Page 53 of Still the Sun

I twist the orb, shutting the power off. I need to show—

No one.

The thought comes unbidden, like it isn’t my own. I need to show no one. Not yet. Rolling my lips together, I stash the machine below the floorboards. More questions, but I have one answer, at least.

It’s time I get the rest.

Chapter 18

I don’t wait for the next mist to trek to the tower.

I expect Moseus to be waiting for me when I arrive, to talk to me about what happened. He was frustrated about Heartwood’s gods-talk in the garden, so I suspect he’ll be disgruntled about these memories, visions, whatever they are. But when I find him, he’s only pleased about the work. About the opening of the fifth floor and the final machine, which I learn he also can’t touch. He’s thrilled with my theory that it’s all one machine, five parts working in harmony. He says nothing of visions or past arguments.

That’s how I know Heartwood didn’t tell him. And if they’re truly like brothers, as Moseus once alluded, then why would Heartwood not tell him what I shared? What I remember?

Hopefully Moseus is happy enough about my progress that he’ll excuse another absence. Because Heartwood isn’t at the tower. Good.

It’ll be easier to corner him in the garden, anyway.

He’s there, sitting under the same wickwood tree I’m often drawn to, his back to the arch. I know he hears me—I don’t approach with any semblance of stealth—but he doesn’t move, doesn’t speak, even when I sit beside him, legs folded in front of me, our knees touching.

“I have a lot of questions,” I say after several minutes pass. “And you have answers.”

He closes his eyes, jaw tight. All right, then. We’ll start with something easy.

“Why are you here?”

His eyes open slowly, like he’s stirring from a dream. He doesn’t look at me.

Going out on a limb, I ask, “Is this the first or second time you’ve told me?”

A gentle breeze dips into the gorge, rustling my hair.

“A long time ago,” he begins, low and quiet, “there was a war among the gods.”

I say nothing. If he’s talking, I need as many words as I can get before he shuts down again. I don’t look at him, only wait.

“Ruin had devoured much, good and evil alike. Many took a stance against it, saying Ruin needed to be destroyed before the worlds as we knew them fell. Others insisted Ruin was a balance in the universe, as shadow is to light. The gods were split. Half went to war, and half refused. I was in the latter half.” He swallows, but I hear the tightness of his voice, the shame lacing his words. “I clung to the argument of balance. Ether stood against the Devourer. The gods prevailed. They ended Ruin and returned to their domains. But Ether never did. I tracked her here, to Tampere.” He raises his head. “But this world is not like the others. The moment I arrived, it trapped me.”

“Trapped?” So much for staying quiet.

Heartwood nods. “It sapped me of my strength. I am only a fraction of what I was.” Opening and closing his hands, he continues, “It did the same to Moseus during the war. He was never able to leave. He found me. And that rose ring around the planet, the ‘amaranthine wall,’ has trapped the casualties of the battle on the other side of the planet. We cannot pass it. No tool, weapon, or ladder can overcome it. Not as we are.”

I take a few seconds to absorb this. “And your sister, Ether, lives on the other side?”

“I know she does.” His hands ball into fists. “I canfeelher there. I’m so close. I’ve been close for years, but never able to reach her.”

I chew the inside of my cheek. “I’ve never been able to pass it, either, though I haven’t tried very hard. Maybe if we get the people of Emgarden—”

“I do not wish to make myself known to them.”

Pushing off the ground, I shift my seat to see him better. “Why?”

“We are outnumbered,” he says, meeting my gaze, and I bite my tongue to stay silent. His brow weighs heavy with regret. Despair. A lump forms in my throat. “And we are weak,” he finishes. “Should they deem us unfit or dangerous in any way ...”

Youaredangerous,I don’t say. If Heartwood can bend steel with his fist in aweakenedstate ... I can’t imagine what his full glory must be like.

I guess I’ve accepted that he’s a god.

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