Chapter Sixteen

“Kuran Jal.”

I sputter awake and scramble out from under Arisa’s looming shadow. I don’t know how long I was in that vision or what just happened. Magic trickles off her, peony scented. I gasp and accept a cup of cold water from Arisa. I keep drinking until I am numb inside. Interest brightens Arisa’s expression, and her silence worries me.

“How foolish of you to choose the first Astar’s tomb.” Arisa says with a hint of curiosity in her tone. “What did you see?”

It was not my choice. The ghosts are frantic inside me. I feel as though I’m full of bees. They refuse to settle, and my thoughts scatter with them.

“The archipelago burning,” I mumble. I stand, with Teloh’s help, and realize that all the candidates are staring at me, too. I avert my eyes and stare at the floor.

But neither my sister nor Teloh were ever part of those stories. I reel, dream drunk. I still smell smoke, and I rub at my ash-stung eyes.

“There is still a test,” Teloh says, and his voice is a lash that I flinch away from. This Teloh reminds me of our first introduction at Oshar’s party. Callous. Cold. All edges. “Be thankful Arisa pulled you out of that vision.”

How strange, then, because I never even used the orasyon they gave me. Something here is not right. I look down at the marble tomb, only to find a single name: Astar. Not a position but a person: the first who bore the name. I throw my arms around my belly to stop from throwing up. Freezing Hells, I can’t stop shaking. I did nothing. It was as if she was calling…waiting.

“Tell me the story of Astar and Chaos, then. Tell me how our homeland burned.” Teloh stands very, very still. This unsettles me more than his expression. “And tell us what lesson you can make of it.”

This is the second time this tale has been requested. It cannot be coincidence. I scramble to my feet and close my eyes. I still feel the boat lurching beneath my feet. It is an old story, from the days before Tigang existed.

“In the time before, across the darkening sea, our people lived on the jeweled isles of Arawan. We wanted for nothing. So spoiled and soft we were that when Holy Omu begged us to heed her warnings, no one listened but the wise Raja Ressa, who sat troubled in his wooden palace. He listened to the rumblings of the volcanoes that birthed their lands, but even he was not prepared for what was to come.

“The Demon Chaos had been cast onto the earth long before humans ever walked upon it. The Demon grew envious of these lazy people who wanted for naught, and it came to the islands upon a strong wind. The Demon delighted as it stirred the wickedness in our hearts. It brought the typhoon and tore the roofs off our houses. It flooded our crops, so we had nothing to eat. Peace turned to fighting. Each island declared itself a kingdom. Cousins took up arms against their cousins. Friendships turned to suspicion. The Demon’s taint spread everywhere, and it gorged on it, pleased.”

I glance up and notice Teloh grinding his teeth together under a dark scowl.

“But the wise Raja, blessed by Omu, prayed for a miracle to reunite his people, and one night, Omu sent a Diwata to aid him: Astar, immortal made mortal, imbued with all the wisdom of the Heavens. Astar drew up the earth and trapped the wicked Demon within a volcano, but so enraged was the Demon that the whole of the island chain shook with its fury. Ash rained down from the sky and destroyed our fields, so that nothing could grow, and our green paradise turned to dust.

“‘Take these boats,’ Astar commanded. ‘Omu wishes us to seek a continent to the East. There I shall build you a home of iron and glass. You wicked people shall learn how to survive on rocks and air. You will learn to hear the Heavens’ will. You will grow hard, but your people will thrive, and no Demon will dare threaten you again.’ So they sailed away, never to return to the archipelago of Arawan.”

I take a breath but wilt under his gaze.

“Very prettily told, but is that truly what you saw?” Teloh asks. He seems to know I am lying.

I stare down at my arms, expecting blisters and blood, but my hands are clean. I swallow. I wish I could bury myself in warm blankets or scour away the magic nightmare.

“It matches the stories I’ve heard.”

Teloh snorts, unimpressed. “So, you still think Astar truly came to save your country?”

“You are asking me to speculate on the motives of the Diwata when I am only human. I thought this was a history test,” I snap. I am the dupe for pitying him, for thinking there was something between us, when all I feel now is the knife of his fury. My head still throbs furiously. It feels like there is a crack from my skull to my navel.

Arisa watches the both of us with ravenous eyes. Her favorite gold comb catches the light and the glare blinds me for a moment.

“Humans are capable of terrible things,” Teloh says.

I grit my teeth. “If Astar were truly human, then she could not be perfect, but she is dead and gone. What does it matter?” I hover near the line of treason, balanced only by my anger at this dressing down in front of so many eyes. In front of Arisa.

“Tell me, then: What possible lesson could you, of all people, have learned from this?” he growls.

“I…” I stutter. I don’t know. The destruction of our homeland seemed so pointless. I could feel Astar grieving as she sailed away. Her heart ached as though it had been torn into shreds and could never be woven back together. She did not want to go on. She did not want to sail the ship, yet she did. It felt as though I was wearing her skin, and I still need to scour it off me. And I have no idea what Teloh was doing in that vision. Why he was tied up like a criminal. Why he looked at Astar with such betrayal.

I bow my head and choose the acceptable answer. “I learned that the will of the Heavens is a mystery but Omu led us true.”

He stiffens as though the comment is a slap to the face, but Arisa squeezes my shoulder. Her hand is as cold as her expression when her eyes drift to the scarf at my neck. I pray she did not see the marks peeking out from under my tunic. “You may go, Kuran Jal. Your answer sufficed.”

I shudder and hurry away from the cavern of the dead as the others complete their tests.

Finding my mother matters more than ancient history, yet I can’t shake the vision from my head. I slip into my room to fetch Manong Alen’s tracking spell, but Virian and Dayen catch up to me first. Questions are plastered all over their faces, and I curse myself for not holding my tongue.

“I don’t know what just happened,” I admit.

Teloh was the one who warned me not to be noticed, and yet he called me out in front of everyone. I wrap my arms around myself. It’s as if I stood in the room naked.

“I think that was an argument between Arisa and her pet Guardian.” Virian tries to smooth her hair, but it only looks more tangled for her irritated efforts. She tucks it behind an ear with a sigh. “Three senior Archivists disappeared last night. It’s why Datu Senil was so upset. What I don’t understand is why Arisa is so interested in the competition this year. The Astar is not supposed to participate.”

Manong Alen mouths a warning about Arisa in my mind. The memory is still so fresh that I can almost smell the sweet stickiness of the Archivist’s breath and see the rashes on his arms. I clamp my mouth shut. These disappearances can’t be coincidence. That I was led to the first Astar’s tomb can’t be coincidence.

I lean against the cold stone wall to steady myself. Is any of this coincidence? I rub at my temples. “What do you know about the Astar?”

“Everyone knows about Arisa. Are you so ill-informed?” Dayen perfectly mimics Reshar’s inflection.

“So, inform me.” I copy the bored expression on his face, and Virian giggles.

“She’s only eighteen, you know.” Virian leans back and rubs her crooked nose.

I frown. I assumed she was in her mid-twenties.

“There is always an Astar in the fortress, and Arisa is the latest incarnation. When one dies, the Baylan seek her reincarnation.”

I am terribly ill-informed. “And how do they know she’s really the Astar? We’ve all been reborn, but none of us remember our past lives.” Usually not, anyway. I don’t know what to think anymore.

“Memories can sometimes be brought back. You need something from your past life and a little bit of magic to bring recall,” she says. “But recall is dangerous. Things are different in each life. A former lover might be a sibling or married to someone else. We would mess up our present life with that knowledge.”

“So there is a way.” I drum my fingers against my chin.

“Yes, but I’d advise against it. You’re bound to find pain and disappointment. I’d rather experience every wonder in the world as though it’s the first time,” Virian says. Her conviction is admirable. “There are also no guarantees that any attempts to remember the past will even work. Why are you asking?”

“I had a vision about the fortress.” I look at them both, and their eyes grow wide. I never had a chance to use the memory spell given at the test, so I pull it out of my pocket and unfold it. “Do you want to try it?”

“Hells yes.”

…

The wind whips hard today, and I fight the gale to peel back the loose hairs that keep blowing into my eyes.

Dayen peers over the edge of the balcony and whistles. “That’s a long way down.”

“This is where you saw the vision?” Virian inspects every bump on the balcony railing, but there’s not much to see but stone, the ocean, and the mountains. Bato-Ko remains hidden behind the bulk of the fortress.

I nod in reply.

“If you know me now, it’s possible you knew me then, too.” Virian clamps her hands on the stone railing and her forehead scrunches together in concentration. “And what did you see?”

“I was me but not me. I didn’t have the same face.”

She nods. “Your soul in a different body.” She traces her hands along the banister, and Dayen pokes at it as though it’s coconut jelly, but nothing happens. “What else?”

I look between them both. I wish I could tell them everything. I feel like a balloon full of secrets, about to pop or be destroyed if I say nothing at all. I decide to chance a little bit of the truth. “Teloh was there. I was holding his hands…”

Dayen raises his eyebrows.

“Don’t you dare tease me about it,” I mutter and look up at the Heavens, but the clear blue sky offers no answers. “It’s not the first time, either. I saw him in the streets before the Sundo and had a memory of us together in Bato-Ko, which is impossible, because I’ve never lived here. And then there were the baths… I dreamed of them the night I arrived, and I’ve seen them. They’re real.”

Virian closes her eyes and takes a breath. She takes my memory spell and copies the orasyon onto the balcony with a piece of drawing charcoal from her waist pouch. The wind sends our clothes billowing and churns the waves into white peaks below.

“Close your eyes and stand in the middle of the orasyon,” she says.

I do as instructed, and the spell warms beneath my feet. The ghosts in my chest rustle softly as though tickled. “I don’t see anything.”

“You need someone more powerful, maybe, or we need a better spell to reach into a past life. That one was simply an aid for recalling memories. I bet Datu Reshar could do it,” Virian says, and I shudder. I’d rather be left in mystery than have to deal with him.

Virian practically skips the way back to our rooms, undeterred. “It’s possible you were a Baylan in another life. Places and things that have strong emotion attached to them are the most likely to trigger memories,” Virian explains. “Most people don’t have visions but have a sense that someone is familiar, as though you’ve been friends before.”

None of this makes me feel any better. If Teloh were just an old lover reborn, then he might have felt something warm and asked me to dinner. But if he was just an old lover reborn, then my ghosts would not keep screaming in warning. “And how do you know all this?” I ask.

“I read.” Virian sniffs. “Were you raised by wolves?”

“My mother distrusts the Baylan, and it’s likely why she’s in the dungeons,” I add lightly.

Virian’s expression goes sly as a monkey’s. “So that’s why you’re here.”

I raise my arms. “Yes, and now that you know, I have to kill you.”

Dayen laughs and twirls on his crutch to stare at us. It looks like his leg isn’t bothering him much anymore. “You know what this means, Kuran?”

I arch a brow, and Virian flops onto her bed with a matching expression.

His grin grows wider. “You’re going to have to touch that gorgeous Guardian to see if you have any more visions. Maybe more than once, just to be sure.”

I grab the pillow from my bed and toss it at him, and he laughs, lets go of his crutch, and ducks behind Virian, who squeals in protest. I grab another pillow to smack him with it, but Virian screams before I make contact.

I drop the pillow. Something in the case twists and coils, and an arrow-shaped head worms its way out of the fabric. We all back up, huddled together in a corner as a yellow-bellied snake winds its way out onto the floor.

“Garter snake,” I breathe. “Not poisonous.” My eyes drift to the doorframe. I spit and press my finger to the mark I’ve painted. “And there’s a way of finding out who’s responsible.”

Virian shoos the creature from the room with a slipper.

Dayen smiles appreciatively at the back of her head, and he panics when I notice. His hands fly everywhere, begging my silence, but he drops them demurely to his lap when Virian turns around.

I stifle a laugh, but all my mirth disappears when my eyes fall on the withered mushroom at the base of our doorframe. The night’s terrors return to grip me. It wasn’t a dream. I stare so long that a crease of worry appears on Virian’s brow.

“What is it?” she asks.

“Archivists are the recorders of our histories, the record keepers. There are only two reasons for Archivists to go missing. Either they are protecting a secret, or they’ve discovered a secret someone else wants hidden.” I take a deep breath. They might think I’m ridiculous, but I tell them about the shadows in the hallway and the footsteps in the halls, but I say not a word about Arisa’s late-night visit.

“Someone’s doing some big magic in the fortress. Only one of the Seven can channel that much power.” Virian looks thrilled when she should be afraid, and I worry her interest in magic might be enough to get her into trouble but not out of it. “We need to stick together. No more wandering at night, Kuran. I don’t want either of you to go missing.” Virian bounces on her bed like a child. I can’t believe she’s already eighteen.

“But what if it’s my fault? What if my presence means you are in danger?” I ask.

“The curse again?” Virian stills and frowns at my scarf, but Dayen touches the strings of his amulets. “How can our past lives matter if we are not supposed to remember them? It’s just a comfort to know that you will meet the people you love again. That’s all there is to it, Kuran. Nothing in our history books or our laws says that those with birthmarks should be punished, or that they are dangerous. The curse is nothing but superstition.”

Tanu said the same to me before. But neither Tanu nor Virian knows the questions Astar’s balete tree asked me, nor what I saw in the first Astar’s vision. I don’t know what any of it means, only that everything that happened since I set foot in Bato-Ko feels tied together with invisible threads: Alen, Teloh, my mother. My life is a web of lies, and I’m the fly caught in them.

“Please be careful, Kuran. Someone’s trying to scare you into leaving. They think you are a threat.” Virian points a finger between my eyes. “So, you better prove them right.”

…

I wait until Virian and Dayen are tucked deep into exhausted sleep before I unfold Alen’s orasyon. If I’m being targeted, I can’t delay what I came here to do, no matter what I promised my friends. I spit on the spell and an invisible force tugs at my hand as the tracking spell activates.

The halls are emptier tonight and the voices from the adjacent rooms sound hollower. The argument between two candidates echoes loudly.

“You can’t leave! Who will help me with magic?”

“You weren’t there in the first round at the greenhouse,” a boyish voice replies. “This is not worth it!” I flatten myself against the wall as a boy stalks out of a room toting a bag and the shadows swallow him.

Another door slams shut down the hallway and its lock turns noisily into place. I almost feel sorry because everything about this place feels as though it is meant to break us. From the tests, to the competition, to the mindbogglingly senseless corridors. No wonder my mother warned me to stay away.

I cling to patches of moonlight, watch the shadows, and listen for wind, but all I hear are distant voices. Following the gentle tugging of the orasyon’s magic, I descend into the belly of the fortress. There’s no mark to the transition to the Winter palace, but I can sense it. The stone is smoother here, bleached repeatedly by the wind and rain that comes in through paneless windows. There are grooves in the stairs, from hundreds of years of feet passing, but no one treads here now. Evergreens and holly designs are carved into the walls, along with mountain scenes.

I wind down a tight spiral staircase that goes all the way to the lowest level of the fortress, which has several landings, some of which branch off into other corridors, others of which hold intricately carved doors. Reaching the last landing, I push open the very last one and step out of the shadows. At the end of a wide hallway is yet another vast door, painted in spells that run from floor to ceiling. The air vibrates with so much magic it feels as if lightning might strike at any moment. I’ve found the dungeons.

“You, child—what are you doing here?”

The Guardians standing at their posts were so still that I did not see them in the shadows.

I don’t have an answer, so I turn and run back the way I came. I climb up and up the staircase until my legs burn and I am out of breath and dizzy. I lean against the wall to catch my breath.

And then I hear Reshar’s voice from below.