Chapter 13 #2
“It is simply water and stone.” I turn to find him inspecting me. “But I’m glad you like it…” He shifts uncomfortably. “About last night. I’m sorry. I’m not usually so forward.” Pink creeps across his neck.
“Oh.” My gaze falls to the ground. It had just been the arisi?irum. “Of course.” I work to push the words out through the lump in my throat.
“It’s just not very often a beautiful woman falls from the sky and…” Rui rubs at the back of his neck.
I wasn’t sure which part to respond to. Had he just called me beautiful? “I didn’t fall.”
He chuckles. “No, you didn’t. You descended from the heavens like a goddess.”
There are no words. All thoughts have left me.
“Perhaps if you and your friends stay a while, we can get to know each other?” His eyes light with that same fire he held last night.
“I’d like that.” My words are barely above a whisper. I fear that if I’m any louder, this moment will shatter, and I will find it’s all an illusion in my mind.
Rui nods. “Would you like a closer look at the dam?”
***
The shifts meld together until they stretch into a half phase.
Each day, Rui and I start with a warm meal in the commons and catch up with Dom and Cressida, who have taken to studying in the gardens together.
Caius never joins us. He slips into my room at night along with the shadows and sits like a sentinel beside me, as if he is Ilunahēi'àn himself, watching over me to ward away the nightmares.
To my relief, they never return, and each morning Caius is gone before I wake.
Once I’ve eaten my fill and Rui has confirmed that Civra still stalks the grounds above, we spend our days wandering through Tǎnkaski. Our focus is on the waterways, but we make plenty of detours along the way. I get the feeling that neither of us wants our time together to end too quickly.
Today, our stroll takes us through the central part of the city.
The streets are lined with vendors, similar to Bǎodela central, but here the cloth strung over the stalls is light and gauzy, stained with bright colors that must have come from pigments collected in The Above.
The stalls themselves are assembled from pale pine planks, giving the entire market an air of levity.
I’m drawn to a table laid out with glass orbs of varying shapes and sizes, with colors ranging from pale sea-foam green to the vibrant vermilion of a sunset.
The pine poles that hold the awning are hammered with coin-sized brass carvings depicting different stylized figures.
I trace my fingers over the outlines of a bird, a butterfly, and a beetle.
As I inspect the carvings that trail up to the awning, I find they are all manner of winged creatures.
I turn to Rui. “What do they sell?”
Rui places his hand next to mine, tapping on a carving of a firefly. “This is a DǎogàoKumi?i vendor.” He draws his lips between his teeth, stifling a grin. He has taken to doing that when he wants to ask me if we have something similar back home. The answer is always no.
So instead of asking, he turns to the vendor and exchanges a couple of coins. “Pick one.”
“How could I possibly? I don’t know what they’re for.”
He trails his long fingers over a selection of glass vials. “There is no wrong answer, Liv. Which one calls to you?”
I scan the beautiful glass orbs intently. They are all unique and beautiful in their own right. I can’t pick one with my head, so I let my fingertips heat and guide my hand—I land on a vial the size of my palm, blown with clashing waves, a storm in a bottle, the exact color of Caius’ eyes.
Rui nods his approval and selects a bottle of his own, a deep dusty rose with designs that look like shimmering starlight. Then he pivots, guiding us over to the nearest stone railing.
“DǎogàoKumi?i,” he holds up the vial, “are how we send our prayers to the gods.”
I furrow my brow in confusion, my fingers twitching at my side in a practiced motion, calling me to the ground to send my prayers into the earth.
“I’ll show you.” He uncaps the top, pulling out a wand with a ring at the bottom, a gossamer sheen of liquid held within it.
Rui brings it to his lips, whispers something I cannot hear, then blows into the ring, creating a giant bubble that pulls off to float toward the cavern above.
Rui watches the bubble float higher and higher overhead until it disappears from view.
He turns to me. “Your turn.”
I shake my head at the notion of sending my prayers to the dragons above instead of the gods below, but his smile is so genuine I can’t help but oblige.
The cap sticks on my DǎogàoKumi?i, but before I can ask, Rui steps up behind me, wrapping his hand around mine, helping to release the lid.
His hand lingers, guiding the wand to my lips.
“May Guārgia protect these people,” I whisper, and I hope that perhaps his gods or mine will answer my prayer.
Then I blow until my own bubble puffs up into a rainbow-slicked sphere, pulling off the tip to float languidly on the currents until it finally disappears into the cavern above.
Rui releases me. Clearing his throat, he steps back and shoves his hands into the pockets of his robes.
“I hope the gods answer your prayers. You can send them anytime. They are always listening.” He nods at the glass orb in my hands.
I realize with a start that this is why I hadn’t seen any kuàngnirea carved into the cavern walls.
They appeased their gods with beautiful glass and iridescent bubbles sent off into the sky like dreams instead of labor carved into cold stone. How very different life is here.
We continue in silence until Rui points out where the stone channels give way to bamboo pipes that crawl along the edges of the paper city.
“Wood for waterways?” I ask. I still can’t get over how frivolous the Sky City is with a resource that was worth risking my life over back home.
I swallow down the thought. It doesn’t sit right.
I had never felt like I was in danger. Even that day when Caius saved me from the dragon.
The Above had felt like freedom, and collecting the rare resource had merely been a passable excuse.
“Of course, there is plenty of it in the woods above.” Rui trails his fingers over a pole. “Our ancestors always believed that it was important to remember where we came from.”
I study his strong jaw, straight nose, and high cheekbones as he appears to get lost in his own thoughts, inspecting the grain of the planks beneath his palm.
I quickly drop my gaze when he finally turns to find me watching him. Clearing my throat, I ask. “What do you mean, where we came from? Our bodies were born of the earth, birthed from the pools in the deepest caves of Sorkuntza.”
Rui narrows his dark eyes. Now I’m the one under inspection, and I can’t help but feel like he’s trying to weigh the truth of my words.
“Who told you that?” he asks.
“Everyone knows the story of creation, the rise of the pantheon, the origins of all life.” I feel uncomfortable under the weight of his gaze.
“Come with me. I want to show you something.” He extends a hand to me, and I pull my lip in, considering.
I make my decision, sliding my hand into his large, calloused palm.
It’s warm and grounding as he guides me to a section of the city we haven’t gotten to yet.
My stomach drops when I spot the long rope bridge he’s leading me to.
It reaches from the city center to a tower at the back of the cavern, much longer than any of the other rope bridges I have come across so far, and much older.
The ropes are bone white, coated in a frayed layer of threads that suggests they have been peeling away for centuries.
The boards are worn smooth with grooves from thousands of footfalls over countless lifetimes.
My ribs constrict around me, tight ropes choking the breath from my lungs.
Specks shimmer at the edges of my vision, which tunnels to black at the edges.
“Liv.” The pressure of Rui’s hand squeezing mine breaks the spiraling thoughts.
I snap my gaze to him, relieved to break away from the trance the bridge had set me in, but immediately I know Rui has seen right through me.
“It’s okay,” he says quietly, stepping closer, bringing my hand to rest against his chest, the steady rhythm of his heart beneath my palm guiding mine to slow. He steps closer still and drops his head, as if sharing a secret. “You know, I used to be afraid of the bridges.”
“You did not,” I scoff and push against his chest, but he is unmoving as he tightens his grip around my hand.
“I was.”
His confession takes me by surprise, and I can’t help but let my guard slip a little. “You live in a city full of bridges.”
“It was wildly inconvenient.” He smiles at me, then winks, prompting a smile of my own.
“So how did you get over it then?”
He steps closer, eliminating the remaining space between us, and my breath catches. This time, it isn’t just from fear.
“I gripped the ropes as tight as I could.” He pauses, stretching out my anticipation. He has my undivided attention, and he knows it. “Closed my eyes.” He’s so close now I can feel his breath against the shell of my ear. “And imagined that I was climbing the back of a dragon.”
A boisterous laugh bubbles up from my belly, and I push on his chest, but he holds his grip on me, and when I look up, I catch his soft smile and a sparkle in his eye, but it’s earnest, not mocking.
A lock of my hair slides free with my laughter.
Rui reaches up with his free hand and tucks it back behind my ear, his fingers a whisper across my skin as he lets the hand fall to his side again.
“You imagined you were a dragon rider? I thought you hated the dragons.” I ask.
Rui pushes out a long breath. “Not everything is so simple. I don’t hate them…Come, will you at least try?”
Rui leads me over to the bridge, turns to position himself behind me, then places each of my hands on the rope railings.
While they look soft, wooly with wear, the fibers are tough, scratching the palms of my hands.
Rui leaves his hands on top of mine, his warmth seeping into my skin and steadying the tremors building beneath the surface.
“Now,” he whispers, “close your eyes.”
Why am I listening to this man? A man that I know nothing about, besides the fact that he fills out a tunic well and smiles easily, and seems to genuinely care. Oh no…my thoughts are spiraling. I have to make a decision. I slam my eyes shut. I’m already here. I guess we will see how far I fall.
With my eyes closed, the rest of my senses come into sharp focus: Rui’s breath on my shoulder, the heat radiating from his hands, from his entire being, which is now so very close behind me.
Slowly, he traces his fingers up from the backs of my hands, over the cuff that hides my mark, then over my forearms; a trail of heat follows as he moves steadily up to my shoulders.
“Can you see it?” he asks.
How did he expect me to think of anything beyond his hands on me?
I’m wildly distracted, and that is the point, isn’t it?
I swallow the lump in my throat and try to concentrate.
As I clear my mind, gold plates materialize, gleaming in the sunlight, shielding the most magnificent creature I have ever seen.
I have seen many dragons in my dreams, but she is the one who comes to me the most. She is the one who calls me by name.
The worn rope turns to smooth scales beneath my palms.
I take a tentative step forward. This time, when the ground pitches beneath me, I simply adjust my footing.
I’m no longer in danger of falling to my death, not while I scale the back of this magnificent creature, because I know without a doubt, she will not let me fall.
I adjust my balance and pick up the pace as I race along her spiny back.
The shaking beneath my feet no longer scares me. I am in complete control.
I startle when I take my next step, and my foot meets hard stone rather than the give of the walkway. My eyes snap open to find that I’ve made it to the base of the tower that had been hard to make out from across the cavern. Elated, I spin around and throw my arms around Rui.
“I can’t believe that worked!” I smile up at him, and it isn’t until he tentatively wraps his arms around my waist in return that I realize what I’ve done.
“Of course it worked. Did you doubt me?” His fingers play lightly over the base of my spine, sending shivers in their wake.
A familiar feeling tingles at the back of my mind.
This corner of the cavern is shrouded in shadows.
It feels like home, like they’re watching me, and I know I need to put distance between me and Rui.