The Broken Heavens

by Kameron Hurley

  “I can’t imagine,” Lilia said, “how a burned out omajista you once threw off a cliff could possibly help you in any way.”

  “You would be serving yourself, of course. Ending this conflict with the Tai Mora. Isn’t that what we both want?”

  “Is it?” Lilia said. “You left me on the wall.”

  “I was compelled home. I was not my own, then. You understand.”

  “I don’t.”

  “I have a very brilliant plan.”

  “I’m sure,” Lilia said. “You always do.”

  “It is,” Taigan said, “a brilliant plan, that is, but I can’t take credit for it. Luna can explain it in more depth,” and he acknowledged the figure beside him with a tilt of his head. “There’s a… device that channels the power of the satellites. We can use it to close the seams between the worlds.”

  Lilia laughed. “I have heard of it. Is that why you came here?”

  “That is a pertinent question,” Taigan said, “one I also wish had a different answer to. I was looking for the Saiduan allies that your little camp had made. You know your Catori, Meyna, she intends to run off with them.”

  “I don’t have time for you,” Lilia said. She turned away.

  “Ah, wait,” Taigan said. “I’m here because I know I was right all along.”

  “That was a revelation?”

  “Let’s say Luna is very familiar with how these temples, the engines, the beasts inside of them, operate. Luna has enlightened me during our many long days together.”

  “Roh is also familiar with it,” Lilia said. “We don’t need a second person.”

  “Roh?” Luna’s eyes widened. It was the first thing they had said.

  “Rohinmey,” Lilia said, “yes.”

  “I need to find him, Taigan,” Luna said, breathless.

  “Down on the beach,” Lilia said. “The path is there, middle of camp.”

  Luna ran. It clicked for Lilia, then. Was this the same Luna, the one Roh had fled south with? The other one who had originally translated the book?

  Something the creature in Tira’s temple had said came back to her. The heavens themselves will draw them together. She glanced up at the sky, the baleful eye of Oma, sparkling violet Sina, shimmering green Tira.

  “Listen,” Taigan said, leaning so close he startled her. “Luna was always a better translator than the boy. Suffice to say that though our people can power it, it was designed for one such as you to operate it. It’s a bit complicated, but you have time to learn it.”

  “One such as me?”

  “Someone motivated by revenge.”

  “Luna knows how to operate it?”

  “More or less.”

  “That doesn’t inspire confidence.”

  “Yes, well, what does these days?”

  “I don’t have any allies anymore, Taigan.”

  “You have me!” he said brightly. “What more do you need?”

  “Taigan, the last time–”

  “Yes, yes, the matter of the cliff. But this time I am much more confident. I have been proven right. I like it when I’m right.”

  “We can’t do this, just the two of us.”

  “Three, with Luna! You are so hesitant. The Lilia I knew was bolder.”

  “She was also gifted,” Lilia said.

  “Not that you did much with it.”

  “You are so cheerfully unpleasant,” Lilia said.

  “What’s the use of being miserably unpleasant, really?” Taigan said.

  “I just… I don’t know if we can do this without allies from Meyna, or Yisaoh.” Lilia chewed at her fingernail. Taigan, Luna, Roh… she tried fitting all the pieces together. With Taigan they had one more omajista. With Luna – another person who could help navigate the temples, maybe? A Key and a Worldbreaker. Was Zezili the Key? Meyna and Ahkio were useless except in getting her access to more jistas. How to get into the fifth temple? That was the trick. How to convince Maralah and her people to help. What did Maralah have to gain? Everyone wanted to run away.

  “Oh, well, you can ask them all about it soon,” Taigan said.

  “What?”

  “You haven’t heard?” Taigan snorted. “Oh, it’s all the Woodland Dhai can natter about. We stayed with some of them for a few days on the journey here. The smoke? The Tai Mora just invaded your little pacifist Kai’s camp. Your Dhai friends are on their way here. What a happy reunion we’ll all have!”

  “What!” Lilia cried. “How did the Tai Mora find them? I worked so hard to protect–”

  Taigan tilted his head to the sky.

  “What is it?” Lilia asked, following his gaze.

  “Well,” he said. “This is interesting.”

  31

  When Gian and her retinue had gone, Kirana went down to the Sanctuary to spend time with her children. They were alone at a far table. Their nursemaid was picking through the library stacks, presumably for something appropriate, considering their position here. As Kirana sat with them, Tasia nattered on brightly about what they had been learning, mostly Tai Mora history, which all three found fairly interesting, as it was largely about their immediate ancestors.

  Tasia, Kirana thought, smoothing back the girl’s dark hair from her face, my Tasia. Surely her children were the best versions possible. The only ones worth saving. Surely.

  Corina and Moira, the elder two, were engaged in some memory game that Kirana only half paid attention to.

  “When will Mam be with us?” Moira said as they finished their game. She had asked every day.

  “Soon,” Kirana said.

  “You keep saying that,” Corina said. “It’s never happening, is it?” Brash, that one, little chin jutting toward her, dark eyes defiant.

  “Hush, now,” Kirana said. “I got you all over, didn’t I? I saved us all, haven’t I? When have I ever lied?”

  Tasia smiled brightly. “You never did, Mama,” she said. “You came for me too!”

  Kirana kissed her forehead. “Of course I did. I always keep my promises. Always.”

  Dhai servants brought in dinner, and they ate together under the light of Oma streaming through the dome above. When they were done, their nursemaid took them up for baths and rest. Kirana watched them go, and then sat alone in the vast chamber, relishing the silence.

  Kirana did not believe in any gods. Perhaps that was her personal failing. They were useful ways to explain the horror of the skies, and the random chance that gave one person unconscionable power and another a terrible craving for drink that murdered their guts and ruined their lives. It wasn’t fair. It was simply life.

  She pulled over one of the books Tasia had been reading. Something about raising dogs. Kirana realized that what she wanted more than anything was simply to raise daughters who were happy farmers and herders. Maybe a village elder or two.

  The light in the room flickered, as if a great cloud were passing over Oma’s eye. She squinted, still peering into the book. The lights began to flicker more intensely. She had to cover her eyes, fearful of a headache.

  Hurried footsteps came from the hall. She opened her eyes, shielding her vision as she closed the book. One of the big Sanctuary doors creaked open.

  Yivsa came in, breathless. “Did you see the sky?”

  “What?” Kirana raised her gaze to the ceiling. The sky seemed to be spinning. She had to look away, overcome by vertigo. “What is–?”

  “It’s time,” Yivsa said

  Kirana stood, still a little wobbly. The light in the chamber flashed: red, blue, green, purple lightning. She needed to get out of here before it made her sick. “Give the order. Get them all into place. Is Gian still here?”

  “Already en route back to the ark, but I can get a runner.”

  “Do it. Tell Madah I want a report from her assault on that camp full of Saiduan.”

  Kirana cast one last glance back into the room. She rested her hand on the skin of the temple. “Let’s finish this, you fucker,” she muttered, and closed the door
behind her.

  The sky shimmered.

  Lilia had to shield her eyes. Something winked at them, a flickering blue star. A cracking boom filled the air.

  The ground shuddered.

  When Lilia looked again, Para gazed back at her, the three satellites sitting diagonally in the sky, with the larger, spinning mass of red Oma whirling closer and closer to them, as if threatening to burst them apart.

  A brilliant cascade of bluish-amber light filled the sky. It was eerie, like something from a dream. The great face of Oma winked at her as the other satellites began to fall into orbit around it, blinking and flashing like something alive. Tira, Para, Sina, three pieces broken away from a much larger object, lining up again for the first time in two thousand years.

  Cries came from the camp, all around them. The world looked, collectively, to the sky.

  The satellites began to pulse and dance. They aligned themselves into orbit around Oma.

  “Oh no,” Lilia breathed.

  Zezili ran up to her, huffing. “What the fuck…?” she said, and moved to shield Lilia, as if expected the stars to explode.

  Maralah, from the head of the cavern trail, climbed back up into the camp. “We knew this was coming!” Maralah called. Behind her, Kadaan helped Roh up, both of them scrambling across the camp.

  But no one could have known this was coming, really, Lilia thought. No one had seen this happen in two thousand years.

  Sina, Para, and Tira began to slowly rotate around Oma, so near it was as if they were creating a new sun in the bleary violet sky.

  “If those things collide, we might be fucked,” Zezili said. “I mean, shit, nothing you can do now, huh?”

  “The hand of Oma,” Lilia said. “If only they would.”

  The three satellites, rotating around the fourth, instead came so close to one another’s orbits that they had the appearance of a single flickering eye spilling ghostly red-violet light across the world.

  Maralah strode across the camp toward them. Lilia took her gaze away from the sky, glanced back at Taigan.

  “You!” Maralah said, and while the sky seethed, the air all around Lilia grew heavy as spoiled milk.

  Taigan waved at Maralah. “Hello, Maralah! It’s been an age. Isn’t this delightful? No one has seen such a show in two thousand years! What a time to be alive.”

  Lilia’s ears popped.

  “Maralah!” Lilia called. “Don’t! He’s here to… help. Inasmuch as Taigan helps. Don’t start using your gift here! Not now!”

  Maralah stared at Lilia as if she were mad. “I’m not!” she said. “Who is… Are you pulling, Taigan? I’m not calling Sina.”

  The smell of smoke grew stronger. Lilia turned back to the woods. “Taigan?” she said. “How far back were those people coming from Meyna and Yisaoh’s camp?”

  “Oh, a day,” he said. “But I told the scouts I encountered that it would be nice to blink them over here instead of making them walk. It turns out you have an omajista here who’s very good with winks, they said. A Dorinah boy? Remarkable.”

  The air crackled. Voices came from the woodlands. The wind picked up.

  Lilia shivered. The sense of foreboding had to do with more than the sky. All this power, all these omajistas in one place, these gates opening and closing… they were painting a target on this beachhead.

  “Stop them,” Lilia said. “Maralah! Have everyone drop their star! Stop pulling on your stars!”

  As she cried out, the spill of refugees came up from the woods, bringing with them the smell of burnt hair and smoke. Kai Ahkio walked at the front, Meyna behind him. Ahkio carried a child – Meyna’s? Lilia’s heart clenched. Where was Tasia? Namia?

  “Drop your call on the stars!” Lilia said, limping toward them, half-hoping for good news, for a miracle.

  A roaring blur knocked into her, putting her onto her back. Namia lay on top of her, squeezing her tightly.

  “Namia!” Lilia held her as the others streamed past. “Emlee?”

  Namia made the sign for “taken.”

  “Tasia? Oh no, Tasia.”

  “Death,” Namia signed.

  Lilia got to her feet. Namia loped after her.

  The smoke overhead grew lower and thicker as the wind shifted. Meyna, face blushed from exertion, sweaty tendrils stuck her forehead, hurried to Maralah’s side, one hand pressed against her burgeoning belly.

  “Shao Maralah!” Meyna said. “You must know. We were attacked. The camp, the whole camp, as if they knew exactly where it was. Who would have told them, after all this time? We never–”

  “You fool,” Maralah said. “You’ve led them right here! How many are with you?”

  “Not many,” Meyna said. “Maralah, I know it’s too soon, but our partnership–”

  Maralah slapped her. Meyna fell heavily, clutching at her belly. Ahkio put the child down and ran to her, as did her husbands Rhin and Hadao. Hadaoh drew an infused weapon. Maralah burnt it from his hand. He cried out, clutching at his seared skin.

  Lilia held Namia close.

  “We were careful,” Meyna said. “No one was–”

  “You bloody fool,” Maralah said. “As if you ungifted wretches would be able to tell if a Tai Mora scout trailed you.”

  The air thickened again, so heavily this time Lilia lost her breath.

  This wasn’t just the people in the camp drawing on the satellite’s power, or even the Dhai refugees. This was something far worse. Far, far stronger.

  Oh, Oma, she thought.

  The air around the camp began to shiver and ripple like water. Lilia knew exactly what this was, and if she had any breath at all in her aching lungs, she would have screamed.

  All around them, reality began to tear away. A dozen searing gates parted the woodlands surrounding the camp, cut tents in half, sawed through unlucky bystanders. Their yawning mouths vomited forth a wave of Tai Mora soldiers, all shiny in their chitinous armor, their infused weapons held aloft.

  The smell of burning intensified. Lilia heard someone screaming, screaming. The trees above them lit up, instantly torched. Bits of char and winking embers rained from the sky.

  Namia tugged at her hand, but Lilia found herself rooted to the spot, unable to move, frozen in some nightmare. It was all happening again, an endless cycle. One fiery raid after another, on this very spot, in some other world, and now here, with infused weapons: Kirana’s army, invading world after world. She imagined a whole slew of Kiranas from a hundred thousand, a million worlds, cutting through these people, torching this same wood, again and again, as they had done to her people before, as they were doing to their people now.

  Lilia reached. She was not sure what she reached for, something deep within her long lost. For so long she was filled with only revenge, hatred for these people. For everything they had done, were doing, again and again.

  But as she watched it all happening again, here, on the same spot, she saw it for what it was. Something terribly broken. One people, ripped apart into a million, trillion pieces.

  How could they ever be put back together again?

  Screaming. The woods themselves were screaming.

  32

  It All happened very quickly, in a breath. Para rising. The incredible movement of the sky that awed and distracted. The winks opening. The air seething.

  But Lilia was not awed. Not frozen. She had been waiting for this for a year. Waiting to fight back. Lilia moved.

  “Roh!” Lilia yelled. “Defensive wall!”

  Another parajista may have hesitated. One she did not know, maybe. One who had not been hounded and abused as Roh had after Para winked out a year ago.

  But it was Roh, her friend Roh, the one who always wanted to be a sanisi, and so the shimmering wall of air whumped across the camp and smashed into the winks all around them an instant after her cry.

  Kadaan raised a fist beside Roh. Dust rose from the ground. Bits of sand trembled and filled the air.

  Lilia hurried over to them, calli
ng to Zezili, “Get everyone with a weapon! Defensive line!”

  Zezili leapt over the table. “Fucking finally!” she said and then, in Dhai, “Everyone with a fucking shield and a weapon, I want a defensive circle!”

  “Taigan?” Lilia called back over her shoulder.

  “There are fifty-six Songs of Unmaking coming through those winks,” he said, following her. He shrugged. “I can’t hold them all.”

  “Try,” she said. She pushed past the mobs of frightened and mobilizing fighters and others, trying to get to Maralah. Namia followed after her, silent. Lilia finally climbed onto a table and called, “Fighters to the outside! Those who can’t fight, come to the middle! The center!” Panic could make people into mindless, self-destructive fools if no one took charge. Lilia had seen it before, on the harbor wall, and again during the madness of Kuallina.

  Roh felt the air shift the moment he reached the trailhead. He was giddy, awed, already drawing deeply on Para. He and Kadaan had hugged back on the beach, delighted to be able to draw on their stars again, but Maralah was already running back to the camp, peering at the sky like some grim omen.

  That had shaken him, and they went back up the trail after her, Roh using the delightful tails of Para’s breath to speed himself along, fairly flying, no longer the shuffling final figure to crest the top of the trail.

  But the air was wrong. He dropped onto the sand. Lilia shouted at him from more than thirty paces away. “Roh!” and he was already drawing on Para again, the Litany of the Palisade already half-formed in his mind, “Defensive wall!” He saw the gates opening in the next moment, already tying up his spell. He cast the defensive walls almost before she had finished, throwing up a hasty bubble of air around the camp as the twining blue bursts of Para’s breath poured into the camp through the gates and attacked his defenses.

  Kadaan reinforced his work, putting up a tougher defense on the inner layer of his.

  “We need to layer these,” Kadaan said. “You’ve done that?”

  “No,” Roh said.

  “Watch me, then. This is the Song of Davaar, and the Song of the Proud Wall.”