Vaguely, as if from very far away, I hear, “Follow her!” I pound down the road, pumping my arms for speed, sucking air and dust. I slip in the sand, fall to my knees. Pain shoots up my legs, but I jump to my feet and run on.
The plateau dips slightly, at a place where the cliff is not so steep and the sand has drifted against it, creating an easy path to the desert. I plunge down the side, knee-deep in sand, slipping and sliding my way down the slope.
I edge along the cliff, something tugging me along. I have no idea where I’m going or what I’ll do, but something inside me knows, and I push forward, desperate to satisfy the awful tugging, the awful itch.
Eventually the cliff curves over my head, creating a lip of shade during the hottest part of the day. At the base, where the sand drifts are the deepest, I drop to my knees and begin to dig with my hands.
I shovel as fast as I can, but sand is a nebulous, liquid thing, and more pours into the hole I’m making as soon as I remove it.
So I dig faster and harder.
The others come up behind me, but I keep digging. Sand lodges under my fingernails. One of my cuticles bleeds. But I can’t stop.
They watch for a while, puzzled. Then Storm drops beside me and starts digging too. Then Hector. Then Red. Mara and Belén work behind us, moving sand that we’ve displaced out of the way so it doesn’t come pouring back.
We dig and dig. The sun is hot on my back, burning my neck. My hands are scraped raw. Grit fills my mouth, crunches between my teeth.
My right forefinger brushes against something cool. Something smooth-textured and alive. My digging slows as I reveal a tiny dark-green leaf.
It is the most precious leaf in the world, and my fingertips, which had so recently clutched at the sand with such raw abandon, trace its outline carefully, rubbing sand away from its gentle curve, loosing it to spring free of the harsh desert soil. With it comes a fragile stem. Two more leaves. Then a tiny offshoot with a budding yellow-green leaf at its tip.
“It’s a baby fig tree,” Mara exclaims breathlessly.
“It must have been buried in a recent sandstorm,” Belén says.
I hear them, but I can’t acknowledge them, because I’m not done yet. I keep digging until the sprout is entirely free of its sand prison, then I pat the ground firm around it to give it some strength against the wind.
“I have moisture here,” Hector says. “Look! It’s wet.” He holds up a handful of sticky sand.
“Another tree,” Red says.
And then we all renew our digging with fervor, uncovering two more plants I don’t recognize and the unmistakable seepage of a desert spring.
We clear a wide area at the base of the overhang, using nothing but our hands, and when finally the last tiny leaf is entirely dust free, I stop. One moment, I’m frantic with doing, and in the next, the itch disappears, replaced by bone-deep weariness that makes me feel like I could sleep for a week.
“Elisa, you’ve found an oasis,” Mara says. “A new one. It was covered by a sandstorm, but you—”
A great crack rends the air. Or maybe the crack is only in my mind, but I cover my ears against it, moaning at the ache suddenly zipping up my spine. My vision turns cloudy red, swimming with black spots. Bright pain explodes through my belly.
And the Godstone falls away, catching in the waistband of my pants.
I lurch to my feet. The Godstone slides down my leg like a warm scurrying rodent, lodges in the top of my boot. I shove my hand inside for it. My fingertips just brush it. It’s edged, like broken glass. And wet.
I wrap my fingers around it and pull it out slowly, afraid of what I’ll see.
I hold it up to the sun. It’s blue-black now, a huge crack zagging through the center. The back side is smeared with blood. I put my other hand to my navel, my empty navel. It’s monstrously large, sore to the touch, and seeping.
It feels like a camel is standing on my chest, and I can hardly breath. I know this means something, something important. But I can’t think what.
Mara slips an arm around my waist. “You’ve done it, Elisa. This was it. Your act of service.”
“And you lived,” Hector says, his voice dropped and gruff.
I turn around, survey our handiwork. We cleared an enormous area. One spot grows dark with damp, like a blot of ink in the sand. Beside it are my fig tree and a few smaller sprouts, their living green a stark contrast to dry sand and shale. Off to the side is the mountain of sand we removed to reach it all. I stare in awe. I would have killed myself trying to dig it all out alone.
That’s why I didn’t die, I realize with a start. Mistress Jacoma obsessively painted herself into an early grave. Lucián drained his youth carving the Hand of God, which now sits in my throne room at home. I would have driven myself to death too, were it not for my friends. They helped shoulder the burden.
“I think we just saw history being made,” Belén says.
Mara drops to her knees to study my fig tree close up. “We’ve watched Elisa make history all year,” she says, fingering a fragile leaf. “So why this? God wanted an oasis? It’s so . . . uninspiring.”
Belén shrugs. “‘The mind of God is a mystery and none can understand it.’ Damián the Shepherd never knew why he was compelled to dig his well. He died long before the well caused an accident that ended a battle. We may never know why Elisa was called to serve in this way.”
“You know what else this means?” Hector says. He gazes down at me with an expression that can’t be interpreted as anything other than smug. “It means everything else you’ve done—starting a rebellion, saving Brisadulce, finding the zafira, negotiating peace with Invierne—none of it was your act of service. Your Godstone didn’t drive you to do all those things. You did them all yourself.”
I understand their words but can’t absorb them. The only thing that feels real and true to me right now is that the Godstone no longer pulses inside me. I can’t sense the zafira squirming beneath the crust of the world. I won’t be able to call upon its aid to save my home.
I am powerless.
I am ordinary.
PART IV
37
THE urgency of our journey does not abate, but I’m taciturn and reclusive, preferring to take my meals a few strides away, where I can feel a little bit alone. I’m different now. A whole new Elisa. And it seems as though I ought to think it through, learn who I am again, before I’m fit company for everyone else.
One afternoon, when I’m sure no one is watching, I pull my detached Godstone from my pocket. It glimmers dully in my palm, and the fissure through its center snags on my skin. I close my eyes and try to call the zafira. Nothing happens. Not even a tickle of power.
I try again in the evening, this time using the pristine jewel I retrieved from Lucero’s altar. Maybe I can be like Storm, a sorcerer with a detached stone. But again, nothing happens. No matter how hard I pray, how firmly I ground myself to the earth, I remain an empty, powerless vessel.
Something must have happened when my stone cracked. I gaze out across the expanse of desert, slitting my eyes against the glare as wind whips strands of hair against my cheek. This place is still part of me, I tell myself firmly, even though it feels as though I’ve been severed from the world.
I feel a hand on my shoulder. “No one thinks any less of you,” Mara says, and I wonder if she spied on my failed attempts. Then she sighs. “But if you need to be unreasonable for a while, go ahead.”
I am being unreasonable. But the Godstone has been an inextricable part of me—both my body and my life—and I don’t know how else to be.