City of Stairs (The Divine Cities, #1)(152)

A cold wind tickles Shara’s neck.

Another snap from the fire, and sparks go dancing.

“I see,” she says.

Olvos is watching her from behind hooded eyes, appraising her. “I have told you quite a bit, Shara Komayd, information few else know or dream of. I wonder—what do you plan to do with it?”

Rage and pity and grief and sorrow twine around in Shara’s mind, looping and curling like fireworks, and somewhere underneath all their chaotic designs—all their frenzied, fruitless spins and chases—an idea comes bubbling up.

Olvos nods. “Good. Perhaps I was wiser than I thought. The Divine do not always know themselves: maybe we are but tools in the hands of fate like any other mortal … and perhaps my selection of Efrem was meant solely to bring you here, to me.”

Shara is breathing slowly. “I think,” she says, “that I would like to go back to my quarters now.”

“Good,” says Olvos. She uses her pipe to point between two trees. “If you walk through that gap, you will find yourself in your bedroom. You may leave whenever you wish.”

Shara stands and looks down at Olvos, feeling torn. “Will I ever see you again?”

“Do you wish to see me again?”

“I … I think I would enjoy that, actually.”

“Well … I think both you and I know that if you make the choices I expect you will make, and if you are successful, your path will take you far away from these shores. I do not wish to leave this place—I don’t tell my followers what to do, but it’s nice to keep an eye on them.” She taps her pipe against her finger. “But if you were ever to return, I might make myself available for a visit.”

“Good,” says Shara. “I have just one more question.”

“Yes?”

“Where did you come from?”

“Me?”

“You and the other Divinities—all of you. Where did you come from? Do you exist simply because people believe you exist? Or are you something … else?”

Olvos considers the question, grave and sad. “That is … complicated.” She sucks her teeth. “Divinities have the very odd ability to overwrite reality. Did you know that?”

“Of course.”

“But not just your reality. Not just the reality of your people—but the reality of us, our own. Each time people believed I came from somewhere new, I came from that place—and it was like I’d never come from any other place, and I never knew what I was before.” She takes a breath. “I am Olvos. I pulled the burning, golden coal of the world from the fires of my own heart. I fashioned the stars from my own teardrops when I mourned for the sun during the very first night. And I was born when all the dark of the world became too heavy, and scraped against itself, and made a spark—and that spark was me. This is all I know. I do not know what I was before I knew these things. I have looked, and tried to understand my origins—but history, as you may know, is much like a spiral staircase that gives the illusion of going up, but never quite goes anywhere.”

“But why did Saypuris never have a Divinity of their own? Were we simply unlucky?”

“You saw what happened, Shara,” says Olvos. “And you know your history. Are you so sure Saypur was unlucky to lack a Divinity?” She stands and kisses Shara on the brow. Her lips are so warm they almost burn. “I would tell you to go with luck, my child,” she says. “But I think you will choose to make your own.”

Shara steps away from the firelight and through the two trees.

She turns back to say good-bye but sees only the blank wall of her bedroom over her shoulder. She turns around, confused, and is met by her bed.

She sits down upon the bed and thinks.

*

“Turyin,” whispers Shara. “Turyin!”

Mulaghesh grunts and cracks an eye. “By the seas,” she says croakily. “I’m happy you visited, but did it have to be at two in the morning?”

Mulaghesh is not the hale and hearty woman Shara knew mere days ago: she has lost a lot of weight during her stay in the hospital, and both of her eyes are still blackened. Her left arm ends just below the elbow in rings of tight, white bandages. She sees Shara staring. “I hope this”—she raises her wounded arm—“won’t keep me from swimming in Javrat. But at least I still have my drinking hand.”

“You’re all right?”

“I’m all right. How are you, girl? You look … alive. That’s good. The black glasses are, uh, interesting looking, I guess. …”

“I am alive,” says Shara. “And, Turyin, I wish that … that for you, this had never—”

“Save it,” says Mulaghesh. “I’ve given the very speech you’re giving. But when I gave it, it was to boys and girls I knew weren’t going to live. I’m alive. And I’m grateful for it. And you are not to blame. But it does give me a damn good excuse to transfer out.”

Shara smiles weakly.

“I am still getting transferred, right? Javrat’s still happening—right?”

“There is a good chance, yes,” says Shara.

“That sounds like the out clause of a contract. And I don’t remember signing a contract. I remember saying, ‘If I do this, I get stationed in Javrat,’ and I remember you saying, ‘Okay.’ Do you remember differently?”