Chapter Thirty-Five
Thirty-five
The waters welcome all those that seek their embrace. And some that don’t.
—CYPRENE SAYING
I GO STRAIGHT TO NOLAN’S suite to wake him, but have barely managed a single knock when the door flies open.
“Are you mad, going out alone?”
Despite the question, there’s less anger in it than I expected. “Being passed out for a whole day will leave you with an appetite.” I step inside, toss him the roll. “Snuck out for some breakfast.”
He catches it. Sets it on the table with barely a glance. “Did you see anyone when you went?”
Again, a distinct lack of chastising, which is suspicious to say the least. And there’s a brightness to his eyes, a frantic energy about him that seems out of place in someone who was lamenting failure not long ago.
I thought he’d regained some composure after the outburst on the beach.
Maybe I was wrong. “As a matter of fact, I had a little run-in with a couple of Salt priests.”
He blinks, then shakes his head. “No, not them. Anyone else?”
“Why?”
He grabs a fold of paper from where it sits beside the ignored pastry. “I found this slipped under my door.”
“This wasn’t there when I woke up.” There’s a short note written within.
We regret the Caerula’s involvement in our recent affair, and bear you no ill will around Machias’s unfortunate end. Your business—which we would make ours—remains unfinished. Come at nightfall tomorrow, the Shrine of the Final Tide.
I read it once, then again. No signature. Nothing else that might indicate who sent it. “You missed this being delivered?”
“You weren’t the only one who was exhausted.”
But the tight way he says it betrays him. Someone was sneaky enough to get into the Petrel, up to the landing outside the door, and then leave this note without a trace. Not exactly a comforting thought given the current circumstances.
“You think this is from the heretics Machias was with?”
“Who else?”
“This”—I hold up the paper—“is not exactly forthcoming, information-wise. And it sounds about as much like a trap as it can without a postscript that literally says This is a trap. Anyone could have left this. The Caerula. The Salt priests.”
His mouth opens to retort, closes, then opens again. “The Salt priests?”
“Yup. Guess who is well informed enough to find out about what you were trying to sell? According to two of her errand boys—who cornered me in an alley, by the way; I’m fine, thanks for asking—Marzela is quite offended that she didn’t get a chance to put in a bid.”
Nolan mulls this over. “If she sent someone after you, also sending a note wouldn’t make much sense.”
“No. But it still could be the Caerula.”
“Trying to trap us instead of just surrounding the Petrel and dragging us out?”
I throw up my hands. “I don’t know, maybe they figured they’d inconvenienced Hiram enough.”
“No,” says Nolan. “This has to be from the heretics.”
“Who,” I remind him, “include Renderers. Trap. Trap trap trap.”
“We don’t know they know we’re Chosen.”
“We don’t know they don’t!”
He rips the note away. “We don’t have any other leads!” Another flash of rage, another glimmer of the beach.
I hold my ground. “That doesn’t give us a reason to do something stupid.”
Nolan takes a breath, steadying himself. “I know. I know. But give me an option that isn’t.”
He’s got me there. Rion, I almost blurt, but that was never really tangible.
The note, on the other hand, is real. And if the heretics want us dead, there’s no reason to send us an invitation to our deaths; they could have thrown that surprise party right here and now, easily taken us unaware, apparently.
Still…
Nolan isn’t a fool. But desperation limns him, more than ever.
This isn’t over. No matter the setback, he won’t…
he can’t fathom giving up the search for the reliquary any more than I can.
Which means giving into that desperation, taking a chance that any other time, any other place, would be downright idiotic.
But we both want what we want—him to become Tempestra’s next avatar, me to kill them.
And failure most likely means a lifetime of the aching distance from them that’s picking us both apart, bit by bit.
It might be a trap. It’s probably a trap.
But Nolan’s already decided something I’m just coming around to: that we don’t have a choice.
As a rule, it’s wise to be early to a potential trap.
Better to have the chance to survey your meeting place and the best ways to escape it.
So that’s what we decide on. Neither of us remembers the appointed shrine from our explorations, and when we ask a street vendor hawking smoked fish about it, he gives us a confused, suspicious look before rattling off directions.
The Shrine of the Last Tide lies near the cliffs that overlook the docks, though turned away from them, out of view.
A single, narrow footpath snakes down to it, barely wide enough for one person in spots, with a sheer wall of white stone on one side and exactly nothing to prevent a fall to the crashing waves on the other.
A fine, salty spray anoints us as we finally reach a wider set of stairs that descends into a sort of open cavern, with an overhang of cliff acting as a ceiling.
It reminds me of the drawing Rion showed me, but there are none of the Salt devotees’ elaborate carvings here, a fact that catches in my throat like a swallowed rock, though I’m not sure why.
The only decoration is tiered platforms of rock that circle a landing that slopes into the sea.
Waves lap about halfway up it, around the tops of three stone posts.
“A strange sort of shrine.” Damp shadows fall across Nolan as he methodically takes in our surroundings.
“I think that’s because the only prayers said here were ones for mercy.” I point. “Look at the tide lines. And the posts.”
The sea is moving toward low tide, revealing rusted, pitted metal rings set into the stone pillars.
“Ah,” says Nolan, understanding.
There’s a tidy brutality to it. Tie the condemned up and wait for the water to rise. They’d endure hours of anticipation before the end came, torture that didn’t spill a drop of blood. I’ve always thought Tempestra-Innara was ruthless. Turns out crossing the Salt Goddess wasn’t a good idea either.
Nolan goes down to where the sloping stone begins. “Whoever sent that note has a sense of efficiency. One way down, one way up. An ideal setup if you’re planning on an ambush.”
I pick up a shard of shell and toss it into the water. “Disposing of the bodies would be a snap too.”
Nolan sighs and stares back over the waves. “No, not bothered by the possible death trap,” he mutters. “Why would you be?”
Oh, I am. Because I can’t quite shake that this location is meant to convey a message. Somehow, I doubt the shrine has remained unused since the Salt Goddess’s defeat, not with its remote locale and convenient, scream-muffling waves. “Do you want to leave? While we still can?”
No answer, but the expression on his face is enough.
I sit down to wait. Nolan, on the other hand, remains standing, pacing across the space, moving close to the posts to examine them, then pacing again.
“You’re making me anxious,” I snap. “Would you please relax?”
“And be caught off guard?”
“You aren’t supposed to be worried about a threat, you’re supposed to be trying to gain trust. Which you’re not going to do walking around like a cat caught on a roof.”
That he considers, chewing it over for a full minute before begrudgingly joining me on the lowest stone tier.
The wind picks up a bit, chilly despite the warmth of the setting sun, which has finally dropped low enough to paint the cavern in lemony light.
Long shadows sprout from the stone pillars, grim fixtures to pass the time with.
“Weird to picture, isn’t it?” I lean onto my elbows. “Chain up the criminals—or blasphemers, or whoever the Salt Goddess found sufficiently irritating—and wait for the water to come back in. Do you think the crowds gathered to watch the whole thing, or only when it was almost drowning time?”
“I don’t know,” says Nolan. “It’s barbaric to make someone wait so long to die. Cruel.”
“Compared to immolation?”
“At least the flame is quick.”
“Dead either way, in the end. I guess that’s what matters.” I wonder if we are being observed. Again, I picture the crowds that must have gathered here, once, watching as death rose inch by inch. “Do you ever think about what it was like back then?”
“Back when?”
“When more than one god was still alive. When all the gods were still alive.”
Nolan shrugs noncommittally. “There is only the Goddess now.”
“Yeah, but people used to be able to decide which deity to devote themselves to. If there’d been a choice… do you think you would have chosen Tempestra-Innara?”
I expect a rebuke of my near blasphemy. And it almost comes, Nolan’s features pinching in the way they do when I’ve said something particularly offensive. Then, he stops himself, eyes falling.
“I’ll admit it’s been odd,” he says finally, “seeing what goes on here. The devotions of the Salt priests. Cyprene’s carvings and sculptures.
Proof of how devoted the Salt Goddess’s followers once were.
I…” He stops himself again, considering his next words.
“It’s heresy to worship any other god but our blood mother.
But in the past, if they weren’t the only divinity I’d ever known…
it would be ignorant to say I’d know for sure where my devotion would fall. ”
An acerbic truth, not easily admitted. And a marker.
Before the incident with the Caerula, before the beach and my realization of his true motives, would he have answered the same?
No. I’m sure of it. I wonder if it’s a relief, sharing his aspiration with another, instead of staying curled around it, pushing it into the deepest part of himself.
A minute passes before I realize it’s not curiosity I’m feeling, but jealousy.
Maybe, like me, Nolan has lived with a secret for years.
His desire to become an avatar could have been born long before the heretics tried to kill Tempestra-Innara, and their growing weakness made it an actual possibility.
It’s strange to think that the same seemingly impossible occurrence unlocked a new door for both of us.
Now, even as desperation wears on him, having that part of himself revealed to another has seemed to soften something in Nolan.
Made him more willing to mete out other pieces of himself too.
I can’t do the same.
We fall silent, my thoughts anything but.
They crash like the nearby waves, persistent and unrelenting, as the sun begins to set.
Below them is the measured evenness of Nolan’s breath, a calming rhythm I latch onto.
Someday, maybe, I’ll be able to sit with someone else like this, like I sat with Rion, in a time where secrets and threats aren’t the keystones holding up my life.
Still, this isn’t the worst thing, watching the sun set with Nolan, its light warming the both of us until, almost suddenly, it is gone, leaving the shrine coated in a watery dark.
Only then do the footsteps come. We jump to our feet, turning toward the sound that had been muffled by the waves, which had permitted the sole cloaked figure on the stairs to get closer than our senses would have normally allowed.
They are narrow and hooded, but there’s a relaxed set to their stance that eases my wariness.
“I hope I didn’t keep you waiting long.”
In an instant, what relief I felt disappears. The voice is a familiar one. From the tensing of Nolan beside me, I know he recognizes it too.
On the stairs, the figure peels back its hood to reveal Avery, smiling down at us.