Chapter 5
The vale wraith smells sickly sweet. It’s the first thing I notice when it lands, its colossal body buckling the floor underneath it. That musky-sweet scent suffocates the air, a vile flower on the verge of rotting. It mixes with the acrid odor of Keita’s flames. He’s sent several floating into the air above us so everyone can see what’s happening. Now that it’s a combat situation, the girls have to be prepared to defend themselves too—even if it’s just by running to safety. Nevertheless, the odor is unbearable. Just one whiff ties my stomach into knots, memories of my final night in the Chamber of the Goddesses rushing back.
The goddesses used to smell sweet like this too. Always so sickly sweet. But that was because they were using the flowers that Etzli, the deceptively innocent-seeming, motherlike goddess, created to feed on a very specific prey: the male deathshrieks they’d kept trapped underneath their chamber all those centuries. Perhaps that sweet smell is a marker for all proxies, a sign that the gods, wherever they may be right now, are readying themselves to feed.
I immediately slip into the combat state, the world falling away until all that’s left is the gleaming white shadows of my friends, the girls, and the vale wraiths. I may not be able to fight like my friends. I may not even be able to fully use my abilities, like my voice. But the combat state is my truest, most natural state of being. The gods can take everything else from me, but not this.
I turn to regard the battlefield. Everyone’s bodies now shimmer in front of me, their strengths and weaknesses laid bare under the power of my gaze. Especially the wraiths, the rest of which have now landed as well. I focus my eyes on them, trying to find any weaknesses, any hidden tricks. But all I see is their glowing hearts, beating in their chests.
“Any word, Deka?” Britta asks, calm as she hefts her war hammer.
She’s used to my directing battles from a distance these days. And she’s used to creatures like these, which is why all she feels now is anticipation. I can see it in the way her fingers thrum against the handle of her war hammer.
She’s ready for battle.
She nudges the girls she was holding back toward me, and they quickly scurry over, as all the rest are doing. Given the chaos that’s brewing, I’m the safest spot in the entire area.
Grow, Ixa,I silently command when they approach. He needs to be large enough to carry them all to safety.
When he obligingly kneels, his bones already lengthening, I turn back to Britta, who’s still waiting. “Their hearts,” I say, pointing at the vale wraiths. “Aim for their hearts. And the glowing scales on their sides. That’s where they’re vulnerable. Just buy us time! I’ll get the girls to the columns.”
“Understood!” Britta says as she gestures to the others.
The floor beneath her immediately cracks, pieces of the obsidian crawling up her feet and over her armor to form a secondary skin. Britta’s ability is controlling all forms of earth, and her newest trick, which she learned from Belcalis, is using what materials she can to make a secondary armor. Never again will she be caught unawares by a stray arrow to the gut, as she was when she first became an alaki. Belcalis too has covered herself in armor—hers made of her own golden blood, only, unlike infernal armor, it’s still alive, still pulsing around her.
Britta and Belcalis are not the only ones shielding themselves. Li seems almost shocked as he gestures and sand swirls around him. He turns to Belcalis, exhilarated. “I’m doing it! I’m actually doing it!”
“Don’t use too much energy and exhaust yourself,” Belcalis cautions as she goes bounding forward. “Head in the game, Li!”
The only people who don’t immediately cloak themselves in their gifts are Keita and Lamin. But Lamin doesn’t seem to have a divine gift yet, and Keita’s fire always simmers just under the surface, waiting to ignite. His eyes are already burning, little flickers of orange in the darkness.
Which means it’s time for us to go. I call to the girls, who have not yet made their way onto Ixa. “Hurry!”
Everyone begins moving, except for Palitz, who’s still staring at the wraith, despair written across her face. She may not be able to see the creature in its entirety, given the darkness, but she can see the glowing scales on its sides, the ominously slithering way they move in the gloom. Her friends have to drag her toward Ixa before she finally moves on her own. I nod, understanding: It’s one thing to believe blindly in the gods. It’s another to see them in the full, terrifying flesh.
As she mounts, a pair of small flames light Ixa’s horns—a gift, courtesy of Keita. “My thanks!” I shout, nodding his way.
Keita nods back as he returns his attention to the nearest vale wraith, the one that’s slowly muscling forward, as if it’s stalking prey—which, of course, it is. Everyone here is prey to the colossal, lizard-like creature with its black skin gleaming in the darkness, that blue reverberating in its chest.
Keita beckons to it. “Come, then, wraith,” he says. “Let’s have at it.”
But the wraith just stops where it is, and a grating sound filters into the air. I watch, puzzled, until the glowing blue in its chest suddenly snaps open, revealing a giant gaping maw of a mouth, row upon row of jagged teeth surrounding what look like…eyes? One pupil slides toward me and I stop, then stare back, caught. There’s intelligence in that gaze. Calculation.
And then that suffocatingly oily feeling slithers over me.
“Idugu,” I say, grim. “How kind of you to honor us with your presence.”
“Deka of Irfut,” the voices of the four male gods echo smoothly and eerily as one through that vile mouth.
Just like that, I’m back in their temple, learning how they and the Gilded Ones used to be the same entities—four gods who once descended to Otera to bring the fledgling human race peace and wisdom. That is, until they made the fateful decision to cleave themselves into two—the masculine Idugu and the feminine Gilded Ones.
Gods modeling themselves after lesser beings—especially using a flawed understanding of those beings—always ends in world-shattering consequences.
“How fortunate to find you here,” the Idugu say, slithering closer, but I don’t look at them as I glance down at Ixa, subtly digging my heels into his sides.
Go,I command silently, and Ixa bolts, racing across the obsidian floor.
Now that the vale wraiths are here, we have to take the long route to the monoliths, since they’re blocking the direct path. I keep my attention on the wraiths the entire time, watching them for any sudden movement.
“It’s almost like you wanted us to find you here in the nest of our beloved children,” the Idugu sneer through the wraith’s mouth.
“Children?” Disgust roils through me as I consider the vale wraiths. “These are your children?”
“The most useful of all the ones we have recently spawned,” the Idugu reply with a cruel laugh. “Proxies, I believe you call them. They soothe our hunger in every province of Otera. And the moment they consume a single one of you, we will be able to materialize in this realm.”
Their eyes slide toward the girls, who are holding on to Ixa for dear life behind me. “Won’t you do that for us, children? Won’t you sacrifice yourselves to us?”
I don’t bother to glance back at the children. I can already predict their expressions: devastation, betrayal. It’s not every day you see the face of your god in a monster.
I urge Ixa onward. “Faster!” I say.
This command enrages the Idugu. “Prepare, Deka of Irfut. Your death is ours for the taking. As is your divinity.” Then the wraith rears up, chest-mouth opening again.
A column of fire immediately blasts it away. Keita leads the others as they leap into the fray, swords and abilities at the ready. They’ve instinctively separated into pairs, two fighters to each wraith, except for Keita, who’s alone. But he has his fire and is using it with abandon now, sending pillars of flame the wraith’s way.
All the while, Ixa continues running, paws eating up the distance between the columns and us. One of the vale wraiths lunges at him, but he swiftly dodges, sliding sideways until he’s out of reach of that snapping chest-mouth. This isn’t the first time he’s had to ferry a group through a deadly situation. It isn’t even the first time this week. The next vale wraith that snaps at him is the one the Idugu spoke through, but Keita blasts its neck with fire before it can reach us.
“My thanks, Keita!” I shout, not that he can hear me.
He’s concentrating on the battle now, all his thoughts focused and precise. All my friends are.
“Do not let them get away!” The Idugu’s command ripples from vale wraith to vale wraith, but my friends are more than an even match for them.
Nevertheless, I can see the strain on Britta’s body as she and Li struggle to take down a snapping vale wraith. The two may be formidable fighters, but they’re starving and sleep deprived. Even the greatest champions could falter under such conditions.
“Just a few minutes more,” I promise, turning to the columns.
They’re just a short distance away now, but the stars are dimming ever more quickly around them. Now that the Idugu know that the vale wraiths won’t defeat my friends, they’re intent on awakening reinforcements: I can hear those flapping sounds growing louder in the distance.
I gesture for Nevra, the girl who seems older than the rest, to dismount the moment we stop. “The door is on that column,” I say, pointing. “Take the oldest girls and find it!” Even as I tell her this, I hear a warning crack in one of the mountains and the loud flapping getting closer. “Hurry!” I shout. “There are more monstrosities on the horizon. Worse ones!”
“For Infinity’s sake!” I don’t know who’s more shocked, me or Nevra, when she curses, then motions for the others to hurry.
Within moments, the girls have sprinted to the columns, and then a victorious shout rings out. One girl is waving her hand next to one of the columns, and it’s disappearing and reappearing. Thank Infinity for human children’s sharper nighttime eyesight. “The gate!” she says excitedly. “I found it!”
I immediately gesture to the other girls still on Ixa. “Go!” I tell them. To my friends, I shout, “OVER HERE! WE’VE FOUND THE GATE!”
“COMIN’!” shouts Britta.
She and Li disengage from their vale wraith, as do the others, then they all ride toward me as fast as they can.
Once I’m sure they’re near enough, I urge Ixa onward. Let’s go, I say.
Deka,Ixa replies, relieved. He doesn’t like it here any more than I do.
Forward he goes, headed toward the girl, who has her hand stuck through the gate to mark its position. Suddenly a distant scream reaches me. I whirl, horrified to find Belcalis jumping from her gryph, which one of the vale wraiths has caught in its maw. Lamin effortlessly snatches her midair, and then his gryph flies toward us, as do the others.
Belcalis’s gryph disappears down the vale wraith’s throat, then moments later, an enraged roar sounds. Only creatures capable of worship, like humans, equus, alaki, and other such beings, can provide the sustenance the Idugu need to materialize. All others are merely meat. The vale wraith roars again, but I pay no attention to it as I turn back to the gate, through which most of the children have already fled. Only Nevra, Palitz, and the girl who found the gate remain. I motion for them to hurry just as Ixa and I near the shimmering circle of air.
“For Infinity’s sake, move! We all have to get through!”
Nodding, Nevra runs through the gate, the others following her.
I turn to my friends, but Britta is already charging over on her gryph, waving me onward. “Go, Deka!” she shouts. “We’re right behind ye!”
A glance confirms this before I slide through the gate with Ixa, the shimmering air adjusting effortlessly to absorb his bulk. But as the darkness wraps around us, surrounding us in muffled silence and extreme heat, Ixa turns toward me, his eyes suddenly panicked.
Deka,he says, last girl! She didn’t come through!
I turn back, horrified, but the darkness has already swallowed me so completely, I have no visibility remaining. What girl, Ixa? I ask, terror piercing me. What girl?
Ixa doesn’t reply, only lets out a long, miserable growl as the darkness spins us once more. And then I’m lost to the pain.
When I open my eyes again, I’m falling toward a grassy plain at the very edge of a cliff, a jungle stretched out below us. Ixa barely has time to grow wings before we’re tumbling onto it, bodies slamming roughly against ankle-length grasses that slice my tender skin.
Nevra and the other children are scattered behind us in a wild tumble. Some are so close to the cliff that if they had landed just a few lengths to the right, they would have tumbled over the ledge.
“MOVE OUT OF THE WAY!”
I barely have time to urge Ixa aside before Britta and the others come falling through as well, the wings of their gryphs slowing their descent. The moment they land, I rush toward the children, dread rising as I swiftly count. All are accounted for. All except for one.
Groaning, Keita dismounts from his gryph and walks over to me. “It was the mouthy one,” he says tiredly, shaking his head.
“The mouthy one?” Nevra glances around, panic settling into her eyes as she searches for her friend. “Palitz,” she calls. “Palitz!”
Keita shakes his head. “She jumped away right before Ixa went through the gate.”
“What?” Nevra blinks, her eyes devastated. “No…,” she whispers. “No, no, no…” Then she looks up at Keita, bewildered. “Why didn’t you stop her? Why didn’t you do anything?”
Keita wearily shakes his head again. “I’m sorry,” he says softly. “Not everyone wants to be saved.”
“But she was a child,” I return, dismay rising inside me. How did I not notice? How did I not see her? I turn back to Keita. “Children don’t know what they want.”
“This one did,” a voice says from behind me. Belcalis’s. “You could see it in her eyes….”
“Which is why we snatched her right before we went through the gate,” Lamin says bluntly, tossing an enraged Palitz from his gryph.
Nevra is back on her feet in a heartbeat. “Palitz!” she gasps. “You’re alive!” She runs over and embraces her friend so tightly, there’s barely any air between them. Then she shakes her. “Why did you do that? Why did you do that?”
Palitz bursts into tears. “I just wanted to save everyone,” she sobs. “I wanted to be of use. All I had to do was sacrifice myself.” She pushes Nevra away and advances on the other girls, enraged. “That’s all we had to do—sacrifice ourselves, and everyone else would be saved. Our entire village. The gods would grant us peace in the Blissful Lands, and everything would be healed. Otera would be whole again.”
Nevra shakes her head at her. “You saw those things, Palitz. Those weren’t gods; those were demons.”
“But the priests promised.” Her friend’s reply is a broken whisper. “They promised me. They said if I was faithful, everyone would be safe.”
Her words are almost identical to the lies I was fed once my blood ran gold. I turn to Britta, who’s shaking her head sadly.
Beside her, Belcalis is grim. “It never ends,” she says with a sigh. “Every time we try to beat them, they create a new lie.”
“And they always tell the girls to sacrifice themselves for it,” I say, saddened.
I’m so tired now, so overwhelmed, I don’t even notice the tingles prickling across my shoulders. The tingles that mark the arrival of a descendant of the gods. By the time I turn in the direction they’re coming from, a sinister flapping is sounding, as if some great winged creature is rising into the air.
“That is the way of the male gods,” an unnervingly low voice says.
Everything inside me goes cold. There, just beyond the cliff, is a familiar winged figure—one I was certain I killed just three months ago.
“Melanis,” I say, grim.