“I will suffer anything,” said the Little Lady, “that will make you understand.”
Then she flung herself to the side, dragging Makari down with her into the boiling mud. Their figures writhed a moment under the surface of the mud and then were gone, sinking ever deeper, deeper.
Over them, the mud grew solid. As Romeo and Paris watched, the moss and the flowering vines grew across the raw earth, reclaimed it, made it whole again.
Makari is dead, thought Romeo.
He had already died twice. And yet Romeo felt like this was the first time Makari had been torn from his heart.
From this sinking, there was no return. Or rather, there was a return: but only once Makari understood zoura to the Little Lady’s satisfaction. And Romeo knew that would take ten thousand years, and he did not know whether to be sad or relieved at that thought.
He would not see Makari again.
He and Paris were now alone in the land of the dead.
Romeo looked at Paris. He thought, What do we do now?
“I don’t—I don’t where we are,” said Paris. His voice was small and lost. “This isn’t the Paths of Light.”
Romeo said nothing. His heart was breaking. He had never believed in the paths, but he knew what they meant to Paris, and he wished they were real for his sake.
“I suppose I could never have hoped to reach them,” said Paris. “I wasn’t buried like a Catresou, was I?”
Romeo wanted to lie and say yes, but he felt sure that Paris would know, somehow. And he wanted to say, You deserve peace even if no Catresou muttered over your body—but that wasn’t comfort, that was spitting on what Paris had spent his life believing.
Instead he replied, “I don’t know where we are either. But I can promise you this, you won’t face it alone.”
Hope startled onto Paris’s face. “Really?”
“I swear by my name,” said Romeo, “I will not leave you.”
35
THE CRASHING CITY WAS GONE.
She was not dead.
Juliet thought that, and in the next moment remembered, I am already dead.
She stood on a slope very like the one she first walked, before she met the Eyes and the Teeth. Again there were pebbles and moss, vines and little white flowers beneath her feet. Again the sky was pure black above her, and the light came from little glowing motes that drifted lazily in the air.
This time, she was not alone.
There were hundreds of people about her; perhaps thousands, if she gazed away into the distance. They walked slowly down the slope, some alone, some in twos and threes. Some were silent, some spoke—but their voices were only a faint, faraway murmur: the cool air felt vast and open, yet it muffled sounds instead of carrying them.
The sight should have given her hope. She had been told that all the dead must descend, and here were all the dead descending; surely Death herself was near. Yet the quiet, inevitable stride of the dead souls filled Juliet with dread. She felt that if she joined their march, she would become one of them—not the Juliet, not the key to death, not anyone who could hope to bargain with Death and win.
But if she stayed here, she would not be able to save Viyara. Runajo would sit vigil until the walls broke and the white fog of the Ruining found her there at the Mouth of Death and killed her.
That image gave her the strength to walk forward. Juliet started down the slope, and after a little while, her dread began to fade. She still remembered her quest. She still had command of her own feet.
She still had a chance to keep her promise.
Not all the dead walked peacefully. Despite the strange, muffling quality of the air, Juliet heard an old man’s raised voice. First it was just a garble on the breeze, and then she could make out words:
“Fools! They’re going to eat you!”
She saw him: a withered old man crouched on the ground, gripping the delicate, flower-studded vines as if they were the only thing holding him in place. Perhaps they were, because the crowd flowed around him like a river, all staring but none stopping.
Juliet halted. She looked into the old man’s wide, wild eyes—they were golden, bright against his dark skin: he had been Old Viyaran when he lived—and she said, “What do you mean?”
The old man’s lips drew back from his teeth in a snarl. “I mean that everyone walking down this slope is a fool. There are monsters waiting at the bottom. They’re going to tear us to pieces, and since we’re already dead, we’ll never stop screaming.”
Juliet remembered the Eyes and the Teeth, the creatures by the riverbank, and fear prickled across her skin.
Somebody sighed behind her. She looked back, and saw a tall, lean woman with her arms crossed.
“That’s just a rumor, you idiot,” said the woman. “There’s nothing at the bottom but the reapers, and all they do is snuff us out. Make us nothing, so we can finally rest.”
A young man, who moments ago was striding eagerly forward, paused at the woman’s side.
“Where do you hear these things?” he demanded. “At the bottom, we are all judged and rewarded according to the lives we have lived.”
“Count me out if that’s true,” the woman replied. “I’m walking only for hope of an end.”
But there was an affectionate curve to her mouth, as if she knew this young man and cared for him. He slid his arm into the crook of hers, and they leaned toward each other as they continued walking down the slope.
It was a kindly sight, but it left Juliet cold. She realized suddenly that was all she could feel: cold, helpless fear as the currents of wandering dead shifted and rippled around her, all of them driven slowly, helplessly, inevitably down the slope.
She thought, I must protect my people.
She thought, I must keep my promise.
The words felt like they meant little now. But she clung to them, repeated them to herself as she started walking again, down the slope, surrounded by the muffled voices of the dead.
She wondered what they were telling one another, what stories and rumors, what hopes and fears.
She wondered what waited for them all at the bottom.
“Do you want to know what the dead find?”
Juliet looked back. The reaper was behind her, wings slowly stroking the air, hovering with its feet barely the width of a hand above the ground.
“I can tell you a story,” said the reaper.
Juliet shuddered. She wished the reapers would fight her. She wished they would test her with any other torment except hearing tale after tale of mortals who challenged Death and lost.
Every tale drained a little more of her hope. Not just hope, but her will to fight. Every tale made her feel less like the Juliet and more like a nameless ghost, unable to save or remember anyone.
But she was not lost yet. She was the Juliet still, and while she was, she had a duty to fulfill.
“Tell me,” she said.
And the reaper spoke, and the story wrapped around her:
There was a boy and a girl, and they saw their parents die in a flood. Together they sat in a tree for three days as they waited for the waters to go down. Then the girl fainted from hunger, and fell into the water. She struggled and choked and drowned, and then she saw Death, wearing her own face.
The tale was like a cold drop of water, trickling down her soul. Juliet waited for the next part of the story, the twist that would send a wave of despair crashing through her.
But there was only silence, as the reaper tilted its head, studying her.
“That’s all?” Juliet asked finally.
There was an old man who had buried three wives and two children. But twelve grandchildren filled his home, and he was happy. When the sickness filled his lungs, his family wept. He closed his eyes, and he saw Death wearing his own wrinkled face.
There was a king who conquered all his enemies abroad, outwitted all his foes at home. His wife put poison in his golden cup, and he closed his eyes, and saw Death, wearing his own handsome face.
Juliet shivered. Everybody died; she knew this. She had always known it. But the quiet, inevitable way that the reaper told the stories stirred a deep fear in her soul.