Gates of Thread and Stone(24)

I drew in lungfuls of air, relishing the scent. The decay lingered here as well, but not like in the city. This kind of decay promised new life. I wanted to memorize the smells of the earth and the moss and the dampness, and keep them with me to revisit on nights when nothing but the rusting metal walls of the Labyrinth closed in around me.

That is, if I ever saw the Labyrinth again.

Once I found Reev, once he was safe, then I could deal with everything else.

The forest was humid. I wasn’t expecting that. I had to braid my hair and tie the end with a strip of cloth torn from the hem of my shirt. But flyaway strands still stuck uncomfortably to my forehead and neck. Sweat blackened the hair at Avan’s temples, and he pushed up the sleeves of his shirt, giving me an almost unobstructed view of his tattoo.

It snaked down his bicep, a jagged black bramble at once lovely and primal. I decided it was a tree. The lines on his neck were the branches—I assumed more spread across his chest—and the roots twined down his arm in deliberate knots and turns. Like the trees in Ninurta, its branches were bare. It probably meant something, but the symbolism escaped me.

I was letting myself get distracted again. My focus returned to the forest. I picked a broad, veined leaf and held it between my fingers. The texture felt strange: soft and rubbery, but delicate as well. Someday, I told myself, I would share these wonders with Reev.

I strained to listen to the forest and heard nothing but our footfalls. Not far ahead, Avan’s foot snapped a twig, and the sound echoed in the branches.

I felt something, an aura pressing in around me as surely as the darkness had in the Outlands. Dread seeped beneath my skin.

Moments before, the canopy had been alive with the calls of birds, none of which I could identify. Now, the wildlife fell silent. Nothing moved, not even the leaves. The air was still, like when I grasped time.

Avan and I exchanged a look. He felt it, too.

We pushed on, breaking through the ferns and overgrown weeds, until both of us came to a sudden stop.

The forest ended abruptly, and the ground dropped four feet into a vast plain of blackened earth. For as far as I could see, nothing remained but a monochromatic landscape: black dirt and gutted gray trees. A few boulders peppered the plain, but it was otherwise empty. Dead.

The Void.

This was what Rebirth had done to the world.

After centuries of unchallenged power, the mahjo had felt threatened by the growth of science and technology. The advancements had spread into the world’s armies, providing countries with weapons that, for the first time, were efficient enough in speed and scope to stand a chance against magic. In order to stop an industrial and military revolution, some mahjo leaders staged an attack on one of their own sacred cities. This became the perfect excuse to declare war against the industry as a whole. Nobody predicted what would happen next.

Both the mahjo and the military leaders, refusing peace, catapulted the war into something irreversible, a war so devastating that they wiped out each other and plunged the world back into darkness.

This particular patch of land remained the most prominent relic of the Mahjo War, renamed Rebirth by those who survived. It bore the deepest scars, gouged into the earth by powers beyond the imagining of anyone still alive. Nothing had grown here since.

“Looks inviting,” Avan noted.

I adjusted my bag against my back and jumped down into the Void. The dirt was so loose and dry that a black cloud rose around me. I coughed and waved it away. “Like a bed of hot coals. But DJ said we’d find the Rider in the Void, so there has to be something out here.”

“Hopefully nothing gargoyle-like,” Avan said as he hopped down beside me and kicked up another black cloud.

“Don’t worry.” I grinned. “I’ll protect you.”

Avan smirked and started walking.





CHAPTER 13




I WASN’T SURE how much time had passed before we found the husk of a tree stump to rest against. Our feet had begun to drag, and I could tell Avan was exhausted even if he refused to say it. He still hadn’t slept, but I didn’t want to keep insulting him by asking if he needed to stop, so I asked for a break instead.

I ached all over. My left wrist had swollen to double its size. My ribs hurt when I breathed too deeply, and my face—already sore from my run-in with Joss’s fist—throbbed again. I lowered myself gingerly to the ground, biting my lip to contain a groan. I didn’t want to conduct a thorough survey of my injuries and alarm Avan. Still, I felt so bruised that I never wanted to move again.

We sat with our backs against the stump. The bark was sturdy despite its decay. I rummaged through my pack and found half a sandwich wrapped in wrinkled paper.

I fished it out and smoothed the paper. The message “Eat only with a smile” in Reev’s handwriting greeted me.

Tears swelled in my eyes and choked my throat. I shoved the wrapper into the bag before Avan noticed.

What if Reev was dead? What if the Rider had turned him into a hollow? What if we didn’t find him at all? What would happen when we ran out of water? There was no going back. We didn’t have the Gray, and there was no crossing the Outlands on foot. I gave in to the fear for only a heartbeat. Then I swept it aside and firmly buried the doubts.

I’ll find Reev. I nodded to myself, letting the simple motion strengthen me.

For a while, I nibbled on the sandwich as Avan ate an apple. The silence grew heavy, as oppressive as the heat in the forest. I wanted trees again. Why couldn’t the Rider have hidden in the forest? It provided perfect cover. Why would he be out here in this emptiness?