Crossroads of Canopy (Titan's Forest #1)(109)

Esse sat up. Before she’d changed his bed, he would have struck his head, but now there was room for him to stand on the top bunk, if he wished, without touching the domed ceiling. He examined the niche she’d made, high in the wall, with its brackets shaped like loquat trees, and a hammock-sized space that a large human or a small dayhunter could have crawled into.

“How will you breathe in there?” he asked.

“I’ve made a small, hidden, ventilation hole. The mesh over it is magic. Nothing will crawl down it, I promise you.”

“That is good. I would not want cockroaches gnawing on you while you are sleeping. Mind your spines, Canopian. You still do not use them very well.”

Esse lifted her to kneel on his shoulders. From there, she was able to use her forearm spines to pull herself into the space. It was cold, but her body heat would soon be enough to keep her warm. Esse took a few steps back and peered in at her.

“What if Ylly dies?” he said. “What if she never decides it is time to wake you?”

Unspoken prophecies can come true, too.

“Good night, Esse,” Unar said, forming the pattern that she had seen Frog form outside the Great Gate. She wrapped the deep, hibernating sleep around herself like a blanket, being careful not to let it touch any of the other lives nearby.

And she closed her eyes.





PART IV

Season for Growth





SIXTY

UNAR HAD hoped it would be dreamless.

I love you, Isin.

Edax died over and over again in a world made of steam.

I love you, Isin.

Frog’s body fell apart into blobs of muscle and bone.

I love you, Isin.

Unar beat against the wards that protected the Garden, with no hope of passing through. Not unless she sabotaged her own memory, and if she did that, her desire to enter the Garden might be lost, too; her memory of how to do magic, how to find goddesses and gods. What if she died, was reborn, and walked into the Garden as a supplicant, with no power of her own?

It would be better to sleep until Audblayin grew as old as Hasbabsah and died. Sleep until he was born a man. But, no. She must wake sooner than that. She must ask the question.

*

SOMETHING PRESSED down on her.

The ceiling had collapsed. Kirrik had returned and was cutting down the tallowwood tree.

No. Not that. It was two small, muffled, giggling bodies. Sitting on her. Crushing her so she couldn’t breathe.

“Ylly! Issi!” Oos was a threatening presence below and to one side, outside the sleeping place. “Come out of there, right now!”

Hands scrabbled around in Unar’s clothes, catching dirty feet and pulling hard. Wailing children’s voices receded. Unar slept again.

*

I LOVE you, Isin.

*

BREATHING BESIDE her. Sharing the air.

It was Esse. His long legs didn’t fit. They hung off the edge of the ledge.

“Move over, little tree bear,” he muttered, and squeezed her deeper into the crevice, so that he could fold his limbs in beside her. “It is cold outside, even if Sawas and Bernreb do not feel it.”

Quiet for a while. Sharing the air. Heat, from Esse’s body. Moaning, from the main part of the room.

“Let Marram pretend he does not mind the cold and wet,” Esse growled. “This is my house. I am not leaving just because she says she cannot relax if people are listening. She should be quieter, then, should she not? I brought us here. I made the very first mark in the bark.”

Esse, breathing. Bodies in Bernreb’s bed, breathing. High above Canopy, the leaves of the great tree, breathing.

*

YOU SPEAK to the dead, Frog sighed. Well, the dead will answer you, this one time.

*

A BOY’S piping voice.

“Great-Grandmother is dying.” He was close. Inside the crevice with Unar. No, outside of it, standing on something to make him taller. “She said to tell you. She said to thank you.”

“She will not answer, boy.” That voice was Bernreb’s. “She is sleeping. Here. I will set you down.”

Not a ladder. Bernreb. Holding the boy up to Unar’s hollow.

Who was his Great-Grandmother?

Maybe it’s me. Maybe Audblayin will never be a man, and I’ll sleep for eternity.

*

YOU SLOW grey mould! Frog cried. You one-fingered worm!

*

“WAKE UP, Godfinder,” Audblayin whispered in her ear.

Unar opened her eyes.

The lanky young woman who pressed her hands into Unar’s hands had a Canopian’s dark skin, an Understorian’s long, straight hair, and a Warmed One’s soulful, sepia eyes. She wore a yellow silk robe. It was cut off at the elbows. Unar saw the crease and sensed the magic of the spines. She smelled quince blossom and wood fern.

“I’m awake,” Unar tried to say, but her mouth felt adhered shut. Another young woman of about the same age—Unar’s age—with a rounder face, short hair, snub nose, and mischievous grin, stepped forward with a leather cup. She helped Unar to sit up and moisten her mouth with water.

“I am Imerissiremi,” she said. “You can call me Issi.” She had spines, too, and armour of overlapping metal scales that slithered as she moved. Weapons hung about her, as they had hung around Edax. “Ylly says it is time to go to Canopy.”