by Nazri Noor
What freedom was that, I thought? What agency did I really have in my own life? One way or another, even those who meant me well had done things in the background, all because they only wanted what was best for me, as if they never had agendas of their own. My head spun, and I couldn’t decide if I was thinking of Thea, or Hecate, the Eldest themselves, or Bastion, or even Carver.
“This has been a burden as much as it has been a gift,” I said, understanding that it was genuinely the truth. “I don’t know who I am anymore, what I am. The knife that drove through my heart should have killed me. No matter how you see it, me being here, being alive – it’s unnatural. Thea, the Eldest, you – you took my mother from me, then my life.” When I spoke again, I choked. “You broke me.”
I shuddered and flinched when Agatha hovered closer, stroking her long, clawed fingers against my brow, brushing hair out of my eyes. Her eyes were patronizing, yet somehow full of sadness.
“Yet you were always meant to be broken. It was your destiny. You will never be complete. Always fractured. Do you understand?”
Something flickered in the air around us just then, and for the briefest second I thought I saw wavering images, all arranged in a circle. Twelve faint, flickering shades of Agatha Black. They were there, for a moment, and then they weren’t.
“Ah,” Agatha said, smiling. “So you did see them. Us. My sisters are only mirrors. My reflections. My shadows. Do you understand?”
“I really, really don’t.” More puzzles. More myths. More mysteries.
“I slew many – very, very many, to create my Coven of One. And I have slain so many more these past weeks.” She lifted her head back, taking a careful sip of air, savoring it, smiling.
“Who did you kill, and why? How many more are you planning to murder?”
Agatha lifted a finger to her lips and shushed me. “Do not trouble yourself with fruitless concerns. That is for me to know, little one. Now – do you understand? You have the potential to do as I have done, to do as your master has done, to amplify, magnify, and multiply your power. My sisters are merely shadows. Do you understand?”
“I told you,” I grunted. “I don’t.” I wrenched myself away from her, but what good did that do? She had me in her sway, frozen in place under her thrall.
“Is this not easier? To succumb to the power that is your birthright? Thea Morgana gave you a gift. The Eldest gave you a gift. Use it.”
“Contrary to what you might think, I’m not going to switch sides just because you’re asking so nicely. You can threaten me all you want.”
“I am not asking you to join us. Only to embrace who you are. Fight me, then, if you will. Defeat me.” Agatha grinned. “Then replace me.”
My blood curdled. Replace her?
“Here I come,” a second voice pulsed in my mind.
Vanitas?
I glanced down at the darkness beneath us, at the tiny, tiny dots that were my friends. Among them came a sparkle of red light, Vanitas’s garnets as he issued a battlecry that only I could hear.
“Vanitas,” I thought. “No. Don’t.”
Agatha followed my gaze. “Ah, your plaything, the flying blade you call friend. How irritating.”
She held out one clawed hand, splaying the fingers on it, and a pulse of white light flared from her palm, forming into a dome. Vanitas kept on flying.
“Vanitas,” I shouted. “Stop.”
He didn’t. His collision with Agatha’s force field hardly made her flinch. It took her no effort at all to deflect Vanitas charging full speed from what must have been hundreds of feet away. I heard his cry of shock as he rebounded, thrown violently back to earth by what had been a simple, thoughtless flick of Agatha’s wrist.
I narrowed my eyes, as if that could help me pinpoint where he’d gone. No sign of him, and the distance meant that our telepathic connection was lost. Then a loud, uproarious bang, followed by a cloud of dust. He’d crashed full speed back in the Boneyard. I could only hope that he was safe.
“Take our discussion into consideration,” Agatha said, her voice colder. “You could have so much more, little one. Oh, to receive the blessings you have, to be an heir of such power. You could rule this new world of the Old Ones, as a keeper of the realm. No mere servant, but a king.”
Heat flared in the palms of my hands. After all that we’d been through, after all the suffering, terror, and mayhem the Eldest had caused, did Agatha really think she had any chance of bending me to fight for their madness?
“No thanks,” I said through clenched teeth. “I’ll take my chances with humanity.”
The change in her features was frightful. Agatha scowled, the lines of her face deeper and darker, the shadows twisting her into something other than human. She flew closer, far too close, clutching a handful of my shirt as she pulled me near.
“Then you’ve made your choice,” she whispered. “You were born to humanity. You may die with them.”
Agatha’s fingers released me. I began to fall.
Chapter 30
My heart pounded furiously. I was frightened, of splattering against the ground, of my life ending so abruptly. Falling felt like an eternity, like a plunge that would never end. I didn’t want to die knowing I’d described my last moments in such tired clichés.
I could still see Agatha above me, a levitating statue in the distance, her face unchanged, unmoved. I didn’t scream. I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction. But I can tell you that I was very nearly shitting myself.
The air whistled as I fell, and partway through I twisted myself around enough to look at the ground. Yeah, probably a bad move. Was this really how fast it went? I could count on one recourse, though. If, by some miracle, I could time things properly, I could try to drop into my own shadow, enter the Dark Room – then somehow deal with the velocity of my fall that way.
“I’ll catch him,” I heard someone bellow. Bastion? Good old Bastion. I knew how that would end, though. His force fields and telekinesis were good for building strong, sturdy structures: huge invisible blades, massive shields. They weren’t made for catching falling people.
“You’ll break every bone in his body,” came a second shout. I recognized the glimmer of Herald’s glasses even from afar.
Could Mason fly up and catch me? Hah. He was a nephilim, wasn’t he? Maybe he had the gift of flight. Wishful thinking. Maybe he was hiding a pair of wings under there. More wishful thinking. He pulled his shirt off the day we met. All he had on his back were more of those tattoos and glyphs he’d inherited from his father.
Almost there now, I thought. Close enough to the ground that I could hear Vanitas grumbling in pain, somewhere within the Boneyard. At least I knew he was fine. Would my shadow even be big enough for me to fit, though? Would it even work?
More importantly, was the Dark Room going to respond?
I should have tried sooner. I reached out, knocking, rapping on its dark chamber with my fingers – and nothing. I did hear cackling from far above me. Agatha’s laughter. She was inhibiting my link to the Dark Room somehow. Fuck. Go figure.
That was it, then. No hope. I closed my eyes and waited to smash my body into the ground. Man, I wish I could have told Herald goodbye.
Then something happened. My descent slowed, like something had reached out to nullify gravity itself. Something warm cradled my skin. I opened my eyes, shocked to find myself smothered in a huge web of pale orange flames. Carver had caught me.
“Oh wow,” I yelled. “Holy shit, Carver, thank you so – ”
I didn’t get to finish. Within seconds I plunged into something soft and exceedingly cold, something that felt like – was that snow? I sputtered as bits of it filled my mouth. I guess I hadn’t noticed Herald firing out a massive mound of snow to soften what was left of my fall. I pushed up against the snow, staggering as it shifted under my weight, trying to find my footing. Strong hands picked me up off my feet, and I came face to face with Herald.
“You okay?” he said, his
eyes driving hard into mine, scanning me for signs of injury.
“My hero,” I mumbled. “How the hell am I still alive?”
“My spell slowed your fall,” Carver said. “Long enough to buy Mr. Igarashi time to produce this soft, fine bedding upon which you shall soon meet your death anyway, if you do not prepare.”
I looked up into the air, once again aware of Agatha’s threat. I’d expected her to teleport herself to the ground to meet us, but she took the long way, savoring her descent as she hovered slowly down.
“How inventive,” Agatha said. “How industrious mankind can be when it comes to finding ways to survive, of finding ways to help each other. How curious.”
Carver stepped forward, raising his head. “You speak as if you were never human yourself.”
I was only just getting used to how Agatha’s temperament could turn on a dime. She glared at Carver, her face once more warping into something monstrous. “I speak as someone who has transcended the bounds of human life, of mortal fragility. How unfortunate that the same cannot be said of you and your miscreants.”
She gestured at the ground, and the floor began to rumble. How many times had the Boneyard been shaken by some infernal earthquake? I wondered how Carver could possibly sustain our home’s structural integrity. And Agatha wasn’t fucking around. Little cracks were appearing in the stone floor. If they widened and turned into fissures, we would fall straight into the abyss.
Then Agatha thrust her palm forward, and a wave of power came crashing into us. It was as if an enormous, invisible hand had swatted us right off the ground. I fell to the floor, winded, the fear creeping up my spine as I looked around myself.
Prudence, Bastion, Gil, Herald, Mason, Romira, Royce, Carver – as varied as our gifts were, how the hell were we supposed to withstand the power of Agatha Black?
Together, I thought, as I pushed myself to my feet. If it had to be a question of force, then we had to leverage our own strengths. We were multiple mages, and we could bear down on the vulnerability of one – never mind that we didn’t even know if Agatha had any weak spots.
“We have to try,” Vanitas said in my mind. “We don’t just surrender.”
He zinged from out of the darkness, flying like a cross made out of green and gold towards Agatha Black. The sound of Vanitas slicing through the air was just the battlecry we needed. Bolts of energy flew across the Boneyard, colliding into the invisible bubble of force around Agatha. The line of her mouth was thin, flat. She looked disapproving. Almost bored.
But I did find a glimmer of emotion in her face, once – something like fear, when spells from several different mages happened to strike all at once. The air around her gleamed, exposing her protective sphere for a fraction of a second. I thought I caught a glimpse of little cracks, tiny fractures. Maybe, with enough power, we could break through.
And maybe Gil was going to be our chance. Fully transformed into a werewolf, he launched himself at Agatha. And just as she’d deflected Vanitas, all the lioness had to do was wave her hand. It was as if Gil had been struck in the jaw by a hammer. He flew off his feet, then fell heavily to the floor, skidding across it, his furred body twitching, then going still.
“No,” Prudence screamed, disengaging from the fight and rushing to his side. “No, no. This wasn’t supposed to happen.” From where I stood, I could see her tears. Something in my chest twisted.
She was right. This wasn’t supposed to happen. None of this was. But we, all of us, had to work with what we were given, whether they were gifts or curses. Even the Great Beasts themselves knew. Shunned by humanity, Tiamat said, and shunned by the gods. Still they embraced their roles as the enders of the world, as the arbiters of the apocalypse.
My insides burned. Here was a true catalyst for the end times, a woman who bore the power of the Eldest themselves, yet not even one of the Great Beasts would stoop to help us. Tiamat’s voice rang clearly in my mind, how she said that humanity could never hope to wield true fire the way she could, as both goddess and dragon – the sort of flame that could both create and destroy.
But maybe I could wield a different kind of fire.
Agatha Black held her ground under the endless hail of magic. We were going to exhaust our arcane essence eventually. I had to try something. Anything. I reached out to tap into the Dark Room’s powers. From inside the chamber, I could sense its denizens stirring, lifting their heads as they heard my summons.
Perfect. With Agatha distracted, I had a chance. Still, something felt different. Something in my chest burned, where once I only felt the manifestations of fire in the palms of my hands, between my fingers, or dancing along my skin. This time, it was in my heart.
I mumbled a silent apology to my friends as I sank into my own shadow, followed by a silent promise to return. But instantly I felt the difference in the quality of the Dark Room’s air. It was meant to be thin, and cold. Now it was warm, close enough to being uncomfortably hot, and most of all, stifling.
As I opened my eyes to the contents of the Dark Room, I saw why. It was on fire.
Chapter 31
The flames licked at the tips of my fingers, the way that the shapes lurking within the shadows once would, like little beasts, little creatures yearning for my approval, my attention. The fires burned hotter, brighter, but the longer I spent standing there, the more I became accustomed to their heat. I breathed in, expecting the air to be thinner, consumed by the flames, but I only felt empowered. Stronger.
“This is impossible,” I murmured, so fascinated by the spectacle that I only then noticed I was smiling. For once I didn’t sprint through the Dark Room – now gone brilliant and bright with heat – and I ran my fingers across the dancing edges of the flames as I walked. The fire didn’t burn me. It loved me. In voices that crackled with ancient wisdom, with the white hot secrets of both creation and destruction, from smith to sword, it told me of its affection. The darkness did the same, curling wisps of thick, smoky night around my ankles, stroking at my wrists with the touch of an old friend, of a lover.
I raised my hand, and the flames licked higher. I raised my other hand, and the fires followed. I laughed at the simplicity of it all, the liberating, sudden knowledge that in the Dark Room, these strange, new fires would heed my call. In the Dark Room, the seat of my power, I could make miracles happen. This fire was different. I could feel it raging inside me, within my chest, inside my very soul. I hated to admit it, but in some ways, Agatha was right. I knew then that I had to repay her for her advice, for her wisdom. The Dark would always be home to me, where I would be at the height of my arcane strength. All I needed to do was bring these flames out into reality.
This wasn’t exactly what Bastion had taught me – or maybe it was. By sheathing his magical fire in bubbles of pure force, he’d managed to build roaring infernos within tiny spaces, crafting tiny, powerful grenades. Like a storm in a bottle, like lightning in a jar. The Dark Room was the vessel to contain the magic, and I could let the fires build and dance and grow, as tall as I wanted, as hot as I liked, until I could take it no more, until I had no other choice but to open the door and unleash the blasting furnace of both flame and shadow.
I stood in place, bathing in the conflagration, turning my head and gaining a sense for where I stood relative to reality, where Agatha Black might be positioned within the real world. I stepped to that place within the Dark Room, finding the pinpoint of light I would need to follow to leave the chamber, to confront Agatha once more. As I walked, both the fires and the darkness followed, twisting and snaking at my feet, at my limbs, running desperate, hungry wisps and tendrils at my skin.
“Come,” I said to them, with the gentle promise of a lover. “Follow.”
We stepped closer to the light, my children and I, and I stood at the threshold. I could feel the blaze tickling the ends of my hair, little sparks running across my skin. Behind me the inferno surged, the small voices of so many tiny flames gathered into a great chorus, into something t
hat sounded very much like a long, building, terrible bellow. Tiamat could keep her fire. I had a fire of my own.
I opened the Dark Room’s door. The only thing louder than the roar of fire was my laughter. Flames spiraled out of the Dark Room in one massive, ecstatic rush, framed by spines and blades of shadow that curved as cruel and as sharp as fangs. To anyone else, it must have seemed like the maw of a great black dragon, one shaped from darkness.
And I stood at the heart of it, my body the vessel, chamber, and conduit for the swirling forces of shadow and flame, the throat of the dragon. I didn’t need a sword of shadow if I could channel something imbued with this much rage, this much destruction. Tiamat would never know, but she gave me a gift. This was true terror. This was my Nightmare.
Somewhere within the torrent of fire and fear was a sound like glass shattering. Agatha Black’s force field was down. The next thing I heard was her screaming.
The swell of power humming through my body dispersed with the last of the fires and shadows. The amulet around my neck – my mother’s amulet – had stayed cool throughout. Perhaps it approved, or perhaps what was left of its enchantment had truly faded. Agatha was on her knees, her skin and hair charred and burned, but it wasn’t a time for triumph. She glared at me from out of her ruined skull, her teeth bared in fury. Her lips were gone, but I could tell she was smiling.
Agatha’s body was reconstituting itself, muscle knitting and reforming over her skeleton, new, unburnt skin creeping across her exposed flesh. I watched in horror as she put herself back together again, as the mane of proud gray hair grew out of her scalp, as those same gray eyes pierced me with their anger.
She lifted a finger at me, and spoke a single word.
“Break.”
I screamed in agony. My bones felt as if they were all moving in opposite directions, stretching away from the center of my body, like my skeleton was fighting to free itself of my skin. The numb, dull ache of bone turned into searing, splitting pain as a series of cracks and pops told me what was happening to my insides.
