Chapter 26 Sadaré
SADARé
brEATHING IN the air of the courtyard feels like my second-only breath.
I throw my head back to look at the dim sky through the iron cage as if seeing it for the first time in a long while.
Or perhaps this is yet another first, as a god.
Even though I walked steadily out of the main keep and away from Isha, my legs tremble beneath me.
Daesra’s arm comes around my shoulders just as I realize there’s a giant hole that has been torn in the bars above, and much of the once-lush trees have shed leaves and withered fruit or been trampled.
“What—” I begin.
“Come on,” Daesra says, clutching me tighter. “There’s someone I would like you to officially meet—well, two someones—since they still haven’t left for the Blessed Isles like I told them to. But I’m glad they didn’t.”
He leads me over to the most obvious source of the destruction.
My eyes can’t help skipping over Melé where she sits warily at the bottom of the south keep’s steps—though I give her a quick, shaky smile—to land on the huge black-winged creature in one corner of the courtyard.
He still has horns and the hint of a mane, but he’s no longer barrel-chested, pig-tailed, or snub-nosed, never mind small.
“Pogli?” I cry.
The creature curls his lip at me, and I halt my rush toward him.
“Let’s give him a moment,” Daesra says gently from behind me. “We’ll meet him whenever he’s ready. He can show us who he is.”
The hope in his voice—as much as the sadness—makes my eyes sting. Gods, Daesra must have been living on hope alone this entire time. He sounds like he barely believes any of this is real.
I can hardly believe it—the good or the bad.
Mostly, I can’t believe I’m free. Nothing and no one will ever contain me again—unless I want them to.
Horizon’s words come back to me once more, except this time they’re no longer poisoned by Isha’s influence: You two can contain each other. And in so doing, free each other.
My eyes find the huge chimera again. I don’t know what it is that Pogli and Bereus have done to each other—how much is left of either.
I always imagined Horizon was more Sea than Sky, but it’s impossible to tell.
The creature’s snarling lip drops, and a whine escapes through his teeth.
His ferocious amber eyes widen into vulnerable pools as he sits back on his haunches and starts to pant nervously.
I swallow past the lump in my throat and nod in agreement, refocusing on Melé.
“We’re both fine, Mother,” Daesra assures her. “Safe, ourselves, and no danger to you. I didn’t become Isha’s monster. I didn’t become him.”
“Thank the gods for that,” she says, her voice breaking, just as I’m thinking the same thing—or even, Thank you, Arinae. She gathers herself, giving me a small smile as she stands to greet me uncertainly.
So I rush to her instead, and I embrace her like I couldn’t do before, throwing both arms around her—one of flesh, one of silver, though she feels the same under either as I hold her close.
“It’s so good to finally meet you,” I breathe over her shoulder. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t say anything before. But I recognized you.” From Daesra’s memories, I don’t add, and so I’m grateful when she doesn’t ask how.
“I didn’t—I couldn’t—” she stammers, and then exhales, her body softening against me. “I’m so pleased to meet you as well. I apologize for… biting you.”
I can’t help laughing as I squeeze her tighter. “No need. I understand exactly what it feels like when your mind no longer belongs to you fully.”
When we pull away, we’re both smiling through our tears. Daesra clears his throat, and I turn to find him blinking away his own as well, his strong arms folded behind his back as if to keep himself from joining us. I wish he would, so why is he holding back?
“We should go,” he says reluctantly.
“How—” both Melé and I begin at the same time, and then we exchange looks as if we’re both trying not to laugh.
Something inside of me is already relaxing into incredulous joy, but Daesra is right. We need to leave this place before I can fully let this feeling unfurl like a blossom. “We need to go to the Blessed Isles,” I say, “but that’s through… his… throne room.” I can’t stand saying his name.
I don’t even want to think about him right now. And it’s not only because of the still-simmering fury that could ruin this moment, but the pain I don’t even want to acknowledge.
The deep wounds he’s left in me.
Melé nods. “That’s why I didn’t deem it wise to make my own way there while you were inside.”
“What, and leave this fellow?” Daesra says with a light tone and a careful nod at the dark creature lurking in the corner. He holds his hand out, palm up, and steps closer to him without meeting those huge, unblinking eyes. “He’ll take you now, won’t he? And perhaps the rest of us?”
The creature who was once Pogli—the thought of which nearly undoes me right there—leans out his much longer neck to tentatively sniff Daesra’s palm. His huge tongue flicks out, and even though its touch is brief, it slathers Daesra’s fingers in dripping saliva.
Some things are perhaps still the same, then.
The chimera already sits with his spiked tail at rest, and now he drops down onto his belly, lowering his massive head to the ground. His long, dark-feathered wings drape loosely at his sides, as if to leave room for us to clamber on his back. My chest tightens at the sight.
Your first few moments as a god will not be spent crying, I hiss at myself. It’s just that I feel everything so much it threatens to overwhelm me. And yet this is simply a different sea—the biggest one of them all—and I only need to figure out how to ride upon it.
Melé approaches him first, since she has more experience with this new form of the once-small chimera.
She flew in on his back, after all, as I saw from Isha’s bedchamber in the main keep—and yet those memories already feel distant, like they belong to someone else, just like Daesra’s after the maze.
The creature doesn’t stir, letting her draw near, and so Daesra and I follow.
Braiding his fingers together to make a stirrup, Daesra gives me a boost—and even that brief contact makes me giddy.
I pull myself up easily enough on those furry shoulders and help Melé up after, guiding her to sit behind me.
I’m far stronger than her, which is no doubt why Daesra had me go first and why he vaults up behind her, pressing her close between the two of us.
As much as I want to be near to him, it takes the both of us—gods—to keep Melé seated.
I have to clamp down hard with my thighs and grip fur in both hands, Melé clinging to me, as the huge creature climbs up the courtyard walls, his claws much more like a big cat’s than a dog’s as they gouge effortlessly into the bone walls.
He carefully wriggles his way through the gap he made in the bars with us on his back, his thick wings shielding us from the sharp iron.
Once he pulls himself through, the whole underworld spreads out from the top of the fortress. The dark crescent looks as though it’s trying to encircle us like a manacle, but it can’t hold us any longer.
A scream of delight escapes me when those dark wings spread and we go sailing off the walls and out over the sea, the wind tearing the sound from my lips. I might have been embarrassed, except both Melé and Daesra are shouting and screaming for joy right behind me.
THE BLESSED ISLES ARE AS beautiful as I thought they would be.
After diving through golden-hued clouds, we land in a field of pale, sparkling grass, scattering a flock of sheep, their wool as gilded as everything around us.
Trees ring the clearing, leaves glittering in a gentle breeze, boughs heavy with golden fruit.
The warm air smells of sweet nectar and blossoms.
For a moment, our winged, furry steed flattens his ears and tenses beneath us like he might chase after the sheep, but I murmur a soothing word and pet his bristling neck, and eventually he relents, lowering himself to the ground so we can dismount.
As we slide off his back and drop to the dewy grass, a shepherd in the distance ducks quickly away into the trees.
I don’t blame him. We did fly in on a giant black chimera, one that he may have witnessed guarding Isha’s keep and perhaps eating other shades in the past, even if it had three heads at the time.
I spin around, taking in the beauty of the clearing—there’s so much more light to feed my soul, never mind aether-ripened fruit—and Daesra makes a contemplative noise beside me.
“Perhaps this is somewhat closer to Isha’s original idea,” he murmurs. “Closer to how the rest of this place used to be.”
I still don’t want to credit Isha for much of anything, so I start off through the grass, my silver gown trailing behind me. “The gate is nearby. I can feel it.”
Daesra catches my arm as I reach the tree line. “You’re like a hound on the scent. More eager even than this hound here.”
I look back to see the hulking chimera following us reluctantly, coming only with Melé’s gentle coaxing. “How flattering.”
Daesra smiles, but I can see how threadbare he is on the inside, even if he doesn’t look it. “We can take a moment to relax. This is the last time we’ll likely ever see this place.”
Good riddance, I can’t help thinking, but I force myself to take a deep breath. “Perhaps we can spare a moment. Even I wanted to see this place. To reach the fruit, more than anything.” I pause and hold his gaze. “So I could remember you.”
Daesra grins and, in a sweetly boyish gesture, leaps up to pluck one—a golden plum. And then he tosses it to me. My silver hand catches it reflexively, just like my shadow hand caught the ring. I’d been reaching for it, but I might never have been fast enough on my own.
Good thing it didn’t know what it was I caught—my freedom from Isha.