Fates (8 page)

Someone would die.

A chill went through her. Someone would die by
her
hand. Usually she only assisted in orchestrating deaths: accidents, things that would be called
unlucky.
But Corinthe knew there was no such thing as luck.

Though she'd trained for it, she'd never actually been called upon to kill. She'd never seen
herself
in a marble before. Never had her own future been closely entwined with a human's.

She swallowed against the rising wave of panic. She understood now. The Unseen Ones were testing her. This was the task that would prove she was ready to return home. She was practiced and strong. She couldn't fail now.

“When?” Corinthe asked, hoping that Miranda couldn't see how nervous she was.

“In the morning, at the first light of dawn.”

“So soon?” Corinthe couldn't stop herself from saying. She had to kill someone in less than five hours?

“You're not eager to go home?” Miranda frowned.

“Of course I am,” Corinthe said. A tiny spark of hope ignited deep inside her chest. All these years she'd never allowed herself to hope too much, just in case. Was it really possible? Would she finally be allowed to return to Pyralis?

The light in Miranda's eyes shifted. She grinned again, just enough to reveal white teeth, sharp as knives. Her right incisor extended down farther, sharper than the rest. She reached out and ran her hand over Corinthe's cheek. “We have done so well all these years. We deserve this.
You
deserve it.”

Corinthe nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

Miranda reached into her pocket. “I have something else for you. I've been waiting a long time, until the time was right, to give it to you.”

She pulled out a long chain and slipped it over Corinthe's head. On it was a tarnished silver oval the size and shape of a walnut that hung low over Corinthe's chest.

Corinthe loved pretty jewelry, especially things that sparkled. This necklace was so plain it bordered on ugly.

Still, a gift—even an unattractive one—was a gift.

“Thank you,” she said politely, as she had learned was customary in Humana.

Miranda laughed. “It's not meant to be pretty.” She turned it over. On the back of the oval was a tiny button. When pushed, the walnut split in half on a tiny hinge, opening; a tinny music began to play, and the figurine of a ballerina began to pirouette.

Longing, fierce and hot, rose in Corinthe's chest. She knew that melody. It was the same one Miranda hummed every day.

“What—what is it?” Corinthe's heart pounded wildly against her ribs and threatened to burst right out of her chest. The ballerina spun, flashing, in the dark; she couldn't look away. “Where did you get it?”

“This is the compass that will guide you to the thing you want the most,” Miranda said. “When you find yourself inside the Crossroad, the dancer will stop and point you in the right direction.”

The thing she wanted most?

To return to Pyralis.

Home.

“Don't take it off. Above all, don't lose it. It's the only way to find your way through the Crossroad when the time comes.”

Corinthe turned the small music box over and over in her hand but couldn't see any mechanisms that made the ballerina spin. “I have to cross more than one world to return?” The thought of navigating the Crossroad, something only the Messengers did, made her stomach flip. She was certainly strong enough, but still—the Crossroad was dark and lawless. The danger of it was deep and psychological; it mirrored your own state.

When she'd first been pulled through the Crossroad into Humana, her heart had been full of chaos and confusion. She had felt as if she were getting violently torn apart. But now she was older: determined and capable. She'd earned the right to go home. …

“Will you become the Guardian of another Executor when I'm gone?” Corinthe's voice cracked a little. She would miss Miranda, who'd been her only friend for so long.

Miranda touched Corinthe's face briefly. “I don't know what will happen next.”

Corinthe felt a tug of concern. Miranda had been almost like that special human thing: a mother. Corinthe hated the idea that Miranda might be alone after she left.

“Don't worry.” Miranda smiled, as if she could see Corinthe's thoughts. “Everything will be as it should. You're ready. And as long as you have the compass, you'll find your way.”

Corinthe closed her fist around the locket. Holding it in her hand, solid and real, loosened the tightness in her chest. She could travel the Crossroad. A grin spread over her face. It was finally happening. The locket was suddenly the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen in her entire life.

She jumped up and then pulled Miranda up with her.

“Shall we walk together?” Miranda said. “One last time, to celebrate? Then I, too, have an errand to perform.”

“In a little while,” Corinthe said. She just wanted a few minutes alone to think. To prepare for the task at hand.

“Don't be too long,” Miranda said. “And, Corinthe?”

Corinthe turned to her Guardian. Miranda's eyes were as dark as the ocean. The wind blew her hair around and above her, making it appear as though she was crowned with a ring of writhing serpents. She smiled, and her eyes flashed momentarily green—the vivid color of a firefly's wings.

“I'll miss you,” Miranda said. “When you're gone.”

“
T
hey won't support what you're trying to do.”

Miranda ignored the girl's voice. “One cappuccino, please,” she said to the barista behind the counter. Miranda didn't even drink coffee, but she enjoyed Fiend, the narrow, wood-paneled coffee shop in the Mission filled with a collection of mismatched stools and mismatched people: pink-haired, pierced and punctured, tattooed, and stinking of various human smells. It was chaotic and disorganized and everything she loved.

While she was waiting for her coffee, the girl moved to stand beside her. Miranda didn't have to turn to know exactly what she looked like. Dark hair, woven through with strips of canvas, tangled against her exposed back.

“Tess,” Miranda said, trying to keep her voice light. “How have you been?”

“Why do you continue to pursue this path, Miranda?” Tess persisted in a low voice. “The Tribunal has a carefully laid-out plan. You know that. And you're jeopardizing everything. They've spoken out against you. No one will even risk your company.” Tess placed a hand on Miranda's arm, so that Miranda was forced to look at her. “No one will aid you, either.”

Miranda took a deep breath. She didn't want to lose her temper. “So why are
you
here, then?”

“To try and reason with you.” Tess spat out the words. Now Miranda saw that Tess, too, was trying to keep from losing her temper. The idea almost made her smile. “Do you have any idea what this will do to us? It could reveal our presence. Set us back millennia …”

Miranda shrugged. “My issue is with the Unseen Ones. How the Tribunal is affected is not my concern.”

For a second, Tess's eyes blazed, going from the dark black of a polished stone to a pure, hot white, sparking with anger. “If you do this, you will force the other Radicals against you. Is that what you want?”

“One cappuccino,” droned the girl behind the counter.

Miranda took the cup that was offered to her and licked a bit of foam from her finger. Garbage. But she enjoyed the ritual of it. Tess was watching her, but Miranda unhurriedly emptied sugar into her coffee, stirred carefully, tasted again.

“My plan will work, and then
they
will be forced to admit that I was right all along,” Miranda said. “There will be chaos in Pyralis, Tess. There will be
blood.
One of their own carries, even now, the seeds of destruction back to its shores. Then we can rule like we should. The Tribunal wants us to wait … but for what, Tess? We've been waiting too long already. It's our time now.” She might have been born from chaos, but she wouldn't die like a beast, driven to her knees in the dust like a dog.

She
would choose. She
had
chosen; she had chosen the day she learned of Corinthe's existence and decided to launch the plan that was now ten years in the making.

“They know what's best  … ,” Tess began to say, but Miranda waved her excuse away with one hand and walked toward a small wooden table in the corner, covered with white ring stains like a series of interlinked planets. Tess trailed behind and took the seat across from her. “So you're willing to sacrifice an innocent life for the chance to prove the Tribunal wrong?” she hissed, leaning across the table so that no one else could hear.

Miranda steeled herself against the flush of guilt. She wasn't sacrificing anyone, not really. Corinthe's fate was to die. Miranda was giving her the chance to save herself. If Corinthe chose to kill the boy, she would live. She would effectively swap fates.

And if Corinthe, the only Fallen Fate in history, chose to go against her fate, it might be enough to upset the balance.

Then the Free Radicals could regain what they had lost. There had been a time when Miranda had had the power to tear holes in the universe, to bring time to its knees and make planets spin backward.

She could still almost taste it … how it felt to hold the universe like one of those precious marbles in the palm of her hand … how it felt to smash whole worlds to pieces and watch new creations rise from their dust.

Tess had been one such creation. The closest thing to an offspring a Free Radical could have.

And Miranda knew it was Tess's daughter-like loyalty that kept her here, in this cafe, continuing to urge Miranda to return to the Tribunal.

Now Tess shook her head as though she was reading Miranda's mind. Perhaps she was. “I may not be able to come again.” She almost sounded sad, and Miranda, surprised, turned around. Tess's eyes were dark again, full of shadows. “If I can't change your mind, we will be enemies.”

The last time Miranda had stood before the council, she had pleaded with them to listen. Begged, almost. The threads of the universe were so tightly woven that the efforts of the Free Radicals made only tiny tears in the fabric. They were ineffectual, they were
failing,
and they would soon suffocate, crushed out by the control, by the regularity, by the stiff-necked balance that forced everything in one direction.

She had a plan to take back control.

They refused. The Tribunal wanted to coexist with the Unseen Ones and were too shortsighted to realize that by denying their very nature, they were walking into their own extinction.

Now the Radicals were dying faster than they could be born. As they moved through space unattached, their powers gradually dissipated, like water evaporating in the sun. This was why Rhys had become so weak—his exile was draining him, allowing his powers to simply seep away. This was also why the Tribunal had so much sway: they knew that only by banding together and combining their energy could they survive in a universe that was increasingly dominated by order instead of chaos.

And it worked. The Tribunal was just like a black hole—luring other Radicals into it, terrifying in its strength. Miranda knew that the biggest risk she could ever take was going against the Tribunal. They were the one force in the universe that could easily destroy her, and her powers were diminishing gradually, just like Rhys's. She knew she couldn't survive on her own forever—no Radical could.

Two
could, however. She'd forged a partnership once, born out of ambition and a mutual desire for revenge.
Ford.
He was a Radical of tremendous power. Together, they had survived without the Tribunal. But the Tribunal had gotten to him long ago, and now Miranda had no allies left.

Corinthe was her only hope. She'd banked everything on Corinthe.

She had escaped her exile in the Land of the Two Suns, only to live miserably in Humana, virtually a slave, disrupting the balance whenever she could, creating tiny moments of chaos out of order.

A small, meager, pathetic way for a Radical to exercise her powers, and she didn't even know if her plan would work, but she knew she had to try. She thought of Corinthe's face, and the music box turning and turning forever unless the girl figured out what she wanted. A horrible destiny: gripped by her own indecision, compelled to spin forever at the hands of those who wished to control everything. Miranda would not be a part of it.

“Then we will be enemies.” Miranda spoke gently. “I couldn't stop it even if I wanted to.”

Tess shook her head. She seemed about to argue, but at last she just said: “Goodbye, then.” Tess turned and glided out of the coffee shop onto the San Francisco street. Miranda turned away so she wouldn't have to see Tess disappear.

“Goodbye,” Miranda whispered.

She waited for a minute, then walked into the street holding her coffee, feeling its warmth seep into her hands. Then she dumped it out in the nearest gutter.

Soon, if everything went as planned, this would all be over.