Fates (23 page)

“You … you were the one?” Luc's heart was pounding against his rib cage. Was
Rhys
the Radical Corinthe had told him about? Luc hadn't understood what she'd meant by a Radical—it sounded like the universe's version of an anarchist. Now he realized that maybe his assessment hadn't been so far off.

Rhys swiped his sleeve across his mouth. “Time … space … they flow like water. Only love is eternal. Remember that.” Rhys tried to return the locket to his pocket, but it popped open as he fumbled with it. Luc stiffened; he recognized the tune that suddenly floated on the air. It was the same tune that Corinthe's locket played. The lockets were almost identical.

Only there was no ballerina inside.

It was an archer. His bow was pulled back, strung with an arrow that pointed up toward the heavens. It spun slowly to a halt, and Rhys looked up at a point in the sky.

“Where does the compass point?” Luc asked.

“To the thing I want most. A dead star.” Rhys stumbled forward, determined, as if he might walk up an invisible staircase to that phantom star in the sky. But he tripped over his own feet and pitched forward, straight into Luc.

“Easy,” Luc said, slipping a shoulder under Rhys's arm. Without thinking, his free hand unclasped the chain on Rhys's waist and the compass swung free. He slipped it into his own pocket in one fluid motion. “Let's take you back inside.”

Luc supported Rhys back inside. Rhys was moving clumsily, tottering from side to side, singing along with the music and trying to get Luc to dance. Luc finally managed to wrestle him into an oversized chair just outside the ring of dancers. As he started to leave, Rhys reached out and grabbed Luc's arm. The candlelight lit up the bloodshot whites of Rhys's eyes.

“People leave us all the time, but it don't mean they didn't love us,” he said. “You gotta hold on to that no matter what.”

In the middle of the celebration, Luc thought about his mother, as she used to be, for the first time in years.

“Forgive,” Rhys whispered, even as his eyes were fluttering closed and his head nodding to his chest.

And Luc knew that maybe, someday, he could.

T
he sky was lit an unnatural, smoky color. Gray wisps drifted across the open space over Corinthe's head. She wiped a thick coating of dust from her face with the hem of her shirt.

Miranda was gone. If Corinthe stayed here, underground, she would die with her.

Sirens still screamed all around her, mixing with frantic shouts. As she lay there, staring up at the sky through the broken-apart ceiling, a soft crying sound filtered through to her over the din of sirens and yelling—almost like the noise of a tiny kitten. She tried to ignore it, but it tugged at her insides, compelled her to her feet. She remembered that once, years ago, she had found a stray cat and wanted to keep it; Miranda had forbid her to do so, telling her that pets, obligations,
affections,
were too human and thus unbecoming of a Fallen Fate. Corinthe hadn't been able to explain that animals connected her to her old world, to a place where energy flowed between beings, where she had felt safe and necessary.

Corinthe hadn't thought of that stray kitten, and Miranda's response, in years. She felt a pulse of sadness. She wondered whether the kitten had lived.

Carefully, she listened again for the sound of crying, cocked her head to isolate the noise. It was coming from the lagoon. Something inside her chest tugged, pulling her toward the sound. She clawed her way out of the rubble. At the edge of the water, half hidden under an uprooted eucalyptus tree, was a very young girl, maybe four or five. Tears had made tracks down her dirty face, and though she had her thumb jammed into her mouth, she continued to cry. When she saw Corinthe, she dropped her hand and lifted both arms to be picked up.

Corinthe didn't hesitate. She reached out and gently scooped up the girl, who wrapped her arms around Corinthe's neck. She was surprisingly heavy and smelled like something familiar, from Humana. Strawberries.

Suddenly, Corinthe had a wave of memories: summertime farmer's markets, passing stalls filled with fruit the color of rubies …

Soap and clean sheets …

The smell of Luc's shirt …

Corinthe forced the images out of her head. “Where's your mommy?” she asked.

The girl shook her head, pointing a stubby finger back toward the fallen rotunda. Corinthe looked over her shoulder at the pile of broken columns against the backdrop of a burning city. How could anyone survive that destruction?

She couldn't leave the girl alone. Corinthe remembered when she'd been exiled, how scared and alone she had felt before Miranda found her. She knew it shouldn't matter what happened to one random little girl—she knew it wasn't her business—but it
did
matter. At the moment, it mattered more than anything else.

“Let's go find her,” Corinthe said.

They turned away from the water, and gradually, the girl's sobs turned to sniffles. The girl's weight was almost too much for Corinthe—she was so weak—but she refused to put her down. As they started across the lawn, which was torn apart now, gaping with fresh wounds in the earth, she felt a tickle against her cheek. The girl was brushing her fingers through Corinthe's tangled hair.

“Pretty,” she said softly.

Corinthe managed to smile. “Thank you,” she said. She felt a prickling behind her eyes and blinked rapidly.

Now what? In the distance, the road looked mostly empty of people—overturned, abandoned cars emitted smoke in the street, but most of the damage, and most of the medical help, would be in more populous places.

Which way should she go?

Another aftershock rumbled through the ground. Corinthe ducked, shielding the girl with her body. Bits of floating debris stung her back and arms.

When the noise subsided, Corinthe pushed back to her feet and hefted the girl, now wailing again, to her chest. Then she heard a woman shouting behind her.

Corinthe turned around.

The girl lifted her head and began to cry. The woman ran toward them, arms outstretched, stumbling over the uneven ground. When she reached Corinthe's side, the girl launched herself out of Corinthe's arms and into her mother's.

The woman wept, clinging to her daughter, murmuring, “It's okay. Mommy's here. It's okay.” Then she looked at Corinthe. “God bless you,” she sobbed, and she threw one arm around Corinthe, drawing her in.

Corinthe froze.

She felt the woman's gratitude. No one had ever hugged her like that before.

“Thank you,” the woman said as she pulled away. She reached up and tugged on something around her neck, then pressed it into Corinthe's hand. “Thank you.”

The woman made her way toward the street, the child still clinging to her, sobbing into her shoulder. Corinthe looked down at the object the woman had given her. A St. Jude pendant rested in her bloodied palm.

The patron saint of lost causes.

She held it up by its silver chain, watched it twirl like the tiny ballerina in her music box. An ache started deep inside her and took away her breath. The pendant started to tremble.

All she'd ever wanted was to return home to Pyralis. That had been the reason for everything: the single driving force behind all of her actions. Every time a horn blared, tires screeched, or music blasted from a car stereo, she had longed for the serenity, the quiet, of the twilight world.

She had never wanted to be human—had feared it more than anything.

She had never
felt
human. She had never felt anything at all.

Until Luc.

He had made her question everything; he had made her see the world differently. He was stubborn and opinionated and selfless and loyal. She wanted to see him again, to tell him he was right, ask him to tell her more about his family, his friends, his dreams. She wanted to show him she understood, now, why he had to save his sister. That she knew what it was like to care that much for someone else.

She tried to swallow, but it felt like something had wedged in her throat. Pressure built inside her chest. She felt like she would explode. She opened up her mouth to scream, but nothing came out.

She felt her legs shake. She fell to her hands and knees. The pendant landed a foot away in the dirt. She gasped for air, felt her lungs burning. Then something inside her broke, and a sob burst from her throat.

A gut-wrenching, half-strangled noise.

She'd never cried before.

Tears ran down her cheeks and made strange patterns in the dirt. She stared, horrified and fascinated, even as sobs continued to consume her, as her chest heaved and pain clawed through her chest. She wondered if this was death. She had expected pain, but this was so much more. It went on and on, didn't subside, just battered her until she felt nothing else, as though a deadly current had been unleashed inside of her.

She pushed to her feet, half blind, desperate. Without knowing what she was doing or where she was going, she stumbled toward the lagoon. Tears blurred her vision, but she could still see that thousands of fireflies were swarming around the choppy surface of the water.

She swallowed back a sob. Why didn't they fall? They must complete the cycle; they must return to Pyralis.

Corinthe had waded into the water. Her thoughts had somehow become fixed on the idea that she could help, that she could restore this tiny bit of balance. When the water was waist high, she inhaled and submerged herself. Her arms and legs burned, but she ignored the screaming pain in her muscles as she kicked out and swam to the center of the lagoon.

She surfaced, spitting water. “Go!” she shouted. “Go before you're lost!”

She swung her arm, lifting a spray of water toward the hovering mist of fireflies. But they had obviously lost their way and wouldn't become submerged.

Tears stung her eyes. All of those fates would be lost forever. Would the whole world end, now that everything was chance and choice? Would everything fall into ruin?

Corinthe thought of Luc's warm eyes, the way he said
If you believe in fate.
 …

Was it chance that she had fallen in love with him?

Did it matter?

Corinthe drew in a mouthful of water, then spit it out, coughing. The surface of the small lagoon was choppier than it had been only a few minutes earlier. A vibration traveled across the surface, growing louder, until it swelled to a roar. The currents surged, tugged her in different directions. She took another mouthful of muddy water and spit it out, retching.

A wave crashed over her head, burying her in sound and tumult. For several panicked seconds, she was turned around. She surfaced to suck in air just in time to get another mouthful of water.

She went under again.

Her lungs burned and her legs felt like deadweight. She clawed for the surface, could barely breathe in before she was once again pummeled by a hard wall of water.

Corinthe let go. There was nothing left inside her, not a single ounce of strength to call on. She heard faint strains of music drifting softly on the current, felt something like wind on her skin. … Her music box was playing. …

Then she heard nothing but silence.

M
iranda lay in stillness after Corinthe left; even the beating of her heart was muffled. She didn't breathe. She didn't move.

Then, at last, she inhaled deeply, a gasp that was also a laugh.

She was hurt. It had not all been a deception. But she had known, too, that she could use the injury to convince Corinthe that she was to blame for all the destruction, that she must kill Luc or bear the guilt of Miranda's death.

Her shelves had been broken and most of her bottles shattered, spilling her precious tinctures and potions. But she was able to salvage some crushed poppy, which would help her pain, and slowly she extricated herself from the rubble. Her powers were weakened; she had to do it the human way: by climbing. She had to stack the rubble, piece by painstaking piece, before using it as a springboard.

Thankfully, not all her powers were gone.

She made it to the lagoon just in time to see Corinthe go under. So. Corinthe was at last going to return to Pyralis.

This was it: the moment she'd been waiting for. The chance to show the Tribunal that the destruction of Pyralis could be orchestrated—that they should have listened to her all along.

They would bow to her now, look to her for leadership and counsel.
She
would control the Radicals. Together, they might grow even more powerful than the Unseen Ones.

The irony, the part that was poetic, was that she would use one of their own to do this. A Fallen Fate, the
first
Fallen Fate, would be the key to their demise. Ten years in Humana had changed Corinthe, and Miranda had been the one shaping her. She had trained her, subtly and slowly, for choice—for one choice, at least.

She had waited for ten years for the perfect opportunity, and when she received the marble from the Messenger, she had known: the fate within it had been Corinthe's.
She
was destined to die by the boy's hand. But the marble was cloudy and hard to interpret; and Corinthe had readily believed in a different meaning. She wanted to believe. She wanted to believe that she would at last go home.

Miranda dove into the lagoon. The trail left by Corinthe was faint, but Miranda followed it down into the swirling mass of color at the bottom of the pond. Faint strains of music filtered through the water, a tune familiar enough to cause a moment of pain in her heart.

That was the past.

The future now depended on one girl. Would Corinthe have the strength to do it? She would save herself; but she would also bring about the destruction of Pyralis.

Miranda kicked and propelled herself forward. The farther she swam, the more the pain eased in her head and limbs. Above, a dull purple light glistened, and she swam toward the surface. The pressure on her limbs had eased. She felt strong again.

Surely her plan could not fail. Not after everything she'd done to make it happen.

Miranda broke through the surface just as Corinthe was sloshing—shivering, thin, and pathetic, like a wet dog—to the shore. Hazy purple light filled the sky. Tiny fireflies blinked over the water. Miranda dove back under and swam several yards farther, to be sure Corinthe did not see her.

Once Miranda could stand, she stepped out of the river, kicking off her waterlogged sandals. Even the stones here were soft, as though they were made of velvet. Everything in Pyralis felt pliable, as if waiting to be molded into something else, something better.

Her fingers itched to unleash a storm, winds so strong they could swallow up the beauty of this place, but she knew it wouldn't work. She'd tried before, when she was younger, stronger.

Only the Fates had power here: Corinthe and her sisters, the forever-children. Only they could act in this twilight world.

So she had waited, and waited, and waited, until patience became like a taste curled under her tongue, bitter and ever familiar.

Miranda glanced at the sky and smiled. The twilight was fading already. Her plan was working, and the time had finally come for her to exact revenge on the Unseen Ones.

There was just one thing left to do to ensure that Pyralis would be destroyed forever.