She died.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Korbyn
Korbyn dragged Liyana’s body away from the shore. She lay peacefully, as if sleeping in the greenery. Returning to the lake, he pulled the emperor by his ankles out of the water. Drops splashed onto Korbyn’s hands, but as a god, he didn’t need to fear the water. Dragging the body over the pebbles, Korbyn laid the emperor next to Liyana. He touched the emperor’s neck.
There was no pulse.
Liyana opened her eyes. “She’s gone,” Bayla said with Liyana’s voice.
“She’ll return,” Korbyn said. “She’s resourceful.”
“She is in the Dreaming,” Bayla said gently.
“She will return with him, and she will not forgive me if he’s dead.” Korbyn judged that he had not been soulless too long. His skin was still warm.
Bayla knelt beside him. She wrapped her arms—Liyana’s arms—around him. “He is already gone. It is over.”
Korbyn shook his head.
“Even if he were to return, his body . . .” She trailed off. “No, Korbyn. Korbyn, look at me. We are together now. You cannot do this.”
“We will be together in the Dreaming,” Korbyn said. “We will be together forever.” He closed his eyes. He had never tried this particular trick before. In theory it was sound. The emperor’s body wasn’t dying from any bodily harm, merely lack of a soul.
He gathered the magic that was his own soul, and he poured it into the emperor’s body.
Korbyn took a breath and opened his eyes. His chest felt different. He was lying in the grasses. Water had dampened his face and his clothes. He opened his eyes and saw his former body in Liyana’s—Bayla’s—arms.
She was crying. “How could you do this to me?”
“She will return,” Korbyn said. His voice sounded different, deeper. “I believe in her.”
“You love her,” Bayla said.
He thought about that. He remembered how he’d met her in the oasis. She’d been throwing sand and screaming at the desert. He remembered how she’d taught him to dance. He remembered guiding her through magic lessons. He remembered how he’d felt when she woke as herself, not as Bayla. “I think I do.”
“You don’t love me.”
“I know I do,” he said.
Bayla cradled his former body. “Your body will die in minutes if you do not return to it. And say that you are correct and your Liyana returns with her emperor’s soul. . . . How will he inhabit that body if you are in it? He is not trained in magic. He will not be able to coexist with you. Your sacrifice will be for nothing.”
“That body is not the sacrifice,” Korbyn said gently.
Bayla stared at him, and he saw the realization spread over her face.
“Our time here is stolen and will come again. These people . . . they deserve to finish their natural lives. They deserve it more than we do. This is their world. These are their lives. We exist for them and because of them.” He attempted a smile and tried to make his voice light. “Besides, you have never seen Liyana when she is angry. She would not like to go through the trouble of saving her emperor only to have him die again here.”
“You truly trust her,” Bayla said.
Korbyn watched the lake. “Yes, I do.” Beside him, in his lover’s arms, his body died.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Liyana was in the desert. She rotated slowly, scanning the horizon. To the east she saw a tamar tree with branches that stretched seemingly for miles. To the west she saw rock hills. It was day. The sun was directly above her. There were no shadows.
She felt no heat. The wind caressed her skin and touched her hair. She wore braids and her ceremony dress, even though she’d lost this dress in the emperor’s camp.
“Jarlath!” she called.
There were no birds or creatures of any kind. She tried to expand her soul to sense others. . . . But she felt no excess magic, nor did she feel the familiar swirl that was her goddess. Bayla? she thought tentatively.
She heard no answer.
“I’m dead,” she said out loud. The words tasted strange in her mouth. She didn’t feel dead. She rubbed the fabric of her skirt between her fingers and thumb. The skirt felt real, and it felt as soft as it had on the morning of her ceremony, without any of the rips or stains.
She walked toward the tamar tree. Around her, sand swirled in the air. She stared at the flecks of sand. Each glinted in the sun like a tiny jewel. Ruby, emerald, sapphire. She touched the glittering air, and she thought she heard the sound of laughter. It tinkled like broken glass and then dissolved. She inhaled the scent of milk and honey carried on the light breeze. Under her feet the sand felt warm, as if it had been heated but not scorched by the midday sun. Her feet, she noticed, wore the same beautiful shoes, tattered from her journey.
“Hello?” she called. “Jarlath? Pia? Fennik? I know you’re here!” In fact, thousands of souls should have been there—all the deities who weren’t in the desert plus all the dead from prior generations, including Jarlath. And Mulaf.
Mulaf sat on a rock with his face in his hands.
She halted. He had not been there an instant before. Staring at him, she wondered if she should speak to him. He hadn’t noticed her. Stepping softly, she backed away.
“He can’t hurt you here,” Pia said. “I will not let him.”
Liyana pivoted. Standing next to her, Pia smiled. She looked as beautiful as she had on the day that Liyana had met her, perhaps more beautiful. She seemed to glow with a soft light, like the aftereffect of staring at the sun. Her eyes did not focus on Liyana but instead seemed to drink in the entire desert. “You still cannot see,” Liyana said. “I’d have thought . . .” She trailed off because Pia was smiling with a joy that lit her like a flame. Behind her, the sky rippled with amber, rose, and purple light before it returned to brilliant blue.
“I could always see,” Pia said. “Just not with my eyes.” She reached with a surety of what she would find, and she touched Liyana’s face. “You, however, are blind. Like Oyri was. She needed true blindness before she could see beyond our clan.”
“I can see him,” Liyana said. “He wants to kill the gods.”
“Gods cannot die,” Pia said with her familiar conviction. Liyana had missed that certainty, even as she wanted to shake Pia and yell that this man was dangerous. Pia continued to smile, and her unseeing eyes sparkled like opals.
“But he could trap them here,” Liyana said. “He planned to destroy the mountains and bury the lake in the rubble. Without the lake the deities cannot leave the Dreaming, and magic dies in the world.”
“He cannot destroy anything from within the Dreaming, and I will not let his soul leave.”
Liyana knelt in front of him. Mulaf did not seem to know she was there. She waved his hand in front of his face. He did not respond. He looked as if he was staring directly through her. Tears ran down his face, curving into rivulets in his wrinkles. “He doesn’t see me.”
“He sees her,” Pia said.
Liyana turned but saw no one, only desert stretching on and on.
“His lost love, the Cat Clan vessel who sacrificed herself, his reason for everything that followed,” Pia said. “I found her, and we have been awaiting his arrival. Thank you for delivering him to us.”
“But he could find a way to leave—”
“He won’t,” Pia said. “Not now that he has found her. Besides, as I said, I will not let him.” She smiled again, and the glow around her brightened. She skipped around Mulaf and dropped into the sand next to him. She patted his shoulder, and he started. “Mulaf and I will become friends.” Liyana thought her smile had a sharpness to it, as if she were a cat with a mouse.