34

AN END TO HOPE

During the storm, hope. After the storm, peace.

A KAKRI PROVERB

“So then a Kakri warrior hidden in the sand dune comes flying out with a sword, and he’s shouting this crazy oooolalalalalalalala, and I’m like uh-oh, and I don’t know what to do, so I run straight toward this big rock, and I climb on top, and then Baileya comes and fights the guy until she knocks his sword out of his hand, and then she steals his ride, which is this huge bird like an ostrich —”

“It is called a brucok,” Baileya said, smirking.

“ —steals his brucok, and after that no one else could catch us. She had left me sitting there by myself as bait,” Jason said. He glared at Baileya accusingly.

“Not bait,” she said. “You were the tantalizing reward in the center of my trap.”

“That’s bait!”

Madeline grinned. She had shared her story about her time in the Wasted Lands. It had been painful, telling them about Darius and the Scim family and explaining young Yenil, who even now slept on Madeline’s bed. Shula hugged Madeline again. She had been terrified when she lost Madeline to the Black Skull, thinking Madeline had been imprisoned . . . or worse.

It was a relief to hear Jason share about his journeys with such wide-eyed wonder, though Madeline could tell he was holding back part of the story. He looked at Baileya with a strange nervousness, and she smiled back with a certainty and warmth she hadn’t shown before. What had happened out there in the desert?

“Anyway,” Jason said, “we don’t have time to go into it all, but there were also gigantic moving statues, a death blimp —”

“It was the Pastisians in one of their machines. It was not a ‘death blimp.’”

“You said they were necromancers, and that thing was like a . . . I don’t know, some sort of weird dirigible. So death blimp is good enough for me. We had to hide! Baileya buried me —”

“You don’t know how to conceal yourself properly.”

“And then! Then she made her giant bird —”

“Brucok.”

“ —she made her giant brucok sit on top of me.”

Baileya shrugged. “You would not stay still beneath the sand. I needed to cover you.”

Yenil stirred, her body racked with coughing. The network of silver tattoos that covered much of Madeline’s body tingled. That evidence of Yenil’s burden —of what should be Madeline’s burden —reminded Madeline who had put that burden on her back. The Elenil had taken away Yenil’s breath and given it to Madeline and done it without Madeline understanding what the bargain entailed.

Jason asked, “What do you want to do, Mads?”

His quiet voice startled her from her thoughts. Jason, with a look both open and determined, waited for her response. She had harmed him, too. She had made a bargain for his life, knowing full well the consequences and not allowing him a choice. Night’s Breath’s life for his. He was the beneficiary of that death through no fault of his own. The blood guilt for that one lay on her.

She knew what had to be done. “Did the Scim recapture the Crescent Stone?”

“No,” Shula said. “The Elenil magic returned just in time to repel them.”

“Then we have to destroy it,” Madeline said.

“That is the source of all Elenil magic,” Baileya said. “To destabilize it would be catastrophic.”

“For who? It’s catastrophic already for the Scim.”

Jason shook his head. “You won’t be able to breathe, Madeline. We’ll be kicked back to our world. Right?”

Shula, wiping the sweat from Yenil’s brow, said grimly, “I can’t go back to Syria. I’ll be killed.”

“I can breathe, but she can’t,” Madeline said desperately. “I need your help if we’re going to do this. We need to make a plan to get our hands on that stone.”

An awkward silence fell in the room. Maybe they couldn’t see. Maybe they didn’t understand that every beautiful tower in Far Seeing was a broken-down hovel in the Wasted Lands. The fine clothing they were all wearing was the result of putrid rags among the Scim. Every good thing the Scim had, the Elenil stole it and threw it carelessly onto their hoarded piles of wealth. Madeline benefited from this with every wonderful, full-chested breath of air she took into her lungs. She couldn’t live with that, couldn’t stand by and do nothing. Madeline said, “I’ll do it by myself if I have to.”

“Some wrongs cannot be easily righted,” Baileya said. “But that does not mean we should not try. I fear the magic of the Elenil is woven so centrally through their life and culture that you cannot destroy it without destroying them. Yet it is true that their gain is the Scim’s loss, and their wealth, the Scim’s poverty. I do not know if removing it completely is wise, but I will stand with you, if you think this the best course.”

Shula put her hand on Madeline’s shoulder. “We should at least think through the consequences for others. It won’t be only the five of us who are affected.”

Jason shrugged. “I guess I can live without my morning pudding.”

Baileya seemed to be the one who would know best what the costs would be, as she was the only native to the Sunlit Lands in the room —other than Yenil, who, in addition to being a child, still slept. Madeline asked Baileya what she thought.

“There will be some good,” she said, and Madeline bristled at the “some.” “My own people have chosen not to use Elenil magic since it began. Nonetheless, there are good things that come from it.” She raised her hand for silence when Madeline objected. “You asked for my thoughts, you will receive them.”

“What good —”

Baileya cut her off immediately. “The Aluvoreans are protected from the Scim by the Elenil. With their magic gone, the Scim will plunder Aluvorea. The Elenil also keep the Pastisians at bay. The necromancers could sweep the land if the Elenil are weakened. Make no mistake, the Elenil as you know them will cease to exist. Their long lives, for one, will disappear, and they will become like flowers in the desert . . . beautiful, but for a few moments only.”

Madeline felt her face flush. “Do they shorten the lives of the Scim to make themselves live longer?”

“No, it was a payment far more terrible,” Baileya said. “However, now is not the time to tell stories but to live them. The death of Elenil magic may collapse buildings. It will definitely destroy certain families. The Scim will cease to receive payment for their ‘donations’ to the Elenil magical economy. Their poverty will go from crippling to absolute. It will take time for them to recover. Many will die. The Elenil will, largely, keep the wealth that remains to them and many of the advances they made on the backs of the Scim and others. Make no mistake —if you choose to destroy the stone, there will be suffering and pain and death.”

“What about justice?” Madeline snapped.

Baileya inclined her head. “Perhaps justice, in some measure.”

“The city is a mess already,” Jason said. “Parts of the wall are down, and people are in mourning after the attack on the city. You’re talking about taking a bomb to the center of their culture, basically.”

“They shouldn’t have built it around stealing from the Scim,” Madeline said, and no one seemed to have a response to that. They sat quietly, as if waiting for instructions from her. Which maybe they were. They were loyal friends . . . willing to follow her into this mess.

Shula spoke first, her voice low. “I’ve always been on the side of the Elenil. You know this.” As Madeline had explained everything to her, it was like multiple puzzle pieces fell into place for Shula. She understood now why the Scim acted in certain ways. But what seemed to change everything for her was Yenil. Seeing that child, orphaned and on the run, changed something for her. It reminded her, she said, of herself. “I have no love for the Scim, but we can’t just walk into the tower and fight the Elenil. We need a plan.”

“Actually,” Jason said, “we sort of can walk into the tower. There aren’t any doors. I could ride Delightful Glitter Lady straight up the steps.”

“They will sever you from your magic,” Baileya said. She grinned at him. “Your riding and archery skills will not be of much use, I think.”

“I was sort of hoping you would go with me,” Jason said, smiling.

“I can almost pass for an Elenil,” Madeline said. “With the right dress and a little luck . . .”

Jason pulled a small sack from his side and opened it, revealing a mirrored mask. “We have this, too. Someone could wear it.”

“I want to go,” said a small, weak voice. Yenil leaned on her elbow, coughing. “I want to help.”

Madeline hesitated, then took her hand. “Of course you can go.”

“She can hardly walk,” Jason pointed out.

“The Elenil killed her parents. She deserves to be there.” Madeline couldn’t bring herself to add that once she destroyed the stone, it was she who would not be able to breathe or walk or run or speak.

“Humans are not allowed in the tower without an Elenil escort,” Shula said. “But it might work if they think Madeline is Elenil and I’m either one of the human guards or, using the mask, an Elenil. We could say Yenil is a prisoner . . . or that we’re looking for a healer. We need to gather weapons and clothing. It could get us partway to the stone at least.”

“I will gather weapons,” Baileya said.

“I can find the clothes we’ll need,” Shula said. “How soon will we go?”

Yenil lay back on the bed, sweating. She struggled for breath. Madeline rearranged her, trying to make her comfortable. Yenil’s eyes closed. She groaned and slipped into sleep. They couldn’t wait long. Yenil wouldn’t last. “As soon as we’re ready,” she said.

Baileya stood. “Jason, will you come with me, or do you have other business?”

“I want to talk to Madeline for a few minutes. Then I’ll go get Dee.”

Baileya nodded once, curtly, and she and Shula left together, Baileya already asking her what sorts of weapons she preferred. Jason turned his attention to Madeline. She knew what was coming and felt her heart clench and shrink into a tiny ball. She didn’t want to have this conversation.

“I have these memories now,” he said quietly. “Almost like dreams. I can’t always remember them clearly, but sometimes they are so vivid they feel more real than the world around me. Especially this world.”

Madeline breathed softly, her heart pounding. “Jason —”

“Night’s Breath, that was just his war-skin name, you know. His family called him Geren. He had children and a wife. His mother is old . . . She lives on the edge of the Wasted Lands in the shell of what once was their family mansion, which has been handed down through the generations. It’s collapsing. None of the walls are complete. Weeds grow in the dining room. Rain falls in the bedrooms, and mold grows across the walls.”

“Jason, I didn’t know any of —”

“Just —” Jason paused and pressed his palms against his temples. “Just listen. For a minute.” He waited for Madeline to sit back, silent, listening to the blood thrumming through her head. When she was quiet, he said, “Once a year, Geren —Night’s Breath —took his children through the wastes to visit their grandmother. The children would run through the darkened hallways, and their laughter always made Geren think, This must have been what it was like once, when my family was powerful. He had a scar. Did you see that?”

Madeline shook her head. “I don’t remember it.”

“Once, in the waste, he came across an Elenil traveling alone. She demanded he give her his steed and some supplies. She was on her way to the Court of Far Seeing, and he was headed there as well on some business. So he offered to let her ride with him, to mount up behind him, and together they would split his rations and arrive in a few days.” Jason’s fists tightened, and his face flushed. As if this had all happened to him and not Night’s Breath. “She told him it would bring shame on her to arrive with him, and she would be needing what she had originally demanded. She sliced him across the chest with her sword and took all his provisions, not just the few days’ worth it would take her to arrive at the court.”

“That’s terrible,” Madeline said.

“It gets worse. When he arrived at the Court of Far Seeing, delirious with hunger, his chest wound infected, he found that she had left word with the city guard that he had attacked her in the wilderness. They arrested him and put him in a dungeon for fourteen months. He had been a farmer. When he returned home, his crops were dead. His family lived with his mother, barely surviving. That is when he joined the Scim army and took the name Night’s Breath.”

Madeline sighed. “Then I killed him.”

Jason didn’t answer. He stared at the palms of his hands. “I don’t know, Mads. His last memories are lost. It’s like I only got the strongest ones. The ones he revisited over and over. There’s this one story he loved, about this magician called the Peasant King.”

“The Peasant King?” Madeline had met him, had seen him in the wood of the tower door.

“There’s a story about the Peasant King, about how when he built the Sunlit Lands, he went to the wealthy and the powerful people in the world and offered to let them come in. He told them it was paradise, and that meant everyone would be equal. They would leave their power and their wealth at the door, and in the Sunlit Lands all their needs would be provided for —they would never be hungry or sick. They would be happy. But they didn’t want to leave their wealth and their power. The Peasant King got angry, and he said those people could never come in, ever. He cast a spell so only the outcasts, the losers, the broken, the homeless, and the wounded could enter. He made the doors hard to find and in the worst places in the world.”

Madeline found herself leaning forward, eager to hear the end of the story. “What happened? Why isn’t that the situation now?”

“Mads, that’s the thing. I think someone broke the Sunlit Lands. Night’s Breath, he had this deep conflict going on inside of him because he saw the war against the Elenil as a betrayal of the Peasant King’s original purpose. You don’t fight for a higher position in the Sunlit Lands. It’s the beggars who are kings, right? The wealthy and powerful, they’re the fools. But his family didn’t have food to eat. So what was he supposed to do? And Mads, I get it. I know why you did what you did. I’ve been thinking about it, and I know —I know I would have done the same thing for you. Because I know you, and I didn’t know Night’s Breath.” He sighed heavily and looked at the little girl on the bed. He whispered, “I know you, and I don’t know Yenil. I’d be lying if I said there isn’t a part of me that thinks we should leave all the magic alone until your breathing . . . until the magic is permanent.”

Madeline gasped. “You mean until my disease kills her.”

Jason looked away, ashamed. “Yes. Listen, Mads, we’ve all been following along at school while you’ve gotten sicker. We’ve had the updates and passed along the rumors and felt awkward when you showed up in class. I know there’s not a cure, you’ve told us that. There’s not any hope, Madeline. There’s not any hope, and what I want to do more than anything is to make you well. I want to save you, and I don’t know how. Except I could let that little girl go, just like you did with Night’s Breath —”

Madeline grabbed his arms. “No. Jason, promise me. No! I couldn’t live with that.”

His eyes brimmed with tears, and it hit her all at once that she had done the same thing to him. He would have to live with it. He didn’t get a choice. The poor Scim soldier was dead so Jason could live, and that had been Madeline’s decision. It had been her call, and she had chosen her friend to live and the stranger to die. It couldn’t be changed now.

She leaned her forehead against Jason’s. “When you’re sick,” she said, “when you’re really sick . . . you just want one more normal day. I hated walking into school. Hated the looks on people’s faces. Hated the way everything stopped while I coughed and hacked, like everyone else was holding their breath. I hated the way people who had been mean to me the year before asked how I was doing and tried to be nice to me. I wanted to have a day where I showed up and someone called me a name. I wanted the boys to flirt with me and the teachers to lecture me for not turning in my homework. Or to walk through a room and have no one notice me, just once.”

“In my defense,” Jason said, “I was still a jerk to you sometimes.”

She grinned at him. “True.” She sat beside him and leaned her head against his shoulder, and they watched Yenil struggling to breathe. “That disease will be mine again soon,” she said.

“Maybe since we were gone, the doctors have found a new treatment,” Jason said.

She patted his arm. “I’ve spent a long time trying to have hope, Jason. There’s a certain point when you realize that hope isn’t what you need anymore. You can’t hope forever. Sometimes people die. Terrible things happen. Evil wins, and farmers end up in jail while the wealthy get richer. Injustice rules the world. Your lungs get more and more scarred and there’s nothing to be done.”

“But maybe —”

“No, Jason, listen to me. Sometimes hope isn’t what you need. This disease is going to kill me. I’m going to take it back, and I will die. Maybe not today or tomorrow. But I will. Sometimes you don’t need hope anymore.”

Tears streaked Jason’s face. He rubbed at them with the back of his hand. “If we don’t need hope, Mads, what do we need?”

“Courage,” she said. “I don’t need hope anymore, Jason. I know what’s coming. I need courage to face it.”

He took her hand. “We’ll face it together.”