“I have a profound idea.” Azamat lies back on the bearskin rug and props his head up with his hands. “Why don’t we let the girl speak and save the arguing for when we know what we’re actually arguing about?”
Most of the time I want to strangle the old man, but right now I could kiss his stubbled cheeks. “Thank you for the sound advice, Azamat.” I turn to Ziva, trying to convey with a single, searing look how serious this is.Do not make me regret putting my faith in you.
She rolls her shoulders back. “I will happily explain if I’m allowed to speak.” She glares at Iree, Bultum, and Lalyne in turn. “As you know, I spent a good deal of time hiding with my father in the Temple of the Kings at Sawtooth Mesa. It’s where every king of Verdenet is brought for their Awakening, before ascending to the throne. The temple is the size of an entire city, with rooms and halls branching out for leagues beneath the plateau. Before the Sky King invaded, it housed priestesses and scribes—”
“I’m sorry, but what does this have to do with Zemyan sorcerers infiltrating the land of the First Gods?” Iree interjects.
“Everything!” Ziva snaps back. “I wandered those halls for hours on end, day after day, studying the walls, which generations of scribes had painted with murals of Verdenese life and beliefs. They were beautiful, of course, but nothing groundbreaking. Stories I had heard a thousand times before. Except for one, though I didn’t realize it at the time.
“I had been on my knees for hours that day, praying to heal my father’s wounds and for deliverance from starvation and assassins, when the Lady put a distinct image into my mind of a mural I’d never seen before. For three days, I scoured the temple until I found it.
“The Lady of the Sky and Father Guzan were depicted high up in the sky, walking through what looked to be a floating garden, surrounded by high, jagged mountains. Their son, Ashkar, stood at the base of the mountains, where numerous people waited in line. One by one, they approached Ashkar and were turned away, until a group came forward, bearing a key. Ashkar inspected the key, counting the sigils of ice and snow and wind emblazoned on its head. Then he inserted the key into the mountainside, and when a tunnel appeared, he permitted the group to enter.”
“Were those people the Kalima?” Iree asks.
“I assumed they were the Goddess-touched—the select few who have proven themselves worthy to enter the realm of the Eternal Blue—and I was furious at the Lady and Father for leading me to something so unhelpful. But now I know what I am and what those symbols of the sky mean. The Lady of the Sky didn’t deliver us from Sawtooth Mesa then because She knew you would find me. She knew you would help me save my father and bring me to this point.” Ziva links her arm through mine, and an overwhelming flood of peace courses through me. A feeling I’ve only ever experienced while writing in my Book of Whisperings. Quiet confidence. Complete stillness. “The Lady gave me the key and the answers that would deliver us all—Herself included.”
Silence fills the room. There isn’t a word, not in Verdenese or Ashkarian, that’s weighty enough to describe the tightness in my throat or the lightness in my chest. The tremendous surge of gratitude and love I feel toward the Lady and Father. For guiding our feet and placing us exactly where we needed to be to find each other. To help each other.
“I believe you,” I say, a sob more than words.
Ziva’s laughter is full of tears. She looks up and wraps her arms around me. We bump into the wall, my trembling body suddenly unable to support our weight. We laugh harder as we regain our balance.
I don’t know what the shepherds believe about the First Gods. They weren’t in the habit of discussing anything with me, and to claim any god other than the Sky King was heresy. So I never mentioned the Lady and Father, and our quest wasn’t about Them anyway. But the expressions on each of the shepherds’ faces makes their stance perfectly clear: Azamat’s mouth lolls open so wide, I can see the gray, rotting tooth at the back; Lalyne lowers slowly to the floor, her hands clutched to her chest; Iree and Bultum, on the other hand, cross their arms and shake their heads, becoming even more disgruntled when they look across the room and realize they’re in agreement with each other.
Serik is the only one whose expression is unreadable. He stops pacing, and his anger ebbs enough that sweat no longer pours down my cheeks, but his face is completely blank.
“Can you give us a moment?” I ask the others.
Ziva, Lalyne, and Azamat go without complaint. Bultum and Iree eventually leave, but only after insisting on further discussion. Finally it’s just me and Serik, staring at each other, and I can’t tell if we’re standing on the same side of a battlefield or the opposite.
Since he is apparently incapable of movement or speech, I cross the space and lean against the wall beside him. The room is tiny—it has to be, with the thick walls built to keep out the cold—and it smells faintly of salt and cedar. Trinkets sit neatly on the dresser—a silver spoon, a pot of powder, and a bone hair-comb—as if the owner had every intention of returning. “Say something,” I finally plead.
“What am I supposed to say to all ofthat?” Serik tosses his hands, then drags them through his hair. It reminds me so much of our days at Ikh Zuree, I can’t help but laugh.
“Why are you laughing?” he demands. “This isn’t funny. So many lives—”
“I’m not laughing at you, Serik. Not in the way you think, anyway. I just love you.”
“Youloveme? Andthisis the moment you decide to declare it? When my thoughts are scrambling around my head like whisked eggs, and I don’t know what in the skies is true?”
I grab his wrist before he can resume pacing, and tug him close. “Thisis true. Me and you. Let’s start with that.” I tap his nose gently.
“You really love me?” A wicked grin crinkles his freckled face.
“How many times are you going to make me say it before you say it back?”
“You know I love you! I’ve been telling you for years.”
“Not in those exact words.”
“Because words aren’t the only way. Nor are they necessarily the best way.”
“Agreed.” I twine our fingers together and fit my head beneath his chin. We sit in quiet for a long moment, feeling the drum of the other’s heart. “Why did Ziva’s story upset you so much?” I finally ask.
Serik plunks down on the bed and buries his hands in his hair. “It didn’t upset me. It’s just … a lot. A few months ago I was certain the First Gods despised me. Or hadoverlookedme,” he amends when I give him a stern look. “How am I supposed to accept that the Lady and Father orchestrated all of this? That They know where we’ll be and what we’ll need, when They couldn’t acknowledge me or what I needed fornineteenyears?”
“Better late than never,” I say in an attempt to lighten the mood. “They act according to Their timing, not ours. Maybe you wouldn’t be as strong as you are now if you hadn’t endured those years at Ikh Zuree. It made you resilient. It taught you to question authority and never back down. Maybe you couldn’t be the warrior They needed until this moment.”
