“What?”
“That’s the name of Marianna and Dianae’s book. I was sorting through my things earlier, and I found it.” She sounded dismayed. “Apart from some clothes, that book was the only thing I was able to salvage. Why didn’t I think to bring the journal with the ritual instead? I was heading into the Great Abyss; what possessed me to bring a romance book with me, of all things? Why am I like this, Lan? It felt like I was on the cusp of insanity then, with all the voices swirling in my head, but then I go and do something ridiculous like—”
I kissed her again, just because I could, and she sagged against me, as if her own weight was suddenly too heavy a burden to bear. It didn’t matter; my arms were strong enough to carry us both. “It sounds like something you would absolutely do, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.” I had no answers still for so many things, but here, even in this strange cave in the middle of all this sand and heat, I could protect her. I would. “Tell me more about Marianna and Dianae, and what they framed—”
“Oh, goddess!” It was Imogen, and she sounded terrified.
We glanced at each other, startled, then scrambled toward the cave entrance and joined the others as they stared up at the sky in the far-off distance.
“What is that?” Millie gasped, arms wrapped tightly around Kadmos’s waist. The rest of Arjun’s siblings were terrified, clinging to each other. Mother Salla was pale, her mouth open.
“Why is the sun going down?” Imogen choked. “Is it dying? Are we going to die?”
“Is this an attack?” Arjun asked us, stupefied. His Howler was raised, but he was at a loss as to who or what to point it at. Finally, he trained it on the now bloodred sun, which was disappearing from view over the horizon. “Do we fight? How do we fight?”
I couldn’t answer him, could only hold Odessa tighter with my hand on my sword, ridiculous as it was. I hadn’t been under the sun long enough to know why it was waning. But the skies were turning dark above us, and I knew what that was. The night had been too much of a fixture in our lives for us not to know when it stared us back in our faces.
“No.” Salla sounded fearful. “This isn’t an attack. Aeon’s turning, and this is the result. Oh, goddess. It’s a sunset.”
Silently, not knowing what else to do but huddle close together, we watched the sun fall for the very first time.
At least I would no longer have to complain about the heat.
Chapter Three
Odessa and the Clans
TWO DAYS AFTER WE WERE offered shelter by the Oryx clan, three desert tribes from the Skeleton Coast arrived: the Fennec, the Dorca, and the Gila.
As the goddess of Aranth, I did what came naturally: I hid behind one of the larger sand dunes and watched them alight from their rigs. Mother was the orator, and I’d never been comfortable in crowds. Romance novels hadn’t exactly prepared me for what to do in situations like this. And I sincerely doubted the clans would welcome me, even if I did know what to do.
While Mother Salla had said they were allies, the tension was obvious. Men and women nodded briefly at the Oryx mistress in acknowledgment, then turned their energies toward setting up makeshift camps without further conversation. Alliance or not, life in the desert prized caution as a survival trait. Three people I assumed were the tribe leaders sought out Mother Salla without delay, all of them disappearing inside one of the tents without another word. Nobody paid me much attention. Even if they’d seen me, they would have thought that I was just another one of the nomads, if a little awkward.
They must have seen the sunset, too. The night had fallen everywhere. Arjun’s siblings had been terrified, convinced that the darkness would be permanent. That the sun had risen again both times had yet to convince them of its now-cyclical nature, and I suspected that fear would also be common among the newly arrived clans.
For me, the last couple of days had been a blur, and the nights brought disturbing dreams where swarms of galla had converged on us; for every wave we defeated, still another appeared, stronger and more numerous than the last, and I knew with fearful clarity that they would keep doing so until we were all dead.
And then there was a shapeless void before me, of such horrifying asymmetry that it triggered my nausea just to look at it. While my friends fought the galla army, it slid toward me, enveloped in a foul miasma that pushed and prodded against my chest. Death, it said, reaching for the shadows clustered beside my heart, and I came awake, panting hard and relaxing only when I spotted Lan curled in her bedroll several feet away from me, sleeping undisturbed.
Now I reached up to lay two fingers against my breast, wondering. The dizzy spells and the exhaustion that often accompanied my illness had not resurfaced. I had tried to return the galla’s gifts, but was refused. Was this another vision? I didn’t want it to be, but it was getting harder to ignore it.
Instead, I tried to focus my mind on the details Salla had provided us about the clan meeting. The neutral ground was located several miles outside of Oryx territory, situated near several small caves along the rockier territory of the Skeleton Coast; like the Oryx clan’s, these were made of what Millie told Haidee and me was limestone, proof that water had been abundant here in ages past. Some of Arjun’s siblings were already on patrol duty, keeping an eye out for hostiles, and they were joined by soldiers from other clans without any discussion, like they’d trained together before.
Even that was enough to bring my old insecurities bubbling back up. What was the point of patrolling for lurking vermin, I thought fiercely, when a far worse thing stood before them? It would be so very easy for me to render each and every one of them into ashes. It could be quick and painless. Or it could be slow and excruciating. I could draw a line in the air, tear out their bleeding—
No. Stop it, Odessa.
They still lingered, those voices. When I forgot to concentrate I found myself falling back into old habits, into the aberrant whispers that told me I was better, that everyone around me was plotting to keep me from my birthright, those spiteful traitors always seeking to betray me; I should kill them before they—
Queen Rose, too, had plotters and schemers for her throne. Many at the royal court lusted for the power she wielded and sought to eliminate her with poison and assassins and war, but it was her most beloved lord, Leopold of Sa’angley, who won her heart and fought to keep her safe from—
The fiends within my mind retreated, sanity regaining a foothold. I could quote most of my novels almost from memory now. Turns out that even demons had little patience when it came to a girl chattering on about books they took no interest in. I was asserting better control than I had before, but every inch gained was a battle.
I wrapped a cloak around myself and kept my hood up; Mother Salla had no way of informing the other clans in advance that two goddesses would be taking part in this general council, and she suggested that we stay hidden until she’d made her case before the others. That meant hiding our color-shifting hair. I didn’t know if any of the tribes had ties to the Devoted the way Mother Salla did, or if they would hate us on sight. I hoped she could intercede for Haidee and me, even if she couldn’t for our mothers.
Our mothers. That wasn’t completely true. Latona was our mother, but I had always believed Asteria to be mine. Mother Salla’s confirmation had left me mercifully numb after that initial hurt. Perhaps a part of me had known all along; Asteria played the part of a parent well enough, but there had always been something between us that I found lacking, though I didn’t know how to put it into words. I wasn’t her daughter. She treated me more often like I was her ward.