Spin of Fate, page 34
How had Aina projected so easily? Meizan felt miserable. At least his chitronic abilities had returned, though he didn’t feel ready to channel yet.
Luckily, Chief Kanna did not expect him to. She pulled Meizan to his feet and led him outside the cavern, where her nagamor lay in a tightly curled mass.
She climbed its neck and ordered, “Get on.”
Meizan followed, careful to stay clear of the beast’s sharp beak. The nagamor paid him no more heed than a fly as Meizan settled a couple feet behind the chief. Its vivid scales were hard as armor and chafed his thighs as the nagamor uncoiled itself.
“Hold tight,” Kanna said.
Meizan had a brief moment to prepare before the nagamor shot upward. It wove across the sky in a rough rhythm, its body rippling, wavelike, with each beat of its feathered tail. Below, Malin blurred into a muted shadowscape. As they flew, Meizan filled the chief in on what he’d learned about Zenyra’s true plans.
“Break the chitronic shields separating the realms?” Kanna turned over her shoulder to look at him. “You’re sure that’s what she means to do?”
“That’s what Aranel said. But he was being annoyingly vague about it all.”
“Kal Ekana.” The chief frowned. “But if she means to restore the One Realm Era, then Kaldrav’s army will attack the first chance they get. The Narakhi too…”
Meizan’s gut churned at the mention of the demonic souls who dwelled in Narakh. They were a distant, almost intangible threat. Yet it was the knowledge of their foul existence that kept most Malini in check and stopped many from committing a crime evil enough to get them thrown into Narakh. Meizan shuddered to think what would happen if the Narakhi were loosed from their realm.
“What will Kanjallen do?” Meizan asked. “If the shields break and a war starts?”
“There will be no war,” the chief said tightly. “There will be no breaking of any shields. We will stop Zenyra, and Kanjallen will stay in Malin. As will Kaldrav’s army and every other filthy creature that inhabits this realm and the one below.”
“You don’t want the chitronic shields to break? Why not?”
“I would have wanted them to once,” Kanna admitted. “For years I cursed at the torana, wishing they would crumble.”
“What changed?”
Kanna’s shoulders tensed as if in preparation for an attack. When she spoke, Meizan had to strain to hear her over the wind and the nagamor’s tailbeats.
“Aina was a sickly baby,” the chief said. “I could never feed her enough. We were alone in the frostlands, always on the run. The snow kept most enemies away, but it was no place for a newborn. Each night, I would swaddle her shaking little body and hold her to my chest. She could not die, but she could suffer, and feeling her tiny toes and fingers turn cold as ice…hearing her pitiful voice, those little gasps as she fought to survive…”
Kanna’s voice grew thick, a tone Meizan had never heard from her. “I prayed one night, the first and last time I ever did. I prayed to Azyaka, if she existed, to make me suffer in Aina’s place. I prayed any sickness or pain that was to come her way come to me instead. I prayed fate take pity on this innocent creature, who was doing everything in her power to thrive, and give her the life it had denied me.
“Azyaka did not answer my prayers. Not then. I tried shoving Aina through the torana as a baby, to no avail. Fourteen years later, a nagamor attacked us and Aina ended up in the realm she should have been born to from the beginning. And the torana and the shields are what will keep her safe there.” Kanna wiped her eyes with a short laugh. “They may condemn me to endless suffering, but they will allow my daughter to live a peaceful, healthy life. The life she deserves.”
Meizan remained silent for a long while, and Kanna whipped her head around to face him. “What about you?” she asked, reverting to her brusque self. “What do you want to do?”
“Whatever my chief commands.”
“Blast your chief’s commands. Meizan, what do you want?”
Meizan pondered this, conflicted. The idea of ascension was tempting, even for him. Except it wouldn’t be ascension since there would be no upper realms left.
There would only be war. Whatever goodness and beauty existed in Mayana and Paramos would fall before the armies of Kaldrav and the Narakhi. The universe would burn, and the fires of war, now confined to two realms, would spread to all four.
Double the violence, Meizan thought. Double the bloodshed.
Innocent Mayani children would suffer as innocent Malini children did now. Soft-hearted idiots like Aranel would be captured and tortured, and their idiotic flowery kingdoms would burn. There was no way the Mayani would be able to fight back. They may be skilled channelers, but their soul-fearing tendencies would make them weak in battle.
If Zenyra did break the realms, it would not lead to balance or equality. It would only drag the entire universe into darkness.
When he voiced all this to the chief, she gave a satisfied nod. “You could live in Mayana too,” she said. “If you drank megarya blood to ascend. I’m sure there’s a way of ingesting it gradually so as not to risk erasure.”
“I wouldn’t last long. I’d fall within a week.”
“You won’t fall,” Kanna said, sounding more confident in Meizan than he ever had in himself.
He had considered drinking the blood after learning what it could do. He’d even entertained the idea of ascending and living in—Kirnos? Nishaki? Amaratir? Meizan had heard plenty about the Mayani kingdoms from the other Balancers, but he could never picture himself living in one. His loyalties were with Kanjallen, after all. His home was the clan, not the realm. And after seeing the outcome of Zenyra’s experiments…
There’s no way in hell I’m ever drinking that shit.
* * *
It took an hour of skimming over the fume-laden wasteland of Malin before Mir Tamasa, a leaden expanse edged by ragged cliffs, appeared on the horizon.
The nagamor sailed low over its slate-gray waters, but there was no sign of Zenyra’s boat or the small island Meizan had spied during his projection.
“There!” Kanna motioned toward the shore.
By the top of the escarpment stood two figures, one taller than the other.
The nagamor veered toward them. Meizan streamed chitrons to his eyes so he could see the figures clearly: Zenyra and Aina, the latter no longer bound. She clutched something in her shaking hands. Meizan squinted to get a better look.
Is that a syringe?
“Faster.” The chief kicked the nagamor’s side, urging it forth.
They were close enough for Aina to see them if she just looked up at the sky.
Meizan was about to call out when Aina raised the syringe and slammed it into her forehead. She crumpled to the ground, her scream muffled by the roaring wind.
The nagamor dipped down. Meizan and Kanna leaped off its back to land heavily on the gravel.
“Aina!” Meizan shouted. He drew his sword and rushed toward her writhing form.
The chief was a step ahead, energy crackling at her fingertips. Kanna fell to her knees beside Aina and slapped her daughter’s cheek. “What have you done? Answer me, stupid girl!”
Dark veins snaked across Aina’s face and her keiza grew duller by the second. The syringe dripped black liquid down her nose.
“Vandraghor blood…” Meizan stared at the syringe, then at Zenyra, who was watching Aina with an air of detached interest. “What did you do to her?”
“Nothing at all,” Zenyra said, tossing her braid over her back. “Aina did that to herself.”
“You treasonous bitch,” Kanna hissed. “You were supposed to keep her safe!”
Before Zenyra could reply, the air around them shifted. Meizan glimpsed a torana. Aina’s body lay just beyond it, surrounded by a blank whiteness.
The Universal Void.
Stumbling, the chief caught Aina’s body. She set her down with a curse, then dashed into the Void after Zenyra. Sparing a glance at Aina, Meizan followed Kanna just as the universe sealed itself around them.
The Void was an empty, all-encompassing nothingness. There was no up or down. No perception of space or direction. Somewhere in the distance—Meizan couldn’t tell if it was ten feet away or thousands—floated four spheres of colored light.
Meizan and Kanna raced after Zenyra. It was unsettling, running through the Void. There was nothing below him, yet Meizan could move as if he were on solid ground. As the spheres grew closer, Meizan saw them for what they really were: masses of chitronic energy trapped within spherical cocoons of rock, each large enough to fit a mountain the size of Merumarth.
Are those the chitronic cores of the seitarius?
Aranel had said something of the sort, but Meizan hadn’t been able to decipher much of his frantic explanation. Meizan ran toward the spheres, noticing the carvings upon each rock: peaks and ridges and craters, tiny stone forests, and cracks that resembled rivers.
It’s the realms.
The rocky spheres of the seitarius cores represented each of the four realms. Which meant that the threads of pulsing light between them—three extending from each sphere and connecting to the others in a web—must be controlling the chitronic shields somehow.
“Chief.” Meizan lowered his voice as he came up to Kanna. “Whatever happens, those threads of light can’t be disturbed.”
She nodded, and Meizan streamed chitrons to his feet, attempting to latch onto those of the Void so he could propel himself faster. But he was met with a resounding emptiness.
There were no ambient chitrons in the vast blankness of the Void. Even the chitronic cores of the seitarius seemed to be sealed within their rocks, their chitrons inaccessible.
“We won’t be able to channel the environment here,” Kanna said, as she tried and failed to do the same. “We’re limited to our own chitrons and not a drop more. Use yours wisely, Meizan. I can’t be waiting around for you to recharge while I fight this madwoman.”
Zenyra reached the sphere and threw her arms back. In her palm roiled a bolt of squirming chitrons, saturated with the filth of her soul.
“No!” With a wild cry, the chief unleashed her own bolt and pushed it toward Zenyra’s.
The two bolts collided with a sizzle. While Zenyra’s was stronger, the chief’s was enough to alter its trajectory so that it curved away from the web and exploded in the distance.
“Witless woman,” Zenyra hissed. “Even your own daughter wanted this! Why would you of all people stand against me?”
“Because Aina is a brat who doesn’t know what’s good for her,” Kanna snarled. Her chitrons formed a crackling whip in her hand.
She lunged, and Meizan followed her lead. They attacked Zenyra in a fury, whip sizzling and sword flashing as they wove around one another in a seamless onslaught, focusing their strikes on her keiza. But even without chitrons, Zenyra was a force to reckon with. She danced out of reach, pressing one hand to her forehead and fending them off with the other.
Meizan had fought many battles alongside the chief. Yet Zenyra saw through their every attack pattern, not faltering even once as they whirled around her like twin hurricanes.
We can’t keep this up.
Meizan swerved to avoid an elbow to his face. But the exhaustion of projection hadn’t worn off, and his body wasn’t moving as he was accustomed. Pain bloomed across his eye and he reeled back, vision swimming. Kanna swooped into his place. Her whip lashed at Zenyra’s feet, then her forehead, but both attacks missed narrowly.
After what felt like an hour, the chief’s whip scorched a trail across Zenyra’s cheek while Meizan opened a shallow gash across her shoulder. But Zenyra’s keiza remained untouched. Losing patience, she summoned a pair of chitronic whips thicker and stronger than Kanna’s.
Meizan cursed as one of the whips curled around his waist and bound his arms to his sides. The chief was caught in a similar position, her own whip fizzling away.
“Stand down,” Zenyra ordered Kanna. “I do not wish to harm a member of Kanjallen. But if you continue your attempts to thwart me, I may be left with no choice.”
The chief strained against her binds and met Meizan’s eye. Keep fighting, she seemed to say.
They had forced Zenyra to rely on her chitrons to subdue them. The more they struggled and the longer Zenyra held them, the quicker her energy would deplete.
But Zenyra was not willing to wait. Gripping both whips in her left hand, she lowered her right, palm glowing, from her forehead.
“No!” Kanna cried, as Zenyra loosened a bolt of chitrons that streaked toward the seitarius cores.
Green light burst through the Void and knocked away Zenyra’s bolt a second time. A new figure leaped in front of her, pointing his sword at her keiza before she could react.
“Perfect timing, you idiot,” Meizan exclaimed with relief.
Aranel’s gaze flickered to him, then returned to Zenyra.
“Aranel,” Zenyra said in greeting, unbothered by the blade resting against her keiza. “How good of you to join us. It seems the Preservation are having you do all their dirty work nowadays.”
“I’m here by choice.” Aranel’s blade trembled. “I saw your chamber under Incaraz, Zenyra, and the results of your experiments. Tell me, what’s your great cause for which you’ve sacrificed over a hundred innocent souls?”
“Stab her already!” Meizan shouted.
The whip around him tightened. A stream of chitrons rose from its end to bind his mouth and muffle his voice. You already know she wants to break the shields! Stop being dramatic and stab her!
“My cause?” Zenyra gave a sharp smile, eyes gleaming in the whiteness of the Void. “Why, I plan to destroy the chitronic shields and restore the universe to its former glory. To bring back Kal Ekana, a single realm where good and evil intermingle at will.”
“Is that truly necessary?” Aranel asked. “If your goal is to help the Malini children, what if you recalibrate the shields instead of breaking them? Make it so innocent children cannot be born to Malin in the first place?”
“You naive child.” Zenyra sighed. “Even if I were to recalibrate them now, the Preservation would reinstate the original limits in a matter of weeks. You underestimate what they are capable of. This imbalance with the shields is but the tip of their treachery, and their leader, Kyrian, has a vested interest in maintaining the system as it was first created. It was his idea to hide it away in the Void and destroy all the torana leading to it.”
“The Preservation put the chitronic system in the Void?” Aranel asked, aghast. “I thought that was done by the seitarius!”
“So they would have us believe,” Zenyra said. “That particular detail is omitted from the Song of Salvation, and I suspect few of the current Preservation are privy to it. Kyrian will go to great lengths to preserve this inequality, which is why breaking it down is the only option. The first step to an egalitarian universe.”
“But if you break it, you’ll spark a war,” Aranel said, and if Meizan wasn’t tied up, he would have bashed his stupid, shiny head in for stating the obvious.
Have you learned nothing living in Malin, Aranel? Attack first, talk later!
“War is a necessary evil,” Zenyra said. “The four realms were only created when the peace of Kal Ekana was shattered by a war that threatened to break the universe.”
“But—”
“All I am doing is destroying an already broken reality so that from its pieces we might create our universe anew.”
“But Kaldrav’s army will tear the upper realms apart!” Aranel’s sword nicked Zenyra’s forehead, drawing a single droplet of blood. “The war during Kal Ekana killed nearly all of humanity—”
“Which is no longer a risk, since we are immortal,” Zenyra said. “And I will control the army, Aranel. Contain their violence.”
“How? How will you control the king of Malin and his army?”
“Kaldrav has already been…disposed of.”
Disposed of? Meizan almost choked on his own tongue. Did she erase him too?
Zenyra gave a chuckle at Meizan’s and Kanna’s shocked expressions. “He was no longer fit to lead, and his army now belongs to me. The two of you ought to be thanking me rather than standing in my way.”
Kanna let out a muffled string of curses, and Zenyra turned to Aranel. “Your fool of a teammate may not comprehend it, but surely you can. Without Kaldrav instigating violence and away from the taint of Malin’s chitrons, the soldiers will soon lose their desire to fight. Especially once they realize their opponents wish them no harm. I expect several will desert after a few days breathing the sweet air of Paramos.”
Even with half of Kanna’s face obscured by the binds, her disbelief mirrored Meizan’s own. That’s the most absurd logic I have ever heard, Meizan thought. He recalled his encounters with Kaldrav’s men. While some had been forced into fighting, twice as many had relished the bloodshed and torture.
Zenyra had only dealt with Malini children. She severely underestimated the hatred and resentment that brewed within the older generation. Amongst clans like Chiren and Razamir that had volunteered themselves to Kaldrav’s cause.
And the bloodlust of the most sadistic of Malini would not hold a candle to the demons of Narakh.
Lose the desire to fight? Even an idealist like Aranel wouldn’t fall for such shit.
“The war will be short-lived,” Zenyra continued. “A series of targeted attacks upon the Preservation and their most powerful allies. It will end once I have overthrown Kyrian, enabling the creation of a new order with everyone returned to their rightful realm.”
Zenyra prattled on, and Aranel listened in silence, shoulders shaking as he held his sword to her keiza. Meizan didn’t know what the hell he was waiting for. A few feet away, the chief gave an experimental wriggle. Had she managed to break free?
