“I loved them,” said the Little Lady, as righteous and as sure as Juliet. “And I loved you, who used others as slaves.”
As she said the words, she stepped forward and took his hands. “I only wanted to be with you and do my duty.”
“I tried to give you that,” said Makari, and bent to kiss her, but she turned her face aside.
“You never understood,” she said. “I must make you.”
And Romeo knew, suddenly, what she was going to do. He nearly called out Stop—but he had no right. He was nothing to Makari and less to the Little Lady. He was no part of their doom.
He might have tried anyway, but Paris seized his wrist and held him.
“I will suffer anything,” said the Little Lady, “that will make you understand.”
Then she flung herself to the side, dragging Makari down with her into the boiling mud. Their figures writhed a moment under the surface of the mud and then were gone, sinking ever deeper, deeper.
Over them, the mud grew solid. As Romeo and Paris watched, the moss and the flowering vines grew across the raw earth, reclaimed it, made it whole again.
Makari is dead, thought Romeo.
He had already died twice. And yet Romeo felt like this was the first time Makari had been torn from his heart.
From this sinking, there was no return. Or rather, there was a return: but only once Makari understood zoura to the Little Lady’s satisfaction. And Romeo knew that would take ten thousand years, and he did not know whether to be sad or relieved at that thought.
He would not see Makari again.
He and Paris were now alone in the land of the dead.
Romeo looked at Paris. He thought, What do we do now?
“I don’t—I don’t where we are,” said Paris. His voice was small and lost. “This isn’t the Paths of Light.”
Romeo said nothing. His heart was breaking. He had never believed in the paths, but he knew what they meant to Paris, and he wished they were real for his sake.
“I suppose I could never have hoped to reach them,” said Paris. “I wasn’t buried like a Catresou, was I?”
Romeo wanted to lie and say yes, but he felt sure that Paris would know, somehow. And he wanted to say, You deserve peace even if no Catresou muttered over your body—but that wasn’t comfort, that was spitting on what Paris had spent his life believing.
Instead he replied, “I don’t know where we are either. But I can promise you this, you won’t face it alone.”
Hope startled onto Paris’s face. “Really?”
“I swear by my name,” said Romeo, “I will not leave you.”
35
THE CRASHING CITY WAS GONE.
She was not dead.
Juliet thought that, and in the next moment remembered, I am already dead.
She stood on a slope very like the one she first walked, before she met the Eyes and the Teeth. Again there were pebbles and moss, vines and little white flowers beneath her feet. Again the sky was pure black above her, and the light came from little glowing motes that drifted lazily in the air.
This time, she was not alone.
There were hundreds of people about her; perhaps thousands, if she gazed away into the distance. They walked slowly down the slope, some alone, some in twos and threes. Some were silent, some spoke—but their voices were only a faint, faraway murmur: the cool air felt vast and open, yet it muffled sounds instead of carrying them.
The sight should have given her hope. She had been told that all the dead must descend, and here were all the dead descending; surely Death herself was near. Yet the quiet, inevitable stride of the dead souls filled Juliet with dread. She felt that if she joined their march, she would become one of them—not the Juliet, not the key to death, not anyone who could hope to bargain with Death and win.
But if she stayed here, she would not be able to save Viyara. Runajo would sit vigil until the walls broke and the white fog of the Ruining found her there at the Mouth of Death and killed her.
That image gave her the strength to walk forward. Juliet started down the slope, and after a little while, her dread began to fade. She still remembered her quest. She still had command of her own feet.
She still had a chance to keep her promise.
Not all the dead walked peacefully. Despite the strange, muffling quality of the air, Juliet heard an old man’s raised voice. First it was just a garble on the breeze, and then she could make out words:
“Fools! They’re going to eat you!”
She saw him: a withered old man crouched on the ground, gripping the delicate, flower-studded vines as if they were the only thing holding him in place. Perhaps they were, because the crowd flowed around him like a river, all staring but none stopping.
Juliet halted. She looked into the old man’s wide, wild eyes—they were golden, bright against his dark skin: he had been Old Viyaran when he lived—and she said, “What do you mean?”
The old man’s lips drew back from his teeth in a snarl. “I mean that everyone walking down this slope is a fool. There are monsters waiting at the bottom. They’re going to tear us to pieces, and since we’re already dead, we’ll never stop screaming.”
Juliet remembered the Eyes and the Teeth, the creatures by the riverbank, and fear prickled across her skin.
Somebody sighed behind her. She looked back, and saw a tall, lean woman with her arms crossed.
“That’s just a rumor, you idiot,” said the woman. “There’s nothing at the bottom but the reapers, and all they do is snuff us out. Make us nothing, so we can finally rest.”
A young man, who moments ago was striding eagerly forward, paused at the woman’s side.
“Where do you hear these things?” he demanded. “At the bottom, we are all judged and rewarded according to the lives we have lived.”
“Count me out if that’s true,” the woman replied. “I’m walking only for hope of an end.”
But there was an affectionate curve to her mouth, as if she knew this young man and cared for him. He slid his arm into the crook of hers, and they leaned toward each other as they continued walking down the slope.
It was a kindly sight, but it left Juliet cold. She realized suddenly that was all she could feel: cold, helpless fear as the currents of wandering dead shifted and rippled around her, all of them driven slowly, helplessly, inevitably down the slope.
She thought, I must protect my people.
She thought, I must keep my promise.
The words felt like they meant little now. But she clung to them, repeated them to herself as she started walking again, down the slope, surrounded by the muffled voices of the dead.
She wondered what they were telling one another, what stories and rumors, what hopes and fears.
She wondered what waited for them all at the bottom.
“Do you want to know what the dead find?”
Juliet looked back. The reaper was behind her, wings slowly stroking the air, hovering with its feet barely the width of a hand above the ground.
“I can tell you a story,” said the reaper.
Juliet shuddered. She wished the reapers would fight her. She wished they would test her with any other torment except hearing tale after tale of mortals who challenged Death and lost.
Every tale drained a little more of her hope. Not just hope, but her will to fight. Every tale made her feel less like the Juliet and more like a nameless ghost, unable to save or remember anyone.
But she was not lost yet. She was the Juliet still, and while she was, she had a duty to fulfill.
“Tell me,” she said.
And the reaper spoke, and the story wrapped around her:
There was a boy and a girl, and they saw their parents die in a flood. Together they sat in a tree for three days as they waited for the waters to go down. Then the girl fainted from hunger, and fell into the water. She struggled and choked and drowned, and then she saw Death, wearing her own face.
The tale was like a cold drop of water
, trickling down her soul. Juliet waited for the next part of the story, the twist that would send a wave of despair crashing through her.
But there was only silence, as the reaper tilted its head, studying her.
“That’s all?” Juliet asked finally.
There was an old man who had buried three wives and two children. But twelve grandchildren filled his home, and he was happy. When the sickness filled his lungs, his family wept. He closed his eyes, and he saw Death wearing his own wrinkled face.
There was a king who conquered all his enemies abroad, outwitted all his foes at home. His wife put poison in his golden cup, and he closed his eyes, and saw Death, wearing his own handsome face.
Juliet shivered. Everybody died; she knew this. She had always known it. But the quiet, inevitable way that the reaper told the stories stirred a deep fear in her soul.
“I don’t understand,” she said.
There was a slave who did not have a name, but could sing more beautifully than anyone who has lived before or since. One day her master’s beating was too hard. She closed her eyes, and saw Death wearing her own bruised and battered face.
There was a baby whose mother feared shame. In the same night that she birthed that child, she left him in a drift of snow, and called herself merciful because she did not shed his blood. That baby wailed away his breath, and closed his eyes, and saw Death wearing his own face, grown to the adulthood he never had.
There was a boy. There was a girl. There was a man, a woman, there was anyone at all. For each of them, there is only one story. They close their eyes, every one, and they see Death.
And Death was the end of every story.
Juliet had walked into death, and so her story was ended. Why had she hoped to achieve anything after?
She realized that she was bowed to the ground and shaking. She realized that she was no longer the Juliet. She was a mortal like other mortals, and she was helpless. She was going to die.
She was dead.
Dead, and walking down to the final end, from which no dead soul returned.
How had she ever thought she was different from the quiet crowd around her? How had she ever thought herself special enough to outwit Death and heal the Ruining?
It was done before, she told herself. It can be done again.
But she could no longer believe it.
She thought of Runajo, who had fought so long despite believing all was hopeless. She thought of Romeo, who had walked into death, though he had believed all his life that the dead were only dust and nothingness.
She might be doomed to fail them. But she could refuse to break her promises.
Slowly, she raised her head. “If Death waits for us all,” she asked, “then where is Death?”
The reaper bowed its head and folded its wings about it. “The dead keep their own calendar,” it said from among its feathers. “You have hardly begun your death.”
The feathers shivered and turned to smoke, and the reaper blew away on a silent wind.
The dead continued to walk past her. But Juliet was still.
If she wished, she could stay here. Perhaps she would turn into a monster, as the people at the festival had. But she would not have to learn what terrible truth waited at the bottom, the fate of all the world.
She was very much afraid.
And yet she turned, and began to walk farther down.
36
AT LAST JULIET REACHED THE end of the slope, and saw what lay at the bottom of death.
Dust.
An endless plain of soft, gray dust.
Some of the dead hesitated when they reached the bottom; they stood at the edge, among the last pebbles and dried-out moss of the slope, and turned themselves this way and that, looking for a path. But there was no path, only the flat gray surface stretching on forever.
Most of the dead did not pause. They did not speak, either; they walked forward, slowly, inevitably, looking neither to the right nor the left. The dust puffed up in little swirls around their feet, and settled back to fill their footsteps as if they had never been.
Juliet did not hesitate. She marched forward, step by step.
It was less crowded on the plain. Occasionally, two of the dead walked hand in hand, but most wandered by themselves. At first they strode confidently forward, eyes fixed on the horizon—or nervously, glancing side to side and over their shoulders. Whether fear or hope drove them, they were swift and full of will.
But farther out, the paces of the dead slowed. Their eyelids drooped low, their shoulders slackened. Their faces drained of hope and fear alike; and one by one, they knelt.
Juliet did not understand at first. She saw an old woman kneeling on the ground, and pitied her weariness. Then she saw a young boy drop to his knees, and she wondered.
Then she saw a man sink to the ground and begin to dig.
The silence and the vastness of the plain had numbed her at first, but now she felt a cold worm of fear, burrowing around her heart. She stepped closer to the man and said, “What are you doing?”
Softly, serenely, the man replied, “I am digging my grave.”
The gentle words set her heart pounding in a sudden spasm of mortal fear. Wildly she looked around, and all around her she saw other souls digging into the dust with their hands. Some had been working awhile already; they knelt in holes, up to their hips or up to their chins.
They did not look at her. They did not speak. They were ready for rest and ending, and Juliet felt like her heart had turned to a cold stone in her chest, because she was not ready. She was not, and the simple peace in their faces was the most terrifying thing she had ever seen. How long until that peace overtook her as well, quenched her will, undid her?
Grimly, she marched forward. She had faced the reapers. She was ready to face this.
But here on the empty plain . . . there was nothing to face. Nothing but the flat gray plain that stretched infinitely onward, fading into shadows without even the line of a horizon. She walked ever forward; she saw no more wandering souls, only those who had turned to digging. She saw holes fully dug, with the dead curled still at the bottom. She saw the dust shiver, and collapse, and fill the holes. And the dead did not stir.
She walked on.
She was alone now. She saw nothing before her; when she looked back, she saw nothing except the same trackless dust.
“I am looking for Death,” she whispered, then sucked in a breath and shouted, “I am looking for Death!”
But her voice was muffled by the everlasting stillness of the air, and there was no answer. No reaper appeared to tell her a story, and as she looked around at the darkness and the dust, she thought perhaps it was because this was the only story, this place where all stories crawled to end.
Perhaps this was the true face of Death.
Her feet and her eyes were heavy. She felt very tired, yet there was a strange energy to her hands. She realized she was constantly flexing them, that a strange hunger itched at her fingertips.
She wanted to dig.
The realization drove Juliet forward. I cannot give up, she thought. I must not give up. But every moment the hunger grew more acute, and her heart felt like the dust at her feet, dry and crumbling and helpless.
She wanted so very much to rest.
She thought, Romeo, but he was not here. If her journey had taught her anything, it was that even love could not turn Death aside. (Did he already lie buried in this plain?)
And then she realized that she had stopped walking.
Juliet looked down at her feet. She knew that she had to keep walking, that this was the last moment she could avoid this fate—
But she couldn’t. She could only stare at the dust, and hunger for it.
Slowly, inevitably, she dropped to her knees. She swayed a moment, alone in the darkness.
Then she began to dig.
The dust was soft and silky between her fingers. She knew that this was her doom, that she was failing in her quest; but each ha
ndful of dust scooped aside was as helplessly satisfying as a yawn, and she could not stop herself.
She thought, Perhaps I can rest, and her eyes stung with tears as if she were alive. Even now, at the last abandoned moment, she did not want to give up. Here at the bottom of Death’s kingdom, she did not want to die. But for all her love and bravery and weary, stubborn loyalty, she had found no hope. No answer.
Nothing but this gentle dust.
She dug. She remembered Romeo, who kissed her and swore that she mattered, even though she did not have a name. She remembered Runajo, who said that all the world was dust, and in the same breath swore to save it. She remembered Paris, who was nothing to her, and who was everything, because he was the kin she had longed to have.
She remembered Arajo’s smile. She remembered Justiran dying in her arms. She remembered the crowds in the Lower City. She remembered a cat sniffing at her fingertips.
She remembered them all, and she thought, I am sorry. I tried. I am sorry. Good-bye.
Her fingers sank deep into the silky dust—
And it crumbled away beneath her hands. Drained, as if a hidden pit had opened.
Before her, in the dust, was a hole. Not a grave: a gap, and she looked through it, down and down and down into an infinite space full of darkness.
In the darkness, there were stars.
That was the only word she could think—the only thing remotely like she had ever seen—but these blooming, shimmering lights were not at all the same as stars. They were vaster and farther away, and small and close enough to cup in her hands, and they sang to her. Her heart turned over, and she wanted to smile and weep at once, and there was nothing, nothing, she desired so much as to fling herself down and be eaten up by their light.
She thought they might destroy her. She knew they would change her. And she yearned for it, because it felt like coming home.
But she remembered the light that was in Runajo’s eyes, as she spoke about seeing a beauty at the heart of the world. She remembered Romeo’s smile as he kissed her reverently, and kindled stars across her skin.