Talin couldn’t hear what was being said and he didn’t much care. The prison cell no longer held his interest. His Hatred demanded he strike out at everyone in the room, but Kreed’s magical shackles held him fast. Instead, Talin retreated within himself to the barren wasteland of his mind.
He was utterly alone in the empty, lifeless fields. Hatred blazed from horizon to horizon, choking and burning the skies with black clouds lined with red lightning. Bitter winds and a bleak landscape drained all thoughts and desires. Despair bubbled from the pit below as it always did, though the phantoms no longer called his name.
A gout of bloody flame erupted in front of Talin, leaving a small figure in its wake.
“I have something for you,” Habbad said. “Are you ready to accept it?”
“In the prison cell I am forbidden from harming you.” Talin opened his arms like a crow’s wings. “This is my realm. You will find no such protection here.”
Habbad took a step forward. Fiery lightning roared above them as Talin prepared to bring the entire sky down upon the Underkin. Hatred seething in his bones, Talin raised Pineah’s arms, summoning a swirling tornado of malice from the sky; Hatefire. He would cast the entire column down on the both of them.
Habbad smirked up at the Hatefire as a figure stepped out from behind Habbad. She was impossibly small in her periwinkle dress and mess of curly hair. Her trembling lips and round eyes were disarmingly familiar.
“Daddy?” the girl whimpered.
Talin’s heart leaped back into his chest, flooding him with life and love.
“Penelope…” Talin quailed, falling to his knees. The Hatefire shrank back into the clouds. “My sweet flower…”
She winced as a gust of salty wind tore at her face. A bolt of lightning made her squeal and jump. “Daddy I don’t like this place!” She ran to Talin, crashing into him and grasping her hands behind his waist. “Please Daddy, take me home! I don’t like it here! I want mommy!”
“Penelope…” Talin breathed. Hugging her close as Habbad took another step towards them.
Habbad cocked his head, an evil grin contorting his wrinkled face. “It’s time for you to return. Awake and face your shame, warrior!”
Talin gasped, returning fully to his prison cell. Florien was at his side, fiddling with needles in his arm. Habbad was in front of him, grinning. Kreed was standing just behind the Underkin. Penelope was cradled in his arms.
Munisica erupted from Talin as he screamed in horror. He set his foot back and prepared to charge, but Kreed’s magic rang in his mind like a jarring bell, holding him fast.
“KREE-” Talin’s voice went silent, though he continued to scream at the top of his lungs. He felt the familiar taint of Kreed’s magic stealing his voice.
“She has been brought here for you, Talin,” Kreed said, holding out Penelope’s body in offering. She was still, though she appeared to be sleeping. “She’s the final piece of the puzzle. The way out of the maze.”
Kreed pulled her back to his chest and hugged Penelope tightly. Her sleeping arms wrapped around his neck, pulling him in search of comfort. Kreed lowered his head and placed his lips to her cheek, kissing her softly. When he pulled away, the flesh on her smoldered and smoked. She was chosen.
“You and Pineah have suffered,” Habbad said, his voice slick and oily. “Your sufferings will now be passed down to your child. Everything that has been done to the both of you shall be done to her. You will be the one to do it.”
“Penelope…” Talin whispered.
Kreed slinked forward, holding Penelope to Talin. “Here you are, warrior. Hold her one last time before it starts.”
Talin pulled his daughter into his chest. His world fractured around him, his mind splitting in two realities. Out of his remaining eye, he beheld the prison cell and his sleeping Penelope. Out of the empty socket, he beheld the wasteland, the sky igniting with Hatred and the pit writhing with Despair. Through Pineah’s arms he could feel Penelope quiver, a lamb ready for slaughter in both worlds of pain.
Talin hugged her, crushed her into him as he fell to the ground. Penelope’s little body began to smoke and char as she curled tightly against his chest. From her smoldering skin a dense cloud of noxious gases churned about the room. Talin choked, his hacking so violent that he could no longer draw breath. Clutching his daughter, Talin threw his head back as a noise rose from within his chest, a noise that had no business in the world of the living. It was the sounds of Despair and Hatred in their purest forms.
The gas filled the whole of the room, melting paint and boiling the floor tiles. Florien ran from the room, snatching Habbad along the way. Kreed remained, Decreath’s taint pouring out of his broken teeth as he stood with his arms spread wide.
An otherworldly cry blared from Kreed’s mouth: “Arise, Sorronis the Hated, Sorronis the Despaired!”
Chapter 11
Fire Dancer
“There is no shame in it, Cole. No shame at all,” Eliza said, leaning out over the edge of the crow’s nest. “At the very least, you’re more self-aware. Most people are never ready to face parts of themselves they’re afraid of. They bury it, leaving it to fester and accumulate. Acknowledgement and awareness will give you strength.”
“You don’t get it,” Cole said as he turned away. “I could have betrayed any of you without a second thought. I came so close to killing Lileth. It still gives me nightmares, though you probably already knew that. Have you ever dreamed about killing your friends?”
“I can’t say I have,” Eliza replied. She closed her eyes as a warm breeze whipped her spiked hair to one side.
“The thing that sickens me the most is that I wanted to kill her. I wanted to pull her apart for no other reason than she might have put up a good fight. Given the chance, I would have killed anyone.” The words tasted foul in Cole’s mouth.
“Then it’s nothing personal,” Eliza said. “There is no part of you that really wants to kill Lileth, or any of us. No one has ever had a nightmare dreading their desires. You’ll sort it out eventually. And don’t be so hard on yourself, you’ve only just begun using our magic.”
“You may be right, but that doesn’t make it any easier.” Cole forced a weak smile.
“Of course not.” She shook her head as if dodging a fly. “Rage like yours hasn’t been seen since before the banishing. You may very well never be able to control it, but as long as you have someone adept with Passion nearby then you can be defused. That is why we’re a unit and not solitary vigilantes.” She placed the palm of her hand to his chest.
A gentle rosy glow pulsed between her fingers, filling Cole with wholesome sensations of companionship and love.
“Why don’t we go find something to do?” he said, unable to hide his smile. “I can’t rest anymore and I’ve just about had it with this ship-food. There’s got to be something fun to do around here.”
Eliza’s eyebrow disappeared in her hair. “You mean something other than sneaking off into the shadows with Lileth?”
Cole checked over the edge of the crow’s nest before dropping his voice to a low whisper. “I thought you weren’t listening! We talked about privacy and boundaries, remember? I don’t go snooping around your thoughts at all hours of the night.”
“Nor do I snoop around yours,” she said through a fox’s smile. “The others have been gossiping about you.”
Cole was determined to find out exactly what they were saying, but Eliza disarmed him with another blast of Passion. It was a low trick in Cole’s opinion, but he followed her down to the main deck without complaint.
Cole had been spending quite a bit of time with Eliza, though their interactions were usually through their link. He’d never had an older sibling and Eliza fit the role perfectly. She had been one of the first in the unit to befriend him, ignoring the prejudices that were common at The Sill. Whenever memories of Joshy swam up from nowhere, Eliza was always there to share the burden and ease his suffering. He had done the same for her when memories of Deekus p
ained her. They kept each other afloat in the darkest of times.
The Firedancer had been cruising over the sands for a week now, Oberon growing larger and brighter while it climbed up from the horizon. The soul flies came and went, dancing and flowing about the ship. The captain complained whenever they boarded. He shooed them off with a length of pole, shouting about vulnerabilities as the Firedancer was lit up like a beacon with each visit. The crew made no such complaints, however. The soul flies danced on and around the crew, leaving them awestruck and dreamy-eyed. Often the soul flies would leave them gifts before departing to the sands or up into the aethers.
One pair of soul flies chased each other about the ship, producing endless trails of rope that wound throughout every nook and cranny of the upper deck. The crew initially cursed the soul flies for leaving such a mess. However, after closer inspection they cried out in joy, praising their visitors as they discovered one rope to be woven from strands of sapphire, and the other from woven platinum. Afraid to ruin the work of art, the crew made painstaking efforts and took an entire day unravelling the gifts.
Following Eliza down the pegs of the main mast, Cole leapt from halfway down, using Wisdom to slow his fall at the last second.
“Beat you,” he said, standing tall.
Eliza took her time climbing down the rest of the way, joining Cole on the main deck with a neat hop. “Had I known we were racing, I think I would have let you win anyway. It’s good for you to win at some things now and again, little human.”
“You better watch yourself, Aenerian.” Cole stood next to her, using his hand to measure the top of his head to her shoulder. “I’m almost up to your chin now. I’ve only been here a few months. I might turn out bigger than you before long.”
“You of all people should know that size is no indication of one’s abilities. Your friend Habbad was unusually gifted with Wisdom, and you yourself made a mockery of the Colossus.” She waggled her shining pink finger in front of her grin. “And don’t think I won’t charm you if you get too brash with me.”
Cole’s smile faded as he thought about Habbad. He wondered how his friend was holding up under Kreed’s shadow. Habbad’s grim smile and vacant eyes still haunted him.
Shaking the dreary thoughts, Cole looked about the ship. “Why don’t we change things up a bit?”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Since I came to Aeneria, almost every day has been filled with training or running or fighting. It’s non-stop stress, you know? We never take time to just have a bit of fun. There’s got to be something we can do.” He kicked at a barrel, sending a soul fly rushing out blaring a sun-yellow hue. The soul fly bumped into a cross-beam above them, producing a ringing peal as it showered them with hot sparks.
The cascade of sparks gave Cole an idea. He turned to Eliza, a wild grin spreading on his face. “Eliza, what do you say we play a little joke on someone?”
“A what?” she asked, taking interest in his mischievous expression.
He searched the deck, making sure no one was around. “Have you seen Valen? I feel like he could use a good joke.”
“I’m not sure I follow,” she replied. “Is it the same as what the jesters do in the arts district? They tell jokes, though they are rather boorish for my taste.”
“Not anything like that,” Cole said, remembering how the jesters spouted off cruel but true jokes about outsiders and other races. “I’m thinking more of a harmless prank. You know, to have fun at someone else’s…misfortune.”
Eliza stiffened, gawking at him with a look of shock. “Well that sounds awful. At least the jesters don’t assault others directly.”
“It’s not as bad as it sounds,” Cole said, picking up a loose nut perched atop a bundle of rope. He hefted the iron in between his hands. “Come with me, and try to be quiet.”
Valen had just come up from below deck, his hands dirty and his face sagging with exhaustion from a long day tinkering on the Firedancer. He walked to the bow and summoned a crystalline telescope just like Lileth’s. As he scanned the horizon, Cole led Eliza to a tall stack of wooden traps.
Cole crouched low and peered at Valen between the gaps in the traps. “He won’t be able to see us from here.”
“And why would we need to hide from him?” Eliza asked, giving him a suspicious look.
“You’ll see.”
Cole held out the iron nut in the flat of his hand. With a green spark from his finger, the nut shot into the air, weaving through the netting of the front mast and coming to a halt above Valen. Cole’s eye twitched with effort as the nut dropped into a guided dive, bouncing off Valen’s shoulder with a sharp thwack.
Valen’s telescope came apart, the emerald pieces clinking over the deck before flickering and fading. Confused, he looked around the bow, his eyes falling upon the rogue nut. He plucked it off the deck and looked above him to the front mast, his lips thin and eyes wide.
Cole bit down on his knuckles, shaking with stifled giggles. “I’ll bet you anything he goes up and checks every bolt on the front mast.”
Eliza’s budding amusement began trickling through. “I think you are making a gross underestimation of Valen’s attention to detail.”
As Cole suspected, Valen jumped to the base of the front mast, checking the joinery by the decking. Eliza pulled Cole tight to her. With a quick wiggle of her fingers she folded a spell around them, rendering the two invisible. Valen passed right over them in his search. Conjuring a small crystalline wrench, he tightened every nut and bolt on his way up the front mast. Once at the top, he sprouted wings and leapt to the main mast, setting to work at once with his tool.
“You weren’t kidding. This’ll take him half an hour at least!” Cole whispered with his thoughts, as though Valen might somehow hear them.
Eliza shook with silent giggles. “That’s if he finds the culprit.”
After only a few minutes of laughing at Valen’s fervent bustling, Cole swore under his breath. Valen cried out victorious as he set his tool to the cross beam of the main mast, fitting the missing nut back to its home. Apparently unsatisfied, he continued down the main mast and checked every nut on the rear mast as well.
Eliza recalled her invisible curtain. “Well, at least the ship is in better shape. Is that part of the prank?”
“Definitely not,” Cole scowled. His bare feet slapped over the deck as he trotted closer to Valen, who was now checking the riggings of some cargo straps up on the rearmost deck.
Eliza glided along next to him silent as a shadow. “I’m afraid I don’t understand the meaning of your prank. What end are you seeking here?”
Cole pressed his finger to his lips, silencing her. He flexed his hand as his thumb and forefinger stretched into blackened claws. He darted to the door to the lower decks and used his talons to loosen one of the nuts on an ornate lantern. Cole retracted his claws. Clamping the nut between his teeth, he jumped up and grabbed the bannisters of the rear deck. Pulling his head just above the floor, he spied Valen hunched over and fiddling with a latch that secured a large stack of barrels.
Holding on with only one hand, Cole snatched the nut from his teeth and flung it as hard as he could, hitting Valen square in the back of his head.
Cole landed as softly as a falling leaf. “Walk away…walk away and act as if nothing happened.”
“This is utterly absurd.” Eliza shook her head, striding off towards the bow of the ship.
Cole sat himself on a bench next to the rear mast and feigned interest in a school of soul flies that kept pace next to the ship. Valen’s footsteps pounded close.
“Cole!” Valen barked. “Go find the captain…please. His rotten ship is falling apart.”
Cole painted his face with a look of quiet shock, a tactic he’d mastered in middle school. “What do you mean the ship’s falling apart? Is this thing not safe?” His eyes darted about, as if the decking might catch fire any moment.
“This is what I mean!” Valen whipped his arm a
bout, showing Cole the little lump of iron. “I don’t know what shoddy engineers built this boat, but it’s clearly not meant for sustained sprints like this. Please Cole, get the captain now! It’s raining nuts out here!”
Cole’s ears twitched. With supreme effort, he kept his face blank as he nodded. “I’ll go find him.”
“Thank you, Cole.” Valen’s emerald wings flashed to life once more. “I’ll go see what in Oberon’s bloody light is falling apart this time.”
Cole’s belly shook with laughter as he cast his face in stony determination. He approached the rear door, and heard wind flapping and filling Valen’s wings as he took flight. Cole was about to grab the handle when the door flung open.
“What’s Valen spouting off about? Are we under attack?” Sitra asked, teeth baring as her eyes followed Valen up the rear mast.
“You could say that,” Eliza’s silky voice sounded from nowhere. Appearing from thin air, she grinned like a fox as she held out a handful of iron nuts. “We are assaulting Valen with a hail of hardware. Would you care to join?”
“What are you talking about, Liza?” Sitra said, plucking one of the nuts from her outstretched hand.
Eliza turned her grin to Cole. “Why don’t you explain it to her?”
Cole took a nut and hefted it in his palm. “Gladly.”
It didn’t take much explaining for Sitra to get the idea, though Cole didn’t like the savage grin that lit her face. They waited for Valen to finish checking all three masts, crafting new ways to trick him all the while.
“When he gets down to the last one, I’m going to light his pants on fire,” Sitra whispered.
Cole winced. “Sitra! That’s not how pranks work. You’re not supposed to hurt anyone.”
“Then what’s the point?” she asked, her lips curving in a half-frown. “It’s not very exciting if there’s no danger. All you two have managed to do is to make him climb up and down a pole. I’m gonna make him dance.” Grinning, she rubbed her hands together as fiery stars sparked out from her fingertips. “Yeah, I’m gonna light his pants on fire.”
Saving The Dark Side Book 2: The Harbingers Page 21
