Nil on Fire Read online

  “No, it wasn’t,” Paulo said, his voice rising. “The gate would’ve killed you.”

  “I would have made it first,” she spat.

  “Feel free to try again,” Rives said courteously. “It’s a double. Gate number two just dropped in.” He pointed. The second gate glittered at the tree line as it locked into place.

  Carmen scrambled to her feet and took off running. Near the trees, only a few meters from the gate, Lana stumbled backward, away from the gate, a tiny kitten in her arms. With a muffled squeak, the tabby clawed its way free. It streaked toward the gate as Lana’s jaw dropped.

  “Kitten’s gonna win,” Zane murmured.

  Carmen realized it too. With a frustrated scream, she hurled her blade at the iridescent wall as the kitten crossed the rippling edge. The kitten shimmered; Carmen’s aim was true. The blade would pierce the animal’s heart.

  White light flared like a firecracker.

  The knife shot back with lethal force, slashing Carmen’s bicep, leaving a shiny ruby line in its wake. She shrieked; the blade fell. Blood dripped onto the sand, thick and red.

  “A third?” Thad’s eyes swept the beach, his bearing tense and alert.

  “Don’t think so,” Rives said. “The breeze is back.” He strolled up to Carmen and plucked the knife out of the sand.

  “That’s mine!” she snapped.

  “Actually it’s not. At least, not anymore.” He handed her a strip of cloth. “For your arm.”

  She took it, reluctantly.

  “Listen, Carmen, we all want to bail. But you could’ve killed yourself or someone else with your little knife trick.” He raised the knife. “I’ll be keeping this. And if I were you, I’d think twice before racing after every gate you see.”

  “I’m not you.” Her words were cold.

  “Obviously.” Rives’s cordial expression did not match his eyes. “One more thing. I don’t care what you do, or where you go. But, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t kill anyone. It makes Nil too happy.”

  *

  Lana watched Carmen stalk off. In her wake, blood dotted the sand like paint, like the bear’s blood to the north.

  Lana shivered.

  Her arms felt empty. She missed her kitten. She’d been taking care of him ever since the bear attack, and she couldn’t imagine what possessed her tabby to jump from the safety of her arms into a wild gate. Somehow it felt like a message. A reminder, a three-prong warning.

  Wake up, it said. Nothing is permanent.

  Don’t get attached.

  Too late, she thought.

  She wasn’t sure if she was thinking about the kitten or something else. Someone else.

  At least Carmen hadn’t killed the poor kitten. That girl was crazy.

  Skye walked up the beach, closing the distance between them, but Skye’s eyes were trained on the mountain. It occurred to Lana that Skye looked tired, but more striking was the fact that Skye was alone. Normally she had someone with her. Lana couldn’t figure out why Skye drew so many people to her, how she had so many friends. Her extreme nosiness and insistence on meddling was an incredible turnoff as far as Lana was concerned. Skye turned her gaze to Lana as she approached.

  “Are you okay?” Skye asked.

  “I should be asking you that. You look—” Lana cocked her head at Skye. “Stressed.”

  “I am stressed, Lana. And you know why. We’re running out of time to figure this place out. We’re going back toward the mountain tomorrow, to search the east coast. The southeast coast.” Skye’s sigh was heavy. “We’re going to look for the balance to the Looking Glass Cavern. Unfortunately Paulo doesn’t know a thing about it.”

  “He wouldn’t know.” Lana’s tone dripped ice. “Obviously.”

  Skye looked lost.

  “Because he’s a boy,” Lana said with exasperation.

  “So?” Skye frowned.

  She is so slow, Lana thought. No wonder she found nothing.

  “So,” Lana said as if talking to a child, “the island only gifts Sight to women.”

  “So Paulo hasn’t seen where the place is.” Skye cocked her head. “But you have? Where is it?”

  Lana lifted her chin. “Reflection before Sight, Skye. The island will call you to the Pool of Sight if you’re ready, if you’re to know. If the island doesn’t call…” Lana shrugged.

  “So, you know where this place is but you won’t tell me.” Skye’s eyes sparked with anger.

  “I have not been called yet; maybe I never will be.” Lana’s bored expression turned defiant. “But for this journey, you’re on your own.”

  And so am I, Lana thought, turning away.

  *

  Molly had watched the entire scene with Carmen unfold. As Rives strode away from Carmen, Molly turned to Calvin.

  “You would have beaten Amara to that gate,” she said. “You’re so fast. Why didn’t you go for it?”

  He rubbed his head. “Paulo says those running gates dump you anywhere. I could end up in Antarctica, you know?” He shrugged. “Seems like it’s better to wait six weeks for a sure thing than take a wild card early.”

  “I’m not convinced there is such a thing as a sure thing.” She spoke slowly. Thoughtfully. “Not here, not anywhere.”

  “So you think I should’ve run for it?” Calvin asked, frowning.

  “No.” Her voice was certain. “I think you did the right thing. But I think if you had felt the right thing to do was run, then the answer would be different.”

  “She is right,” Hafthor interjected. “You must listen to the voice inside. You must go when the time is right.” He shook his head slightly. “When it is your time.” He gestured to Carmen’s retreating back. “Today was not her time, but almost.”

  Hafthor nodded. Without another word, he walked away.

  “Damn,” Calvin said in the silence that followed. “That was intense.”

  Privately, Molly agreed. An uneasy sensation grew in the pit of her stomach as she watched Hafthor kneel on the sand.

  Had Hafthor been talking about escape, or death?

  *

  On the beach, Carmen’s blood splattered the sand, a macabre Pollock-esque rendering of the scene moments before. As he neared the blood, Hafthor felt the ground shiver. He knelt, overcome by a profound awareness.

  The hidden people are not happy, he thought, and they grew more unhappy by the minute.

  He felt as though he were a trespasser, even though he’d never chosen to come. He felt unwanted. And yet he also felt highly desired, in a way that made his blood run colder than winter in Iceland.

  He glanced toward the mountain. Perhaps I should make an offering, he thought. Something to appease the hidden people.

  He glanced back at the sand. Carmen’s blood was gone. Absorbed by the sand, by the island, as if the blood had never spilled in the first place. The white sand glittered as pure as the fresh chill down his spine.

  Offering already accepted, Hafthor realized. Or taken.

  The thought did not sit well. Neither did the ones that followed, but those thoughts, those orders, he would not ignore.

  He’d been summoned.

  *

  The island devoured each emotion, greedy for more. It reveled in the frustration and worry, the anger and the pain.

  But more than anything else, the island reveled in the fighter’s blood. It had expected the male’s blood, the one who had stayed before: Paulo. But he had misunderstood the island’s call. The island was certain the fighter would have bested him with a blade to the heart, spilling first his blood and later, his electria. But these humans were unpredictable. Volatile, and in their own human way, unique.

  Still, they all bled.

  And soon enough, they all would.

  CHAPTER

  52

  SKYE

  41 DAYS UNTIL THE AUTUMNAL EQUINOX, BREAKING DAWN

  Zane prowled around the City. He was more restless than I was, which said something considering I’d woken well befor
e dawn and had been dying to leave ever since. And Zane wasn’t the one leaving—that was me.

  He stopped me on his third pass. “Skye, have you seen Lana? I can’t find her.”

  “I haven’t. But I don’t think she was planning on coming, do you?”

  “No. But I’ve surfed with her at dawn every day for almost three weeks, just me and her. I just thought—” He stopped. “I don’t know. That she would’ve at least waited to say good-bye or something.”

  I frowned. “Why? Where are you going?”

  “I wasn’t talking about me. I was talking about Lana. She’s gone.”

  “Gone?”

  He nodded. He ran his hands through his messy bleached hair, perpetually stiff with salt. Eyes closed, he gave the whisper of a laugh. “Want to hear something crazy? I don’t know if I like her because I like her or because Nil’s screwing with my head. Seriously in my head. I mean, do I like her because she’s the most badass surfing Betty I’ve ever ridden a wave with, and because together we’re riding swells that make my hometown waves look like a kiddie pool? And she’s smart and funny when she’s not trying to be some version of a Maaka island mystic? Or do I like her because I dream about her, because this place won’t let me stop thinking about her?” He looked at me as if he needed an answer and hoped I might have one tucked in my satchel. “I don’t know, Skye. It’s so messed up. Which Lana is the one I know?”

  “Maybe they both are.” I smiled, hopefully reassuringly. “Maybe they’re not so different. Trust your head, but most of all, trust your heart.” Because the island doesn’t have one, I thought.

  Or does it?

  As we left with first light, I thought of all that Zane didn’t say. That he suspected he and Lana were more—and that somehow he knew her absence meant more too.

  Lana’s gone, I thought.

  I felt the truth of it, that she’d left the City. Maybe permanently.

  I couldn’t help but wonder if she’d received the call she’d been waiting for. Me, I was traipsing off uninvited, and I wasn’t crashing the Nil party alone. I had Rives, Thad, Davey, Hafthor, Molly, Paulo, and Kenji. Hafthor had switched with Calvin at the last minute, sticking close to Paulo with the most serious of bearings. This time we didn’t have even numbers, but then again, it wasn’t really my choice to turn people away. And part of me thought the more eyes the better. Maybe someone else would see what I couldn’t.

  Yesterday Dominic had volunteered to come, even though I knew he had serious reservations about walking inland. I wasn’t sure if he’d changed his mind about joining us after all, because when it was time to leave, he was as absent as Lana.

  Look, Skye.

  Look for what you don’t see.

  Every step, every minute, I heard the whisper, felt the pull. I never stopped looking as we walked.

  We passed quickly through the Flower Field, where color patterns shifted with the breeze, and onto the ancient lava flow to the south, where cracks fissured the gray ground like a deadly web. To the north, red gleamed, another lava flow, newer yet still older than I could possibly guess; it tinted the sky rust. The cliffs of the southern shore guarded the side on our right, a dusting of black that ended in Nil sky; beyond them the ocean boomed with reassuring constancy.

  Look, crooned the breeze.

  Look for what you don’t see.

  “I don’t see any animals, Rives,” I said slowly. It was early afternoon. “Not even small ones. Not even a mouse.”

  “No people either,” Rives observed.

  “It’s like the island is helping us,” I said.

  “Or herding us.” His voice was grim.

  “I pick the former,” I said, smiling.

  “I know you do.” His jaw stayed tight. His eyes never rested as he swept our surroundings, like me. But I wasn’t sure we were looking for—or seeing—the same things.

  Another step, another hour, one rolling into the next. The sun grew warmer, and stronger. One by one we all wrapped our shoulders and heads with cloth to ward off a major burn. The gentle breeze stayed steady, blowing from the south; nothing changed but the scenery. Boulders shifted and changed, morphing in size and shape from one mile to the next, clumps of scrub brush crouched without moving. There were no animals, gates, or people. The lack of life was eerie, even for Nil.

  The rusty red to our left faded; the black lava field around us gave way to tangled thickets and tall grass. Green shoots filled the meadow, hope rising from the ashes.

  “Tiger,” Kenji said abruptly, pointing with his bokken. At the far end of the meadow, the massive striped cat stood as still as death, facing us.

  Davey swore. He turned to me and Rives. “Now what? Go back?”

  “I think we’re okay,” I said.

  “You think?” Davey raised his brows. “Bloody big risk to take on a hunch, Skye.”

  “Woman’s intuition,” Molly interjected with a wink. “And experience.” She turned to me. Her levity faded. “This is the same tiger that let you go last time, right?”

  I looked back at the tiger. Was this the same one?

  For one long moment, I swear he looked at me. Just me, his big golden eyes somber and keen, as if he knew all there was to know, as if he were wishing for me to see.

  Then the moment passed.

  He swung his head toward the coast and snatched something out of the air.

  “Bloody hell. Did you see that?” Davey gaped. “That big kitty just grabbed a fish out of the air.”

  Hafthor squinted. “A grouper.” He nodded, as if the airborne fish snack was unsurprising. “Dominic is here.”

  The tiger lay down with his catch, literally.

  “Let’s go.” I spoke with confidence I felt. “Hug the mountain, and we’ll be fine.”

  “It feels right,” Hafthor said quietly. “Here, the hidden people are not unhappy.”

  “And that worries me,” Rives said as he looked around.

  Single file, we circled the mountain, keeping the slope on our right. The tiger watched us as he ate his lunch.

  We passed the rock bearing the Bull’s-eye carving and kept walking, hugging the mountain, working our way around to the steps leading up to the platform. Creeping up the mountain, the steps angled away, angled back, toward the platform just out of sight.

  I walked past the steps to the coastline’s edge and peered down.On a line directly across from the base of the steps that led to the platform, another pair of steps curved down. Camouflaged among black rock, the subtle path was easy to miss, especially if you weren’t looking.

  But I was, now.

  And every instinct I had told me that these steps led to more than another Nil beach. Excitement flooded my veins as I spun around to face Rives, smiling like the crazy girl I wasn’t.

  “Isn’t this cool? These steps have to lead somewhere important. After all, the matching set leads to the platform, right?”

  I started down but Rives pulled me back. “Hang on a sec,” he said. He peered over the cliff’s edge, his expression flickering between anxiety and dread.

  “You worry too much,” I teased. I squeezed Rives’s hand, willing him to feel the rightness of the moment, knowing he would if he just stopped worrying. “Trust me; we’re where we’re supposed to be; I feel it.” I stood on my tiptoes and kissed him fiercely. And then I pulled back.

  “I love you,” I said, placing my hand on his heart for one steady beat. “Now let’s go!”

  I was first down the steps, Rives and Molly just behind me.

  “Oh,” Molly breathed. “It’s gorgeous.”

  It was. At the bottom of the cliff, I stared in wonder. Chunky rocks glistened like black jewels jutting above the water, covered in spray from crashing waves. To the left, clustered into a long oval shape, the rocks formed an open-air swimming pool, completely enclosed. The breeze blew, wafting a hint of sulfur.

  “I know this place!” Paulo snapped his fingers. “The hot springs. My brother told me about it. This pool is heated b
y the volcano, so it’s warm.”

  “Warm or hot?” Hafthor frowned.

  “Warm.”

  Behind the pool, a long ledge ran along the cliff’s base, like a knee wall; it disappeared around the corner of the bay, curving out of sight. Near the far end, a hole gaped at us, the opening of something.

  Look.

  I started over, walking along the ledge. Rives grabbed my arm from behind. “Skye, stop. Look at the entrance.” He gestured ahead. “Dead animals. And bones. Something’s already in there, something that might still be hungry. Maybe that’s where all the small animals went.” He shot me a pointed look.

  I squinted at the opening, and sure enough, Rives was right. Bleached bones lay scattered around the entrance, along with a freshly killed raccoon. I was desperate to know, but I didn’t want a run-in with a predator, either.

  No other caves were in sight.

  “There must be another cave,” I said stubbornly. “There has to be.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.” He looked north. “I’ll scout out around the corner.” He glanced at Thad, who nodded, then Rives raised an eyebrow at me. “Stay clear of that cave, okay?” And the unspoken: Don’t do anything stupid.

  “Stop telling me what to do,” I said irritably. “And for the record, I don’t have a death wish.” I glared at him.

  He smiled. “I know.” His eyes grew flinty. “But Nil does.”

  “That’s a good thing. We want Nil to die, remember?” I waved my hand. “Go. Be careful.”

  After giving me a long look, Rives went, with Thad and Paulo by his side. Hafthor, Molly, and Davey waded into the pool.

  I slid into the water, using the time alone to think. Warm water wrapped me in comfort, too deep to stand. Hanging on to the ledge, I relaxed, listening to Molly laugh and Davey crack jokes, wondering where Dominic was and why Hafthor was so silent.

  Look for what you don’t see.

  It’s under the water, I thought suddenly. Just like the Looking Glass Cavern.

  I slipped under the surface.

  I swam forward, passing the legs of Hafthor and Molly and Davey in the clear water as I felt along the edge, swimming south, leaving the cave with dead bones at the entrance behind. Up ahead, with a gap as wide as a car, an opening in the rocks beckoned.