Chapter
Five

Sanii and I back away from the mouth of the black tunnel, Yorri held between us, unconscious and dragging awkwardly; Sanii is so much shorter.

There’s fear in Tessen’s eyes when he turns away from that escape. “Run!”

But the tunnel is safer. It doesn’t end in water. I try to tell Tessen; only meaningless noise escapes.

“Run, Khya! They’ll break this rotten rock into a pile of rubble.” Sanii pulls on Yorri, which pulls on me. I keep my eyes on the tunnel, but my mind is mired in quicksand. I can’t remember what’s in that black tunnel that they’re so afraid of.

We pass row after row of black platforms; I refuse to look at a single one. I know the people we’re leaving here will plague my mind. If they have faces, it’ll be worse.

But…I already tried that, didn’t I? It didn’t work. Couldn’t have; even with my eyes closed I can see every face.

“Wards, Khya!” Fear sharpens Sanii’s expression. “What are you doing? We need air or we’re going to drown out there.”

“I don’t know how!” What? That’s not what I wanted to say. This moment feels horribly, painfully familiar, but also different. I didn’t mean to say that.

“Rot take you, Khya! Remember!” I’ve never seen em so angry. “I am not leaving Yorri here for whatever this is.”

“Wait!” My breathing comes hard and too quick. “Stop and let me—”

“Shut up and move!” Tessen shoves us forward. I stumble; only my desperate grip on Yorri keeps me on my feet. “There’s no time. Remember or we’re dead, Khya.”

Think, think, think. I created the wardstones we’re wearing, right? I did, but I don’t know how. And these are wrong, their glow too dull and the magic the wrong color. It should be red. It feels gray. Wrong. But we’re nearing the end of the passage. The crash of waves against rock is getting louder. Louder. Deafeningly loud.

“Now, Khya!” Tessen barks, his voice harsh and furious.

I mentally reach for the wardstones; the magic spillls through the holes in my concentration like sand.

Ten feet away from the edge of the black island.

Five feet. Blood and rot. They’re expecting my wards to give us air underwater?

“Khya!” Sanii hisses. “Jump!”

One foot. Sanii leaps, and I leap with em.

Flying above the waves, we’re safe from imprisoning rock and devouring water. But only for a moment. Pain shoots up my arm. Water surrounds me, and cold, but I breathe air, not water. I try to reach for Yorri; my left arm won’t answer and my right hand closes on nothing. The water is getting through my ward, and Yorri— Where is Yorri?

My head breaks into the air. I see what my failures have done.

A thick red rope around his neck. Matching bonds around his wrists and ankles. His body is arched out over the water. I could save him. All I need is a moment of pure focus. I tried something before; maybe this time it will work.

Lungs burning, I battle the current toward the island. A hand clamps around my left ankle. My body jerks. My concentration breaks. Water pours through my wards. Yorri vanishes, and I get sucked down into the angry, insatiable ocean. The grip tightens and drags me deeper, but I keep reaching for my brother. Reaching for—

“Let her go!”

The hand on my ankle tightens, holding on no matter how hard I scramble to get away. I should be able to—

“She almost kicked me in the head!”

I reach for my wards, pulling in as much power as I can and—

“Let go, Natani!”

I’m free. I gasp for breath, trying to sit up. Get away. New hands grip my shoulders. No! I pull in power again, hoping my wards won’t fail me this time. If I shove them out from my body hard enough and fast enough—

“It’s me, Khya. Breathe. Breathe.”

I’ll break their hold. I’ll break their arms.

Suddenly, I’m leaning against someone’s chest. “You’re okay.” A hand rubs circles on my back. Another gently strokes my short hair. Tessen. “You’re safe, I promise. You’re safe here.”

I exhale heavily; the breath shudders through my body and my muscles tremble, but Tessen’s warmth takes the edge off my chilled skin. The soft vibration of the desosa around his body, a pattern I know so well now, is even more soothing than the gentle brush of his fingers down the line of my jaw or the firm, protective hold of his other arm. My heart is beating too fast, every thump too loud, but I relax more with each passing second.

I trust Tessen completely. I promised I would, even in moments like this, but blood and rot, I hate needing him so much. He’s not like our andofume. Or like the bobasu. Or like Yorri. Tessen can be killed, and he’s following me into a mission where failure is so much more likely than success. If I lose him now, after I’ve let him in this much—

No. Stop. Hold my breath. Count the seconds. Concentrate on the flow of the desosa.

Useless. None of my usual tricks are working. I need something else to think about.

“Where are we?” I ask.

“Close to Uraita,” Tessen says. “But it’ll be an hour or two until we leave the caravan.”

“We’re passing a city. Tirodo, I think.” Rai is leaning through the window, almost half her body out of the wagon. “Haven’t been this close to one yet. It’s so…unprotected. Do they really have so few enemies here?”

Curious, I ease off the bed. I pull Rai back just enough to poke my own head out, too. For a second, my head spins, because the city isn’t level with us, it’s at the bottom of a fifty-foot drop. I close my eyes and take a breath, pushing aside the vertigo and the lingering shakiness from my nightmare. When I open them again, my vision and my head are more stable.

Like Po’umi, Tirodo is filled with closely packed buildings. The colors are different, though; the sharply sloped roofs are mostly black, the buildings’ walls are mostly white, and the clothing I see people wearing is in shades of black and brown. There’s one spot of color, and it seems out of place.

“What is that?” I point to the red tower rising above any other building.

“The Kaisubeh tower,” Tsua says after peeking out. “Every city has one as a tribute.”

“What are the Kaisubeh again?” Etaro asks.

“I don’t—oh. Right,” Tyrroh says. “Kaisubeh. The Ryogans’ invisible, all-powerful gods and goddesses.”

“Rot-ridden fools,” Rai mutters.

I agree, but when Osshi stiffens in his seat by the door, I wish she hadn’t said it aloud. He’s still not over my display of power with Lo’a, and he takes serious offense when we doubt his pantheon. Even though no one has seen or heard proof of the Kaisubeh’s existence in centuries.

According to Osshi’s stories, the last time the Kaisubeh bothered themselves with the Ryogans was before the bobasu’s exile. Over five hundred years ago. Even that incident—a massive black rock hurtling down from the sky, a rock with properties that proved to be Varan’s undoing—was arguable. The Ryogans couldn’t prove the rock was sent by the Kaisubeh any more than they could prove it wasn’t. Yet they still build towers in their honor.

I step back from the window, letting Etaro and Sanii take my place. I move to sit at the table with Tyrroh and the andofume and look at the maps they’ve been studying since yesterday. “What have you found?”

“Almost nothing familiar.” Chio runs his middle finger over the arc of his thin eyebrow. “I knew things would change, they did even while we lived here, yet it’s still surprising to think Uraita has become so unrecognizable.”

My stomach tightens. “What about Varan’s notes? Will you be able to find them?”

“No” isn’t an acceptable answer. The only trail we can follow right now begins with that information. We can’t undo something we don’t understand, and no way can we defeat Varan if we don’t know how to kill him.

“If his hiding places haven’t been found, and if the seal hasn’t been broken, and if everything is still inside…” Chio huffs and shakes his head.

“Realistically, the chances of this working are low,” Tsua finishes.

“Then why are we doing this?” Sanii drops onto the bench next to me.

“Because if Varan’s notes are there, they could save us more time than I want to think about.” I pull the map closer, trying to fix it in my mind. “I’d rather check this first. At least it gives us a place to start and better odds of finding something.”

“Bad odds seem to be all we get these days.” Tessen sighs. “But at least we’re still alive to face them.”

Unlike some of the people we left behind. Or lost on our way here.

Ignoring the way my chest aches, I point to the lines on the map north of Uraita and ask what they mean. Ryogo’s system of marks and symbols isn’t anything like the one we used in Itagami, and we’ve been studying it in between Osshi and the andofume’s lessons on reading, but these in particular are new.

Osshi purses his lips, but then he moves closer and explains about the caves hidden underground and how they’re displayed on paper. His words are stiff at first, but he begins to relax the longer he talks. Almost like he forgets he’s afraid of us. I’m glad, because his help means that by the time we’re a few miles from the border of Uraita, I nearly have this particular section of Ryogo memorized.

Before the caravan stops mid morning, we dress in the Ryogan clothes Lo’a gave us, ones in the same dark colors we saw people in Tirodo wearing. There are multiple layers of thick fabric kept in place with knots that the hanaeuu we’la maninaio taught us how and where to tie. The clothes are warmer, but it’s hard to adjust to their restrictions. Especially the boots. When I first put them on a few days ago, it was like relearning how to walk. The warmth almost isn’t worth the trouble. Almost.

Lo’a is waiting with a warning when we leave the wagon with our bags and gear once more strapped to our backs. “You have one full day before we leave. We cannot wait here any longer than that.”

“I’m grateful you’re willing to wait at all.” I’ve somehow become the squad’s spokesperson, a counterpoint to Lo’a’s position in her family. But despite the time I’ve spent talking to her, I wasn’t sure she’d be willing to help us after Uraita. Especially not when I know now how secretive the hanaeuu we’la maninaio really are and how much helping us could hurt her family.

“Better make the most of your time, then.” She nods in the direction of Uraita. “One day. Not an hour more.”

Agreeing and saying goodbye, we move through the woods on our own, Tessen and Chio leading. Osshi, we hide in the middle of the group. It’s his voyage to hunt down the truth behind the bobasu legend that got him in trouble in Ryogo, so we’re all hoping the tyatsu will assume he’d never consider coming here, a place deeply connected to the same legend. We’re hoping, but we can’t be sure, so we need to be careful. There’s a lot of ground to cover before we reach the mountains, and we’ll be coming close to Uraita. A moment’s inattention is all it’ll take for us to get spotted, but it’s the best path and the only plan we’ve got.

If what Chio believes is hidden in the Mysora Mountains is still there, we can’t risk being found. If it’s not here…we still can’t risk it.

We don’t know the quirks of this landscape well enough to move as quietly as we could on Shiara, so we give up some speed to stay silent. Twice, though, Tessen signals a halt. Each time, we wait in the shadows as several people trudge past, heavy loads on their backs. It slows us down even more, but we make it to the base of the mountains without trouble.

The trees end about a hundred feet up the slope, which means we have to leave their protection to move any higher. Tessen scans the area and points to three separate paths. “Those paths seem the most used.”

Chio shakes his head. “Varan didn’t use those. It’s this way.”

We stay in the shadows to follow Chio west. He’s muttering to himself and the fingers of his left hand are moving, almost like he’s drawing on the air. Finally, a little more than two miles east of the village, Chio touches a stone.

“‘Child of the Kaisubeh.’” Chio traces words etched into the stone; they’re small and almost hidden. “Varan called us that when we were young, and he marked the path with this phrase. It won’t always be easy to see.”

“Maybe for you.” I tap Tessen on the shoulder, smiling. “Get to work, basaku.”

With a smirk, Tessen nods. “Yes, Nyshin-pa.”

“Don’t,” I warn, shaking my head. “Get us where we need to go.”

His lips purse, then he steps closer to Chio and follows him away from the trees.

I shouldn’t have said anything about the rot-ridden title, but I can’t stand it. It burns when the rest of the squad calls me nyshin-pa, but from Tessen it’s worse. It’s an unearned honor, and it feels like I’m stealing respect that doesn’t belong to me. I don’t want anything from Tessen that isn’t mine.

But what matters now is the mission, so I shove all of that aside.

The path is steep, and so narrow at times we have to squeeze through sideways. Osshi does better on this trek than he did on Shiara or climbing the face of the cliff when we landed on Ryogo, but Etaro and Tsua still have to take turns magically lifting him up with us. Especially since sometimes the old path is gone, erased by time and rockslides; then, the practice of a life on our rocky island becomes useful even though it’s hard to climb with boots between my feet and the rocks. Thankfully, every time I slip, someone is there to catch me.

Chio and Tessen find each of Varan’s ancient markers, some of them so worn down by wind and rain and time only Tessen can see them. I run my hand over one as I pass, trying to imagine a younger Varan pressing his hand to this same stone and carving these words into it. I can’t. Mostly because when I try I can’t help wishing Chio had caught up with him back then and smashed his head in with one of these rocks.

The route they lead us along doesn’t always move up. Morning turns into afternoon before we reach a valley with a small river. We stop there to drink, eat, and warm our hands near Rai’s and Nairo’s fire because despite the sun, it’s only gotten colder.

“Varan really didn’t want anyone finding this, did he?” I say.

“He loved secrets.” Chio looks up at the mountain’s peak. “I think they made him feel powerful. It’s not much farther, though.”

We press on, and in the golden light of late afternoon, we reach a level area barely wide enough to fit us all. Chio stops in the center. “Here. This is it.”

Most of us stay back, perching on nearby boulders or hovering a ways down the path to make it easier for Chio, Tsua, and Tessen to search the landing.

My patience holds for about ten minutes. “I thought you remembered where he hid this.”

“Not even rock is unchanged by time, Khya.” Chio points at a large slab of stone, and Tsua lifts it out of the way. “Nothing here is like it was then. Forgive me if I can’t walk into the hills and instantly find a magically protected hole that’s been here since I was younger than you.”

I grind my teeth and hold my tongue, but it feels like they have to completely rearrange the rocks surrounding this shelf before Chio finally says, “Thank the Kaisubeh. It’s still here.”

I jump down and rush toward them. “What can I do?”

They mentioned yesterday that Varan might have set a trap to guard this place, but neither could guess what it might be until we were here. Now, he and Tsua peer into the crevice, murmuring to each other for several minutes.

Finally, they nod and Tsua turns to me. “Create a ward around us, Khya, one that keeps you on the outside. We’re going to have to set off the trap.”

“That sounds like a really awful idea,” Rai mutters from somewhere.

“Would you rather be on this side of the ward?” Tsua doesn’t give Rai a chance to respond before she orders, “Now, Khya.”

They’ve each been carrying one of my wardstones since we left Lo’a, so I use those to anchor my magic, creating a dome that spreads around them and sinks down into the stone, my wards digging into the rock to make sure they’re completely sealed inside.

“Ready.” I take one step back, but stay close, ready to reinforce the barrier. Varan is nothing if not thorough. In both his defenses and his punishments.

Tsua waves her hand over the crevice. There are sounds—metal falling on stone—and then green-gray gas rises from the hole. It pours out like water bursting through a broken dam. It fills the warded space in seconds until it’s so dark and thick I can’t see anything inside.

But I can hear. Bellows and blood. My stomach drops.

I can hear them trying not to scream.

“Khya. Khya.” Tessen’s eyes are wide and his body tense. “I think it’s eating through them.”

“What do you want me to do? Let it out here? What do you think that will do to us if it’s doing this to them?”

“You hold that ward until they tell you to stop.” Zonna appears on my other side, his square face pained. “They knew what they were doing.”

“But how do we get them out of it?” Tessen demands.

“You don’t.” Zonna closes his eyes. “We wait.”

Heart racing, I wait. And wait. Wait. Enough time for my pulse to calm. Enough time for my breathing to even. For my knees to ache from pressing against the stone.

Finally, the smoke changes color, becoming more gray than green. Another interminable length of time later, the smoke shifts again, paler and grayer, but only when it’s cloud-white does a hand press flat against the ward.

Their skin is bright red. Blistered. Bleeding. They tap their fingers against the ward three times. Then they pull away, but not before I notice one thing: they’re healing. The cuts were closing. The redness fading. I keep reminding myself of that as I release the top of the ward and send a new cloud into the sky.

Immediately, Zonna leaps over what remains of my ward. Hands on his parents’ skin, his magic pours into them, healing them even faster than their own immortality can. I can feel it even though the smoke is still too thick for me to see anything but shadows and outlines. By the time the smoke clears, their blisters are gone and only redness like a sunburn is left.

I drop the rest of my ward. “Are you okay?”

“I will be if this turns out to be worthwhile.” Tsua presses her face against her son’s shoulder and shudders.

Thin lips pressed tight, Chio reaches out to run his hand over her hair, but then he pulls away from them both and leans over the crevice. “Tsua, I need you, vanafitia.”

Tsua straightens with a tense nod and shifts to kneel opposite Chio. Zonna, Tessen, and I move back to give them space as Tsua retrieves a stone box. It’s embedded with crystals, etched with words I can’t read, and it’s no longer than my forearm. It doesn’t seem worth what they suffered, but what it holds might be.

I shudder, the andofume’s screams still echoing between my ears.

What’s inside had better be worth that much pain.

…

Going down the mountain is a lot easier than going up. We don’t have to follow Varan’s twisting, unnecessarily complicated route, for one. Still, it’s well past midnight by the time we reach level ground. Everyone is freezing, tired, and hungry, but we’re alive, we have a box of something Varan thought was worth guarding with a deadly trap, and we have enough time to make it back to Lo’a’s camp before she leaves.

Then Chio mutters something and sighs. “We have a choice to make.”

“What kind of choice?” I ask.

“We’re several miles west of where we started, and this is populated terrain. We have to skirt Uraita to get back.” Chio looks toward the lights flickering in the distance. “Do we keep walking now or rest and eat first?”

“If we wait too long, we might not make it before Lo’a leaves,” Tsua says.

Tyrroh and Tessen vote for pushing on, but my fingers are going numb and my stomach is hollow with hunger, so I shake my head. “We’re too tired and cold. We’re more likely to make a mistake if we don’t rest first.”

Also, if we rest, Tsua and Chio will have a chance to open Varan’s box. They must be itching to break the seal on it at least as much as I am. We won’t find all the answers we need inside, but that’s okay. All I need it to have is the next step toward killing Varan. And freeing Yorri.

Within minutes, Wehli has gathered enough wood and kindling to feed a good fire. As soon as Rai lights the blaze, Tessen and Natani unpack the provisions as we sit in a tight circle around the warmth.

I sit close to Tsua and Chio, and it’s hard not to crowd into their space when they place the stone box on the ground between them. They debate if there’s a trap inside the box. I watch and listen for a few minutes before I interject. “I don’t think he’d have a trap on this and the crevice itself. Varan’s paranoid, but he’s also arrogant. The tunnel to Imaku was only guarded by locked doors and a ward. Beyond that, the way was open.”

“That’s after centuries of absolute power.” Chio holds the box up and Tsua’s hands rise. Light like Sanii’s gathers in her palm. I blink. I didn’t know she could do that. “The only people he had to worry about on Shiara were us.”

Tessen walks toward Chio, his hand outstretched. “May I see it?”

Chio hands over the box. As Tessen examines it, I lean in, needing to see the thing we climbed so far for. Then Tessen’s gaze meets mine and I scoot closer. “You need my wards or senses?”

“Senses first.” He holds out the box. “Wards after. Maybe.”

“Hopefully not.” I never want to repeat what happened to Tsua and Chio on that mountain, especially not if it’s Tessen trapped inside this time. I take a breath and rest my hands on the box. Relief fills my chest, warming me more than the fire. “If there’s anything in there set to kill us, I can’t feel it.”

“There’s something,” Tessen says slowly, peering at the box through narrowed eyes. “But it’s subtle. It doesn’t feel dangerous.”

“You’re probably sensing the seal.” Tsua takes the box back. “And that, thankfully, we know how to break.”

Tsua floats the box several feet away, and then she says, “Goa’wa uita.”

Wards ready, I hold my breath and wait for smoke or sparks or something. If something goes wrong this time, I will not leave anyone inside the ward to suffer from it. But the top separates from the rest with nothing worse than the scrape of stone, and Tsua floats both pieces back toward us.

“Perfect timing.” Natani pokes the cooking meat one more time, the firelight bringing out the red in his terra-cotta skin. “Food’s ready.”

Etaro and Rai help Natani pass out dinner, but I stay near Tsua and Chio, watching them slowly and carefully pick through the box’s contents. The protections on this must’ve been strong, because everything seems to be intact from what I can tell. There are papers, stones, and a few small pouches, but it’s hard to follow Tsua and Chio’s conversation about the items. They speak low and quick, and they jump between multiple languages seemingly at random.

Waiting—and attempting to convince myself they’ll explain everything later—scrapes against my patience, so instead of continuing to watch them, I take out the book on niadagu spells I stashed in my pack. I haven’t learned anything new from the books, but I can’t stand being this close to the next step and unable to take it. I have to do something, and this is all I have that feels like it’ll bring me even a little bit closer to helping Yorri.

Over the past few days I’ve read the entire book—traveling has given me plenty of time—but now I reread the pages about weaving magic into fabric.

As I read, I run my thumb along the cord around my wrist. I’ve tried, but I can’t bind even a small piece of my magic to it in any lasting way. It’s frustrating, especially since I can do it to wardstones. This can’t be much different. I just have to take what I already know, combine it with the information on the pages in front of me, and make it work. Looking at the problem like one of the puzzles Yorri used to make helps. There’s a single piece I need to pull out or adjust and the whole thing will fall into place. I’ll find it eventually if I just keep looking.

But an hour later, when we get ready to leave, every attempt has failed. Even when I only try to make it hold my wards, I fail. Grinding my teeth, I shove the book back into my pack.

“You have time, but it won’t matter if we don’t figure out how to kill Varan first.” Tessen’s murmured words slide through my distraction.

“What won’t?”

“That.” He nods toward my pack. “I know it’s important, but being able to break the cords won’t do us any good if we can’t kill the bobasu.”

“You don’t know that.” A tremor of anger rolls through my body. My fingers clench the strap of my pack. “None of us know what’ll happen with Varan, but I do know I need this. If I don’t know how to break this, I’ll never be able to save Yorri.”

“I’m not telling you to not save Yorri. I gave up everything to help you find him.” His full lips press thin. “All I’m saying is that we need you working on the bigger problem, too.”

“Why? There are thirteen other people, Tessen, and all of them are working on destroying the bobasu. Why do I need to be working on it, too?”

Tessen blinks, an expression flashing across his face that I’ve never seen him give me before. Like he’s reevaluating my intelligence. “Because you’re you, Khya. Because somehow you and Sanii are the ones who saw through Varan’s tricks and broke through Suzu’s defenses. You got us here when who knows how many people tried before. Even Tsua and Chio failed, but you succeeded. Now we have a bigger problem, and you’re not working on it with us.”

“When the andofume need my help, they’ll ask. And I’ll give it to them. Until then, I’ll be working on the problem no one else is even looking at.”

Only when I say it do I realize I’m reminding myself of that truth as much as I’m reminding him.

Only when he doesn’t respond, walking away from the buried campfire instead, do I realize I was waiting for him to tell me I’m right.