Chapter Twenty-One
Lina
In this dim, windowless room, lit by one weak lamp and heated by the thrum of patrons laughing and clinking their glasses in the pub downstairs, Lina paced.
She pulled the thin cloak tighter around herself, feeling cold and exposed in the ridiculous scrap of gauze and beads Rigel called a ceremonial dress, and counted everything she could until Ione returned.
A small bed, four corners, one sunken; a table leaning against the wall, two chairs.
One hanger on one rail, one cracked mirror.
One body, two souls.
In the veritable cage that was her own flesh, Sowelan paced, too, the marching of an endless army just beneath her skin.
Lina scratched the sensation from her limbs, feeling less like a soldier as she marched with Him and more like an exhausted mother trying to soothe a colicky baby.
Sowelan was too big to fit inside her. He threatened to tear her apart, rend a hole in her flesh large enough to slip through.
She could only hope He was quick about it.
None of it was as she might’ve expected.
Lina clamped a hand over her mouth, retching as her stomach did cartwheels – nothing came up, thank the gods; she imagined with fresh horror the sight of a purged god staring up at her from the floor, a blackened slug – but try as she might, she could not sense His hatred, His thirst for blood.
That, thankfully, was still locked away, separate from herself.
She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, hunched and frightened and pathetic. “You’re you,” she whispered. “Still Lina.”
Had Kai felt this way after Menon was injected into him?
Squeezed tight into the corners of his mortal form, haunted, made to feel like an uninvited guest to his own body?
She wished she could ask him, but after seeing the frigid loathing in his eyes – or in Menon’s eyes – on Oseidos, Lina had stayed away, crawled back to the dubious safety of Soliz.
Climbing that mountain again and showing her face in Caelos, she had thought, would spell her own death.
But returning to Soliz had ruined her in a way she’d never anticipated.
A glass broke downstairs, sending a hot wave of fright through her – but laughter followed, calming her.
No one had paid them any mind when they arrived earlier, two girls, innocent; one taking charge and haggling for a room, the other wrapped in a cloak they’d stolen on the way out of Soliz, hood up, silent.
One tiny room, one night, one bowl of spicy stew they shared. They did not have much else, but for one night, at least, they were safe.
A rhythmic knock resounded at the door and Lina lunged, unlocking it and letting Ione in. A rush of cool air flooded Lina’s lungs as she held Ione’s face in both hands, studied her, felt her own pulse slow.
We’re safe, each heartbeat chanted. We’re safe.
Lina swallowed. “Sorry, just – you were gone for…” She hesitated; saying Ione was gone for over two-thousand paces sounded deranged, so she finished meekly, “ages.”
Ione smiled, although her eyes were ringed with fatigue.
“I’m sorry I worried you. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to make nice with the innkeeper lady after returning the dishes.
” She locked the door and propped a chair against it before slinging her cloak and satchel off her shoulders and settling them, clinking with whatever was inside, beside the bed. “She wants to adopt us.”
Lina choked on a laugh and went to perch with her on the side of the bed. “Does she, now. Imagine adopting and getting a god and two shrines after us.”
“I left that out. I told her we were on the run from your parents, who disapproved of us.” Ione’s smile widened, turned mischievous; for a moment, Lina could’ve forgotten they were locked in this dark, hot room, with just four thin walls protecting them from all of Soliz.
“The woman was so full of Poor dears that I began to feel bad.”
Lina measured the sliver of space between them, glanced at Ione’s hand on the moth-eaten duvet. With her so near, even Sowelan seemed mollified, although His presence still weighed heavy in her very bones.
“Well, then,” she said, lightly. Casually, as she inched her marred hand towards Ione’s. Threaded her fingers through Ione’s. Felt her heart kick as Ione smiled, a sunrise, and squeezed her hand back. “I’m glad to hear we’re now staying here for free.”
“If only. The night and food still cost me what little money I brought; I tried exchanging my engagement ring for her silence, but – ” She put on a godsawful attempt at a Coralpool accent, “‘Sowelan incinerate me, baby, I couldn’t take that!’”
Lina snorted. “Don’t ever do that again.”
Ione giggled and nudged her. “If you thought that was bad, you should hear when River and Kai start throwing each other’s accents back and forth. Agony.”
Lina had heard it, in fact. Being stuck with them for those two days was another level of insufferable. She opened her mouth to say as much but yawned, tiredness blanketing her now that she was fed and safe after seven days of terror.
Seven days spent in a cell while Rigel amended his plans, prepared to capture Sowelan’s divinity and siphon it into Lina instead of Castor.
Seven days wondering when, if, she would see sunlight again.
And then, the fight of her life – and afterwards, waking up in a back alley wearing this near-transparent dress, her face stinging after Ione had slapped her back into herself.
She could sleep for years if only Sowelan would settle down and let her.
Ione leaned closer and brushed a stray curl from her forehead. “How’re you feeling?”
“Honestly?” Lina rubbed her eyes, and within her, Sowelan seemed to grumble. “Horrible.”
Ione slipped an arm around Lina’s back, pulling her close, a perfect fit. “Kai said it felt like worms,” she mused, eyes downturned. “He’s had only complaints for it, but when She was with me…” Her voice cracked and she cleared her throat, forging on, “I barely noticed Her.”
“Worms,” Lina echoed, aching for her, for both of them. It all felt like a cruel joke. “Or snakes, something slithery, something that isn’t supposed to be here.” She shivered, dug her fingers into her stomach, sensed Sowelan coiling and uncoiling low in her gut. “I wish I could tear Him out.”
Ione took her hands and brought them to her lips, shushing her, drowning out the marching little legs, the insectoid whir. Sowelan’s statues all depicted Him with birdlike features, an eagle or phoenix or both, royal and awe-inspiring.
This was like an infection.
Lina shook her head, groaning. “I need to wake up. After everything you went through on Oseidos, everything you must’ve been feeling after, you came to Soliz for me.” Tears pricked her eyes, but she forced them down and bowed her forehead against Ione’s. “And – you brought me back.”
Ione traced Lina’s jaw, the line of her neck. The faint bruising she still felt across her throat from when Sowelan snapped Kai’s ward in half as easily as a length of thread. Ione cupped Lina’s face, her thumb sweeping across her eyelashes, brushing away her tears.
“I’d still be there, without you,” Lina whispered.
“Doing gods-know-what for Rigel and the rest of the high priests.” She played with Ione’s hand, thinking, her eyes on her own missing fingers.
There had to be something they could do, some way out of this.
Sowelan reverberated, made her blood course electric through her veins, and she thought – believed, with every inch of her – that this could not possibly be the rest of her life.
“I know you hate him, and that this might be risky,” Lina began, pensive. “But – could Saros do it, d’you think? I don’t know if Kai could without accidentally killing me, from how you said he lost control at Soliz, but – ”
Ione frowned. “How do you mean?”
Lina gestured at herself. “Remove Sowelan? From me? I mean – ” She glanced away. “I’m sorry, I’m sure you don’t want to talk about it. And – maybe I’m na?ve to think Saros could do it, or would do it, but since so much of the higher-tiered stuff is similar between pyromancy and hydro – ”
“Lina.” Something in the way Ione was looking at her frightened her, still frowning, her confusion clear. Ione shook her head, her mouth opening like she meant to say more, but nothing else came out.
Lina’s heart skipped and she grasped Ione’s hands, the words tumbling from her: “I know you hate Saros. I hate to ask. But if he could – he’s an Archpriest for a reason, right?
He could, probably, couldn’t he?” She sensed belatedly that Ione was pulling away, but she couldn’t let go, couldn’t stop herself.
“I don’t want Sowelan. I don’t care what Saros does to Him. I just – I want my body back – ”
“I know,” Ione said quickly, apologetic. “I know, but – Lina, Menon just… left me.” She looked down, her face reddening. “There wasn’t a ritual or anything. I didn’t even know She’d gone.”
Lina’s skin prickled, the air suddenly too warm. “That… that isn’t possible, Ione.”
“But nothing – nothing happened to me.” She freed one hand and wrapped it around her own neck, eyes still trained to the uneven floorboards. “Right up until the moment I… I thought She was still with me.”
“Something had to have happened,” Lina said, her mind racing through what little she knew about the ward Rigel had described while she was awaiting her fate.
From the way Ione told it, Kai hated possessing Menon, so he couldn’t have been the one to move Her.
Whoever did it had been stealthy; it would have been a months-long process if it had happened without Ione’s knowledge.
“I was born with Menon,” Ione insisted weakly. “I never felt… like you do. Or Kai.”