The reef grew up around it, over it, encroaching upon it as though it were an embarrassing blemish that it hoped to hide behind wild color. As well it might, the highway was thick with the signs of war: burnt banners on shattered standards, bloodstains painting the pavement amidst fallen weapons, and more of the twisted bells, lined up in a chorus hanging silent, some teetering over the edge.
And yet, as black and foreboding as it was, the grotesqueness of the highway only made the chasm beside it more alluring. From however far below, kelp grew, the color of a bruise the moment before it darkens. It shimmered, almost glowing as it wafted, reaching out of the chasm with swaying leafy fingers as though it sought to pull itself out to join the rest of the reef.
And against the vivid purple, the darkness of the chasm was all that much more absolute. And it was the darkness that drew Lenk’s eyes, a familiar sensation, uncomfortably distinct, alarmingly close.
As he peered into the darkness, something peered back at him.
“She’s going to kill you.”
“What?” he whispered back.
“I didn’t say anything,” Kataria replied. “Though I might as well.” She pointed down the highway. “We follow this as far as we can, then. It looks like it’ll go on for a while.”
Lenk could only barely hear her. The voices returned, clearer, bolder, and much, much louder.
“Lead us to die.”
“Betrayed us. All of us.”
“Should do something. Why didn’t I do something?”
“Do what?” he whispered.
“Follow it,” Kataria replied, blinking. “It’s a road, isn’t it? It has to lead to somewhere.” She clicked her tongue. “And if I’m at all clever-”
She paused. He blinked.
“Something wrong?” he asked.
“No. . I just kind of expected someone to insult me before I could finish that thought. Anyway. .” She thrust a finger toward the horizon. “I’d guess it leads there.”
In the distance, rising over the reef like a colossus, the mountain stood wearing a halo of clouds. But even at this distance, one could see that it was carved, lined with twisting aqueducts down which blue veins of water ran.
“If I were to hold onto a book full of weird, mysterious gibberish, I’d hold it there,” she said. “And if it isn’t there, we’ll be in a better position to find where it might be.”
“It doesn’t make sense,” Lenk whispered. “All this stonework and there’s only Shen and fish here. Who made it?”
“Not right. Nothing right here.”
“Danger. Danger all around us.”
“A trap. We walked right into it.”
“That’s kind of beside the point, isn’t. .” Kataria’s voice drifted away as her ears went upright again, sweeping from side to side, listening.
He waited for her to look back, to look at him. She did not.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Traitors. Everywhere.”
“Want them to die. All of them to die.”
“She’s going to kill you. You’re going to die.”
“It’s nothing.” Her ears focused forward like shields, she began to walk down the road. “Stay here.”
“If it’s nothing, then why shouldn’t I come?”
“Gariath might come back, just stay here.”
“Gariath doesn’t need me to wait for him.”
“It could be a Shen ambush.”
“We haven’t seen the Shen in ages.”
“Maybe a carnivorous fish or something.”
“What?”
“The point is I don’t know.” She growled. She bared teeth. Her ears flattened against her head. And still, she did not look at him. “Just stay here.”
The fish had scattered. The purple kelp swayed. Silence settled over the reef as she trotted off.
Thus, when Lenk shouted, she could not pretend to not hear.
“NO!”
His voice echoed. Across sky. Across sea. Across shadow. It fell into the chasm, rose up again on voices not entirely his own. Kataria didn’t seem to notice that as she turned around to face him.
Not when Lenk had his sword drawn and pointed firmly at her chest.
“No more of this,” he said, solid as his steel. “No more leaving. No more listening.”
Her gaze did not waver from his. Her ears did not lower. Her bow did not drop from her hand.
“Let me explain,” she said softly, as though she spoke to a beast she did not dare flee from.
“Lies.”
“Reasons.”
“Excuses.”
“NO! None of that!” he screamed. “No more lies. No more silence.” His blade trembled in his grasp. “I. . I need to know, Kat.”
“Traitors.”
“Lied to.”
“Pain. Blood.”
Kataria’s hands lowered to her sides, slowly. And she did not look away.
“No,” she said, all trace of soothing gone, “you don’t.”
“Don’t say that. It said you’d say that, so don’t. Say that.” His eyes were quivering in his skull. “I need you to tell me. Why you abandoned me. Why you want me to die.”
“I don’t,” Kataria replied calmly.
There was no great conviction behind the words. She did not scowl at him for the accusation. He did not apologize for saying it. Everything she was seemed to bow at once, a heaviness setting upon her with such force that it threatened to break her.
“But,” she said softly, “I did.”
“TRAITOR!”
“DIE!”
“BLEED!”
“Why?”
Lenk couldn’t hear himself talk. The voices howled, roared, smashed off one another, off of his skull, crushing, crashing, echoing, screaming. And beneath all of them, running through his thoughts like a river, it spoke on a calm, icy whisper.
“I told you.”
“I don’t know,” Kataria whispered.
“What?”
“I DON’T KNOW!”
Her head snapped up, teeth bared in a snarl, ears folded against her head threateningly. But these were lies, betrayed by her eyes wet with tears.
“I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head. “Because I couldn’t hear the Howling, because I didn’t know what my father would say, because I didn’t feel like a shict, because you’re a human.” She thrust a finger at him. “You’re supposed to be a disease, Lenk. It’s supposed to be easy to hate you.”
Her breath staggered. Her body shuddered. Tears fell down her cheeks.
“But. .”
A silence hung in the air. Lenk waited, shut out the voices, shut out everything, as he waited, waited for her to say something.
“But you still left me,” he whispered. “But you still wanted me to die. You. You wanted to kill me.”
“I wanted one of us to die.”
“Why?”
“Why do you think, Lenk? Do you think the ears are the only thing that makes us different? I am a shict. You’re a human. To look at you the way I looked at you. . to stand over you like I did, to. . to. . have done what I did, it was sick. It was diseased. I was infected. They don’t have words for what I feel.”
“And,” he spoke softly, sword lowering a hair, “what do you feel?”
She did not answer. Not with words. She looked at him. With tearstained eyes, with grief, with pain, with anger, with something else. She looked at him.
And he knew.
And he lowered his sword.
“And now?” he whispered. “Why do you want to go away now? Why do you want to leave again?”
“Because I’m afraid.”
“Of what? Of this?” he snarled, gesturing to himself. “Of me?”