by Jaine Fenn
“What was that stain on your shoulder? It was dark as blood.”
“It was puke! I was drunk and I threw up.”
“But the girl–”
“Stop going on about her!” He might have stormed out, had there been anywhere to storm to. As it was he hunched down and looked past her. “Just leave it, Ree. Please. It’s bad enough that we’re stuck out here in this awful place, not knowing if we’ll ever get home. And I can’t think straight in this heat. Just leave me alone. Please.”
What choice did she have? She stared out over the lethal, beautiful landscape.
When she came down from the mountains Dej found herself in familiar terrain, with sparse vegetation and rocky outcrops. A speckling of purple and red blooms and drying patches of mud showed the rain had reached this far. She remembered the last time she had been in a place like this, with Kir. But that was the past.
The farther south she got, the drier the land became, although she heard distant rumbles of thunder behind her.
Ahead, a smudge grew on the horizon, like a static cloud: the shadowland of Shen.
She was hungry, as she only picked fruits and stems she was sure wouldn’t harm her. Thirsty too, after setting a fast pace since drinking from a stream first thing. But that was fine; she could go for longer than a shadowkin without food or water. And the pair she’d left in the cave would be worse off than her. She considered them, or rather, considered Etyan. Her thoughts kept coming back to their conversations, and to him, the way he looked, the way he moved. He was an orphan of sorts too, pushed onto a path he had no choice about.
She pressed on and reached Shen’s umbral not long after dark. She was tempted to continue, but wanted to be fresh when she entered the shadowland.
She rested under the tall trees of the umbral, lulled to sleep by the night winds sighing through their tops.
Chapter 56
When the day cooled enough to move, Rhia wrote up her theory about the Matriarch’s moons. At sunset the clouds finally released their rain, a few drops, then a pounding torrent, as violent as any rain-year storm at home. When full darkness fell Etyan got up and walked out. Rhia tensed, but he stopped just outside the cave and turned his face to the sky, then opened his mouth. After a moment’s hesitation Rhia joined him. Very little water actually went down her throat and though the rain was warm she soon began to shiver. “Let’s get back inside,” she suggested. He shrugged but complied.
They were soaked through and Rhia insisted they wrung their clothes out. As she got the worst of the water out of her skirt she said, “I suggest we don’t try and go to the stream in this weather.”
“Fine by me.”
The rain eased off and the Moons rose behind the clouds.
When the rain finally stopped they dressed in their wet clothes, for protection against the local wildlife.
With the Moons and stars hidden behind cloud, the night pressed in. Far from helping her see, the patchy skyland glow confused Rhia’s night sight, and damp vegetation dragged at her sodden skirt. Etyan reached the stream before her.
He also finished drinking before her. She raised her head from the water to see him already scrambling back up the side of the ravine. He was probably enjoying being able to evade her, if only for a while, but they needed to stick together out here. She called softly, “Wait for me, I’m just coming.”
Hearing her voice, he turned.
Darkness fell on him.
The screech was deafening, more so for coming from nowhere. But Rhia recognized the carrion stench. She jumped up.
Etyan’s scream joined the nightwing’s cry. He batted at the dark mass whirling round his head, then tottered and half fell, stumbling down the slope, limbs flailing.
The dark cloud flowed after him.
Rhia ran towards the nightwing. It was smaller than the one she had met on the plateau, not much bigger than Etyan himself. But it could still kill him. She met it halfway but misjudged its location, dark on dark, and only brushed the edge of its oily darkness. Membranes slapped her palms, stinging like wasps. Then it was past her.
She turned and staggered downslope, after the creature. At the same moment, she heard a scream and a splash.
The stream butted close to the edge of the ravine here, with a small rocky ledge fringing a deep pool. Etyan, out of control, had tumbled over the ledge and into the water.
Rhia ran faster, tripping in her haste to outpace the nightwing. She threw herself into the pool after her brother.
Cold water stole her breath. Her legs found rock, straightened, pushed her up to stand. The water came up to her chest. All she could see of Etyan was thrashing limbs and wild spray.
The nightwing hovered overhead, sending tendrils of darkness down towards the water. But not into it.
Rhia remembered the skykin seeing off the nightwing on the plateau, the bone sword and firebrand. No sword or fire here–
She gulped a breath and threw herself over Etyan, clapping a hand across his mouth and nose. Something sharp whipped the back of her neck as both of them went under. He struggled but she held him tight and close. She willed him to understand what she was trying to do, to cooperate; to save himself. The water overhead frothed. Her knees and one elbow bumped the bottom. Would they float? Whatever her instincts, they had to stay under.
Etyan’s struggles grew feebler. Was she drowning him? Her own chest began to ache. His lips pressed against her palm: he was still trying to scream.
Overhead, the commotion in the water was easing off.
Her lungs began to burn. Etyan went limp in her grasp.
Enough. That had to be enough. She pushed off the rocky bottom, pulling Etyan with her. His head broke the surface a moment after hers. She tensed, expecting stinging darkness, but there was only cold night air.
She drew a huge, sobbing breath and released her hold on Etyan’s face. He gasped, coughed, then moaned.
“There, it’s gone now, it’s gone.”
“What… what…” his voice was a strained whimper.
“Nightwing. Small one. Doesn’t like water. Stay quiet, in case it’s still around.” She risked a glance up, and saw a deeper darkness far overhead, receding against the clouds.
“Can’t, can’t feel…” he sobbed, words breaking down.
“We need to get out of the water.” For all she knew something equally unpleasant lived there. “Can you stand?”
“No…” it was a low, pathetic groan.
“Then I’ll support you.” Even in the bad light she could see the dark spots on his skin – on hers too, where her hands had brushed the nightwing. Given the stinging numbness emanating from these patches, and given how many more Etyan had, no wonder he was moaning. “Lean on me.”
He pressed his lips together and nodded dumbly, the whites of his eyes clear in the night.
He got one leg under himself with her support, then squealed. “My knee!”
“All right. I’m going to pull you out. Hold onto the rock here.”
Once he had a grip on the rocky ledge she waded past him and pulled herself out, somewhat surprised at how easy it was. Some enquirer had written about that, how mothers saved their babies with impossible feats in the face of sudden danger. Apparently it worked with little brothers too.
Lying flat on the rock, she leant down and grasped his upper arms, ignoring how the nightwing stings burned. “You have to help me, Etyan. Push off with your good leg.”
He nodded. Then, half climbing up her, half being pulled by her, he hauled himself out of the pool. For a few moments they lay side by side on the rocky ledge, dripping and panting. Then Rhia sat up.
Etyan’s panting was becoming more pained. “Can’t breathe…” he gasped.
Nightwings had paralyzing poison. They had no mouth, no teeth; they were many small parts yet all one creature. Sting; paralyze and numb; dissolve and digest. That was how they hunted.
“No one’s going to digest you if I can help it.”
She did
not realize she had spoken aloud until Etyan frowned up at her. “You have to sit up. Sit up and keep breathing!” She pulled him upright; the manic strength still infected her. Compared to this, seeing off intruders in her study was nothing.
His breath became more laboured. It couldn’t end like this! His eyes closed. She held him, not tight enough to constrict his breathing, and muttered, “First of the Universe, I don’t generally have much time for you, and I’m sorry about that, but please don’t let my brother die. Please save him. Just save him. Please.”
Her arms had gone numb, though how much was from the nightwing’s poison and how much from supporting Etyan she could not say.
His breathing weakened, and she feared to breathe herself. But it didn’t catch, didn’t stop. “That’s right,” she murmured, “hold on.” For what, though. Dawn? But dawn would kill him. She looked down his body. His left knee was swollen. Even without the nightwing poison, she wasn’t sure he could get back to the cave.
“Ree?” She barely heard his whisper over the rush of the stream.
“Yes, Etyan!”
His eyes were closed but his mouth worked again. She bent down to put her ear close.
Etyan murmured, “You want to know what happened?”
“What happened when? Oh.” He meant Derry. “You don’t have to tell me now if you don’t want to. You can just lie here.” And not die. Don’t die, don’t die, don’t die.
“I’m scared, Ree.”
“I’m here.”
She thought he had changed his mind about speaking, or perhaps lost the ability to, when he said, “I can’t… I have to tell you. Before… before I go.”
“All right. If… whatever you want, Etyan. Whatever you need to do.”
“Wanted to say before but… wasn’t sure you’d understand.”
“I’ll try, now.”
“That morning. Found her like that.”
“I believe you!” Why hadn’t he just said that in the first place?
“But I knew her. Who she was. The reason I went back was… to pay her family off. Because of what we did.”
Rhia’s heart slowed. “When you say ‘we’?”
“Me, Phillum and Aspel. I was so out of it… ’s no excuse. She was out late, dressed up, we thought she was a… y’know. She was scared. But they said she was playing and… that made it more exciting. I shouldn’t have… they wanted me to prove myself.”
I don’t want to hear this. But she had to.
“Let us be clear, Etyan. Are you saying you… attacked that poor girl?” She couldn’t use the word she was thinking of. Her little brother would never do that.
“Yes. While they watched. I hate myself.”
How could you? She pulled away. She didn’t want to touch him.
He groaned.
He was dying. She had to stay. She said, “Don’t hate yourself.” She wanted to say I hate that you could do that but if this was it, if he was dying, she couldn’t let him die hating himself. She searched for some consolation, something to focus on other than what he had done. Like what he had not done. “You didn’t kill her. Remember that.”
“No, but…” Etyan drew a long rasping breath. “They said… if I blabbed they’d say… all my idea, treating her like that… Felt so shitty. When I went back in the morning… to say sorry, make amends…” His voice was dying away, “… saw her just lying there, in the dyers’ pool. All that blood. I ran. Kept running.”
“Oh Etyan.”
His eyelids fluttered and he whispered, “Maybe I deserve this.”
“You don’t!” Some twisted, dark part of her thought maybe he did, but she knew what he needed to hear right now. “I understand. And I forgive you, Etyan.”
“Thank you, Ree.”
He was thanking her for the last comfortable lie she would ever tell him.
She felt his lips move against her cheek. “You have to go. Save yourself.”
“No. I’m not leaving you.” She wanted to hold him tight forever, to save him, despite what he’d done.
“Sun’ll kill you.”
For once, his logic beat hers. He couldn’t move: she could. One of them could survive. Tears pricked her eyes. “I love you, little brother.” She couldn’t remember the last time she had told him that.
His murmured, “Love you too, sis,” was barely audible.
His breathing slowed. She held him, waiting, dreading the final breath. His chest was barely moving when the sky began to lighten, and she prayed again, because if he woke up now, if the poison wore off, she might still get him to safety before the Sun rose. But he didn’t wake up.
Finally, with dawn creeping up the sky, she kissed his forehead, stood, and lurched back up the slope.
Chapter 57
Halfway back, Rhia fell. She lay in the mud and looked up at the fading stars. She had no desire to move.
But something inside would not let her give in. She rolled over and got up, then staggered the rest of the way to the cave. She threw herself down beside the back wall as the first rays of the Sun touched the land outside.
She lay there, numb in body and mind, until the heat made her itch, and thirst made her gasp. Then she got angry. She cursed the First and Last, cursed herself, the Sun. And Etyan. Etyan, and the awful thing he had done. Etyan, dying alone outside.
Curses turned to tears, and once they started she thought she would never stop crying. When the tears ran out, she lay in a stupor. The double-bodied bug emerged from its hidey-hole. She watched it crawl around, her mind empty.
Evening came.
She levered herself up onto her arms, and from there to her feet. She staggered outside. She had to know.
The ravine gave some shade. And she had been outside without protection for a while on the way here, and got away nothing worse than burnt skin. Perhaps if the Sun had been hidden behind clouds… but it hadn’t. She remembered, even through her daze, how bright the day had burned.
It took an age to get to the stream. She could manage no more than a few steps before she had to rest, and she kept tripping over her skirt, which hung low on her hips. No need for a corset next time she visited Alharet. Not that she expected to do that again, for a number of reasons.
After nearly falling, she crouched and shuffled down the slope, hands to either side to catch her when she wobbled.
At the bottom, she took a deep breath before focusing on the pool.
The rock ledge was empty.
Had he fallen in the water? Or climbed in deliberately, to protect himself from the Sun?
Perhaps she should search the pool, in case.
But last night’s manic strength was gone. If she went into the water now, she wouldn’t come out again. She brushed her hand across the rock ledge, not sure what she expected to find. Blood? Some residual warmth? Some more arcane sign that her brother had been here? But there was nothing.
Most likely his body had been carried off by something. That was how it was out here.
Thirst got the better of grief and she lay down on the rock to drink. She was tempted to stay there, stretched out on the rocky ledge, ending her own life where Etyan had ended his.
Unless he’d crawled into cover nearby. She pulled herself upright and tried calling his name, but the sound that came out was a pathetic rasp. She tried again, and managed a loud croak. No one answered. She waited a while anyway.
Then she crawled back to the cave.
She must have been at the stream longer than she’d thought; the Maiden was up. It would be light soon. She wondered if she would have the strength to reach the ravine the next time darkness came. Or the strength to do anything. Death had come to Etyan. It would come to her, soon. But while she waited she would take one last opportunity to see heaven, before she found out for herself what went on up there.
It took a while to find the sightglass amongst her piled papers. It took longer still to position it, her arm shook so. She ended up lying on her front just outside the cave entrance, chin on
a low rock, elbows on the ground, both hands holding the sightglass. She was delighted when the limited view included the Maiden, then bemused at what she saw.
The Maiden was gibbous. At first she thought she was hallucinating. She focused again, made sure elbows and hands and head were as firmly planted as they could be. No, it was gibbous, three-quarters full. Which it couldn’t be, because the Sun was on the far side of it. The Maiden orbited nearer the world than the Sun did. It could only ever show a crescent, because the Sun was beyond it, so the sphere’s side was the only part the Sun could illuminate.
Damn you, universe. She grimaced, which made her sore lips crack; tears stung her eyes. She didn’t want to cry; she couldn’t afford to waste the water.
She rolled away from her makeshift observatory. Time to get back to the cave. Time to rest. She must leave this latest mystery unsolved: annoying, ironic, but it was something she had to accept. Just like she accepted that Etyan was gone, and she was dying. She was all done with the stupidity and illogicality of the universe.
She sat slumped in the cave entrance and watched dawn steal over the valley, the landscape going from grey to gold to the painful blue-white of full daylight. Movement caught her eye. A flock of flying things wheeled and dipped in perfect synchrony over the silver-painted land: they moved like starlings, but were shaped like tiny darts, trailing ribbons of azure and emerald. It was beautiful here, in its way. Beautiful, and deadly.
When the flying creatures were gone she crawled to the back of the cave and lay down, sightglass clasped to her chest.
Dej came out of the umbral into parched fields. Everything was so dim! A few weeks ago, this would’ve been normal but now she felt the shadow between her and the Sun as a physical presence. She doubted she could go back to living in a shadowland.
She didn’t see any shadowkin, but she still pulled the cloak tight and raised the hood.
When she reached the inn Rhia had told her about she walked in and threw her hood back. The way the room fell silent made her want to grin, but she kept her face stern.
The first coin she produced got a look of disdain from the man behind the bar. She took a larger, darker coin from the bag Rhia had given her. The way he snatched it implied she’d overpaid. Never mind.
