“The fact we share strength and talents explains why they want me dead,” I said. “Is that also why they fear me?”
She was silent for a moment, her gaze on the distant horizon and her arm muscles flexing. She was fighting the queen—or whatever the queen wanted her to do. But how were those orders being relayed? The Adlin had retrieved one of her bracelets, and Trey still had the other. Hedra’s were buried deep along with her body, and Pyra’s set had been thrown deep into the ocean. Had the wind been ordered to retrieve them from the sea? Was that even possible?
No, the wind said.
“No,” Saska echoed, leaving me briefly wondering which question she was answering.
“Then why?”
“Because of me—because of our shared DNA—you can find her. Kill her.”
The queen? “Not without a damn army at my back, Saska.”
“With an army at your back, you will fail.”
“Not if we blast the shit out of the mountain.”
“It won’t help you. They don’t live in the mountain, but deep under it. Even if the entire range was flattened, you won’t stop them.”
“So an army won’t get near her, but one person going in alone can? Saska, that’s insane.” And surely it was something she was being forced to say. Maybe the Irkallan queen didn’t just want me dead; maybe she merely wanted to lure me into her web so she could watch me die. Or, worse yet, use me.
“Oh, I’m well aware it’s insanity itself.” Her gaze came to mine again. “But it’s nevertheless a truth you should not ignore if you wish to end this madness.”
“But how can you or anyone else be absolutely certain a mass attack wouldn’t bring them down? The earth witches never took the war to the Irkallan’s doorstep, Saska.”
“But they did—three times, according to the queen. And each time they failed, because all life was drained out of the Blacksaw Mountains by some unknown force long ago. Earth witches cannot command such soil, and air witches, unless they are stained, cannot interact with it.” She paused. “Life does beat deep under the mountain, in the heart of hive where the queen and the breeders reside, but the deadness above prevents Winterborne’s witches from using it.”
“So if I were to escort a small group inside—”
“You will die, as they will die,” she cut in. “They will sense their presence long before any of you got close enough to do them damage. Even a fully armed force would have little hope—the tunnels are too tight and too numerous. Your soldiers would be dead before they were even aware the Irkallan were close.”
“But wouldn’t that also apply to me going in solo?”
“No, because we are two halves of a whole and both born of Hedra. That is what will protect you as you enter that place.”
Not only born of Hedra, I realized, but also of the Irkallan. Bile rose up my throat and I swallowed heavily. As much as I had railed against Winterborne’s treatment of the unlit and the stained, the fact was, I was only standing here today because of it.
“So if I go in alone, you’re saying I have a chance of getting deep enough into the apiary to cause them damage? Maybe even destroy their queen??
“Yes. And you can retrieve the remaining bracelets and drop them into the black mirror, where no Irkallan would dare enter, and from which they will never be retrieved.”
I frowned. “Is this mirror magic?”
“Once you kill her,” she continued, as if I hadn’t spoken, “they will be in complete disarray.”
It was madness. Utter madness. And yet it made an odd sort of sense. Freedom, help me….
“So if I were to make such an attempt, would you come with me?”
The smile that touched her lips was tinged with sadness. “No. I dare not. I can fight the queen’s pull and ignore her demands with some success here in Winterborne, but I would very easily betray you if I ever got near the apiary again. It’s far safer that I remain here.”
There was something in her voice, something in her expression, that had fear rising. I wanted to reach for her, hold her, tell her that everything would be okay, that she was safe and that I’d protect her with everything I had. But the wind was telling me none of it was possible, that she’d passed the point of being kept safe long ago, that she no longer even wanted to be kept safe. The tears that were tracking down Saska’s cheeks were now also falling on mine.
Damn it, surely she’d suffered enough? Surely she was due some—if not happiness, then at least some peace?
Peace will only come with death, the wind said.
Meaning she would be welcome into collective consciousness when neither Hedra nor Pyra were?
No, and for similar reasons. We cannot afford to have their madness infect the collective consciousness.
But she wasn’t like them—she was at least fighting….
It does not matter, the voices said. She only fights because you are here. Your absence set her back, and Kiro’s actions further weakened her mind. What she has done here will yet cause much grief.
As fear rose anew, I finally asked the question I should have asked first. “Saska, why are you up here? What did the queen wish you to do?”
“What she wanted has nothing to do with this tank, but rather the pump rooms far below.”
My heart began to beat a whole lot faster, the fear so strong I could taste it in the back of my throat. “And what did she bid you do in those pump rooms?”
“She had me inject a toxin into the water being pumped up to this tower.”
Freedom, help us…. This tower supplied a good half of the water to the Upper Reaches households. “And that toxin? What was it?”
A strange smile touched her lips. One that was almost alien. “One that is fast acting, does not need to be drunk to be effective, and for which there is no known cure.”
“Saska, you need to come down from this place. We need to warn—”
“No,” she said softly. “We do not. That task falls to you, not me.”
“Which doesn’t alter the fact we need to get down from this place.”
For a second, she didn’t answer, but her arm muscles were flexing again and the death I’d seen in her eyes now surrounded her like a pall.
“Be ready, Neve. They’re coming.”
And with that, she threw herself over the edge.
11
“No,” I screamed, and lunged for her. But it was too late—far too late, to either stop or save her. “Air, please, you must help her! She doesn’t deserve to die this way. Not for her mother’s sins, and certainly not for anything she may have been forced to do since.”
It is her wish and her command that we do not save her, the wind said. It is the only way she can help you. The only way she can make amends for everything she has done.
“Damn it, no!” I dropped to my knees and watched her fall. Tears coursed down my cheeks and splashed to the metal underneath me, glimmering as brightly as the silver on Saska’s wrist.
Hedra’s bracelets, I presumed. I wondered how she’d retrieved them, but almost immediately scratched the thought. The wind had witnessed Hedra’s burial, and it wouldn’t have been too hard for someone of Saska’s standing to convince a lower house earth witch to help her when everyone else was otherwise occupied in restoring Winterborne’s defenses. Although I did have to wonder if that earth witch had subsequently survived the retrieval.
No, the wind whispered.
I watched her fall for what seemed an interminably long time. Despite the distance growing between us, there was a clarity to the air that allowed me to see her expression. There was no fear there, just serenity and acceptance. As she drew close enough to the waves that their foam splashed across her body, she raised a hand and blew me a kiss. And then she was gone, swept into the fierce grip of the ocean, her body drawn down, deep down, by the currents and her desire to never resurface.
Something within me broke. I wrapped my arms around my body and screamed in denial and pain. It was a sound the air echoed fiercely. As the skies opened up and rain pelted down, all I wanted to do was sit there and cry for the twin I’d barely known.