Sacmis chose that moment to walk back in, through a narrow door at the back. “Looking for me?”
He grunted. Tried to free his wrist again. “Let go.”
“How is Kalaes?” Sacmis came to stand behind Hera’s seat.
“Not good.” He finally managed to jerk himself free of Hera’s hold. “What’s wrong with you, dammit?”
“You were right.” Hera shrank back in her chair, her voice barely audible. “Sobek’s ugly face, you were right.”
“About what?” he snapped, unable to shake free of the bone-deep fear that Kalaes wouldn’t wake up. He couldn’t quite grasp the thought, the possibility, the reality of it. He couldn’t let this happen. Not after everything. Please gods, not when he’d started hoping again.
“About this...wall.” Hera jabbed a finger at the swath of lit water outside, the occasional fish darting by, the endless curve of the island. “About this not being natural.”
His head swam and he leaned back, closing his eyes. “So what are you saying? The foundations of Ert...”
“The Islands are man-made,” Sacmis said.
Elei looked up at her, his thoughts a whirlwind. The mountains and the marshes and the fields... “Are you talking, what, the whole world?”
“Just look at this.” Sacmis gestured at the endless wall, the foot of the island. “The symmetry of the islands. The document was right.”
“It can’t be true,” Elei muttered. Underwater colonies. A man-made world. He shoved his fingers through his hair, then reached up to straighten the course before they crashed into the wall.
But Hera didn’t seem to notice, or to hear him at all. She rose, all coiled energy and fury. “What document?” She took a deliberate step toward Sacmis. “What else have you not told us?”
Color rose to Sacmis’ cheeks. “I only had a look at the document to see if I could translate it with the help of that bilingual inscription.”
“You are not, by any chance, talking about the document we found in Hecate’s box?” Hera’s body radiated heat, and her scent wafted thick and viscous, clogging Elei’s nostrils. “You did not take it from my pocket and read it without telling me?”
Silence hung like a noose between them.
“How did you read it?” Elei wanted to know. “I thought it was in a language none of us knew.”
“The inscription mentioned Egypt and Greece. I guessed it might be a clue.” Sacmis’ gaze was fixed on Hera. “I tried the Egyptian I knew, it did not work. But Greek did.”
“You speak Greek?” Elei rubbed his eyes. “Wait, Greece was a real place?”
“Greek and Egyptian are obligatory temple teaching. As for your other question...” Sacmis shrugged. “Now everything seems possible.”
“What does the document say?” Hera sounded dangerously calm.
“What you and I suspected. That there is land out there, beyond the Seven Islands.” She threw Elei a sideways glance, but really, what effect could one more bombshell have? “That a tremendous volcanic explosion took out the ozone layer of the atmosphere. These colonies were built to protect us until the ozone was regenerated and we could return to the surface.”
Colonies. Plural. A volcanic explosion. Elei’s fingers clenched around the steering lever.
“Sobek’s balls, Sacmis.” Hera slid into her chair and smoothed her hands over the armrests. “I want to trust you, but you have to stop withholding information from me.”
“I’m sorry,” Sacmis muttered. “I was going to, but so much was happening.”
Others had built the islands - people from beyond the sea, from land. Real land. They obviously had the technology for something like this, and they’d constructed hives, for all the gods’ sakes, where mortals slept in glass coffins, waiting... Waiting to rise from the sea. It’d explain the wall, the tunnels, the elevators, the symmetry and the gods knew what else. Kalaes would laugh to tears when he told him.
Kalaes... Pissing hells. Elei closed his eyes, took a deep breath. “Let’s talk about palantin.”
“I told you,” Hera muttered, still angry. “Palantin is deadly.”
“And I’ve been thinking.” Elei opened his eyes, sudden clarity unscrambling his thoughts. “About the marks, the fever, the vomiting.”
“What about them?”
“They reminded me of something and I just remembered what.” His hands fisted. “Telmion.”
The silence that followed was so thick you could slice through it.
“What do you want me to say?” Hera asked eventually, fiddling with the controls of the vehicle. “That I knew?”
“Did you?”
She nodded, not meeting his gaze.
“You knew.” Elei couldn’t pissing believe it. “I asked you what it was, and you knew it was similar to telmion.” Something burned in his chest, choking him. He rose, took a step toward her. He wanted to hit her. “You knew how to cure it and never said a word.”
“Cure it?” Hera didn’t even flinch. “You cannot cure it.”
“Rex.” He bit the word out. “It can control palantin, like it controls telmion.”
“Listen,” Hera said. “Because you survived cronion and telmion, and then Rex, that doesn’t mean everyone can. It also doesn’t mean every fungal infection will withstand Rex. Do you know Gultur have died after getting infected with it, and others are still at the hospital, barely hanging on? Never mind that Regina is so strong. The strongest of them all.” She shook her head. “You also need to know if the timing is correct — if palantin has spread enough, reached a stage when it’s stable and could fight off Rex... Otherwise it could be deadly.”
“So I should just let him die?”
She grunted. “I might be kinder. He’ll die more painfully if you infect him with Rex.”
“Or he’ll get a chance to live.”
“It sounds like you have made up your mind,” she said calmly. “He’ll be sick, even if it works, until the parasites reach a balance inside him. And we’ll still be running while figuring out what to do next, how to save the world.”
“Let me explain something to you.” Elei forced his voice to be level, his trembling fists to stay at his sides. “Right now I couldn’t care less about the world. I made a promise to Kalaes that I’ll take him home. And my first promise is to Kalaes, always. First I save him. Then the world.” He swallowed. “And I need your help with this.”
She shook her head. Her gaze was half angry, half sad. “I understand.” Her eyes glittered. “I’ll do all I can to help you.”
***
Kalaes slumped in his seat, head propped on the backrest, mouth slack. His breathing was shallow and irregular. Shivers went through his body but otherwise he looked calm, undisturbed by real life. Already gone.
Elei knelt by his side, stomach churning. What if Hera was right? What if it was a kindness to let him go? The gods knew he’d been through enough pain already. Sacrificed enough. Lost everything and more.
It was selfish, then, this need to have Kalaes by him, but he did need him. Wasn’t sure he could go on without him. Besides, wouldn’t Kalaes want him to try? Wouldn’t he want to put up a fight?
Kalaes would’ve tried everything to keep him alive, he was sure of that. Kalaes had always placed him above the world, above anything else. Because family was like that, he knew it now.
And if he hates you for it later? the little voice at the back of his mind whispered.
He’d take the chance. Nothing was worth fighting for if he couldn’t go home when it was over. And Kalaes was home.
“Alendra and Sacmis are driving.” Hera dropped the medic kit to the floor and knelt to open it. She hesitated. “You do realize that I have never done anything like this before. Nor did I think I would.”
He nodded. Neither had he. Especially not to Kalaes.
“We have no doctor with us, no serum, no...” Her fingers tightened around the handle of the kit until her fingertips turned white. “We do not know that palantin will react th
e same way to Rex as telmion. Or that Kalaes is strong enough to survive it.”
Elei didn’t say anything. There was nothing to say. On top of that, her scent so close was driving Rex crazy, and the room dissolved into pulsing colors. Way to go, Rex. Perfect timing as always.
“I need you to help me.” He turned his face away, trying not to breathe through his nose. “Get him to swallow the blood so that he doesn’t...” He shuddered. “Doesn’t choke on it.”
“All right.”
She handed him something and he looked down, his fingers curling automatically around it. A cutter, meant to slice gauze for bandages and thread for stitching up wounds. Polished steel, sharp and shiny. He ran the flat of the blade along the back of his hand, shivering at the cold smoothness.
“Where should I cut?” he whispered. He glanced up at her then, suddenly feeling lost. “My wrist?”
“No.” She grabbed his arm. “Not the wrist. Do you have a death wish?” She turned his hand over. “The palm is a good place. No arteries or big veins. Just slice a line, and not too deep.”
“And...” He swallowed hard. “And then?”
“Then,” she brandished a tiny container, “I collect the blood in here, and we give it to Kalaes.”
“That’s all?”
“What else did you expect?”
Right. “How much blood?”
She shrugged. “I’d say just a little, but I cannot be sure. Understand, Elei, this is not even the same Rex that you infected the Gultur with. It has evolved, grown stronger.” She cast a look at Kalaes, her jaw set. “I told you, I cannot promise this will succeed.”
“I know.” He bowed his head. “I wasn’t asking you to.” He gripped the cutter, and pressed the tip into his palm, drawing a line. The edge was so sharp he barely felt it — just a tickle. Blood welled, bright red, and he cupped his hand to contain it. It felt unreal, kneeling in this strange vehicle, gliding in the depths of the sea, watching his blood flow.
Watching Kalaes die.
No. Elei wouldn’t let him.
Hera tipped his hand and the blood trickled into the small container. He could only watch as it filled, slowly, steadily.
“All right,” she said. “Now press this in your hand.” She put a rolled-up piece of gauze on his palm, and his fingers curled around it. He could feel the pain now; a throb traveling up his arm.
He reached out for the blood-filled lid. “I’ll do it.”
Hera hesitated, then relinquished the lid and sat back. “Wait.” She reached around, grabbed a bottle, shook it. “There is some water left. We should mix it with the blood. It will make it easier to swallow.”
Elei waited, nerves grating like broken glass, his pulse thumping in the cut in his palm, while Hera dribbled water into the blood and mixed it with her finger. She wiped it on her leg and nodded.
Ready to go.
The sense of unreality increased as he leaned over, dribbling his blood between Kalaes’ slack lips while Hera massaged the throat to force him to swallow. It was as if it wasn’t his hand holding the tiny cup while the other clutched at the bloodied gauze, not his knees scraping on the hard floor, not his heart thumping in his ears so loudly.
Out there was the deep ocean, the roots of the islands, a world that was apparently not, as he’d always believed, created by the hand of the gods, not pushed out of the seabed rock and coached to grow like seeds and bloom into the seven islands, cared for and molded by divinity, barely scratched by the actions of mortals. No, a man-made world. Constructed, put together, built and shaped — when? So long ago nobody remembered. New possibilities. Worlds beyond. More people. Wonders. Monsters. More.
But his world had shrunk to the small room, to the blood dripping from the corner of Kalaes’ mouth.
“Elei.” Fingers tugging at the nepheline lid, trying to pry it loose. “It’s finished. It’s done.”
Only it wasn’t. Not yet. Not until something more happened, something to prove him wrong or right, with Kalaes’ life as the prize or the stone to hang around his neck.
But he let Hera take it, let her cover Kalaes with a hoodie, press the wet compress back to Kalaes’ brow. He knelt, feeling blank and empty, wrung out like a rag.
If Kalaes died... If he died... Elei’s vision blurred. Too exhausted, too tired of everything, hanging onto a bright thread of hope in the dark, and it kept loosening under his fingers.
Hera’s hand fell on his shoulder and he didn’t even flinch. Rex was quiet in his head, calm, purring. You infected another, Elei thought distantly, a flare of anger in his chest. Are you satisfied?
“Get up,” Hera said. “I’ll send Alendra to watch him. We’re the ones with the most experience in driving.”
“Damn you.” He pushed off her hand. “Let me be. I can’t...”
“Yes, you can.” She pulled him up as he struggled against her hold. “You cannot just lie here and mope. We have work to do.”
“Screw you.” He still struggled, his body aching and vibrating with tension, his movements clumsy. “What do you know about what I can or can’t do? What do I care about where we’re going? He’s all I have.”
“Elei.” Just his name, her voice warm, and her arms around him, enfolding him. His chin fell on her shoulder, and he was too stunned to move when she whispered against his hair, “Kalaes is not your only family.”
The words jingled like dil coins, soft and yet deafening. He sagged, burying his face in the fabric of her suit, his fists against the small of her back. Her scent triggered explosions of color inside his lids, but he didn’t open his eyes, didn’t look, only breathed, in and out. We choose what to believe.
He could’ve stood there forever, hiding in Hera’s arms. Gods, he hadn’t realized he craved comfort until it was offered to him. But someone cleared their throat behind him, and Hera released him, took a step back.
Feeling cold where her arms had been, he turned to see Sacmis at the door, a hand gripping the doorframe so hard Elei thought he heard it creak.
“Am I interrupting?” she asked in frosty tones.
Elei blinked, looked to Hera for any clues and saw her lip curl.
“Perhaps,” she said, her voice even and a little dangerous. “What is it?”
Sacmis tipped her head back and her eyes narrowed. “Apologies. I just thought you might want to know,” she said, clipped and tight, all emotion gone from her face, replaced with a heavy stillness. “We have company.”
Chapter Nineteen
‘Company’ turned out to be three watercars in an inverted V formation, pursuing, hemming them in. Alendra drove, so Elei took the co-driver’s seat.
“How is it looking?” His voice sounded rough in his own ears.
She huffed. “They’ve been sniffing our trail and getting closer. I’ve tried to lose them, but they won’t leave us alone.”
Elei checked the thrusters, the balance, the depth, and the ballast. There was a trick with the motors he could try, to give them a burst of extra speed. Would it work with watercars?
“Let me have a go.” After all, that was why he’d left Kalaes’ side: to make sure they all survived this trip into the nether hells. He clenched the gauze in his palm, the bright pain honing his focus. The echoing emptiness in his head was filling with sharp-edged purpose.
“Are you sure?” She got up when he nodded. “How’s Kal?”
He cast a glance at the open door. “Could you look after him for a while, please, Ale?”
“You’ve never called me that before,” she whispered, her golden eyes huge, and smiled. She walked out of the cockpit, leaving him to stare at the controls.
That’s right. Kalaes had called her that, and Hera, but not him. He’d never dared. She smiled.
He took the pilot’s seat and checked the position of their pursuers. The three watercars were closing in. He sought the gear system, moved it to manual and hoped the engine, especially the reactor, would survive the strain.
Here we go. He downshifted to
the lowest gear. The motors groaned and the cockpit shuddered. He pushed the accelerator to the max.
The aircar shook so hard he was afraid it might come apart. The window panes vibrated so fast his teeth rattled. Then they shot forward, leaving their pursuers behind.
He breathed out and kept up the speed. When the three watercars had dwindled in the blue, he changed back to higher gear, giving the engine a breather.
Hera sank in the co-pilot’s seat, tucking her hair behind her ears. “Did you manage to shake off our tail?”
“For now. Where exactly are we heading?” He checked the compass. “Setting course east to Dakru.”
“No, wait.” She spread the map on the panel. “Let us go south first.”
“Toward Torq Island? Why?”
“There’s an area with pillars in the sea.” Her gaze grew thoughtful. “Strange, black granite formations, at least at the surface. Let’s see how deep they go and what else is below. If nothing else, we may be able to lose our tail for good.”
“Doesn’t the map say what’s there?”
“Sentinels,” Hera said. “They must be guarding something.”
“Remember our first patrol, with that pillar in the sea?” Sacmis said and Elei almost jumped out of his skin. He hadn’t heard her enter.
“You almost died that day,” Hera bit out the words. “How could I forget? You scared me to death.”
Elei checked the thrusters. Swerved whenever their pursuers tried to corner them against the rocks, zigzagged, breaking up clouds of phosphorescent fish.
Hera gave him the coordinates, and he fed them into the system. Whatever it was the pillars guarded could go screw itself for all he cared. Bringing Kalaes to safety was all that mattered.
Then a speaker came to life, sputtering and vibrating under Elei’s hand, jerking him backward in his seat.
“Come in, Ray 9823,” said a cool female voice. “Sacmis, are you listening?”
A sharp inhale, and Sacmis stepped forward to stand between their chairs, the blood draining from her face.
Elei's Chronicles (Books 1-3) Page 70
