Chapter 18 Sirsha
Sirsha
The journey to Loli’s house was long and lonely. But the wind had never misguided Sirsha and she would be a fool to ignore it now. She was blessedly free of Div, who had, this evening, disappeared for a few hours.
As she rode, Sirsha couldn’t help but remember the last time she’d traveled these roads, Quil at her side. The Adah oath had been fresh and she’d been so aware of Quil—his proximity, yes, but also his expressions and body language, his low voice and his wary demeanor.
I wish you were here, Sirsha, she suddenly heard him say. I wish I could find you.
His voice was so clear in her mind that she expected to see him right there on the dirt road, pine trees rising up behind him.
But then she understood: He had finally reached out to her through the Adah coin. She wasn’t surprised that he’d worked out how he could use it.
“Quil?” she whispered, holding on to her coin.
Sirsha? You’re alive. Skies, Sirsha. Sirsha—I’ve been so—
She let his voice wash over her. Let herself believe that for a few moments, he was by her side again, they could talk to each other, with no repercussions.
Sirsha had forgotten how she loved the way he said her name.
Even through the Adah coin, the low timbre of his voice sent a thrill down her spine.
She tried to speak and couldn’t, desperate for him to say her name again in that way of his.
Quiet and slow, a low murmur that made her remember when he’d been on his knees before her, his dark hair spilling over her hands, his pale eyes lifting to hers. She’d loved how—
That single word—love. It slammed her back to reality so fast her bones felt jarred from the landing. Because love was a weakness. One that Div would exploit.
Fear gripped Sirsha. Div knew what the Adah coin was. If she discovered it was linked to Quil, she might try to possess him through it. Taint his magic. Devour him. Poison him with the Owa Khel. Sirsha didn’t bleeding know and not knowing made it so much worse.
“Quil—I—I can’t talk to you again. Ever.”
Her mouth was numb as she spoke. She was communicating with him for the first time in months, grateful he remembered her, desperate to tell him everything. And she was throwing it all away because of Div.
What happened, Sirsha? Why are you—
“Don’t contact me.” Her breath shook and she grasped the reins, trying to steady herself. Her mare snorted in irritation, sensing her distress. But she was doing this for Quil—for his safety. She’d always known they couldn’t last—he was a prince and she was a nobody tracker.
“Forget me, Quil. As I intend to forget you.”
Sirsha—
She could hear his anger building, practically see the furrow in his brow that he only got when someone he loved was being threatened. His care felt like a warm blanket wrapping around her deep in winter.
If someone is harming you, tell me. I can help—
For a moment, she let herself imagine Quil listening as she worked out what to do, his dark hair falling over his eyes.
Telling her he loved her no matter what bleeding monster had glommed on to her.
Holding her close, his molasses voice and keen mind and hard body a beautiful shield against Div and her machinations.
She glanced down at her Adah coin, golden and warm, sparkling with diamonds and intricate etchings. As she held it, its warmth seemed to pulse. Quil’s heartbeat—here in her hand.
He’d have loved her through this. Maybe he still could. Maybe—
Bleeding hells, Sirsha. No. She couldn’t allow him to come after her. Not with Div chained to her and sniffing about the Adah coin.
“No one can help me, Quil,” she said. “Stay away.”
Sirsha released the coin, and Quil’s voice grew more distant until she had blocked it out altogether. Her fingers were numb as she held on to the reins, and she finally let her full eyes spill over.
A practical voice, the part of her that had survived being cast out by her people, told her to break the Adah oath. It would be a devastating act, like clawing out a piece of her heart. Still, temporary pain was better than letting Div get hold of Quil.
The problem was, breaking the Adah bond required Quil to be present, multiple Raanis, and the words of sundering.
I cannot honor the bond of Adah. I beg that you break it, so I might live free.
She could say the words. But she’d only find Raanis in Jaduna lands. Quil was far away. And in any case, she refused to expose either Quil or her people to Div’s horrific appetite for magical hearts. Going back wasn’t an option.
When she stopped for the night, just off a main road, her neck prickled. Moments later, Div appeared, once again in her child form. It was somehow even more disconcerting than when she used the skin of Sirsha’s mother.
“You must be hungry, little witch,” Div said, and a steaming hand pie appeared between her fingers. Sirsha could smell it from here, minced chicken and potatoes with saffron. Her mouth filled with water. “Would you like one?”
“I’m fine,” Sirsha said through gritted teeth, but she didn’t sound convincing, even to herself.
“There’s a village near here.” Div took a bite of the pie. It was an illusion, like the guises Div wore. Div couldn’t make anything real without Sirsha’s will powering it. But it smelled divine.
Sirsha stared at it. Her fingers were stiff and cold, her belly hollow. What harm would it be to at least have a bit of hot food? Perhaps she could exchange something small—
No!
She was hungry, yes. Freezing. Heartsick. Lonely. But by the skies, she had her willpower, and the smell of a hand pie wouldn’t undo her.
“Tell me about the Owa Khel, Div,” she said. Mentioning the Empty was the only thing that seemed to upset Div enough to make her back off. Sirsha tried to use the trick sparingly, lest Div become inured to it.
For now, Div narrowed her child’s eyes before fading into the dark. Sirsha could still feel her. But at least she couldn’t smell the damn pie. And at least Div hadn’t overheard Sirsha’s end of the conversation with Quil.
This time, anyway.
In the days after, Quil called out to her countless times. Once, when Div’s oily presence had receded, Sirsha gave in, speaking to him for far longer than she should have. But Div had nearly caught her and since then, she’d done her best to keep her hands away from the coin.
The journey from Eltcia had taken nearly two weeks by road. It wasn’t until Sirsha was a few miles from Loli Temba’s house that Div finally figured out where she was going.
“Ahhh, you will seek shelter in that beautiful place where we first met.” Div materialized in the air beside Sirsha when she turned her mare off the road and into the jungle toward Loli Temba’s house.
Div hovered in front of Sirsha like a mosquito. “I knew then that we were twin spirits. But won’t you be lonely there amid all the memories of your poor dead friend? The one I killed? Mmmm, her heart was powerful. It fueled me for many days.”
Perhaps Div was trying to torment Sirsha with the cruel words.
But Sirsha preferred this Div to the one who pretended to care about Sirsha’s well-being by offering food and warmth.
The Div who ate hearts and destroyed children and rained the hells down on the Empire was familiar.
And she made it easy for Sirsha to remember why she shouldn’t trust the creature.
The jungle closed in, heavy and still, the sounds of Tibbi birds and crickets muted by a thick mist that snaked through the trees.
Sirsha dismounted and her footsteps were soft on the trail, which was so layered with brush and leaves that it hardly looked like a path at all.
If Sirsha hadn’t traversed it hundreds of times when she lived with Loli, she’d have gotten lost herself.
After only a few minutes, her skin was wet from the mist, and she waved it away so she could see, though her efforts were only partially successful.
She was going to walk right into a giant bleeding snake or a jungle spider nest. It would be just her luck.
When she’d last been here, more than six months ago now, she’d fallen unconscious.
That time, Div had attacked Sirsha’s mind after Aiz set the creature free to hunt and torment at will. Quil had carried Sirsha to Loli’s house, and she only remembered Loli’s words of warning. Do you know what you have brought with you?
“Forgive me, Loli,” she murmured now, her voice lost in the roar of the nearby waterfall. Her old friend would be horrified at Sirsha’s fate, and disgusted that she was bringing such a creature here. But then, Loli was dead. Her spirit was free. Hopefully, she cared about nothing at all now.
Sirsha made for a cleverly concealed pen at the base of the waterfall, where she could leave her horse. Loli used to picket her livestock there—it was where Sirsha had learned to milk a goat. The goat would be long gone now, stolen by thieves.
But to Sirsha’s surprise, when she reached the pen, she found four sheep in it, and the same old nanny goat from when she used to live here. The goat’s udder was empty. She’d been milked recently.
Sirsha immediately drew her blade. Div frowned and looked about. “I do not like this,” she said. “There is…something unnatural here.”
“I should think that would make you like it more, not less,” Sirsha said. “Besides, I thought you had fond and murderous memories of the place.”
“This is not a joke, little witch,” Div said, and there was an odd note of urgency in her voice. Her dark eyes traced the corners of the pen, and she took a step closer to Sirsha.
The proximity unnerved Sirsha. Div never seemed to fear anything. But then, the wind had led Sirsha here to find the truth, whatever that was. Perhaps Div sensed this truth would be her undoing.
Sirsha eyed the rocky staircase that led to the cave hidden behind the waterfall, where Loli had made her home.
The path was choked with vines, weeds, and animal scat.
The mist made it difficult to tell if it had been traversed recently.
Sirsha kept her knives out as she climbed, and when she arrived in the little rock vestibule that led to Loli’s cave, she checked behind every stone and in every shadow before triggering the secret latch that opened the door.
The hallway within was dark, and the air smelled of dank, wet rot. Sirsha wrinkled her nose. One of Loli’s skylights must have leaked. As she stepped farther into the hall, another smell hit her nose, sharp and unmistakable. Death.
Gingerly, Sirsha pulled free the lamp attached to the wall and then spent two long, pitch-black minutes trying to find flint and tinder to light the damn thing.
It was when she dropped her flint for the fifth time that she finally noticed the silence. Since she’d stepped into Loli’s house, Sirsha hadn’t heard Div’s detestable voice once. Nor could she feel her.
Even when she managed to drive off Div with questions about the Owa Khel, she could still sense her presence. But not right now.
Her heart leapt. Perhaps this was why the wind sent her here. Perhaps this was the beginning of breaking free.
“D-Div?” she called. The creature did not answer. And Sirsha didn’t feel that greasy, crawling sensation on her skin as she did when Div was near. Instead, she felt light. Free. Gratefulness swept through her, so heady that she collapsed against the wall, dizzy with relief.
Thank you, Loli. Skies, whatever magic you had in place to make your home safe, thank you.
The skylights let in a tiny bit of moonbeam, and her vision adjusted enough to the darkness that she could make out a large shape—the kitchen table. In the cabinets behind it, Loli once had firesticks: long slivers of wood dipped in Mehbahnese chemicals that lit up when struck.
As Sirsha made her way toward the cabinet, she stumbled on something soft. Wet.
A stench rose, along with a cloud of flies, that flooded Sirsha’s nostrils. She cursed, batting them away, and skittered toward the cabinets, dead lamp in one hand, dagger in the other.
Sirsha found the firesticks and struck one with shaking hands, lighting first a wall lamp, then the one she was carrying before forcing herself to turn and see what she’d tripped over.
She frowned when it came into view. It looked to be a small animal. A fox, perhaps, or a dog. It was half-decomposed. Sirsha couldn’t tell how it had died.
Perhaps it had come into Loli’s home and some magic of hers had trapped it here. But unless the creature had made a perfectly measured leap to the secret latch—and could operate it without thumbs—there was no way it could have gotten in without assistance.
Sirsha shifted her attention to the rest of the room and grimaced.
The home was a mess. There were books and wrinkled scrolls strewn everywhere.
Another dead animal lay in the corner, but it was just bones.
Sirsha lifted the lamp higher, and its dim light illuminated something dark and wet gleaming on the walls.
Blood. Sirsha could smell it as she got closer. But she didn’t understand who would come into Loli’s house and splash blood on the walls.
Sirsha turned to her old room, but it was intact and untouched, the stone walls clean. Whoever had destroyed the main room hadn’t bothered with hers.
Her heart clenched when she thought of the last time she’d been in this room.
She had woken to Quil’s gentle hands on her face, his eyes unguarded and anguished.
She didn’t know why he’d been crying then, but at the same time she did know.
He’d seen some essential truth within her and then told her what she needed to hear. I’m here. You’re not alone, Sirsha.
She cast away her tears angrily, taking deep, shuddering breaths until they stopped. She was alone now, in a house that had been host to some bizarre ritual involving dead animals, and she needed her wits—
Sirsha…
“I couldn’t have one bleeding night of peace, Div?” She turned, expecting to see Div’s eerie child form. But she wasn’t there.
Instead, Sirsha heard a shuffling in the main room. She unsheathed her blade and held her lamp to the darkness.
Only to be met with the ravaged face of a dead woman staring back at her.
A scream split the air, loud enough to make Sirsha jump, until she realized she herself was screaming. She staggered back toward the door when she finally recognized the woman’s face, not dead, but very much alive.
Loli Temba.