A Practical Guide to Dating a Demon, page 26
“Lord Khasmodai,” the Chief Judge said, with a deep inclination of his head. There was a note in his voice I didn’t recognize. Fear? Respect? “It has been some time.”
“Has it?” Lord Khasmodai flipped his hand. “I cannot keep track.”
“What has brought you to Talum?”
The shayd turned to look at Daziel. “We’ve lost one of our young.”
“What do you mean,” Daziel said in a cold, hard voice, one I suspected was born of fear instead of anger or dislike, “that this won’t be necessary?”
“Ah,” the man said. His gaze roved over Daziel, then flicked to me. He looked unimpressed. “I mean you will not need to go on any quests or adventures or whatnot. Because you’re too late. The Ziz,” he said calmly, “is dead.”
Twenty-four
One could have heard a pin fall in the chamber of the Great Sanhedrin, though no one so much as breathed loudly. All attention in the room focused on the shayd.
I was too stunned to move. My vision blurred, and my breath came in short bursts. The Ziz couldn’t be dead. We were going to save it.
Daziel recovered first. “How do you know?”
“It has become quite obvious,” the older shayd said. “I commend you—though your mother will not—on attempting to solve this on your own, but enough is enough. Leave the adults to their work.”
“What work will that be?” Daziel asked. He sounded challenging, his chin jutted out, but I could see the flicker of both fear and desperate hope in his eyes, as though he wanted nothing more than for an adult of his own people to sweep in and make everything right.
“Why, we will have to prepare to leave Ena-Cinnai,” the shayd said. “There is little else to be done—with the Ziz gone, the winds will fluctuate so wildly the land will be unlivable within five years. Other lands will face their own difficulties, so it is not yet clear where will be the best place to go, but it is best to be ready.”
A moment of dreadful silence, and then the Sanhedrin broke into wild, unstructured yelling.
“I will discuss this with the Chief Judge and the grand duke,” the shayd said, his voice cutting through the noise. “You may call upon me at my usual rooms.” He vanished.
Chaos remained. I looked first at Aunt Tirtzah, appalled shock on her face, then Professor Altschuler, who wore a matching expression. So much for reassurance.
“Come on.” Daziel grabbed my hand. He pulled me back through the entrance door, into the small antechamber where we usually waited. No one bothered to stop us.
“Where are we going?”
“Somewhere we can talk.”
But we didn’t talk, not the whole fifteen-minute walk back to my aunt’s, not until we reached the relative safety of our room. I threw myself on the bed, grabbing the blanket as though it, unlike the adults, could offer some measure of safety. “Who was that?” I said, still shocked. “Do you think he was right?”
Daziel paced back and forth. Paz’s tiny head following him worriedly from the foot of the bed. “If he says the Ziz is dead, the Ziz is dead.”
“Is he right about the rest? The country will become unlivable—the world?” My throat was dry. I found it unfathomable, a nightmare I was desperate to wake from. “What are we supposed to do?”
Daziel looked grim. “I’ve never known him to be wrong.”
“Who is he?” I asked again, desperate to grasp the situation, to sort all the players, to find some angle to make this man less trustworthy.
“Ah.” Daziel stopped pacing. “That was my father.”
An entirely different kind of shock washed over me. “Are you serious?”
“Mm. Why?” He registered my alarm, which had graduated from angst on a worldwide level to deeply personal dismay. “What’s wrong?”
“Your father. Some warning would have been nice,” I said, aware I was being nonsensical; Daziel hadn’t known any more than me that his father would show up in the center of the Council room. But now I had to worry about meeting Daziel’s dad on top of everything else.
“He likes to be dramatic. One of the few pleasures allowed to him, he’d say.” Daziel sighed. “I’m sure we’ll see more of him soon.”
“When?” I looked down at my outfit, practical brown as usual. I wasn’t sure what one wore to meet the parent of their betrothed, but I’d have liked the chance to think about it. “Today?”
“I couldn’t say.”
The tone of his voice—defeated—caught my attention. “What do we do? If the Ziz is dead?”
Daziel looked on the verge of tears. “I don’t know.”
“But—how are we supposed to fix the winds? Bring on the Maestril? It should be here by now.”
Daziel shook his head. “We can’t.”
We had failed.
I hadn’t expected to fail. I’d known it was a possibility—I wasn’t an idiot—but in my heart, I supposed, I’d thought if I worked hard, if I didn’t give up, everything would be all right.
It wasn’t all right.
“Abandon Ena-Cinnai?” I said. “Surely not.”
Daziel came to the bed and lay down, pulling me into his arms. His voice was numb. “I don’t know.”
Hours passed; evening came. Eventually, we had to eat. We went to the kitchen and fixed ourselves bowls of leftover lentil soup, taking them out to the garden. “My aunt’s not back yet, is she?” I asked the housekeeper, Madame Chabert.
She shook her head. “She expects to be at the Sanhedrin until late.”
I half expected to be told to return, but maybe Aunt Tirtzah had decided we deserved a break—or perhaps no one needed to talk to a young shayd when an older one was around.
Daziel’s father.
As though my thought had summoned him, the older man entered the garden—by ordinary means, Chava at his side. She gave us a strained smile and retreated.
“So, this is where you’ve been hiding.” The man looked at me, his eyes as unnerving as Daziel’s the first time I’d seen them. “With a human girl. How quaint.”
Daziel straightened, his posture alarmingly perfect. “Father, this is Naomi bat Yardena.”
“Hello,” I said, uncertain of what to do in this situation.
“Typical-looking for a human, isn’t she?” the man said. “And no style.”
I flinched.
“Don’t be rude,” Daziel said.
Daziel’s father affected surprise. “Never. Let me look at you, girl. I have an interest in human civilizations.”
“Father,” Daziel said warningly.
“What? I fancy myself a bit of an expert.” The man withdrew a pipe from his sleeve and lit it. “I am composing an epic poem on the subject.”
“On humans,” I clarified, just to make sure.
“Yes.” He eyed me. “All so very needy, are you not? Enthusiastic but not very inventive lovers. And hard to shake.”
I flushed hot. Wow. Way to identify and go hard at my insecurities.
“Anyway, it’s time to come home,” the shayd said to Daziel. “Your mother is expecting you.”
“Father, there’s something—”
“I’m really not interested.”
“Naomi and I are betrothed.”
“No, you’re not,” his father said brusquely. “Sixty percent, maybe. Seventy percent at the most. Nothing to worry about.”
“I’m not worried,” Daziel said through gritted teeth. “I’m informing you.”
“And I’m informing you that you haven’t reached your majority. You have previous obligations.”
Previous obligations?
Daziel looked frustrated. Then he shook his head, as though shaking everything away. “How did you know the Ziz was dead?”
“The birds told us,” his father said. “And showed us the body.”
Daziel winced. “When?”
“Two days ago. Which is why we decided to call off this little adventure of yours. You took too long.”
“I would have taken less time if you’d helped.”
“Well, we didn’t,” his father said bluntly. He glanced at me again, then looked back to his son. “You may have the night to say goodbye. You will be at my rooms in the morning, ready to go. If you aren’t, I will fetch you like a child and drag you home.”
He vanished.
“Cool,” I said, and tried not to have a panic attack.
“Two days.” Daziel sounded numb. “Two days. If I’d moved sooner—told you earlier—we could have cured it.”
“Tried to cure it,” I reminded him. “We could have failed elsewhere.”
He let out a broken laugh. “But I failed here.”
“Daziel.” I put my hand to his cheek, made him look at me. “You can’t blame yourself for this.”
“Who else should I blame?” Self-recrimination filled his voice. “I made the call. I could have told you months ago.”
“You,” I repeated, aggravated, not at him but on his behalf. “Why was it on you? It’s like Yael said. This was bigger than you, than us. Your people, your government, they should have come to ours. It shouldn’t be on one individual to figure out how to save everything.”
Now he looked helpless. “But I could have done it. If I’d been smarter, faster. I could have saved the Ziz. And now it’s lost.”
“Oh, Daziel.” His pain cut through me as though I’d sliced my own hand. I gathered him to me, stroking his back.
We sat in silence for a moment, disheartened and depressed. I hated seeing him this way. So I changed the subject, trying to sound lighthearted instead of disconcerted. “Your father didn’t like me.”
Daziel looked pained. “He isn’t the most welcoming.”
“He said you have ‘previous obligations’?” I couldn’t suppress a displeased zing.
“There’s expectations in my family about what I should do with my life.”
“Like what? I thought you looked after a rock garden.”
He grimaced up at slowly drifting purple clouds. “For now.”
Great. I should have expected this. “I don’t suppose the ‘no more lies’ covered ‘clear up past lies by omission.’ ”
Daziel winced. “Ah. Yes. There are one or two of those.”
Our chairs jolted beneath us, and the stones of the garden path shuddered and jumped. On the table, our glasses and soup bowls skittered. Daziel leaped to his feet, grabbing my waist as though preparing to haul me into the sky, but the world stopped shaking as suddenly as it had started, leaving us standing together and trembling.
What was happening? If the Ziz was dead, were we really doomed? “Maybe one of the other scrolls also had helpful information,” I said, desperate for hope.
“Maybe.” He smoothed hair out of my face. “Come home with me.”
“What?”
“Come home with me. To the shedim lands. It won’t be easy on you, I shouldn’t lie, but we’re better prepared to handle strange natural magic.”
My heart skipped. I had no idea how to respond. I wanted to be with him too, but I couldn’t leave everything I’d ever known. “Daziel, I can’t. I have school.”
He laughed. “What’s school with the world falling apart?”
This was not a bad point. Still, the idea of leaving struck me as wrong. “I don’t know.” Surely there was still some way to stop the storms, the tremors, the destabilization of natural magic. I couldn’t leave everything at the height of this disaster.
Daziel must have seen the uncertainty on my face, because he switched tactics. “Let’s at least complete the betrothal.” His concerned gaze seared through me, with none of the mischievousness I was used to from him. “It might give you some protection. And the next few months aren’t going to be safe.”
“You’re going to leave, then.” Though his father had commanded it, it hadn’t sunk in.
“He’s more powerful than me,” Daziel said. “I’m not sure I can resist him. And I don’t know what’s left for me to do.”
Be with me, I almost said. Instead, feeling dizzyingly light and numb, I gathered up our bowls and headed to the kitchen. Daziel followed me there, and then we went upstairs. How could Daziel leave? When he had said he would prove he wanted to be with me?
But then, with the world ending, shouldn’t you go home? Should I go home?
“So now what?” I asked as we crawled into bed. “We give up? We’re done?”
“I don’t know,” Daziel said. “I hate that I keep saying that. But I just don’t know.”
Holding each other tight, we turned off the lights and shut our eyes. I didn’t know what else to say. Stay with me. I love you.
But those things were scarier to say than the world ending.
Daziel fell asleep quickly, a skill I’d always envied. I lay there, thoughts whirling. Outside, I could hear the howl of the winds, feel the strange rumble of the streets. I tossed and turned, trying to sleep. I caught the edge of it, the strange drifting from where you can never remember your thoughts, and tried to let myself fall. Images flashed through my mind—Daziel, the scrolls, my friends, the river, the caves, Mom, Dad, my sisters—
A high, thin voice: Don’t let me drown.
Another tremor jolted me awake. Great. Now I’d never fall back asleep.
I got out of bed quietly, trying not to wake Daziel. He murmured something and shifted, then lay still again.
I curled up in the armchair by the window, tucking my bare feet beneath me for warmth, craning my gaze up to see the moon. I couldn’t imagine leaving Ena-Cinnai myself, let alone with everyone who lived here. It seemed impossible. And if all natural magic was thrown off, there might not be anywhere safe. I didn’t know what we’d do then.
In the distance, silhouetted against the moon, soared the long, slim shape of a heron—its kinked neck, the long feathers of its plumage, the broad, distinctive wings.
I blinked. Had I really seen a bird, here in Talum, where we had no more birds?
Well, why not? The Ziz, Master of the Birds, was dead. Perhaps it no longer needed its court gathered to rend their clothes and sing a funeral song. Perhaps they’d all been released to go back to wherever they had come from. What else would they do without a new ruler to follow?
I stilled.
A new ruler. Most things did get new rulers once the old one died—kings and emperors for humans. Queens for bees.
Did mythical beasts? I’d assumed there was only one Ziz, eternal and immortal, and with its death, everything would end.
But…
Once it dropped an egg, which flattened cities…
An egg. A baby.
The Ziz controls the winds.
I thought of the winds pushing me toward the caves. Caves leading deep under the island. The wind wasn’t whispering to me now. But it had.
I thought of the odd shape of Talum, of our island and the islet curving toward each other. Like a volcano had erupted, leaving a caldera. But. Not only volcanos caused depressions.
The idea was so preposterous I almost laughed. I could accept the primordial beasts being part of the physical world, but it was more difficult to accept them interacting with it so bluntly, like in the stories.
An egg. An egg that flattened cities.
But it made a strange sort of sense. Like puzzle pieces clicking together. A heavy stone dropped from the sky could leave a crater. Maybe an egg from a legendary beast could do the same.
I shoved Daziel awake. “Daziel. Daziel, what if there’s an egg?”
He was sleepy and not built for waking immediately. “Hm?”
“What if that’s what the wind was trying to tell me?” I hadn’t thought about it recently, hadn’t connected the tugging wind to the Ziz’s ability to control the winds. Maybe the Ziz had tried to send me somewhere. “What if it tried to direct me into the caves—deep into the island. What if it sent those winds in particular? What if it was trying to send a message?”
He blinked. “And you think the message was…”
“That it dropped an egg here.”
Daziel stared. “What?”
“Not recently. Centuries ago. Millenia. Look at Talum. We’ve formed around a crater. What caused the crater?”
He shook his head helplessly.
“You don’t know,” I filled in. “No one does; it’s always been there. A volcano, some say. But what if it was an egg that fell from the sky, so large it could flatten cities?”
“I wouldn’t expect the egg to survive the fall,” Daziel said, but he sounded thoughtful, not disbelieving.
“Maybe it had a really thick shell.”
He laughed but not mockingly. More astonished. “And the reason the wind pushed you would be…”
“Because I was working on the spell to heal the Ziz. It knew I wanted to heal it—or, well, I was just working on the fragments, I didn’t know about the Ziz yet, but maybe it guessed. Or it didn’t have much focus, like your magic doesn’t, but maybe it said, ‘Send someone who will help to my egg.’ ”
“I feel obligated to point out this is all conjecture,” Daziel said.
“It’s a theory. And until it’s proven wrong, isn’t it worth investigating? Unless you have a better idea.”
Daziel shook his head, grinning wryly. “I have no other ideas.”
“Then we should look. Underneath the water, maybe, between here and the islet.”
“Through the caves. The wind directed you to the caves.”
Which caves, though? Without the wind guiding me and opening up hidden routes in solid walls of rock, I had no idea where to start.
Or maybe I did.
“At the Rocks,” I breathed. “The Rocks is all caves, and they go deep. We’ll start there.”
We left a note for Aunt Tirtzah—she probably wouldn’t stop us, but why take the risk?—and headed for Testylier House. Thousands of stars filled the night sky, a dusting of diamonds, a whirl of white.
