an eyebrow. “I’ve heard that before.”
Kai huffed. “That was before they blasted through the sea gate, and hundreds were crushed in the panic. I can’t very well tell my city I’m headed to bed when they’re dying around me.”
“No one doubts your dedication. But the people need to see you strong. Sure. If we’re going to hold these walls, we need every man and woman filled to the brim with bravery and patriotism.”
Exhaustion surged through Kai, and she put a hand on the wall to steady herself. “Hold these walls for what?” she whispered to Emi. The words that had been dancing in the back of her mind, refusing to be banished. Words that she hardly would allow herself to think.
“Reinforcements. If the seishen elder, or the gods can send someone to help…”
“You and I both know there will be no reinforcements. Even if they send aid, how could it be enough? I look over these walls and I see an endless sea of black. They just keep coming. Even the light of the lunar and solar crowns wasn’t enough to kill one of them.” Kai pushed from her mind that foolhardy experiment. They had hoped that the light from a moon and sunburner together would be enough to kill one of the creatures. Instead it had killed one of Daarco’s best burners. The creatures’ armor seemed impenetrable, even to the most powerful burning.
Emi took Kai’s hand in hers and gripped it. “The prophecy said that Rika’s powers would fight the great shadow. Even if it seems impossible, we have to have hope.”
“I’m losing hope,” Kai said, tears glistening in her eyes. She was so tired. How many days had it been since she had slept? Four? Five? How many days had this siege been continuing? It seemed like it was all she had ever known.
“There’s always hope,” Emi said fiercely.
“Maybe if Hiro were still here…and Rika…” Gods, she missed her husband. If he were here, he would have taken some of this burden. She didn’t realize how heavy it felt until she bore it alone. And Rika…she couldn’t process that her daughter was gone. She couldn’t face it. Wouldn’t face it. It didn’t feel real.
