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“An’ even more brilliantly, ye have an army for when ye need it,” she adds.
And given everything the Maiwurian gods told you, you most likely will. Britta doesn’t have to say this part out loud for me to know it’s true.
The mere thought of it exhausts me, so I sigh as I add, “All I need now is to find my kelai. And fast. Very fast.” If there are as many shadow vales as the Maiwurian gods say—which, of course, there are—the Gilded Ones and the Idugu are getting more powerful by the minute.
Britta grins. “So wha’ are we waiting for, then? Lead the way!”
19
When we exit the temple, my body now securely covered in Queen Ayo’s armor, we find Keita, Li, and Belcalis rushing toward us, panic on their faces.
“Deka!” Keita says, running over the bridge and embracing me. “We returned to the stables and you were gone. And then Lamin told us he sent you here.”
After I return his embrace, I nod, glancing from him to the others. “If he did, why are you so panicked?”
“It was me,” Belcalis says, uncomfortable. She glances around, surveying the area. “Something’s wrong.”
“What is it?” I ask, immediately alert.
“I don’t know.” She shakes her head in frustration. “All I know is that it’s something. There’s something I’m missing.”
And Belcalis is rarely if ever wrong when it comes to these things.
I whirl to Keita and Li. “Everything’s packed?”
“Already in the saddlebags,” Li answers.
“And the gryphs are primed and ready to go,” Keita adds.
“So let’s say our goodbyes, then,” I say, marching forward.
“And then what? Fly swiftly away without informing me?” My entire group whirls around, gasping, as a familiar voice suddenly reaches our ears. White Hands. She’s floating just over the tiny stone bridge—or rather, the specter of her is. Light filters through it, giving the impression that it’s a reflection and nothing more. Which, in many ways, it is.
I gasp, shocked to see her. “White Hands, how are you here?” Nothing is supposed to penetrate the barrier between Otera and Maiwuri, not even White Hands’s gauntlets.
“Same way I always am, using these,” she says, raising her hands to display the armored white gloves. “The more pertinent question is, where are you? All this time, I’ve been trying to speak with you—”
“Us too!” Cheerful calls ring out as Adwapa and Asha jostle to be seen behind her.
They appear to be in some sort of ancient grove, purple-trunked ganib trees towering above them, their glossy green leaves rustling in the wind. Where that grove is, I can’t tell, but I don’t dwell on that, given I’m still caught by the impossibility of the situation.
“How did you do it?” I gasp, rushing closer to White Hands. “How did you make your gauntlets pierce the Great Barrier?”
White Hands seems perplexed by my question. “The Great Barrier? What are you going on about? And where are you? You disappeared completely from Gar Nasim. We were concerned.”
“Concerned?” A word so close to worried, I glance at White Hands, wondering if she’s all right. Then I remember her question. “We’re in Maiwuri—the Unknown Lands,” I quickly explain.
White Hands’s eyebrows furrow. “The Unknown Lands? But how did you—” Then she stops herself. “This is like the last time, isn’t it? When I visited you after you got stranded in Hemaira. You fell afoul of some godly device.”
I nod in return, grateful she’s such a quick study.
I swiftly fill her in on everything that’s happened, starting with when I met Bala and Myter, then I finish by saying, “I will begin my search in Irfut using some of Mother’s effects.”
By now, the stables are in sight, so I hurry toward them, relieved. Belcalis is still casting suspicious looks about. Whatever threat it is that has her on edge hasn’t abated, although White Hands’s presence seems to have made her feel slightly better.
“And what about you?” I ask her. “Where are you now?”
White Hands doesn’t reply. Instead, she looks up, distracted by something in the jungle behind her. I follow her gaze to the group of strange creatures suddenly flying down from the treetops to meet her, their images slightly blurred due to their distance from the gauntlets.
