Chapter Thirty-Four

Reshar paces back and forth like a caged lion. The Seeker’s office is sparsely furnished, and where there might be a rug to make it more inviting, there is only bare stone and dark stains. A bottle of palm wine sits half drunk on the table beside a dirty cup. Incense clouds the air as if it’s meant to hide the metallic stink of blood and bleach.

My hands are unusually steady, though I sit in the chair before the head Seeker.

“I am not a traitor,” I repeat. I remain as still as a stone and ignore the ghosts that laugh away inside of me. They chew up my guilt like taffy and ask for more when I should feel…something. Instead, I am hollow where once I was whole.

“I know that, child. Nen was just another tool of the cultists, and you killed an assassin to save your life. Don’t waste your time worrying over it. Omu’s sect would love to see us Datus dead and seize control of Tigang in the holy mess to follow, but we are not so easy to kill.” He waves his hands as if to swat away a fly, but his dismissal does not feel like a pardon. “And I will, of course, question every single person left in this cursed fortress, but I will run out of time before I weed all their sympathizers out.”

He stares out the window at the blank sky. The ocean beneath is flat and gray, like slate, not water. It mirrors my mood. We are both waiting for a storm to come.

“Are you working with Arisa, too?” I am too numb to mince my words.

Reshar looms over the chair, and the shadows in his dimly lit office make long lines down his face. He does not answer. He leans back against the wall and rubs at the tattoos on his chest as though his heart troubles him.

“I heard you and another woman speaking about Arisa in the hallways,” I say. “Whose side are you on?”

“My mother was right. You are one to watch.” He sighs and slides into a faded chair beside his desk. “My sister and I did everything together. We even came out of the womb together. It was never my dream to become a Baylan; it was hers. When Riane came to the glass fortress, I followed, and as she rose through the ranks, so did I. Several months ago, she fell into the sleep no one wakes from. Days after she fell ill, she vanished. Arisa stopped every one of my attempts to find answers, but I did discover this.” He pulls a wooden box from the drawer, carefully lifts the lid, and bids me to look inside. It holds fragments of a dry cracker that shows traces of paint.

“Someone has discovered a way to grind an orasyon into liquid and has been tampering with the paint. I don’t understand the spell’s purpose or what has happened to those who have disappeared, but I intend to find out the truth. I will destroy anyone who gets in my way—even you. Do you still accuse me of being a traitor?”

We are more alike than I ever imagined. I almost pity him. Almost.

“The sleep is Arisa’s doing. I saw her put down an Archivist in the street,” I say.

He snaps to attention and interrogates every detail of my encounters with Alen. He grinds his jaw as though he is chewing tough meat when I tell him how the Archivist’s tongue was ripped out and his warnings about Arisa. Reshar’s blank eyes drift to my neck as I speak. My hands race to fix my scarf out of habit, but I only touch bare skin. I fold them carefully in my lap and dare not look up at him.

“Why would an Archivist be interested in you, Kuran Jal?” he asks, and I flinch when he reaches for his gong. He sticks an orasyon to its back and spits upon it. “Sit up. I just realized that you haven’t completed my test.”

He goes straight to work. The vibrations of the gong grate against my ears. The sound washes over me in waves and makes my skull feel like a hollow gourd. “What did you see during the history test? Where did your mind take you?”

“Over the ocean as we fled Arawan.” He plucks the words from my head like weeds.

“And what did you hear?”

“The songs of our people as we crossed the ocean.”

“And what did you feel?”

Almost drowning. The salt on my skin. Ash on my tongue. “Fear.”

“Who are you?” he asks. “We are all reborn for a purpose, and that purpose is woven to our souls like a great chain. Peel back your lives and turn back time. I want to know what led you here, Kuran.”

This time, I fall gently into a vision. The walls of the Demon’s prison are only a half-finished dome around me, but the deep pit in its center is already carved with orasyon. It radiates power. Workers chip away at the solid stone of the hill to carve the walls smooth, and their work fills the space with a tapping noise that reminds me of birds flocking. I wipe the sweat and dust from my brow.

And I turn, because I know Teloh is here before I see him. Ten Guardians flank a miserable creature bound and gagged. He’s chained up so tightly that he can hardly move. I start to walk over to them. “Is that truly needed…”

Two Guardians go flying as Teloh flicks them away like gnats. The air in the room begins to churn with clouds, and workers scream as their lanterns blow out. A storm fills the hollow space and batters the stone.

“Get out!” I shout. “Stay near the walls!” The wind pushes me back, but I fight toward him, clinging tightly to my skirts. I can’t see a thing, but I don’t need eyes to know where he is. Because he’s always there, at the center of things. Lightning streaks around me, and I hear the barred doors of the Demon’s prison bang open and shut.

“It hurts!” He tears at the hair on his head as though he wants to dig into his skull. “I cannot do this… Give me a knife… Release me!” He twists and snarls. Chains snap off his body, and darkness licks around him like frantic hounds. Wind slams into my gut and knocks me onto my back; then, with a snarl, the Demon launches off the ground and pins me down between his arms. His skin is shredded, and Chaos leaks out around us. I can’t see. I can’t breathe. I smell the storm in the air, and my hairs raise. Maybe I should be afraid, but I know he will not hurt me. He stares wide-eyed, as though he doesn’t understand what he’s looking at.

“Teloh…” I call his name. My heart hurts. It’s guilt, it’s pity, it’s wanting, all at once. And when he looks back, I know his heart echoes mine.

He drops back to his knees. The air quiets around us. I gasp for breath. “Lock me up and leave me here.” He curls into himself. “Forget about me. I will only destroy you.”

“Please don’t…” I wipe tears from my eyes, but he simply steps to the edge of the pit and takes one look back at me before jumping in.

“No!” I return to the present with a gasp.

“What did you see?” Reshar sways his head like a snake assessing a mouse, still rasping at his gong.

“The Demon.” Fatigue washes over me in waves, and I struggle to stay awake. “I was helping build its prison, and it attacked…”

Reshar tuts. “That only tells me that you once helped build the fortress. Hundreds of workers labored on this place. And you would not be the only lovesick Baylan infatuated with Teloh over the years. The common people don’t know that we’ve kept the Demon imprisoned here for centuries, but it is not a secret amongst the Baylan.”

My cheeks redden. It’s true. None of this proves I am Astar, even if Teloh himself believes it. Could he be wrong? My head and heart both hurt.

“I ask you again.” He methodically grates at the brass. “Who are you?”

“My name is Narra Jal.” The name feels right. It is the name my mother gave me, the name that stuck, the name I know from the only life I remember.

My eyes refuse to focus on the Seeker, and I struggle against the urge to drift into sleep.

“And who is Narra?” he asks. I shudder into half wakefulness.

“I shouldn’t be here. I’m a dead girl.” It is the truth but not the truth he wants to know. There are too many feelings attached to my mother’s lies, and at the thought of her, his spell breaks. “Shora Jal told everyone that I died, but I didn’t.”

“I have met few people who refused to open their pasts to me.” He stares through me as if I am a goal and not a person. “Those that refuse have a greater fear. What sins have you committed in your past lives?”

“I’m only here to save my mother.” It doesn’t matter who I was.

The ghosts inside me howl with laughter at the thought. Reshar shrugs. “What a fine bit of trouble you’ve caused, whoever you are. The missing Astar? A bothersome impersonator?”

Both? I cringe.

“Kormar wants to give you Astar’s test, but Arisa wishes to delay. Testing may be the only way to keep you and Shora safe from her, but I need time to make arrangements. For now, you will continue as if nothing is amiss, Kuran Jal.”

He retrieves a plate from his desk with a trace of amusement. A pale, flaky pastry emerges from a wrapping of thin waxed papers. The small, round bun smells sweet, and the first layer crumbles in my hand. “You must be hungry.”

I stuff my mouth with broken fragments of pastry and sweet mung beans. A message waits in a curl of rice paper.

Trust Reshar. – O

I frown at him and glean the similarities in their jawlines and the shapes of their eyes. Reshar never smiles, but Oshar, always.

“My mothers send their regards.” He inclines his head and pours himself a cup of wine.

I sense the turning of time in my bones. This is not the first time this has happened. The sense is like a name almost recalled, like distant music. Something echoes through my lives.

I wonder how much I’ve chosen and how much is fated. My family, Teloh, even Reshar. We are tied together by some horrible truth that keeps our destinies spinning together like dancers tied at the wrists.

I shudder and wonder what cruel game is playing out again.