Chapter Forty-Three

In the time before

“Astar! Does Ressa never feed you?” Ketah was even more beautiful than Ressa. Though she was Baylan of the island and equal in power to the Datu, they were nothing alike. Where he was heavy, she was laughter and air. Her smiles came as quickly as raindrops during a monsoon, while his were as rare as pearls.

We walked across the courtyard, a flat piece of tamped earth that overlooked the city. From the vantage point of the palace on the volcano’s slope, you could see all seven islands that made up the archipelago, the striped sails of boats gliding across the water, and beaches of white and gold sand. I never tired of the view.

I wiped a drip of santol juice from my mouth as we passed between tables of students dutifully copying the orasyon I taught to them. Word had spread of the Diwata turned mortal, and Baylan came from every island, from villages both large and small, to learn from me. Already they were calling Ressa the Raja, the Datu of Datus, just as Omu proclaimed. Every now and then, something caught on fire, and I smiled. Things were going well.

But the fruit was a bribe Ketah used to stall our navigation lessons, and it worked every time. “You are right; it tastes better with salt.” The sensation of a full stomach was pleasant. How hungry must I have been before? I didn’t think I would ever tire of the mortal world. There were too many new things to try. I liked everything but pineapple.

“See?” Ketah laughed, and the bells on her ankles jingled merrily in tune.

“Baylan Ketah, should you not address my wife with more formality?” Ressa looked up from a desk where he sat recording the histories of the Diwata. He looked like just another student. He never tired of my stories of Kitha, Minue, Rea, and the others. He was making notes in the margins again, and I could not help but smile at it. His lips tugged up at my expression, and his smile warmed me.

“There is no need, mahal,” I said. To call him so made his face relax, and that pleased me, too. There were many kinds of love, I supposed. He cared for me because he believed it was Omu’s will. I cared for him, too. He was kind and true, yet my greedy heart grumbled with disappointment there was not more between us. “We are all equals here.”

Ketah wagged her brows, and Ressa sighed. She pretended ignorance just to tease him and to test me. Though lessons always went slowly, she was clearly brighter than most. She reminded me of the colorful birds that flitted past the palace, too fast to catch.

But then the screaming started. An old Baylan ran toward me, babbling in tongues. Her eyes were wide with fear as she slammed into me. Too late, I watched the dagger slice across my side. “Astar will destroy us all!” the Baylan screamed. “I have seen it!”

I staggered to my knees, more stunned than hurt. Blood seeped through the silk of my tunic where she cut me. A chill coursed up my body as guards raced toward us and tackled the old woman. Our eyes locked, and she gazed at me with the certainty of truth. I knew then that she’d glimpsed the very same visions Omu had shared with me. “Wait!” I shouted. “Do not harm her!” No one should ever be punished for the truth. I’d kept Omu’s visions a secret lest Ressa and Ketah hate me, too.

Ressa threw me over his shoulder as though I was a sack of rice. He raced me back into the palace, and the view I loved so much was swallowed by guards and my tears. “Promise me—do not harm her!” I begged Ressa, for the Baylan was only trying to protect her people.

“But she hurt you!” he growled. Ketah ran inside after us. I winced as they peeled cloth from my wound. The gash was bloody but shallow against my ribs.

“It’s nothing.” I shoved him back, my eyes still full of tears. “Promise me! You don’t understand…”

“I promise.” He tore at his hair. “But only if from now on, you stay inside the palace. If you need to go out, guards must accompany you. I almost lost you! I cannot do this without you!”

Ketah ground her teeth together as she paced beside me. “Would it not be better for Astar to go out amongst the people, so they come to know her? Let them see that she is no threat. That she is no Demon in disguise.”

They began to shout, but I pushed myself between them. “Don’t fight, please. Not over me. Omu’s will cannot be denied. What will be will be.”

“Holy Astar.” Ressa frowned, ever formal. “Has Omu revealed more of her plans to you?”

“Not yet,” I lied, even though lying felt like dragging my skirts through the dirt. I could not escape the future Omu had chosen for me, but time was not important to the Diwata. I prayed that Omu might allow me a few human lifetimes, for though I had no power on the earth, I did not miss the Heavens. Since the Demon Chaos had been banished to the earth, nothing ever changed there. Everything had its place, like scrolls in their cubbies.

“What is that bird called?” I changed the subject as Ketah bound my wound. A dark bird with a yellow belly and orange-spotted wings alighted on the windowsill.

Ketah laughed and tossed her long mane of black curls. “Do the Diwata know anything at all?”

Ressa bit his lip at this almost treason but resisted the bait.

“A storm is coming.” Ketah sighed. “You better send everyone home early.”

Ressa nodded in agreement. Despite her teasing and their frequent arguments, he always did what Ketah asked.

“I’ve never seen a storm before. At least not from down below…” I squeezed into the window beside her, and she threw her arm around my shoulder.

“Oh, I bet you will love it.” She grinned.

…

Ressa slumbered in our bed. The curve of his back had grown both familiar and welcome, but night after night, I lay awake. There was no darkness in the Heavens, only fire, and though my mortal body urged sleep, thunder growled, and the sky lit up purple with streaks of lightning. The shutters rattled, and the trees rustled as the storm pounded against our shore. Ressa, as always, slept through it all. Not even the thunder made him stir in his sleep.

For weeks, I’d hardly felt the sun on my skin and did not speak to my students directly. I was sick of being caged. Omu only ruled the earth by day, but I did not fear the dark. I tucked a sleeping spell gently beneath Ressa’s blanket and climbed out the window.

Clouds whipped across the sky and plunged me into darkness, then light again. The pouring rain was warm as blood. I raced barefoot as lightning forked above the ocean, fracturing Omu’s sky into shards. The air smelled so full and green, as though everything in the world had come alive. Something about the wildness of the storm called to me, and I raced to the water’s edge to catch it.

I buried my feet in the white sand, and waves crashed over my knees. Omu could not look into the storm. With the rain pelting me from every direction, I screamed out my frustration. The cut on my ribs had long healed, but I traced the scar, for it reminded me of what would come to pass. I did not want to be what Omu made me to be. I wanted no part in my mother’s plans. I wanted a future that I could decide, because the path she’d chosen only led to destruction. I thought that the human world would offer freedom; instead, it only showed me glimpses of what I was missing.

“Why are you sad, Diwata?” The voice was everywhere and nowhere, not a sound from a mouth attached to lungs in a bag of meat. The howls of the wind turned into a light breeze that tickled the tops of the palm trees.

Omu warned that the Demon would seek me out and that I must win its trust.

I had hoped differently, and my heart constricted as my fate drew near. “Show yourself, Demon.”

Chaos laughed, and the storm around us ceased as it spun and condensed into a human shape made of clouds and darkness that crackled with lightning. Its many heads merged into one, and it turned to me with black eyes that contained not anger but stars.

“Does your Raja not please you?” it teased, and I snorted as I scrubbed my cheeks.

“What would you know about pleasing a mortal?” I asked, and its laughter fell around me like drops of rain.

“I’ve wandered the earth for millennia. I have seen what humans do.” It shrugged, but I saw the way it watched me. Fragrant white sampaguita flowers drifted to me on the wind. They settled on my hair and my shoulders. I scooped some into my palm and breathed in the glorious smell of jasmine. “See, you are smiling.”

My traitorous heart leaped a little too loudly in its chest. “You know, Omu has not forgotten you.”

“I do not fear Omu.” The Demon leaned so close that our noses nearly touched.

“You don’t understand—”

Its cool hands traced the red marks Omu left upon my neck, and my whole body turned aflame. I stared into its starry eyes and saw eternities, possibilities, futures. “I only fear for you.”

“Come back tomorrow and talk to me?” I asked.

Thus began a new ritual: every night, while Ressa slept, I walked to the beach and looked out over the moon-kissed ocean. The Demon would whisper of all the things it had seen in the mortal world, and I listened beneath the coconut palms. Perhaps it knew this was a trap, but neither of us could stay away. I had as many questions as the grains of sand upon the beach, and we would talk until I was drowsy and must return to my home. I longed for the nights and wasted away the days.

There was something about the Demon that called to my soul. When we talked, I forgot about Omu and her shining court. I forgot my mortality. I could imagine more than Omu’s narrow vision.

“Is this what love feels like?” I asked him one night when I spoke to him about my husband.

“I think you’re confusing love and lust.” The Demon’s laughter sounded like crab shells crushed under foot, and the shadows split like a smile around me. “Human bodies are so fascinating.”

I leaned against a tree. “There is so much to learn and see that sometimes I forget what I was made for.”

The Demon remained quiet for a time. The wind sighed through the trees, and waves crashed against the beach. I feared I had erred.

“And who told you what you were made for?” it asked.

“Omu,” I said.

“No one can tell you what you are, Astar.”

But I did not understand what it meant. How could I be anything other than what I was created to be? I was created for one purpose.

Chaos sensed my confusion and posed a question instead. “I have a riddle for you, then. What is my true nature?”

“That is not a riddle.” I chuckled, but my amusement died in my throat. Here, with the Demon, I felt more myself than anywhere in the Heavens or on the earth. Every inch of me felt truly alive for the first time.

A finger of clouds tucked the stray hair behind my ear. “You are not what I expected, Astar.” My heart pounded as I leaned into the soft caress and closed my eyes.

“Neither are you, Demon.”