“You didn’t have to do that,” I gasped. “You could have left me the strength to stand.”
He surged to his feet and pulled me up after him. “If you haven’t realized it by now, Empress, you should have. I will always take whatever can be taken. I will never stop until the world is all mine.”
I didn’t have the strength to shiver. He pulled me along after him until we reached Elodie. He nudged her with the toe of his boot, and she was on her feet in an instant.
“Le Majest.” There wasn’t even a hint of sleep in her voice.
“Attend the Empress.”
She took my arm, not even asking me why I was stumbling like I was intoxicated when the rest of them were perfectly well-rested. Juste hurried to rouse Xectare, nudging her with his toe as well. She was quick to wake the other Wings and they were all quick to gather little bundles from the lone carabao cart.
They’d planned this, I realized, without the others in their party realizing it. Or maybe they did realize it and just preferred to sleep until they died.
My heart was suddenly beating twice as fast from the combination of dread and compassion. It was hard to look at those faces – softened by sleep – without feeling the urge to rouse them all and save them somehow from this. It was hard not to think of who might miss them. They were simple soldiers who had obeyed orders. They might be loving sons or husbands. They might be protective fathers and brothers. They might be good people. And they were all going to burn and I seemed to be the only one who cared.
I kept looking back at them as Juste led us away from those who slumbered to where an arched doorway led to stairs going down into the earth.
“Don’t look back,” Elodie growled. “Always look ahead.”
Perhaps Juste should have married her. She matched him perfectly in heartlessness and single-minded determination. And she was committed to seeing him reach his goal. I wondered if she realized she was meant to die. Juste certainly did not. He would never intentionally sacrifice himself if there was any other option. And there were always other options.
I almost gasped when we reached the bottom of the stairs to where Essa stood, calm and collected, a flaming green torch in her hand. Whatever made the flame green smelled strongly of something earthy and herbal. She held it high and behind her were three arches and a podium with a map etched on its surface. The undertrails.
“Why limit the number to nine if you’re using the undertrails?” I asked tiredly. I hadn’t even realized I’d asked that question out loud until Juste turned on me.
“Don’t waste our guide’s time with questions. If she says the route is limited to nine, it’s limited to nine. If she says it will require all their power, then that is what it will require.”
There was the sound of footsteps on the rocks behind us and Elodie turned to see who was there – just enough to turn me, too.
Six Hissan – men and women – surrounded us, their faces hard with resolve. Snakes poured from their hands, wrapping around each other and then joining Essa’s snake.
“One last time, for the future, my friends,” she said gravely. “For the oath we swore. For the Hissan.”
“For the Hissan,” they echoed.
And then she put her finger on the map and Elodie jerked me roughly forward. I craned my neck to get a look at the map and nearly gasped. If this map was correct – and how could it not be when the other maps were correct before? Then we were so far into the Forbidding already, but this single hop would plunge us deep into the parts of the map that were nothing but black tangles to those of us from the Winged Empire. I struggled to see more detail, but I was pulled roughly away. Why did they leave this crown on my head when I was nothing but a glorified prisoner?
“Through the middle door,” Essa said. “Hurry.”
“But,” I started to protest. After all, these doors hadn’t required anything from us before. Just faith. They hadn’t needed magic and they hadn’t seemed to have any limit to what they could do. Why leave everyone else here when they could go with us? “We could bring them all through these –”
I didn’t have time to finish my objection. Juste nodded sharply and Elodie pulled me along with her, striding toward the middle door. She stepped through smartly, bringing me – willing or not – in step with her.
Just like the last time I’d walked into the undertrails, the trail seemed to fold me into it. Reflexively, I reached toward the skies with my heart.
Skies above, give me peace. Stars and skies and all that is above you, show me mercy. Let me spend my life for this one, last thing – the destruction of evil. Peace for my family and my land. Skies have mercy. Skies grant peace.
And, unexpectedly, like the first strawberry of summer, there was peace. The kind of peace that exists alongside sorrow. The kind that makes it possible to do the things you thought couldn’t be done. I let myself sink into it as I was battered and folded and kneaded by the undertrails and the magic of the Forbidding.
It felt like it took longer this time, as if days and weeks had passed while I was taking a single step. It left me feeling hollow – as if I had lost something I didn’t know I had. Maybe what I’d lost was time.
When – at last – on shaking legs, we stumbled out the other side, I blinked into the light as if I hadn’t seen light in months. Beside me, Elodie did the same.
“What was that?” she gasped and when I blinked senselessly at her, I saw that a strand of her dark hair had turned completely white.
“The undertrails,” I said, croaking as if my voice hadn’t been used in weeks. “Come.”
I stumbled forward, knowing the others would be right behind me. My weak legs took me as far as the podium with the map. I clung to it, staring at a continent revealed more than I’d ever seen before. Beside me, Elodie collapsed on the ground, but I hung on to the podium, tracing the lines with my finger. We were so far from home it was hard to comprehend it. If I left today. If I left immediately on foot – it would take months to get home. I stared at that map blankly. I didn’t even realize I was crying until the teardrops fell on the hard surface of the map, running down and pooling in the relief where the ocean was drawn. The spot where Glorious Ingvar was located must have been extra deep. My tears collected there like a map back to where this had started.
There were footsteps behind me. Moans and gasps. I would have turned to look, but I didn’t have the strength. I felt like I’d been wrung out and tossed aside. I could barely keep my head up.
Someone’s voice – Essa, I thought – wheezed out from behind me.
“We rest. Until we can stand, we rest.”
But we hadn’t rested long before Juste was urging us up again.
“Hold her tightly,” he told Elodie, and then we did it again, stepping through the gate as Essa began to keen from the pressure. Her voice had risen to a scream when the trail folded us in and began to knead us again. Elodie’s grip slipped from my arm and I remembered what Essa said – she could only take six through the second gate. How did she know that for sure? And was she wrong? Maybe she was so tired, she could only take four.
“Stars have mercy. Skies have mercy,” I prayed until at last we stumbled from the grasp of the undertrail and stumbled again into a plain room with a podium and an open door.