"Where'd you get the sword?" I asked him as we walked away from Amaryllis's squished body, toward where Valeska and Oona were waiting outside the walls of Zianna.
"One of the skeleton soldiers lost it when an exousia ripped off his arm." He gestured toward where the impious and divine were colliding. "I figured I ought to have a weapon."
"Sorry it took me so long," Valeska said as we reached them. "I was looking for a rock big enough to squish her that I could lift while flying."
I rubbed the back of my neck, trying to ease the growing tension inside me, and I told her, "Thank you." My words came out flatter than I meant them to, so I forced a smile at her.
As grateful as I was for her help, my body still craved the release of a kill. And my fight with Amaryllis had done nothing to alleviate that.
"We should hurry, before anyone else recognizes you," Valeska said.
"How many immortals have you returned?" Asher asked, cocking an eyebrow at me as he wiped the Jorogumo's blood off his new sword. "Do we have many more of your fan club that we'll need to face off?"
"I don't think any of the rest of them should give us any trouble..." I trailed off as my attention was diverted by the sound of pounding hooves.
The herd of unicorn-like kirin was running toward us, bounding over the fallen walls to escape the escalating conflict. An ogre reached out, grabbing for one, but the kirin narrowly dove out of his grasp.
"I think I know how we can get away quickly," I said, watching them come toward us. "But we're going to have to move very fast."
THIRTY-THREE
The kirin, like everything else that was allowed to live in Zianna, were instinctively good and kind, and after centuries of living among the immortals here, they had become semi-domesticated. Or at least that's what I hoped as I stepped in front of the stampeding herd.
At first they only slowed, then parted so they could run around me. But one of them stopped right in front of me. He was a large stallion, with hints of blue in his long mane that parted around his smoky gray antlers. His long tail twitched behind him, like a cat about to pounce, and he leaned down and chuffed at me.
"We only want to get away, just like you," I told him calmly, and I slowly reached out to pet his nose. His fur felt soft, and the iridescent scales mixed in with it were warm and smooth, like a snake that had been lying out in the sun.
While most of the herd continued running, a few other kirin had stopped with the stallion, inspecting us. Oona was the first to move closer to them, gently petting them and cooing words of encouragement.
"I know it's been a rough day for all of us," I said as I went around to the side of him, running my hand along him as I walked. "But we need to go."
The stallion hadn't moved yet, so I took that as a good sign. With the sounds of fighting raging on, I cautiously reached up and took hold of his mane to steady myself, and I put my other hand on his back. Then I jumped up.
It wasn't elegant, as I lay on my stomach, splayed across the kirin, but I was up, and he wasn't freaking out. He brayed, but didn't move as I sat up and swung my leg over. I had successfully mounted a kirin, and he didn't seem to mind.
Asher climbed onto a kirin beside me, using the same inelegant technique that I had, while Valeska was able to fly up and land gracefully on a kirin's back. She could fly all the way, but hitching a ride on a kirin would save her energy for what lay ahead.
Since Oona was so short, she didn't even try to get up on her own. She came over to me and I grabbed her hand and pulled her up. She got situated behind me and held on to my bag for stability.
"Where do we go from here?" I asked, looking at Valeska.
"Follow the herd." She pointed to where the herd of kirin were racing on ahead so the worst of the fighting and the army from She'ol lay behind them.
"But that's the opposite of where we came in through the Eshik Mitu geyser," I said. "Shouldn't we go back?"
Valeska shook her head. "No, that was only an entrance. We can't get out that way. We have to exit through the Gates."
"I don't understand," Oona said. "How do we get out?"
"It's hard to explain," Valeska said with a sigh. "We'll end up in a lake outside of the ossuary."
"That's where Gugalanna pulled me through," Asher said wearily. "I only remember the water as we went through, but the first thing I remember of Kurnugia is being bound and carried by skeletons, then we followed Gugalanna through a dark, hungry forest. The kirin are going in the general direction of that forest, so we can follow them for now."
"That can't be right," Oona argued. "We've gone so far from the entrance. The geyser and the ossuary have to be what ... half a mile from each other? Without all the twisting maze, they may be even closer. But we've traveled for hours, covering miles and miles away from the geyser already, and you're saying that we still have a lot to go until we're underneath the ossuary?"
"Kurnugia isn't like a vast cave that exists just below the surface of the earth," Valeska reminded her. "This is another realm. Distance and time move on a separate plane here."
The stallion I was on brayed again and stomped his foot, growing restless.
"So you're saying we should follow the other kirin?" I asked.
"For now," Valeska said. "But I don't know where they're going."
I rolled my eyes. "I didn't think you had a psychic connection with the kirin. I was just saying that we should leave."
"Let's go, then." Valeska barely had the words out before she was spurring her mare on, and she bolted ahead, racing after the rest of the herd.
Without waiting for me to signal him, my stallion took off. I gripped his mane tightly to keep from flying off. Even though I had watched them run--I had felt the wind as they rushed past me--I still was not prepared for how fast the kirin could go. I leaned into the stallion, to keep from blowing off, and my bag strained at my shoulders from Oona hanging on to it.
Soon we had caught up with the herd, and soon after we actually passed them. My kirin was leading the way now, bounding over fallen logs and gulleys like they were nothing. He never seemed to tire, and he didn't even slow, not until we got to a clearing alongside the Huber River.
We seemed far enough away from Zianna, and the kirin clearly needed a break, so we dismounted. There were a few trees on our side of the river, but mostly around here it was drab green grass that the kirin began to graze on. A few taller, angrier plants were dispersed among the clearing with bright red flowers that snapped at anything that moved by, like a Venus flytrap on steroids.
The ankle-grabbing ground ivy was here, too, with its olive-green leaves and long tendrils that tried to wrap around my feet, but fortunately the kirin seemed to scare it away. I watched as long vines started winding around their hooves, only to be mercilessly stomped into the dirt, and the ivy began to retreat back into the ground.
I went over to the river to wash off the black blood from my run-in with Amaryllis Mori, and also because the riverbank was free of any plants that wanted to eat me. I figured there were probably plenty of monstrous creatures that lived in the water that would happily take a bite out of me, so I went to the shallow narrow bend in the river.
On the other side of the river was a dark forest, filled with thick, tall tree trunks with black vines wound tightly around them. Dark green moss and hornworts appeared to blanket every surface, but it was hard to see under the heavy fog that hung over the forest.
As I crouched down, rinsing my hands in the dark blue water, Asher sat down next to me, resting his bone sword in the dirt beside him. His arms hung loosely around his knees as he watched the water coursing by, but his expression was unreadable.
"Ash?" I asked. "Are you okay?"
He blinked, then looked over at me. "What?" Then he shook his head and his brow furrowed. "Sorry. I was lost in thought."
Behind me, Oona was stretching her legs and pacing the shore, and she asked, "Should I make a cloaking spell?"
"Probably," Valeska said. She stood a
bit farther down on the riverbank, her arms folded over her chest as she stared into the dark forest. "I mean, we're going to have to go through that."
"What?" I looked sharply at her. "We have to go through there?"
Valeska nodded. "Yeah, that's the Cryptomerian Forest. It surrounds the portal out, but it extends for miles, and it's full of all kinds of horrible crap to dissuade anyone from going through."
I should've known when Asher said he'd traveled through "a dark, hungry forest" to get to She'ol, but I had been hoping for an easier path anyway. Not that any of this had been easy. I sat back on the bank and let out an irritated sigh. "Great."
"We made it this far." Oona set her bag down beside me, then knelt next to it so she could begin pulling out what she needed for the cloaking spell. "We can make it a little bit farther. Once we get to the exit, we're practically home free."
"Practically," I said under my breath and steeled myself to tell them my realization about the cloak: that I didn't know how all of us would escape. "There's something that we need to--"
"Do you hear that?" Asher interrupted, tilting his head.
"What?" I asked, but then I heard it, too.
A high-pitched chirping sound, like a cross between a tiny alarm clock and baby bird. And it was growing louder.
"What is that?" I stood up and turned around, scanning for any sign of it.
Oona looked up at me with wide eyes. "Mal, I think it's coming from your bag."
She was right. I still had my gear bag on and I hurried to slip it off and threw it on the ground.
Behind me, I was vaguely aware that the kirin sounded agitated--stomping their feet, moving around, and chuffing a lot. But for the moment, I was more focused on finding what was chirping inside my bag.
I opened the main pocket first, digging around, but when I leaned in closer, I realized the chirping was coming from an outer pocket.
"Hey, Malin," Valeska said.
"Hold on," I told her absently. I unzipped a few pockets--which turned up empty--before I finally spotted something. An oblong lump that didn't belong.
"But Malin--" Valeska repeated.
"I think I got it!" I shouted excitedly.
I reached in and pulled out a big scarab beetle, chirping loudly in my hand. It was beautiful--for a giant bug, anyway--with an iridescent shell of bright purples and blues.
Asher peered down at it, sitting calmly on the palm of my hand, and he asked, "What is it?"
"I don't know," I admitted. "Do you think it's dangerous? Like, should we kill it?"
"I would rather you didn't," a woman said from behind me. "Since she's mine and I would like her back, safe and sound."
I turned to see a simurgh standing a few feet behind me. The simurgh was a massive feathered beast with the body of a white lion, the crimson head of a dog, two gigantic brightly colored wings of emerald and violet, and a tail made of long, vibrant peacock-esque plumages.
The sight of such a colorful, large creature so near to me, with the herd of kirin parting around it, took all my attention, so I didn't immediately notice a woman standing beside it. Not until she stepped away from it, pushing back the hood of her dark cloak so I could see her better.
It was Lyra Kothari.
She had followed us.
THIRTY-FOUR
"She's a homing beetle," Lyra said as she plucked the little creature from my hand.
She held it up and made a soothing chittering sound, which quieted the beetle. With her other hand she opened the large locket around her neck--the one shaped like a golden bell jar. Inside, in one half of the locket, was another beetle, this one bluer but just as beautiful and bright.
"She's angry about being separated from her mate," Lyra explained as she put the beetle back in the locket, and the two of them nestled next to each other before Lyra shut it again. "But she stays wherever I put her, sending out a psychic signal to her love, and he chirps whenever I move closer to her, directing me where to go."
"You tracked us?" Valeska was incredulous.
She'd moved closer to us, scowling and casting angry glares at Lyra. Her black wings had extended slightly in her anger, the feathers spreading and puffing up to make her appear larger and more menacing.
"It was the only way I knew I'd be able to find you again." Lyra offered Valeska an apologetic smile, but Valeska remained unmoved.
"Why did you need to find us again?" I asked. "Did you come to stop us?"
"No, of course not!" Lyra insisted, her eyes wide as she shook her head emphatically. "I only wanted to help."
Valeska snorted. "Help us or help yourself?"
Oona shot Valeska a look, and then gently but firmly told Lyra, "You can't come with us. You know that, right?"
"I do," Lyra replied with a sad smile. "I know that better than you, I'm sure. I don't plan to leave here, but I did want to ask a favor of you."
"I knew it!" Valeska shouted triumphantly, startling the kirin, who were already on edge with the simurgh loitering about.
For his part, the simurgh seemed content to lie down in the clearing, but the kirin weren't taking any chances and started galloping off, heading farther down the river.
"It was why I had to leave you before. I had to get something for my daughter." Lyra's dark eyes were imploring as she looked at me. "Can you give it to her?"
"No," Valeska replied instantly, before I had a chance to answer.
I hesitated before cautiously saying, "It depends on what it is."
"It's only this--" Lyra reached into a deep pocket and pulled out a heart-shaped stone of crystallized pink tourmaline. "An itayakkal."
"What is that?" I asked as she handed it to me.
"It's an enchanted stone," Oona answered, leaning over to look at the gemstone in my hand. "Whoever it's given to will be able to feel how much the enchanter cares for them."
Lyra's eyes were moist as she smiled nervously. "I want Sloane to know how much I still love her."
I looked to Oona, who seemed to know plenty about this stone, but she just shrugged.
"Sure," I decided, since I owed both Lyra and Sloane for helping me so much. "I can do that."
"Thank you," Lyra said, looking relieved and elated. "In repayment, I can help you navigate the forest quickly and safely."
"Are we going to ride on that through the forest?" Oona asked hopefully, motioning to the simurgh, who was busy preening its feathers.
"The trees are too close together, and it's much too dangerous," Lyra said. "She won't go in there."
"But we're going in there?" Asher asked.
Throughout the conversation, he'd been standing to my side, with his arms folded, taking in the situation. He'd said nothing and hardly reacted to any of her claims, but now he looked at her with pinched eyebrows and dark eyes.
"We're much smaller, and I know the way through," Lyra said.
"How and why would you possibly know that?" Valeska asked, apparently taking turns with Asher on being suspicious of everything Lyra said and did.
"I told you that when I first came down here I still wanted to be free," she explained. "I wanted to liberate Sloane and everyone else on earth and below. So I planned an escape. I learned everything I could, including how to get through the Cryptomerian Forest, and I practiced it until I had it down."
"But then you decided not to escape?" Asher asked.
"I will admit that initially it wasn't so much a decision as it was an impossibility," Lyra said. "I couldn't get through. But eventually I came to the bitter conclusion that escape came at a very high price. If I got through, I risked creating a tear between our two worlds that would allow every vile monster in here to escape onto earth.
"My mortal daughter would almost certainly be killed, perhaps even the whole world would be destroyed. I would not and I could not do that to Sloane," Lyra finished, with enough conviction that Asher relaxed his stance.
We'd already taken a long enough break, and with Lyra here to lead the way, it seemed like a
s good a time as any to get going. We packed our things--with me safely tucking the itayakkal in my bag--and Lyra began to describe what we could expect in the forest.
"Stay close to me, and never stray off course," Lyra warned. "Don't touch anything, not unless you absolutely have to. And don't respond to anything, either. Say and do as little as possible."
"What about breathing?" Valeska asked dryly. "Can we do that?"
Lyra only gave her a hard look before continuing her explanation, telling us we wouldn't always be able to trust our eyes or ears in the forest. Finally, after warning us once again to stay close, she started leading the way, lifting her long skirt to walk across the shallowest part of the river toward the forest.
"Who is she?" Asher asked in a hushed voice as he fell in step beside me.
"She's a friend of a friend, I guess," I said, since that was the easiest way to explain her.
"And you trust her?"
"Maybe. A little," I admitted. "But we have to leave as soon as we can, so I don't see what choice we have."
He licked his lips and stared ahead at the dark, twisting forest. "I guess we follow her into that, then."
THIRTY-FIVE
"We're getting close," Lyra said, after we had wound our way through the dark and twisted forest.
But she hadn't really needed to say anything. I could already hear it--a whooshing roar, like a plane taking off mixed with the rush of a waterfall.
We were close enough that I could smell it. I remembered it clearly from when we had been in the ossuary. Unlike everywhere else in the underworld outside of Zianna, which smelled vaguely of mustiness and death, this was clean water and sunlight and dirt. Not the stale scent of decay around us, but like the freshly tilled soil of a garden during a summer rain shower.
It smelled like life.
I wanted to tear through the forest and race on ahead. I couldn't wait to get out of here and feel the sunlight and breathe air that hadn't been bottled up for centuries. But I kept my pace slow, following Lyra's steps exactly.
Even though we were close enough to hear and smell what was ahead, the fog and the branches were still too thick for us to see it. A light mist fell over me, dampening my hair, and I looked up, searching for a source, but it was only trees soaring into the darkness above us.
"Is it raining?" Oona asked, sounding as confused as I felt.