Too cruel was the wind. Before I could finish the song, it stole my little paper bird away, ensnaring her in a powerful gale.
“Kiki!”
I pitched after her, but her body had gone stiff and lifeless. A sob tore out of me as the wind carried her out of sight.
“Kiki…,” I whispered.
The mountain was still trembling, and I dragged myself to the breach. The last of the demons were departing, each one that passed through the breach making the scarlet light flicker and fade, its edges turning gray like the rest of the wall. The magic of the mountains was returning to Kiata—as was my own magic.
“Eternal Courts,” I cursed, noticing how narrow the breach had become. Minutes ago, it had been as high and wide as a tree, and now it was barely a head taller than I. It was closing!
I pressed against the still-glowing rocks, trying to push my way through. In panic, I dug at a fissure between the rocks, dirt and sand spilling between my fingers as the mountain quaked. More wind pierced through, and I could hear birds outside. But I was no demon, and I had no magic left. I could not pass.
“Shiori!” called a voice.
Takkan?
I looked into the fissure and saw a blue tassel swinging from Takkan’s belt, then his hand clinging to a narrow ledge on the mountainside. My heart leapt. “Takkan!”
He’d found me. He peered through the crack, his eyes shining with hope. “Shiori. I’m going to get you out.”
His face disappeared from view, replaced by the sound of his sword scraping against the crack, trying to make it bigger.
I didn’t know whether to curse or cry out in joy. Of all the persistent, stubborn, stupid young men…“Get out of here, you fool,” I croaked, but Takkan still dug, even as the mountain rumbled. “Enough! The breach is closing. You can’t save me.”
“I am the end of your string,” Takkan reminded me. “No matter how long it stretches, so long as you want me, I will never let go.”
The knots in my chest tightened, and tears heated the corners of my eyes. I wanted to hear Takkan sing to our children one day, to climb Rabbit Mountain every spring and view the moon at its peak. I wanted to read the book of tales he was writing for Megari, to set lanterns afloat on the Baiyun River with him every year during Iro’s Winter Festival, to see our hair turn white with age but our hearts remain young with stories and laughter.
“Move aside!” Takkan shouted as he sent an arrow through the hole, a long thread dangling from its shaft.
Raikama’s thread.
My stepmother had used it to pull me out of the Holy Mountains once, and now Takkan meant to do the same. I wasn’t sure whether it would work again, but it shimmered with magic as I grasped its end, and that gave me hope. With a shaky breath, I tied it around my wrist.
“Give a tug when you’re ready!” Takkan yelled.
I inched as close as I could to the rock. Then, before I lost my chance, I tugged.
There came a strong pull from outside. Rock scraped against my shoulders and dust filled my nose and mouth. I closed my eyes, half thinking that I would slam against the mountain and die. But by my next breath, I was outside.
A pair of strong arms caught me by the waist. The sun was still buried by clouds and smog, but in the reddish afterglow of the breach, I saw the joy on Takkan’s face dissolve once he saw me.
Blood soaked my robes, and my body was soft—almost limp. I was practically a ghost, clinging to life by a single strand of my soul. So far gone I could barely feel the pain.
“It’s done,” I whispered. “The demons are free. Magic is free.” I tucked my head under his chin to savor his heat and to avoid my reflection in his misty eyes. “Now take me home. Please.”
His arm still around my waist, Takkan lowered us step by careful step to the mountain’s base, and I glanced one last time at the breach. It was but a spark, like a last glimmer of day before evenfall. Then it vanished.
The mountains ceased their trembling; the earth went still once more. And the sun slipped out of a pocket of smoke, gold and radiant as a coin, reminding us that it had been there all along.
Rain loosened from the clouds, dousing the last of the demonfire. It slid down my cheeks, cool and wet, and washed away the rime of ash on my skin. Beside me, rain filled up the Tears of Emuri’en once more, and as the moon orchid floated to the top of the pool, its soft petals impossibly blooming, I knew that the battles I’d fought had not been in vain.
Magic had returned to Kiata. I could feel it like a song resonating around me. Making the world feel more alive.
“It’s back,” I whispered to Takkan. “It’s in the air, the earth, everywhere. It’s wonderful.”
As the rain eased, I blinked at the sky. It was a beautiful, blue-as-a-pea-flower day.
“Let’s wait here, just for a minute,” I said.
With a nod, Takkan stopped. Muscles corded his arms as he painstakingly lay me down, every movement with the greatest care, on a flat rock before the Tears of Emuri’en.
The smoke was gone, and in its place was a soft fog curling up from the trees as rain tickled the earth. The fog skimmed over Takkan’s face, almost hiding the mist in his eyes.
He knew he couldn’t save me. My life literally hung on a thread—on one last piece of my soul that I had kept to myself. All we had left was goodbye.
Rain splashed against my face, but I couldn’t feel the droplets anymore. I was already drifting, like a kite cut loose, the end of my string only grasping at the earth. Soon it too would float away.
I saw a figure in the far distance, advancing slowly. It was not someone I had met before, yet his very presence cast forth a heavy, inescapable pall, like the weight of the ocean pressing down on my body.
My heart sank in my chest. I had a feeling I knew who it was.
I turned to Takkan, seizing what moments I had left. “Tell me a story.”
His dark hair obscured his eyes, and I couldn’t tell whether it was rain or tears that tracked down the hard slope of his cheeks. His hands cradled mine. “There once was a girl…who’d forgotten how to smile,” he said softly. “She was clever and beautiful, so much so that word of her loveliness had spread from village to village and she had many admirers. But when her mother fell ill, all the happiness fled from her eyes, and she became a ghost of her former self.
“Before her mother died, she made the girl promise to wear a wooden bowl over her head and never take it off. It would cover half her face and shield her from unwanted attention. Soon word spread that she was hiding demon eyes beneath the bowl, but she ignored the cruel words that followed her. It made her see who her true friends were, just as her mother had wished. After many months, she met a boy who noticed not the bowl but her sadness. He made it his mission to earn a smile from her. Every day he would walk with her in the garden and tell her stories. Slowly, ever so slowly, the girl warmed to his gentle heart, and the two fell in love.”