Page 26 of Light Up the Night

Chapter Nine

The Delicacy of Trust

Messiah

It was a hundred and twenty degrees in the fucking shade. My shoulders were raw and yet blisters still managed to find new places to arise.

“The world is coming to an end,” the woman beside me predicted. A piece of bone hung from the center of her nose and draped over her lip. “The balance has been upset.”

“Shut the fuck up before I upset your balance, permanently,” Pariah quipped, chasing the wise woman off.

“Someday I’ll have my fill of her incessant pessimism, and I’ll jerk that damn bird bone out of her nose,” he vowed, staring after her murderously. “Why can’t she just read pebbles and tend to the pregnant ones?”

I swatted his arm and pointed toward the horizon. A bizarre square looking pattern was forming within the waves. The ocean roared with something I couldn’t place.

“She cursed us!” he spat, tearing off after her.

“No,” I called, following along. My gut was telling me to place some distance between myself and that sound, and I really didn’t have time to waste on an elder council if he actually got ahold of the woman. “Leave her be!”

Suddenly there was silence. A peculiar, deafening silence that sent chills down me. I glanced over my shoulder to discover the ocean had ran away. There were no waves. There were no gulls, only the panic of everyone who was still on the dock.

I stumbled a few times and squinted against an unsettling feeling. I hadn’t had a sip all day, but my vision just would not focus.

“The earth is angry, and the sea is about to punish us!” the wise woman called.

“You cursed us, and Azaria of the Savagelands is answering your prayers, you miserable wench!” Pariah growled, chasing after her, still determined to catch her despite the imminent danger.

“Pariah!” I yelled over the hillside. It was as if I were barely moving. The sand made each stride an exhausting effort. I leaned forward and cried out against the burning in my leg muscles, when I heard the promise of the seas return. Salt, I could taste the salt in the air.

I couldn’t risk coughing or stumbling, even though I wanted to call and look for my brother. I knew the crack and rapids were the sounds of the water destroying the shops. It was like every evil thing I had ever done was packed into the power of that wave, and it was determined to drag me back with it and swallow me from existence.

That’s what it felt like, anyhow, when all those things started rushing to the front of my mind. They melted away until all I could see was Chalice. A loud boom echoed across the land, knocking me off my feet. I clenched my eyes shut and hoped she knew how much she had meant to me in our short time together.

Only, the water didn’t take me; instead, something softer than a breath landed on my arm… and then another. When I opened my eyes, the ground was blanketed in ash. My brother stalked toward me, smearing blood and ash across his face.

“She won’t curse anyone else,” he grumbled, staring down at the chaos beneath us.

“How many fucking men did we lose, never mind the wise woman?” I hissed, too overwhelmed to deal with his pathological coldness.

“It doesn’t matter… every minute you spend here, men are dying at the Iron Inlet. Now you don’t have to wait on the sea.” He lifted his finger and pointed to the far side of the island. A mess of debris was still billowing out of the Torch of the Sea. Lava spilled down her side and appeared to be taking up residence atop the icy, unpredictable waters.

“Now we can march across,” I dumbly acknowledged. “How long?”

He shrugged and flanked an arm across his brow to fight the ashes. “It is a larger example of what happens when the blacksmiths stick the weapon into the water bucket, no? A few days. Let the surface get glassy. I’ve heard that from elders before. It will also give the wind time to get rid of that horrible smell.”

He left me then, off to the four corners of the desert. That was Pariah. Always alone. Thinking. I assumed that’s what he was doing when he went off by himself like that. For all I knew he was plotting my death. It wasn’t something I wouldn’t put past him.

The sooner I got home, and he went his way, the better. We had a perfect relationship like that, only seeking each other out when the universe had blown us off course. It was the only thing that hinted toward our family ties. A ruthless loyalty that neither of us could really define.

I spent the next two days as high in the sand as I could get. There wasn’t a chance in this lifetime that I would sleep in their pyramids. I cringed just thinking about a flash of water filling the many rooms within the stone structures.

It never came, though. The sea seemed to die down a bit, and the lava glistened for miles. A blacktop that I prayed would hold my armies as we crossed what was once dubbed the Ice Oasis.

“How many miles?” I asked, while standing on the end of the dock.

“Too many to count,” Pariah answered in an amused tone. He slung a bag my way, momentarily knocking the wind from me. When I finished coughing and righted myself, he had gathered the troops and started off without me.

Only Pariah.

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