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57
Three days in the mountains feels painfully long. It’s three days of cold camping, three days in the saddle, three days of damp clothing and relentless wind. My lips feel chapped. My ass feels chapped. My everything feels chapped. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in this world, it’s that I am not an outdoorsy type.
I regret ever complaining, though, because the moment the landscape changes, I realize I’d rather stay in the mountains.
It’s late afternoon on the third day of travel when I catch a glimpse of a distant plain. It disappears from sight as we go around a bend, and then returns again a short time later. It’s a dismal gray plain, and utterly flat as far as the eye can see.
And rising up behind it, in the distance, is a slim, pale needle.
“Is that it?” I ask, pointing. “Is that the tower?”
Aron grunts. “I have never approached it over land, but I suppose yes, that is it.”
There’s something eerily familiar about it, the flatness that stretches for what must be miles. The stillness. “Is it like the Dirtlands?” I say, thinking of Tadekha’s Citadel and how it pulled all the life from the land surrounding it. “Everything’s dead?”
“This is a lake,” Aron corrects.
“But other than that, it’s the same, isn’t it?” I recognize just how…dead everything is.
Aron grunts. “It is. Mortal things ca
Which makes me worry about my future, since I’m tied to Aron. One problem at a time, Faith, I remind myself.
The path eventually descends out of the mountains, and as we get closer, I can see that it is, in fact, a massive lake. It’s completely and utterly flat, as gray as a storm cloud, and starts almost immediately where this side of the mountains ends. Across the incredible distance, on a small island, is the delicate tower itself, stabbing high into the sky.
Our woales pause on the shore, twitching and uneasy. Markos, Vitar, and the others watch Aron carefully, waiting. They look just as uneasy as the land-hippos.
Aron says nothing. He simply gazes out at the gray, dead waters.
So I poke him. “What now, o leader?”
He grunts, gesturing at the water. “We cross it.”
“Like…swimming? It’s too damn cold.”
Aron makes a sound of pure arrogance. “Of course not. We make a raft of some kind. Surely there are materials somewhere.”
“I see no trees, my lord,” Kerren ventures. “What shall we build a raft from?”
“There will be something,” Aron says bluntly. “We simply have to find it.”
And because there’s no arguing with a god, the men dismount and start to head down the shore. It’s clear they’re uneasy. I’m uneasy, too. Everything feels u
Aron dismounts and then helps me down. Nearby, Yule
“Wait,” I call out. “Where are you going?”
He turns around and looks at me. “To find the materials for a boat, of course.” And then continues to walk on.
I stare at his retreating back, surprised. Aron is…helping?
“Is he supposed to do that?” Yule
“I have no idea.”
She turns and looks over at me, a speculative look on her face. “He’s different around you, you know.”
“Aron?” I’m surprised to hear her say that. Surprised…and strangely happy. Flattered. Because if he’s different around me, it means he was very different from Liar Aron, and I don’t like to think of them as the same man. “Different how?”
Yule
In a way, it does. I bite back my smile and gesture at the retreating backs of the men. “I guess if they’re all heading off, we’re safe here.” Aron would never leave if I was in the slightest bit of danger. He’s incredibly protective of me.
“I can’t imagine anything can live out here. Can’t you feel it?” Yule
That’s a pretty apt description. It does feel like that…like a dead area that needs to be pruned away and instead just lingers on. No, it feels creepier than that. It’s like a dead arm that’s rotting and infecting the rest of the body. I shudder.
I pat the woale’s nose and put his feed-bag on him since he seems anxious. The woales always seem to calm down on a full stomach. Hell, maybe I should try that theory myself. I’m getting nervous just looking around at this place, at the ominous tower in the distance, the equally ominous gray lake that seems to have no end to it.
“I guess we should have a look around,” I say to Yule
Yule
“What?” I ask. “What is it?”
“I was talking to Vitar,” she murmurs.
Oh boy. Fucking Vitar. The man says nothing for weeks and then the moment we cross the mountains, he’s the herald of doom and gloom. “What now?”
“He says there are legends of guardians.” She bites her lip.
“What kind of guardians?”
“Not good ones.” When I give her an impatient gesture, she hesitates and then moves closer to me. “Guardians in the lake that prevent those that are unworthy from crossing.”
“Like…sea monsters?”
She shrugs. “Vitar says no one has ever returned to tell of it.”
I consider this, staring out at the water. If anything was full of sea monsters, I don’t know if this cesspool would be it. “Monsters have to eat, right?” I gesture at the gray, still waters. “What could a monster that lived here possibly eat?”
“Travelers,” Yule
She’s not helping. “No, really. We’re the only ones that have come this way for a while, according to the Novoro keep. So what would it survive on?”
“What if it’s magic? What if it doesn’t need to eat anything other than intruders?”
I put my hands on my hips. “Then it won’t eat us, because Aron’s a god. If the gods in that tower are the fates, they know why he’s coming here. Right? So they won’t send their guardians out to eat him.”
I hope.
Yule
Ugh. I close my eyes, not wanting to look, but I force myself to turn around. There, floating in the water, heading towards us in a gentle drift, is a raft. It moves towards us with barely a ripple, and the hair on the back of my neck prickles, because there’s no breeze, no tide, no nothing that could be propelling it.
“Is that what I think it is?” I whisper to Yule
“It’s a raft.”
I know it’s a raft. Of course it’s a raft. It also looks like no raft I’ve ever seen before. It’s flat, sure, and it floats atop the water, but it’s round instead of square, and it’s made entirely of some white, ropy material I don’t recognize. It continues to drift in our direction and then stops just before where I stand.
Creepy invitation or coincidence?
Aron jogs over to where we stand, his gaze on the raft. “I see we are expected.”
I point at the raft. “You expected this?”
“Of course.” He arches a brow at me. “They knew I was coming.”
More arrogance. I shake my head, crossing my arms over my chest. “Is this safe?”
“Is anything?” Aron gives me an impatient look.
Someday I’ll learn to stop asking him questions.
We tether the woales together, tying the lead to an outcropping of rock. Once they’re set with their food bags, they calm down and ignore us, content to eat. The men arm themselves and carry light packs—all except Aron, who watches them with a lofty expression on his face.
Vitar steps onto the raft first. It dips into the water around his feet, but doesn’t flood, and reminds me of a blanket somehow floating atop the surface. How is that going to hold us? All of us? But I look at Aron and he nods. Vitar holds his hand out to Yule
“Goody. I can’t wait.” I watch as the other soldiers step on, Kerren and Markos holding tent poles for some reason.
Then it’s my turn, and Solat—the last one on the raft—holds his hand out to me. Aron growls, and I see Solat blanch.
I slap Aron’s arm. “Stop it already. He’s the one closest to the edge. Everyone knows I belong to you.” I take Solat’s hand and step onto the “raft.” It’s like Yule
Aron is the last one on and he pulls me close the moment he steps away from the shore. Then, we’re all on the raft, standing around and looking at each other. Slowly, it begins to inch toward the far end of the lake, where the distant pale tower is now ringed by a low-hanging cloud.
Vitar sticks his pole in the water and grunts. “It’s not deep.” He pushes against the pole and we surge forward. Markos does the same, and then we’re moving at a decent rate as they push us forward, stroke by stroke. I notice the poles sinking deeper into the water the farther we move out, but so far, they’re still able to hit the bottom.
We’re close to halfway when something ripples under the raft.
Markos frowns at his pole, stabbing a little harder toward the bottom. “I thought I felt something.”
“In the legends, there is always a test before speaking to the gods,” Vitar tells us solemnly. “Perhaps we are about to be tested.”
Aron blows out an impatient breath. “You are speaking to me, aren’t you? I am a god. Nothing here is being tested but my patience.”
“Oooh, burn,” I whisper.
The others look worried. I notice that Kerren and Solat exchange looks from behind us, and I worry. Are they right? Is this a test?
Vitar pushes his pole deep into the water, silent, then shakes his head. “I don’t mean to be rude, my lord of storms, but you were exiled. They live here. That is different. They could have guardians—”
His pole gives a jerk, and there’s just enough time to see the surprised look on Vitar’s face before it surges forward and sucks him into the water.
The raft ripples in response.
Yule