We can get ourselves together here, she said. They should have Internet and outlets. Showers, beds, water. Food.
Their tiny shadow-moths grew larger as they dropped down to meet them, and they set themselves down in the shade of the palms and released their glamours. Karou took in the sight of her friends first. Zuzana and Mik looked weak and dehydrated, sweaty and showing signs of sunburn Note to self: You can sunburn while invisible but the worst was the strain etched into their expressions, and a disturbing laxness about their eyes that made them look unfixed, not fully present. Shell-shocked.
What had she done, bringing them into war?
She looked to Virko next, still afraid of what she would see in Akivas eyes. Virko, who had been a lieutenant of the Wolf, and one of those to leave her alone at the pit with him. The only one to look back, true, but he had left all the same. He had also saved Miks and Zuzanas lives. He was stalwart and weathered, well accustomed to the rigors of flight and battleno sunburn for him or fatigue, but the strain was there in his face, and the shock. And still the shame, Karou saw. It had been there since the pit, in every glance.
She gave him a look that she hoped was focused and clear, and she nodded. Forgiveness? Gratitude? Fellowship? She didnt quite know. He returned the nod, though, with a solemnity that was like ceremony, and then, finally, Karou turned to Akiva.
She hadnt really looked at him since the portal. She had seen him, in brief moments unglamoured, and she had been, every second, attuned to his presence, but she hadnt looked , not at his face, not into his eyes. She was afraid, and she was right to be afraid.
His pain was undisguised, so raw it made her own pain sing straight to the surface, pure enough for tithing, but that wasnt the worst part. If it was only pain, she might have found a way to go to him, to reach for his hand as she had on the other side of the portal, or even for his heart, as she had in the cave. We are the beginning.
But the beginning of what ? Karou wondered, desolate, because there was rage in Akivas eyes, too, and an implacability that was unmistakable. It was hatred, and it was vengeance. It was terrifying, and it froze her in place. When she had first lain eyes on him in the Jemaa in Marrakesh, he had been absolutely cold. Inhuman, merciless. What she had seen on him then was vengeance as habit, and fury cooled by years of numbness.
Later, in Prague, she had seen his humanity return to him, like a thaw releasing a heart from ice. She hadnt been able to fully appreciate it at the time, because she hadnt understood what it meant, or what he was coming back from , but now she did. He had resurrected himselfthe Akiva she had known so long ago, so full of life and hopeor at least, he had begun to. She still hadnt seen him smile the way he had back then, a smile so beautiful it had channeled sunlight and made her feel drunk with love, at once light-headed and firmly, perfectly, gratefully connected to the worldearth and sky
and joy and him . Everything else had paled beside that feeling. Race was nothing, and treason just a word.
She had just begun to feel that smile was possible again, and the feeling of effortless rightness, too, but, looking at Akiva now, it felt very far away again, and so did he.
As she understood it, there had been several thousand Misbegotten soldiers as recently as last year, and the final berserk push of the war had reduced that number to those she knew from the Kirin caves. Akiva had endured that, survived it, and then he had endured and survived the death of Hazael, and now he was here, safe, while possiblyprobablyhe lost all the rest.
What Karou saw in him was vengeance still molten, and it was wrong, it wasnt where they were supposed to be, but it felt inevitable. Brimstone had told her, just before her execution, To stay true in the face of evil is a feat of strength, but maybe, thought Karou, sick at heart, it was just too much to expect. Maybe that strength was too much to ask of anyone.
The feeling of half death was with her still. She felt flattened out, or hollowed out. Again.
She turned to her friends and, with effort, spoke almost evenly. Could you two go in and get a room? Maybe its best if the rest of us arent seen.
She thoughthopedZuzana might make some sarcastic comment to that, or suggest riding right up to the gate on Virko-back or something, but she didnt. She just nodded.
Do you realize, asked Mik, in a bald effort to jostle some Zuzana-ness back into Zuzana, that our three wishes are about to come true? I dont know if theyll have chocolate cake here, but
Zuzana cut him off. Im changing my wishes anyway, she said, and counted them off on her fingers. One: for our friends to be safe. Two: for Jael to drop dead, and three
Whatever she meant to say next, she didnt manage it. Karou had never seen her friend look so lost and fragile. She cut in. If it doesnt include food, she reminded Zuzana gently, its a lie. At least, so Ive been told.