Down Falls The Queen: A Splitting Worlds Novella (The Splitting Worlds Series)

by Katherine D. Graham

  Have I ever even seen Natius smile? I ponder as I step up into the Audience Hall, leaving my shoes in the genkan entry way before I place my feet onto the tatami mats.

  Natius and Aya stand at the door, waiting uncomfortably, their eyes on me. Looking over my shoulder at them, I remember that they cannot enter a Tengu building without permission. Our priests refresh our wards against Demons daily at sundown, removing a Vampire’s prior invitation into the holy place.

  Does that rule still apply now that Aya’s a full Angel?

  “Come in, Ayangelo, Natius,” I bid them.

  Leading the way into the large center chamber, my stomach grumbles, and my eyelids are heavy from lack of sleep as I kneel out of habit on the zabuton cushion to the right of my father’s. His intricate, but worn, black zabuton is embroidered with golden crows flying as though in a dark sky. I fight the urge to run my hand over the pattern. Aya and Natius kneel on guest zabutons in front of me that servants must have set out while I was admiring Father’s zabuton.

  “Will the King be joining us?” Natius asks, and for the first time since their arrival do I sense a tension swirling thickly between the brothers like hovering black vapor.

  Natius’ eyes are wide and frantic despite his relaxed posture. Normally so calm and collected, the disturbed expression takes me aback.

  “My father is dead.” The bluntness and finality of the words surprises even me. “An assassin may remain within the compound.”

  Aya, ever the tenderer of the brothers, reaches for my hand, pausing as I keep my own balled into fists on my knees. A strange numbness and resolve sits where perhaps sorrow and anger at my beloved father’s passing should be.

  Now is not the time for grief.

  “Why have you come? I know you weren’t just miraculously turned into a full Angel and full Demon. What business did you have with my father?”

  Servants bring tea. The mute pair of Tengu maidens with their clipped wings were rescued from grounding by my father, who believed that stripping a Tengu of their wings for merely being born unable to speak was barbaric. The women were born a good three hundred years apart, each mute due to an act of disobedience by their mothers, who conceived them with Humans. Their mothers were grounded and banished to live as nearly immortal humans, never allowed back into the Between. The priests dictated that the sky should never be awarded to children cursed by the gods, and so their wings are clipped annually on the first full moon.

  Actually, that should be happening again soon not long after I take the throne… The thought churns my stomach, and I force myself not to meet the eyes of either girl as they set out the tea ceremony.

  “Our father has passed on as well,” Natius tells me, his voice almost cracking.

  A delicate teacup trembles in his large, rough hands. Aya sips his tea in silence but is either too reserved to show the same emotion as his brother or does not care. The briefest flash of memory strikes me—of the Oracle, Dorathea, standing with silver, white, and purple auras hovering around her in the courtyard.

  Oracles are the gods’ emissaries. The gods require balance of power—no one race can ever edge ahead. The silver Tengu soul was my father’s. The purple… Draco’s? But an Angel’s white…?

  My eyes grow wide for the briefest of seconds as I see hatred and rage in a look from Aya that is so lethal it makes even my hundreds-of-years’ worth of practice in hiding my emotions crumble away. Anger. The Angel before me is surrounded by a blinding orange fire of righteous anger.

  “Seracuse…” I whisper, the blood draining from my face at the implication.

  “We came to petition for mediation from the Hand of Justice,” Aya seethes, his words directed at me, but his focus on his brother. “We must stop a war.”

  “A war… between Demons and Angels?” I ask, although I already know the answer.

  The feud between Demons and Angels has raged for a millennium now. Demon King Draco split himself from Lucef, the Devil himself, to live in the Human World a thousand years ago. My grandfather ruled at that time. Mother Seracuse, the leader of the Angels who refused to accept a title, fled to the Between to escape the man whose twin sons she carried, and she claimed to love.

  And yet if he loved her, why would she need to run?

  “It’s bigger than that,” Natius says, sitting back without tasting his tea. “Father wasn’t killed by another Demon or Angel. He was killed by something far more powerful…”

  A sigh escapes me.

  Nate. Ever the dramatic.

  “You are two hundred years old, Nate,” I sigh. “What are you so afraid of that you would change who you are, knowing it will force my people to banish one of you from the Between?”

  Nate’s bright-red gaze captures my own and holds it captive. A shudder runs down my spine at the pointed fear still within them.

  “A Hybrid,” he whispers.

  “A Hybrid?”

  “The first Human to have both Angel and Demon blood,” Natius clarifies.

  “So?” I ask with a shrug. “Mongrels are born every day.”

  “Not mongrels with three different bloodlines, each of Royal blood,” Aya interjects pointedly.

  Royal blood?

  The world fades around me. My mouth goes dry.

  Heresy! One being holding the balance of power from all three Royal lines within their blood? Impossible!

  My head is reeling. Excusing myself, I rush from the room into a servant’s hallway and find an empty room where I can let myself process and strategize in peace. Strutting back and forth in a very undistinguished and unbefitting fashion for a would-be Queen, I absentmindedly tug my hair around and twirl the ends around my fingers. The silky straight locks slip through my grasp in fine, smooth sections.

  My hand is stayed—even in a case like this where the balance of power is off, I cannot slay a Royal without the gods cursing me for felling a chosen one. What do I do? What can I do?

  Interlude: Dorathea

  With the Tengu Princess distracted by politics of Angels and Demons, Dorathea could finally materialize not too far from the Tengu village and stretch her still-sore shoulder.

  Sure it grew back, but it still hurt… she lamented. What did Dorathea do to be chosen for this job? Why not Fusia, who trains with swords? Or Maracina, who turns invisible?

  She tried to reassure herself with the knowledge that the gods only selected Oracles for missions beyond the Heavens when they knew the Oracle chosen would succeed.

  While Dorathea has no doubts about success, would it have hurt them to tell Dorathea she’d be losing limbs down here?

  A ferry waited for her at the base of the Eternal Waterfall—a deep-blue mist of energy connecting the Between to the Heavens. Three souls, one of each Royal, save for the Humans, unwound themselves from the young Oracle’s aura. She watched them nestle down in golden cylinders lined with blue velvet which were resting in crates on the ferry’s seats. A handful of ordinary souls, in forms similar to their earth-bound bodies, sat on the benches beside the crates.

  Dorathea’s never understood why only Royals turn into auras…

  She tried to remember the lesson about compositions and destinations post mortal death, but it had been almost eight hundred fifty years ago since training. The answers were locked away in her reservoir of unnecessary information.

  “Six.” The gravelly voice of the ferryman startled her.

  She turned her face up to the wraith’s skeletal one and fought to stand her ground despite every hair on her body standing on end. Its tattered robe was far too short for it, stopping two inches above its bare-boned knees. The long pole the ferryman used to propel its ferry up through the Eternal Waterfall into the Heavens was well worn and smooth after years of service, with the top ending in a scythe used to cut down ordinary souls who tried to escape judgement upon arrival.

  “Sorry?” Dorathea stuttered, despite wanting to appear strong.

  “Two for each,” the ferryman said again, its fleshless sku
ll snapping yellowing teeth at her. “Or you carry them up yourself, Oracle.”

  “Whatever do you do with souls who can’t pay?” Dorathea complained, but the ferryman ignored her.

  Fishing for the correct currency from each country the souls once lived in, she scrounged up just enough to pay the toll. Placing the mismatched currency into the skeleton’s hand, Dorathea let out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding when it turned its back to her. She watched it push off from the ground and then hook its scythe into the blue aura of the waterfall to heave itself upward, boat and all. She turned her back to them to take in her surroundings.

  Holding her hands out to either side, large patches of sky opened to reveal differing futures for her. Those futures morphed and changed every second. She drew in a deep breath, resolved to ignore the pain in her still-healing shoulder once more, as she watched the scenarios play out before her.

  Find the things that are in all versions of the future, she coached herself, and relay that to the Tengu Princess. Those were the gods’ instructions.

  The visions centered themselves on one event very quickly, and Dorathea couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow. The older Tengu Princess, Riara, sat alone on the Onyx Tengu throne. Dressed in a long white kimono ruined by streaks of blood. Riara’s soft, delicate hands shook so hard, the pair of silver, blood-drenched kunai knifes almost slipped from her fingers. Corpses littered the room—Demon, Angel, and Tengu alike. A still form knelt, pinned through both knees by spears driven through the bone and into the mahogany floors. Gurgling breaths barely escaping the soul’s hooded face. No one else in the room drew breath.

  Rising, Riara descended the stairs in a swish of cloth that smeared blood along the floor beneath her. Loathing and madness flashed in the older sister’s eyes. Leaning down, she whispered beside the hooded being’s ear. Dorathea could not make out her words before the vision vanished, leaving her winded and distraught in the grassy fields outside the Tengu gates.

  Chapter Five

  “Who cares if the Humans wipe out the Demons?” Riara is on me like a hellhound through the halls as I prepare a detachment to leave. “Our father… the King… was just… murdered! In cold blood, Rei!”

  Stopping inside a room filled with weapons and no other soldiers, I try to ignore my older sister’s whining. I pointedly avoid her gaze as I select some shuriken throwing stars to hide in pouches sewn into the folds of my shirt. I stop at ten.

  This is a diplomatic mission, but it is a war zone…

  “Rei! Stop!”

  Her hands, surprisingly strong for hands that have never seen a day of work, snatch my arms like a vice, whirling me to face her. Something in her eyes freezes my heart. For a fraction of a breath, the same expression, the same wild smile I imagined on her face in Father’s room, crosses her face. Just as quickly, it disappears as though blown away like smoke.

  It’s the hunger, I try to convince myself. I’m seeing things. Right?

  I realize that she’s waiting for an explanation, and I stumble to find words to offer her.

  Duty doesn’t mean anything to her. She won’t understand no matter what I say.

  “I’m the Hand of Justice, Riara,” I remind her as I have a million other times before when I’m called away from home. “Until I become the Ascended and another Hand of Justice is named, I must come when summoned.”

  I try to break free of her grasp, but she doesn’t let go.

  “Don’t go, Rei,” she whispers, her voice a strange mix of plea and threat.

  Shoving her away, I return to preparing. Steel plates so cool I can feel them through my clothes slide into more hidden pockets inside my shirt to protect my vital organs should we be fired upon in the Human World.

  “Rei.” Riara’s trembling voice is a broken whisper that actually draws my attention.

  Her cheeks are wet with tears even though she furiously tries to wipe them away.

  “Riara… what’s wrong?”

  Dark smoke swirls beneath the door and into the room. It slithers around our feet. When it touches Riara, the color drains from her eyes leaving only black orbs. Grabbing Riara, I drag her out into the hall. The smoke follows us, unrelenting even as we dash through the courtyard in broad daylight. My throat tightens as though to scream, but I stop myself.

  “Rei! What’s wrong?”

  Aya swoops down from the sky to run by my side, looking over my shoulder for whatever must be chasing us but obviously unable to see it.

  The walls loom up ahead of us, but before we can reach them, a pillar of scarlet smoke solidifies before us, halting us in our paths. Dorathea emerges from the smoke before I can even gasp, a silver cane gripped tight in her hands. With one twirl of her cane, a smoldering red flame slashes across Riara’s cheek but immediately dissipates. Another whirl throws the cane into the ground just behind me, splitting off the dark smoke and creating a ring of bright-red fire around us.

  The black smoke surges up against the flames and climbs into the air until it is double my height, but it cannot break through. A woman’s shrieking cry rings out around us so shrilly we all cover our ears, even the Oracle. Aya doubles over, throwing both arms around his head and writhing in agony.

  Whipping my head from side to side, I realize that it is Riara who is making the unearthly noise. What little warmth was in her pale skin drains from her until her skin tone is a sickly ashen blue. The black drains from her eyes, leaving only plain white behind. Her lips turn grey, as does her jet-black hair.

  “Riara!” I scream, throwing my arms around her.

  What is happening?!

  “Oracle! Do something!” I plead, but the Oracle looks just as disturbed as me.

  Riara goes limp in my arms, and it’s all I can do to keep from tumbling to the ground with her stout form. The smoke recedes but then gathers together until it rises up to a human’s height. Twin flames hover toward the top, then sink in slowly. The smoke gives way to a person—a shriveled woman with patchwork squares of every color skin sewn together with black and scarlet thread across every visible inch of her wrinkled, sagging, naked body.

  “Harpy!” Dorathea seethes scathingly, a single finger pointed accusatorily at the haggard being shuddering just outside the fire circle, “You would dare set foot on the gods’ holy ground?! To lay hands upon the lords’ own blood?!”

  Ear-splitting yowling that I can only imagine must be this wretched being’s version of laughter makes my back twitch as though the Harpy’s claw-like fingernails are tracing my spine. This is not the first Harpy I’ve met, but this is the first time one has survived a trip to the Between. The soulless remnants of once-Human women—unlucky survivors of timeless ages in the Lower World who had escaped being eaten or murdered—eventually trick, lie, or sneak their way out of the Lower World into the Human World in a similar wraith-like fashion.

  Father’s cleansing flames always seal the gates to the Between, though. No being as tainted as this should have gotten in.

  “Gods?” the Harpy mocks. “I wear a piece of every enslaved sister I’ve served beside, each one pure and innocent before being stolen away. Each one fell while slaves of atrocities far darker than any mortal mind can conceive, simply for being out after midnight. And you think that your gods would pity ones whose hands are stained with blood more than they pity an innocent girl?”

  The thought behind her words hits me sharper than a slap to the face. Losing myself a moment in the Harpy’s wild, black, bulbous eyes, my mind flashes back to the previous night. Mei, the human girl I allowed to be dragged away, had only a tortured life and horrific death to look forward to, at best; a twisting of her soul and transformation into a Harpy, at worst.

  Gasps above me draw my attention to the sky, where hundreds of Tengu soldiers hover in a wide circle, safely above the Harpy’s reach, awaiting my command. I hear whispers of “heresy,” “blasphemy,” and curses pass between the usually reserved crowd. A sickening crack pulls my attention back to the Harpy, whose b
ack is arched and contorted. Bones break through the skin of her shoulders, spreading far and wide and yet skinless at the moment.

  Did I have the right? Father appointed me the Hand of Justice. He communed with the gods, being one of their Kings. But they haven’t spoken to me, not once this whole fast…

  “Stand strong!” Aya orders, now back on his feet and standing over me with blue and purple balls of flame hovering in his open palms—Angel sorcery.

  Harpies can fly, I remind myself, almost slapping myself in the face, and each time they re-form after being mist, their powers are stronger.

  My stomach twists and pitches tumultuously at an acrid stench that washes over me, assaulting my nostrils. Oozing blobs of black goo seep from between the stitched skin on the Harpy’s body, exuding a smell so strong that even placing my mask over my nose doesn’t hamper it. It trickles down the boney wings on her back, morphing into tissue that would soon become fully formed wings.

  “This has to end now!” Aya shouts at me.

  I agree with him, but Riara’s barely breathing body keeps me pinned by her side.

  “Riara!” Mother lands by my side, scooping her favorite daughter out of my arms as though the young woman weighs nothing more than a child. “What happened?!”

  “There’s no time,” I say, relieved to have Riara literally out of my hands.

  Planting myself firmly by Aya’s side, I draw my katana and face the Harpy.

  “When I give the word,” Aya whispers, barely audible amid the roaring flames Dorathea has kept up this entire time, “I burn, you hack.”

  “So eloquent today, Aya.” I flash him the slightest grin since I know it will be hidden behind my mask. His returned grin, though, melts my heart.

  Dorathea moves to the side, not releasing her hold on her cane.

  “When the barrier comes down, Dorathea can’t put it back up,” she warns us, swaying on her feet.

  The Oracle suddenly looks centuries older, almost wrinkled beyond recognition. She shoots a grin at me, and I raise an eyebrow at her.