Broken Stone (23 page)

Torian stood, offering her a hand.

Having abandoned all sense of time’s passage, Emariya couldn’t say how long they walked before the snow-capped mountains began to falter and spread, giving way to a vast blue ocean beyond. The sun shuffled from behind the clouds, illuminating a glistening path along the water. Salty air replaced the clean scent of snow and the earthy, unforgiving sense of rockiness that the apparition of Thalmas had conjured.

“It
is
beautiful,” Emariya said. “To think, my mother saw a scene much like that every morning out her window.” A ship sailed lazily along the horizon, heading in a mirror of their direction.

“Yet it brought her no peace.” Irony dripped through Torian’s words.

The ledge carried them around a bend in the cliff, and the gates of Sheas Harbor loomed before them. The ship’s sail billowed as if waving goodbye, and then the vessel faded away.

“I don’t think Sheas Harbor is any more here than Rink was.” Emariya laced her fingers through Torian’s, peering at the uneven walls. Even before her eyes, the walls grew more solid, missing stones regenerated, and just beyond she could hear the sounds of a bustling market.

“No fork this time though. The only choice is to go on, or not to.”

“We didn’t come this far to turn back now. Just be ready for anything.”

Unlike when they’d actually visited Sheas Harbor, no guards manned the gates, no archers watched from the ramparts and there was the small detail of not having her own army at her back. The cliff faded away as the market square rose around them, bordered by the hungry waves of the sea. “I have to say it’s nice to feel normal ground instead of that narrow ledge,” Emariya said.

“Except for all we know, we’re still on the ledge and this is another illusion,” Torian said.

Emariya gulped, hoping she wouldn’t take a step to find only air. Citizens in colorfully dyed garments flitted around the square, looking like peacocks strutting their brilliant feathers. Juicy oranges dribbled past, mingling with passionate reds, iridescent blues and royal purples as rich as the finest jewels. “When we were here before, the citizens were clamoring over the fabrics more than anything.”

Torian glanced around. “They seem to have enough now, but I doubt The Three brought us here for a taste of the latest fashions. Keep your eyes open.”

It wasn’t her eyes that picked up the first sign of something amiss; instead her ears drew her attention to the beach. Soft, wracking sobs came from a figure hunched over. “There.” Emariya pointed.

Seagulls chanted encouragement as she dropped Torian’s hand and broke into a run. When her feet touched the sand, it shifted beneath her feet, threatening to suck her in and never let her go. She watched the woman’s familiar blonde hair shiver in the wind, and the grains of sand beneath her feet solidified and she found her footing once more. Emariya’s blood froze, driving icy spikes of anguish deep into her broken heart.

Her mother crouched over a young man’s body. “He’s gone,” Valencia sobbed. “I begged him not to go.”

“Riya, be careful. Remember, it isn’t her but that doesn’t mean she can’t manipulate you anyway.”

Emariya nodded, but continued to watch, spellbound. Her strong, stoic mother trembled like a lost leaf on the wind, one whose fate would be to settle on the ground, dispersed from its home tree to shrivel, dry out and die.

“I can’t bear to lose another. The madness must end.” Valencia turned a cold blue eye to peer deep into Emariya’s soul.

“But at what cost?” Emariya whispered.

“Cost? The cost of doing nothing costs as much as doing something!” Valencia stood and waved her hand.

The air shimmered and then her mother pointed. Emariya glanced behind her. The pleasant facades of the shops and homes that had lined the jovial square dropped as if the fabric of happiness had been torn away. Now, Emariya could see the mourning mothers and lovers crying inside walls painted in blood. Bile rose in her throat and she squeezed her eyes closed.

When her lids snapped open, Valencia hovered inches in front of Emariya’s face, so close that she could smell the cinnamon on her mother’s breath. “I am your enemy!” Valencia screamed so forcefully that her words joined with the wind, blowing Emariya’s hair away from her forehead.

Emariya swallowed and took comfort from Torian’s hand—when had he taken her hand again?—

and resisted the urge to step backward. “Yes. You are.” As much as she’d like to deny it, she couldn’t evade the truth.

“You can prevent this from happening again! Take up the banner of my cause.” Valencia’s blue eyes seemed to look through Emariya, seeing the desires written on her heart. “You want to.”

“I want peace, but not your peace. Not your way.” Emariya forced her shoulders back in defiance.

“By uniting the lands, you do exactly what I wanted. How can you strive for the same goal as your self-professed enemy?”

She’d asked herself that very question. “Because...because I cannot let my anger over your methods distract me from what I know is right. I will not turn away from those who need me just because they once needed you too. Maybe I got the best of you—your compassion—without inheriting the worst—your ruthless nature. My path isn’t yours, no matter how similar they may appear. I’ve chosen to walk my own path, just as the gate at Three Stone Pass told me to so long ago.”

A smile ghosted on Valencia’s lips as she evaporated into the salty ocean air, and a whirl of sand lifted, swirling around Torian and Emariya. Burying her head against his chest, Emariya clung tight to her rock. She lifted an arm to peek underneath and saw a tornado of sand encompassing them. When at last it died down, they found themselves back on the ledge, pressed against the cliff. The expanse below them opened to more rocky ledges and jagged rocks. She glanced up.

“It looks like we are spiraling around inside a mountain, but it is open at the top.” A slight quiver stole through her voice.

“Or is this just another illusion?” Torian asked, his voice heavy with disgust. “And still the sky hasn’t changed. It’s like we are wasting time, without spending time. I don’t understand it.”

Emariya shared his frustration. “All we can do is press on. We’ve seen something of Thalmas, and something of Sheas. Maybe we will see something of Eltar, and then finally we will reach The Three.”

“I hope so.” Torian attempted a weak smile, but it was shadowed beneath his dark mood.

With no choice but to press on, they trudged along the path, keeping as far from the edge as possible. They’d decided against stopping to sleep, both feeling the need to keep moving. When the rolling green hills of Eltar began to slope beneath them, Emariya instinctively moved closer to Torian.

What would The Three show her here?

“Is Eltar truly that green in the summer?” Torian asked.

Emariya nodded as she lifted her chin, eager for the familiar aroma of thriving crops. Despite her best efforts, all she could smell was rock. As much as she wished she were home in the fields of Warren’s Rest, only her eyes were. “Sometimes even more so. It can be so green you can almost smell it. The flowers, the fresh leaves and sap. Corn. My garden.” Her heart skipped a beat. Was there any hope of her spending a peaceful summer in Eltar again? It didn’t look likely for this year. Maybe next.

A sparrow flapped overhead as the path deposited Emariya and Torian into her meadow, complete with the ancient willow tree. “I used to spend so much time under that tree, dreaming in the grass, listening to the whispers of the wind.”

“Whispers of the wind?” Slight traces of amusement played across Torian’s face.

Emariya blushed. “I think I was hearing Great-Grandmother Carah, but I didn’t know about the gifts or the Stones then. The last time I was there was shortly after I declined the offer of your hand.”

Torian’s eyes dropped to their entwined fingers, and her gaze followed. “I’m glad you changed your mind,” he said. “Listen, Riya. No matter what lays ahead, I want you to know I’m grateful for you, and for the time we’ve spent together.”

“I’ll be grateful once we can finally enjoy our time together. Soon, things will be better and we can pause to appreciate it.” Emariya hoped she sounded more confident than she felt.

The meadow melted into a thriving field of golden wheat. Rustled together by the wind, the fronds whispered a song to welcome her home. Though she couldn’t see the sun, its rays beamed down, turning the field into a pleasant pool of liquid gold, rippling in the soft breeze.

“These fields used to bring me such happiness,” she said. The words had barely left her lips when the air rippled, changing. Now, the world smelled right—like life, and bounty, and neighbors working together to harvest the fall crop—but the sight was all wrong. Had the peaceful meadow only been an illusion, and this was the reality that waited for them all? At the edge of the field, crimson-cloaked taskmasters drove peasants to harvest the wheat faster, cracking whips through the air to accompany their threats of what would happen if the quota wasn’t satisfied. Behind them, archers notched arrows ready to be loosed among the uncooperative workers. Men, women and children toiled side by side, their hands calloused and bloody.

A small child fell to his knees and a taskmaster descended upon him like a hawk to his prey. The whip assaulted the air. “You there! Up! If King Ahlen doesn’t have his harvest soon, you know what will happen.”

The boy’s frightened mother tried to move between the whip and her child, but the wicked man shoved her aside. Unable to watch any longer, another worker—perhaps the boy’s father—stepped in.

In moments it was over, and all three workers, including the innocent child, lay dead among the crops.

A cackle came from the taskmaster. “The crows will eat tonight.”

Emariya dropped to her knees as her stomach rolled.

“It isn’t real.” Torian’s voice chiseled through her anguish like a pickaxe, leaving rough gashes in its wake.

Her shoulders shook as she shoved to her feet. “It could be.”

“No,” he vowed. “Even if it had ever come to a point where we invaded Eltar, do you really think I could treat people like that?”

A protest bobbed on her lip. “No. I... No. But Hendel... Or someone down the line. Either way, the point is clear. Eltar is too vulnerable, and could be overrun at the whim of others.”

“You’ve always known that though. It’s why you agreed to marry me, isn’t it?” Torian gently lifted her chin until she met his eyes.

Fluttering her lashes, trying to blink back tears, she managed a tiny smile. “No. It’s why I came to Thalmas, but not why I wed you. You may not have captured my lands, but you did capture my heart.”

“A shared sentiment, I assure you.” He brushed his lips across hers, but it wasn’t enough to chase away the chill blown into her heart by the winds of what could have been.

The air shimmered once more and the now familiar rocky ledge supported them once more. Just ahead, rocks formed what looked to be a cave entrance, but a fog-filled glade could be seen beyond.

Their eyes met and held.

“We go together, and no matter what they say, I will love you as much when we depart from here as I do right now,” Torian said. They wove their fingers together and stepped through the entrance.

As soon as she moved free of the entryway, Emariya spun back toward the ledge behind her. The absence of Torian’s hand in hers and her immediate inability to detect his presence sent waves of panic crashing over her, carrying in a tide of regret. What had they done? What if The Three said yes?

It might be worse than them saying no.

An invisible barrier barred her retreat. Anger boiled as she turned to face the occupants of the former grassy glade, but her words drowned in disbelief at the sight before her.

Inside the circular cavern, the ground appeared to be made of glass. Had she not been so overwhelmed by the Gods’ presence and Torian’s absence, Emariya might have tapped on it with her shoe, wondering how stepping across it would sound. Beneath—or possibly within—the glass, images of the people and places of The Three Corners faded in and out. It was as if she had stepped onto the top of a giant looking glass that served as The Three’s window to the world below.

The Three hovered above a pedestal of fog.

An eerie smile played upon the lips of the closest goddess. She shook her head ever so slightly, and projected her words directly into Emariya’s mind even as they rang through the spacious cavern.

“It’s too late. You cannot change the past. You’ve come, you cannot turn back.”

Emariya shuddered, but did not look away from the nymph-like goddess’s stare.

Her translucent hair could have been spun from moonlight. The strands were silver and white, but they radiated hues of blue, green and purple as they moved. The wispy fabric of her dress floated around her in tones of mist-like green, shadowed by dense, smoky blues and grays. While the outer cloth might have been composed of actual mist and smoke, the bodice underneath it frequently rippled, giving the illusion of the sea’s waves. Each of her wrists displayed fierce shackles of mermaid scales. Diamonds and crystallized tears hung suspended from her silver circlet, imprisoning the captured memories of the dead within their sparkling depths. At times the being seemed to partially dissolve, becoming floating particles of sand, blowing away on the unforgiving wind of time.

A flame-haired goddess turned her gaze to Emariya. “This moment’s agony can easily burn away the memories of what was and the hope for what might have been. Nonetheless, only this moment is here and absolute. Our memories of the past are seen through the filter of newer knowledge.”

Though the strands of her hair appeared as actual flames, Emariya didn’t feel the expected tingle up her spine. The only thing more impressive than her burning tendrils was her dress. It cloaked her in a warm glow, made from rays of the very sun itself. Vines blossomed, weaving around her wrists and arms. A crown of thorns and ivy rested atop her brilliant hair.

“My sisters speak true. But while this moment is absolute, and the past is already decided, the future is a blank canvas. Speak your heart and new choices may paint themselves before you.” The third and final goddess’s hair was made of clouds spun into thin strands while her dress was sewn out of iridescent hopes and dreams. Shimmering pearls and sparkling diamonds dripped from the blindingly bright circlet that rested like a halo above her.