Endless Water, Starless Sky

  Instead, the High Priestess halted a respectful few strides away and said, “If the blood of the gods is to be shed tonight, it is fitting for us to shed our blood as well.”

  Beside her, Miryo, the novice mistress, glowered at Runajo. “You’ll need all the help you can get.”

  “Hush,” said the High Priestess. “Take your places.”

  At her command, the Sisters spread out around the room in a ring, one stopping at each of the mouths of the city: the little stone bowls carved into the white stone floor of the chamber. And Runajo understood. They were here to offer penance, granting the walls what little extra strength they could.

  The Sisters dropped to their knees. Runajo’s stomach turned as she watched Miryo draw her knife and cut a thin line into her forearm—as the Sisters did the same, and all of them dripped blood into the mouths of the city.

  The rims of the mouths were carved from solid white stone. But here at the center of the Sisterhood’s power, the very stone was alive; as Runajo watched, the rims uncoiled into little tendrils of stone that curled up through the air, searching for the source of the blood.

  Then she had to turn away and stare at the sacred stone, her stomach churning—because she knew what was happening now, to Miryo and all the Sisters in the room. The little strands had burrowed into their wounds, and the white stone was blushing pink as it sucked out the blood from their arms.

  Runajo had offered penance only once, and the cold, foreign tendrils jammed into her arms had terrified her as knives never could.

  “Time to start,” she said, hoping her voice didn’t shake, and drew her own knife.

  She didn’t hesitate making the cut in her own arm: she’d gotten plenty used to that in the year she’d spent as a novice. The pain was a strangely comforting thing, because it reminded her that she had trained for this. Once, she had been one of the best at weaving the walls, and she had sat in a room above this chamber every day.

  There were three Sisters sitting in that room right now, still weaving. It was time for Runajo to change the walls they wove.

  She reached into the stream of light—shivered at the cold, bubbling sensation across her skin—and let her blood drip onto the sacred stone. Sunjai and Inyaan did likewise.

  Light sparked around the drops of blood. Runajo looked at Sunjai and Inyaan, saw them nod in readiness.

  She reached into the pillar of light. It parted easily into strands, curled around her fingers like the tail of an affectionate cat.

  Runajo started weaving.

  The problem was not just constructing a smaller version of the wall. It was also killing as few people as possible while they constructed it. If they simply undid the former walls and then built new ones, there would be a time—however brief—when all Viyara was completely unprotected.

  It might be that the white fog of the Ruining would not move fast enough, that the city could survive a few minutes naked before the power of living death.

  None of them had been willing to take that risk. The pattern that Runajo and Sunjai had hit upon would shrink the walls in stages, surrendering more and more of the Lower City to death.

  It had been a clever plan when they worked it out on paper. It was simple, now, to weave the strands of light in the rhythms they had planned.

  But Runajo couldn’t help remembering when she had walked through the Lower City with Juliet, seen the bustle in the marketplaces, heard the musicians on the street corners.

  There had been so many people. They couldn’t all make it into the Upper City. She tried not to think of it, because regrets changed nothing, and this was a bargain she had to make—but each time the walls shrank, the light shuddered between her fingers, and she wondered who was dying. Who was screaming as the white fog wound between the buildings, and a heartbeat later would be silent ever after.

  They were not any of her kin, dying down there in the Lower City. But that didn’t matter. They were all of them as infinitely precious as Juliet. She had seen that once, had understood it, and the knowledge haunted her as she wove their deaths.

  They would die anyway, she reminded herself. I am buying life for the rest.

  But she couldn’t stop the cold trickle of doubt, that this bargain might be as horrible and unclean as all the sacrifices of the Sisterhood.

  They wove the walls. They brought them down to the width they had planned, tightly girdling the base of the city spire. It only remained to make the walls take their new form and keep it.

  They wouldn’t.

  The pattern shuddered in Runajo’s hands, striving to be larger and smaller at the same time. She was weaving as fast as she could, but it wasn’t fast enough.

  “It’s not strong enough,” said Sunjai.

  “No,” said Runajo. “We can make it work.” Her hands moved faster, twisting the light into the new pattern, but it kept sliding out of her grasp, returning to its old form. They were, all three of them, twisting the new shape into the walls as fast as they could, but it was too eager to keep its old pattern.

  “We need blood,” said Sunjai.

  “We’ve got blood,” Runajo snapped. “We need”—she lunged to catch a strand—“another pair of hands—”

  But all the hands in the room except theirs were held in place by the greedy stone tongues of the city.

  “You promised me,” said Sunjai, and Runajo was about to ask when she had promised Sunjai anything, but then she realized that Sunjai was looking at Inyaan.

  And she knew. She knew what was going to happen, and she couldn’t stop it. Because the spell had to be maintained. When Sunjai lowered her hands, Runajo lunged forward to grab the strands of light that she had dropped. When Inyaan also lowered her hands from the light—Runajo couldn’t grab any more strands.

  She could only weave as fast as she could and watch.

  Watch as Inyaan drew her knife, as Sunjai threw herself back onto the stone, dark hair fanning out, eyes closing. It was the same position as the sacrifices at the Great Offering, but Sunjai wasn’t drugged; the dazed smile on her face was sheer, idiot reverence, and Runajo’s heart was helplessly beating faster and faster—

  “No,” Runajo said desperately. “Don’t.”

  Inyaan was expressionless as she touched Sunjai’s cheek gently, briefly. Then her knife flashed with the reflected light of the walls as it struck.

  Runajo had attended the Great Offering every year of her life. She had seen many throats cut before. But she had never—even as a novice—been so close. She had seen the spray of blood, but she had never felt any of the warm droplets spatter across her face and hands. She had never heard the strange, gurgling gasp of the air escaping from the torn throat, and she hadn’t realized how long the body would shudder and twitch.

  She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think. Her throat was clenched and her body was numb with horror. But her hands kept moving, weaving the new pattern into the walls, because if she stopped now they were all dead.

  Inyaan laid the knife down on the stone beside Sunjai’s still-twitching body. The neat little thunk it made against the stone sent a shudder through Runajo. Then Inyaan put her bloody hands back into the light and started to weave it again.

  Suddenly the light shivered around them, and Runajo felt a wave of power sear over her skin. The color of the light changed from a dull yellow to a pure white-blue.

  Runajo thought, Sunjai bought this, and she hated the thought, utterly hated it.

  Murder should not buy safety for gentle, helpless lives. It was wrong. It was obscene.

  It was the only reason she was alive, and weaving the wall between her hands.

  At last the pattern was strong and steady. She dropped her hands then—her arms ached with weariness—and flexed her fingers. Half-dried blood made her palms sticky.

  Inyaan’s and Sunjai’s faces were equally dead, their eyes equally sightless as they stared at her.

  “You killed her,” said Runajo. “You planned this.”

  “Yes,” sa
id Inyaan, for once looking back at her.

  You made me part of her murder, Runajo thought. I had a choice and no choice and I will have to remember her blood forever.

  As Juliet remembered the blood of her people.

  “I will never forgive you,” she said.

  Inyaan shrugged. “That is no matter to me,” she said. “I am the blood of the gods. Her life was mine to sacrifice.”

  24

  PARIS COULD STILL HEAR THE screams, but they were very faint now.

  It was partly because of the fog, which muffled sounds. His boots made only a soft patter against the cobblestones even when he ran. When he called for the Little Lady, his voice did not echo; the sound was tiny and fell short.

  Mostly, it was because this far out, there was nobody left alive.

  A revenant that had once been an old man shuffled past him on the street. It didn’t look at Paris: the living dead, he had quickly found, were of no interest to revenants.

  He was doubly glad now that Vai had gone back. He hoped that she had made it to the Upper City in time.

  Paris turned the corner of the street, and found a marketplace. The place was a shambles: stalls overturned, skinned rabbits and broken cups and a rainbow of scarves scattered across the ground.

  Wisps of fog drifted across the sky but did not blot out the sun. In the early morning light, all the colors looked pale and raw and dreamlike.

  The square was completely empty. All the new-made revenants were gone, drawn toward the base of the Upper City, where they could smell the living flesh and blood. Perhaps nobody was left out here but Paris and the Little Lady.

  He drew a breath and called again, “Lady Juliet! We need you!”

  He had no other name to call her. He wanted to believe that she would remember that name, that it would still mean something to her, as serving his Juliet still meant something to him.

  But there was only silence in reply.

  The hairs stood up on the back of his neck. Paris didn’t understand, at first, why he felt such sudden dread clutching at his chest.

  Then he realized: at the far end of the marketplace, he couldn’t see the buildings anymore. Only a curtain of merciless white fog.

  It was everywhere in the Lower City already. But so far the fog had only been in stray clouds and banks, easily avoidable. Paris hadn’t let it touch him yet, hadn’t yet tested his guess that he could survive it.

  He realized, suddenly, that he was at the edge. That beyond this point, there was only the fog, no gaps, no spaces to hide.

  And it was coming closer. White tendrils of fog slid across the ground, reaching like greedy fingers to touch the dead rabbits, the abandoned scarves.

  Paris couldn’t move.

  The fog was death. He knew that. He could feel it. And one part of him yearned to crawl toward it, drink it down, let it embrace him.

  One part of him was desperate to escape.

  He remembered Vai laughing as she kissed him. And Romeo throwing an arm over his shoulders. And Runajo saving him for no reason. And Juliet letting him kiss her hand, trusting him with a mission even though he was now living dead, an abomination who would never find the Paths of Light.

  And slowly, he walked forward.

  The fog came to meet him, rushing forward like a friend. One tendril reached out to meet his hand, twined around his fingers—he shuddered—and then it was all around him.

  It was icy-cold against his skin, and burned like acid. His eyes watered with pain and his heart stuttered in his chest.

  But a moment and a moment later, he was still alive. And still dead, but still himself.

  He opened his mouth, breathed in the fog. It burned in his lungs.

  Paris could hardly see now. But as the fog trickled into the hollows of his ears, suddenly the muffling was gone. He could hear ten thousand voices and footsteps and heartbeats; he could hear the shape of the city around him, and the screaming crowds still trying to force their way through the gates to the Upper City, and the relentless crowds of revenants following.

  And before him—not near, but not too far—he could hear one quiet set of footsteps, and one quiet heartbeat.

  The Little Lady.

  “You deserted us,” said Lord Ineo.

  Juliet knelt before him in one of the wide courtyards of his house. Several guards stood beside him. People crowded around the edges of the courtyard—she thought she saw Arajo’s face—the whole city was already awake for the disaster.

  “I was in the Lower City, killing a necromancer,” said Juliet. “But it’s true, I left the Upper City in defiance of your will.”

  Lord Ineo frowned. He was silent a moment, and in the distance, Juliet could hear the faint clamor at the gates.

  “Did Runajo go with you?” he asked.

  “Yes,” said Juliet. “Now she is at the Cloister. They are remaking the walls to keep the Upper City safe.”

  “Did Runajo order you back to us?”

  “No,” said Juliet, meeting his eyes, and she knew that he would understand these words, even if no one else watching did. “She released me from all the orders she ever gave me. I came back of my own accord.”

  It was a testament to Lord Ineo’s courage that he stared her down, barely flinching. The seals on her back still kept her from shedding any Mahyanai blood, but he had to know exactly how much destruction she could find a way to inflict, if she chose.

  “Why did you come back?” he asked.

  “It is the end of all things,” said Juliet. “I must be with my people.”

  She didn’t quite hear—she felt the way that the people watching shifted, breathed out, listened. She knew without looking that they were all looking at her as she said to Lord Ineo, “You are the lord of my clan. You have the right to punish my trespass. I am here to submit to your judgment.”

  And then she waited, heart pounding, for him to reply.

  Obedience was the one thing that nobody could take from you.

  Lord Ineo’s faint sigh was endlessly weary. But his voice, when he spoke, was calm as ever. “Rise. You will tell me everything about the walls. And then you will atone by standing guard at our gates.”

  The fall of Viyara did not last much longer.

  Juliet should not have been surprised. She knew quite well how quickly destruction could be accomplished. And yet she was surprised by how soon the screaming at the gates fell silent. There were still crowds trying to break in from the Lower City—she heard this from the people who passed by the gates of the Mahyanai compound; she did not see it herself—but they were silent. They climbed over each other as desperately as the refugees once had, their hands reaching and pounding; but as they scraped and crushed each other, as they tried to beat their way into the Upper City, they were absolutely silent, every one.

  A young guard told her that, his eyes haunted, before he went in to make his report to Lord Ineo.

  Juliet stared at the street before her—the immaculate white stone, gleaming in the morning sunlight—and wondered if the walls would hold, and tried to comprehend what had happened.

  It was Makari who had broken the walls. He was the one who had twisted the adjurations on her back, who had threatened Romeo to make her come to him, who had worked the final spell. She knew this, and hated him for it. And she knew that she had fought him in every way she could.

  But she hadn’t expected him to be so strong, there in his lair, and she couldn’t help thinking—if she had never gone, if she had let him kill Romeo—

  The walls had been breaking anyway. This would have happened soon, anyway.

  That horrible thought was her only comfort.

  Then she heard screams again.

  A moment later, she saw people fleeing down the street. Two of them—a man and a woman—bolted toward the gate she was guarding.

  “Revenants!” the man gasped as he shoved past. “Here! Summon the guards!”

  For one horrifying instant, Juliet wondered if the gates had broken, and the r
evenants were surging through the Upper City.

  But if that had happened, there would be far more commotion. It must be someone who had died just now and not been noticed.

  “Get back!” said Juliet, drawing her sword, and she charged forward.

  Then she turned the corner, and she saw what had found its way into the Upper City.

  It was Paris.

  He was deathly pale. His veins were swollen and visibly black through his skin, and black blood oozed out of his eyes.

  He was a monster, and Juliet’s heart turned over as she thought, I sent him to become this.

  But he wasn’t trying to attack anyone. He was stumbling forward, leading a girl with a perfect, doll-like face.

  Justiran’s daughter. The other Juliet.

  Then Paris saw her. His mouth made something like a smile.

  “Lady Juliet,” he said. “I found her.”

  Juliet lowered her sword. “Everyone stay back!” she called out.

  Paris let go of the girl’s hand and stepped forward to meet Juliet. She thought he was still himself—he was certainly no revenant—but the sight of him still set her stomach churning with instinctive fear, the knowledge that this was a dead thing walking in broad daylight—

  He stumbled.

  Juliet caught him. The movement was unthinking, and then he was in her arms, coughing up black blood. Her throat tightened in revulsion, but she couldn’t thrust him away.

  Paris sighed and went limp in her arms. Juliet staggered under the sudden weight and sat down heavily.

  “I found her,” Paris whispered. His eyes squeezed shut and opened again; she didn’t think he could see anything. “Did I—did I—”

  “Yes,” Juliet said. “You did.”

  It was tears that made her throat hurt now, but she couldn’t let herself weep. She was the Juliet, she was his Juliet, and there was only one thing left she could do for him.

  “You were very brave,” she said, “and you have served me very well. You can rest now.”

  She pressed her lips to his cold forehead.