Haelo Rising, page 29
At the edge of the lava pool, Little Keli held her hand out above its steaming, rippling surface. Instantly, the pool calmed, darkened. She turned her hand and an orb of lava rose from the pool, morphing into the shape of a predatory bird.
A phoenix.
In awe, the rest of the tribe that had gathered inside hushed their whisperings. The phoenix’s molten wings flapped once, gently.
“It’s happened,” Keli said. Suddenly, the skin on her bare shoulders darkened beneath her tank straps with a pattern of deep red that inked its way from her collarbone to her forearms, like crossing Vs and diamonds down her limbs. The way it arched across her skin reminded me of a candeon mosaic, tattooed diamonds instead of pearlescent scales.
Malia’s aura flashed with surprise. “The mark has returned.”
“So it has,” Kai said reverently.
Malia held out her hand. A glimmer of red fire appeared, dancing with the weave of her fingers. “So has the magic we once lost to the candeon race.”
Kai shared a look with Malia. “The bind of Maui and Tiberius has broken. The exchange is . . . reversed?”
The dozen Makole in the cave held out their hands, and with fierce magic, pulled red fire from nothing.
I panicked. What of the thousands of candeons at the bottom of the sea? They hadn’t lost that magic, had they? They were okay? The Makole still had magic, so surely it hadn’t all disappeared. Had we only reverted back to the magic endowed to our species from the beginning: the powers of earth and fire for the Makole tribe, and the powers of water and air for candeonkind?
What did this mean for my people?
The mantle of stewardship over tens of thousands of candeons would never go away. I could fight it; I could turn away from it. The Candeon Empire could fall and I could wallow in my grief forever, and still, in my heart, I would plead for the safety of my people. Just as Griffin would have.
“Take her,” Malia whispered to Kai. “We’ll let her rest.”
Outside, the afternoon sun hit my eyes, making me wince. The breeze, laced with the smells of my childhood, rustled more pumice from my hair. It had been weeks since I’d felt sunlight on my face. But this? This was not how it was supposed to feel. The wind cradled me, welcoming me with its embrace and enticing me to tap into its power.
I wanted nothing to do with it.
Kai set me down in the bathroom at the main house of the Yellow Plumeria. Malia was right behind him. “You’ll feel better once you’ve showered,” she said. She left for a moment, then came back with a towel and a stack of clean clothes. “When you’re done, I’ll be waiting on the lanai.” She tipped her head and shut the door.
Leaning up against the countertop, I didn’t move for a long while. The gold pola ring on my hand had gone ice cold the second Griffin died. Fate had broken her promise. Which meant I couldn’t go back through that lava pool to search the ruins of Pankyra; the pool wouldn’t obey my cold, useless ring.
My clothes were torn, my hair hung in dreads across the bruised cuts that marred my cheek and collarbone. My bare feet left flakes of dried blood on the floor; they must have gashed when I ran through the rocky, dusty scrubland of Pankyra’s surface.
Thinking of that made me remember the way Griffin had lurched back into my arms with the impact of three bullets.
And then I thought of Massáude.
I slumped to the floor, whispering, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” With a sob, I clasped the weighty diamond ring that still hung from a leather cord around my neck. I undid the knot and slipped the ring from the cord onto my finger, where it was supposed to be.
My husband was dead.
My home—my safe place—had died, taking with him an entire future of possibilities. The empire that I had sworn to protect was shattered. And it was my fault. It was all my fault.
I dropped my head into my hands and cried myself dry.
After a time, I pulled myself up from the floor and undid the buttons of my shirt. In morbid curiosity, I pulled one arm from its sleeve and twisted around to look in the mirror at my mosaic, which glistened in the sunset light streaming through the small window above the shower tiles.
It was still blue.
But it didn’t mean anything anymore. Everything it stood for had fallen apart.
The old bullet wound scar on my arm shined in the sunlight. I raised my chin, examining the thin scar line that ran along my jaw. I held up my wrists. How long would the scabbed, bruised wrists stay that color? Would the wounds ever fade?
Steam from the shower quickly filled the room. Warm water cleansed me of the grime, hardened gold droplets, and remaining lava grit, funneling it down the drain. Watching the tiny vortex swirl above the drain reminded me of training in the triaden whirlpool. Zeta and Dagger and Rebecca and Neo.
Please be alive.
Someone.
Anyone.
Done, and dressed in the comfy shorts, t-shirt, and underthings that Malia had left on the dresser, I moved through the beach house to the lanai where Malia and Keli waited.
“Aloha,” Malia said, her arm around her daughter. “Here, eat.”
I sat in the cushioned wicker chair across from them. A plate of grilled fresh vegetables, pulled pork, rice, and pineapple was already there waiting for me. At the first bite, my mouth salivated. I ate like a woman starved.
I guess I was.
“Not too fast,” Malia warned. “You’ll get sick.”
“Been there, done that,” Keli said. She blushed, probably realizing that this was not a moment for coy remarks. Though she held the weight of her clan’s future on her tiny, tattooed chieftess shoulders, I was glad to see that she still had her nine-year-old sensibilities.
I paused in my ravenous hunger. I planned to slow down, but in that pause I thought of Griffin. So I took another bite, then another, and kept going until my plate was empty and my thoughts could no longer hide.
Swallowing my last bite, I asked one of the hundreds of questions on my mind. “How did you know?”
“Know what?” Malia asked.
“That Griffin and I were in your cave?”
Keli’s eyes grew wide. “The whole freakin’ mountain shook.”
Malia tsked her, then confirmed what her daughter had said. “Until a few hours ago, that volcano had been mostly dormant for over a thousand years. I suspect scientists and geologists will be rolling in pretty soon to study it. We’ll have to hide the pool.”
“I can do that,” Keli announced eagerly.
“You, my little keiki, need to take this more seriously.”
“Mom, an ancient lava pipe just chucked two people across the world like a laundry chute.”
“Keli!”
“Mom. My powers over earth and fire have, like, tripled! I bet yours have to. Do you know what this means? We can probably send fireball messages like the candeons did. We can leave! We’re not stuck to this rock anymore!”
“This rock is our home.”
“Yeah, and I wanna see Disneyland.”
Malia’s mom-stare quickly tempered her daughter’s inappropriate enthusiasm. “Enough.” She shook her head. “And we have no idea what we can do with our magic now. There could be consequences we don’t know about.”
“That’s exactly why we should—”
“To bed. Now.”
Keli got up from the wicker loveseat in a slouch. She turned to me, her tone soft. “I’m glad you’re okay, Haelo. I missed you.”
“I’m glad you’re okay, too.” Then I quickly added, “Sis.”
The love in her eyes tripled, just like her magic. “I’m sorry about your prince.”
My throat tightened. I couldn’t take a breath. “Me too.”
She gave me a hug, which inflamed every sore muscle in my body, but I hid my wince from her. “Love you all the way,” she murmured in my ear.
“Right back at ya.” I refused to cry.
She grinned all the way up to her eyes.
It was too much. I wasn’t ready for this. I wanted to go back to Pankyra! Somebody had to search the rubble for survivors.
“Good night, Keli,” Malia warned.
Keli sighed softly and went inside.
Once she was gone, my eyes turned dark. “Have you talked with my father?”
Malia shifted. “You need to sleep. You’ve been pushed further than anyone ever should.”
“The only way you would know that is if Jade told you. Which means you’ve talked. What else did he say? What else happened? Who. . .” But I couldn’t finish the question.
“We’ll talk in the morning. Finish your dinner. The room off the kitchen is ready for you.”
“I need to get back to Pankyra. There could be survivors. We need to search for them.”
“You need to sleep.”
“I need to take care of my people.”
“Haelo.” Her tone softened. “You are barely holding yourself together. Your dad, the Beilsteins, your queen, your military . . . they’re all searching. Let them do it. You need to rest.”
She helped me from my seat and escorted me to bed.
Nestled under the covers, I watched the stars glitter outside the window, just like they had during the night Griffin and I had shared on the Red Hibiscus. I rotated my wedding ring around my finger.
Why?
Why had Fate broken her promise?
What had I done?
I cried dry tears until sleep finally took me away.
24
Change On The Horizon
When I woke, I sensed a familiar aura outside my door. I wanted nothing more than to launch myself from the bed and run into his hug, but my aching body wouldn’t let me. I gently pushed up into a sitting position, wincing.
He must have sensed that I’d woken up, because he knocked twice and then entered.
“Neo,” I said, my voice sandy.
He reached me in three steps, vaulting me up into his arms.
I hissed at the pain in my side.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I said, ignoring the broken ribs.
He set me down from his bear-like embrace. “Dad told me what you did. He saw everything from that stupid cat and I have been going out of my mind, you stupid, stupid, brave woman.”
“Griffin died.” My eyes brimmed with salty tears.
Neo wrapped me in another hug, my broken ribs screaming. “I’m so sorry, Lo.”
“I’m the one that’s sorry.”
“You? What on earth do you have to be sorry for?”
“It’s my fault. I’m the reason Massáude destroyed Pankyra.”
“Oh, hell no. Massáude is the reason Massáude destroyed Pankyra. That piece of sh—”
“I provoked him,” I said, stopping my brother before he could try to make me feel better. “He would have waited longer. It would have given you guys more time to figure out how to beat him.”
“You do not get to take credit for this. Hey, I’m your big brother; you have to listen to me.”
“I’m taller.”
He chuckled. “Of all things, you had to go there?”
After Neo and I had our moment, Zeta came through the door. “I swear on every priest known to every human, someday you will give me a heart attack. I’m serious. My heart will give out. But I’ll be proud of you, so there’s that.”
But I didn’t want to talk of hearts giving out, and I think she could see it in my face.
“Jade called us as soon as Malia told him you were alive,” she said. “Your brother and I were the closest. Jade will be here in a few days.”
“No, he should stay and help search for survivors.”
“He is. Hundreds of candeons are still searching. They haven’t found anyone.” Zeta’s face fell. “From what your father described, I don’t think there are any survivors. At least not anyone that was inside the island when it fell.” Her jaw ground and her gaze fogged. She looked lost in thought.
“The island didn’t fall. A psychopath ripped it apart.” I looked out the window. “There have to be survivors. In pockets of sea beneath the rubble. They can’t give up searching.” I stood up. “Zeta, I can clear the rubble.” Or had the severance of the magic between the two species taken that surge of power from me? “We have to get to them. There are kids down there. Families. My people are buried alive in that destruction.”
“Our people,” she said, eyes unyielding. “Our. People.” She rose from where she’d sat on my bed, agitated. “But they’re gone. And you are in no shape to leave.”
I put my hands to the sides of my head, the frustration overwhelming. “What about Princess Hyacinth? Did she make it out? I sent her into the city. If she didn’t make it. . . .”
“Hyacinth escaped. She saved a lot of people.”
Thank heavens.
“She’s part of the search party now. Galana Cora, too.”
“Cora’s okay? Last I heard, she was missing.”
“Mostly, yes, she’s okay. And Princess Penelope.”
“Penelope was with Alcaeus. Are you saying the Basileus is okay too?”
Zeta and Neo shared a look, then she shook her head.
“What happened?”
“We’re not sure. We only just heard. We’ll find out more soon.”
Something about Neo and Zeta being in the bedroom where I’d cried myself to sleep made me anxious to get them out. I gestured toward the door and led them out into the main gathering room of the beach house. For the first time, I noticed the unpainted splotches of repaired drywall from the battle that had happened here months ago. I couldn’t be in here.
I walked out onto the lanai and down the steps to the black-sand beach. The tide called to me; the salty air invigorated my body.
I needed the sea. Badly.
Once my toes hit the mellow surf, the minerals and life-force of the sea immediately absorbed into my skin like a sedative. I walked farther down the incline, not caring about how wet my pajama shorts were getting, and tilted my head back into the morning sunlight. The breeze rustled my shirt, then died down. Neo and Zeta followed just behind me.
“What did it feel like for you, when the bind between the Makole and candeons broke?” I asked, wishing for the return of the breeze.
“Probably like how it felt for you,” Zeta said. “The world just . . . felt different.”
How could I explain to them that at the moment the bind broke, I was completely immersed in feeling Griffin’s death so intimately there wasn’t much room to feel anything else? My world had changed, that was certainly true.
I didn’t respond.
Neo and Zeta shared a look. “Uh, it felt like . . .” Neo squinted, searching for words. “Like part of my aura left and then came back, but kinda different too, I guess.”
Zeta smiled grimly. “Eloquent.”
“What? You try describing it.”
She rolled her eyes, still somber even in her banter.
I dug my toes further into the submerged sand. “Have you tried your magic?”
“Just enough to make sure I could still summon ocean currents.” Zeta said. “Polas are gone. My ring went cold at the same time I felt the change in my senses.”
“And can you? Summon the sea?”
She closed her eyes. The tide that had been ankle-deep divided and spread out from us, like a six-foot-wide version of Moses parting the Red Sea. “Yes. More than ever.”
“Show-off,” Neo muttered.
I couldn’t do this—the banter. Or maybe it was that I didn’t want them asking me about my own magic: the magic that I’d used in a rage that had led to the destruction of an entire island. “Tell me what happened while I was in the palace.”
The water collapsed back to our ankles in a splash, spraying the bottoms of my shorts. Zeta’s teeth ground audibly. The corners of her eyes pinched in crow’s feet behind her aviator sunglasses. “You mean while you were Hector’s punching bag? He better pray to whatever devil he worships that we never cross paths again, because the moment I see his face, he’s a dead man.”
“He’s already a dead man.”
From my peripheral, I saw Neo bow his head. “Was it you?” he asked, squinting in the sunlight.
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m not.”
Neo stepped closer. So did Zeta.
I lowered my eyes, feeling the breeze on my eyelids, something I’d never thought I’d miss. “Grandpa is dead.”
Neo put his hands in the pockets of his shorts. “Zeta told me. He was good to us. I don’t think I appreciated him like I should have.”
I laughed through a sob. I’d had the same thought. “Me either.”
He smiled, something tragic in the way it framed his face. “We’ll cook some waffles in his honor. Tell stories.” He kicked over a stone under the water. “Zeta said that you were with him when he died.”
Zeta made a noise.
“What?” Neo whispered to her behind my back. “You did. And I need to know what happened.”
I shook my head. “Not really. He didn’t even know I was there.”
“That’s not what I heard. I think he felt you, Lo.”
“I like your optimism.”
“Here, take some,” he said through his teasing, brotherly smile while he wrapped his arms around me and tossed me a bit sideways. “I think you could use a little.”
I liked that he tried, really I did. But I wasn’t ready to play around. He got the hint and set me back in the water.
“You do not know how relieved your brother and I were when we heard you were in Hawai’i,” Zeta said. “In all the dread and grief, that news was a glimmer of hope. We got on the first flight here.”
“You two were together?”
Zeta blushed, and then scowled. “No. I mean, yes. Your dad sent us to find Ana.”
That sparked my interest. “Did you?”
“We have a few leads, but nothing yet.”
An image of Maria’s dead body flashed in my mind. “I promised Maria that I would make sure Massáude never found Ana or Lucas. What if by finding her, we lead Massáude right to them?”
