Ever (21 page)

OLUS

I
T IS NOON BEFORE
my wildest winds are caught in the jug. My tame winds I leave free, including my herding wind, which is still guarding my goats. My buffering wind continues to cushion Hannu's workshop. I hope they will keep at their tasks, but if not, so be it.

In my mind I apologize to Hannu and to Arduk for not saying farewell. I couldn't risk them stopping me.

Kezi, I am on my way to you.

I leap off the edge of the volcano.

KEZI

T
HE MIST IS BELOW ME.
I look up for my first sight of the sky.

A new warki?

Its arms and legs are splayed, its face rapt.

Olus! He came for me!

But he's falling, not riding a wind. Thoughts come in a rush. I can't save him. I can die with him. Fate may be thwarted.

No happy outcome, unless—

As Olus falls, I pull Taram's feather from my tunic. The instant I touch it, the feather multiplies. Wings form. Muscle and sinew and bone grow on them. A body takes shape: head, neck, torso, legs, hooves, mane, tail. In a blink the feather becomes a winged stallion, wheeling and banking and fairly begging me to leap onto his back.

I do leap and hug his sides with my legs. The horse dives and sweeps Olus up as he enters the lava steam, settling him behind me, on his belly, hanging across the
animal's wide back. I reach back to take his hand.

OLUS

I
RAISE MY HEAD.
Kezi?

It happens so quickly. I die and become a warki in a second. Wadir must have winged steeds just as Enshi Rock does, although this one is gray and ours are white. I roll over, straddle the horse, and circle Kezi's waist with my arms. I lean into her shoulders and breathe her in. Cinnamon, yes, but also mold and sadness. Is she sad to be dead? Is she sad I've come?

KEZI

W
E PASS OVER THE
lip of the volcano. I grasp the stallion's mane and guide him down the mountain, although he seems to need no guidance.

Olus was willing to die for me. He would become mortal, Puru said, if he followed me to Wadir.

The wind is bracing. I let go of the horse's mane to raise my arms and wriggle my fingers. I smell pine, not mold. The trees are alive. Every breath makes me want to smile, not weep. The sky is cloudy. Enshi Rock is hidden.

I wish Senat and Merem and Aunt Fedo could see me on this flying steed.

The stallion flies over a river, then a strip of trees, and lands in a meadow. Olus and I dismount, and the huge creature begins to graze.

Olus kisses me. He's growing a beard. The hairs tickle.

After the kiss, he murmurs into my hair, “Where are
our feathers?” He sounds disappointed.

For a moment I don't understand. Then I'm laughing against his shoulder.

He holds me out at arm's length, his expression puzzled.

Oh dear, he thinks he's dead and wants his feathers. It takes me a few minutes to get out, “We're not warkis. This is Mount Enshi.”

His face is so surprised, I laugh even harder.

He begins to laugh too.

Real laughter is the opposite of Wadir. Gradually we sober.

“You saved my life.”

“You were going to die for me.”

“I was going to find you.”

A bird trills. I've never heard anything sweeter.

“You're a heroine now. You escaped from Wadir.”

I take this in. A heroine. The first step to becoming immortal. I sit and watch an ant crawl through the grass.

“I couldn't count the days down there.” I'm afraid to look up. “Has the day of my sacrifice passed?”

“Not yet.”

“When?”

“Fifteen days after today.”

Nine days lost in Wadir. Only nine days. He might have said nine years and I wouldn't have been surprised. I'm grateful, and yet . . . Nine days out of the twenty-five I had when I entered the tunnel. Nine days of sky and sun and kisses.

Olus sits next to me.

I lean against his shoulder. “If you had fallen into the lava, I don't think you would have become a warki.”

“No? I was mortal as soon as I jumped.” He folds his fingers over mine.

“The warkis are not the dead.” I tell him about Wadir.

He listens. Sometimes he says “Oh, Kezi” in such a soft, sorrowful, and respectful way.

The respect is the most soothing of all. My tears spill out. “The warki god said his worshipers are not the dead, but they come seeking the dead.”

“Did you see new ones come?”

I shake my head. “To go into the moldy earth . . . few would do it. People must be grieving terribly. They probably cause the melancholy in the air. Taram wept when I asked her what her name used to be. Her eyes were always sad. I'm glad I won't go there if I die. I'm glad Pado and Mati and Aunt Fedo won't.”

He kisses me.

I could let him comfort me, but I need to confess. I pull away. “I didn't find Admat. A believer would have looked longer. No, a believer wouldn't have had to look at all. I don't know what happens when anyone dies. We could each have a different afterlife or no afterlife at all.”

He strokes my cheek with the backs of his fingers. “We can go to Enshi Rock. You can come now, and I can take you.”

“Yes? You're a champion!”

He nods, smiling.

“Were you shut in somewhere?”

“You guessed! You were thinking of me?”

“Yes, I was thinking about you!”

He tells me about the well and the spiders and the bees. “I am no longer afraid. If you'd like, we could live in the cave behind the falls of Zago.”

I smile, but I'm thinking how awful it must have been for him. “Why couldn't they have just let you bring me to Enshi Rock?” I realize I'm criticizing the Akkan gods, but I don't stop. “Why did we have to be tested?”

Olus's smile becomes a frown. “I don't know.” After a moment, he adds, “Why do you have to be sacrificed?”

“The oath laws. Oh!” If there is no Admat . . . “Who made the oath laws?”

“I don't know.”

A different god? People?