The chair brayed behind him. “I’ve had enough of considering.” Footsteps thumped against the floor and then the door slammed.
“For a man who claims to love his people you seem all too willing to use them as you see fit. People are not your chess pieces.”
Skandar turned, a serene smile spreading across his face. He admired the vigour in her, still strong after everything that had happened in recent times. Of all qualities, resilience was perhaps the most admirable. To survive any hardship and keep going; to adapt and grow with one’s surroundings; those were the true values of a leader.
“You doubt my intentions.”
“No,” she said, stepping up until she stood by his shoulder, eyes fixed on the garden. “I doubt your means.”
“And if it all reaches the same outcome?”
“You cannot keep playing god. Some day that will come back to burn you.”
“Sooner than I might think. Is that what you’re saying?”
When she turned to stare him down, nearly as tall as he, the light turned her eyes to chips of ice, freckles splattered across her cheeks and nose. There was a humour in the tilt of her brows, like perhaps she enjoyed the debates more than she cared to admit. She shook her head at him. “Do not forget what you came from. Do not forget that we are all humans down here.”
“I have not forgotten –”
The door swung open once more, a familiar figure lurking in the doorway.
“Janus?” said Rook, attention already stolen.
“Have you seen him?”
“Seen who?”
Skandar already knew before he grunted out, “Ziko.”
“Ziko? I haven’t seen him for days.”
Janus shook his head. “He’s losing himself.”
“Hasn’t that always been the case?” she said, pulling towards the table.
Janus dropped into her seat, the light carving up the severe angles of his face. His dark eyes were like liquid amber, blinking and retreating from the sun as if it burned him. Licking chapped lips, he kept his gaze on long, bony fingers splayed out across the table. Whatever it was about this former soldier turned missionary, it appeared he had affected Janus more than Skandar had even realised.
“His body’s gone,” he finally said. “Dead. Died days ago.”
Rook froze, meeting his eyes across the table. “And what of Ziko?”
“He’s a spirit now. He belongs to the otherworld.”
Skandar wanted to laugh. What a world it was, that men could become spirits and spirits could lead men. What a world it was, that he could become the leader of the most vital city in the Myrliks, when he had come from nothing. Upon the table the leather cover of Shinrak’s book still shone in a perfect circle of light from the porthole, reminding him of a line he had highlighted before giving it to Rook:
For the rising tide will sweep over this world all at once, and only those willing to ride its swell will see the world birthed anew.
The Rising Tide Page 52
