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As I stand there, unable to absorb the thought of Anok imprisoned in the darkness below the Chamber of the Goddesses, unable to bear the thought of yet more sores traveling over my body, a shout reaches my ears.
“Funny ye should say ‘bury,’ ” Britta calls out, Li by her side. They gesture together, and the ground immediately rises, earth exploding up and over Etzli before swiftly slamming her down into its depths.
Once it’s done, Britta triumphantly wipes her hands while Li staggers, obviously weakened by using so much energy. “Take that!” Britta crows, staggering as well.
I grin at her. “My thanks, Br—”
My friend jerks backward, thrown clear across the grove by three hunters, who advance on her the moment she lands, a cloud of swift winged beings.
“Britta!” I shout, panicked, as I run for her. I can’t let the hunters get near her.
Strong though she may be, Britta falters against opponents who are faster. That’s her weakness: speed. And these hunters clearly know that, which is why the moment they near, they snatch her up and toss her between them like one of those leather balls the children in my village used to play with.
“BRITTA!” I’m almost to the edge of the grove when a powerful tug sends me flying backward. Etzli. She’s flapping into the air, eyes blazing with fury.
“No more running, Deka,” she roars.
She gestures at the space in front of us, concentrating until the air there begins to gather, growing and forming. Horror slams through me. She’s summoning a door, and not just any door: one that leads back to Abeya, the city of the goddesses.
I can see it now, the once-gleaming peaks shining through the rift that appears in the air. The temples, now broken and damaged, but still gleaming, nevertheless, atop them. I scream, struggling against her grip. If I go through that door, the goddesses will kill me and then snatch my kelai before it reunites with me.
They’ll use me to become all-powerful once more.
“Keita!” I shout desperately. Etzli’s grip is too strong for me to break, and she’s pulling me closer and closer to that door, closer and closer to my doom. “KEITA, HELP ME!” I shout again, but he’s too far away, as is everyone else—even Britta, who’s still where I left her, pinned down by the hunters.
Etzli is smirking now, victory in her gaze. “He can’t help you, Deka,” she says. “He’ll never make it to you in time.”
And my heart sinks as I realize she’s right. This was her plan all along, to use Britta to lure me far enough away from the others that she could send me through the door.
Etzli must have noticed the comprehension in my eyes. She smirks. “At last, you understand. There’s nowhere to run, Deka. Nowhere to hide. From here, it’s Abeya, and then it’s time for you to die. You can’t escape it.”
“Can’t I?” I growl, already imagining Queen Ayo. In my panic, I’d almost forgotten she was there—that the ebiki were there, just beyond the shoreline.
I project my thoughts as loudly as I can. QUEEN AYO! I shout with my mind. I NEED YOU!
Far off into the waters, a massive shape immediately breaches from the waves. Queen Ayo, the other ebiki surrounding her. They’re a distance away from shore, but they’re rushing in at full speed. In five, perhaps ten, minutes, they’ll be here. All I have to do is stall, wait Etzli out.
I glare up at the goddess. “I’ll fight,” I say menacingly. “I’ll fight you the entire way there, or I’ll change the direction of the door, the way I’ve done so many times before.”
Etzli’s smirk only widens. “Before?” She arches an eyebrow. “Before, you were whole, filled with power. Now you are only a fraction of yourself. Foolish child. How can you fashion yourself a god killer when you don’t even have enough power to fight against one small door? How can you hope to beat us when you can’t even heal your own wounds?” She glances contemptuously down at the sores marring my fingertips, the sores that are tingling even fiercer now, a prelude to the burning that accompanies the pain.
I take a breath before I look up at her. Look up at that hated, contemptible face. “I may not have that much power,” I say, stiffening myself against the pull of the door, which is opening wider now, wind sucking me toward it, “but neither do you. You’re a false god, Etzli, a demon masquerading as divinity.”
“Then isn’t it wonderful,” Etzli says, “that you’re here to deliver us true power? Because once we have it, we’ll devour our counterparts, then we will come for Maiwuri and the rest of Kamabai. We will remake the world in our image, and you, Nuru, will give us the power to do so.”
She gestures, and the door explodes open, that hateful lake and the water bridge atop it, crystallizing into view.
A cold sweat breaks over me. I can’t go back there. I won’t go back there. I won’t ever step foot in that place again. I can’t—
“ENOUGH!” The word is accompanied by a flash as eighty shimmering figures suddenly appear around us, each tall enough to reach the sky.
The gods of Maiwuri. They’re all around us now, watching. Blocking the door, which shrinks back to nothing.
Etzli falls to the ground, dropping me as she does so.
She swiftly picks herself up, our struggle forgotten as she points a gnarled finger at the celestial figures in the sky. “You dare! You dare lay hands on me! You who broke the covenant. You who stole her from our grasp!”
The gods sigh, a rumble that sends quakes through the ocean behind them, turning it dark and choppy where mere seconds ago it was placid. “It took Bala two minutes, two thousand chronomeres, to take her. You have spent much more time than that in our domain, Etzli of the Oterans. Our part of the covenant is fulfilled. It is now you who are breaking the covenant. Be gone from here, kindred.”
