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I haven’t done so since I used to watch myself in the lake when White Hands trained me. That’s why I never realized—I glow a brilliant, almost blinding gold. A color much brighter than anyone else around me.
Why did I never notice it before? I shine brightly enough to pick out from a distance. No wonder the gods and their minions kept finding me. I shine brightly in the dark!
But not for long.
I glance down at my hands again, already imagining their brightness dimming, growing just as weak as everyone else’s is around me. To my relief, they quickly do as I desire, their light growing fainter and fainter, until soon, they’re indistinguishable from those of my friends.
I’m just a part of the crowd now. Indistinguishable from it. The gods themselves couldn’t find me—nor can Melanis. To ensure this, I leap from the wagon.
“Everyone, scatter and regroup in ten.”
I don’t wait for their reply as I slip into the crowd, making several rounds until soon, I don’t even see the wagon anymore.
It doesn’t take long before Melanis is well and truly confused. I follow her path as she flies across the battlefield, maliciously ripping down aviax midflight. Her voice is even more high-pitched as she calls out to me, but I’m just another faceless figure in the crowd now. She’s well and truly blinded. Which is why, no doubt, she doesn’t notice White Hands mounting a gryph behind her, or Sayuri plucking a spear from a nearby soldier.
As they approach behind her, I nod grimly. Melanis is no longer my problem. Her sisters will take care of her. I double back to the wagon, where the others have gathered again, their gryphs already saddled.
“Deka?” Britta asks, confused.
“White Hands and Sayuri will deal with Melanis,” I explain. “And the gods can’t track me anymore. It’s time for us to do what we came here to do.”
I silently thank Anok again as I mount Ixa, who’s been patiently waiting. Get ready, Ixa, I say. We’re going into the city. And absolutely no stopping until we make it into the palace.
Deka. He nods, excited.
I turn to my friends. “It’ll be chaos in there, so stay close. I’ll lead you as safely as I can around the shadow vales, but you have to be prepared for anything. I don’t know what the gods are doing, but I do know this: whatever it is, it doesn’t bode well for us.”
“It never does, does it,” Katya tsks.
“No,” I reply. “But we’ll do what we always do: we’ll triumph.”
I nudge Ixa onward.
We enter the city within minutes, evading the aviax whizzing to and fro as they rescue the people caught by the vale wraiths as well as the vales themselves, which are a much more difficult proposition. They’re constantly opening in the most unexpected places. Even then, I manage to maneuver past them. All I have to do is watch where the vales’ tendrils are expanding and then steer my friends clear.
What’s not as easy to avoid is the divine armies. Tens of thousands of alaki, jatu, and deathshrieks are massed in the streets, most of them in varying levels of panic or fear. Where minutes before they were busy destroying each other, they’re now singularly focused on avoiding the vales, which thrum around them with malicious energy, their darkness covering the entire city now.
The gods, it seems, have abandoned all pretense of protecting their children. Instead, they’re letting the vales devour them all in a mad rush to snatch as many lives as they can.
I watch, horrified, as a Forsworn, one of those massive purple deathshrieks devoted to the Idugu, is dragged into a river by a slithering, serpentine vale wraith. He roars and shrieks, but the creature pulls him down with the same ease a child would a doll.
“Sooo, we’re not using the river, then, correct?” Kweku shouts beside me.
“Never!” I shout, shaking my head, but as I turn toward him, he suddenly goes flying into a market stall, courtesy of a deathshriek’s hammer. “KWEKU!” I turn back, but Ixa continues onward, not obeying my gestures.
Ixa no pause, he says determinedly, repeating the instruction I gave him earlier: no stopping till we reach the palace.
“I’VE GOT HIM!” I breathe a sigh of relief as Asha shouts this from somewhere behind me, grunts sounding as she lights into the offending deathshriek. I’d almost forgotten that I wasn’t alone here. That my friends don’t just have me; they have each other.
I just have to trust that they can handle whatever comes their way.
I continue on as Oyomo’s Eye rises in the distance. The former imperial palace is so close now, I can almost touch it. Tentacles reach for me, and I slice them away. One of those serpentine wraiths lunges out of a well to snap at Acalan, but he ducks so quickly, it goes crashing into a wall. Everything is a whirl of motion now, the chaos and sheer desperation of it all propelling us onward.
Then we’re finally there, at the very edges of Oyomo’s Eye, the palace’s once luxurious gardens rising above us. Ixa stops even before I call a halt, evidently having sensed the exact same thing I have.
“What? What is it, Deka?” Keita asks as he pulls his gryph to a stop beside me. The others quickly do the same, but I don’t reply. I can’t, especially not given what I’m seeing.
I had wondered why the Idugu were silent. Why they weren’t moving even though the Gilded Ones had invaded their territory. I’d even assumed that they must be locked in some kind of silent combat with the goddesses.
