“Definitely not. If Calix ever figures out a way across, this tunnel will lead him straight to it,” Galen said.
“We’ll bring it to Jitra for now. How are we going to carry him?” Kata asked, nodding to Zeph’s limp body. “It’s a long walk still.”
“I can do it,” I said, calling the flat rock we had used in the tunnel to me. The other men helped lift Zeph onto it, and I used my power to float him up.
“Do you—” Galen started, holding out the cage to Rian.
“You hold it,” Rian said, a small smile on his face. “That way you’ll keep your hands off my sister for a little while.”
Galen’s face soured. “You will have to accept this eventually, Rian.”
“Yes,” he said, moving ahead of Galen and me in the tunnel. “But not today.”
With a sigh, I leaned forward and kissed Galen gently. “That’s progress, at least,” I whispered to him.
He nodded, chasing my lips for a moment before pulling back. “Go,” he said. “I don’t want this thing to do anything to you.” His nose rubbed over mine, and in a soft, secret voice, he reminded me, “I love you.”
I kissed him once more. “I love you too.”
When the passage opened out onto the road, I saw that I had lost all sense of time. It was so dark it was nearly impossible to see. Rian and I didn’t need light, sure of our steps back to Jitra, while the others stumbled along, and I found myself walking beside my brother, reaching for his hand as our weary steps grew faster, eager to go home.
The entrance to the carved city was cracked, the stone threatening to fall. Galen kept the blood out of range so I could use my power, lifting my arms to seal the rock back together, unbroken. Unharmed.
Inside the entrance more rock had tumbled down to block the narrow passages. Slowly, carefully, I pulled it all up, Kata close behind me. With the last stone moved, a path cleared into the center of Jitra, and I halted, unable to go farther.
“I can’t,” I breathed. “Not without him. Not without all of them.”
Rian drew a ragged breath, tugging both of my hands. “Shy,” he said softly. “What does your power feel like? When you use it?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Kata’s told me it’s like strings, isn’t it? Isn’t that what it feels like?”
Sucking in a breath, I nodded. “Yes,” I said, when I wasn’t sure if he could see me in the dark.
“For wealth,” he said. “For secrets. For ferocity. For a full stomach.” His hands squeezed mine. “But most importantly, there is a thread because you’re desert born, and you will never be alone.”
I swore I could see them in the dark, my siblings and family coming forward to bless me just as they had the day I married.
Rian had been first, with his thread full of foreign coins that I now knew the cost of far too well. For wealth, little sister. That you never want for anything.
Then Cael. You won’t stand alone, he told me. He gave me a white-and-black thread woven together. You are desert born, and you will never be alone.
Aiden was next, with a blue thread knotted around a mountain cat tooth. For ferocity, he said, and I could feel the ghost of his fingers pinching my nose. Show them what the heart of the desert truly is.
And then Kairos. Sly as ever, and as I remembered his words, they chilled me and gave me a thrill of hope. Keep your secrets, he had told me with a flash of his bright smile.
And then, last, the spirits of two small figures who would be together in death as they always were in life. Catryn and Gavan presented one thread, tied around a small purse. I made the thread, and he made the purse, Cat explained. She put it around my neck.
It’s full of seeds, Gavan said. In case they don’t feed you.
So you never go hungry, Catryn corrected.
Gavan shrugged. Same thing.
Their spirits stepped back and faded, but I still felt them all around me, felt the warmth of the clan, heard the women keening their low song to send me on from the desert with blessings and love.
I was not poor. I was not alone, or broken, or hungry. Their blessings had carried me through every challenge and horror I had faced; in truth, I had never left the desert at all, and my child would know the light, the warmth, and the love of her ancestors.
And yet. Passing through this doorway without Kairos and his secrets made my whole body ache, reminded me of the threat that was looming just beyond the desert, the hate of my husband gathering like a storm. I hugged Rian tight and hard, and I felt his chest shiver with grief against me.
“We must do this,” he said. “Our feet will never fail to carry us home.”
“But Kairos,” I whispered.
“He’s safe,” Kata murmured, not far from us in the dark.
“You don’t know that,” I heard Galen tell her gruffly. “Don’t give them false hope.”
“I do know,” Kata told him. “The world has been broken and hurt, lying shattered in pieces for years. And now the powers have all returned, and everyone here has a role to play. Kairos has a role to play. We’ll find Kairos because not one of us can escape our fate.”
I leaned away from my brother, remembering the last night I was here, when Kairos wished I would find someone who moved the heavens and stars for me. I looked up, knowing I had, knowing that those star spirits were the most eternal of all.
I prayed my family had found their places up there.
I prayed no more of my family would have to anytime soon.
“Maybe,” I told Kata softly, “fate has only begun to play her hand.”
Acknowledgments
This is my fight song.
So this book sold in March 2015; April 1 of the same year, I found out that because of a long and tumultuous history with diabetes, my retinas were bleeding into my vitreous fluid and blocking my vision. I spent almost a year with extremely compromised vision, getting laser treatments, injections, and surgeries in both eyes—I spent a year not knowing if I would be completely blind within a few years (I guess I still don’t really know that, so keep your fingers crossed). I spent a month not lifting my head because to do so would disrupt a gas bubble that was keeping my retina attached.
Let me repeat—I looked at the floor for a month.
And all this while desperately trying to get my diabetes under control, and deal with an insidious sense of my own guilt and shame—I had done this to myself.
Through this all, I had this book. I worked on edits while I was facedown, making notes on Post-its since I couldn’t even use a computer because of the angle of the screen. Thinking constantly about this book, primed for the day I could raise my head—ready for the chance to heal.
It’s virtually impossible to, in a few public paragraphs, explain what a dark time that was for me, and the kinds of fear and depression I wrestled with. But in writing my acknowledgments, I somehow need to acknowledge what this book really became for me—it wasn’t escapism. It was proof that I was still capable. It was my ability to function. It was my measure of worth for myself.