The old man nodded. Grabbing another pot, he repeated what he’d just done. “I used to be a gardener at Ashfall Cliff. I worked happily under Head Steward Wen and often saw you when you were a boy.”
I tried to recall his face but failed. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember.”
He didn’t reply for a while, focusing on spraying his newly planted seed with water. “You don’t remember other things either...do you?”
“Remember what?” My hand wrapped tighter around Rook’s, grateful when her arctic energy flowed through me, snuffing out the fires that kept springing to life.
Abandoning his potting, the old man locked eyes with me. “Back then, we all knew you were different. We all watched you grow up. No one would’ve said a damn thing. We loved your family. We loved that you employed so many of us and granted such wealth to these remote villages. So...when they took you—”
“Wait.Howwas I different?”
“It was Housekeeper Mei who noticed first.” He pivoted and answered my question. “She was the one who taught us how to keep it a secret. How to make up stories to protect what you’d done.”
Rook sucked in a breath. “What he’ddone?”
The man nodded, his gaze on mine. “Exactly like what you did before. On the road. You know...with the heat?” He shrugged with a wistful smile. “You made the ground crack as if you weighed as much as the mountain itself. You made the air shimmer as if you harnessed the sun. When you were a child, you did that too. You regularly burned the furniture in your room and the carpenter in the village had a full-time job repairing what you singed.”
“Sothat’swhy she didn’t seem surprised,” Rook muttered. “She just looked resigned.”
“Who did?” I turned to face her, our fingers still entwined.
“Auntie Mei. When I woke up and you were missing—the night we fell into the waterfall, and...you know.” She flinched as if the memories of sex and setting the valley on fire weren’t suitable for a temple full of ghosts. “She noticed the state of your room—the warped walls and scorched handprints. She acted as if it wasn’t a big deal.”
“Itwasn’ta big deal. We were all used to it,” the old man said, his voice wobbling a little. “We knew you were different, but we didn’t care. We were honoured. We thought you were a little god descended from the heavens to watch over us, so when you were taken...” His eyes clouded over. “We knew instantly that something had gone wrong.”
The smell of sandalwood and ash clogged my throat. “What do you mean?”
“After you left...the mountain got hungry.” He wobbled against the table, tapping his head as if fact and fiction tangled inside. “People went missing and we could never find them.” His gaze locked on the memorial tablets looming over us. “First it was just a few. Unlucky and lost but no one panicked. ButIknew.” He tapped his scruffy shirt right above his heart. “I was the only one who heard the screams.”
“Screams?” Rook stiffened. “What screams?”
The old man swayed toward the incense sticks as if hypnotised by their smoke. “Men went first but then...women. My wife.” He spun to face us, his face slipping further from sanity with every word. “She vanished into nothing.” He looked at his hands as if water spilled through his fingers. “I spent three years searching for her. And I found nothing. Not a scrap of clothing or a single lock of hair.”
The flames in me grew stronger, crashing against Rook’s frost.
“The screams grew louder out there.” He flung his arm at the forest in the distance. “I moved away from the village, hoping she would be able to find me easier. But then children went missing. It was as if the very air snatched them straight from their beds.”
“And everyone just accepted this?” I scowled.
“The gods did it.” He whirled on me, his face contorting in rage. “They took them, just like they took you. I looked. I looked everywhere. That was all my life became. Looking. Searching.Hoping.”
“And you found nothing? No remains? No sign of them?”
“Not a drop of blood or single bone.” His laugh was brittle. “And how would we? They were stolen by people likeyou.People with power. Taken to the netherworlds to be devoured.”
“People like me?”
So we weren’t the only ones?
Therewereothers like Rook and me?
“People withgifts.” He glanced warily at the door as if monsters were listening. “They’re eating people to become gods.”
“Eating people. Right.” My tension switched to annoyance. These were just the ramblings of an old fool.
“They even eat the bones.” He leaned closer, his eyes alight with madness. “That’s why we never find any remains.”
I wanted to shake him.
