Nil on Fire Read online

  Please wake up.

  Her color actually looked decent, but her skin still ran hot. And her mind was untouchable. No more dark wall, just—nothing.

  Our link was gone.

  Thad and Molly checked on us throughout the night. I dozed off and on, sleeping only because I’d been awake the entire night before. At least here in the City, Nil let me sleep. No whispers, no taunts.

  I hoped it wasn’t messing with Skye’s head. In Skye’s head.

  I feared it already had.

  Nil stealing time, Nil stealing lives.

  Nil was a cruel thief, taking without remorse. Taking without any thought or regard for others, its pleasure its sole focus.

  Nil’s selfish, I realized abruptly.

  Knowledge was power. The question was, how could I use that revelation to beat it?

  *

  Zane and Molly came in the next morning with water.

  “Chief, you need some fluids. And some food. And no doubt a bathroom break.”

  “I’ll stay with her while you scoot out for a bit,” Molly added.

  I was back in less than ten minutes.

  “No breakfast?” Zane asked, eyeing my empty hands.

  “Not hungry,” I said. I sat down beside Skye. Her eyes were still closed, her breath even, her skin hot. I gently wove my fingers back through hers. Skye didn’t move.

  “Unreal,” Zane said, staring at Skye. “Thad filled me in. Said Skye and Molly here found a super special secret cavern. Then Skye touched the liquid RoboCop, it zapped her, and she’s pretty much been like this ever since.”

  “Not sure about the RoboCop part, but the rest is about it.” Molly nodded.

  “Did you ever see Lana?” Zane’s eyes were hopeful.

  “No Lana, no Carmen. No one else. And we learned absolutely nothing.”

  “You’re wrong.” Skye’s quiet voice made everyone’s eyes jerk toward her. She dropped my hand as she sat up slowly, her blond hair Skye-wild, her chin Skye-fierce. But something in her eyes unsettled me. Something foreign. It kept me from wrapping her in my arms.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked, fighting the urge to pull her close. I studied her face and body movements for the answer.

  “I’m okay.” She smiled. The half-moons under her eyes were back, subtle but real. “But there’s something I need to tell everyone at once.”

  She swung her legs over the edge of the bed and stood, then walked outside the hut without looking back. Zane and Molly exchanged a worried glance. Skye took a seat by the firepit, on the largest boulder of a group of three, as everyone gathered around her. I sat beside her, but the island sat between us.

  She lifted her chin. “A few minutes ago, I told Rives he was wrong, that we didn’t return with nothing. I learned everything.” She paused, her eyes sweeping across each of us in turn, an eerie glance totally unlike Skye. “When I touched the pool, the island showed me its history, including the stories of all the people who came before.” Skye blinked slowly, like she was walling off memories, but her calm expression never changed. “The island was good. Benevolent, at least at first. No”—she shook her head slightly—“that’s not right. At first it was just existing. Drifting. It found this place—this layer of space, a fragment that mirrors our world—and it paused. It waited. It wasn’t good or bad, it just was. The first gate opened, drawn by the prince. He taught the island strength and kindness, and then the princess—the next one through the gate, who had waited for him—she taught the island about hope and a different kind of strength. Through that pair, the island discovered depth of love and the incredible power of it, and the power inherent in the balance of the two. Knowledge went both ways.”

  She exhaled, twisting her hands in her lap.

  “It still does.” Her voice was quiet. “We have taught the island things. Good things and terrible things. We taught the island about strength and kindness and love, and we taught the island about cruelty and power and pain. And when we unleashed the atomic bombs on that solstice day, we caused the island pain on an incomprehensible level and scope. Unbearable pain, as if the island were burning alive. And in that moment, when the pain became too much, something splintered.” She flinched. “Maybe to protect itself, maybe it just happened. But after that, the dark side of Nil grew. And it’s been growing ever since.”

  Zane whistled between his teeth. “So the island’s crazy? Literally? Like we’re stuck on Sybil?”

  Skye took Zane’s question seriously because he actually wasn’t joking.

  “Maybe. I don’t know whether the bombs—the pain—caused a separate personality to develop in response, or whether the pain supercharged the dark side of Nil, like a boost of nitro. But…” She looked thoughtful, enough like Skye to almost make me relax. “I think both sides were there all along. The good and the bad, the dark and the light. But now, the dark side has grown so powerful, it’s choking out the light. It feels like we infected the island. Like the bombs caused a disease that can’t be cured—and it’s getting worse.

  “Either way,” she continued, “whether it’s a cancer growing from within, or whether it’s a dark personality taking over, the result is the same: it’s getting stronger by the day. It’s feeding on us, and it’s darker than any of you know.” She shuddered. “But that’s not the worst part.”

  “Really? What’s worse than this?” Fear sharpened my words. Because Skye looked ill again. More—empty.

  “The good side’s dying,” Skye said quietly. Her voice was scary calm, almost clinical. “That’s why it wanted me back. To show me the past, so I could understand. The good side has been fighting to keep the dark at bay, and it’s losing. It’s so weak. It used to help the people who came, guiding them, keeping them safe as they found their own strength. But now, it can barely help. And the weaker the light side gets, the stronger the pull the dark side has into our world. Soon the light side will disappear, for good. And if the dark side wins? It will reach into our world without restraint. Without a barrier, without a consequence. The seam between worlds has weakened too; the good side has been guarding it. If the seam collapses, the consequences will be disastrous.”

  Everyone was silent.

  Firelight bounced off her eyes, but the steel flecks glittered rather than sparked, as if they’d cooled. Despite the heat raging in her skin, some of Skye’s fire was gone.

  What did Nil do to her?

  Nil’s light side had shown her the past, but Nil’s dark side had snuck in too. Maybe Trojan horse–style; maybe it had just barreled straight in. Either way, despite the split, it was all Nil. Both sides wanted her, for different reasons. And I knew full well that the dark side wanted to keep her.

  She’s mine, it had snarled. I’ve already claimed her.

  No, I thought viciously. Not as long as I’m alive.

  I reached for her hand, and to my relief, she let me hold it.

  “And by disastrous, you mean—” Davey broke off.

  “I saw the past, not the future,” Skye said quietly. “The past simply predicts the future. So while I can’t say precisely what will happen, I know it will be terrible. If the seam collapses, Nil will bleed into our world and affect it. Permanently. Our world will become Nil’s; I think it will become the new Nil. The dark side of Nil, that is. And there will be no light side left to balance it.”

  “And no way to escape,” I said.

  “Exactly.” Skye nodded.

  Another loaded moment of silence followed. The pop of the fire echoed in the stillness like a warning.

  “We have to stop it.” Paulo’s voice was resolute.

  Skye nodded again.

  “But how?”

  “The key was in the Dead City.” She cocked her head toward the woods, as if listening, then she looked directly at me. “We have to blow up the island.”

  CHAPTER

  60

  NIL

  MORNING

  The one called Rives understood the island like no other.

&nbs
p; He understood that the island was truly one with two faces, with dueling agendas fighting for supremacy. Without his mate voicing the words, deep within himself he already knew the end was written, and he knew the end.

  He simply refused to see it.

  Perhaps it was a human trait, or perhaps the flaw was personal to the one called Rives.

  Perhaps he thought he could change it.

  Perhaps he understood he couldn’t. Either way, his mind was closed, an unfortunate development. If the one called Rives refused to see, perhaps the one called Lana could benefit from Skye’s Sight, or at least learn from it.

  The one called Lana certainly knew how to listen.

  *

  Lana eavesdropped from behind a cluster of trees. She pressed her homemade amplifier, crafted from a large taro leaf, to her ear.

  She had beaten the group to the cliff housing the Pool of Sight, but had waited to enter; Lana hadn’t really believed that Skye would find it. She hadn’t believed the island would actually call Skye to the Pool, a girl so opinionated and intrusive, and she’d been shocked when the island had gifted Skye with Sight. More shocking still was the fact that Skye had touched the Pool. Skye shouldn’t have been able to touch the Pool; Lana’s grandmother had claimed the Pool couldn’t be touched.

  Stretch your hand over the water, her grandmother had advised, palm down. The water will respond if it approves, and you will feel the Sight rise like liquid air, invisible and warm; it will flow over you, over your mind. You won’t touch the water. Indeed, you can’t; the water won’t allow it, but don’t worry, child, touch isn’t necessary. If it deems you worthy, the Pool will impart the Sight, which is knowledge of the future. A true gift, given to a chosen few.

  Not me, she thought dismally. Not now.

  When Lana had entered the cavern, the Pool was gone. Only a dry cave bed remained. Looking at the depression littered with pebbles and chunks of rock, Lana would have wondered if the sacred Pool had ever really existed, but a clear image had coursed through her head: Skye, kneeling beside the Pool, her arm immersed to her elbow.

  Skye had touched the Pool, just as she’d told the others. Lana knew it to be true; she’d seen it in her mind as clearly as if she’d been there. And Skye had ruined it, just as she knew Skye’s friends had ruined the skylight. The cavern ceiling was destroyed, the floor riddled with rocks and chunks of earth.

  Would the haoles ever cease their destructive ways?

  And why had Skye’s Sight run in reverse?

  Lana wrenched her thoughts back to the group. Skye had paused, tilting her head toward Lana’s hiding spot as if she knew Lana was there. A long moment passed, during which Lana was certain Skye would call her out.

  But she didn’t.

  Skye resumed speaking to Rives, as if Lana’s presence was unsurprising, or unimportant.

  “We have to blow up the island,” Skye said calmly.

  Lana’s mouth fell open in shock. She strode out from the shrubs like a wild beast. “Will you ever stop destroying things?” she exclaimed. She waved her hand. “First the bombs, then the cavern. Now you want to blow up the entire island? What is wrong with your people?”

  “Back to your people and ours, are we?” Rives’s voice was cold.

  Skye’s expression didn’t change.

  “Lana.” Skye spoke with calm certainty. “The island seeks its own death. Did you not just hear what I shared with the group? That the light side is dying, Lana? But the dark side isn’t?”

  “I heard you,” Lana admitted. “But I’m not convinced.”

  Skye regarded her carefully, then nodded. “I understand.” Skye turned to Rives. “Give me a second, okay?” She squeezed his arm, then looked away, but not before Lana caught the acute flash of pain in Skye’s eyes, so startling that Lana nearly felt it herself.

  What was that? she wondered. Lana was so taken aback that she stood rock still as Skye approached; she actually forgot to move.

  “Can I talk to you a minute?” Skye asked softly. “Alone? Maybe at your hiding spot?” Skye’s knowing smile was wry.

  “Sure.”

  The two walked away from the group, which started muttering immediately, their words blending into a background noise competing with the ocean.

  “Lana.” Skye rubbed her temples. “I know you don’t care for non-islanders in general, and me specifically. I get it. But listen. I saw…” She paused for a moment. “Everything. I know about your aunt, Lina.”

  Lana jerked in surprise. Skye kept speaking as if nothing had happened.

  “I know she ignored the island’s call, and that she never received the gift of Sight. I know she’d fallen in love with a boy from Turkey, and that she didn’t want to leave him to go to the Pool of Sight, that it was a long journey from where she was, and I know she was scared. I’m not judging, Lana, I’m just telling you what I know. But I also know that if she’d received the gift of Sight, she would have known that the rockslide at the north shore was coming, and two people would’ve been saved, one being the boy she loved. And I know that she would’ve known better than to take the wild gate that she did. It opened on the other end, in the middle of a major highway. I know that if she’d received the gift of Sight, she would have survived.” Her voice was a whisper. “But she didn’t.” Skye closed her eyes, her voice a remote whisper. “The island doesn’t like to be ignored.”

  She opened her eyes again. “And the other night, the island called you, but you didn’t come in time. You waited to see what we would do. And now you don’t have the gift.” Skye’s tone turned frustrated. “You were supposed to help me. I would see the past; you would see the future. The island only had energy left to bequeath Sight once more, in one episode.” She sighed, then lifted her tired gaze to Lana.

  “Weeks ago, I told you that you didn’t have to do this alone. But now, I do. I have to convince everyone the past is real, and can’t be repeated. Time is running out. If you heard me talk, you know I didn’t just see your aunt’s history, I saw all the history. Of the island, of every single person who ever came through a gate, and I felt the suffering. Like it was my own.” She swallowed. “And that’s just a taste of the island’s potential to inflict pain and sorrow. If it creeps into our world, its power will grow exponentially and the damage will be catastrophic. We can’t let that happen. We have to end it.” Skye’s tone had grown so calm, so detached, Lana had the strange urge to shake her. “Make no mistake, Lana, this world as we know it”—Skye waved a lethargic hand around—“will end at the equinox, one way or the other. This chapter of Nil is over. Either we end it, or it ends us, and not just us, but our world as we know it back home. It’s a living threat, Lana, but we have the ability to stop it. Right now. So I choose the former. Blow up the island and leave as one.” Skye’s firm gaze held Lana rooted to the ground. “All I ask is that if you won’t join us, please don’t stand against us.”

  Lana said nothing, still processing all that Skye had said.

  “The choice is yours.” Now the shadow of a smile crossed Skye’s face. “I told Paulo that once.” Her gaze stilled completely on Lana, her voice fading like her smile. “Lana, you don’t have to like me, or talk to me. But I know you can talk to Paulo, or Zane. Talk to someone, even yourself. Know there is power in whatever choice you make.”

  Skye started to walk away.

  “Skye.” Lana spoke quietly.

  Skye turned back.

  “Why you?” Lana asked.

  “Why not me?” Skye raised her eyebrows, amused. “But for the record, it could have been you. I guess I just got lucky. Or perhaps the island saw something in us we didn’t see in ourselves.” She shrugged. “I guess we’ll find out.” Sadness swirled in her eyes, so profound and moving that Lana’s own breath hitched in her chest. “I’m sorry about your aunt.” Skye’s whisper rippled with pain. “You look like her, you know.”

  Skye turned away again; Lana stood rooted to the leaf-strewn ground.

  Make your own way
, her grandmother had told her. Do not repeat the past.

  Perhaps, Lana considered, as Skye walked away, perhaps she’d misunderstood her grandmother’s words entirely.

  As Lana watched, Skye took her seat with the group around the firepit. Everyone’s voices died at once. Rives stared at her as if she might break; Thad looked pensive. The morning light crept through the trees, painting some faces with golden light, casting others in shadow. All eyes were trained on Skye, including Lana’s.

  It was as if the entire world were holding its breath.

  Something was unfolding right before her eyes. A shift was taking place, right here, right now. Just as Lana knew that she was to stride through that solstice gate last June into the island unknown, Lana understood that this moment was pivotal—that she would either embrace the shift, or stand on the sidelines forever.

  Lana, whispered the breeze. Choose.

  Without hesitation, she walked forward and sat in the only space available: next to Zane.

  *

  Davey watched Lana the loner stroll back into camp and plop down next to Zane as if she’d never left. Zane’s eyes widened and Davey didn’t miss the slight lift of his shoulders. The girl messed with Zane in every which way.

  Zane cocked his head at her. “Do I know you? Because you kinda look like this girl I knew; her name’s Lana? Dark hair, surfs like a champ? Likes to bail without saying good-bye?”

  Lana rolled her eyes.

  “And she has a serious attitude.” Zane grinned.

  “This is lovely,” Davey said, breaking into the Zane-Lana dynamic. “Truly touching. But can we get back to the blow-up-the-island plan? And by plan, I mean idea that sounds epically dangerous and not exactly possible. Unless I missed something, there aren’t any explosives stashed in the Shack.”

  “We were all missing something,” Skye said quietly. “Something invisible, something volatile. The island told me to look inside. Well, inside the island is an odorless gas. You can’t see it, or smell it. It killed the animals by that cave, and it killed the people in the Dead City while they slept. I saw it happen.” She twitched reflexively.