The Gilded Ones #3

Chapter 29

“Well, that’s inconvenient.”

This comment comes from Li when he looks up at what should have been the last obstacle in our journey to the summer house: a staircase carved into the farthest corner of the cavern. It stretches all the way up to the ceiling, where a small ledge leads to the door to outside. Theoretically, it should have been easy climbing up those stairs, but half of them are broken, and the staircase’s entire bottom is rubble. While it would still be possible for a small child to scramble up it, as Keita once did, there’s no way that’s feasible for any of us. We’d be likely to break our necks if we did.

Thankfully, we won’t need to.

“Ixa,” I say, glancing at my companion. Fly us up?

Deka,he agrees. His body immediately begins growing. Within moments, he’s large enough to seat the entire group. We all hold on as he lifts into the air, headed for that ledge, which ends in what looks like an impassable slab of stone.

Britta gestures at it. “Tell me that’s not—”

“The hidden door to the summer house? Unfortunately, it is,” Keita says, leaping off Ixa the moment we’re near, since my scaled companion is much too large to land on the ledge.

I hurriedly do the same, rushing over just as Keita begins to run his hand over the side of the slab. His eyes are narrowed in concentration. “There’s a lever somewhere right…here!” He pushes.

The stone gives way with a loud click, the sound muffled, blessedly, by the thicket of vines that’s grown in front of it. While we’ve seen neither hide nor hair of Melanis since we entered the cavern, we can’t expect such luck to hold now that we’re almost out of it.

Keita turns to us again. “Father always did like his escape routes,” he says, pulling at the vines. “This is the first one he showed me. Little did he know how useful it would be.” He continues aggressively pulling, little streams of sunlight now filtering through. “The deathshrieks shrieked and pushed against the door all day, but they never found out how to open it.”

He turns to me with a grim smile. “Father’s foresight saved me.”

My heart jolts as I imagine it: Keita, a small, bereaved child huddled against this stone door with the monsters on the other side of it. I reach for him. “Keita, I—”

“Hurry,” he says, turning swiftly away from me. He’s closing himself off again, making sure I don’t see even a hint of his emotions. “We have to get a move on.” He rips away the last few vines, allowing sunlight in completely.

And finally, I can see where we are.

The door is hidden by a group of boulders. They sprawl at the edge of a soaring mountain peak, upon whose highest point sits an estate so immense, it would give even the most magnificent homes in Hemaira a run for their money. I have to crane my head to look up at it. My eyes goggle as I take in the lush gardens framing the colossal house—no, palace—that is its center, its delicate pink walls shimmering in jewellike tones under the hazy golden sunlight. The only time I’ve seen walls made of stone like this before was in Laba, the capital of Maiwuri. But that’s not the estate’s only marvel. The roof as well is a thing of exquisite beauty, each of its tiles made from a pale-green mineral I’ve only ever seen in jewelry worn by people from the Eastern provinces. The edges of the tiles are feathered with gold, adding to their already stunning appearance.

And yet they’re untouched. My brows wrinkle as I realize: the entire estate is in pristine condition, unmarred by the hands of thieves or even the elements. There’s not a touch of decay or disrepair anywhere. It’s as if it’s been protected somehow, as if something is shielding it from the outside world. Even as I think this, I feel it, a deep thrumming of power coming from somewhere inside the estate. Power I immediately recognize, despite having never felt it before: my kelai!

I speed forward, a thousand emotions racing through me—hope, fear, dread…. If this truly is my kelai, then this is it, the end of my journey with my friends. The end of my life as I know it in Otera.

But none of my friends seem to realize that. They’re all just staring at the estate in wonder. “He told us his family was nobility, but I don’t think I really understood until today,” Li says, staring at Keita, who’s continued jogging onward, in awe. “This place is a palace.”

“An’ it’s been perfectly preserved,” Britta says, eyes practically round as she stares at the mansion and the profusion of sweet-smelling fruit trees lining it. “Like someone placed it under glass for wha—a decade? How is that possible?”

“I don’t know,” I swiftly mumble, although that’s not the strictest truth. I have a very good idea why the estate has remained untouched. But I don’t want to face the reason yet, don’t want to say it out loud.

“I do.” Belcalis turns to me. “It’s your kelai. It’s here.”

“And the jatu aren’t.” This brusque comment comes from Keita, who is now well down the path. “If we’re lucky, that means we’ve preceded them.”

He beckons us onward. “Let’s keep moving,” he says curtly. “We have only a few hours of daylight left.”

We hurry behind him, entering the fruit groves, where brightly feathered glimmerbirds roost in the trees, their tail feathers so long, they graze the ground. They aren’t alone. Little nuk-nuks, those mossy-green deer, gambol underneath the trees, blithely unconcerned as we walk past. How the Gilded Ones never found this place, never thought to look, I don’t understand. But perhaps the rules of existence work differently here, as they do in every primary temple of a group of gods.

And that’s what this place is, a temple.

“Infinity take me, these are good!” I turn, startled when Kweku takes a bite out of one of the perfectly ripe fruits that hang thick on the trees.

Asha slaps it from his palm.

“Hey!” Kweku protests. “That was a perfectly good fruit!”

“In an enchanted gods-damned grove!” Asha growls back. “I can’t fathom if you’ve lost all common sense, or if you never had any to begin with!” When he stares at her, uncomprehending, she expands: “Don’t eat strange fruit in enchanted groves! That’s what literally every old tale teaches you! If you grow another head or turn into one of those”—she points at the nuk-nuks—“it’ll be your own fault!”

Kweku whirls to me, horrified. “Am I going to turn into a nuk-nuk, Deka? Is there a curse on the fruit?”

“How should I know?” I reply, shrugging. “It’s my first time here too.”

Keita walks to the top of the garden, then stops, turns to the group. “Everyone, take a direction. The kelai could be in the main house, or it could be in one of the adjoining ones. Either way, signal the moment you find anything. I’ll take the main house. Alone.”

He emphasizes this word so harshly, my suspicions rise. There’s something in the house he doesn’t want anyone to see.

His parents.

The understanding shatters through me. This estate is perfectly preserved, everything, presumably, just as Keita left it. And that, perhaps, includes the corpses of his parents.

I run after him. He’s rushing up the stairs leading to the entrance now, his footsteps so swift and sure, I struggle to keep up. “Keita,” I call out, “wait for me!”

When he doesn’t slow down, I turn back to the others. “Start searching—quickly,” I say. “I’ll go with Keita.”

Ixa pads over, attempting to follow me, but I shake my head. I need to be alone with Keita now, I say, thankful when Britta sees my gesture and quickly beckons to him.

“Come on, Ixa.”

Ixa coming, he replies, disgruntled, though Britta can’t hear him. He pads after her.

I give Britta a quick nod of thanks, then I follow after Keita, slowing as he does once we reach the massive doors that are the entrance to the house. They’re still slightly open, even after all these years, and there are claw marks on the sides, as if something forced its way out. Not something—deathshrieks.

Keita turns to me. “You don’t have to come with me, Deka. I remember the way.”

I nod. “That may be, but I still want to come.”

He sighs, his jaw gritting. “I don’t think you understand, Deka. This place, it’s exactly as I left it. Exactly.”

“And that might include your parents.” When he glances at me, startled, I add: “I’ve seen corpses before.”

“These aren’t corpses. These are my family.”

“I’m your family too.”

“For how long?” There’s a note of challenge to these words. Anger as well.

I suck in a breath. “You don’t have to do this, Keita,” I whisper. “You don’t have to be like this.”

“Be like what? Cold? Angry? In pain?” With every word, Keita’s voice breaks more and more.

“Alone,” I say, reaching out my hand. “You don’t have to be alone. You don’t have to push me away. I’m here. For as long I can be, I’m here.”

“But you shouldn’t be. You should be with the others, finding your kelai, preparing for godhood.”

I step closer again. I know what Keita is doing, pushing so hard. He’s trying to make a clean break. That way he gets to wallow in his feelings and I get to, presumably, ascend guilt-free. I shake my head. “There’s nowhere I’d rather be than here. There’s nowhere that’s more important than here.”

“The world is ending, didn’t you hear? It’s what’ll happen if you don’t take back your kelai.”

“Not yet, it isn’t. And while we still have time, I want to be with you.”

“Time….” Keita’s reply is a bitter laugh. “And precisely how much time do we have left, do you think? A minute? An hour? Two at most?” He whirls toward me. “In the next few hours, perhaps even minutes, you’ll be a god. Something else entirely. Something that doesn’t need me.”

And there it is, the words Keita has no doubt been holding on to all this time. The words I’ve been fearing as well. But unlike what I expected, they do not shatter me. I have the love of Britta and Belcalis, the twins and Katya, as my armor. Even our uruni have girded me with the strength of their belief. I will not let Keita sink into his despair, nor will I let him drag me down with him.

“I’ve never needed you, Keita.”

When his eyes widen with hurt, I grab his hands. “But I’ve always wanted you. More than anything, I’ve wanted you.” I look up at him. “You’re not a need, Keita, you’re not an obligation to me. What you are is my happiness, my delight. When I didn’t believe that there was good in the world, there was you. You’re my comfort and joy, and I hope I’m the same for you.”

As Keita continues to watch me, I inch closer, wrap my arms around him. “I know you fear the future—I fear it too—but this is our present. We’re together now. We’re here now. In this moment, there’s only me and you.

“The future will come no matter what we do, but for now, please don’t push me away, Keita. I’m here. I’ll be here for as long as I can.”

The moments pass, Keita’s body stiff in my embrace. Then slowly, surely, his muscles relax and his hands creep around me. “I can’t breathe,” he rasps, a pained admission. “I’m here—right where they are, and I can’t breathe. I can’t go in there, Deka, I can’t. I can’t, I can’t, I ca—”

“Shhh….” I stroke his back. “You don’t have to go in.”

“But the jatu and Melanis and the world…” His voice is near to breaking now.

“The world can wait, and so can we. We’ll wait for as long as you want, as long as you need, until you get your breath again. We’ll just sit here.” I lower myself to the floor, pulling Keita down beside me.

He tries to protest again. “But your kelai and Melanis and—”

“All just distractions,” I say, wrapping my arms around him and making small, slow circles on his back. “Right now, there’s only you and me. That’s all that matters. All that matters….”

Keita nods, drops his head on top of mine. And we remain there in silence, the evening shadows growing around us. Wrapping us in their comfort.

Until it’s finally time for us to rise again and step into the summer house.

Power buzzes through the mansion. If I didn’t feel it fully before, I feel it now, the low, intense thrumming that vibrates through me the moment I step foot across the threshold. My breath hitches, suddenly caught in my throat. It’s all I can do not to shiver. I’ve been in countless ruins before, some thousands of years old, but never have I felt anything like this. This place—it’s alive with energy.

Just like the outside, the interior of the house is pristine. The heavy stone tables with scenes from ancient legends carved into them still have gold accentuating their edges. The chairs still have their exquisitely embroidered cushions. Sheer curtains still line the massive sliding doors, which have been built in the Southern style to funnel air through the interior.

Except there’s no breeze.

It takes a few minutes for me to notice that. There should, at the very least, be a soft breeze dancing across the curtains. And dust motes should sparkle in the last embers of the dying sunlight. But there’s nothing—not even the faintest odor.

“It’s like it’s frozen,” Keita says hollowly, glancing around. Then he notices something on one of the tables. He runs over, picks it up, and holds it to his chest.

“What is it?” I ask, walking closer.

“Mother’s comb,” he replies, holding up the large golden comb, whose handle has been shaped into a single flower. “She left it here the night that she—that she—”

Keita stops, when his breath hitches, and inhales to regain his control. “She left it here the night that she died,” he finally says, walking around the room as if remembering everything anew. “She’d been wearing it all day, but then she grew tired and left it here for her attendants. She didn’t realize they’d already been killed.”

There’s an expression on Keita’s face now, a horror. He walks down the entrance hall, his destination a small corridor I would never have noticed had he not been leading me toward it. There’s a dark staircase that winds upward from it: the servants’ stairs. I’ve seen them in all the homes of rich people I’ve visited.

I follow Keita as he continues talking.

“The emperor had just had some boxes delivered, you see,” he says, his voice echoing as he slowly walks up the stairs. “Gifts. Clothes and jewels and fabrics and such. For his favorite cousins.” He spits out this part bitterly before he continues. “Everyone was overjoyed at this display of the emperor’s favor. Mother’s attendants had spent the day unpacking the boxes. There were only a few left.

“So Mother came down, left the comb, called for her attendants. But no one answered.” Now Keita turns to me, his eyes burning in the darkness that is this small, oppressive staircase. “It was only when she walked back upstairs that she heard the shrieking.

“Sound travels up. That was what I learned that day.”

When he laughs bitterly again, my stomach twists. The look in his eyes now…the heat pouring off him…. I’m relieved when Keita turns one more corner and we exit into another perfectly preserved corridor. It’s clear we’re in his family’s private portion of the palace. Small bronze carvings hang from the walls, portraits of ancestors. But Keita continues onward as if he sees nothing but the path laid out in front of him.

The silence is so oppressive now, I know I have to shatter it before he disappears completely into his own mind. So I rush forward. “Are we almost there?” I ask quickly. “The place where it—”

“Happened?” Keita turns to me, his eyes bright. The fire in them is near to spilling out, an indication of just how strong his emotions are at the moment.

When I put my hands on his arm, I have to fight the urge to flinch away. Keita’s body is burning right now. If he weren’t wearing the heat-proof armor the Maiwurians gave him, his clothing would be in flames.

He nods. “Yes,” he says. “Yes, we are.”

He walks down the hall to the door at the end, then stops, as if waiting to bolster his courage.

I hurry to his side. “Keita, you don’t have to—”

Eyes bright with flames turn to me. “I do,” he says, and then he slides the door open, revealing a chamber frozen in a scene of violence.

The covers on the massive bed are scattered, the embroidered pillows tossed in varying directions. There’s a catastrophic hole in the brightly painted glass doors leading to the balcony, a heavy wooden table lying smashed to its side, as if it had been used as a desperate yet futile barricade. But that’s not what commands my attention.

The people lying in the center of the room do.

There, spread out just in front of me, is a scene worse than any I imagined. Six people—two adults and four teenaged boys—lie on the floor, their opulent robes shimmering around them like silken rivers. The blood that stains their bodies is still bright red, and it dots their ears and noses, and drips like jewels from the claw marks on the belly of the father, who fell holding his sword. I gasp when I catch sight of it. And then I notice what I didn’t before.

The corpses all look peaceful. Given the violence I’ve seen surrounding them, their eyes should be open, their faces frozen in a rictus of terror. But a feeling of peace pervades the room. As if these people have been held somehow, preserved lovingly, just like the rest of the mansion.

Keita sinks to his knees, his breaths ragged. Tears are falling down his cheeks now, the tears he’s been holding back for so very long. Little flames follow their path, almost as if his anger is leaking out. “They should be screaming,” he gasps out, tears choking his words. “When they died, they were screaming. Why don’t their faces look like that anymore?”

There’s a bewildered expression in his eyes as he asks this, and it’s perfectly understandable. Everything else in this house has been preserved as it was the moment Keita left it. Everything but his family.

Why has their pain been erased—replaced, it seems, with peace? I don’t understand how any of it is possible. Then that thrumming runs through me, more powerful than I’ve ever felt it.

I’ve been consumed with Keita’s pain. That’s the only reason I can offer for why I didn’t notice it before: the power that runs through the house, it’s strongest in this room. And it’s coming from a tiny box. Everything in me stills as I see it, the small jewelry box that sits innocently at the corner of the room, on the only table that remains upright in this masterpiece of preserved chaos.

It’s small and so plain, it’s easy to overlook. There are no carvings on it, no gold. It’s just an obsidian box, black stone that gleams dully in the evening light.

And yet energy pulses from it, a song that echoes the one coming from deep inside my soul.

That box once contained my kelai. Hopefully, it still does. I stagger toward it, my heart pounding in my chest. Hopefully, what I’m feeling is the source of my power and not the memory of it, like everything else on this estate.

“Deka?” I barely hear Keita’s bewildered question as I continue onward, my body barely able to hold itself up any longer.

Every step I take is heavy with apprehension. So much rests on this moment, on what I find when I open the box. It could be nothing, an echo from moments past. Or it could be everything: the key to saving Otera, to saving everyone I love.

My head is spinning now, sweat dripping down my face and neck. The nearer I get to the box, the greater the energy that thrums over me, a feeling so familiar and so welcoming, it almost feels identical to the Greater Divinity. Only this is my own divinity—or at least the key to it. The key I’ve been searching for.

If it’s still there.

I glance around, searching for Mother’s body. She said it should be somewhere nearby, except no matter how hard I look, it’s nowhere to be seen. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t here somewhere, hidden in a corner I haven’t yet noticed. I sink to my knees in front of the box, hands trembling as I reach out. But the moment I open the box, I sag, disappointment flooding me.

My kelai isn’t there. I don’t have to look down at those gleaming black stone corners to see what I already feel. It’s been taken. Was likely taken mere hours ago—spirited away while my friends and I rushed through the caverns—the same way Mother’s body was.

The knowledge flows into me so smoothly, I know it comes from whatever remnants of my kelai still pulse around this estate, preserving it the same way tree sap does the unfortunate insects that get trapped inside it.

A wail chokes my throat. A cry of anguish.

All this time, I’ve been frightened of my kelai. Reluctant to find it. But now that I’ve experienced it, I realize my mistake. It’s a part of me, as integral as any organ. It’s mine, and now it’s been stolen yet again by gods who want to use it to destroy me.

They have it and I have nothing. Nothing but these remnants that swirl around me, teasing me with the possibility of what might have been.

It’s some moments before I rise. Once I do, I turn back to Keita, who’s still kneeling there beside his parents, sobbing as if his heart could break. Outside of that first moment when I began walking over to the box, he hasn’t noticed my journey, has no inkling of the immensity of what I just discovered. But that’s what grief does. It blinds you to everything but the devastation in your own heart. And this, what Keita is experiencing, is pure and true grief.

I put aside my anger, my frustration, as I concentrate on his despair. And on the incongruity of the scene around him. I suspected it before, but now I truly understand why his family looks the way they do, why they’re so peaceful, unlike everything else in this room.

It’s because my kelai is a part of me. Has always been a part of me.

Even when I didn’t know it, it knew me, knew how I felt about Keita. That’s why it has preserved this estate the way it has—or, rather, why it rolled back the decay that had fallen over it.

This estate wasn’t always this way.

If I had to hazard a guess, it was no doubt moldering away for years, a forgotten, hateful tomb for Keita’s parents. But then I fell in love with him, started to regard him above everyone else.

This place, this magical stillness, is the result of my feelings for Keita.

Grim though it may be, it’s my love letter to him. My way of allowing him to say goodbye to his family, even though I never realized I was doing such a thing.

But that is the miracle of the divine.

And that is the miracle of love.

I walk over to Keita, who’s now kneeling by his mother, holding her in his arms. When he sees me watching, he shakes his head ruefully. “I was the one who urged them to build this place,” he says suddenly. “Mother had her doubts, but I wanted a summer house. I wanted to brag to my friends. And I was the precious youngest. So I begged and wheedled and pleaded until Mother said yes. And when Mother said yes, Father, of course, agreed, because he would do anything to please her.

“So he built it, and then we came.” He turns to me, his eyes now filled with a strangely calm acceptance. “And I could blame myself for that—I have over the years—but now I see it wasn’t my fault. I was a child. Barely less than Maziru’s age.” He points to the youngest boy, a child of about eleven or so, eyes peacefully closed despite the claw marks gouging his neck.

“How could a child his age be the cause of all this?” He shakes his head. “No, it was Gezo and the Idugu. They’re the cause of all this.” He turns back to me. “I hope your kelai is here, Deka. I hope you find it and use it to strike every one of those divine bastards where they stand.”

His tone is so determined now, so filled with righteous anger, I don’t have the heart to tell him that it’s not here. All I can do is comfort him.

“I’m sorry, Keita,” I say, kneeling beside him. “I’m sorry for everything you endured.”

“It’s all right.” When I turn to him, startled, he nods. “It is. Look at them.” He gestures to his family, his expression surprisingly calm—relieved, almost. “I was so frightened. All this time, I was frightened that they would be in pain, that their bodies would be only bones or, worse, flesh in the same way I remembered them…. But look, they look peaceful.” He strokes a finger over his mother’s hair, his hands lovingly gliding over the dark-brown coils. “And they’re together, all of them.”

He glances up at me again, tears once more in his eyes. “When we first came, I wondered why this place was so well preserved, but now I know: you did this. You preserved their love.”

As I blink at him, he grasps my hands. “I’ve been so afraid of what would happen once you ascended—so much time I spent fearing it. But now I see my fears were for nothing. Because if just a part of you can do so much to honor my loved ones, how much will the entirety of you do when Otera is yours to guide? How much better will everything be?”

I stare at him, speechless. If I were in his position, I would rage against the gods, against everything in this place, but somehow he’s found hope in the face of all this darkness.

And he’s found a way to give me the same. I’ve feared so deeply that I’d become an evil god, an unjust one, but if Keita sees all this in me, believes in me…

I stumble to find the words. “I don’t, I don’t—” Then I see the look on Keita’s face, the determination. “Tell me what to do. Tell me how I can be here for you in this moment.”

“You can bear witness,” he says, rising again. He walks over to the bed.

When he begins to straighten the sheets, I rush to the other side, doing the same. I have an idea of what he’s about to do, but I’ll just follow his lead until he does it.

I watch as he picks up his mother and slowly, carefully deposits her there. There’s so much love in that gesture, I know that he adored her the most, which makes perfect sense, considering how easily and fully he loves me. He does the same with his father and then, once they’re side by side, clasps their hands together so that they can be in eternity as they were in life. That done, he moves on to his siblings, placing them in order of age until finally, his entire family is lying next to each other, their robes smoothed out and arranged around them to hide whatever wounds they might have.

He turns to me, his eyes heavy. “Your kelai—have you found any hint of it?”

“Yes,” I say with a nod. “I have, but it’s not here. The jatu have taken it, as we feared.”

“Oh,” Keita says. “I’m sorry, Deka, I—”

“No.” I lift up a hand, stopping him. “I don’t need that. I know what it feels like now—I know what to look for.” That’s the one bright spot in this whole affair. I know my next steps now. “I don’t need Mother’s body, don’t need some new plan. I know what to do. So you do what you must here. You do what feels right.”

“My thanks,” Keita replies, and then he turns back toward the bed and holds out his hand.

The flame that explodes from it incinerates the sheets in seconds, although his family is a different matter. They remain there, untouched. So he sends another column of flame their way.

As the fire swiftly spreads, consuming everything in its path, I back toward the door. Keita remains calmly where he is, the flame brought to life. It surrounds him, bathing him in a halo of fire.

A whistling sounds as wind suddenly rushes through the house.

Keita nods to me as I exit. “Gather the others for departure. I’ll be down the moment I’m done.”

I nod, and then I begin running.

The last I see of him, he’s standing there, watching his family burn in the funeral pyre he’s made for them. And as I dart out of the summer palace, the flames chasing at my heels, I can’t help but think that it’s not just his family that’s burning but the old Keita as well.