The Library of Fates(53)

“What voice?” she asked.

“Earlier . . .” But from the way she looked at me, I knew that I was the only one who had heard it. And then I knew she was right—I had spoken to the wind and the sand. I had spoken to the storm. And it had offered me what I had asked for.





Twenty-Five



PEBBLES SCATTERED, tumbling down the edge of the mountain.

I leaned over the vertical drop beside the trail to see where they would land, but gazing down the purple and green ravine made me dizzy.

“Careful!” Thala pulled me toward her.

The sun was rising over the bare golden dunes, and we were filled to the brim with an unexpected euphoria. We were alive. And only a day away from our destination. A sense of possibility loomed over us. I could see it in Thala’s smile, her graceful movements: We were free.

We had been hiking up and around the hills and valleys the entire day, each turn revealing something unexpected. After miles and miles of desolate rock face, a verdant meadow, sheep grazing at our ankles. On a particularly narrow path, a boulder that we each took turns hanging on to as we scuttled around it, a terrifying drop just beneath our feet.

There were no people here, and so many different paths cutting into the hillside—some going up, others going down—that without a map, we might have been hiking for years before we found what we were looking for.

Luckily, we were able to find sustenance just when we needed it, almost as though someone had planned for our visit. On the top of a particularly steep hillside, an aquamarine lake that we dipped our toes into for a brief respite.

“We’re lucky. I’m almost out of water,” I said to Thala, refilling my skin.

And farther up a hill, brambles full of berries I had never before seen—pink and white, the shape of hearts, iridescent in the sun.

We sat down for a moment, resting in a patch of grass. “Thala, do you know what happens when we get there?”

“All I can see is Macedon.”

“Do you think Sikander will make it to the caves?”

“I don’t know.” Thala shook her head. “Maybe it’s because I haven’t taken chamak in some time, but I feel . . . like a normal person. You have no idea how difficult it can be, seeing the future all the time. And people don’t even believe what you tell them. Only the Library knows everything. Whether you believe in it or not.” She smiled.

“I do believe.”

Thala turned to me sharply. “Since when?”

I thought about the storm again. “Since this journey taught me how little I know about everything,” I said to her.

¤

We got back on the trail, and as we climbed, my mind drifted to Arjun. I thought about how he had kissed me that first time, out in the mango grove. I thought of us lying in the hammock together, laughing. My heart longed to hear his voice again. Then I thought about Varun’s hands on my waist, the way he looked at me, the intensity in his eyes as he told me about Mount Moutza and Maya.

“Don’t get distracted,” Thala said, picking up on my mental state. “We’re close. Right now, your only focus should be on the next ten feet ahead of you.”

We were hiking up a pebbly path that laced the edge of a mountain. I was grateful for my healed feet, for the comfortable sandals Thala had selected for me. Every hairpin turn, every time we had to lean into the rock face in order to progress up the trail, my heart raced.

“How much longer till we get there?” Thala asked. She was ahead of me, and before her, I saw nothing but a drop as the trail turned, twisting around the mountain. I pulled the map from my satchel, opened it, and looked at the X that marked the Janaka Caves.

“They should be right here,” I said as I came up behind her.

I followed her to the edge of the mountain and turned my head to see the path curving around the bend. But there it stopped.

I gasped.

Before us was a wall that stretched so high, I couldn’t even see the top of it.

“What now?” Thala asked. “Did we go the wrong way?”

I shook my head. “This is where we’re supposed to be. The Janaka Caves are right here, according to the map. They must be on the other side of this wall,” I said, running my fingers over the smooth rock surface before us. The top of the wall seemed to disappear into the clouds.

“We can’t scale that. It’s too high.”

I looked around. Beside us was a terrifying drop. Behind us, the path we had come on.

“Do we have any more water?” Thala asked.

I nodded, reaching into my satchel, and my hand instinctively grabbed the dagger. Suddenly, I realized it.

“The dagger! It was the key to the safe at Meena Amba’s. It must be the key to this wall too.”

I turned to look at the wall, inspecting it for a keyhole. But the surface of the wall was too clean. Almost glistening. There was no keyhole, at least not one I could see. I held the blade toward it, hoping it would tell me something. I poked the wall with the blade. Nothing. I pointed it up toward the sky. Still no evidence that it was the key that would open some sort of doorway to the Sybillines.

“There must be another way.” Thala shook her head.

“I don’t understand. Meena Amba said it was the key to many things. It has to be the key to the Janaka Caves!”