Chapter 48 Karinna
Karinna
You are not here for my name, Cero bet-Dafra. You are here for our story. The story of how our people were destroyed. And of how you might yet save them.
The woman watched Cero’s reaction to her words. She ignored Karinna entirely, which was just as well, because it gave her a chance to figure out how the hells she and Cero were going to get away from this place.
“If you’re going to tell a story,” Karinna said, “why don’t you start by explaining what in the hells that thing is?” She pointed to the hole in the ground.
The woman turned to her. “That was the Fount,” she said. “The source of our magic and Loha, born from an immense outpouring of life.”
“Outpouring of life?” Karinna frowned. “You mean you murdered people to make it?”
The woman glanced at Karinna. “No. One brave soul sacrificed himself for the good of his people. His face is lost to history. His name. His family. Everything about him. Only his sacrifice is remembered.
“He gave his blood willingly, joyfully, so that our people might create Loha. And with it, we built our world.” She gestured around them. “You see only ruins now, but once, this was a city of such marvels. After we harnessed the Loha, our magic had no boundaries.”
“If you were so all-powerful, what went wrong?” Karinna sheathed her blades and crossed her arms. This woman reminded her of the Illustrians at Empress Helene’s court, forever proclaiming half-truths and jockeying for power.
Karinna didn’t trust her. As if in agreement, Abzi prowled in a wide circle around the woman, growling. The woman didn’t appear to notice.
“So many things, child,” the woman said. “We wanted to make the world better. We wanted to make ourselves better. We wanted too much. And our brethren, the magic-users of the old continent, they wanted too little.”
“Your brethren,” Cero said softly, and Karinna heard the curiosity in his voice. “The Jaduna,” he said. “That’s who you’re talking about.”
Karinna glanced at him in surprise. He’d kept that close to the vest.
“I wasn’t sure,” he said to Karinna’s expression.
“But the architecture in Kotama reminded me of home. That and the language they write in. They’re too similar to be a coincidence.
Kade said it was the Jaduna who would come asking for our maps, our journals.
Though I still don’t understand why.” He turned to the woman. “What did you do that was so horrible?”
“If you wish to see, Cero bet-Dafra, if you wish to be the leader your people deserve, then you must cast yourself into the dark.”
She looked to the hole in the ground, and the blood drained from Cero’s face.
“He doesn’t want to be a leader,” Karinna said, for that much had become clear on their journey.
“And he shouldn’t be forced into it because it’s convenient for everyone else.
Tell us whether we’re going to be—I don’t know—felled by some poisonous gas or devoured by carnivorous gophers.
Is there a volcano around here? Earthquakes? Tidal waves?”
But the woman only nodded toward the Fount. “Cast yourself into the dark, Tel Ilessi. That you might see.”
Cero took a step toward that hideous thing, and Karinna grabbed his forearm, her survival instinct kicking in hard for both herself and him. Dangerous. That thing is dangerous. Cero glanced down at her small hand, surprise on his face.
“The void is evil,” she said, trying to control her panic. “Don’t go near it, Cero. Please.”
Karinna hated her fear for him because she wasn’t used to giving a fig about anyone beyond her family.
She didn’t want to care, but she did, because he’d saved her and Abzi and he wasn’t half-bad, even if he was a Kegari.
Not caring would have been easier. But she felt what she felt and she had to try to stop him.
Cero took another step toward the hole. Karinna did not release him, following him toward it though she did not want to. Abzi leapt up onto Cero’s back, digging her claws into his shoulder, as if in agreement with Karinna.
Cero didn’t notice. He peered down into the void.
“Oh, bleeding hells,” Karinna muttered, and—with one eye squeezed shut—peered after him.
When she’d seen the hole in the Tribal Lands, she’d been too afraid to look very closely. She steeled herself now and opened her other eye.
She expected darkness. Monsters. Instead, it looked like water. Deep water, with a strange purple-white tinge. It reminded her of the portals in Kotama.
“I don’t like this,” she whispered to Cero. Every sinew in her body screamed at her to run.
“Cast yourself into the dark,” the woman said a third time. “That you might see.”
Cero tipped forward into the Fount, and it seemed to happen slowly, as if it wasn’t a choice but the natural conclusion of the journey he’d undertaken. Karinna nearly let go of him then. He didn’t even seem to understand what was happening.
But Karinna understood.
In the blink of an eye, she thought of the way he’d tucked a blanket around her, the way Abzi trusted him, the way looking into his eyes sent a current through her blood.
She thought of the press of his hard body against hers as he cradled her in the ocean, as he braved the reaper to bring her back.
She thought of the relief in his face when he succeeded.
She heard her mother say: She reminds me of your mother.
And she heard her father say: What makes us good or evil, Kari?
Karinna did not release Cero. She held to him tighter. And together, they fell.