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I place my hand on his brow, letting out a ragged sigh when I feel soothing relief flowing over me. Finally, I can breathe again.
I don’t know why, but Ixa’s presence is the only thing that ever makes the pain fade. When I touch him, it’s as if I’m removed from my own body, even though I feel it there, dimly obeying my commands. The only thing better is when I’m in his mind, away from myself entirely. Only then am I completely free of pain, of the anger and accompanying emptiness that threatens to consume me.
I breathe again before looking down at him. My thanks, I say silently into his mind.
Deka welcome, Ixa replies, padding closer as I turn back to Britta.
I release another breath before I address her again. “What do you want? I was busy.”
Hurt creeps into Britta’s eyes, but she does her best to hide it as she announces, “White Hands has finally contacted us. She says we should search for any signals yer mother left us.”
“And what do you think Ixa and I have been doing all day, running up and down the island?”
“Ye don’t have to be rude, Deka.” Disappointment, another expression I’ve seen often on Britta’s face over the past few months, quickly overtakes her hurt.
Guilt swiftly rises in me at the sight.
Hard to imagine, but once upon a time, she was always smiling, always pleasant. If anyone could see the more favorable side of a situation, it was Britta. But now, her forehead is always furrowed and her blond hair hangs lankly around her face. It’s as if the strain of running has sucked all the joy from her.
Or perhaps it’s me and my anger, my continous lashing out.
I force myself to unclench my tensed muscles. “I’m not being rude. I’m merely stating facts.”
“Then here’s another one for ye: White Hands wants to guide us, help us be more effective.”
“If she wanted us to be effective, she’d be here in person instead of merely projecting herself here,” I scoff. “They all would.”
Half our group left with White Hands about two months ago to travel to the Southern provinces in search of more allies for our cause. The twins Adwapa and Asha; Kweku, Adwapa’s once slightly plump Southern uruni; Acalan, Belcalis’s haughty and formerly pious uruni; our red-spiked deathshriek sister, Katya, and her betrothed, Rian; and even a few of the other deathshrieks still loyal to us all went. Now that all of Otera’s deities—both the Gilded Ones and the Idugu—have shown their true faces, the One Kingdom is in chaos, one section of the population intent on sacrificing as many people as they can to appease the gods’ hunger, the other trying their best to just survive these treacherous times.
Which is why White Hands is building an army.
While I’m here searching for Mother, the key to finding my kelai, my former mentor is halfway across the world gathering survivors. Gathering soldiers. If she can assemble enough forces, she can stop the gods, imprison them again before they consume enough sacrifices to regain their power. We can take back Otera without my ever having to need my kelai.
And given my current state, she needs to do it as quickly as possible.
Something is building in the One Kingdom, something devastating. I can feel it in the air—a sense of foreboding—and I know I’m not the only one.
A tingle shoots down my spine. I turn to watch as White Hands coalesces in the square, her small, dark body a shimmering spectral image amid the half-broken statues that ring the center. She’s using her gauntlets, the bone-white armored gloves that are the origin of her name, to project herself here.
The sight of her irritates me further. “Why even bother using the gauntlets when she can’t do anything from wherever she is,” I mutter sulkily. Just because I know the reason White Hands isn’t here doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it.
Then again, I’m rarely happy about anything these days.
“All right, stop.” Britta’s tone is stern now, and when I look up, her expression is laden with disapproval. “That’s enough self-pity, Deka.”
“I’m not—”
“Yer in pain, I know this. We all know this,” she snaps. “But that doesn’t mean ye get to turn into a surly bear every time someone so much as looks at ye. We’re here. All of us—even Keita, who ye can barely speak to—”
She nods pointedly, and when I turn, my sweetheart’s watching me from a nearby rooftop, that fire, as always, burning in his golden eyes. The moment he sees me looking, however, he turns away, a long, lean shadow in the darkness. He descends toward the rest of the group, who are now swiftly making their way toward White Hands.
Britta’s not the only person I’ve been growly at these past few weeks.
“We’re all here with ye, even if ye’d much rather snarl at us than just talk.”
I sputter, “I don’t—”
“No, Deka, ye let me finish.” Britta steps closer, mouth set in a grim, determined line. “I know what is at stake here—we all do. More to the point, I know that yer not really angry.”
