Page 122 of The Isles of the Gods
All I can think about are the two with me, and what we need to do to get to that altar.
I have this wild fantasy that somehow they’ll get away—that Laskia will spare them, or they’ll be able to hide. That she’ll stop searching after she finds me.
I want Keegan to go to the Bibliotek, to learn, to share that brain of his with the world.
And Selly…oh, Selly. I want her to captain a ship. I want her to solve the mystery of her strange new magician’s marks, and to learn to love the spirits as I do. I want her to see the world. I want her to think of me, sometimes.
And if we get none of that, then a small, selfish part of me wants them to shoot me first so I don’t have to watch her die.
I grab at a tree trunk to stop myself from sliding back down the slope. “Which way?” I gasp, looking at Keegan, though I don’t know why. There’s nothing in the journal that reports anyone ever having come here—only that my father wished he could.
But he answers me with absolute certainty. “The temple will be at the island’s peak. The Mother couldn’t be anywhereelse.”
I stifle a groan. The ground is so steep, I don’t think I can stand, so I don’t try. With a glance back over my shoulder at the trio behind us, I get to my hands and knees, and together the three of us crawl and scramble on through the jungle.
Vines grab at our arms and legs, and bugs bite every inch of exposed skin as we force our way through, sweat soaking our clothes.
I spent all those years holding my father’s journal, keeping back from reading the last few pages, because I wanted there to be some part of him still left to discover. That’s who I am—always keeping something in reserve.
After all, if I don’t give everything, if I don’t travel to the end of the road, if I don’t try as hard as I can, I’ll never have to know if I’m enough. Or if I’m not.
But if Keegan hadn’t picked the journal up, we would havemissed this temple, this one last chance. And I swear I’ll learn, even if it’s the last thing I do. Even though it will be.
There’s nothing left to hold back now. I’m all in.
And we climb, and we crawl, pulling each other up through the undergrowth and the mud, as we head for the top.
JUDE
The Isle of the Mother
The Isles of the Gods
This is a nightmare.
What is she even going to do when we reach the temple? Have Dasriel shoot them, and then—my mind keeps conjuring up darker and more outrageous pictures, hysterical laughter threatening to burst out of me—then am I supposed to help lug Leander’s body down this impossible hill, hoping I don’t let go and send his corpse rolling all the way to the sea, ricocheting off trees until it hits the water?
I’m assuming the Mother will strike us down before any of that happens, if Dasriel murders someone on sacred ground. And on this, the strangest and most terrible day of my life, that doesn’t seem like all-bad news.
Laskia’s lost her mind, of that I’m sure. And yet somehow I’m scrambling through the undergrowth after her, on my way to help start a war. If I refuse, she’ll shoot me and do it anyway,so I’m holding on as best I can, in the hope that…the truth is, I don’t know what I’m hoping for.
Ahead of me, Dasriel grunts as the ground levels out a little. We’re filthy, soaked in sweat, scratched by branches as we force our way past.
“Maybe they didn’t climb up,” I pant, barely able to hear myself over the hammering of my heart.
“They’re climbing,” Laskia snaps, ragged. “The temple will be at the top. Where else, for the Mother?”
“Laskia, I—”
“No!” she shrieks, whipping around to stare at me, wild-eyed. Her shirt is filthy, the top button torn off her waistcoat. “Not a word, Jude! I have come too far, I have done too much—we willnotstop now. We will climb, and we will catch him, and we will kill him.”
Dasriel says nothing, but he takes hold of a tree with one hand and offers her his other, pulling her up a steeper section. He leaves me to struggle after, and with lungs burning,Ido.
There’s something in the air here—maybe it’s the presence of the gods, or it’s just humidity and I’m a fool, I don’t know, but it presses in on me, forcing my thoughts faster and faster, like water speeding up as it heads toward a waterfall, then plummets to the ground.
What was it my mother said?
Everyone tells the same story different ways. And the only version we’re the hero of is our own.
