Nil on Fire (37 page)

“Thad, we have to get her out of here. Now.”

“No argument there, brother. Just tell me how.”

 

CHAPTER

57

NIL

DAWN

Toying with the male, Rives, had been exceptionally fun. He was so vulnerable, so emotive, his greatest weakness easily read and just as easily manipulated. The island had baited him until he stopped responding, forcing the island to look elsewhere for fun.

Taunting the male, Thad, had been less rewarding. His link with his mate buffered his mind; there were few cracks, no fissures. No open window for fear to pass through.

And the female, Skye, had refused to play at all. The link to her mate fractured, her mind had shut down, gone blank.

Unsatisfying
, the island thought.
And unproductive.

Perhaps that was why when the male, Hafthor, called to the trio through a sliver of rock, the island cared little if they heard or answered. The island had lost interest in entertainment; instead it sought power. It needed the latter to have the former.

Power first
, it decided.

The island turned toward the male, Dai, hovering as he clung to life. The island quivered, anticipating the final slip, the one that would mark him as the island's forever.

 

CHAPTER

58

SKYE

40 DAYS UNTIL THE AUTUMNAL EQUINOX, DAWN

Everything
felt raw: my head, my limbs, my heart. Every cell in my body
ached.

It took a monumental effort to open my eyes. Around me, ghosts moved and swirled, their stories now mine, etched on my brain for life. Rives stared at me, as real as the ghosts, as if I'd conjured him up too.

“Skye.” His eyes burned too bright. “Are you hurt?”

Hurt
, I thought. Such an insignificant word.
Hurt
couldn't begin to describe what had happened to me;
hurt
barely brushed the surface. My brain had been turned inside out and set on fire; my body, too.

“I'm so tired.” My voice sounded different. Thin, and distant.

Hollow.

The light in the cavern dimmed.

“Hello?” Hafthor's voice rang down from above.

“Down here!” Rives called.

Hafthor's face filled the skylight, completely blocking the light. “I found this opening. I think I can enlarge it, and you can lift Skye up through the hole to me. Stand back.”

Rives shielded me with his body, the warmth of his chest pressing close. Blistering fear and want seared through me with his touch.

Too much.

I closed my eyes. Around us, pebbles fell like rain; I felt the shower of dirt and rock as Hafthor pounded away at the rock above.
Stop
, I wanted to say. This place was sacred, a place that should not be disturbed. And yet, it also felt right. The radiance I'd felt before was gone; something had shifted.

It
hurt
to be awake.

*   *   *

I woke hours later in Hafthor's arms. We were moving through the grayed lava field, under a scorching Nil sky. The light stung my eyes, making me shut them as quickly as I'd opened them.

Around me, everyone was talking about
me
.

She's burning up.

Is she in a coma?

What did the water
do
to her?

It wasn't water; it was something else.

Eyes closed, I let it all sink in. Now wasn't the time to wake or talk. I couldn't begin to discuss what happened until I'd sorted through it myself. I retreated, into myself; I sifted through one memory at a time, knowing it was too much to absorb at once. It was still too much. Minutes and moments played and shifted, bits of the past seeking traction in the present.

Time passed, my mind a mess, my mental walls in shambles, unable to be rebuilt. It didn't matter; the barriers were no longer necessary. There was no need to keep out what had already poured in.

I retreated deeper, away from the past, away from the present. Away from
me
. I found a place deep inside me, untouched by Nil. No color, no sound, just pure white walls. Impenetrable.

Mine.

In that quiet moment, in my private room of clean white walls empty of all but me, I breathed. I rested. And then everything clicked.

The past and present merged into one; the depth and breadth of clarity was stunning. This moment, this
now
, was yesterday's future.

And I needed to see tomorrow.

Flinging open the door, I stepped outside my private room. The whiteness fell away; memories roared back. Around me broken pieces tumbled together, the past reforming into a portrait of the future. The lines vanished; the pieces became one.

One future. Two paths.

I saw the path less taken.

In that clear moment, I knew exactly what to do, what had to be done.

 

CHAPTER

59

RIVES

40 DAYS UNTIL THE AUTUMNAL EQUINOX, LATE AFTERNOON

Hafthor carried Skye the entire way back.

I protested, but Hafthor refused to relent. “I am to do this,” he'd said in a calm but unshakable tone. “The island told me. It is what she needs.”

More like what the island wants
, I thought bitterly.
Keeping us apart, creating distance between us.

Nil was plotting and planning and using us all.

My fists ached from clenching them. I shook them out, watching Skye's head lie motionless against Hafthor's chest. At least the guy was a beast, Iceland's version of Captain America. I knew he wouldn't drop her, I just wanted to be the one holding her.

Our trip back was as uneventful as our trip out. I catalogued a horse, a buffalo, a lemur, and a giraffe. Skye would've caught the irony, but her eyes were shut tight.

Back in the City, Hafthor put Skye in her bed. I sat with her, holding her hand. She looked smaller somehow, tucked under a sheet.

Please wake up.

Her color actually looked decent, but her skin still ran hot. And her mind was untouchable. No more dark wall, just—nothing.

Our link was gone.

Thad and Molly checked on us throughout the night. I dozed off and on, sleeping only because I'd been awake the entire night before. At least here in the City, Nil let me sleep. No whispers, no taunts.

I hoped it wasn't messing with Skye's head.
In
Skye's head.

I feared it already had.

Nil stealing time, Nil stealing lives.

Nil was a cruel thief, taking without remorse. Taking without any thought or regard for others, its pleasure its sole focus.

Nil's selfish
, I realized abruptly.

Knowledge was power. The question was, how could I use that revelation to beat it?

*   *   *

Zane and Molly came in the next morning with water.

“Chief, you need some fluids. And some food. And no doubt a bathroom break.”

“I'll stay with her while you scoot out for a bit,” Molly added.

I was back in less than ten minutes.

“No breakfast?” Zane asked, eyeing my empty hands.

“Not hungry,” I said. I sat down beside Skye. Her eyes were still closed, her breath even, her skin hot. I gently wove my fingers back through hers. Skye didn't move.

“Unreal,” Zane said, staring at Skye. “Thad filled me in. Said Skye and Molly here found a super special secret cavern. Then Skye touched the liquid RoboCop, it zapped her, and she's pretty much been like this ever since.”

“Not sure about the RoboCop part, but the rest is about it.” Molly nodded.

“Did you ever see Lana?” Zane's eyes were hopeful.

“No Lana, no Carmen. No one else. And we learned absolutely nothing.”

“You're wrong.” Skye's quiet voice made everyone's eyes jerk toward her. She dropped my hand as she sat up slowly, her blond hair Skye-wild, her chin Skye-fierce. But something in her eyes unsettled me. Something foreign. It kept me from wrapping her in my arms.

“How are you feeling?” I asked, fighting the urge to pull her close. I studied her face and body movements for the answer.

“I'm okay.” She smiled. The half-moons under her eyes were back, subtle but real. “But there's something I need to tell everyone at once.”

She swung her legs over the edge of the bed and stood, then walked outside the hut without looking back. Zane and Molly exchanged a worried glance. Skye took a seat by the firepit, on the largest boulder of a group of three, as everyone gathered around her. I sat beside her, but the island sat between us.

She lifted her chin. “A few minutes ago, I told Rives he was wrong, that we didn't return with nothing. I learned
everything
.” She paused, her eyes sweeping across each of us in turn, an eerie glance totally unlike Skye. “When I touched the pool, the island showed me its history, including the stories of all the people who came before.” Skye blinked slowly, like she was walling off memories, but her calm expression never changed. “The island was good. Benevolent, at least at first. No”—she shook her head slightly—“that's not right. At first it was just existing. Drifting. It found this place—this
layer
of space, a fragment that mirrors our world—and it paused. It waited. It wasn't good or bad, it just
was
. The first gate opened, drawn by the prince. He taught the island strength and kindness, and then the princess—the next one through the gate, who had waited for him—she taught the island about hope and a different kind of strength. Through that pair, the island discovered depth of love and the incredible power of it, and the power inherent in the balance of the two. Knowledge went both ways.”

She exhaled, twisting her hands in her lap.

“It still does.” Her voice was quiet. “We have taught the island things. Good things and terrible things. We taught the island about strength and kindness and love, and we taught the island about cruelty and power and pain. And when we unleashed the atomic bombs on that solstice day, we caused the island pain on an incomprehensible level and scope. Unbearable pain, as if the island were burning alive. And in that moment, when the pain became too much, something splintered.” She flinched. “Maybe to protect itself, maybe it just happened. But after that, the dark side of Nil grew. And it's been growing ever since.”

Zane whistled between his teeth. “So the island's crazy? Literally? Like we're stuck on Sybil?”

Skye took Zane's question seriously because he actually wasn't joking.

“Maybe. I don't know whether the bombs—the
pain
—caused a separate personality to develop in response, or whether the pain supercharged the dark side of Nil, like a boost of nitro. But…” She looked thoughtful, enough like Skye to almost make me relax. “I think both sides were there all along. The good and the bad, the dark and the light. But now, the dark side has grown so powerful, it's choking out the light. It feels like we infected the island. Like the bombs caused a disease that can't be cured—and it's getting worse.

“Either way,” she continued, “whether it's a cancer growing from within, or whether it's a dark personality taking over, the result is the same: it's getting stronger by the day. It's feeding on us, and it's darker than any of you know.” She shuddered. “But that's not the worst part.”

“Really? What's worse than this?” Fear sharpened my words. Because
Skye
looked ill again. More—empty.

“The good side's dying,” Skye said quietly. Her voice was scary calm, almost clinical. “That's why it wanted me back. To show me the past, so I could understand. The good side has been fighting to keep the dark at bay, and it's losing. It's so weak. It used to help the people who came, guiding them, keeping them safe as they found their own strength. But now, it can barely help. And the weaker the light side gets, the stronger the pull the dark side has into our world. Soon the light side will disappear, for good. And if the dark side wins? It will reach into our world without restraint. Without a barrier, without a consequence. The seam between worlds has weakened too; the good side has been guarding it. If the seam collapses, the consequences will be disastrous.”

Everyone was silent.

Firelight bounced off her eyes, but the steel flecks glittered rather than sparked, as if they'd cooled. Despite the heat raging in her skin, some of Skye's fire was gone.

What did Nil do to her?

Nil's light side had shown her the past, but Nil's dark side had snuck in too. Maybe Trojan horse–style; maybe it had just barreled straight in. Either way, despite the split, it was all Nil.
Both
sides wanted her, for different reasons. And I knew full well that the dark side wanted to keep her.

She's mine
, it had snarled.
I've already claimed her.

No
, I thought viciously.
Not as long as I'm alive.

I reached for her hand, and to my relief, she let me hold it.

“And by disastrous, you mean—” Davey broke off.

“I saw the past, not the future,” Skye said quietly. “The past simply predicts the future. So while I can't say
precisely
what will happen, I know it will be terrible. If the seam collapses, Nil will bleed into our world and affect it. Permanently. Our world will become Nil's; I think it will become the new Nil. The dark side of Nil, that is. And there will be no light side left to balance it.”

“And no way to escape,” I said.

“Exactly.” Skye nodded.

Another loaded moment of silence followed. The pop of the fire echoed in the stillness like a warning.