By early the next morning, with the burning eye of the sun already bearing down on us, the appeal of the carriage has completely worn off. The frame offers very little protection from the sunlight. Liren hands each of us spectacles with dark, smoky quartz lenses to make the glare off the alloy more bearable, but they can’t help with the oppressive heat that leaves us sticky with sweat and cramped together. The combination of the heavy warmth and the movement of the carriage gets to Kelda at one point, and she spends an hour with her head hanging over the side, throwing up. I let her have two of my water rations after that, and then she curls up tight next to me, her head in my lap, Ember nestled against the crook of her neck. I run my fingers through her hair until she’s deep asleep.
More than once, we have to stop so I can better hear Trinity’s song and adjust our course. It’s still steadily pulling us north, but east a bit, too, almost like we’re headed for the very top of the world. We have to take a wide berth around the city of Diligence, which even from a distance looks twice as big as Covenant. Other little mirage towns crop up here and there, too, sometimes so masked by shimmering heat waves that you don’t know if they’re really there or not. I check the skies a lot, watching for more Archangels coming toward us, but I see nothing.
Somehow, that doesn’t bring me any relief.
Nightfall makes the carriage slightly more bearable. Enoughfor most of us to fall asleep, at least, although Atlas and Liren take turns at the controls so we can keep moving.
It’s at dawn the next morning that Kelda taps my arm to get my attention. I look over at her, but she nods upward.
At the giant, dark, winged shapes flying high above us.
Three Archangels, circling slowly and lazily against the pastel early-morning sky. A hundred feet or more up, too far to reach even with phasing. Not attacking. Not coming down to get me. Just waiting.
Like they already know I’m coming to them.
Like they’re taunting me, knowing I won’t stop, even with their shadows haunting me, because this endless trail of stolen saints has to end and I’m going to be the one who ends it. Kelda watches me, worry tight all over her face, but neither of us says anything out loud to the others. I force a smile to try to show her I’m not bothered and put an arm around her shoulders, holding on to her until she finally relaxes.
When I look up again, the Archangels are gone.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
“THE GATE OF HEAVEN IS NOT FOR MORTAL EYES OR MINDS. IT IS BEYOND OUR COMPREHENSION, AND WE ARE ONLY PREPARED TO EXPERIENCE IT IN DEATH, AFTER HAVING SPENT OUR LIVES IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE HERALDS’ LAW. TO LOOK UPON IT BEFORE THEN WOULD BE TO ENDANGER OUR VERY SOULS.”
—TREATISE NO. 1BY MOST HOLY PREACHER HAL LOURDE, ORIGINAL CHAPEL FOUNDER
The blue of the sky is starting to darken again into a brilliant red-orange sunset when we reach a cluster of rundown shacks and small buildings, rusted and weathered by wind and dust, slouched together a few steps away from another rift of the Elysian Depths, although the span between the two alloy continents is narrower here. Maybe half a mile across at most, and there’s a rough metal bridge arcing across it. More than anything, the place looks like it serves as an intersection; water and naphtha aqueducts meet in a knotted cluster and shoot off in several different directions.
Liren pulls the carriage to a stop in front of a sloping shack with a little sign hanging from the eaves of the front porch thatreadsTHE LAST OUTPOST. It squeaks in an unsettling rhythm as it swings in the breeze. The carriage’s automaton mounts go dark as Liren places their hand against the crystalline pad, and my bones practically creak as I clamber out, stiff from disuse and the cramped quarters of the carriage. My skin feels sticky all over from dried sweat, and my lips are so cracked, my mouth so parched that I’d be tempted to stab my knives into one of those water aqueducts just to get at the liquid inside if I thought I’d actually be able to puncture them.
Trinity’s song curls around me, clear and welcoming after all the hours in the carriage, tugging my gaze northward out across the Plains. A pall of silvery clouds hangs in the air, maybe ten or so miles away, and the air all around it crackles with lightning, arcing downward in vibrant blues and yellows and pinks. A stagnant magnastorm, just hanging there above what looks like empty alloy.
But the song says otherwise. It’s ringing in my ears at a fever pitch, and I know with certainty that the Gate is nearby.
Orion comes up behind me and touches my elbow. “Val? You okay?”
“We’re close.” My hands tighten into fists at my sides.
“Hold up, don’t go getting any ideas.” Orion takes me by the arm, pulling me toward the shop. “We’ve been driving for two days. We all need to rest for a hot second and maybe eat something.”
I don’t want to rest. I want this over with. I want to claw my way into the Gate and shred whoever or whatever sits at the heart of it to pieces, and it feels ridiculous to delay another second. But my empty stomach growls loudly and exhaustion tips the worldaround me, making me lightheaded, so I reluctantly let him lead me toward the door.
It’ll be easier to make my move after nightfall anyway. When everyone is deep asleep, so they won’t be able to interfere with what I know I have to do.
The interior of the shack is just as neglected as the outside, with a counter in the middle of the room and shelves full of dust-covered jars and wares behind that. If anyone lived or worked here, it obviously hasn’t been occupied for a long time.
Atlas and Liren start unpacking their rucksacks, clearing away space and laying out bedrolls on the floor. Kelda climbs up on the back counter and starts looking through the jars of preserves and packets of dense hardtack crackers on the shop shelves, holding each one out to Ember to sniff and give the okay before she hands it down to Dani.
I stand at the grimy front window, my eyes fixed on the thick, shadowy line of the Depths. A little shiver trickles down my spine. I can hear the hum of Trinity’s song reaching up to me from the alloy. It sings in my bones, soft but insistent, digging at me, and for a second, I think I see a flash of blue-white light on the horizon.
“Hey.” Orion tugs at my elbow again, pulling me away from the glass. “Kelda found hardtack. Take a load off for a minute and try this”—he shakes one of the packets of hardtack in my face—“Sweet Cracker Tack Delight.”
I snort, rolling my eyes, but I also pluck the packet out of his fingers and slide down onto the floor, settling myself beside Kelda, who’s feeding little bits of hardtack to Ember, and Dani, who’s squeezing a small ration of water from the canteen intoher mouth. Orion kneels in front of me, rooting around in his rucksack.
“Good. You managed that without hurting yourself. How about we check those injuries next?”
I scowl at him. “Not me. I’m—”
“—fine, yes, I got that part.” Orion waggles his eyebrows at Dani. “You want to go first, Morales?”
