Take root where the sea meets the sky.
Hearing these voices feels the same as during time in the cove, when I created the remedy for the queen. My time as a Temple Sister feels so long ago now, but it has been less than a year. Everything I had worked for was a lie. And when I tried to warn them, they silenced me. As they have so many other priestesses. I thought it was only the Bastion, but the rot goes all the way to the core. Everyone is complicit.
I want to die. I lie there and try to let myself decay. It would be so easy to sink into the roots, to let the Tree reabsorb me as it so desperately wants to do. This is what we were told would be our end, a noble and holy one. But dying would be too easy, and I’ve suffered too much to let it stop now.
I crawl to the surface, every fingernail’s breadth of purchase hard won. My body and my mind are in disarray, and I try to bring them together, to muster any sliver of energy I have left. I push against the dirt, loosening the binds of the roots, until with a final gasp my grave lets me go. The air is ice in my lungs, but it is ecstasy to feel anything.I pull myself up by the loose stone slabs until I am lying on my back, dirt in my eyes, staring at the night’s sky in the temple chamber. The Tree reaches up as if to touch the stars, and I have never hated anything more.
I make my way to my feet and twist and hack at a branch until my hands are bleeding. It finally gives way with a snap.I’m taking this. I’m taking some of the power back.
I lean against my roughly made cane, feeling the ambient energy spark up my arm. That’s a good start.
I trail blood up the winding spiral staircases until I reach the Mothers’ sanctuary. It’s the only logical place where they would be. At first, I thought they would have returned to the Bastion, but the queen would want as much gifted energy as possible to protect her. Better to stay here where she can hide behind the Mothers’ skirts. They have posted Salvacion and the Seaguardians at her quarters along with casting a protective circle. She must be terrified.
But what they haven’t accounted for are shadows. I know this place like my own body, and I use the dark corners to my advantage. Eventually they will sleep, they will change shifts, they will pause. The Mothers are nowhere to be seen. Perhaps they are with the Temple Sisters, reassuring them that today’s horrible events are nothing to lose sleep over. I bide my time. As for the protective circle, I have a theory and only one opportunity to test it.
I find my moment when a Seaguardian relieves Salvacion, just enough time for me to slip past unnoticed. I take my new cane and drag it across the threshold of the chambers, only breathing again once I sense the circle has been broken. The energy has been disrupted by the remnant of the Tree, and I’m grateful for it.
The princess is sleeping in a makeshift bassinet next to the queen’s bed. She barely protests as I lift her out and place her in the sling I find nearby. She burbles gently.
‘You are mine, Raina. You need me.’
The queen sleeps soundly, which disgusts me more than it should. After all the harm she’s inflicted, her mind rests peacefully at night. I stare at her, taking one last look.I gave this child her life back; she is as much mine as she ever was yours.Everything that lives must die, the queen always tells me. But how can something live without a heart?
As we escape from the temple, I know what the queen will do when she finds Raina is gone. She will scorch the earth, but I won’t be there to see the destruction.
I climb back into the wooden boat in the aqueduct and follow the halo of light ahead. I struggle with the oars, the water splashing over me. The aqueduct reverberates my struggles in an eerie echo, and the dim light throws strange shadows off the walls. I have to keep rowing. Finally, I reach the curious metal door I saw when we first arrived at Aistra. I ease the boat to the wall of the tunnel and reach for the grooved handle – some sort of lever. The door slides back to reveal a giant, spiralling screw. Water sloshes through the open door and pulls the boat onto the base. I look up and between the spokes of metal I can see the sky. Now I notice the crank in the chamber. I reach out for it and begin to rotate. The giant metal beast springs to life, groaning and sloshing. Sheets of water fall from the opening at the top. I yell and turn the crank the other way. The mechanism turns, and we’re spiralling upwards as it funnels the water from the aqueduct to the top. We’re spat out onto the open ocean, between a rocky outcrop. The boat is thrust by the current and we emerge from behind the rocks. I see the Bastion, high on the hilltop in the mainland.
My limbs burn and scream as I row, and I give every lungful of air to getting away. Then the waves are pushing me. The Bastion becomes smaller than the stained-glass window of the temple.
I am not built for physical labour. My body’s strength is in its mind, not its muscles. How I wish it were otherwise in this moment. My arms are weak and shaking by the time the Bastion has disappeared from view. I turn into the tide and rest for a moment. There is a satchel containing skins of water and breads and cheeses stowed in the boat, no doubt forgotten by the Seaguardians. I try to eat slowly, to make it last. I give some water to Raina, who takes a little but then begins to search for something else. She whines and wraps her hand around my finger. But nothing happens. I can smell sea salt, but that’s too real, too present. No woodsmoke, no calamansi, no petrichor. I can only hear the sloshing of the waves against our rowboat. I look deep into myself and try to find the invisible string that will connect our energies. It is a snuffed candle within me. I can’t access my powers.
Part Three
Things Are Not What they Seem
chapter forty-eight
hanan
I have no choicebut to row. The last remnants of Paranish slip across the horizon, and there is nothing but open ocean. Perhaps it has always been this vast blue expanse. When night falls is when the fear sets in. The temperature drops, and a haar rolls across the water, obscuring everything around me. I shiver as I row, almost dropping one of the oars. That’s when I call it. Raina and I curl up in my cloak and I set the oars beside us. There is no sleep, only the sloshing of the water against the boat until the cycle continues and the sun brings us warmth.
I stop and portion out how much we can live on for that day. Eventually I give in to Raina’s cries. I offer her my breast as I did before, but there is nothing for her there, no food nor energy. I try to keep her warm and dribble fresh water from the skein into her mouth. I protect Raina like an extension of myself. I sense nothing; even if there is life, I don’t feel it. I feel nothing now, just hunger and pain and fatigue.
The sun becomes a blessing but also a curse. We shiver in the night and bake in the day, with no shade, no shelter. I become unsure if I’m awake or asleep. The sloshing of my oars in the water begins to sound like fish approaching. I have no way to catch them. Sometimes I reach out with my hands, but they slip through my fingers, if they were even truly there to begin with.
My body has never seemed so fragile and brittle. My skin feels paper-thin, my bones soft as clay. No wonder the royals wanted morethan what plain mortality could give. Is this how the others have always felt?
I begin to see things that aren’t truly there. I’m following our first waymarker, a formation of rocks in the distance. Out of the fret comes not stone but a human form. A woman. Malostra, hovering over the water, arms outstretched. For a blissful moment I think everything that happened was a night terror. The warmth spreads over my body, and in my hazy euphoria I distantly understand that hypothermia is setting in. Malostra disappears into the fog and I have nowhere left as an anchor. I continue to row blindly until the sun sets in the haze. I am pulling the oars into the boat for the night when fingers crawl over the lip of the vessel.
Malostra emerges from the water. ‘Come into the water, my love. Swim with me.’
I turn away from the figure and focus on Raina, trying to cradle and shush her. She has taken water and little else. I keep her little body close to stay warm. She sleeps so much, I worry soon I won’t be able to wake her. I feel a cold mist on my skin but I close my eyes until it passes. The sensation of being hollowed out won’t leave me. I can’t get warm, and my skin is like ice.
The boat rocks and I come to myself, steadying my hands on the centre thwart. Out of the corner of my eye, the oar, wood like bone, slips into the water. I think I’m drowning, but then I realise I’m crying.
I feel my ribs beneath my fingers. More prominent than they ever were at the Bastion. We lie in the boat like fish and stare up at the stars. I must fall asleep under the warm dry blanket as I wake up shivering, my breath like smoke around me. I jerk awake, startling Raina who cries out in alarm. Holy Aistra, she’s all right. I blow on her tiny hands and swaddle her tighter. The sun beats down, but it is a distant thing, and I have never been colder. An incessant knockingin the background. I look around for the source. My boat is jutted up against a rock. It hits the side over and over again.
By Paranish, it’s land. I mean, it’s a desolate pile of rocks in the middle of nowhere, but it’s real. The stone is sharp and rough, cutting my fingers when I test it. There is no helpful slope, nor smooth approach to berth. I take the tatty rope and hook it onto a large pillar of a stone. Heaving myself out of the water and onto the rocks is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I tentatively feel for the vibrating life inside the stone. There’s a sickening silence. It unnerves me and I slip again, my ankle hitting the rock awkwardly. It washes over me far too slowly. I can’t feel it. I can feel nothing of the life around me because I was pulled from the living world.
