Chapter 18 Kai
THE TIDE WAS LOW WHEN they reached the cove, making it easy for them to slip into Dovermere. A blessing, given the unpredictability of the tide. One good thing about this fucked-up day, at least.
The pull of Dovermere was undeniable, beckoning Kai forward with a hungry sort of eagerness. In his mind, he heard Selandyn’s voice mingled with that of the umbra in his nightmares, speaking in that ancient tongue.
Open the door.
Despite the warning bells sounding in his ears and the feeling that something waited for him in the gloom of the caves, Kai’s strides were steady, his sense of purpose unmarred.
There was no going back now anyway.
Behind him, Baz was still debating with Nisha and Vera on whether the two of them should be here at all.
“If you’re going through the door to other worlds, I’m coming too,” Nisha said. “I’m arguably just as big of a fan of Song of the Drowned Gods as you are.”
“This isn’t some fun little adventure we’re all merrily going on,” Baz cautioned. “We don’t know what’s waiting for us on the other side of the Hourglass—much less if we can actually survive it.”
“We’ll survive it,” Vera said with unfounded confidence.
“You don’t know that. We’re not Tidecallers, and if Emory’s blood is the only thing that allows her to go through worlds unscathed and not end up like Travers and Lia…”
Baz trailed off, but his meaning was clear.
A withered corpse. A tongue missing from a charred mouth.
That was what had awaited those who weren’t Tidecallers, who couldn’t travel between worlds.
Travers and Lia had been spat back out onto these shores, only for their twisted magic to kill them from the inside.
“Wouldn’t Kai’s presence protect us the same way Emory’s might have?” Nisha asked. “If he’s mentioned in the epilogue as being one of these key pieces who can travel through worlds…”
“So is Romie,” Kai snapped, “and that did nothing to save your friends.” He didn’t want to be held responsible should things go wrong.
“What about this?”
They all stared at Vera as she produced a familiar compass, the same one Baz had found near Keiran’s body right here in the caves.
Vera had nearly snatched it out of Baz’s hand when he’d first shown it to her.
This was Adriana’s, she’d said, full of wonder.
The engraving on the back—VA. That’s for Veiled Atlas.
It was passed down in the Kazan family, and Adriana was the lucky sister to get it.
“What about it?” Kai asked, failing to see how such a bauble might be pertinent. “It doesn’t even work.”
“I know, but my family’s always had this superstition about it, using it as a talisman against misfortune.
My grandmother gave it to Adriana to protect her on her travels.
And if Adriana left it with Emory before going off in search of the epilogue…
I can’t help thinking it’s got to be important.
” Vera slipped the chain around her neck. “Maybe it’ll keep us safe.”
“Gambling our lives based on all these guesses doesn’t sound safe to me,” Baz muttered.
“Look, we could stand here theorizing all day,” Nisha said, “but we won’t know unless we try. And the fact of the matter is, we really don’t have a choice at this point. So, Tides willing, we’ll be safe…”
“Or we’ll all die horrible deaths,” Vera finished for her in a chipper, unaffected tone. “Personally, I’d rather take my chances than go back to the Regulators. And if something goes wrong, Baz can always turn back the clock, right?”
Baz grumbled something under his breath, clearly displeased with their odds and this responsibility Vera was thrusting upon him. Still, the four of them kept forging deeper into the caves. Nisha was right; they had no other choice.
They reached the Belly of the Beast. The Hourglass beckoned to Kai darkly, as it always did.
He looked at Baz, who was sizing up the curious rock formation as if it were a formidable foe he had to destroy.
Baz caught his eye, throat bobbing as he swallowed back the fear that Kai could feel rippling off him.
“You can do this,” Kai said in a low voice only Baz could hear, trying to convey all the faith he had in him. If only he had the power to make Baz see himself the way Kai did—the strength in him, the power he exuded so effortlessly, without even knowing.
Baz glanced at the Hourglass again, and something shifted in him. He squared his shoulders, blew out a breath. Shed his fears as though this were a nightmare and Kai had absorbed them for him.
But this was real. And as Baz pulled on the threads of time around the Hourglass, visible to his eyes only, Kai couldn’t help but marvel at him.
This infuriating boy who barely believed in himself, despite having the power of time running unimpeded through his veins, amplified with his Collapsing, and completely under his control.
He was magnificent.
As though it were the easiest thing for Baz to do, the door wound back to a time it had been unlocked. The Hourglass split open to other worlds. Velvety darkness full of stars yawned open before them, beckoning them all forward.
Baz gaped at the door, murmuring a bewildered, “I did it.” He looked at Kai. “I really did it.”
“Never doubted you for a second, Brysden.”
They held each other’s gaze, the world narrowing to just the two of them. But then the sliver of a song reached Kai’s ears. He turned to the door, itching for that darkness, all too eager to answer its undeniable pull.
Kai was the first to step past the threshold. The others followed behind him, and then they were standing on a path laden with stars, a shallow stream of water rushing past their feet, spilling into the darkness on either side of the path in trickles and cascades that sparkled in the starlight.
“This way,” Kai said, already moving along the path in the same direction the water flowed.
“How do you know?” Baz asked, catching up with him.
“There’s music coming from over there.” The same damn song he heard in his sleep, here now in waking form. Kai gave a sidelong glance to Baz. “You don’t hear it, do you?”
Baz shook his head, something like disappointment swimming in his eyes. Before Kai could say anything, Vera exclaimed, “Look!”
The compass had come to life, glowing golden in the dark. Its whirring hands came to a stop to point them in the same direction the song came from.
A sudden prickling sensation crept along the back of Kai’s neck. The taste of fear flooded his mouth, so poignant he thought he might choke on it.
Something was coming.
“Brysden—”
The rest of his warning died on his lips.
Kai’s head snapped backward as shadows rushed him and bound him, filling his open mouth until he was choking on them.
Something grabbed his neck, claws cold against his skin.
A giant umbra towered over him. A cloak of billowing shadows trailed behind it, and atop its head sat a crown of obsidian.
It had no mouth to speak with, but its voice—old and guttural and melodious all at once, a voice he had heard before—spoke in Kai’s mind.
Fear Eater. Nightmare Weaver. Have you come to free me at last?
Kai struggled against its grip, feeling himself drift toward unconsciousness as the creature’s shadows suffocated him. He knew then, without a doubt, that what had been plaguing his nightmares these past few months was real. The ultimate nightmare, a creature the umbrae bowed to as their king.
If the sleepscape was a world of its own, a whole universe yet to be explored, then this, he knew, was its ruler.
And it wanted nothing more than to escape.