The Ever Cruel Kingdom Read online

  Dedication

  To all the abandoned cattos who keep claiming sanctuary in my house with neither advance warning nor permission: you are all freeloading, garden-destroying, chaos-inducing little buggers, and you will always have a home here.

  Map

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Map

  Chapter One: Arjun at the Skeleton Coast

  Chapter Two: Lan at the Oryx Lair

  Chapter Three: Odessa and the Clans

  Chapter Four: Haidee Versus the Cannibals

  Chapter Five: Arjun Versus the Shadows

  Chapter Six: Lan on Neutral Ground

  Chapter Seven: Odessa at the Golden City

  Chapter Eight: Haidee in the Citadel

  Chapter Nine: Arjun in Flight

  Chapter Ten: Lan and the Demoness

  Chapter Eleven: Odessa in Preparation

  Chapter Twelve: Haidee and the Ages of Aeon

  Chapter Thirteen: Arjun and the Mirages

  Chapter Fourteen: Lan Among Prophecies

  Chapter Fifteen: Odessa and Janella

  Chapter Sixteen: Haidee and the Circle

  Chapter Seventeen: Arjun at Midnight

  Chapter Eighteen: Lan and the Forgotten Shrine

  Chapter Nineteen: Odessa and the Trials

  Chapter Twenty: Haidee and the Stone

  Chapter Twenty-One: Arjun and the Betrayal

  Chapter Twenty-Two: Lan’s Regrets

  Chapter Twenty-Three: Odessa at the Crossroads

  Chapter Twenty-Four: Haidee at Peace

  Chapter Twenty-Five: Arjun in Hell

  Chapter Twenty-Six: Lan at the Gates

  Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Twins in the Kingdom

  Chapter Twenty-Eight: The Twins and Ereshkigal

  Chapter Twenty-Nine: The Twins at the End

  Chapter Thirty: The Twins and Aeon

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Books by Rin Chupeco

  Back Ad

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter One

  Arjun at the Skeleton Coast

  I WAS GETTING REAL DAMN tired of sand in my mouth again.

  I lifted myself up on bruised elbows and spat out a gob of grit, the familiar scrape of dust and wind swirling around me. The sun beat down relentlessly on us, the heat familiar and unforgiving. I’d grown too accustomed to clouds and the temperate weather in the weeks we’d traveled west, and now the light reflecting off the dunes was blinding even to me, a stark reminder that I’d been gone far longer than I expected to be. I staggered to my feet, looked around.

  The first thing I noticed was that we were back on the Skeleton Coast. Great.

  The second thing I noticed was that the portal we’d scrambled out of was still hovering in the air behind us, dark and angry against the otherwise bright sky. The creatures that made their homes in the depths of the Great Abyss were crawling toward us; still snarling, still roaring, still clamoring for blood. Behind them loomed the black, horrifying mass that was the corrupted form of the goddess Inanna. There was a sharpness to the shadow’s edges, like the darkness was fabricated from the same things fangs and blades were made of.

  I drew out my Howler and fired a shot straight into the portal, taking out a few writhing shadows that had drawn uncomfortably close, but that only emboldened the rest. More monsters skittered toward the opening on what passed for feet among that horrific lot. A fresh round from my gun obliterated the front row.

  Haidee pointed, and winds formed into Air-whetted knives that sliced through the hole, bisecting a good swath of the demons. The Catseye, Lan, was already swinging her sword, decapitating all the goddessdamned horrors that had drawn close enough to the portal to stick their heads through. Her companion Noelle jabbed at the monsters with a long spear.

  But Haidee’s twin, Odessa, was frozen to the spot, her eyes locked on the shadows as they slithered closer, many reaching for her and failing only when Lan’s blade lopped off their limbs. Odessa was almost the spitting image of Haidee, down to her pale eyes and colorshifting hair. But the other sister wore her hair longer than Haidee’s shoulder-length cut, down almost to her waist, and had fairer skin—from a lifetime, I gathered, spent in a storm-swept city that hadn’t seen the sun in almost eighteen years.

  “Close it!” I hollered at the others. “Someone close the damn thing!”

  “I don’t know how!” The sweeps of cutting Air from Haidee had transformed into a full-blown gale. She gritted her teeth, brows furrowed. But shadows kept streaming out of the Great Abyss, their sheer numbers pushing them forward against the heavy gusts. “It’s not like there’s a lever to pull!”

  “Well, it’s gotta have some kind of switch!” I redoubled the patterns rattling in my gun, the cylinder smoking as I willed more blue fire in. With my next volley, the whole landscape within the portal gate burst into flames, but the creatures were undeterred, climbing over the bodies of their scorched brethren.

  “I can see them,” Odessa whispered.

  “Obviously.” I was tiring fast; conjuring incanta took a hell of a lot out of Firesmokers in particular, made us ripe for both fatigue and injuries. I reloaded my gun, but the next bursts were weaker. In ten minutes I’d be tapped out.

  “No. I can see them. The galla with the blue jewels.”

  I followed her gaze, and saw a group of galla standing to one side, not participating in the attack. I could almost swear that parts of them were glowing blue.

  We hadn’t known each other long; Haidee and I had met Odessa and her guardians only a few hours before, discovered that Haidee’s twin sister, the girl Haidee had believed was killed at the Breaking years ago, had been alive all this time. It had been a tearful reunion.

  It could wind up being a short-lived reunion, too.

  “What are you doing?” Haidee shrieked, but I paid her no attention, planting myself in front of the portal and unloading on any galla that came too close, while also trying not to panic, blast at everything, and exhaust myself in the process. Lan moved to stand beside me; her broadsword didn’t have my range, but she was an army all on her own, cutting down shadows. I only had time to nod my thanks before shooting again, and she returned one of her own as she stabbed through a creature’s head. Noelle had retreated to a defensive position by the girls, singling out any galla that drew too near.

  We knew what would happen if they succeeded in fighting past us. I had family out here. If these bastards got through . . .

  Another wave of patterns seared the air. It slammed against the edges of the glittering portal. With a loud screeching sound, like the harsh scrape of metal against metal, the gateway began to shrink, so quickly we could only watch. Within seconds it was gone, and the Great Abyss and its rabid minions along with it. All that was left was familiar territory: the wide expanse of sand hills I’d seen almost every waking moment of my life, and the shining air-domes of the Golden City a few miles away.

  “I did it!” Though short of breath, Haidee sounded pleased with herself, the incanta fading from her eyes. “I remembered! The goddess Nyx wrote about this in her journal. She talked about channeling all the gates at once to open the Gate of Life. She brought a bird back from the dead that way, but she also believed it could be used for other kinds of creation spells. I didn’t know what she meant, but I realized that a portal was in itself a creation spell, technically speaking, so it should also wor—”

  “Haidee.”

  “Don’t you Haidee me! And you! What possessed you—the both of you—to place yourselves in harm’s way like that? You’re good, but two people could not have lasted long against that horde! If I
hadn’t figured out a way to—”

  “Haidee.” I was breathing hard, still on a terrifying high from—I don’t know, avoiding getting eaten by moving shadows, to start—and eager to ease my agitation the best way I knew how. “Just shut up and come here.”

  Haidee all but flew to my side, and I kissed her hard. Her eyes were still glittering when we finally broke apart. “I would have been happy with a simple ‘thank you,’” she said.

  “Thank you.” Satisfied that she wasn’t hurt, I gave myself the once-over, checking to see if I was intact. Feet and legs, torso, head, both ears and eyes, nose and mouth, left arm and right stump, Howler. Yup, all there.

  “It’s too hot out here,” Odessa muttered, her eyes screwed nearly shut. Gently, Lan tugged her lover’s hood up over her head, to keep the sun’s glare out of her eyes.

  Too hot, and too bright. The Golden City was shining, and I realized that we were closer to it than I would have liked. Haidee had speculated that her mother, Latona, had emerged from the Great Abyss through a similar portal after the Breaking, that it had dumped her here in much the same way it had us. Given our proximity now, she was probably right.

  Noelle flinched, shielding her eyes with a hand. “I can barely see,” the redhead announced, like she hadn’t been expertly stabbing monsters only minutes before. “What is this place?” She bent down and scooped up a handful of sand, letting it trickle down her fingers, amazement crossing her features.

  “Never seen sand before?” I asked.

  “Nothing as small and fine as this. And not everywhere.” Her eyes narrowed as her gaze drifted downward before she, to my surprise, fell to her hands and knees and began to dig.

  “What are you doing?” Lan asked.

  “This isn’t sand I’m standing on. There’s something buried here.” The hole grew as she dug deeper, then made a startled sound. “Parts of what appear to be a statue.”

  I shrugged. “That’s not unusual around here. The desert’s reclaimed a lot of ruins over the years.”

  “But this one’s different. And very familiar.” Noelle pushed more sand away, revealing the eroded remains of a head made of dark granite. Its features had been worn down by the elements, but there was no mistaking its similarities to the statue that had marked the entrance to Brighthenge. The same statue the portals had originated from.

  “Shit,” I said, staring.

  “I agree. It’s smaller in size, so I would surmise this guarded a smaller temple. But it could explain why the portal leads out to here. Perhaps several such shrines were consecrated to Inanna in the past?”

  “I presume this place would be Haidee and Arjun’s home? It’s . . . drier than I’m used to.” Lan was already on her feet, dark eyes searching the sandscape and assessing all possible dangers. She pointed. “You both live in this city?”

  I guffawed. “Haidee does, but it sure as hell ain’t my home. It’s also why we gotta hightail it out of here. My clan’s located several miles out; the faster we start walking, the earlier we’ll reach the cave. Mother Salla will want to question you—”

  “I want to go back to the city,” Haidee said immediately.

  I stared at her. “Look, your mother might forgive you because you’re her daughter, but the first thing she’s gonna do is hang me by my ankles until I bleed dry.”

  “I want some answers from her, Arjun.” The anger in her voice was palpable. “The world’s turning again, but monsters are still climbing out of the Abyss. Something’s wrong. If we’d healed Aeon like we should have, then this wouldn’t be happening. Inanna’s spirit would have been appeased.”

  I stared up at the sky. Then I stared back down at the ground. I had no idea what a turning world looked like, but it didn’t look all that different from a world that hadn’t moved its ass in decades, like the one we’d always known. “How do you even know that the world’s started moving again?”

  “I just do.” Haidee turned to Odessa. “You felt it too, right?”

  The other goddess nodded, still pale and shaken. Lan crouched down beside her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Something else is coming,” Haidee’s twin said weakly. “Something bad. I can feel it.”

  “Unless you found something at Brighthenge that says otherwise, your mother was responsible for destroying the world to begin with,” I reminded Haidee. “She’s done nothing about it for the past seventeen years. If you’re looking to her for a solution, you’re wasting your time.”

  “Is she?” Haidee asked softly. “Is she my mother?”

  I’d almost forgotten. Latona had never given Haidee a reason to believe that she wasn’t her daughter. But Latona’s twin sister, Asteria, hadn’t just survived the Breaking; she’d also been raising Odessa on the other side of the world. Haidee and Odessa had both grown up convinced the other was dead, that they were the only surviving twin. The older goddesses had each claimed to be their mother, further complicating matters. Personally, I thought Latona and Asteria were equally deceitful and I didn’t trust them as far as I could kick sand, but then again, I’d never been raised to have a good opinion of the goddesses who’d broken the world.

  “I have to know, Arjun. I deserve to know why she’s been lying to me this whole time.” Haidee turned to her sister. Something unspoken passed between them, an understanding that needed no words; they both nodded at the same time, wearing similar expressions of determination.

  “It’s not over, is it?” Odessa asked. “I thought that with Aeon turning the way it once did, we would be done. I thought destroying that demon meant it was finally over. But we were wrong, weren’t we? We didn’t kill it. That was only the beginning.”

  “All the more reason for me to talk to Mother.” Haidee turned to me. “I won’t ask you to go back with me to the city. But she has to stop pretending that there isn’t a world outside the dome, or that what happens outside of it will never affect her.”

  “How are you going to convince her that Aeon’s started turning?”

  Lan raised her sword. “You might not have to travel to the city to let her know.”

  The cloud of dust rising from the east was the first clue. I caught sight of the familiar green and bronze colors of the Golden City army among dozens of jeeps headed our way. Many of the rigs carried cannons, sparking as their fuses were lighted. The armored wheels overtook the marching army, guns trained in our direction as they quickly closed the distance.

  “Please tell me this is a welcoming party,” Noelle murmured.

  It was most definitely not a mother-daughter talk.

  “Fat chance.” I tugged at Haidee’s hand. “I don’t think your mother’s happy to see you. I highly doubt that she’ll be overjoyed to see the rest of us.”

  Haidee didn’t answer. Instead, she stepped forward and raised her hands over her head.

  I didn’t know what she was planning until I saw a stream of patterns weaving around her wrists, spiking the air with sharp hues—I could only clearly identify the patterns of Fire, mixing in with others that I couldn’t. She stood there, unmoving, until the first of the rigs drew close enough for me to make out the faces of the men behind the wheel. She brought her hands down, and the patterns whipped themselves into a frenzy around her, churning up dust and pebbles.

  “Haidee!” I yelled, just as a sandspout erupted from underneath the nearest vehicle, sending it hurtling into the air. Another abrupt gesture from Haidee dissipated the wind, and the jeep landed with a loud crash, throwing its passengers out several yards to bounce along the sand. She was mad, albeit not enough to actually kill them.

  She repeated it with the next two rigs; by the time the third unsalvageable wreck came crashing back down, the rest had reversed their engines and retreated, stopping only long enough to haul away their injured. Haidee regarded the smoldering rigs with satisfaction. “You’re right. The time for talking is over. We’re shouting now.”

  Damn, if that wasn’t a turn-on.

  “Is this wise?” Lan asked her
warily.

  “I know my mother. The instant she regains control of the situation she’ll dig in her heels and go back to ignoring me and restricting my movements. I’m not giving in this time.”

  The ranger eyed Latona’s men. “That’s very admirable, but there’s only five of us and a lot more than five of them.”

  “We can try running,” Noelle suggested. “Though I fear they would catch us soon enough. There doesn’t seem to be anywhere to hide out here.”

  “Haidee!” The voice was loud, amplified by tendrils of Air. A woman strode toward the front of the army, in a gold flowing dress that glittered against the light and was an absurd choice of clothing given the circumstances. I shifted my Howler out of reflex. I’d never seen the Sun Goddess in person before, and it was disconcerting how much she resembled an older Haidee.

  Anger seized me without warning, and I set the Howler’s sights against my eye in an instant, training my gun on the approaching goddess. The first time I met Haidee my instinct had been to hesitate, my gut telling me she didn’t mean any harm. With Latona, it was the exact opposite.

  Haidee shot me a warning look, but I refused to lower the Howler. Latona might be her mother, but she was the reason there was nothing here but sand.

  “What foolishness is this, Haidee?” the older woman snapped. “Stop your silly tantrums and come home this instant!”

  “Not until you hear me out!” Haidee yelled back. “I—we—did it! We went to the Great Abyss! Aeon is turning again, the way it’s supposed to be!”

  “Oh, did you?” Latona’s eyes flared red; smoke curled around her as flames licked at the tips of her outstretched fingers. “Did you think the world had simply stopped on nothing more than a whim? Do you ever think about the consequences of your actions? You disobey me, flee into the desert with traitors, and now you think you hold all the answers to the universe? It will take months, years, to undo what you’ve unraveled in your arrogance. Save the world? You’ve just fashioned its coffin, hammered the final nail into place!”

  I saw the words hit home, saw Haidee jerk back, visibly stung. “I wasn’t the one who destroyed Aeon! I was trying to save it!”