Chapter One
Arjun at the Skeleton Coast
I WAS GETTING REAL DAMN tired of sand in my mouth again.
I lifted myself up on bruised elbows and spat out a gob of grit, the familiar scrape of dust and wind swirling around me. The sun beat down relentlessly on us, the heat familiar and unforgiving. I’d grown too accustomed to clouds and the temperate weather in the weeks we’d traveled west, and now the light reflecting off the dunes was blinding even to me, a stark reminder that I’d been gone far longer than I expected to be. I staggered to my feet, looked around.
The first thing I noticed was that we were back on the Skeleton Coast. Great.
The second thing I noticed was that the portal we’d scrambled out of was still hovering in the air behind us, dark and angry against the otherwise bright sky. The creatures that made their homes in the depths of the Great Abyss were crawling toward us; still snarling, still roaring, still clamoring for blood. Behind them loomed the black, horrifying mass that was the corrupted form of the goddess Inanna. There was a sharpness to the shadow’s edges, like the darkness was fabricated from the same things fangs and blades were made of.
I drew out my Howler and fired a shot straight into the portal, taking out a few writhing shadows that had drawn uncomfortably close, but that only emboldened the rest. More monsters skittered toward the opening on what passed for feet among that horrific lot. A fresh round from my gun obliterated the front row.
Haidee pointed, and winds formed into Air-whetted knives that sliced through the hole, bisecting a good swath of the demons. The Catseye, Lan, was already swinging her sword, decapitating all the goddessdamned horrors that had drawn close enough to the portal to stick their heads through. Her companion Noelle jabbed at the monsters with a long spear.
But Haidee’s twin, Odessa, was frozen to the spot, her eyes locked on the shadows as they slithered closer, many reaching for her and failing only when Lan’s blade lopped off their limbs. Odessa was almost the spitting image of Haidee, down to her pale eyes and colorshifting hair. But the other sister wore her hair longer than Haidee’s shoulder-length cut, down almost to her waist, and had fairer skin—from a lifetime, I gathered, spent in a storm-swept city that hadn’t seen the sun in almost eighteen years.
“Close it!” I hollered at the others. “Someone close the damn thing!”
“I don’t know how!” The sweeps of cutting Air from Haidee had transformed into a full-blown gale. She gritted her teeth, brows furrowed. But shadows kept streaming out of the Great Abyss, their sheer numbers pushing them forward against the heavy gusts. “It’s not like there’s a lever to pull!”
“Well, it’s gotta have some kind of switch!” I redoubled the patterns rattling in my gun, the cylinder smoking as I willed more blue fire in. With my next volley, the whole landscape within the portal gate burst into flames, but the creatures were undeterred, climbing over the bodies of their scorched brethren.
“I can see them,” Odessa whispered.
“Obviously.” I was tiring fast; conjuring incanta took a hell of a lot out of Firesmokers in particular, made us ripe for both fatigue and injuries. I reloaded my gun, but the next bursts were weaker. In ten minutes I’d be tapped out.
“No. I can see them. The galla with the blue jewels.”
I followed her gaze, and saw a group of galla standing to one side, not participating in the attack. I could almost swear that parts of them were glowing blue.
We hadn’t known each other long; Haidee and I had met Odessa and her guardians only a few hours before, discovered that Haidee’s twin sister, the girl Haidee had believed was killed at the Breaking years ago, had been alive all this time. It had been a tearful reunion.
It could wind up being a short-lived reunion, too.
“What are you doing?” Haidee shrieked, but I paid her no attention, planting myself in front of the portal and unloading on any galla that came too close, while also trying not to panic, blast at everything, and exhaust myself in the process. Lan moved to stand beside me; her broadsword didn’t have my range, but she was an army all on her own, cutting down shadows. I only had time to nod my thanks before shooting again, and she returned one of her own as she stabbed through a creature’s head. Noelle had retreated to a defensive position by the girls, singling out any galla that drew too near.
We knew what would happen if they succeeded in fighting past us. I had family out here. If these bastards got through . . .
Another wave of patterns seared the air. It slammed against the edges of the glittering portal. With a loud screeching sound, like the harsh scrape of metal against metal, the gateway began to shrink, so quickly we could only watch. Within seconds it was gone, and the Great Abyss and its rabid minions along with it. All that was left was familiar territory: the wide expanse of sand hills I’d seen almost every waking moment of my life, and the shining air-domes of the Golden City a few miles away.
“I did it!” Though short of breath, Haidee sounded pleased with herself, the incanta fading from her eyes. “I remembered! The goddess Nyx wrote about this in her journal. She talked about channeling all the gates at once to open the Gate of Life. She brought a bird back from the dead that way, but she also believed it could be used for other kinds of creation spells. I didn’t know what she meant, but I realized that a portal was in itself a creation spell, technically speaking, so it should also wor—”
“Haidee.”
“Don’t you Haidee me! And you! What possessed you—the both of you—to place yourselves in harm’s way like that? You’re good, but two people could not have lasted long against that horde! If I hadn’t figured out a way to—”
“Haidee.” I was breathing hard, still on a terrifying high from—I don’t know, avoiding getting eaten by moving shadows, to start—and eager to ease my agitation the best way I knew how. “Just shut up and come here.”
Haidee all but flew to my side, and I kissed her hard. Her eyes were still glittering when we finally broke apart. “I would have been happy with a simple ‘thank you,’” she said.
“Thank you.” Satisfied that she wasn’t hurt, I gave myself the once-over, checking to see if I was intact. Feet and legs, torso, head, both ears and eyes, nose and mouth, left arm and right stump, Howler. Yup, all there.
“It’s too hot out here,” Odessa muttered, her eyes screwed nearly shut. Gently, Lan tugged her lover’s hood up over her head, to keep the sun’s glare out of her eyes.
Too hot, and too bright. The Golden City was shining, and I realized that we were closer to it than I would have liked. Haidee had speculated that her mother, Latona, had emerged from the Great Abyss through a similar portal after the Breaking, that it had dumped her here in much the same way it had us. Given our proximity now, she was probably right.
Noelle flinched, shielding her eyes with a hand. “I can barely see,” the redhead announced, like she hadn’t been expertly stabbing monsters only minutes before. “What is this place?” She bent down and scooped up a handful of sand, letting it trickle down her fingers, amazement crossing her features.
“Never seen sand before?” I asked.
“Nothing as small and fine as this. And not everywhere.” Her eyes narrowed as her gaze drifted downward before she, to my surprise, fell to her hands and knees and began to dig.