Chapter 18
Chapter 18
I don’t wait for the next mist to trek to the tower.
I expect Moseus to be waiting for me when I arrive, to talk to me about what happened. He was frustrated about Heartwood’s gods-talk in the garden, so I suspect he’ll be disgruntled about these memories, visions, whatever they are. But when I find him, he’s only pleased about the work. About the opening of the fifth floor and the final machine, which I learn he also can’t touch. He’s thrilled with my theory that it’s all one machine, five parts working in harmony. He says nothing of visions or past arguments.
That’s how I know Heartwood didn’t tell him. And if they’re truly like brothers, as Moseus once alluded, then why would Heartwood not tell him what I shared? What I remember?
Hopefully Moseus is happy enough about my progress that he’ll excuse another absence. Because Heartwood isn’t at the tower. Good.
It’ll be easier to corner him in the garden, anyway.
He’s there, sitting under the same wickwood tree I’m often drawn to, his back to the arch. I know he hears me—I don’t approach with any semblance of stealth—but he doesn’t move, doesn’t speak, even when I sit beside him, legs folded in front of me, our knees touching.
“I have a lot of questions,” I say after several minutes pass. “And you have answers.”
He closes his eyes, jaw tight. All right, then. We’ll start with something easy.
“Why are you here?”
His eyes open slowly, like he’s stirring from a dream. He doesn’t look at me.
Going out on a limb, I ask, “Is this the first or second time you’ve told me?”
A gentle breeze dips into the gorge, rustling my hair.
“A long time ago,” he begins, low and quiet, “there was a war among the gods.”
I say nothing. If he’s talking, I need as many words as I can get before he shuts down again. I don’t look at him, only wait.
“Ruin had devoured much, good and evil alike. Many took a stance against it, saying Ruin needed to be destroyed before the worlds as we knew them fell. Others insisted Ruin was a balance in the universe, as shadow is to light. The gods were split. Half went to war, and half refused. I was in the latter half.” He swallows, but I hear the tightness of his voice, the shame lacing his words. “I clung to the argument of balance. Ether stood against the Devourer. The gods prevailed. They ended Ruin and returned to their domains. But Ether never did. I tracked her here, to Tampere.” He raises his head. “But this world is not like the others. The moment I arrived, it trapped me.”
“Trapped?” So much for staying quiet.
Heartwood nods. “It sapped me of my strength. I am only a fraction of what I was.” Opening and closing his hands, he continues, “It did the same to Moseus during the war. He was never able to leave. He found me. And that rose ring around the planet, the ‘amaranthine wall,’ has trapped the casualties of the battle on the other side of the planet. We cannot pass it. No tool, weapon, or ladder can overcome it. Not as we are.”
I take a few seconds to absorb this. “And your sister, Ether, lives on the other side?”
“I know she does.” His hands ball into fists. “I can feel her there. I’m so close. I’ve been close for years, but never able to reach her.”
I chew the inside of my cheek. “I’ve never been able to pass it, either, though I haven’t tried very hard. Maybe if we get the people of Emgarden—”
“I do not wish to make myself known to them.”
Pushing off the ground, I shift my seat to see him better. “Why?”
“We are outnumbered,” he says, meeting my gaze, and I bite my tongue to stay silent. His brow weighs heavy with regret. Despair. A lump forms in my throat. “And we are weak,” he finishes. “Should they deem us unfit or dangerous in any way ...”
Youare dangerous, I don’t say. If Heartwood can bend steel with his fist in a weakened state ... I can’t imagine what his full glory must be like.
I guess I’ve accepted that he’s a god.
“How do you know the tower will help?” I try.
“What else could it do?” he counters. “Moseus has been here centuries longer than I. He experienced the war firsthand, while I cowered worlds away. If he believes it connected, so do I.”
“The Ancients built it.”
“And they, too, have vanished,” he affirms.
Coolness, like that of a deep well. Could the Ancients be on the other side of that wall, too? Gods were long lived, if not immortal. Were the Ancients the same?
All the more reason to fix the tower.
“The things I told you about before,” I continue, “they feel like memories, but not all of them make sense.”
Unclenching his hands, Heartwood knits them together and becomes incredibly interested in the dirt. “What have you seen?”
I recount everything in as much detail as I can. Machine One, in pieces across the floor. Machine Three, intact. Cutting my hand, and Heartwood bandaging it. The half-formed argument between us. Breath on my neck, footsteps in my house. I think of the explosion I heard that wasn’t real and worry it’s too much to share. Like it might be the weight that tips the scale in diagnosing me as a madwoman.
He shakes his head. “That isn’t much.”
A zip of heat chases away the cool. “Then why did you react that way outside the tower? Why did you tell me to leave?”
Closing his eyes, he bows his head as if in prayer. “Because I have been away from home a long time, and I’m weary.”
“Heartwood.” I can’t hold back the exasperation in my voice.
He rises to his feet.
So do I. “That’s drivel and you know it.”
He turns from me, as though I’m a ghost, unseen and unheard. He walks for the arch like he’s on his way to a funeral.
“Damn it, Heartwood!” I chase him. Grab his hand, but he’s strong and easily breaks my hold. “Tell me what I’m missing! Tell me what you know about those machines!”
But he continues on, insufferable and silent, past the spring and out of the gorge. Enraged, I scoop up a stone and chuck it after him, striking the archway.
“See if I’ll fix your stupid machines!” I yell after him. He needs me, and I need answers. “Heartwood!”
He doesn’t take the bait.
I spend the next cycle piecing together the exterior of Machine Three, made all the more difficult by three brief, nearly consecutive earthquakes. Knowing the tower operates as one machine, I understand what to look for now. Machines One, Two, and Three align in the tower. After knocking around with a wrench, I discover a hollow internal beam in Machine Two. I ruin a hacksaw slicing into it and drop a screw inside, listening to it fall until it clanks off Machine One. With Machine Three, I find a passage the width of my arm under a plate bolted at the base of its foundation. The top of Machine Three, the part already connected to the ceiling, pierced through to join with Machine Four, and Machine Four cuts across its chamber to join with Machine Five, once that male piece lowers. I sketch this all out on my slate and stare at it, wondering what it means.
I don’t see Heartwood. He’s avoiding me. Smart of him, since I’m ready to pin him to the wall myself and claw some answers from his skin.
Moseus yearns for the end of the work. So do I, but I can’t ignore my duties in Emgarden. I bring the next batch of scrap metal straight to Arthen, saving a few pieces for personal study. I set them out on a table in the alehouse, sipping a drink. Not strong enough to fill the gap within me, just enough to calm my ever-growing nerves.
Casnia comes in with Amlynn. Salki must be working, and Casnia gets impatient in the fields. Amlynn sits Casnia down at a table and leaves to speak with Maglon. Almost immediately Casnia picks up her things and joins me, taking a long time to situate herself, never making eye contact. Sets up her art, but doesn’t draw.
She picks up a bent metal plate, then sets it down, disinterested. “Hot,” she says.
“Mid sun,” I answer, studying a ball-joint hinge on one of the scraps. I don’t understand how it can have such breadth of motion and still connect so firmly, but I’m afraid to take it apart.
“Hot,” Casnia repeats. She draws wide scribbles across new parchment, and I wince, feeling the waste. “Hot, hot, hot.”
Reaching over, I pick up the bent plate. It’s room temperature.
Casnia attacks the parchment with her chalk, breaking off the end. “HOT!” she screams, alerting everyone in the alehouse. “HOT! HOT!”
“Cas!” Jumping from my chair, I grasp her shoulders. “Cas, calm down! Nothing’s hot. Do you want hot food?” I wave to Amlynn, who looks concerned, letting her know I’ve got it under control.
Casnia shakes her head like bugs are crawling through her ears. Then I see her drawing.
She’s drawn amidst the scribbles, messily made, a symbol. Three diagonal lines and a small circle at the end.
Reaching over, I turn the plate scrap around. It has the same imprint. Three diagonal lines, a circle at the end.
“Hot,” she cries, slapping her parchment.
“Hot,” I repeat. Guessing, I point to her symbol. “Hot.”
Casnia says nothing.
I pick up the broken chalk and draw the same lines and circle on the corner of her parchment. “Hot,” I repeat.
She looks up, sniffs.
I pause, pulse heavy. Pull my chair over so I can sit right next to her. “Cas ... can you read this?”
She mews.
I grab the other remnant, turning it over. One piece has faint writing along one edge. “Casnia, what does this say?”
But she tilts her head all the way back and stares at the ceiling.
Sighing, I set it down. “Well, it was worth a shot.”
“Beast,” she murmurs.
“What?”
“Beast!”she screams, and starts attacking her parchment again, making harsh lines, but I can see a sloppy semblance of one of the symbols. “Beast! Core!”
“Beast core?” I repeat, just as Amlynn comes over. “Sorry,” I apologize to her. “She’s just ... worked up.” An idea crosses my mind. “Will you be here a minute?”
Amlynn nods, handing Casnia a cup of water. Casnia drinks it greedily.
I walk out of the alehouse calmly enough, but once I get to the road, I run all the way to my house. Grabbing the sundial, I hurry back. Casnia and Amlynn are just as I left them, though Casnia has relaxed some.
“Hey, Cas.” I set the dial in front of her, keeping my back to Gethnen, who thinks I surrendered the sundial to Arthen. “Remember this? You and Salki gave it to me.”
She spits a mouthful of water back into her cup.
“Cas? Can you read this?” I point to the numbers.
Amlynn looks at me like I’m crazy.
Casnia sets her water aside roughly, spilling the contents over the table. Amlynn curses and goes to Maglon for a rag. Casnia stabs her finger into the metal. “Six, seven, eight, nine.” The rest devolves into grunts.
Lowering myself into Amlynn’s chair, I breathe, “You can read this, can’t you?”
Salki doesn’t know any of the Ancients’ language. I barely do myself. No one could have taught Casnia. No one I can fathom.
Casnia sobers suddenly, calm as death itself. She touches one of the symbols on the side of the sundial, the slanted line with the circle. “Morning.”
“Mourning?” I repeat. “Mourning over who?”
But I’ve lost her. She hunkers over her art, coloring in earnest now, and no amount of cajoling grabs her attention.
“Give her a break, Pell,” Amlynn pleads, cleaning up the water. “She’s behaving.”
Sighing, I gather my scraps.
Amlynn hands one to me. “Are these from the tower?”
I stiffen. Admittedly, I’m not always the most clandestine in my journeys, but ... “No, why?”
Amlynn shrugs. “I guess you found a cache somewhere?”
“Why do you think they’re from the tower?”
She hesitates at the sharpness in my tone.
I clear my throat. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine. You used to go there, is all.”
I narrow my eyes. “Used to?”
Amlynn twists the rag in her hands. “I don’t mean anything by it—”
“No, no,” I force friendliness into my voice. “But what do you mean, used to?”
She glances at Maglon. “I saw you headed that way about a year ago. Place has always been shut up, so I wondered.”
Blood drains from my face and pools in my chest. A year ago. Seven hundred fifty cycles. But I only met Moseus about forty cycles ago.
“You’re mistaken,” I mutter halfheartedly.
She shrugs. “Probably.”
I’m making her uncomfortable. Without another word, I leave the alehouse, dump the scraps at the forge, and take the sundial back home. At least, I reassure myself as I lie in my bed and wait for the mist to fall, if I am crazy, I’m not the only one.
I consider asking Moseus straight out, but he’s meditating when I arrive. He’s deep into it, too. Doesn’t even budge when I open the door, and I never bothered to oil his hinges.
I don’t search for Heartwood. I don’t have the courage to. I need to think.
The tower machines don’t have any notable compartments to put emilies in. I know that already, but I check again anyway, even investigating those hollow beams in Machines Two and Three. It would take a lot of the flowers to power this fortress, but if that’s one of its secrets, I don’t know how to utilize it. I could rig something up, maybe, the same way I could rig up steam power, but the machines weren’t meant to be added to.
I notice something, however, as I move through the tower. The machines all line up ... and so do their aggravating power switches. Discovering that, I sketch out more components and conclude that each machine has large wheels that align as well. After a few measurements, I confirm that it’s an enormous pulley system, minus the cable. The tower’s rope isn’t long enough, so I make a note to bind extra wires and emily roots into a cord that will stretch clear from Machine Three to Machine One and back. The movement of Machine Three should power Machines Four and Five, if I’ve calculated it correctly.
I tighten a few nuts at the top of Machine Four, which I rolled back into place earlier, then realize I’m finished with it. All it needs now is the cord for the pulley system—
Breath on my neck.
I freeze, lungs seizing. I’m alone, but that ... it feels just like before. Steeling myself, I slowly peer behind me—
I’m wiring Machine Two when Heartwood comes behind me, one arm around my waist, nuzzling my neck.
“You’re back.” I grin and lean into him, head against his shoulder. “Anything?”
“No.” But he’s not upset by it. “I had no expectations.”
“Still.”
The room returns to me, just as I’d left it. My hands, gone cold, shake. My lungs suck in air, protesting time without breath.
That ... that was real. Denying it is pointless. I felt his arm around me, his lips against my throat. I still feel it. Even the leap of my heart at his return—he’d been gone a while. A leap, and then comfort. Contentment.
Reaching up, I touch the side of my neck. Then my cheek.
Why am I crying? I swipe the tears away and stare at the streaks they leave on my hands, as though I’ve never seen tears before.
A year ago,Amlynn said.
I can’t do this anymore.
Leaving my tools, I pick my way down the machine, my grip tentative, my quivering limbs pebbling. I step into the lift and numbly pull the cord. Second floor.
My instinct is right. Heartwood’s there, in his chamber, sitting at the window again. I don’t bother knocking. I never did knock, did I?
He looks up, his body language soft and open for a split second, then closed and hard the next. “Pell—”
“Tell me,” I interrupt. Pell, he said. Not Nophe.
He pushes off the windowsill. His unbound hair, slightly damp, waves around his shoulders and waist as he moves to push past me.
I shove both heels into the corners of the doorway, barring him.
“Tell me.” I want to demand, to threaten, but rising emotion chokes and breaks my words. I step forward, and Heartwood retreats like I’m a viper, his hard fa?ade melting until he’s just as he was that first time, standing on the stairs, hurt and despairing and limned with regret.
I shut the door behind me, closing off his escape. “I remember,” I whisper, blinking back a tear, “but I don’t. It’s all pieces and shards and fragments that don’t fit together. But you know, don’t you? Someone in Emgarden said she saw me coming to the tower a year ago. I wasn’t here a year ago. Or was I?”
Through gritted teeth, Heartwood says, “I have nothing for you.” And pushes past me for the door.
I grab his wrist, holding tight because I know his strength. “Heartwood, please.” I swallow a sob. “Did I know you, before all this?” I tug, but he’s unyielding. “Didn’t you ... love me?”
That’s what does it. His arm goes limp in my grasp. He turns toward me, vibrant emerald eyes darting back and forth in short movements as he studies my face. I wonder what he sees there. Whatever it is, it’s enough.
“Ether, forgive me,” he whispers, breaking my grasp and seizing my wrist, pulling me to him, chest to chest, hand to hair, nose to nose.
And he kisses me.