Chapter 26

BLACKWOOD’S NEW ALLIANCES

“Deckman Holland,” Blackwood said weakly. “You came back.”

Galvanized energy still rippled through her, making it feel as if all her muscles were tensed simultaneously. But at least words came easier now. Holland had shrouded her again, she realized, though it had been so smooth she’d barely noticed it. She took in an adobe ceiling and shuttered sandpanes. A coarse rug pressed against her burning back. Low booms still echoed from some far-off place. Andrew’s house. Her house. Holland had brought her home.

“Holland, why isn’t she moving? What’s wrong with her?”

Andrew was suddenly kneeling in front of her, his eyebrows knit in concern.

“Holland found you,” Blackwood managed. “Didn’t… betray me.”

Tears ran down Andrew’s cheeks. “Mila, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I thought you were dead, you would have been dead–”

“Not dead,” Blackwood forced out. “Alive. We’re both… alive. Where’s Holland?”

Andrew looked up, just over Blackwood’s shoulder. Blackwood tried to follow his gaze, but Holland circled around into her line of sight. He knelt at her other side, opposite Andrew.

“Are you OK, ma’am?” he said.

“You saved him,” said Blackwood. “Saved me.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I want… truth from you. Now.”

“I…” He faltered, staring at her uneasily.

“Say it,” said Blackwood.

Holland swallowed. He held her eyes for several long moments before speaking again. “I’m a Dhavnak spy.”

Blackwood let out a slow breath. An unexpected tension released in her shoulders. She struggled to string her thoughts together coherently.

“How much… happened… your fault?”

“Probably most of it,” he answered quietly.

“Andrew, too?”

“Not entirely. But I didn’t make things better.”

Andrew’s gaze flicked between her and Holland, but he didn’t break in to correct him. Anger simmered just beneath Blackwood’s surface. She fought to keep it contained. Erupting at Holland wouldn’t help anything, not in this state.

“Why… save us?” she asked.

“The beating I received was real. I was ripped apart for withholding information. Afterward, my reasons for needing this position… were all obsolete. I’ve lost everything.” There was no shame or remorse in Holland’s voice. Just bone-tired resignation. “You’ve done right by me. Not just once, but over and over again. It was the least I could do.”

“Withholding information,” Blackwood repeated.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“About me?”

“No, ma’am. About myself. My mark. My gender.”

“Your gender?” Blackwood blinked as his words sank in. “Oh, Xeil’s grace. You’re a woman.”

“Ma’am.”

“So your commander…”

“I killed him. He had my mother murdered, and tried to come after me next. I wanted to save her. I thought if I got the intel…” Holland looked away, blinking hard. “You and your brother have nothing to fear from me,” she finished roughly. “Not anymore.”

The red-hot anger spiking through Blackwood was suddenly and unexpectedly paired with another emotion. It took her a moment to recognize it. Sympathy. She tried to cling to the familiar pulse of anger instead. Holland had destroyed their lives. She’d almost gotten both her and Andrew killed, and stolen everything Blackwood cared about from right under her nose.

But she’d been faced with a decision. Either stay home in Dhavnakir, oppressed and abused, wondering for the rest of her life what had happened to her mother… or take matters into her own hands. It seemed like an impossibly foreign situation to be forced into, and yet here it was in front of her, and Blackwood couldn’t say for a second that she wouldn’t have made exactly the same choices.

“My condolences,” she finally said.

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“It’s Blackwood. I’m not your CO.”

Holland hesitated, then took a deep breath. “I’m Klara Yana. Klara Yana Hollanelea.”

Blackwood’s lips parted in surprise. Different responses ran through her mind. How very Dhavnak that name was. How it was such a huge risk in her line of work. How telling Blackwood her real name wasn’t something she’d had to do.

In the end, though, Blackwood simply took it for the gesture of trust it was. “Thank you,” she said softly.

Klara Yana nodded, her eyes still fastened on Blackwood’s, and pushed herself to her feet. Blackwood saw that lithe grace differently now – not a boy barely out of his teens, still waiting to gain his muscle mass, but a lean woman with a confident agility. She looked older too, without that feigned uncertainty she’d had ever since Blackwood had known her.

“I’ll leave you and your brother to recover,” Klara Yana said. “But… if you want me to… I’d like to help make it up to you. We’re the only two people in the world who’ve been marked by those creatures. We have a bond, whether we like it or not.”

“Make it up how?” said Blackwood.

“Your submarine crew. I have some connections that might get them out of the internment camp. I’ll do my best.”

Blackwood’s eyes widened. Klara Yana held up a hand.

“I can’t promise anything. Except to try.”

“Find me,” Blackwood said. “When you have information. Need help. Anything.”

“I will, Blackwood. I’ll be in touch.” Klara Yana brushed a fist to her opposite shoulder in a casual Belzene salute.

Blackwood blinked, her breath catching.

“You’re the best officer I’ve served under, CSO,” said Klara Yana. “And that’s the truth.” Then she was gone.

With Andrew’s help, Blackwood got the gunshot wounds on her arm and leg cleaned and redressed, grateful there were no signs of infection. Andrew made tea and brought pillows and blankets out to the couch for her, along with some painkillers, which she took gratefully. The absolute worst agony was the one on her back. Her skin had suffered severe burns from the flash-heated steel deck. They left her feeling feverish and weak, with a fatigue deeper than she’d ever experienced. She knew that she and her brother needed to leave the house – Cu Zanthus knew where they lived, and she had no doubt he’d send someone for her, and maybe Andrew, too – but the excruciating pain in her back was hard to think past, and she found herself lying motionless on the couch instead, drifting in and out of consciousness as explosions racked the city.

It might have been hours. It might have been days. All she knew was that at some point, her mind gradually let go, and she slept. She slept in the dreamless oblivion that only severe fatigue can bring, and that she’d often longed for in those final few weeks on the Desert Crab. She slept far away from the pain and the fear and her constant responsibilities. She slept in a place without bombs, without war. Without betrayal or guilt or regret.

When she finally surfaced again, some indeterminate amount of time later, and found Ellemko eerily silent around her, she thought herself still sleeping. But moments later, dread filled her.

“We were taken,” she whispered.

Andrew looked up. He was sitting on the floor beneath the sandpane on the far side of the room, a book open in his lap.

“Andrew,” she said. “Tell me. Were we taken?”

“No,” he said.

She let out her breath. “We beat them. I can’t believe it.”

He opened his mouth, but closed it again without answering. He pushed himself to his feet, one finger holding his place in the book.

“Andrew?”

“How are you feeling?” he said, without meeting her eyes.

“I’m OK,” she said warily. “How about you?”

“Yeah. Fine.” He started to walk past her, either toward the kitchen or his bedroom. As he passed the couch, she reached out a hand and snagged his wrist. He paused, staring at the floor.

“What’s wrong?” she said.

“I’m fine.”

“No. I’m not accepting that. When you and I got back here – with Klara Yana – I saw you. I saw that you did care. So why do you do this? Go back to hating me?”

He flinched at her words. “It’s not… It’s about what I… Will you just…” With one hard jerk of his arm, he broke her grip and stalked off to the kitchen. The book he’d been reading fell to the floor with a thump.

Blackwood managed to pull herself to sitting. Her back still felt tender against the rough fabric of the couch, but it was bearable. She stared in the direction Andrew had disappeared. Damn him, why was he always so hostile? Surely he wasn’t upset about the outcome of the invasion. He hadn’t wanted Dhavnakir to win the war. Had he? Not anymore, at least.

Not anymore. But he had helped Cu Zanthus. In doing so, he had helped Dhavnakir… and almost gotten her captured or killed. It was practically the first thing he’d said when they’d gotten home. I thought you were dead, you would have been dead… She’d stopped him before he finished, but she knew how that sentence would have ended: …and it would have been my fault.

She sucked in her breath. Because for the first time, she understood. His terse silence, his resentment, his refusal to look her in the eye…

It wasn’t hostility. It was shame.

She pushed herself painfully to her feet and made her way to the kitchen. Andrew was standing back by the sandpane, staring out the narrow crack between the shutters. There were a million things she could say. A million things that wouldn’t get through. He’d already passed his judgment, and hers would be swallowed up by the power of his own. She knew this. Part of her even understood it.

“You knew about Klara Yana,” she said quietly. “Didn’t you?”

Andrew stiffened at the sound of her voice. But slowly, he nodded. “That she was a woman, too?”

“Yeah.”

“Did she tell you? Did Cu Zanthus?”

“No,” said Andrew. “I figured it out. Why?”

She blew out her breath. “How long did it take you?”

“It was in the basement–”

“After you’d just met her?” she broke in incredulously.

He looked back, eyes flashing. “If you’re trying to say something, just say it.”

“Do you really think they’re Dhavnak gods?” she said.

He started to answer, then blinked as he processed her words. “W-What?”

“You can figure things out,” she said. “In a way I can’t begin to understand. I’d written your theories off as biased speculation before, but I see now that’s not how you operate. So I want to know what you really think. I’m listening.”

He stared at her for a long time. She couldn’t remember the last time he’d held her gaze that long. “No,” he finally said. “I don’t think they are.”

“Is that the truth?”

“Yes. But the resemblances… they’re real, Mila. And they’re substantial.”

“So? What’s your theory? I assume you’ve been thinking about this.”

“You really want to hear it?”

She nodded, leaning against the doorjamb and crossing her arms over her chest. Andrew licked his lips, turning away from the sandpane.

“OK. Well. What if they are Synivistic gods… but only because the legends sprouted from a real event in the distant past and got distorted along the way?”

Blackwood’s eyebrows rose. “A real event? Like what?”

“Like shrouding. From Neutania to Mirrix. Aliens who were actually here, on our planet, at some point.”

“Aliens with powers? That were turned into gods by Dhavnak mythology?” she said.

“Yes, exactly. But not just Dhavnaks. In Cardinia, for example, they believe the Providence Spirits sequestered themselves beneath Mirrix’s surface to escape from the cruelty of humans, and took the world’s light with them. It’s a similar twist on the same theme. The gods – the creatures – disappearing one day and leaving nothing but darkness behind.”

“And Xeil?” said Blackwood.

“Xeil collected and transported souls back to the bodies of living loved ones. And Vo Hina hoarded souls – collected them. So I think both Xeil and Vo Hina are different interpretations of the same creature – the one that saved our planet from the invading ones. Probably the same one that rescued you and Klara Yana on that submarine. Or at least one of the same kind.”

“But what about our marks?” said Blackwood. “The powers they gave us? Was that intentional?”

“Doubt it. In Galene Marduc’s case, he was touching Vo Hina when Shon Aha found them, and it was a sort of anomaly that happened during the attack. Afterward, it’s implied that Galene Marduc could throw lightning like Shon Ana and travel spontaneously to Mirrix like Vo Hina. Something similar may have happened to Onosylvani, right? After all, it would never have been mentioned in Mother and Father’s research if her powers manifested on the very day they were killed. But you and Klara Yana…” he paused, his mouth twisting in thought, “…were different. It’s almost like you each got hit by one of them. Maybe if… if the one resembling Vo Hina was closer to her, and Shon Aha was closer to you? It’s hard to say. I don’t see how we could ever know for sure.”

“Doctor Zurlig told me that Onosylvani was marked because she was Dhavnak,” Blackwood said.

Andrew frowned. “Well, they were also only halfway through their experiments when disaster struck. If that was the first time someone hadn’t died, they might’ve assumed certain things as a factor – race, gender, age, and so on. Probably something they’d narrowed it down to… or thought they had, anyway.”

“Do you think she was right, though?” said Blackwood. “I mean, Klara Yana was Dhavnak, too. They may have had a point.”

“Were there any other connections between her and Onosylvani?”

“Not that I know of. But… but then again, I didn’t know anything about her. Did I?”

Andrew shrugged. “We don’t have all the pieces. Those scientists didn’t either.”

“So the reason Doctor Zurlig was so bent on telling me Onosylvani was Dhavnak…”

“She was probably trying to tell you that Klara Yana caused the lightning,” said Andrew. “Which… you know. Didn’t turn out to be true. Still. Logical conclusion with what she knew.”

“So what do you…” Blackwood began, but trailed off when she saw how carefully Andrew was watching her. Almost as if he were bracing himself for her next question.

“What is it?” she said slowly. “What am I not asking?”

He let out a sigh, barely noticeable, and looked down at the floor. Irritation rose in her, that he was so damn selective about what he chose to answer. She could push him, sure, but he’d either end up shutting down completely or screaming at her, and she didn’t think…

Screaming at her. His last words on the submarine came back to her now. The lightning! Don’t let it use the lightning! The darkness–!

“Andrew?” she said, suddenly apprehensive. “Why did you say that? On the submarine?”

He didn’t ask what she meant, which told her she’d hit on exactly what he’d been avoiding. She waited for him to tumble out of control. But instead, he spoke, his voice softer than before.

“Klara Yana’s the one who made me realize their lightning actually triggers the volcanic eruptions. It happened when that Shon Aha-looking creature attacked us in the shrouding realm. And it almost happened when you used your lightning on the Kheppra volcano.”

“Triggers it,” she whispered.

He nodded, still staring at the floor. “So… so the Age of Fallen Light. The one I told you about?”

“Yeah?” she said uneasily.

“If I’m right, then those monsters caused it by setting off volcanoes using their lightning, and filling the sky with dark smoke and ash for centuries to come. I think that’s why the shrouding realm looks the way it does. They’ve ruined it.”

“But the Age of Fallen Light wasn’t on Neutania, was it? It was here.”

“Yes. I think when Galene Marduc traveled to Neutania, they followed him back with arphanium or something, and used their powers then. But what if one of those creatures – the one resembling Vo Hina, for example – later betrayed them by destroying the arphanium and keeping them from returning? Remember what Klara Yana said when she came back from the shrouding realm? They want to get back here.”

“And the darkness?”

“I…”

She gestured to the shutters. “Open them.”

It took him a second, but he reluctantly ducked his head in a nod before turning to the sandpane and swinging the shutters wide. It was late evening, with both suns already beyond the horizon somewhere. A drab fog had permeated the backyard and blurred the nearby houses into dusky shadows. Something resembling black snow drifted in flurries against the glass.

“It’s gotten gradually worse since this morning,” said Andrew hesitantly. “Not long before you woke up, I even briefly saw the Main Sun rise, before… before the smoke obscured the eastern horizon, too.”

Blackwood took a couple steps forward, her eyes glued to the falling ash. “Are you saying it’s not even midday yet?”

“Right. I was out all morning, getting what information I could.”

“The Kheppra volcano,” she said after a moment.

“No. I mean… yes, obviously. But not just Kheppra. Last night, the number was at… fifteen eruptions, I think? In the surrounding region? But that was before the radios went out. The signals are gone now. By the time I came home again, a lot of the mobies were already… I mean, the helio panels. Most of our stuff can’t operate without the suns.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?” she said sharply.

His head snapped up, and she knew immediately she’d hit some nerve he’d barely been holding onto.

“I don’t know, OK?” he said, his voice rising. “I… I figured you didn’t need to see it right after what you went through, and it’s not like you can do anything now, and you never believe anything I say anyway, and I didn’t want to have to deal with–”

“It’s OK!” she broke in, her heart pounding. “Andrew. It’ll be OK.” She didn’t know if she believed any such thing, but she said it anyway.

“No, you don’t understand, Mila! This darkness was in almost all the religions I read about. But it wasn’t mentioned in Xeil’s. If it’s happening – if it’s really happening – then it’s proof, isn’t it? It’s proof that Xeil never existed, and that our parents are gone, and I’ve tried, I’ve tried so hard for that not to be true, but it happened anyway, and I don’t know what to do anymore!” He put his hands to his face, against his temples, and shut his eyes tight. She could see him shaking from where she stood.

She drew an uneven breath and limped across the kitchen. Tentatively, she put an arm around his narrow shoulders, feeling awkward the whole time. After a moment, Andrew lowered his hands and turned his face into her shoulder. Blackwood put her other arm around him and held him close, and it suddenly didn’t feel so strange anymore.

“Listen,” she said softly. “I talked to Mother the morning she died. It was after you’d finished breakfast and gone to get dressed. I was upset because the boy I’d been seeing at school… Edwin. You remember him?”

Andrew shook his head.

“Anyway,” said Blackwood, “I’d just found out he’d been stealing drugs and selling them to students. He was caught in the act and arrested. He called asking if I could help him out. I’d never been so angry. Never. I wanted to march right into lockdown and punch his teeth in, bash his head against the bars until he passed out. Honest to Xeil, I had plans to, as soon as school let out.” She shook her head, swallowing. “But Mother, she said, ‘Mila, that’s not the way Xeil would want it. With our ancestors inside us, we have no room left for hate. Remember that. Kill your enemies with kindness. Kill them with love.’” Her voice trailed almost to a whisper as she remembered. What happened? How did I forget that? How did I end up consumed by my anger, and Andrew crushed under his despair? What happened to us?

For a moment, the only sounds were the wind against the sandpane and Andrew’s ragged breathing. When he spoke, his words were barely audible.

“I remember her saying that, too.”

“Do you understand my point, though?” said Blackwood, just as quietly.

Andrew tensed. “You’re saying I’ve failed her? Is that it?”

“No, Andrew. It’s that even with what our mother knew, or recorded, about Xeil not being real, she still believed. Not because she had the science to back it up, but because she had the faith. It didn’t matter to her whether the Dhavvie gods were real and Xeil wasn’t. What mattered to her was which one made her into a good person.”

Andrew didn’t speak for several moments, but he’d stopped shaking and his breathing had slowed. “I… I want to believe that,” he finally said, his voice muffled against her shoulder. “But I almost got you killed. I’m not a good person.”

“And I lost control of my anger and almost got you killed,” Blackwood answered. “I’m not, either. But I don’t think Mother would agree. She’d tell us there’s always hope. No matter what.”

“But what hope, Mila?” Andrew said pleadingly. “The Age of Fallen Light almost wiped out life on this planet! There’s no reason it won’t be just as bad or worse this time. If I’d figured it out in time, I… I could have told you. I could have stopped it. But I didn’t. And now… now…”

“This darkness,” said Blackwood. “It’s from an ancient Dhavnak mythology. And, like you said, all mythologies come from somewhere. They build on things that actually happened.”

“Yeah. And?”

“And Xeilak religion doesn’t have this darkness. So… wherever Xeil originally came from – whatever culture, whatever part of the world–”

“Southeastern Criesuce,” Andrew muttered.

“– maybe they didn’t have this darkness,” Blac kwood finished. “Maybe it wasn’t worldwide.”

Andrew sucked in his breath. He turned his face up to look at her. “By the moons,” he whispered. “Mila. What if you’re right?”

“Can you find out?” she asked. “The same way you figured out everything else?”

“I can try,” he said cautiously. “But I’ve read almost everything I can get my hands on. I’ll need to get more information somehow.”

“What if we went down there? To South Criesuce?”

Slowly, something lit up behind Andrew’s eyes. “Cu Zanthus said there are suspicions that Criesuce has shrouding technology, or something similar. Who knows what we’d find there? They might have all kinds of knowledge that I haven’t even…” But then he trailed off. “You couldn’t come. Could you? Because of the navy.”

“For one,” said Blackwood, “the Kheppra volcano erupted. I’d be surprised if Marldox hasn’t been wiped out by a tsunami by now, and our whole naval fleet with it. For two, I was stripped of command, killed two military scientists, and vanished in the aftermath, so I hardly think returning to the base is a good option right now. And for three… I told you that you’re not alone, Andrew. I’m not leaving you again. I mean it.”

Andrew licked his lips uncertainly, his eyes never leaving hers. “But what about the war? Dhavnakir knows about shrouding now. And they were close to taking most of Mirrix even without it.”

Blackwood nodded. “Which means they’re about to find out just how dangerous shrouding really is. Mirrix isn’t gone yet, Andrew. Not to Dhavnakir or this Age of Fallen Light. And you’re the one who’s gonna help me keep it that way.”

He swallowed. “Are you sure you trust me?”

She tightened her arm around him. “Yes. Don’t ever ask me that again.”

A tentative smile crept across Andrew’s face. It was such a different expression than she was used to seeing on him that it almost took her breath away. I should have been here. She stopped the thought in its tracks. It was done. She hadn’t saved their parents’ research, but that hadn’t been the most important thing they’d left behind. She just wished she realized it sooner.

I’m here now, she thought. And that’s what matters.