I gasped and pulled back, staring into his face, suddenly overcome with shock. “I would know—,” I said, and stopped, because I did know. I did. I felt it now, that tiny seed of life, still just a cluster of undifferentiated cells. David’s baby, conceived on the ship. Our baby.
I looked at David, and I saw the knowledge in his face, too. The wonder. And a little bit of fear. I reached for his hand, and he almost broke mine with the force and fierceness of his grip.
I felt shaky and on the verge of tears, and I didn’t even know why, really, except that there was a sense to all of this of endings. Maybe endings without new beginnings.
“Are we done?” I finally said, and forced a cocky smile. “Because there’s world-saving to be done.”
“Right,” Lewis said. “There always is, isn’t there? That part never changes. Hey, if it’s a boy, name him after me, will you?”
“You don’t have to do this,” I said. “I could try—”
“No. There comes a time when you have to realize that you can’t save the world alone, Jo. You have to let someone else take a shot. And it’s my turn.”
I took a deep breath, forced a smile, took one last look at the blackened sun in the red sky, and opened the door of the chapel. We got on with it.
Chapter Twelve
Imara was standing at the front of the chapel, silhouetted by the giant sweep of windows that displayed the eclipsed sun, the red sky, the dramatic drop of the canyons. It was the kind of view that would make anyone religious, I’d always thought, but right now, all I could see was my daughter, standing motionless in front of all that glory, with sand whipping around her like a tornado. Her black hair was lifting on an invisible wind, and her eyes were just as dark, lid to lid, like a night sky flecked with exploding stars. She was . . . terrifying.
And angry.
“Imara,” David said, and walked down the aisle toward her. “I’m sorry, but we had to come. You know this place won’t last much longer. You’ll fall, and when you do, you’ll destroy. We can stop it, if you’ll help us.”
She laughed. It was a wretched, despairing sound, and it lashed at our faces like slaps. I winced and wanted to turn away; I hated seeing her like this, so alien and far from the child I’d known. All grown up, some part of my brain contributed helpfully. Parents never do understand their children.
“You’re fools,” she said. “I tried to stop you. I tried to tell you, it’s useless. I don’t want to see you hurt, don’t you understand? I can’t protect you!”
“We’re not asking you to, sweetheart,” I said. “Please. I know you can hear her. Open yourself up, and let us talk through you. I’m begging you, for the sake of the half of you that was once like me. Please.”
“Mom, it won’t help, don’t you get it? You think she doesn’t know about humanity? About what it is, what it’s done? This is the reckoning. We all told you it would come.” Imara was crying, black tears like oil that marred her perfect, pale face. “If I open the connection, I can’t shut it off. I’ll be lost. We’ll all be lost.”
Out there, canyons trembled, and rocks shifted, and I saw part of the cliff face opposite shear away and fall to the rocks below. Her perfect sanctuary couldn’t hold. She couldn’t hold.
None of us could.
“Please,” Lewis said, and stepped forward. Imara’s black eyes focused on him, and I saw him falter, just a little, before he continued moving toward her. “Please let her see me.”
“She’ll destroy you,” Imara said. “Don’t you know that?”
“Yes,” he said. “I know. It’s the only chance we have. I’m willing to take that risk.”
“It’s not a risk. It’s a certainty.”
I took in a sharp breath, and David’s grip on my hand tightened, warning me not to interfere. We’d done what we could, and now, Lewis had shouldered the burden.
As I’d known he would, from the beginning. This was what Lewis had been saving himself for all along—not his survival, but to be sure that his death counted for something important.
I’d thought, more than once, that he was a cold, manipulative bastard, and that was all true . . . but this was true, too. He’d sacrificed others, but he’d done it because he knew, eventually, that he’d stand here, in this place, and be the only one who could change the world.
My heart was breaking to pieces, but I understood.
Imara took in a deep breath and closed her eyes. Behind her, the eclipsed sun exploded back into fiery, full life, burning brighter, brighter, until I had to shut my eyes and turn away from it.
When the light receded, I looked back, and met the eyes of Mother Earth.
They weren’t white. They were all the colors of the sea swirling together, deep blue and warm turquoise and milky jade green. They were so beautiful. So peaceful.
So utterly merciless.
Her gaze held me, and I felt drowned in a vast, astonishing warmth. But it wasn’t acceptance. Everything in me was being emptied out, examined, and found wanting.
The warmth abruptly cut off, and I sank down to my knees, sobbing with longing to feel that again, be that again. I thought I’d touched her consciousness before, but it had been nothing like this, this—power. I’d never felt anything like it, and I knew that, like the screams of the Djinn, I’d never be able to not feel it, on some level. She had taken me, marked me, and discarded me.
Next to me, David slowly, gracefully, bent one knee, and I saw him stare fearlessly into her eyes. Imara’s face took on a hint of a smile, and I felt the echoes of the warmth that cascaded into him, through him, waves of ecstasy that burned even as removed as I was from the experience. Only a Djinn could have withstood that, and even David finally bowed his head, trembling and shaking.
She fastened that deadly, warm, perfect gaze on Lewis, and I heard him let out a sound that was something between a sigh and a moan. His body went rigid, head thrown back, and light streamed from him in golden flickers and flows, cascading into Imara.
Into the Earth.
“No,” he said hoarsely, and with a huge effort, he stopped. He denied her.
I couldn’t imagine how that was possible, but he did it. He advanced toward her, until they were no more than a foot apart, and Lewis said, “You can’t have me. Not like this. Not if you destroy my people.”
The sea-blue eyes slowly blinked. “Your people chose this,” she said, and her voice was vast and bell-like, and the windows behind Imara shattered in a hail of glittering shards that fell away into the canyon. Wind whipped in, and I saw storms forming, black and furious. More of the canyon cliffs opposite fell away as the land rocked and shifted. The wooden pews in the chapel burst into white-hot flame and burned to ashes in seconds. “They were warned.”
Lewis was shaking now, and he fell to his knees in front of her, but his fists were clenched. “No,” he gritted out. “Let them live. Let us live. You owe me this.”
She laughed, and it was the harsh, ripping sound of claws, the whisper of feathers, the roar of lions. I was terrified, and so small, so very small before the power in this room.
The power that Lewis still resisted.
“I owe you nothing,” the Mother said. “You owe me everything. And I will have it in payment for pain.”
“That’s what you want!” Lewis shouted, and somehow his voice rang louder here, in this place, than hers. “But I know what you need!”
I had no idea how he could be doing this, talking to her—Imara was the only one who could have made that connection, amplified his voice to a level where it could be heard and understood by something as enormous as Mother Earth. Only Imara could have enough humanity left in her to bridge that gap. The other Oracles couldn’t; even the Djinn couldn’t, without being destroyed.