Chapter 19
When we exit the temple, my body now securely covered in Queen Ayo’s armor, we find Keita, Li, and Belcalis rushing toward us, panic on their faces.
“Deka!” Keita says, running over the bridge and embracing me. “We returned to the stables and you were gone. And then Lamin told us he sent you here.”
After I return his embrace, I nod, glancing from him to the others. “If he did, why are you so panicked?”
“It was me,” Belcalis says, uncomfortable. She glances around, surveying the area. “Something’s wrong.”
“What is it?” I ask, immediately alert.
“I don’t know.” She shakes her head in frustration. “All I know is that it’s something. There’s something I’m missing.”
And Belcalis is rarely if ever wrong when it comes to these things.
I whirl to Keita and Li. “Everything’s packed?”
“Already in the saddlebags,” Li answers.
“And the gryphs are primed and ready to go,” Keita adds.
“So let’s say our goodbyes, then,” I say, marching forward.
“And then what? Fly swiftly away without informing me?” My entire group whirls around, gasping, as a familiar voice suddenly reaches our ears. White Hands. She’s floating just over the tiny stone bridge—or rather, the specter of her is. Light filters through it, giving the impression that it’s a reflection and nothing more. Which, in many ways, it is.
I gasp, shocked to see her. “White Hands, how are you here?” Nothing is supposed to penetrate the barrier between Otera and Maiwuri, not even White Hands’s gauntlets.
“Same way I always am, using these,” she says, raising her hands to display the armored white gloves. “The more pertinent question is, where are you? All this time, I’ve been trying to speak with you—”
“Us too!” Cheerful calls ring out as Adwapa and Asha jostle to be seen behind her.
They appear to be in some sort of ancient grove, purple-trunked ganib trees towering above them, their glossy green leaves rustling in the wind. Where that grove is, I can’t tell, but I don’t dwell on that, given I’m still caught by the impossibility of the situation.
“How did you do it?” I gasp, rushing closer to White Hands. “How did you make your gauntlets pierce the Great Barrier?”
White Hands seems perplexed by my question. “The Great Barrier? What are you going on about? And where are you? You disappeared completely from Gar Nasim. We were concerned.”
“Concerned?” A word so close to worried, I glance at White Hands, wondering if she’s all right. Then I remember her question. “We’re in Maiwuri—the Unknown Lands,” I quickly explain.
White Hands’s eyebrows furrow. “The Unknown Lands? But how did you—” Then she stops herself. “This is like the last time, isn’t it? When I visited you after you got stranded in Hemaira. You fell afoul of some godly device.”
I nod in return, grateful she’s such a quick study.
I swiftly fill her in on everything that’s happened, starting with when I met Bala and Myter, then I finish by saying, “I will begin my search in Irfut using some of Mother’s effects.”
By now, the stables are in sight, so I hurry toward them, relieved. Belcalis is still casting suspicious looks about. Whatever threat it is that has her on edge hasn’t abated, although White Hands’s presence seems to have made her feel slightly better.
“And what about you?” I ask her. “Where are you now?”
White Hands doesn’t reply. Instead, she looks up, distracted by something in the jungle behind her. I follow her gaze to the group of strange creatures suddenly flying down from the treetops to meet her, their images slightly blurred due to their distance from the gauntlets.
I squint at them, then gasp. Aviax!
I can tell because, while their shape is almost human, they have wings where their arms should be and fingers that end in delicate but sharp claws. Like the birds they so resemble, their bodies are covered in brilliantly colored feathers that shimmer in the sunlight. I’ve never seen aviax so close before. Unlike their horselike cousins, the equus, they do not tend to associate with alaki or, indeed, any of the other humanlike races. They rarely leave their mountaintop cities, the majority of which are securely hidden in the great jungles of the Southern provinces, and when they do, they remain so high above the clouds, they’re usually just specks on the horizon.
I’ve only seen them in passing once or twice before, but now, apparently, White Hands is with them.
“General White Hands,” the one in the front says stiffly. It’s a large male with bright green plumage.
She turns to me apologetically. “I must go, Deka. I’ll call upon you in two days’ time. Do be ready to receive me.”
I nod. “I’ll be waiting,” I say, waving her off.
As I do so, the sound of harried footsteps reaches my ear. “What’s this?” Nenneh Kadeh gasps. “You must end this now!” When I turn fully toward her, the older godsworn is pointing at White Hands’s image while running toward me with a group of the yellow-robed, warlike godsworn and Lamin by her side.
She shakes her head at White Hands. “Please, whoever you are, you must flee before you are followed. Communications such as these can be tracked, and if another senses a disruption in the barrier—”
“Understood.” White Hands nods swiftly, snapping her fingers. Just like that, she is gone.
And Nenneh Kadeh is once more rushing toward me, her eyes alarmed, her voice panicked. “Why did you do that, Angoro Deka? You were warned repeatedly!”
I frown. “Warned about what?”
“The barrier!” Nenneh Kadeh says, exasperated. “You were warned not to disrupt it!”
“And I heeded that warning,” I snap. “The barrier is intact.”
“But she was here! That woman was here! Which means others will come. The balance has been much too disrupted, which is why the vale has grown.”
She points and I follow her gaze toward the ocean. My stomach immediately plunges. There’s an ominously dark area just past the shallows. The shadow vale I saw when I went to the Hall of the Gods—it’s massive now, writhing as it sucks in more and more water.
That wrong feeling pours from it, as does something else: a familiar tingling.
“We have to go,” I say to the others, hurrying onward, but even as I do, I hear it: the high-pitched shrieking emerging from the vale. The shrieking that sounds like deathshrieks but isn’t.
“Oh, gods above, is that—” Before Britta can even finish her question, a dark shape explodes out of the shadow vale: Melanis, a victorious smirk on her face. Five of her hunters follow her, their pale, emaciated bodies seeming wizened by the bright sunlight.
The warrior godsworn unsheathe their swords, alarmed. “What in the name of all the gods is that thing?” one asks.
“Melanis, an ancient alaki!” I reply, reaching for my atikas as Keita and Britta immediately flank me, preparing for battle. “Stay clear of her wingtips. They’re as sharp as knives.”
“Understood!” the warrior godsworn say, positioning themselves around me.
Suddenly I notice Nenneh Kadeh standing at the edge of the grove, her body frozen in place. For all her calm assurance, she’s a scholar, not a warrior. This is no place for her.
“Take her to the caverns,” I command Ixa, who obligingly grows to accommodate her and the two warrior godsworn now making their way over.
When Nenneh Kadeh notices, she shakes her head. “But honored Angoro, I—”
“You’ll only slow us down!” This statement comes from Lamin, who swiftly loads her onto Ixa’s back, then urges the two warrior godsworn to mount behind her. Once they do, he slaps Ixa’s rump. “Go!” he says, and my companion takes off running, headed for the caverns Britta and I just emerged from.
Then they’re gone, and it’s just the remaining three warrior godsworn and us, all weapons raised aloft as we wait for Melanis and her hunters to arrive in the grove.
She does so within moments, she and her hunters flapping lower as she sneers, “Morning greetings, Deka. I would say it was a surprise to find you here, but that would be a lie.”
“Melanis,” I return coldly. “And just how did you find this place?”
“Same way I always find everything—using the trail of Fatu’s gauntlets.” She smirks evilly. “I know so intimately the smell of their power, I could recognize it anywhere. All I had to do was follow the odor, and obligingly, it led me through one of the mothers’ shadow vales.” Her smirk widens, lips splitting into a cruel mockery of a smile.
“Now that we’re finally together again,” she says companionably, “let’s take your body for my goddesses to feast upon, shall we?”
I raise my atikas higher, my chin lifted in defiance. “You can try, but I’m not as weak as I was before, and now I have more allies.”
As if confirming my words, horns sound in the distance, groups of armed godsworn spilling from Maiwuri’s buildings, ready to join those here. There’s no sign of the ebiki, but they may be too far out in the water to hear the sounds of battle. No matter, my friends and I are enough to handle Melanis now. I subtly lower myself into a more grounded stance.
This action, for some reason, amuses Melanis, who flies lower. “Allies. Is that so?” she purrs. “Because I brought allies too.”
She smirks again, and suddenly, power begins emanating from her, so much more power than she herself could ever create. Vines slither down her torso. Sinister green vines, moist-petaled black flowers sprouting from them. Blood-eaters, the monstrous creations of Etzli, the goddess who feeds on behalf of the Gilded Ones.
Horror washes over me.
If Melanis is here, covered in vines and power, that means only one thing: she’s brought Etzli with her, and perhaps other Gilded Ones as well.
I whirl to the others. “It’s Etzli!” I shout. “She’s using Melanis as a vessel!”
“Perceptive as always, Nuru,” the goddess rumbles, her voice causing Melanis’s eyes to turn white as she flaps within fighting distance. “But all the perception in the world will not save you.” She gestures to the ground. “Rise!”
Blood-eaters immediately erupt from the soil, the vines swiftly wrapping themselves around my body. A few of the black flowers immediately begin snapping, moist petals seeking purchase through my skin to burrow their way inside me, just as the ansetha necklace once did.
Thankfully, I’m wearing Ayo’s armor, so their carnivorous mouths have nowhere to burrow. And I’m still filled with the ebiki’s power, which means…“Down,” I command, drawing on every last bit of power Queen Ayo and the ebiki sang into me just two days ago.
Etzli, who’s trapped in the fleshy cage that is her own daughter’s body, immediately plummets to the ground, along with all the hunters around her.
As I stand there savoring the return of my power, however little of it remains, Etzli writhes on the ground, wings flapping uselessly as she attempts to fight against the effects of my command. “What is this?” she shrieks. “What did you do to me?”
I smirk. “Used a little of the power you tried to steal. Now then.” I lift my hand as I slip deeper into the combat state, summoning all the power I can.
It’s surging to the surface to obey my command when a sharp twinge jolts through me. My fingers are suddenly tingling, little sparks at the tips. I don’t have to look down to know what they are. Sores, forming in response to how much power I used. They don’t hurt, not yet, but I know that’s coming soon. Pain is always the shadow that follows the sores.
I grit my teeth. “No,” I hiss. No, no, no! Not now. I thought it would take more power—way more power than this to drive my body to the brink again—but that, it seems, is not the case.
Etzli laughs. “What’s this, already reached your limit, Deka?” She flaps again, trying to pull herself from the ground, but thankfully, my power holds.
I stretch out my hand again.
“Deka?” Britta asks beside me. Then she sees my fingertips. Sees the gold stripes forming there. “Oh no. Stop, stop it now!” she commands, then she whirls to Keita. “What are ye waitin’ for, Keita? Help her! Burn them! Burn them all!”
“On it!” Keita shouts, eyes turning red as he whirls in the direction of Etzli and her hunters. He gestures and their bodies immediately burst into flames, as do all the plants Etzli has summoned, everything writhing and snapping as his power reduces the grove to dust.
But it’s not enough. Even before the flames die, Etzli and the others are already back up, their wings flapping against the heat.
“How dare you, son of man!” Etzli shrieks, her body blackened to charcoal as she barrels into him. It’s clear she has completely taken over Melanis now; the winged Firstborn’s body has taken on an eerily distinct glow, and her eyes are the same milky white I’m so familiar with from spending time in the goddess’s presence.
Keita sends another pillar of flame toward her face, but she smashes straight through it to snatch him up and toss him into the stream just in front of Queen Ayo’s library.
“Know your place!” she hisses, enraged. Then she turns to me, eyes burning with fury, the charcoal flaking off her body. She’s already healing again, the way all alaki do. “No more running, Deka. No more hiding, no more power. I’ll bury you in the obsidian grave where I buried Anok.”
I stumble. “You buried her?”
“Oh, you didn’t know?” Etzli slows, a cruel smile spreading across her face. “I imprisoned her in the obsidian pit your Fatu left behind when she turned our food supply to ash.”
The pit where all those male deathshrieks had been.
My body goes cold at the reminder.
One of the most horrific things I learned during my confrontation with the Gilded Ones was the fate of their sons. I’d always wondered why there were no male deathshrieks. Then I discovered the truth: the goddesses trapped the resurrected bodies of their sons in the cavern underneath their chamber. They fed from them, devoured their bodies to grow stronger.
For the Gilded Ones, every male deathshriek was born a sacrifice.
Etzli shrugs. “If she loved our sons so much, she can be with them. For eternity. And you can join them.”
As I stand there, unable to absorb the thought of Anok imprisoned in the darkness below the Chamber of the Goddesses, unable to bear the thought of yet more sores traveling over my body, a shout reaches my ears.
“Funny ye should say ‘bury,’?” Britta calls out, Li by her side. They gesture together, and the ground immediately rises, earth exploding up and over Etzli before swiftly slamming her down into its depths.
Once it’s done, Britta triumphantly wipes her hands while Li staggers, obviously weakened by using so much energy. “Take that!” Britta crows, staggering as well.
I grin at her. “My thanks, Br—”
My friend jerks backward, thrown clear across the grove by three hunters, who advance on her the moment she lands, a cloud of swift winged beings.
“Britta!” I shout, panicked, as I run for her. I can’t let the hunters get near her.
Strong though she may be, Britta falters against opponents who are faster. That’s her weakness: speed. And these hunters clearly know that, which is why the moment they near, they snatch her up and toss her between them like one of those leather balls the children in my village used to play with.
“brITTA!” I’m almost to the edge of the grove when a powerful tug sends me flying backward. Etzli. She’s flapping into the air, eyes blazing with fury.
“No more running, Deka,” she roars.
She gestures at the space in front of us, concentrating until the air there begins to gather, growing and forming. Horror slams through me. She’s summoning a door, and not just any door: one that leads back to Abeya, the city of the goddesses.
I can see it now, the once-gleaming peaks shining through the rift that appears in the air. The temples, now broken and damaged, but still gleaming, nevertheless, atop them. I scream, struggling against her grip. If I go through that door, the goddesses will kill me and then snatch my kelai before it reunites with me.
They’ll use me to become all-powerful once more.
“Keita!” I shout desperately. Etzli’s grip is too strong for me to break, and she’s pulling me closer and closer to that door, closer and closer to my doom. “KEITA, HELP ME!” I shout again, but he’s too far away, as is everyone else—even Britta, who’s still where I left her, pinned down by the hunters.
Etzli is smirking now, victory in her gaze. “He can’t help you, Deka,” she says. “He’ll never make it to you in time.”
And my heart sinks as I realize she’s right. This was her plan all along, to use Britta to lure me far enough away from the others that she could send me through the door.
Etzli must have noticed the comprehension in my eyes. She smirks. “At last, you understand. There’s nowhere to run, Deka. Nowhere to hide. From here, it’s Abeya, and then it’s time for you to die. You can’t escape it.”
“Can’t I?” I growl, already imagining Queen Ayo. In my panic, I’d almost forgotten she was there—that the ebiki were there, just beyond the shoreline.
I project my thoughts as loudly as I can. QUEEN AYO! I shout with my mind. I NEED YOU!
Far off into the waters, a massive shape immediately breaches from the waves. Queen Ayo, the other ebiki surrounding her. They’re a distance away from shore, but they’re rushing in at full speed. In five, perhaps ten, minutes, they’ll be here. All I have to do is stall, wait Etzli out.
I glare up at the goddess. “I’ll fight,” I say menacingly. “I’ll fight you the entire way there, or I’ll change the direction of the door, the way I’ve done so many times before.”
Etzli’s smirk only widens. “Before?” She arches an eyebrow. “Before, you were whole, filled with power. Now you are only a fraction of yourself. Foolish child. How can you fashion yourself a god killer when you don’t even have enough power to fight against one small door? How can you hope to beat us when you can’t even heal your own wounds?” She glances contemptuously down at the sores marring my fingertips, the sores that are tingling even fiercer now, a prelude to the burning that accompanies the pain.
I take a breath before I look up at her. Look up at that hated, contemptible face. “I may not have that much power,” I say, stiffening myself against the pull of the door, which is opening wider now, wind sucking me toward it, “but neither do you. You’re a false god, Etzli, a demon masquerading as divinity.”
“Then isn’t it wonderful,” Etzli says, “that you’re here to deliver us true power? Because once we have it, we’ll devour our counterparts, then we will come for Maiwuri and the rest of Kamabai. We will remake the world in our image, and you, Nuru, will give us the power to do so.”
She gestures, and the door explodes open, that hateful lake and the water bridge atop it, crystallizing into view.
A cold sweat breaks over me. I can’t go back there. I won’t go back there. I won’t ever step foot in that place again. I can’t—
“ENOUGH!” The word is accompanied by a flash as eighty shimmering figures suddenly appear around us, each tall enough to reach the sky.
The gods of Maiwuri. They’re all around us now, watching. Blocking the door, which shrinks back to nothing.
Etzli falls to the ground, dropping me as she does so.
She swiftly picks herself up, our struggle forgotten as she points a gnarled finger at the celestial figures in the sky. “You dare! You dare lay hands on me! You who broke the covenant. You who stole her from our grasp!”
The gods sigh, a rumble that sends quakes through the ocean behind them, turning it dark and choppy where mere seconds ago it was placid. “It took Bala two minutes, two thousand chronomeres, to take her. You have spent much more time than that in our domain, Etzli of the Oterans. Our part of the covenant is fulfilled. It is now you who are breaking the covenant. Be gone from here, kindred.”
“Be gone?” Etzli sputters. “The Nuru yet remains. She belongs to our side of the barrier.”
“Then we will send her back, so that you have no more excuse to linger.”
“I will take her.” Etzli is so firm in this reply that my heart sinks as I wait for the gods to answer.
Then they shake their heads as one. “We took her; thus, we will return her.”
“TREACHERY!” Etzli spits. “You conspire with our counterparts.”
“No, we seek to restore the balance, as is our duty. You would do well to remember yours.”
As I breathe out a relieved sigh, eighty heads turn as one toward me. “Come, Deka,” they say, and I blink, startled, as Bala and Myter suddenly appear, all my friends as well as the fully packed gryphs beside them.
All that time I spent hurrying back to the stables and I’d forgotten he could do that, gather my companions in the blink of an eye.
Myter turns to me. “It’s time to go now, Angoro. We will take you.”
Behind them, Etzli is in a fury. She turns to the Maiwurian gods, eyes blazing. “Take her where?”
“That is your answer to discern,” the gods reply. “Consider our covenant honored. We bid you farewell, Oterans.”
There’s another flash, and everything falls away.