Nil on Fire Read online

  “Are you really here to make sure I had dinner?” Her tone matched her eyes.

  “No. I am here to make sure you do not do anything that you might regret.”

  Her eyes flashed. “And who”—her voice was dangerously low—“are you to tell me what I should do?”

  “Your friend. And as your friend, I am saying relax. This is not a competition.”

  “Isn’t it?” She smiled in the feral way James had grown accustomed to. “Why do they get to decide what we do? How the days should be spent? How the resources should be used?”

  “Because they know more than we do.” James’s tone was flat. “And they will help us live another day.”

  “I am the master of my own fate.” Carmen lifted her chin.

  “‘Invictus.’” James was not impressed. “As are we all. But they have been here before, and they know the way. I think it would be wise to listen and learn from them.”

  “Feel free to be their lackeys,” Carmen snapped. “A trip to some ruins that hold nothing but death? Or stay and babysit that idiot Chuck? Have fun. I choose another path. I’m going to find Lana, the girl who knows more than anyone. Where is she, James?” Carmen’s voice had grown dangerously soft. “I think she knows something. More than those fools. After all, she’s not here, is she?”

  James didn’t respond. He didn’t share Carmen’s confidence in Lana. She had not seen what James had: Lana cowering on the beach, terrified of the bear; Lana creeping behind Rives and his friends. No, Lana was not a source of power.

  But something on the island was.

  Carmen bared her teeth in a smile. “Exactly. Good luck, James. I choose to make my own.”

  She stalked off. James watched her go, unsettled. He was wrong; they were not friends. And he wasn’t certain they weren’t now enemies.

  CHAPTER

  46

  SKYE

  76 DAYS UNTIL THE AUTUMNAL EQUINOX, MORNING

  We’d split into two equal groups. Hafthor, James, Amara, Chuck, Paulo, Zane, and Kenji stayed behind, while Rives, Thad, Molly, Davey, Calvin, and I accompanied Dominic.

  “Balance reigns,” Rives had advised. Nil truth number four, I’d thought. I still hadn’t figured all of them out. I was starting to worry that I never would. Nil remained so secretive, so mysterious. I’d been here almost a month, and I knew nothing more than when I’d arrived. Nothing important, anyway. Nothing that would help us end the Nil cycle once and for all.

  It was all I thought about as we walked.

  And Nil gave me plenty of time to think. Our trip had been strangely quiet. Maybe it was the coastal route, the open ocean that stayed on my left and the lack of predators by the sea. Even though it took longer, Dominic had insisted we travel along the coast; it was where he felt comfortable. Since the inland route presented its own hazards—mainly in the form of wildlife in unknown quantities and eating habits—everyone had agreed to the coastal plan without argument—except Carmen. She’d stalked off, choosing neither group. Secretly, I was relieved. She made me uncomfortable. I honestly felt like she hated me, although we’d barely spoken. Even her farewell of “Good luck” sounded more ominous than heartfelt, as if she were wishing me anything but.

  That had been five dawns ago.

  Find the ruins, solve the riddle. Look for what you don’t see.

  My head ached from looking. I constantly surveyed my surroundings from dawn to dusk, until all I saw were stars.

  The first few nights we’d slept on the sand, under the open Nil sky. The north shore felt darker, angrier. Waves crashed against the rocks with lethal force; we’d nestled in the small pockets in the black cliff face, barely large enough to count as a cave. The third night we’d actually slept in a cave. It reminded me of the one on the southern coast, the one with the mouth shaped like an ear, the same cave Paulo told us all the islanders usually stayed in when they first arrived, only the cave on the north shore had a mouth shaped more like an eye. Creepy and cold, the entire feel fit the north shore perfectly. That was the only night I didn’t sleep well.

  Last night we’d been back on sand, and today was day five.

  So far we’d made it all the way around the northern tip of the island and were heading south again, and slightly east. The island truly was shaped like a diamond, an irregular one, just as the carving on the Master Map Wall described. We were just below the rain forest, traipsing around rocky cliffs and making terrible time in my opinion. But no one else seemed rushed.

  Probably because Dominic kept us well fed.

  Each day he’d fished, and this morning he’d actually made conch salad. Honest-to-goodness seafood salad made from fresh conch, and it was surprisingly tasty—not slimy like I’d expected. He’d gone so far out into the ocean I’d lost sight of him, and then he’d come up with two giant conch, one in each hand. He repeated this trip twice, diving deep and swimming with ease. He’d broken the shells on the rocks, then, using the sharpest wooden blade we had, he’d filleted the fresh conch and sliced it thin. He added fresh lime juice and mango and a few other things I missed, then gestured to the pile. “Best conch salad you will ever eat. Back home, my cousin and I, we sell it for eleven dollars a bowl.”

  “And people pay that?” Davey had asked in disbelief.

  “If they want it, they do.” Dominic had grinned.

  Who cares about conch salad? I wanted to scream.

  That had been two hours ago. No longer smiling, Dominic had grown quiet. I realized he’d been stalling, delaying the inevitable—and the uncomfortable.

  To our right, the green hillside was steep. Clouds swirled overhead, puffy but not threatening. Near the top, trees dripped ripe fruit, lush and thick, the start of Nil’s rain forest. A large black cliff sat straight ahead.

  “Around that bend.” Dominic gestured ahead. “The ruins wait.”

  We rounded the cliff, the rocks fell away, and all of us drew a collective breath.

  “The Dead City,” Paulo murmured.

  The remains of huts jutted from the ground on the hillside, their black rock foundations crumbled. All were partially hidden, with chunks already lost to the elements and the passage of time. I easily pictured thatched roofs, but they were long gone.

  “This is as far as I go,” Dominic said. “I will wait here for you when you have seen all you want to see.”

  The rest of us hiked over to the ruins. The layout mirrored Nil City to the west. There were ten huts, or had been ten huts, built in a half circle. There was even evidence of a firepit at the edge near the water. The Nil silence hung like a cloud, eerie and haunting. Even the wind blew without sound.

  Something lingered here; it smelled of fear.

  I shivered.

  “How did Charley and I not see this?” Arms crossed, Thad looked dumbfounded.

  “My guess? You weren’t looking for it,” Davey said. “It’s like that YouTube clip where you’re supposed to count only the red balls bouncing around between a group of guys on a basketball court. Balls are flying everywhere, white ones, blue ones, red ones; it’s a bloody nightmare trying to keep track but you’re determined to get it right. You’re so busy looking for the red balls that you don’t see the bloke in a gorilla suit run through the group.” He shrugged. “So here? It could be a bloody island Stonehenge, but you weren’t looking for it, and you were specifically looking for something else. So you didn’t see it.”

  Davey’s casual words seemed incredibly deep, like I should file them away to ponder later. Molly looked at him as if she’d never seen him before, her mouth slightly open in surprise.

  She blinked and turned to me.

  “Why would they leave?” Molly gestured to the abandoned houses. “Maybe a tsunami? Or natural disaster?”

  “I don’t know.” But I desperately needed to; at the same time I wanted to leave myself. “Why leave a perfectly good city, where fruit is so close? And the stationary gate?”

  “Don’t forget. It’s close to the meadow, too,” Thad sa
id. “Maybe the big animals drove them out.”

  “They didn’t all leave.” Rives pointed to the hut farthest south, where a skeleton lay fully intact.

  Calvin stepped back and put his hands up. “All right, I’m done. You know in horror movies the black dude always bites it first. I’m going back with Dominic. Strength in numbers.”

  Rives walked closer to the skeleton, choosing his steps with care.

  “Rives?” Now I saw a second skeleton a few feet away from the first.

  Rives crouched by a large black boulder about three yards from the hut full of bones. An inscription covered the rock: This place is not safe.

  “‘This place is not safe’?” Davey read aloud. “Is that a bloody joke? Of course this place isn’t safe. Did they mean this city, or the island?”

  “Does it matter?” Thad asked. “It’s all the same. A death trap.”

  “I think it totally matters.” I looked at him. “Is that the riddle? Is that what Charley wants us to solve?”

  Thad shrugged. “No clue. At least we found the ruins.”

  I held back the urge to say Big whoop.

  “Let’s go find something worthwhile then.” Rives’s tone was firm. “I’d rather not stay any longer than we have to.”

  For the next hour, we marched all over the ruins. Other than the two skeletons and a large pile of rocks, there was nothing else. Nothing but the broken rock foundations of old huts, abandoned long ago.

  Find the ruins, solve the riddle.

  Look for what you don’t see.

  I saw nothing, found nothing, no insight or understanding at all. With each step, with each empty moment, I grew more disappointed. Water slid down my cheek like a tear, and for an instant I thought I’d actually started crying out of sheer frustration. Then I lifted my chin. Rain fell from the Nil sky, gentle and cool, as if Nil were weeping over our inability to see. Over my inability to understand what Nil’s history meant for our future.

  I closed my eyes.

  Rain coated my skin, an island caress, but inside my head the darkness swirled close. It mocked my blindness, attracted by the desperation of my thoughts. It liked my suffering, I realized with a start; it relished my frustration.

  It fed off my fear.

  My greatest fear.

  Suddenly I knew with frightening certainty that the darkness knew that if I lost Rives, I wouldn’t survive; it knew the depth of pain that loss would bring. It relished that, too. More than relished, it desired it. Pain, and death. And power over me.

  My lungs filled too fast; my breath caught.

  I could not lose Rives.

  “Skye?” Rives’s warm breath in my ear startled me. “Is it time?”

  My eyes flew open. “Time for what?”

  “To panic. For the last hour, you’ve stomped all over the place like an angry bear, and now you’re biting the inside of your cheek. So. Time to panic?” His expression was light, a sign he was trying to lighten me, or at least my mood. But his green eyes were searching.

  “Not time.” I willed myself to relax. “I told you I’d let you know. And I wasn’t stomping.”

  Rives smiled, that smile that made the world shrink to just him and me. “So what are you thinking about so seriously?”

  “Everything.” You. Me. The island. What I need to do.

  He held my hand, pulled me close; my worries and fears spun so fast that they breached my mental barriers and poured into Rives’s head. I knew it because I felt it; I felt him. I felt my mind touch his. For an instant I felt safe, and whole and clear; even the rain seemed to vanish.

  Rives stiffened.

  The world rushed back in, collapsing around me in invisible sheets. The rain, the weight, the darkness, the pressure.

  “I can’t lose you,” I said, my voice thick with feeling.

  He kissed me madly, desperately, a tangle of lips and heat and cool rain. With shaking hands, he pulled back and gently cupped my face, his green eyes like emerald fire as they searched mine with an unbridled intensity. “How can you lose me when I’m with you?” he asked hoarsely.

  Rain streaked his cheeks and mine.

  I reached up to catch the drops dripping from his lashes. “I don’t trust Nil,” I whispered, my heart aching.

  Rives’s eyes darkened. “I never have.”

  CHAPTER

  47

  RIVES

  76 DAYS UNTIL THE AUTUMNAL EQUINOX, AFTERNOON

  I let go of Skye’s chin.

  I smiled. I breathed. I took her hand. As we left the Dead City and walked through a fading Nil rain, I pretended everything was okay.

  Nothing was okay.

  The darkness in her head had shocked me. Blown me away. The depth of it, the pure want. I felt it when her thoughts touched mine: there was a moment—a cold instant—when a surreal darkness flooded my mind, like when she’d shown me the darkness of her dreams, only this darkness was a hell of a lot more potent. A million times more tangible, more connected. More alive. Like for just that moment, Skye had cleared her head, expelling her thoughts and the darkness in one massive purge, dumping the whole mess into mine.

  In that one second I saw everything so clearly: a crisp vision, seared into my brain with no room for misinterpretation. Skye, lifeless on black rock. Skye, claimed by Nil.

  The darkness wanted her.

  It wanted her dead.

  Rivesssss …

  Over the water, through the rain, I heard the papery hiss.

  Be fearless …

  I closed my eyes, working not to clench my fists. Working to breathe, which right now seemed like a monumental task. It’s easy to be fearless when you have nothing to lose.

  Me, I had everything.

  I’d never been more scared in my life.

  CHAPTER

  48

  NIL

  MORNING

  The one called Rives had weakened.

  The island knew there was a strong possibility he would break. He believed he had nearly broken while he was here before, but he was wrong. If anything, he had fought a fracture there. But those cracks were minuscule compared to the fissure that was coming. The island hurt for him, for the pain to come. Pain the island itself must deliver.

  The island regretted the pain to come, but it did not regret its choice.

  It only regretted that there was no choice.

  And so it would be.

  The pain in his head forced the island to turn away, to turn elsewhere. It turned to one far less powerful, one who was still lost.

  *

  Lana huddled in the trees, watching Zane paddle out. Yearning rolled over her as powerful as the towering wave he’d just ridden. A giant blue beauty, Zane had carved it with admirable precision, his board one with the wave, never pressing, his stance relaxed and powerful, bliss on his face.

  She wanted that. Not Zane, that was ridiculous. No, she wanted the freedom of the water, a place she knew like the back of her hand. She’d been island raised and island bred, and even though this wasn’t her island, she knew the water, and it called to her. It called her here.

  First she’d guiltily raided the storage hut for food, finding salted fish and mounds of guava; she’d been so hungry she’d forced herself to slow down so she didn’t get sick. Then she’d huddled in the trees, watching.

  “So this is your grand plan? Hiding in the bushes?”

  Lana turned. A girl stood behind her, hips cocked, thick dark braid, angry eyes. Proud stance. Carmen, Lana remembered. The girl from her cave.

  “Hello, Carmen.” Lana’s voice was smooth, giving no hint of anything but control. “Enjoying your island vacation?”

  “Here you are, in the shrubs. Watching them. And yet you haven’t joined them. Why?” The girl’s eyes blazed with a hunger Lana didn’t like.

  “Why should I tell you?” Lana’s tone stayed controlled.

  “Because I asked.”

  Lana smiled, enjoying the flare of fire in Carmen’s eyes. She smiled wider. �
��I have a different path. It might lead here”—she pointed toward the beach, where the heady waves rolled into shore—“or not.” She shrugged. “But I won’t be bullied into a choice.” She stared at Carmen.

  A long moment passed.

  Then Carmen nodded. “So the escape gate. It comes in three months?”

  “A little less now,” Lana said. Did everyone know the island’s secrets? she thought. Apparently yes. Suddenly the weight of all the secrets exhausted her. What was the point? She’d been hiding out in caves on the north shore, half starving and totally miserable, until the latest group of people had driven her away, people led by Paulo on a mission that she hadn’t bothered to care about. She was finally listening.

  She’d reflected enough.

  She looked at Carmen. “In less than three months’ time, that gate will open. On the mountain, past the meadow, when the crescent moon is high. If you’re there, it will take you home. Or…” She paused. “You can take a rogue gate, a wild one, anytime. They come at noon. Which,” Lana said with a wave of her hand, “is now.” The sun was high, the wind still blowing offshore. The waves ramped into perfect blue lines, begging her to ride them. On the far side of the island, gray dusted the sky, a hint of rain. But here, the sky was clear.

  Like the water.

  Like her path.

  Screw it, she thought. She stood. She leveled her eyes on Carmen. “Good luck, Carmen. I hope you find your way. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a wave to catch.”

  Lana turned and didn’t look back. Leaving her hiding spot and Carmen behind her, Lana strode to the storage hut, feeling lighter with each step, and picked the smallest surfboard propped against the hut’s side. She ran her hands over the smooth wood, history rippling beneath her fingers. With a smile for no one but herself, she tucked the board tight to her hip. Carved by her ancestors’ hands, this was one island tradition she would embrace with all she had.

  She walked to the water, waded until the waves hit her thighs, and then slid onto the board, paddling with power, feeling more confident than she had in weeks. She pulled up beside Zane, who sat reading the horizon. He looked over and did a double take. “Lana?”