Chapter Forty-Eight

I leave Teloh’s body in his prison and swear to the Heavens that I will destroy Arisa. I grip the kris tight and pray I have enough time to stop her. There is no mistaking where she is. I make my way through the fortress to where the plants choke thickest and the air smells of decay. I squeeze through a hole punched in a wall by a tree root and find myself in a large room that was once a workshop. Sunlight floods into a hole blasted straight through eight floors of the fortress, and it illuminates a slumbering army before me.

I gape at the bodies, stunned. There are perhaps several hundred people altogether, standing in neat lines staggered an arm’s length apart, ready to be harvested like rice. These must be all the Baylan and candidates from the Sundo who have gone missing. I clench my fists at the audacity to use the Sundo as a sham to harvest bodies. So many lives wasted, and all for one purpose: to find one suitable enough to house Omu.

I push between them, forgetting the aches and pains in my body. The wrongness of it prickles my skin. No matter if Omu ordered this herself, there is no making it right. Humans are not dolls to play with.

I skid to a stop beside a body in the third row. It’s Ingo. Rashes spread around a freshly painted orasyon on his forehead. I push past him and stumble across a body lying prone on the floor. This Baylan is dead and already stiff with rigor mortis, but his eyes remain open, and his mouth contorts as if he died screaming. The mark on his head looks like it ignited, and I can still smell his charred flesh. A spell went wrong. A spell I recognize.

My heart thumps loudly, because once I wrote the same one on Teloh’s flesh. Someone has attempted a poor imitation. This orasyon for binding a spirit looks incomplete, but there are plenty of bodies here to practice on. Hells… Omu has had her pick of all the talent and all the magic of Tigang to use for her own. I must stop her.

Reshar cries out somewhere above, and I find him balanced on the lip of the floor two levels up. “Riane!” He screams his twin’s name.

I rush in the direction of his outstretched arms and spot Arisa. Burned bodies lay discarded on the floor beside her, which tells me of more attempts at binding that have gone wrong, but she has not stopped. A trio of bodies stand before her, and the symbols on their bodies glow with unearthly light. One of the trio resembles Reshar. It’s his sister, I realize.

I tackle Arisa, and we land on the ink-stained floor. Flecks of ink stain our clothes, but most of it is dry, and not even our grasping and rolling break the power locked into the spells she’s prepared. A ball of fire smashes into the floor near us, and the fringes of my hair ignite.

Kalena appears in what was once the doorway. “It’s too late; it’s done!” She cackles, drunk on the power she’s drawn, even as it bleeds the life out of her.

“You incompetent fool!” Arisa screams at Kalena. “You almost hit me!”

Another fireball flies through the rows of bodies, and they topple like pins. I dive to the floor, and Arisa tumbles with me. Kalena screams as one of Reshar’s leaf darts slices through her arm like a needle. Blood soaks the sleeves of her dress. He swings nimbly down one broken level, toward us, but he’s still too far.

Arisa’s fists collide with my ribs, but her grip is all wrong, and she shrieks because her thumb jams against my bones. She didn’t grow up a target like I did. I am all elbows and knees. I kick back hard, but I don’t have time for a brawl. I bite her arm, and she releases me with a shriek.

I need to get to the glowing bodies, but Arisa grabs a spell from her workbench. Debris lifts into the air at her command. Glass shards sparkle like diamonds in the sunlight. It’s impressive, and it will waste her power, but she sneers at me, uncaring. She lets them loose, and I dive for the legs of the workbench. I topple the spells she’s prepared and flip the bench over just as glass and rock pummel into it. My heart nearly jumps out of my chest as a stray shard slices across my cheek. My eyes water. The air is so thick with magic it feels like breathing coffee sludge.

I hear Reshar and Kalena battling. Somewhere, I hear Virian shout. Assassins? Freezing Hells. Four floors up, I glimpse Virian and Dayen holding off attackers, and I pray that they can handle themselves.

The workbench crumples, and I slide backward on my bottom.

“You irritating worm! You think you can beat me? Omu chose me! Not you. Me!” Arisa spits and palms another spell. “You are a disappointment to Omu. I will flourish where you did not. I will be as great as the Diwata themselves.” A chunk of the floor above us caves in, and we’re swallowed by dust.

Bodies lay crushed beneath the marble, but Arisa simply grasps for another spell. They are not people to her, just acceptable losses. But what does she know of loss? I have lost almost everyone I have ever loved. I would not wish that fate on anyone. I unsheathe my kris and slice it toward Arisa. She flinches back, but I am not aiming for her. I run straight for the glowing bodies. Perhaps I am a disappointment, but I will honor those I have lost with every breath in this body.

I ram my blade into the nearest body with no finesse, and all the light in the sky blots out. Dayen screams on a floor above, but I can do nothing for him. With the kris in hand, I can see a long strand of power connecting this body to the Heavens. Power pours through it, filling the body up like a balloon full of water, and I hack at it, severing the strand with swift strikes. I run to the next body as Arisa screeches. I hear her groping in the dark and chanting the last refrains of the orasyon she’s scribbling onto the floor. A second line cut and severed. There is no time to do much else, for a true binding is a thing of art that takes time. Two glowing bodies fall to the floor. There is one body left: Riane.

I hack at the raw power descending from the Heavens. It is thicker than the rest, a weaving of power that I saw thread by thread. My third eye burns from the heat of it, and I fear I will go blind. Arisa goes quiet, but all at once, light bursts from every open orifice in the body before me—where the woman’s eyes should be, her nostrils, the gaping hole of her mouth—as if it contains the sun within. The light burns through the spell of darkness cast up above as though it is tissue paper. I need to go faster. The fingers on my right hand are clammy with sweat, and I nearly drop the knife. I grip it so hard that the hilt cuts into my palm and use my numb left hand as a brace. I am almost—

A strong hand clamps around my neck, and I lift up off the ground. I can’t even scream. I dangle, choking before Riane.

Omu’s molten gaze burns tears from my eyes, but I do not fear death, for I have died before. I swing my feet onto her chest and shove her to the floor. A snarl escapes my lips as I try to sever the last thread that connects her to the Heavens, and she screams at the loss of her power. The sound sends debris crumbling down from above, and I cover my head as chunks of stone and glass tumble around us. Omu marches over and picks me up off the ground as though I am weightless, for though she no longer has all the might of the Heavens, she is still stronger than any power on earth. I shake like a rag doll. She needs no orasyon. Omu simply commands.

Leaves and branches sprout from my head. My arms begin to stiffen. Yellow flowers cascade down my back.

The Diwata who must be Madur wobbles to his feet and stands tall beside his consort. The third immortal throws back her shoulders. Though she is not one of the Holy Seven, War needs neither weapons nor armor for me to recognize her. Her posture is enough.

Light and heat radiate off the three as I fight the spell. Omu rips the kris from my hand and tosses it across the room as though it is poisonous.

“Astar, my little knife.” Omu smiles at me with her empty mouth and her empty eyes. “You promised me an empire. I have waited all this time, and all you have delivered me is a rock and some disobedient children. But where you have failed, this one has succeeded.

“For your service, dear girl, I will reward you. I have need of you yet.” Omu gazes upon Arisa with what passes for fondness, but when she opens her hand, the poor girl screams. Smoke rises from the birthmarks on Arisa’s skin, and the smell of burning flesh fills the air as they ignite. “We shall create a new world together,” Omu says and does not relinquish her grip. Arisa writhes before her. “But first—”

Arisa stumbles forward against her will, screaming. But the light flickers, and even Omu goes still. A figure comes shambling out of the chaos.

“Omu, Madur, War.” Teloh falls to his knees before the three immortals. I can’t tear my eyes away, because he should not exist. Not like this. There is something washed out about him. He’s mortal, I realize. His wounds are open and bleeding. His curly hair has come free of its twine. He cradles his arm as though it hurts, and there is something different about his eyes. His voice pierces my heart as surely as a knife. He bends before the Diwata as though to beg for my life, but he lifts his eyes, and before even Omu can blink, he throws the kris to me. I catch it and take two steps into the heat of the sun. I ram my dagger straight into the strands that still connect Omu to the Heavens.

She screams and falls to the floor. Her power flickers, and it feels like plunging into an ice bath. The branches on my head fall to the floor. My limbs loosen into flesh, and I press the blade harder, nearly severing her strands completely, but Omu yanks it out of my sweating hands and crushes the blade into dust with a scream. A tiny hair of power remains, connecting her weakly above. I was so close.

“Our reunion must wait, Kuya Teloh, but you know I am patient.” War bows and grabs Arisa’s hand.

Light explodes from the center of the room, and I fall backward.

When I open my eyes, the immortal trio and Arisa are gone.