CHAPTER 16 RAYA
RAYA
I was twelve years old when I first heard of the Divine Meridian.
When anyone first heard of him, to be honest, since before then, the Church’s hold on Sarotuza was ironclad.
It was their teachings the faithful followed.
Their sacraments. Their hateful lies. Until one day, a cleric from their own ranks broke very, very bad.
He claimed to be the voice of the Gods.
He claimed to have the power to put an end to the magical scourge.
Though at first, nobody believed him. They had no reason to; he was just a disgraced minister who hadn’t even reached the rank of Aralagio yet, an angry zealot wearing silver robes and drawing pictures of the sun.
So instead of aiming big, he started small.
He proselytized in the poorest parts of the city, targeting those the clergy had neglected and winning them over with the promise of shelter, food, and wine.
It took years for his sigil to work its way out of the slums, but once it did, hundreds of sacred stars suddenly began to appear around Sarotuza.
On walls, on shopfronts, on pamphlets that preached his message and bore his likeness, saint-like portraits that always depicted him with a kind smile and a gold-lit crown.
A cult, the Church had called his congregation, even as it continued to turn a blind eye.
Right up until the day it couldn’t anymore, when he commandeered one of their own houses.
There was no more ignoring him after that.
Then once he started bleeding Shades, the Council took notice, too; they set every guild to the task of tracking the Meridian down.
That was six months and ten dead Shades ago, and still, no one has been able to get within striking distance of that man.
Until today.
It takes a long minute for the blood to stop pounding in my ears, for my breaths to slow their gasp and my heart to find a steady rhythm.
“You can let go of me now.” The moment I realize Ezzo’s arm is still wrapped around my waist, I push away from him, cursing the iron that’s keeping us connected, how it’s constantly finding new ways to force him into my space. “They’re gone.”
“Any idea who they were?” The heat of his body—of the In-Between he’s casting—instantly disappears. “Because not a word of that made any sense to me.”
“Yes, actually.” Even if I can’t quite believe it. “That was the Divine Meridian. Head of the fringe group that broke with the Church.”
“Wait—the man leading the Shade-killing cult is a Shade?” Ezzo’s brows disappear into his hairline. “And you didn’t think to mention that?”
“I didn’t think to mention it because he’s not a Shade.” The idea is downright ludicrous. “The Divine Meridian is obviously a—” Typic, I almost say, before the truth of the matter catches up to me.
The Divine Meridian can’t be a typic.
We just witnessed, first-hand, what the shadows do to typics, and even then, the protracted display we saw should have been impossible.
That girl should have shattered the second she was phased into the Gray, not a bell and a half later, and no amount of cryptic ramblings about street urchins and tributes can change that.
We’re right back to: this doesn’t make any sense.
“Hue is far more likely than Shade,” I say instead, recalibrating my thinking. “It would explain his vendetta against the Council and the Church.”
“But it wouldn’t explain why he’d risk drawing so much attention to himself.” Ezzo’s tone is dismissive. “When your whole life is illegal, that’s not something you do.”
“Maybe it’s not something you do.” I reject his lack of imagination. “But you have to admit it’s smart, hiding in plain sight.” Hells, by sheer virtue of aligning himself with the Gods, the Meridian
ensured that everyone would leap to the same conclusion I did, assume that typic is the only thing he could be. “You know what—why are we even arguing about this? Just use your gift.” I kick myself for getting sucked into this inane discussion.
“Fine, I will.” Ezzo blinks into the magic, though the heat pinking his ears suggests that he, too, forgot that was an option. Clearly, the shock of discovery is making us both a bit dim.
“Well?” I prompt when the whites of his eyes begin to clear. “Is he a Hue or a Shade?”
“Neither.” The word is an exhale, a breath laden with disbelief.
“What do you mean, neither?” How in the name of all three Gods is neither even an option here?
“I mean, the woman he was with was a Hue; I could see her trail clear as day. Emerald, perfectly solid, exactly the kind of signature I expect. But his was more like . . . an absence. Not like he’s masking his presence—I wouldn’t have seen anything if that were the case—but more like the shadows are ending around him. Like he’s swallowing them up.”
“Okay . . . so then what does that mean?”
“I don’t know.” Ezzo drags a hand through his hair, sounding every bit as confused as I feel.
“How could you not know?”
“Because being a Hue doesn’t come with instructions, Raya.
” He throws both arms up in the air, almost jerking me off my feet.
“We don’t live the same charmed life as you do, okay?
We don’t go to a fancy academy or learn to cast from a who’s who of professors or a sprawling archive of books.
My own mother couldn’t teach me the ins and out of my power because your Council has spent four hundred years suppressing any and all information about our gifts.
So, I’m sorry if you don’t like my answer, but it’s the only fucking answer I can give.
” His anger is hot and righteous, a flame that kindles both my embarrassment and my cheeks.
I’ve never spared a thought for how his kind learn to use their magics; only for how their existence might one day come to threaten me, my magic, if their numbers weren’t kept in check.
“You’re right, I’m sorry,” I say, and it isn’t a lie. “But the woman with him—the Hue—you said her trail was visible?”
“Yeah.” He deflates like a pricked balloon, as though a fleeting flare of temper was all he had in him. “Why?”
Because I’m starting to understand why the future sent me to find him at the Golden Stag tavern, and why it helped us escape together, and why it’s choosing to only answer my questions when they somehow involve him.
Because—judging by the conversation we just overheard—the appalling horror that played out in this house is about to cycle and repeat.
And I’m pretty sure the future wants us to stop that from happening.
*
Convincing Ezzo to hunt the Hue with me proves easy.
Perhaps if he hadn’t just watched a child die in the most grotesque way possible, his answer would have been different—perhaps then he would have decided to put an end to this misguided alliance and drag me back to his friends.
Or perhaps I would have beaten him to the punch and dragged him to mine, got Akari to help keep him quiet while we sold the trackers a more flattering version of the day’s events.
A version where I didn’t get myself caught and shackled.
Where the iron around my wrist was a strategy not an embarrassing fail.
Though right at this moment, it’s just an inconvenient problem, a reason my hand keeps grazing Ezzo’s over and over again.
I would really—really—like to be rid of this cuff already.
Around us, the Gray has dimmed with the darkness, the shadows ringing with the midnight bell. Gods, I’ve been missing from the Academy for almost twelve hours, long enough that someone should have reported my absence by now—if not Killen, then Akari. Someone should have come looking.
“Are you sure we’re going the right way?
” I snap at Ezzo, pushing that thought down quick.
The only thing I can control, in this moment, is my ability to shape the story the trackers will eventually hear, and that means having something useful to tell them, not letting Alara slip into the night and disappear.
“For the eighth time—yes, I’m sure.” Ezzo rolls his eyes. Which only serves to prove that he can’t actually be sure, because they’re not clouded white with his gift.
“How do you know that if you’re not checking?”
“Well, for starters, I am checking; I can blink in and out of the magic pretty quickly.” He bristles, tongue clicking against his teeth. “And besides, Alara’s only a few streets ahead of us; when she leaves the Gray, I’ll see it.”
“Okay, but how will you see it?” This time, my question is equal parts sullen and sincere. “I mean—what exactly would you see when she phases? What does it look like when you blink . . . in there?”
“Do you really care?” Ezzo asks, staring at me as though I’ve grown an extra head.
“Care? No. I’m just curious.” I shrug. “But we can keep walking in silence if you prefer.” With nothing to distract us from the gentle stir of the shadows and the forced proximity of the cuffs, the way his In-Between shudders a little every time it brushes up against my side.
“Or I could keep incessantly asking if you’re sure . . .”
His answering sigh is bone deep. “It’s not the easiest thing to explain—the Gray sort of gets .
. . lighter, I guess you could say. Like paint that’s been watered down.
Hazy is probably a better way to describe it—everything gets a little hazy, including all the buildings, and the landmarks, and the ground.
Then on top of that, you have the trails. ”
“And those are different to echoes, right?” I feel like I remember him saying something to that effect, though at the time, my attention was fixed firmly on the wails screaming through the Meridian’s house.
“Yeah, they’re much less fleeting. It’s more like . . . glowing lengths of string, but the strings are made of light, and they sort of hover at eye level, and they’re the same color as the Shades