Chapter 14 Daesra
DAESRA
I DON’T cease looking over my shoulder until we’ve hiked a ways up into the craggy pass, hemmed in by sharp black rocks that glint like glass and can cut mortal skin just as easily.
It’s as if our surroundings are intended to keep the journeying shades from spreading out too far from each other unless they want to risk bleeding—and thus be forced to contend with each other on more direct and possibly dire terms. It’s a type of rock I’ve only seen around volcanoes in the mortal realm, which makes me scrutinize the peaks around us for signs of instability.
Isha did mention a River of Fire, but I’m hoping the title was euphemistic—and yet since no other name here has been, I doubt it.
To make the environment more treacherous, the River of Regret flows down a steep gully to the right side of the path, making its own journey to reach the delta, where it joins the River of Hatred behind us.
The smoky green water stands out like a twining venomous snake against the dark stone.
A shade especially wouldn’t want to wander too far that way to risk getting affected by the water and adding the weight of all their mortal regrets to their backs as they hike.
Or, worse, getting washed back down the mountain with those regrets.
Despite his short stature, Pogli has an easy enough time climbing with four legs at his disposal. Melé, however, pants alongside me. I keep us moving quickly, not only because the faster we carry on the better, but because I hope it will discourage her from asking me questions.
To no avail.
She begins with, “So… what have you occupied your time with since I last saw you?”
No. I’m not doing this.
I shrug without turning to look at her, focusing on the trail ahead. “Quite a lot, I imagine. It has been, what, over a hundred years? I lose track.” Never mind that I was a daemon up until only a few months ago.
Then, breathing harder from behind me: “Tell me about Sadaré.”
I still don’t know how to capture that fire, that biting humor, that fierce will, and most importantly a heart so expansive it made room even for me, all in a few pitiful words.
Even in trying, images come to me before words—her flashing red hair, clever green eyes, and beautifully wicked smile—the picture so sharp in my mind that it cuts.
My jaw clenches where at least Melé can’t see it. “When you meet her—again—you can tell me yourself.”
She only picks up her pace stubbornly—somewhat reminding me of Sadaré, in fact. “Why did you hurt those people we saw outside of the Temple of Judgment?”
Here it is, I think. What she really wanted to ask. Next thing, she’ll be inquiring about the temples she heard I defiled. Or whatever happened to her temple. So I ignore her entirely.
Good thing the River of Regret can’t affect me. I have regrets enough without it.
At the rate I’m moving, it doesn’t take us long to encounter a couple of shades who made it through the temple before us, climbing higher up the trail.
Part of me wonders if it would wise to slow down and stay behind them, but I don’t want to risk my neighbors from the mortal realm catching up to us.
Or something more dangerous than a potentially hungry or hell-bound shade.
Besides, some voices other than our own might be useful in distracting Melé.
The moment we get near enough, I call out a greeting. They turn in surprise and suspicion, looking harried, if resigned to their trek.
“So how did you fare in the Temple of Judgment?” I start by way of conversation. It’s only the most horrifically awkward thing one can ask a shade, perhaps other than “How did you die?” or “Do you feel signs of fading yet?” But it’s the first question that occurs to me.
The man’s gaze slides off me and back up the hill. “I was granted permission to enter the Blessed Isles.” Oddly, he doesn’t sound happy about it.
The woman trudging next to him doesn’t say anything, her own eyes downcast, and I swallow a grimace.
So she wasn’t granted the same. Which means they’ll be forced to separate unless he’s willing to follow her somewhere worse than the Blessed Isles, thanks to the fairness of Isha’s cruelly discriminating system.
Well, that conversation died as quickly as it was born. I skirt around them, giving them only a sheepish nod of farewell in response. I have to summon Pogli sternly when he slows to sniff them. At least he draws a fleeting smile from the woman.
Melé, however, scowls at me once we’ve passed, still trying to keep up alongside me. “You can speak to me, you realize.”
“You should save your strength until we reach the top of the pass.” When she doesn’t respond or throw another question at me, I can’t help glancing at her. “Are you all right?”
Maybe if I’m the one asking her the questions, it won’t be so tortuous.
She lets out a shaky, ragged breath. “I’m only marching into hell at a breakneck pace I can’t sustain with a son who won’t talk to me and with an outcome I don’t know—”
“We’re going to make it,” I say firmly. “You’re going to make it, at the very least. If not out of the underworld entirely, then I’ll see to it you get to the Blessed Isles if I can’t bring you all the way out.”
Which would mean I’ve failed catastrophically on my end, but I don’t feel the need to emphasize that point.
“If you’re not sure you’ll make it out with me, then you can’t be sure I’ll make it to the Blessed Isles,” she argues. “I couldn’t reach them before.”
“Because you were never judged,” I argue back. “You should have been there this entire time. Isha bypassed his own rules when he preserved your soul from Sky’s wrath and kept you hidden away.”
Her smile is bitter. “Only so he could set me before you like a trap.”
I blink at her. “You overheard that?” I assumed she’d been too disoriented to remember me accusing Isha of such a thing.
A familiar shame twists in my gut. If she believes that’s all she is to me—a hindrance—then it’s because I haven’t done much to dissuade her.
And yet, like I told her from the start, we don’t exactly have time to forge a new bond.
Not in this place, where something could leap out at us at any moment.
Not when Sadaré so desperately needs me.
Melé only shakes her head and looks away. “If he ignored the rules before, he may do so again. So who knows if he’ll let me enter the Blessed Isles or only use me to keep punishing you?”
“He actually seems to adhere to the rules when he must. And hopefully it won’t come to that.”
She throws out a hand before needing to pick up her skirts to avoid tripping.
“Because I somehow have a god waiting for me on the other side? Who is not only part Sea but part Sky—the god who killed me? How am I supposed to feel about that? Why should I trust this Horizon cares about me in the slightest?”
I shrug uneasily. I honestly don’t know what to say. Because if I do make it out of here with Sadaré, then Melé needs to come with us as part of the deal. “They’ve… changed. A lot.”
She scoffs and leans forward to brace her hands on her knees to help push herself up the mountain, blowing the loose strands of her braid out of her face. Guiltily, I consider slowing my pace, but then I glance back down the pass.
It’s hard to tell from this height, but it looks almost as if a winged shape takes to the air from the top of the temple—and then I lose sight of it against the gloomy sky.
If my eyes aren’t playing tricks on me, it would have to have been large.
Larger than the shades that look like ants from this distance.
Perhaps as large as one of those creatures hanging in the darkness above the judges.
When Melé trips a moment later, I catch her flailing hand to steady her. She tries to shake me off, but I keep hold, crouching alongside her to draw her arm over my shoulders. “Here, climb on my back. We’ll make better time.”
She stares down at me in surprise. “You trust me at your back after the river?”
“At least there’s nowhere you can try to drown me here unless I topple us into the River of Regret, and then that would be my fault.”
“But—”
“We need to move faster.” I try to keep the worry out of my tone.
There’s no need to frighten her until I know what we’re dealing with—if anything.
“You’re flagging, but I can’t risk giving you my blood here in case other shades sense it.
There are more up ahead, and we need to get free of this pass.
Come on.” Before she can think of other reasons to protest a simple favor—one I was too self-absorbed to offer her before and frankly owe her for pushing her so hard—I thread my arms around her legs and hoist her onto my back.
Despite our proximity and her ability to catch her breath, she doesn’t ask me any more questions.
I’m grateful for the reprieve so I don’t have to think of any more nonanswers—and then so I don’t have to waste my own breath.
Because, after passing a few other shades as the trail steepens toward the top, I grow oddly winded—even without talking to them this time. And then sore.
The ache begins throbbing through my legs first, each step of mine eventually hitting like a blow from within even though all I’m doing is walking—uphill and with Melé on my back, yes, but that shouldn’t matter.
The pain climbs all the way up my arms and shoulders until her weight grows heavier and heavier, and even seizes my chest in a tight fist, making me struggle for air.
At first I think the judges must have punished me after all, or the toxic waters of this place have finally managed to seep into me to take hold. But then I realize I’m simply tired.