Chapter Thirteen

White plaster pokes through a pile of leaves. I rush over and dig through the shrubbery. “Are you okay?” I drag Dayen upright and pass him his crutch.

He spits dirt from his mouth and gasps for air. “I think I’ll be fine. You?”

Virian comes running, whole and unharmed, except for the tangle of leaves in her hair.

“I need some air. I’ll meet you back at our room.” I stumble away, out of the room of plants, out of sight, before they can question me further.

I brace myself against the solid walls of the glass fortress. Each breath I take feels too shallow and too short. It feels like one of the balete’s roots burrowed deep under my skin and is squeezing me tight.

There’s also a scratching in my chest, as if something inside has wakened from a long, deep slumber. Something pushes and tugs my heart, as though it wants to pull me apart. Voices scream in my head, but I don’t hear words, only one emotion: rage.

We Tigangi believe that the ghosts of our past selves live inside our heart. I’ve always feared my heart was faulty because it never once leaped at meeting someone or whispered secrets to guide me. I’ve always believed there was something wrong with my heart, or maybe with me.

But now the ghosts are awake and howling. I stumble down the hallway to escape them, but I can’t. Halna’s voice echoes the worst of my thoughts: Selfish, Narra! See what you have done?

I run through spiraling hallways that are so bright I shield my eyes from the glare. I go up and up—two floors, maybe three. I stop counting. I want to find Inay, but no path I turn seems to lead me any closer to the dungeons. The whole fortress feels like it was built to magnify the glory of the Heavens rather than to make any obvious sense. I’m lost but I don’t care. I want the feeling in my chest to stop.

The ocean greets me at the end of a long corridor, and I rush to meet it. The water is stormy and roiling today, the crashing of the waves a roar that matches the turmoil within me. Here, the fortress ends in a sheer cliff that drops into the waves, too high to scale and too slick for any to try. A thin stone rail is the only thing that might keep me from falling, and it slides beneath my outstretched fingers, worn smooth where it was once sharp. I suck in a deep breath to calm myself.

Time falls away. In one eye, I stare into the thrashing deep, and in the other, I see Teloh. I grasp his hands in a vice, as though I am afraid to let go.

My fingers are thick and callused, and it is not hunger I see in his eyes but fear. Yet his presence calms me. I am not afraid when he is near. When he is not, I stalk these empty corridors like a restless ghost, forever haunted by a past I cannot change.

“She will come for me. I don’t know how much time I have left.” My voice is low and deeper in my throat. “If something happens, do not let me come back here. Promise me that you won’t let the Baylan keep me.” This time, Teloh is wearing the black of the Guardians. This vision feels newer than the others. “Omu’s plan cannot come to pass. I—”

“Of course, you would never make things easy for me, but I would know you anywhere, in any form.” He sighs and squeezes my hands. When he looks at me, it feels like the whole universe stops spinning. He gently reaches out to cup my cheek in his palm, and I close my eyes so that nothing exists but his gentle caress. “I promise.”

The vision releases me, and I lean over the rail to suck in a deep breath. The world keeps spinning around me as the past and present collide. What is happening to me?

I turn around, dizzied, and catch a twitch of movement in the distance.

A lone Guardian walks down the hallway. He walks head down, with his shoulders hunched, as if he carries an invisible stone upon his back. A curved blade dips down from one hand, stained red. He slowly unwinds a dark cloth that obscures all but his eyes. His face is smudged, no…splattered with red.

Now my ghosts growl a warning that rattles my ribs. I do not know how to interpret the feeling, only that I have been here before, seen this before. Somehow all things seem believable in Bato-Ko, where all time loops endlessly.

Teloh’s eyes lock onto mine as if they are magnets. He steps over the threshold and onto the windy outcropping. I am frozen as he draws near, close, so close. “Have you really gone through all this trouble just to kill yourself? There are nicer places elsewhere in Tigang.”

His words break the spell. I turn again and lean over the railing to avoid his unsettling gaze, and I fiddle with my scarf. “The view is worth it.” I pretend lightness, when all my thoughts would drown me. A great wave sends a spray of water over us, and I shiver. “I have traveled the entire coast, and I find this one particularly lovely.”

“I’m not going to catch you if you jump or if you trip and fall by accident. And if you meant to bathe, I can show you where the facilities are. This is not the most efficient means to that end.” He wipes his sword upon the silk of his sash. The cloth merchant that I am winces at the ill treatment of such fine material.

“A bath actually does sound nice, though you need one more than I.”

“Would it be better if I lied and told you I butchered a cow?” He runs a hand through his errant curls. Damn him to the hells, his looks are unfair, and he knows it.

“You do not look remorseful.” I glance at his sword. So, he is Arisa’s personal assassin. No wonder everyone keeps their distance.

“Why should I be? I’m not here of my own free will, nor do I murder people unless ordered. Not all cages have doors.” He trembles slightly, fingers tapping against his trousers, as if it takes all the effort in the world to remain still as he waits for my answer.

He is not what I expect, but how could have I expected this? He is dangerous, but I am cursed. He knows it, yet he does not seem bothered by it. And what I feel when he is around is not as simple as either attraction or fear. I am tempted to pick at the feeling like a scab, even if it hurts.

“Lead on.” I ignore my better judgment and the quaking in my heart.

What a pretty pair of monsters we make.

He takes a convoluted route and makes small talk as we go. He explains that the fortress is divided into four palaces, named for each of Tigang’s seasons. The Spring Palace was where I ran from, where the greenhouse is located, and Baylan reside. The Summer Palace contains the great hall, the throne room, the kitchens, and it is where all the candidates lodge. The Winter Palace makes up the lower levels of the fortress. Though he doesn’t say it, I bet the dungeons are in the Winter Palace, but I haven’t yet stumbled on its entrance.

I nod and make silent notes as I fight the warnings that would have me run from him. It takes every effort not to look cowed as we walk through the abandoned Autumn Palace together.

The halls here are leaf-littered and dark, but the sense that I have seen this, or dreamed this, lingers here the strongest, and the ghosts in me continue to scrape and tug in agitation. Their featherlight touches and bumps stir an aching in my heart, but I don’t understand their strange language.

Teloh leads me to an unimpressive door, but when he pushes it open, light pours out. Colors stream through a stained glass roof, and they fracture our bodies into firelight and autumn hues.

Unlike the dusty rooms we passed, these baths are spotless. Pipes with hot and cold water wait ready to spill into deep wooden wash buckets. A pool lined with tiles waits in its center. There is no water in it now, but a small splash lingers in its bottom.

“Let me know when you’re done so I can have a turn.” Teloh walks out before I can ask any questions.

It feels as though I’m intruding in someone else’s private space, but I take off my slippers, and the marble is cold beneath my feet. I breathe in the sulfur smell of the spring water. It’s real. I have seen this room in my dreams, and I don’t understand why.

But I’d be a fool to deny any small pleasure I can take from the fortress, so I fill a bucket, then take the longest bath of my life. I crouch on the floor and pour endless scoops of steaming water over my head with a tabo. I want it to wash the tension from my limbs and the dirt from my clothes, but no matter how hard I scrub, I don’t feel clean or in control.

Teloh is waiting, leaning against the opposite wall when I push the door open a crack. Though I spot a wrinkle of impatience on his face, he says nothing. He holds a clean malong between outstretched palms. I try not to flinch when I take the fine cloth from him. I don’t buy his innocent expression, because he hasn’t brought me a clean tunic to wear with it. My old tunic is still dripping wet.

I close the door, and I sling my damp hair over one shoulder. I knot the cloth over my chest like Kuran would and leave my shoulders bare. It would be unthinkable if I were not alone, and I dare to look boldly at my reflection in a mirror.

I look small and unsure. Virian’s spell is a small splotchy design beneath my collarbone, and birthmarks mar the column of my throat in an ugly way. I cannot hold my own stare. I retie my malong over one shoulder and wind my filthy scarf back on. It can’t be helped.

I open the door and find Teloh waiting there still. He pushes off the wall and reaches out for me—no, for my scarf. He adjusts the tails of it over the parts of my marks that a tunic usually hides. There’s a look in his eyes I can’t read, and as the tip of his finger lightly brushes my skin, I prickle all over. I recall every vision I’ve had of him, and they remain sharper than my mother’s face. I should be ashamed, but instead I wish for more. He makes me feel as though my curse doesn’t matter; as though I matter.

I take a step back, suddenly aware of how close we are standing. I feel the heat of him, even though we aren’t touching. Though I still can’t meet his eyes, I keep my gaze on his dark, glossy hair, my fingers itching to tuck a few stray curls behind his ears. Somehow, I know he hates his hair in his face. I also know, beyond a doubt, that he is mad at me. I can think of no explanation other than that we have met in lives before this one, and that the visions I’ve seen are true.

Perhaps this is why my ghosts have rattled to life now, why he is so familiar, but I still don’t understand what it means or if it is important.

“Who are you?” I whisper, but Teloh whips up straight as if someone grabbed his kris and stabbed it between his shoulders. His eyes are ice, ready to crack, and they are not fixed on anything I can see. He is a terror like this: blood-flecked, teeth bared.

“Arisa is calling.” Her name hits me like a slap in the face. The warning in it brings me back to my senses. “The corridor to the left will lead you to the great hall.”

He struggles—Against pain? Against words?—as he walks away from me, still bloody.

I let out a breath. What was I thinking? It is ridiculous, surely, to trifle with Arisa’s assassin. The Astar is the one I should be worrying about if I want to make it through the Sundo. No matter how alluring my visions may be, they are the past, and this is now. In this life, Teloh is my enemy.

I find the path back to the great hall, still ruddy in the cheeks. My mother’s life is all that matters, and I cannot afford the Guardian’s distraction. I risk Arisa’s wrath by consorting with him.

I must survive the Sundo long enough to get to my mother. I’m not leaving the fortress without her.

Glass clatters to the floor behind me.

I twist around and frown at the familiar Archivist. “Manong Alen?”

He pushes away from a statue surrounded by shattered wish candles, swaying and stumbling toward me. In one hand, he clutches an orasyon for tracking. A few black strands of hair are glued to the center of the paper. My hair? He looks even more frail than when I saw him last.

“Are you well, Manong?” I set my wet clothes onto the floor and reach out to steady him. The small rash I noticed the first day we met in the archives has spread up his neck and balding scalp. “What’s going on? Is this about my mother, Shora?”

He opens his mouth, and where his tongue should be is a bloody stump. I choke down my scream, because he slides the sleeve of his tunic up to his elbow. A delicate spell was inked onto his forearm, fingernail scratches cut through it. Rashes weep around the orasyon.

Baylan appear in the hallway and race toward us. Help, Alen mouths soundlessly and presses the crumpled tracking spell into my hands. He tears off the hair and swallows it. It is my hair, I realize. It’s how he found me.

“Please, what is this about?” I grip his shaking shoulders.

He moves his mouth. Astar.

Arisa? I frown. “What about Arisa, Manong?”

Find Shora. He points at an orange thread glued to the edge of the paper.

“Manong Alen! There you are…”

I pull away as two Healers and a Guardian surround him, all of whom I do not recognize. “Thank you for keeping an eye on him, child. Poor Manong went wandering. He’s very sick. Come on now. Come back with us,” a Baylan chides the old man.

“Where are you taking him?” I ask.

“To the infirmary. Our Healers will take good care of him.”

He slumps as they drag him off, as though defeated. I wish I could do something, but what? I tuck the orasyon into my malong, grateful that the Baylan did not notice it. He risked himself to get it to me, and I need to find out why.

I return to our freshly cleaned room, certain of only two things: I need every advantage that I can muster to get my mother free, and I must use my wits to stay alive until I am able to. But as I make plans, a nagging thought refuses to let go. Something bigger than the Sundo is happening here, and my mother is at the center of it.