Chapter 23 Hakara
Hakara
Langzu – Xiazen
The acrid scent of smoke filled my nostrils, my eyes watering as I ran after Thassir’s shape in the sky.
Couldn’t see Lithuas, but that didn’t matter as long as I could see him.
We had to catch her before she could flee across the sea.
She was a shapeshifter and an elder god – there were ways she could get through or around the barrier. Ways we didn’t have access to.
And then what?
Air burned in my throat, my chest aching. She’d go to the southern continent, she’d take over any rebellion they had brewing there. She’d use them to find more corestones. And then she’d help Kluehnn restore that realm and this one both.
We had to stop her. We had to kill her. It was the only way.
Thassir’s wings shadowed the ground as he moved unerringly toward the city rooftops.
I did my best to keep up, the ground beneath my feet uneven.
I wasn’t sure we’d be able to defeat her with just the two of us.
Thassir might have once been Nioanen, but it was clear he wasn’t that elder god anymore.
I didn’t know if he had the power to kill her, even if he tried.
My shirt clung to the dampness of my armpits, the air sticky-hot and moist. The road was right there, a wagon stopped at the side as its occupants gawked at the fire behind me. I turned my face to the sky, looking for Thassir. My heart jumped. He’d disappeared. Had I lost him completely?
Something seized my arms. I tried to twist. My feet left the ground; my stomach felt like it was still tumbling down toward the road. I kicked.
“By Unterra, stay still,” a voice growled. Thassir.
I would have felt relieved if there was more between me and the earth than several spans of empty air. I did my best to remain still, to be the sort of limp cargo I saw hawks carrying to their nests. The smell of smoke was thicker up here. I tried to look back, to see if Alifra and Dashu were safe.
Thassir grunted with effort, sounding very un-godlike. “If you keep that up, I’ll drop you.” His claws pricked my skin and I froze.
The rooftops of the city appeared below us, a dizzying array of tile, interspersed with cobblestones.
“Where is she?” I scanned the streets below.
People wended their way through thoroughfares, alleys dark and littered with refuse, the smell of fish mingling with smoke.
Xiazen was the size of Bian, bolstered by trade, the ships a quicker way to move from one part of the realm to another.
I tried to pick out a pattern of movement, to find someone who didn’t fit.
There were a few altered in the crowd below, the mortals moving around them like water around river stones.
I tried desperately not to think about what would happen if I fell.
I held my breath as Thassir readjusted his grip. “She shifted. Main thoroughfare, far as I can sense. Lingering magic right below us.”
Main thoroughfare – the street leading out of the city and all the way down to the docks. Someone had once possessed the foresight to pave it wide, as if they’d known what Xiazen would one day become. Wagons joined people, the buildings on either side lined with merchants’ stalls.
Lithuas wouldn’t be wearing Mitoran’s face. Not while trying to hide. There. A woman making her way determinedly toward the docks, not stopping to look at any of the stalls, her footsteps hurried. “Lower. Drop me there.” I pointed ahead of her. “Woman in the straw hat, just past the green stall.”
“I see her. I’ll cut off any escape.”
A brief moment of warmth for him blossomed in my chest. He’d known what I’d wanted him to do. There was a part of me that yearned for that sense of unity – the one we had when we fought, the bond slack, the aether there whenever I needed it.
Voices rose in alarm as Thassir swept down, the sounds carried on the ocean’s breeze. He tossed me from a bit higher than I would have liked. I staggered, my knees nearly giving way. I pivoted just in time to see him land.
And there was the woman in the straw hat. Her face was broad and brown, her arms wrapped around a covered basket. Tendrils of graying hair peeked out from beneath her hat. She wore an apron with smudges of old brown blood. Her eyes widened as we locked gazes.
Yes. I had her. I stood between her and the sea.
She glanced behind her to see Thassir moving rapidly through the crowd. If the other altered were river stones, he was a boulder pushing his way upstream. Mortals scattered so as not to touch the night-dark feathers of his wings. His glower could have melted glass.
Lithuas did the only reasonable thing she could.
She darted toward me. I reached out for her arm.
Someone jostled me in their haste to get away from Thassir.
I stumbled and she slipped out of my grasp.
I gritted my teeth as I caught myself. Maybe we were not as aligned as I’d thought.
Couldn’t draw my sword. Not here, not where the Sovereign’s enforcers might be lurking around a corner.
I chased her down the street.
She was surprisingly quick for such a short body, darting into an alleyway, disappearing around a corner at the end. I hoped Thassir had taken to the skies again, so he could keep a better eye on her path. I caught a glimpse of her straw hat as I followed.
“Right!” Thassir called from above.
I tore down a road to my right, nearly running into a man carrying a basket of laundry. I spun around him. Where? There. The flash of a foot into another alley.
She moved through the streets like she knew them.
And I’d already been running before Thassir had hoisted me into the air.
I pulled a green gem free of its pouch and swallowed it.
He must have spotted the movement, because the ocean scent increased, the fizzing in my belly beginning just as I took in a deep breath of air.
I’d hold this breath if it was the last thing I did.
Smoky god limbs encased my own, sending me hurtling down the alley with the speed of a galloping horse.
I had to bring my hands up to stop from slamming face-first into the plastered wall ahead of me.
I pushed off from it, pursuing Lithuas down yet another alley.
My lungs burned, protesting the lack of air after an already-strenuous run.
A dark shape dropped into the narrow alley ahead of the woman. Thassir, falling like a stone as he pulled his wings to his sides. The cobbles seemed to shift beneath my feet when he landed.
Lithuas stopped, pivoted. I let out my breath, my smoky limbs dissolving into the air. Her face paled. She didn’t smirk. She didn’t shift into her true form. She only stared, one arm still wrapped around her basket, the other raised in a gesture of surrender.
And that was when I had the first inkling we’d been played.
Thassir stalked toward the woman, and she shrank back. “She paid me to run,” she gasped out. “She gave me two parcels. I couldn’t turn that down.”
This was the problem with living among desperate people – they were always willing to do something a little unscrupulous and a little dangerous for some coin. Couldn’t say I was any different or any better.
My companion was less forgiving. He loomed over the woman. “What did she look like?”
Her lip trembled. “A sailor. She had a scar over her eyebrow. Black hair, shaved on the sides. Dark green sleeveless jacket that fell to her knees.”
At least the woman was thorough. I gestured to Thassir.
“The docks. Now.” Without thinking, we met one another at the opening of the alley and I hopped into his arms. He leapt into the sky.
Wind sheared past us, the scent of smoke thicker.
I caught a glimpse of fire carts on their way out of the city, laden with water barrels and scythes.
We landed at the docks and, without speaking a word to one another, split up to search. A green sleeveless jacket. A woman with a scar. She’d shifted earlier, but she hadn’t shifted since then, which meant Thassir would have lost track of her.
Glares followed me as I shoved my way past sailors and fishmongers. The harbor at Xiazen wasn’t small, each dock laden with ships. I scanned for green.
A hand seized my arm.
I whirled, ready to fight, fingers clutching instinctively for the hilt of my sword.
Dashu, with Alifra just behind. He’d taken custody of Thassir’s cat basket; it swayed at his side. He pointed back toward the city. “There’s a sailor murdered in an alley a little ways back. They just discovered her. There’s a crowd gathering.”
Enforcers would be on their way. My mind was hurtling forward, rusty gears grinding against one another. “Did you see her? Was the dead woman wearing a sleeveless green jacket?”
Alifra nodded. “Aye, she was.”
“She didn’t take just any shape, then. She took that woman’s place. She’s on a ship. She’s already on a ship.” I searched the docks. “We have to get Thassir. We need to get out of here. We need a boat. Now. Before enforcers start investigating.”
Dashu hadn’t let go of my arm. “Hakara.” His voice was low. “You should stay here. In Xiazen.”
I pulled away. “What?”
“You are now the leader of the Unanointed. They need you here, leading them, making sure they have something to hope for. And following Lithuas across the ocean…” He trailed off. “It may not be the wisest course of action. For you.”
The wooden boards of the dock creaked beneath my feet as I shifted, torn between two places.
I could feel the tug, the need to find Lithuas.
The one thing I knew would change our world for the better.
She was an elder god, and she’d betrayed not only mortals, but the gods as well.
“I have to stop her. Before she does it again.”
He’d pitched his voice as soothing, as though he was trying to reason with a stubborn child.
“Alifra, Thassir, and I can chase her. Have you forgotten? She is looking for another corestone and you have one. It’s one thing to stop her here, in Langzu.
We don’t know what things are like outside of this realm.
We don’t know if Kluehnn has more aspects in the southern continent, we don’t know if Lithuas has more allies. ”
And she could have fewer allies farther south.
We didn’t know. We couldn’t know. I could stay, but Guarin was better suited to managing our spies, our people.
I had always been a one-edged blade, uncomplicated and single-minded.
If I drove myself forward, after Lithuas, I knew my task.
If I stayed? I wasn’t Utricht, with his easy familiarity.
I wasn’t Sheuan, with her quick charm and clever mind.
Something yawned open inside me, a sinkhole so vast I didn’t know the depths.
They’d chosen the wrong person.
A flash of green met my gaze, almost obscured by the sun glittering off the waves. I grabbed Dashu’s shoulder, wordless.
A sailor smirked at me from the deck of a ship that was rapidly exiting the harbor.
A sailor wearing a green sleeveless jacket, black hair shaved at the sides.
I took note of the ship, the shape of its sails.
Damn Thassir! Where was he when I really needed him?
I could feel he was close, from the bond, but he wasn’t close enough.
“She’s on that ship. We need to follow that ship. Alifra…”
She was already moving away, down the docks, her gaze sharp, stopping people, asking questions. My bond with Thassir slackened, the bond with Rasha still taut at the back of my mind.
And then Alifra was gesturing to us from another dock, and Thassir was there at my side. “She’s on a boat,” I said breathlessly. This was the closest we’d been since the lakebed at Bian. “Thassir and I can—”
“No.” Dashu cut me off. “Too risky. We do this together. If we’re quick, we can catch her today, out on the water.”
Alifra was halfway up a gangplank when we arrived, arguing with the captain.
Several sailors on deck watched us with curious gazes.
“Ten parcels for a quick trip?” She scoffed.
“You’re going to the anchor anyways. What’s it hurt to take a few more people?
Do you want me to throw in an arm and a leg, too? ”
The captain, a lanky fellow with black hair and the tilted-head attitude of a curious crow, pointed at Thassir. “That looks like three people in one,” he said.
Thassir graciously took the cat basket back from Dashu. A faint meow sounded from within. “I also have a cat.”
“You’re not helping,” Alifra muttered to him. “Five parcels,” she countered.
“The cat will work while she’s aboard,” Thassir said.
The captain cast him a skeptical look. “Not every cat is a good ship’s cat.”
Thassir’s feathers bristled. “She is a good cat. The best cat. In all circumstances.”
We didn’t have time for this, nor did I want Thassir starting a fight over one of his cats. Again. “Pay the man eight parcels and have done with it.”
“I didn’t agree to eight,” he protested.
I slid past Alifra on the gangplank, putting my foot on deck. “You can take eight or you can pay two to have someone scrub blood off your deck.”
“You’re trespassing! That’s illegal!” The captain’s hand tightened around his belt knife. Really? If that was the first complaint his mind went to, we were going to have an interesting time on this trip. I wondered how he felt about the legality of elder gods.
I did a quick scan for enforcers. If they’d arrived, they’d be at the alley with the dead sailor first. “Do I look like I care about the law?” I knew I probably smelled like sweat and fire, my boots still dusty and the muscles of my arms tightening as I gripped the hilt of my sword.
The gangplank dipped and I felt Thassir’s presence at my back.
“Fine. Eight.” The captain’s face paled, his gaze focused on Thassir. He was one of those people that looked big from far away, and even bigger up close.
“And that’s a good bargain for you, make no mistake.” I squinted out at the sea. I could still see the boat that Lithuas had fled on, the sails filled with wind. “Now follow that ship. We’ve work to do.”