“Lan?” Odessa reached for me as I stalked past.
“I don’t know how well I can protect you in these sunlands.” It was different in Aranth. I knew the lay of the land by heart, knew all the possible vulnerabilities to fortify.
“You should talk to Arjun. And Mother Salla. You worry too much.”
I looked at Noelle. “Tell me we should be more worried. Or are you as calm as she is?”
“Being lulled to sleep, even as we speak,” my friend said drolly. “It’s not likely that Latona will be sending anyone after us just yet. Not when that puts her daughter—her daughters—in harm’s way.”
Leave it to Noelle to take the rational route. In the meantime, I felt like I wanted to claw out of my own skin. Good Mother, it was hot!
“How does she do it?” Odessa asked softly. She was watching Haidee. Like me, her sister was never one to sit still for long, and she was everywhere: first inspecting the stone walls on the other end of the cave with a critical eye, then looking through the clan’s meager utensils, and now surrounding herself with some of Arjun’s brothers and sisters and gesturing at one of their pots, explaining animatedly how they could improve their cooking time using some new improvement she was proposing while they listened, entranced. “They have even fewer resources than we do. She’s only just met Arjun’s siblings. They’ve been raised to despise goddesses. How can she be so . . . trusting? Optimistic? Some of them like her, already. I can tell. I envy how easy it is for her to be so . . .”
“You’re just as lovable.”
Odessa smiled at me, shook her head. “And you’re biased.” She gazed back at her sister again, a look of wonder on her face. “I have a sister,” she whispered, sounding almost disbelieving.
“What is this?” Haidee asked, tapping on the wall. “It could help me figure out the rate of thermal conduction needed to speed up your cooking time.”
“A cave?” Kadmos offered helpfully.
Haidee folded her arms and scowled at him. “I know what a cave is. What I want to know is what kind of stone these are made of. And how you were able to carve out a lair of this size for yourselves without any available heavy tools. Did you use awls? Special automata?”
The boy grinned. “Dunno about the rock type, but our clan’s been blessed with plenty of Acidsmiths. Imogen and Salome melted the rocks and smoothed down the walls for the tunnels. They scour off the grime and clean out any mold we find several times a year. Keeps things neat and tidy. Don’t you guys have Acidsmiths in the city?”
“Not a lot of them. Our mechanika had to improvise a lot.” She glanced curiously at me.
“Where we’re from?” I shook my head, still trying to towel off my neck. The heat was going to murder me long before anything else could. “None who could actually use their abilities. There aren’t enough stable Earth patterns where we’re from to channel with. I’m guessing you don’t have any Icewrights or Mistshapers or Seasingers out here, either.” It hadn’t stopped raining since we’d arrived at the Oryx’s hideout, and a good number of Arjun’s clanmates still mobbed the cave’s entrance, gawking at the water gushing down. Every conceivable container capable of holding liquid, even unused pots and pans and bowls, had been dragged outside and left to collect. Now, they watched the water gather with something bordering on reverence.
“We need to find more jars,” one of the girls, Derra, fretted. “What if the rain stops? What if it never happens again?”
“Can I help?” Haidee offered.
Derra froze, slight panic on her face. Likable as Haidee was, Arjun’s clan clearly wasn’t comfortable having one, much less two, goddesses in their territory. None of them had been outright hostile, despite Arjun’s admission that they had been raised to treat them as enemies. But most did look at the girls like they were live powder kegs apt to explode at any moment.
“We’re going to help,” Arjun said bluntly, laying a hand on the goddess’s shoulder. Haidee leaned back into his touch. His meaning was clear: Arjun wasn’t seeking approval for his support of Haidee, so much as he was declaring it.
“I can help too,” Odessa offered softly. “Where I come from, we deal with water all the time.”
“Arjun said it’s constantly raining on the other side of the world,” Kadmos said. He was the friendliest so far, and the words sounded like a tentative peace offering spoken on behalf of the rest. “With ice. I’ve never seen ice before.”
“You’re not missing out on much. Every few months large blocks of ice would drift toward our city, and we had to blast them away before they got too close.” I yanked at my collar, and scowled. The heat was another thing I didn’t have a plan for, and it was bothering me more than I wanted it to. I’d had no idea I was capable of sweating this much, or how uncomfortable that would be.
“It’s not that bad,” Odessa said mildly.
“Speak for yourself. I feel like I’m being slow-cooked over a fire the size of a lunar lake.”
“Worse than being on a ship?” She was grinning. I knew she was teasing me, trying to get me out of my bad mood.
I couldn’t help it; I’d thought I was prepared for almost anything the extremes of Aeon could throw at me, but I didn’t account for searing heat. “Worse. I can throw up on a ship and get the sickness out of my system. There’s no escaping this.”
“What’s a ship?” Millie asked.
“It’s a bit like a rig, although it’s very large and has no wheels. It takes us over water.” Odessa tugged at her sleeves, then rolled them up. “What do you need us to do?”
“Derra and Mannix—those are our Mudforgers—are trying to squeeze as much water as they can out from the sand before this”—Kadmos gestured at the sky—“rain passes and the sun dries everything back out. But it’s a lot of work for just two—”
Odessa wove Air patterns, her eyes glowing blue.
The rain around us paused, hung suspended in the air, slowly collecting into an invisible container made of wind that stretched out over our heads. “You won’t have to pull it out of the ground this way,” she said. “Bring out all the jars and basins you want me to put this in.”
“I love her already,” Mannix breathed, as the others stared at her in awe.
“Are you sleeping with Arjun, too, or is it just the Sun Goddess who is?” Imogen was even blunter. “Is it like a two-for-one deal?”
“Imogen!” Arjun barked, turning scarlet.
Haidee burst into laughter. “I’d drop a whale on him if he tried!”
“I’m not with him. I—I’m with—I’m with—” Odessa glanced at me and quickly looked down, blushing.
Imogen grinned, and whatever tension still lingered disappeared. “I mean no disrespect, Your Holinesses. I just wanted to be sure that my brother here was a decision you made out of choice and not out of necessity.” She danced out of Arjun’s reach, dashing outside to the sounds of laughter from her siblings.
“Sorry about that,” Arjun muttered.
“It’s all right. They’re taking to me better than you did the first time we met.”