AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Be gone?” Etzli sputters. “The Nuru yet remains. She belongs to our side of the barrier.”
“Then we will send her back, so that you have no more excuse to linger.”
“I will take her.” Etzli is so firm in this reply that my heart sinks as I wait for the gods to answer.
Then they shake their heads as one. “We took her; thus, we will return her.”
“TREACHERY!” Etzli spits. “You conspire with our counterparts.”
“No, we seek to restore the balance, as is our duty. You would do well to remember yours.”
As I breathe out a relieved sigh, eighty heads turn as one toward me. “Come, Deka,” they say, and I blink, startled, as Bala and Myter suddenly appear, all my friends as well as the fully packed gryphs beside them.
All that time I spent hurrying back to the stables and I’d forgotten he could do that, gather my companions in the blink of an eye.
Myter turns to me. “It’s time to go now, Angoro. We will take you.”
Behind them, Etzli is in a fury. She turns to the Maiwurian gods, eyes blazing. “Take her where?”
“That is your answer to discern,” the gods reply. “Consider our covenant honored. We bid you farewell, Oterans.”
There’s another flash, and everything falls away.
20
The pathways have changed since the last time I saw them. Instead of a misty road, I’m now in the middle of a forest—but not the one I saw before. This forest is made of what appears to be crystal, the trees surrounding me like ethereal figurines whose graceful trunks arch high into the night sky, as if to touch the shimmering, glass-like moon. Water rushes in the distance, a stream wending its way through the grove surrounding me. The rocks guiding it are the same sparkling crystal as the trees, a thousand rainbows shimmering inside them. I have no doubt that all of it—the trees, the rocks, even the water itself—is an extension of Bala’s power. But there’s something wrong. I feel it thrumming inside me, this wrongness I can’t quite put my finger on. And I know it has to do with the pathways. Pretty though it all is, the trees are too sparse, the water’s too thin. I don’t know how to explain it, precisely, but it’s as if everything around me is suddenly faded—a softer, lesser version of itself.
And where is Bala? When I whirl around, alarm growing, there’s no sign of the kind, quiet god, and he’s not the only one missing. All my friends are gone, as is everyone I was just in the grove with. Where are they? Did Bala leave them back in Maiwuri? Are they all right?
As my panic starts to surge, a familiar exuberant chirp sounds in my head. Deka! Ixa says, and I whirl just in time for him to launch into me.
I fall to the ground with a startled “oof.” “Ixa!” I gasp, embracing him. “You’re here!”
Deka, my companion says simply, giving me a lazy lick before he rolls off me to lick himself in the privates, his most unpleasant habit.
I shudder, but then the trees suddenly begin rustling around me. Their leaves tinkle like glass, as if something is moving past their lower branches. When I tense, preparing for battle, a familiar burly silhouette barrels toward me.
“Oh, Deka, thank creation!” Britta cries as she enters the grove, the others and their gryphs following her.
“We’re all together,” Keita says, taking in our new surroundings.
“Keita!” I gasp, yet more relief surging through me as I rush over to embrace him.
I was so worried about my companions. About everyone in that grove with me. To think, Etzli made it all the way into Maiwuri. I can only hope that the gods there ejected her and Melanis’s hunters the moment Bala brought me here and that all the godsworn in Maiwuri did not have to suffer any losses because of me.
I cling tighter to Keita, not even minding when the pressure causes the sores on my fingertips to sting. I may be injured again, but at least I can hold him now, touch him and all my other friends whenever I’m upset. And as long as I’m careful and don’t use my abilities as freely as I did back in Maiwuri, it’ll remain that way.
I understand now what Queen Ayo meant when she said not to use too much power. Attempting to use any power outside of my combat state, as I did back in that grove, will trigger the sores. As long as I don’t do what I did back then, I’ll be fine. Whole until I can reunite with my kelai.
“You’ve made your way to each other—wonderful.” We all whirl, startled, when Myter appears in the middle of the pathways.
How they managed to sneak up on us so silently, I can’t begin to understand. They’re the largest thing in the pathways, aside from the trees. By all rights, they should be crashing through the foliage, and yet they move with such delicacy. Or, rather, everything else moves out of their way. I watch, eyes narrowing, as a branch twists away from the godsworn’s path, the movement so smooth, it’s almost unnoticeable.
“But you had help, of course,” they continue. “My divine lord is nothing if not a considerate being.”
“And where is your divine lord?” I ask, glancing around. There’s no sign of Bala, but he’s supposed to be taking us to Irfut.
Myter’s eyes go white. “We are recovering,” the god says in that layered, gentle voice. “The corruption, it touched us when we sent our kindred back to their home.”
