Page 128 of The Eye of the Fifth
And then she wasn’t in that moment anymore. The feelings lingered, but she was not in her own body, or mind for that matter.
Memories flicked past like the pages of a book, all dimmed by a watery hue:
Cyraneous introducing Kano to his guard. Ships passing on the water overhead. Kano attempting to learn the convoluted merlanguage from an impatient mer teacher. Kano speeding through the water after two nymphs. The subtle brush of one of their blue hands on his-
But these were memories only from the last three years.
Kyra tried to delve deeper, to find the Kano from before, only to be met with a thick haze that obscured her vision of anything. There was no past to be found through this fog. It was far too dense, as though something, or someonewas blocking her view.
She retreated back, and the fog lifted as memories sped past once more.
Kano keeping watch whilst the nymphs were nowhere to be seen. A colossal tomb of immense power on the ocean floor, bones littered at its entrance. A glowing rune. Kano stopping one of the twins from touching the temple doors-
Recognition shot through Kyra at that memory. Concentration awry, she tumbled out of Kano’s mind.
‘Easy!’ Kawai hissed, catching her before she fell. Her head spun from coming out of the memory too fast.
That place. The mighty powerit exuded.
‘Mother above,’ Kyra mumbled breathlessly. She cast a furtive glance around the room to ensure everyone was still sleeping, then untangled herself from Kawai, clambered to her feet and tiptoed as quietly as possible out of the house.
Moist, tropical air filled her lungs as Kyra stared out across the seamless silky blanket of water before her, knowing now what lay slumbering beneath it.
Her heart was thundering.
‘Did you do it?’ Kawai demanded in a hushed voice behind her. She heard the door close.
‘No. I couldn’t,’ she told him, surprised to find her voice oddly calm.
Disappointment laced Kawai’s tone. ‘What happened, then?’
Diving her hand into her pocket, she turned to him, pulling out the crumpled bit of parchment that hadn’t left her person since she’d acquired it. It had become ritualistic, in a way, for her to read through Kawai’s notes before she slept each night, as if the answers might jump from the scroll at her, or somehow read differently than they had the night before.
It was time.
Time to no longer keep her quest for Oslan’s freedom a secret.
‘You wrote this for me. After I mentioned the Eye of the Fifth.’
Surprise flitted across Kawai’s face. ‘Oh… yeah I did. I thought I’d lost it. I was going to give it to you that night.’
‘A lot of it is rubbish,’ she said bluntly. ‘Stuff I already knew. Except for one bit, from a book I’ve already seen.’ She unravelled the parchment and read aloud: ‘“From the book, MORTALS TO MOTHERS: ASCENSION TO DIVINITY: Through worldwide acknowledgement of the Mothers defeat of their unhinged sister, we can safely assume that Dohra and her demons will remain bound for eternity in her stony prison. Under the Four Mothers watchful eyes, She of the Void and Fifth Element would be imprisoned forever more. Thus, Droria found its natural state of harmony, of peace, knowing that this certain evil was buried to time.”’
She remembered flicking through the pages of that tome in search of answers. It had been meaningless then.
The faery had even guided her to it. As if they’d known exactly what she was looking for.
Kawai frowned. ‘Yeah, I know what it says, Kyra. I was the one who copied it from the book.’
‘That bit though…’ Kyra said slowly, then repeated the line that was now screaming at her to understand, just as that faery had done, however subtly, in the library, ‘“...Dohra and her demons will remain bound for eternity in her stony prison.”I thought it just meant the Eye at first. But then the next bit: “Under the Four Mothers watchful eyes…”’She looked up at Kawai with excitement. ‘They’retogether.All of them. The Mothers and Dohra. They were buried together. The stony prison isn’t the Eye of the Fifth. It’s a tomb. It’stheirtomb.’’
Kawai was utterly perplexed. ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’
Then Kyra finally,finallytold someone else about her bargain with Lilion.
Every bit of it. Her relationship with Lilion, Oslan’s slavery, the fight between her and her brother, the blood-bargain to find the Eye in exchange for his freedom, and then the tomb she’d seen, clear as if she’d witnessed it herself, in Kano’s memory.
Even through his mind, the power emanating from the tomb was implausible. Kano had felt it, and had known what it was even if he hadn’tactuallyknown. He’d felt it all the same. And through that memory, so had she.
