“What are you doing?” Lan asked.
“This isn’t sand I’m standing on. There’s something buried here.” The hole grew as she dug deeper, then made a startled sound. “Parts of what appear to be a statue.”
I shrugged. “That’s not unusual around here. The desert’s reclaimed a lot of ruins over the years.”
“But this one’s different. And very familiar.” Noelle pushed more sand away, revealing the eroded remains of a head made of dark granite. Its features had been worn down by the elements, but there was no mistaking its similarities to the statue that had marked the entrance to Brighthenge. The same statue the portals had originated from.
“Shit,” I said, staring.
“I agree. It’s smaller in size, so I would surmise this guarded a smaller temple. But it could explain why the portal leads out to here. Perhaps several such shrines were consecrated to Inanna in the past?”
“I presume this place would be Haidee and Arjun’s home? It’s . . . drier than I’m used to.” Lan was already on her feet, dark eyes searching the sandscape and assessing all possible dangers. She pointed. “You both live in this city?”
I guffawed. “Haidee does, but it sure as hell ain’t my home. It’s also why we gotta hightail it out of here. My clan’s located several miles out; the faster we start walking, the earlier we’ll reach the cave. Mother Salla will want to question you—”
“I want to go back to the city,” Haidee said immediately.
I stared at her. “Look, your mother might forgive you because you’re her daughter, but the first thing she’s gonna do is hang me by my ankles until I bleed dry.”
“I want some answers from her, Arjun.” The anger in her voice was palpable. “The world’s turning again, but monsters are still climbing out of the Abyss. Something’s wrong. If we’d healed Aeon like we should have, then this wouldn’t be happening. Inanna’s spirit would have been appeased.”
I stared up at the sky. Then I stared back down at the ground. I had no idea what a turning world looked like, but it didn’t look all that different from a world that hadn’t moved its ass in decades, like the one we’d always known. “How do you even know that the world’s started moving again?”
“I just do.” Haidee turned to Odessa. “You felt it too, right?”
The other goddess nodded, still pale and shaken. Lan crouched down beside her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Something else is coming,” Haidee’s twin said weakly. “Something bad. I can feel it.”
“Unless you found something at Brighthenge that says otherwise, your mother was responsible for destroying the world to begin with,” I reminded Haidee. “She’s done nothing about it for the past seventeen years. If you’re looking to her for a solution, you’re wasting your time.”
“Is she?” Haidee asked softly. “Is she my mother?”
I’d almost forgotten. Latona had never given Haidee a reason to believe that she wasn’t her daughter. But Latona’s twin sister, Asteria, hadn’t just survived the Breaking; she’d also been raising Odessa on the other side of the world. Haidee and Odessa had both grown up convinced the other was dead, that they were the only surviving twin. The older goddesses had each claimed to be their mother, further complicating matters. Personally, I thought Latona and Asteria were equally deceitful and I didn’t trust them as far as I could kick sand, but then again, I’d never been raised to have a good opinion of the goddesses who’d broken the world.
“I have to know, Arjun. I deserve to know why she’s been lying to me this whole time.” Haidee turned to her sister. Something unspoken passed between them, an understanding that needed no words; they both nodded at the same time, wearing similar expressions of determination.
“It’s not over, is it?” Odessa asked. “I thought that with Aeon turning the way it once did, we would be done. I thought destroying that demon meant it was finally over. But we were wrong, weren’t we? We didn’t kill it. That was only the beginning.”
“All the more reason for me to talk to Mother.” Haidee turned to me. “I won’t ask you to go back with me to the city. But she has to stop pretending that there isn’t a world outside the dome, or that what happens outside of it will never affect her.”
“How are you going to convince her that Aeon’s started turning?”
Lan raised her sword. “You might not have to travel to the city to let her know.”
The cloud of dust rising from the east was the first clue. I caught sight of the familiar green and bronze colors of the Golden City army among dozens of jeeps headed our way. Many of the rigs carried cannons, sparking as their fuses were lighted. The armored wheels overtook the marching army, guns trained in our direction as they quickly closed the distance.
“Please tell me this is a welcoming party,” Noelle murmured.
It was most definitely not a mother-daughter talk.
“Fat chance.” I tugged at Haidee’s hand. “I don’t think your mother’s happy to see you. I highly doubt that she’ll be overjoyed to see the rest of us.”
Haidee didn’t answer. Instead, she stepped forward and raised her hands over her head.
I didn’t know what she was planning until I saw a stream of patterns weaving around her wrists, spiking the air with sharp hues—I could only clearly identify the patterns of Fire, mixing in with others that I couldn’t. She stood there, unmoving, until the first of the rigs drew close enough for me to make out the faces of the men behind the wheel. She brought her hands down, and the patterns whipped themselves into a frenzy around her, churning up dust and pebbles.
“Haidee!” I yelled, just as a sandspout erupted from underneath the nearest vehicle, sending it hurtling into the air. Another abrupt gesture from Haidee dissipated the wind, and the jeep landed with a loud crash, throwing its passengers out several yards to bounce along the sand. She was mad, albeit not enough to actually kill them.
She repeated it with the next two rigs; by the time the third unsalvageable wreck came crashing back down, the rest had reversed their engines and retreated, stopping only long enough to haul away their injured. Haidee regarded the smoldering rigs with satisfaction. “You’re right. The time for talking is over. We’re shouting now.”
Damn, if that wasn’t a turn-on.
“Is this wise?” Lan asked her warily.
“I know my mother. The instant she regains control of the situation she’ll dig in her heels and go back to ignoring me and restricting my movements. I’m not giving in this time.”
The ranger eyed Latona’s men. “That’s very admirable, but there’s only five of us and a lot more than five of them.”
“We can try running,” Noelle suggested. “Though I fear they would catch us soon enough. There doesn’t seem to be anywhere to hide out here.”
“Haidee!” The voice was loud, amplified by tendrils of Air. A woman strode toward the front of the army, in a gold flowing dress that glittered against the light and was an absurd choice of clothing given the circumstances. I shifted my Howler out of reflex. I’d never seen the Sun Goddess in person before, and it was disconcerting how much she resembled an older Haidee.