Wonder whisks to her feet and swipes the weapons just as Malice materializes. Having emerged from his route, he catches the hickory bow and quiver when Wonder tosses them his way, then he scans the arrows’ turkey fletching. Had the Court given it to this unknown archer for safekeeping, or to taunt Malice until he got angry enough to make a mistake?
Humming in appreciation, Malice mashes his heel into the male’s jugular. “Nice try, mate. But you messed with the wrong wildflower goddess.”
“My pleasure,” Wonder says.
Arrows rain from below and above. Malice grabs Wonder’s hand, and they make haste…for another shelf? Why?
Stumbling in front of a cylindrical bookcase, he rearranges three titles, causing steps to jut from the furnishing and form a staircase that winds around the column. The ascent leads to the network of bridges in the funnel’s center.
Later, Wonder will remind him to clarify how he discovered this. In the meantime, she experiences a sweep of gratitude and a prickle of envy. And he must see it, because he favors her with a smug grin, to which she makes a face.
“You’d better not be keeping score,” she declares.
“Who? Me?” he asks, guileless, as he plants a hand on his chest, his fingers splayed. He jerks his head toward the book steps. “C’mon.”
“No,” she quails, resisting his grasp. “Harmony. I won’t leave her!”
“And I won’t fucking leave you! Move!”
Another bout of arrows forces her into action. They drive up the book steps and cannon across a bridge, the ramp leading to other stairways and levels. Moving in tune with each other, they swerve and duck and block attacks. A crystal arrow hits Malice’s wound, reopening it so that he growls. An azurite one slices past Wonder’s cheek, etching across her flesh. And damn the rulers’ arrows, the only ones capable of piercing flesh when shot from a bow.
Wonder and Malice make it to the top level. Abreast of the exit, they notice the Fate Court standing vigil across the distance, each member posted along the circumference of the funnel railings.
Blast. They’ve got us surrounded.
The sovereigns draw. A circle of arrows arc in warning.
Wonder and Malice attempt to run, which prompts the sovereigns to shoot, which forces another crossfire. It had been worth a try. Stopping and positioning themselves back-to-back, they loose their own projectiles, quartz and hickory flying and blocking. Then they switch positions, bowing and aligning their spines again, continuing to hinder incoming strikes. At every short gap in conflict, they maneuver closer to the exit.
The gossamer goddess catches Wonder’s eye with that ever-present gleam of intrigue. The female isn’t firing as aggressively as the others, nor as swiftly.
Does she want to fail?
Wonder’s frantic gaze breaks free, rummaging through the abyss speckled in green light from the overhead sphere.
Where’s Harmony? Where is she?
Wonder catches a glint of ivory, the longbow poised in her mentor’s grip. On aerial feet, the elder steals behind the cloaked god, cranking her arm in position to thwart the ruler—to protect Wonder.
What Harmony doesn’t see is the ruler’s eyes slanting downward in awareness. Wonder feels her lids bulge. No, not her!
The male spins, his longbow primed and ready. Wonder looses her arrow before the god has fully rounded on Harmony, the quartz tip vaulting into the male’s tailbone. While the arrow cannot cut through him, its magnitude knocks him off balance. His chest thrusts outward, and his spine snaps into an arc, the collision flinging his arms up and backward as he releases the arrow.
The bow swings, sending the lava rock projectile into vertical flight. It’s a shooting star, darting up, up, up. Everything ceases, including the movements of all combatants, dozens of heads tilting to follow the arrow’s trajectory.
If it were an archer’s weapon, it mightn’t be of consequence. But as a Court member’s arrow, infused with greater power, it’s dire.
Wonder and Malice aim their bows to strike, to derail the projectile, but it’s too late. They watch, helpless as the lava rock sails into the astral sphere’s heart and disappears with a flare.
Wonder and Malice grab for each other. They shove one another across the bridge and dive for the landing, smacking the ground as the Chamber shimmies—then quakes.
The world explodes in a prism of starlight and lunar light, prismatic filaments sparking from the overhead globe. The Chamber rumbles, with bookcases capsizing and secrets crashing to the ground. The ceiling cracks, causing chunks to plummet while levels buckle, splitting and roaring.
A taloned hand seizes hers just as the floor vanishes beneath them.
24
She skips on bare feet through a blooming hill of hyacinths, their sweetness permeating the air. Her fingers reach out and pluck dainty stems, harvesting blossoms until she has a posy, a compact nest of buds that she cradles in her hands. What a glorious day to be picking flowers, with the hemisphere twinkling and the dewy grass glistening.
Can mortal flowers cohabitate with immortal ones, of the earth and Peaks, of sunshine and starlight? Is that possible? Can those blooms inhale the same air, thrive beneath the same sky, take root in the same soil?
As she ponders this, the hill blurs and then solidifies anew, transforming from one realm to another. Now the cliff becomes a prairie pasture, the elevation dropping while the hyacinths mutate into lupines.
Another addition is the pomegranate tree, with globes of blushing fruit drooping from the branches, and the leaves clapping like tambourines. From somewhere in the distance, horses whinny, and hounds bark, and dragonfly wings patter against the current.
Stars prick into the firmament, shards of glass winking with mysteries, the planets swelling in the galaxy as if about to burst. Everything appears close enough to touch, but that shouldn’t be feasible here. It’s a mystical illusion indeed. Isn’t it?
If she asks the constellations where she is, they won’t answer. They’ve brought her to this place, but now she must figure out the rest for herself. What a generous gesture, an embrace between fate and free will, two worlds uniting.
But how? How have these realms achieved this?
Somewhere nearby, pages flap as a person thumbs through a book, the actions nimble and zealous.
Only one deplorable soul reads a text that way.
She whips around, but he’s nowhere to be seen. She hollers his name, but no one answers.
She’s calling out the right name, isn’t she? Is she shouting for the right person? The right name? His name?
The heavens blacken, blotting out the stars. The more she yells for him, the darker it becomes—obsidian burying the murk of night. Her voice tears a rift in the plains. Lupines jostle as the ground opens and burrows into the summit, a pocket of nothing spreading beneath her. It happens so fast that she screams, unable to leap for safety.
The cavity swallows her whole, the wind lashing at her as she plummets into a bottomless pit, an underworld of shredded paper and ash. She claws at the air, failing to find purchase, to stop the fall.
Vaguely, she recalls a mortal tale reminiscent of this moment, something mythical yet unmythical. She expects a figure garbed in ebony to materialize and capture her, dragging her with him while he cackles and forces her into another universe. Some god who will feed her tart seeds and make her believe that she wants to be with him, robbing her of free will.