Chapter Thirty Six #2
Kyra tried to delve deeper, to find the Kano from before, only to be met with a thick haze that obscured her vision of anything. There was no past to be found through this fog. It was far too dense, as though something, or someone was blocking her view.
She retreated back, and the fog lifted as memories sped past once more.
Kano keeping watch whilst the nymphs were nowhere to be seen. A colossal tomb of immense power on the ocean floor, bones littered at its entrance. A glowing rune. Kano stopping one of the twins from touching the temple doors-
Recognition shot through Kyra at that memory. Concentration awry, she tumbled out of Kano’s mind.
‘Easy!’ Kawai hissed, catching her before she fell. Her head spun from coming out of the memory too fast.
That place. The mighty power it exuded.
‘Mother above,’ Kyra mumbled breathlessly. She cast a furtive glance around the room to ensure everyone was still sleeping, then untangled herself from Kawai, clambered to her feet and tiptoed as quietly as possible out of the house.
Moist, tropical air filled her lungs as Kyra stared out across the seamless silky blanket of water before her, knowing now what lay slumbering beneath it.
Her heart was thundering.
‘Did you do it?’ Kawai demanded in a hushed voice behind her. She heard the door close.
‘No. I couldn’t,’ she told him, surprised to find her voice oddly calm.
Disappointment laced Kawai’s tone. ‘What happened, then?’
Diving her hand into her pocket, she turned to him, pulling out the crumpled bit of parchment that hadn’t left her person since she’d acquired it.
It had become ritualistic, in a way, for her to read through Kawai’s notes before she slept each night, as if the answers might jump from the scroll at her, or somehow read differently than they had the night before.
It was time.
Time to no longer keep her quest for Oslan’s freedom a secret.
‘You wrote this for me. After I mentioned the Eye of the Fifth.’
Surprise flitted across Kawai’s face. ‘Oh… yeah I did. I thought I’d lost it. I was going to give it to you that night.’
‘A lot of it is rubbish,’ she said bluntly.
‘Stuff I already knew. Except for one bit, from a book I’ve already seen.
’ She unravelled the parchment and read aloud: ‘“From the book, MORTALS TO MOTHERS: ASCENSION TO DIVINITY: Through worldwide acknowledgement of the Mothers defeat of their unhinged sister, we can safely assume that Dohra and her demons will remain bound for eternity in her stony prison. Under the Four Mothers watchful eyes, She of the Void and Fifth Element would be imprisoned forever more. Thus, Droria found its natural state of harmony, of peace, knowing that this certain evil was buried to time.”’
She remembered flicking through the pages of that tome in search of answers. It had been meaningless then.
The faery had even guided her to it. As if they’d known exactly what she was looking for.
Kawai frowned. ‘Yeah, I know what it says, Kyra. I was the one who copied it from the book.’
‘That bit though…’ Kyra said slowly, then repeated the line that was now screaming at her to understand, just as that faery had done, however subtly, in the library, ‘“...Dohra and her demons will remain bound for eternity in her stony prison.” I thought it just meant the Eye at first. But then the next bit: “Under the Four Mothers watchful eyes…”’ She looked up at Kawai with excitement.
‘They’re together. All of them. The Mothers and Dohra.
They were buried together. The stony prison isn’t the Eye of the Fifth. It’s a tomb. It’s their tomb.’’
Kawai was utterly perplexed. ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’
Then Kyra finally, finally told someone else about her bargain with Lilion.
Every bit of it. Her relationship with Lilion, Oslan’s slavery, the fight between her and her brother, the blood-bargain to find the Eye in exchange for his freedom, and then the tomb she’d seen, clear as if she’d witnessed it herself, in Kano’s memory.
Even through his mind, the power emanating from the tomb was implausible. Kano had felt it, and had known what it was even if he hadn’t actually known. He’d felt it all the same. And through that memory, so had she.
Suddenly the notes in her hand weren’t a jumble of useless words anymore. That passage, that one little passage that Kawai probably hadn’t thought twice about since copying it from the book, had changed everything.
And the faeries… the faeries in Gallena’s temple had known too. Somehow, through their connection to the divine, they’d known what it was that she was seeking. And they’d tried to help her.
Kyra didn’t know why the thought stung her eyes.
‘So… you think the Eye is in the tomb?’ Kawai asked quietly after she was finished. They were sitting in the sand now, and Kyra continued to scan the words, making sure she’d missed nothing else in the cryptic, ancient text.
‘It has to be,’ Kyra whispered. ‘This is the closest lead I’ve had so far… I have to follow it.’
‘It’s been a thousand years since the Age of Mothers began. Who’s to say it’s still there?’
The thought had already occurred to her.
But it wasn’t enough to stop her from going.
‘I’m already running out of time. Oslan is running out of time.
’ She peered round at the door of Eko’s shanty house.
‘We’re leaving tomorrow for Phaenon. Who knows when I’ll be back in Loros? I won’t get another chance like this.’
Eko had a boat. It was beaten up, but Kyra was sure she could still row it. Maybe she should wake Kano, get him to tell her exactly where the tomb had been?
What if doing so woke Naal too? The Air Warden would strongly advise against it, and may even stop her from going.
Kyra couldn’t let that happen.
Alone she had to be. She jumped to her feet. ‘If I’m not back by sunrise, tell Naal where I am. What I’ve gone to do. She’ll fucking hate me for it but-
‘Don’t be an idiot, you can’t go alone,’ Kawai said roughly. ‘We’re outside of Nevatis territory here. There could be anything lurking in these waters. Besides, how will you even find it?’
‘The power behind the tomb called to Kano. I felt it in his memory. I’ll be able to find it, Kawai. Naal’s always talking about magic leaving traces, specifically elemental magic-’
She was already making for the rowboat, but Kawai’s fingers wrapped tightly around her wrist. He gently yanked her wrist up, pulling her to him.
They glared at each other for a moment, but then he kissed her hand, and that familiar gleam of affection she didn’t realise she’d missed so much sparked back in his golden eyes. ‘I’m coming with you.’
Her retort was instant. ‘No, you’re not.’
‘Yes, I am.’
‘Kawai, please! I don’t have time to argue-’
‘Then don’t fight me on this. I’m coming.’
Agitated, Kyra glanced at the fingers still wrapped around her wrist, then up to the slight smirk on his full lips. ‘Fine,’ she snapped. ‘But don’t blame me if you get eaten by a mer. They only like human flesh, remember?’
Now, he outright grinned. ‘I’ll bear it in mind.’
‘I’ll ward the boat, that way at least no mer outlaw will be able to attack. I think we’ll probably be able to-’
‘We don’t need the boat.’
She blinked. ‘Well, I’m not fucking swimming there.’
He laughed. ‘You’ve forgotten, haven’t you?’
‘What?’
Before her very eyes, his grinning face, along with the rest of him, disappeared into the night. A sly hand on her waist had her whirling around to see him behind her, still grinning as he said with a damned wink, ‘I can salir us there. It’s what I do best.’
‘You don’t know where it is.’
‘Then, show me.’ Uncertainty rose rapidly within her, and it must have shown on her face, for Kawai said, ‘You can do it, Kyra. I have no doubt about it.’ He took her hand, interlinking his fingers through hers. ‘Show me what you saw.’
After blinking up at him a few times, Kyra moved a little closer, cupping the back of his neck with her other hand and pressing her forehead against his, letting her eyes close to relish in the scent of him, his warmth, his strong body against hers.
It was easy to fall into his mind like this. Easy to fall…
Focus. Focus.
Slowly, the rough walls in his mind came down for her. She was swimming in the swirling depths of all that was him, his memories completely unguarded now, as though he trusted her to see all of it.
It would have been easy, so easy, to learn everything there was to know about Kawai Astaveron in that moment.
She wanted to know him. But this wasn’t how she wanted to do it.
Nor was it what she was there for.
Shutting herself off to his past, to his mind laid bare before her, she delved within herself to find what she needed, pulling the picture of the Mothers tomb from the archives and projecting it to him, allowing him to see what she had.
Breathlessly, Kyra pulled herself out of Kawai’s mind. His hand shot out around her back to steady her before she could topple backwards.
Even using a meagre amount of her Warden power took an enormous toll on her body. But she’d managed to actually wield it. And without failure or devastation. Twice.
The tiny victory had her feeling giddy. Breathless, she asked Kawai, ‘Did you see it?’
He nodded.
Excited anticipation mounted, bubbling up like spilling lava within her. She was finally going to do it. She was finally going to uphold the bargain and free Oslan. ‘Do you think you can get us there?’
Kawai gripped her closer with easy arrogance, and grinned. ‘Hold me tight and don’t let go.’