Under the pale film of ash, Maya saw the colour leave Philos’s face.
“I don’t deserve that, Aera.”
“You don’t get to choose what you deserve.” Aera’s eyes flashed, flat discs of blazing copper, like coins reflecting the sun. Her hair lifted a little, standing up from her scalp, bright threads glinting through it. “What did I tell you? What did I ask of you? I should have checked, I should have asked you again—but you should never have waited for me to have to ask. So tell me now, was this a good decision, what you just did? Was it the most helpful, the most thought-through? Are we glad of it?”
Philos’s face changed. He cast a look at Maya and she saw that his eyes were stricken. “I— Oh gods, no.”
“Well?”
He swallowed. “No.”
“Then why?”
Philos’s shoulders slumped. “She’s without her power. She tried to fight and nearly died. She can’t bear it any longer—”
“She?”
“Maya.”
“You did it for Maya. You did it to comfort her. Without thought, without any thought, of the consequences to anyone else.”
“Yes. Gods, Aera, I didn’t think.”
Maya’s throat clutched. He did it for me. It had been wrong, and dangerous, but… No one had done anything like that for her before. No one. She had thought she mattered as a maenad, as a member of the pack, but not like this, not so that someone would risk everything else that mattered to them for her sake.
She looked at Philos, at the blood on his arm, at the dust all over him from where he must have lain on the side of the volcano’s summit, angling his water bottle to collect enough of the god’s blood, the volcano’s blood, to bring back to her. And for the first time, beyond fear and confusion and everything that had clouded her head for days past, she thought, I’m worth that. Power and strength and the ability to fight or not, I’m worth that much. To him.
She took a limping step forward, hands out, wanting to touch him, wanting to tell him she was sorry she’d made him feel he had to take such a stupid risk for her, tell him that he was enough, that even without her power she could learn to be happy—and stopped. He and Aera were both looking at her, but it wasn’t the change in his face that brought her up short, it was the look of pity on Aera’s.
“What?” said Maya. “What is it?”
Neither of them said anything. The flicker of fire died away from Aera’s eyes. “Philos. Did you warn her? Does she know?”
“I…” He put his hand to his head. “I told her some of it, some, days ago…”
“What?” Maya’s voice leapt, shriller than she meant it to. “What are you talking about? Told me what?”
“Oh gods.” He looked at her, exhaustion dragging at his face. Exhaustion—and something else. Something she couldn’t identify. “I’ve been so stupid,” he said. “I told you, remember, I feel people’s feelings, I don’t always know which are mine. It makes me do things I wouldn’t, left to myself. Makes me take risks I shouldn’t take…” He swallowed. “I didn’t know. I didn’t think. But this—I’ve done it again. I did something for you, because you wanted it. Something I didn’t want, something I shouldn’t have done.”
“So? What does that matter? I know you did it for me. I—” She stumbled, aware of everyone watching, needing to say it anyway. “You don’t know what that means, to have someone do that for me. Everything you’ve done, everything you said to me—I’m sorry, I should have listened better. You were right, I can learn to live without my power. You—you are enough, Philos. It is enough.”
But then she saw what it was in his face. Pain, exhaustion…but mostly guilt. Horrible, sickening guilt that came into his eyes as they met hers, as he waited for her to understand what he’d been trying to say.
She remembered now. “Last time I felt anything like it, it was a mistake.”
No. No. That hadn’t happened with her. What he felt, what he’d promised—it was real, it must be. If it weren’t, if she’d had any idea it wasn’t real she would never, ever have let herself feel it too.
“Philos?” she said, cold all over.
“Please.” Philos gestured clumsily around at the others. “I have to talk to her. Can you…?”
“Yes,” said Aera. The movement she made mirrored his, but more graceful, less confused, hesitant. “Come, let’s leave them for a while.” She hesitated, her eyes coming up to Maya’s face, looking as if she were about to speak. But in the end she didn’t. She just turned and walked away along the edge of the tableland with the others.
Maya looked at Philos. She was afraid as she had only once been afraid before, the first time she’d realised she’d lost her power. The first time she’d lost something that mattered this much—so much she didn’t think she could carry on breathing without it.
“Philos,” she said again. “Is that it? Is—everything you said—you’re saying it was all a mistake? All just…your gift, your empathy. All just me?”
He looked sick, ashamed, and for the first time she thought he had to force his eyes to meet hers. “I don’t know. Maya, I’m so sorry. I can’t tell. I can’t tell what it was.”
“But you—” She had to stop, make herself go on. “You said you loved me. That wasn’t false. It wasn’t, was it? It wasn’t.”
He took a step towards her, and again she caught the scent of the volcano’s blood he’d poured into his palm. Stronger now, as it warmed from the heat of his skin. She shouldn’t breathe it, should tell him to keep it away from her, but she couldn’t speak, not until he’d answered her, not until he’d told her he did love her, that it wasn’t false—
“Maya—I don’t know. I don’t know any of it.”
She’d thought she was hurting already, but at that, pain hit her like a wave, so hard it knocked the thoughts from her head. She had to reach out and steady herself on the rock. “But you said—”
“I said. I know. I thought I meant it. I did mean it. But Aera’s right, for me to do something as stupid as this—” he glanced at the bottle in his hand, “—that’s not a risk I would take. That’s like when I saved Sufi, even though it was too much of a risk, even though I shouldn’t have tried it. It’s not what I wanted, not what I chose, it’s just the gift, the empathy taking over.”
She couldn’t hear that. Couldn’t let him say it. “You don’t know that. You don’t know that’s what it is this time too. You—” she stumbled, “—you said you loved me. How can you—how can that be just—”
“I’ve done it before,” said Philos, and the bottom fell out of Maya’s stomach. She stared at him, feeling as if she’d turned so hard and cold that it was as if she’d shifted substance as Coram did. But for her it was not stone but glass, cold and hard—and brittle.
“What? What are you talking about?”
“I tried to tell you before, tried to warn you, but…it got lost.” He swallowed. “It was two years ago. Someone—she fell in love with me. I didn’t think, I didn’t know to guard myself against that. I thought I felt it too. I thought it was real. I was lonely. I didn’t bother to look properly at what I was feeling, to see if it made sense, to find out if it was really me. I—we started a relationship—”
“Who? Someone here?”
“It doesn’t matter. It was over a long time—”
“Tell me! Tell me, who?”
He looked at her. “Venli. It was Venli.”
Under Maya’s hand, the rock outcrop was hard, with rough bits of grit embedding themselves into her skin. She clenched her hand on it, feeling it grate against her palm. Venli, who had always been a bit too friendly to her, a little too familiar with Philos.
“Did you—did you—” She couldn’t say it.
“Yes.”
Maya shut her eyes for a moment, screwing them shut as if by doing so she could shut out the words, the unwanted pictures. “And you—you did that and you still didn’t know whether it was real or not?”
“Ah gods, Maya. Physical ple
asure—it’s confusing in itself, for anyone, not just an empath. The moment I realised, I stopped, I told her—”
She kept her eyes shut, unable to look at him. “Not her. Me. When we—when we— How could you do that? You knew what that meant to me. How could you do it if you weren’t sure?”
“I was sure.” His voice was anguished. “Maya, ah gods, that’s the hell of it. I was sure. Up until ten minutes ago I was sure I loved you. I’d never have said it if I didn’t think I knew. Maya, I still feel it, I just don’t know if it’s real or not, and to let you believe it when I can’t be sure—that’s not right, I can’t do that to you.”
She took an unwary breath that pulled the blood-scent farther into her lungs. For a heartbeat the pain and confusion blanked out into something simpler, into nothing but a white blaze of rage. Then with the next breath the emotions came back, more cruelly clear than before. She opened her eyes, jerked her head up. “You don’t think this is worse? You don’t think this is worse than anything? You should have warned me you could do this, you should have told me before I—”
“I know, I know. But Maya, please, I never expected this. You were my enemy, my prisoner, I guarded myself from feeling empathy with you then, but once this happened… I thought my barriers were strong enough, I thought I was able to recognise when I was in danger. But once this—between us—once it happened, it was so strong, so unlike anything I’d felt before, I was sure. I would never have done it if I’d thought I was doing to you what I’d done to Venli—”
“It doesn’t matter! You should have warned me, you should have. What am I supposed to do with this? This isn’t supposed to happen to me either, this, this weakness—” She stopped, shaking all over, her throat closing. She had to struggle to breathe for a moment before she managed to take in a gasp of air. Air that came scented with the volcano’s blood. She’d been trying to avoid breathing that, but now she couldn’t remember why…
“Listen,” Philos said. “It’s not—I’m not sure, that’s all. Give me a little time. Once this is over I’ll go away, give myself time for the feelings to die. If they don’t, I’ll know it’s real, I’ll come back—”
But it was too much. She’d thought she’d been the first, she’d been special, and all along Venli had known, Venli had been there before her.
She dragged in another breath and something flared like sheet lightning in her head, blanking out pain and loss, thought and reason. She forgot why she shouldn’t let it happen. She forgot everything apart from her need to stop the pain returning.
He wasn’t expecting an attack, so when she leapt, it knocked him straight off balance, sent him staggering against the rocks. She snatched the bottle from his hand, hearing his shout ringing in her ears, unstopped it and upended it so the liquid poured into her palm.
“Maya. Maya, don’t. I was going to do it carefully, to make it so that you could do it safely first—”
Maya lifted her palm to her nose. She breathed deep, drawing in the harsh, acrid scent, feeling it burn the inside of her nostrils, curl into her brain.
“Maya, don’t do this. It’s dangerous. Maya!”
He scrambled up, grabbed at her wrist, pulled her hand down so the liquid splashed onto his tunic, onto the grass at their feet.
Too late. She hadn’t breathed in as much as the priests would have given her, but it was enough.
In her head she heard an echo of the chimes ringing. The blood of the volcano, of the god, he to whom she belonged, he who had chosen her, rose through her, filling her head, scalding all thought and pain to thin traces of themselves. She felt her teeth sharpen against her lip, felt the clean white heat of madness flow through her body.
And the change began.
Chapter Seventeen
The change began. Philos saw it happening, faster than he could have believed possible. Maya’s hands opened, the fingers so rigid it looked as if she were in pain. Her head went back, farther than a human neck could bend, and her mouth opened in a wide yawn that showed a mouthful of sharp white teeth. Her skin colour glowed, deepened, took on a hard metallic sheen, and under it new muscles pushed up, making hard lines on her arms and legs.
Somewhere a long way off he became aware of raised voices. “Philos! Get away! Get away from her!” But that was insane. This was Maya, Maya, and he had to explain to her, had to take the anguish away from her face.
Then she looked at him, her neck, her body, curving forwards a little like a snake about to strike. There was no anguish in her face. Her eyes were huge, dark, and he could read nothing in them but madness.
She reached for him, as she had before, talons as sharp as those of a dragon-thing, grasping for his flesh, and he flung himself backwards, knowing it was no use. He’d scarcely escaped from her before, he wouldn’t do it now.
Her talons caught his forehead and red blotted out his vision as he fell hard on the rock.
Behind the red, light flared, and heat leapt to sear his skin. Aera. Aera, with the gift that would burn through flesh in seconds, the gift that would turn Maya to blackened remains like the blackened remains of the maenads who’d attacked him.
“No,” he said, from a haze of terror, a red mist of blood in his eyes. “Don’t. Aera, Aera—”
Maya shrieked, the maenad shriek he’d heard before, and an instant later the horrible smell of burning hair rolled into his face, choking him. He wiped the blood from his eyes, desperate to see. Aera wouldn’t have killed her, she wouldn’t—
Aera, half-shifted, flaming in the dark, stood over him. Her voice crackled when she spoke, and sparks flew from her lips to wink out on the rock she stood on. “I didn’t hurt her. She’s gone.”
He slewed himself around to look where she was looking, and saw the thin dark shape, already halfway down the rocky slope that led from the tableland. Maya leapt, a standing leap, her legs propelling her higher and farther than a human’s legs would, and landed on the sand. Then she took off, tearing across the desert, fast as a hunting cat, lost in madness, running away from them all. Away from him.
“I have to go after her.”
“No,” said Aera. “You’ll get yourself killed.”
“I won’t. I—”
“Yes, you will.”
He turned on her. “Then help me, damn it. We have to get her back. When the madness leaves her and she remembers—”
“Philos, listen to yourself. Does nothing matter except what Maya feels? You’ve already risked your life, put us all in danger, and for what? For something you said yourself you don’t know if it’s real or not.”
He opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off with a slash of her hand that left a fiery streak in the air. “No, Philos. Listen to me. You’re risking everything, you’re not thinking. The gods know I understand what you’d sacrifice for someone you love, but—”
“What about for someone who loves you?”
“What?”
“She loves me. She’s done this because she loves me and I hurt her and she can’t stand it. Does it matter if I don’t love her? Don’t I owe her something anyway?”
Aera’s lava-shape was cooling, fading. Her skin appeared under the last dwindling shimmer of heat, pale as candle-wax. She sighed. “Oh gods, do we have time for this? What are you talking about?”
“She said she loves me.” He repeated the words and, out of place though it was, something like happiness glowed again within him. “And if what I’m feeling is her emotions…it’s strong. Enough to die for. Enough that, even when she’s living without her power, one day I could make her happy.”
“But if you don’t love her you’ll never make her happy.”
“I’ve never loved anyone.” His voice came out too loud, out of control. “I’m twenty-six and it’s never happened, I’ve never loved anybody. If all this is is just my damned empathy it’s still stronger than anything else I’ve ever felt. It’s—she makes me feel whole. I want to protect her, I want to make the rest of the world disappear if only I c
an make her safe. And now she’s insane, and maenad, and not even here, and I still feel it. I never felt that before. It’s how I knew the mistake I’d made with Venli—when she wasn’t there the feelings just…died, I didn’t want to see her, I didn’t get jealous, I didn’t want to protect her.” He swallowed, forcing himself to speak calmly. “All right, I don’t know if it’s real. I don’t care. It’s the most I’ve ever felt, and it’s her who made me feel it, and I’m damn well going to make her happy if it kills me.”
He stopped, swallowed again. “And you have to help me. You have to. I can’t bring her back by myself.”
Behind him, Coram spoke. “We do need her too, Aera.”
Aera looked at him, her expression a little wild. “It’ll be dawn in a few hours, Coram. We’ve already been so delayed, and Philos is wounded, and now you want us to chase after a maenad in the hope we can bring her back without getting ourselves killed?”
“Isn’t it worth it? As I said, we need her.” A smile just touched the corner of Coram’s mouth. “And after all, it wouldn’t be the first time a man did something stupid for the woman he loves.”
Aera’s lips curved in a tiny, answering smile, mostly suppressed. “Need you put it like that?”
“To get you to agree with me? Oh, I think so.”
Aera ran her hands through her hair as if trying to pull it free from her scalp. “Oh gods. We do need her, you’re right. And if she didn’t take too much of that stuff, if the madness ebbs… Very well. Coram, you take Philos after her. I daren’t go—if I have to shift again I’ll not be in fit shape to do so once we reach the temple. But if you stay in your shifted form she cannot hurt you, and you can keep Philos safe. Take rope, and bring her back here.”
With Coram’s stone wings carving a path through the air, even a maenad could not outrun them. Coram and Philos came down a way in front of her, Coram scattering sand around his feet as he landed.
Blood of the Volcano: Sequal to Heart of the Volcano Page 19
