Page 65 of The Merciless Ones
I gasp awake to find myself completely doused in sweat, and my mind reeling. What was that?
White Hands appears early the next morning, her reflection shimmering above the stream where I’ve been practising opening a door. Or at least attempting. I have no idea how to open one – no idea how to even begin trying. Her arrival is a relief. I’ve been awake since last night pondering the things I saw in Anok’s memories. What was it exactly she and her sisters did that they regretted? What was that rift that appeared in the ground? And what about the Merciless One? I don’t even know where to start with him. He felt like Idugu, except he wasn’t. He was a different being from the one I met in that alley, and yet somehow similar. Could there be more gods besides Idugu? And how are they connected to the mothers? I have so many questions now, so many things I can’t even begin to understand. Anok’s memories, they were all so overwhelming, that even the thought of peering into the goddess’s mind again exhausts me.
I wipe my hand over my face as the Firstborn’s reflection walks closer. “Your memories have been tampered with, White Hands,” I inform her quietly. “And that’s not even the worst of it. There might be many more gods than Idugu in Otera.”
“And morning greetings to you too, Deka,” White Hands replies calmly, the early sunlight illuminating her smoothly unconcerned expression.
I frown. “You’re not surprised.”
“It was always a possibility, my memories being tampered with. And as for the other gods…” She shrugs: “You have to be prepared for these things.”
“It doesn’t anger you, the lies? The manipulations?”
White Hands strides towards me, her reflection almost seeming to walk on the water’s surface, although I know that’s just an illusion. “Anger is an unproductive emotion. I prefer vengeance. Cold, beautiful – perfect. Besides, there’s another thing you haven’t considered, Deka.”
“What’s that?”
“The mothers might not know.”
When I stare at her, unconvinced, she sighs, suddenly seeming vulnerable. It’s almost as if she’s taking off her mask of strength, allowing me to see the softness, the uncertainty, behind it for the very first time.
“Something happened centuries ago – something calamitous, and yet I and all the other Firstborn cannot remember it. I don’t think the others even know, and I’m not certain the mothers do either. They’re too unreliable at the moment. Too tired, too strained by the predations of either the angoro or that other god you spoke of, Idugu, to remember… But you are the Nuru: you have the memories in their blood, and most important, you are in Hemaira, where many of the answers lie hidden, if only you know where to look.”
Everything’s suddenly making sense now. “That’s why you aren’t worried that I’m stuck here. That’s why you haven’t been trying to find a way to rush me back.”
“Indeed,” White Hands says simply. “While these are not the ideal circumstances, you are, however, in the ideal place to sort through what is true or not. Is Idugu truly a god comparable to the mothers? Are there others? And what happened all those centuries ago – that cataclysm I cannot remember?”
But now, my guard is up again. “This is like back at the Warthu Bera, when you asked me about who was the real threat – the deathshrieks or the emperor.” I frown. “White Hands, what are you planning now? What are you trying to accomplish?”
“The only thing I ever have: safety for my sisters and me.”
“But you’re using me as a pawn to get it.”
“No.” To my shock, White Hands prostrates herself, touching her forehead to the ground. “I am acknowledging you as a divinity. One who cares for our kind.”
By now, horror has completely curdled my stomach. “White Hands, there are no other gods but the Gilded Ones.”
“Then what is Idugu? And what are you?”
“I have no divine powers—”
“—yet,” White Hands says. “You have no divine powers yet. But you are made of the same matter as the Gilded Ones, and your abilities, they’re growing, are they not? Ever since you reached Hemaira, they’ve been growing.”
“How did you—”
She rises, points to my neck. “Where is your necklace, Deka? Why aren’t you wearing it any longer?”
I’m trembling now, my mind overburdened by all the things White Hands is saying. “I just took it off for a time, I—”
“I’ll ask you one final question, Deka,” she says, cutting me off. “What am I?”
“You are the Firstborn of the Gilded Ones,” I whisper, unnerved.
A pleased smile traces White Hands’s lips. “I notice you did not say ‘daughter’.” She glides to me, her feet never touching the grass. “Tell me, when did you start knowing the truth about me?”
I look down, uncomfortable. “I’m not certain.”
“Aren’t you?” She cocks her head.