Chapter Twenty-Six #4
“Heal her,” Ione commanded, staggering to her feet.
“Ione, I – ” A small, guilty noise. “I’m trying.”
“Do it.” She whirled, in time to see Kai’s mother draw an ice blade.
With horrifying coolness, Saros melted her blade and backhanded her, sending her stumbling back. “Restrain her,” he barked at Nalu.
A scuffle, Nalu, wrestling his mother away from Saros, his words low, a warning; Malia, kicking, damning Saros, damning Nalu, damning them all.
Kai was still on his knees, his face buried in his hands, River’s arms around him. Saros clicked his tongue. “Stand up,” he shouted. “Quit your crying.”
Mechanically he obeyed, shoving River away. River understood, then, and drew his sword, sprinting towards Saros.
“You too, River?” Saros said, amused. To Kai, “Protect me.”
A compact ward wove itself around him. A bloodcurdling buzzing reverberated when River’s sword made contact, snapping the fine blade in half.
“Not one of you appreciates hard work. Deciphering the mess Llyr called a journal to study the ins and outs of gods and wards was no small task.” Saros heaved a great suffering sigh. “Well, then!” he said, brightening as he addressed Rigel’s dwindling forces. “We’ll finish it here, will we, son?”
Kai stirred. He was trying to talk. “Kill me,” he said, and again, louder, desperate. “Someone has to kill me.”
Saros’s voice lowered to an ominous timbre, a death knell. “Flood the earth. Let only our devoted few in Caelos survive.”
Thunder clapped, a profound rumbling Ione felt in her bones, in each quivering heartbeat.
A shaft of light rent the sooty clouds, striking Kai and connecting him to the bloated sky.
It suspended him in place, his horrendous cries drawing River back to him, hovering beside Hilo and Etan, none of them sure what to do.
The light shot skyward, dropping Kai back to his knees and limning each dark cloud with silver. And then the sky itself cracked open, releasing waterfalls of rain, hundreds of them, thousands, stretching all the way into the horizon.
Ione sank back to her knees on the sodden ground. A brave few sun soldiers charged through the cloudburst, each of them meeting their fate with dignity as Kai slaughtered them with spiralling frozen blades.
Saros was protected, unreachable.
Lina was dead.
There was nothing she could do but bear witness.
She laid her fingertips on Mikau’s arm and shook her head, bidding them to stop.
She took Lina’s hand and held it on her lap, her monocular in her other hand, watching the needless bloodshed, the rain pouring in thick streams down into the lowlands; Etan, drawing a knife and looking between Hilo and Malia for direction.
River, diving between them, taking Kai’s face in his hands, kissing him.
Kai, staring straight ahead at the carnage, unresponsive.
“Ione.” Mikau nudged her, her voice rising. “Ione.”
Cynthia stifled a scream, and Ione tore her attention away from the bloodied ice spikes littering the mountain. To Lina, whose cheeks flushed red despite the wet chill in the air. To Lina, whose lips parted as she sucked in a breath.
Mikau dived at her, peeling away the edges of her torn bodice, still sticky with blood. Beneath it, the wound was knitting together, its jagged edges glimmering with golden light.
“Sowelan is healing it. Sowelan is – ” With a gasp they dropped back and bowed their forehead to the muddy earth.
“But how?” Cynthia demanded. “Her heart – ”
“Was unscathed, it looks like.” Mikau shot back up and grabbed Ione’s shoulder. “You pushed her, didn’t you? You pushed her aside?”
Ione nodded, tears stinging her eyes. She hadn’t thought she’d helped at all. She thought she’d failed.
The others parted for her, letting her kneel over Lina’s healing body. She clasped her hand over the closed wound and whispered her name like it was a prayer, a hymn –
But when Lina’s eyes opened, it was Sowelan who stared right back.
Sowelan blinked, His irises a bright, scalding gold.
“Menon,” He said, His voice still feminine, mingled with Lina’s.
He reached, brushing Ione’s hand aside, and felt the smooth skin over Lina’s ribcage, His brow furrowing like He still expected there to be a hole.
He said something else, something in the gods’ tongue.
Ione’s gaze flew to Cynthia, who edged closer. “‘I won’t forgive that,’ He said,” she whispered in Ione’s ear.
Sowelan held out one hand. At a loss, Ione clambered to her feet and pulled Him up. A tranquil, saintly expression settled over His features as he regarded her.
Heliade, He said, a word Ione recognised. And another simple phrase: Thank you.
Without another look, He pivoted towards Kai, His posture taut, giving the impression of an archer taking aim.
“Wait,” Ione cried, barely registering how Cynthia and Mikau caught her arms and wrenched her back. “Please,” she mustered, her voice small, when Sowelan half-turned. “Don’t hurt him.”
A vindictive smile. “‘You have my gratitude,’” Cynthia translated. She hesitated over the last words, her grip on Ione’s arm tightening. “‘But you do not command a god.’”
Ione’s knees buckled. She really would lose one of them, after all.
Malia shouted her sons’ names, seeing what was coming, seeing that there was nothing they could do to stop it. Etan and Hilo cursed, the latter grabbing River by his collar and yanking him with them, all of them slipping on the soaked grass as they climbed back up to the others.
Still safe within the ward Kai cast for him, Saros seethed. “Kill Him,” he shouted: “Kill Sowelan! Hurry!”
Another bolt of ice, but Sowelan was faster, raising a wall of fire spanning the entire length of the field. The spear melted, but the fire burned higher, a show of power, of dwindling patience.
“Oh, gods – ” River, freed from Hilo’s grasp, backed towards Ione and the others. His hand found hers, although his eyes were still trained on Kai, a faint silhouette beyond the roaring inferno. “What are we supposed to do?”
As the two gods stared at one another through the flames, water coursed down the mountain. Soon Lodestone, the rest of the earth, would be little more than a mire of drowned bodies.
Unless Lina – Sowelan – killed Kai.
She shook her head, unable to answer his question, and drew her friends into her, River on one side, Cynthia on the other, Mikau behind them.
The wall of fire collapsed, leaving a black, smoking line in the grass. The air swelled with electricity, the two magical classes vying to overpower the other. Again Sowelan called Menon’s name, advancing a step, His voice strong but still undeniably tinged with Lina’s.
Sowelan raised one arm, holding it level, His hand open and flat.
“No,” River shouted, “Wait!”
Sowelan’s arm swung in a blur, drawing a slash of fire as thin as a blade, radiating in a wide crescent. Kai staggered back, a hand at his throat, blood pouring down his body.
Cynthia covered her face as Kai bent double and coughed, a gruesome, wet noise. Malia wept, and even Saros fell to his knees. Ione clung to River, tears streaming down both their cheeks.
The heavens still poured down onto them, even as Kai clung to life. River lowered to the ground, one hand over his mouth to suppress his sobs. Ione fell beside him, no longer feeling anything at all.
Sowelan spoke, a haughty, self-righteous tone.
A questioning murmur behind them. Cynthia sniffled and cleared her throat. “He said, ‘Wake,’” she murmured, gradually, like she wasn’t sure. “And, ‘Right your wrong.’”
Unbelievably, Kai straightened, wiping his neck with his palm. Healed, Ione heard someone say; her breath catching, she fumbled for her monocular and held it in unsteady hands.
Kai coughed again, spitting up blood. And when he spoke, it was with Menon’s voice.
“‘We are…’” Cynthia quieted, let River finish the sentence:
“‘…even, now, I hope.’”
And with that, Menon sent one great stream of magic into the sky.
Like the turning of a tap, the deluge ceased, the last of each cloudburst hitting the ground with an earsplitting slap.
The air cooled, bringing about a great, thick fog as every ounce of rainfall condensed and lifted, returning itself to the sky.
Cynthia shivered beside her, all of them still drenched. Ione scanned the wall of fog as River murmured prayers; she could just about make out the smudges of orange and red, dregs of Rigel’s army, stealing away to safety. Dimly, she felt Mikau wicking their hair and clothes dry from the rainwater.
“‘What have they done to you?’” River translated for Menon. His legs quaking, he forced himself to stand and hauled Ione up with him.
Startlingly, Sowelan laughed, a high, silvery noise like the chiming of a bell. He said something back, His tone warm.
River’s mouth fell open. He shook his head, frowning, looking to Ione and the others for confirmation. “Sowelan is… making fun of Menon for being locked in a man’s body.”
“‘It’s not my fault,’ Menon says,” came Cynthia’s voice. Everything she said sounded like a question: “‘I let my guard down after Llyr died? I woke up in a new vessel? Llyr’s bastard – ’” Cynthia hesitated. “I don’t know the next word, but it isn’t nice.”
Mikau sputtered. “Are they fucking friends?”
Menon pointed at Ione, who felt faint. Fainter still when Sowelan followed Menon’s gaze. My heliade, Sowelan said, approving.
“Hold on.” River pressed his fingertips to his eyelids. “I think I’m having a panic attack.”
“Kai,” Saros boomed, pounding his fists against the protective ward. “For gods’ sakes, kill Him!”
Menon whirled. “‘Do not presume,’” Cynthia translated, “‘to interrupt a god.’” She gestured to Sowelan, who smiled prettily. “‘Kill Sowelan yourself.’”
The ward around Saros shattered, but he didn’t budge. He looked small; furious, but afraid, his face whiter than the dissipating fog.
Menon smiled, as disdainful as Ione had always been towards the old man. But towards Sowelan, Her smile softened. Like She was looking at someone She loved.