by Jen Ponce
“I have one more to get. Her father cannot come. He’s … broken.” Tytan left before the questions could be asked and plucked Arsinua from her human prison without any conversation at all. When he dropped her on the couch in his manse, she didn’t quail or shout at him. She stared down at her hands, wan, sickly looking. Defeated. “Do you want to know why you’re here?”
“No.”
“She’s dead.”
Arsinua didn’t move, didn’t look up.
Anger filled him. “Look at me, Arsinua. Feel her loss.”
Her snort had him at her throat. Pinned to the wall by his hand, she did not look scared, only resigned. “Go ahead. Kill me.”
“She’s dead and I need your help to avenge her.”
Her deep purple eyes studied him more closely than he cared for. “It won’t bring her back.”
“He deserves every second of torment we can bring him. If not for Devany, Arsinua, then for the countless others he tortured through the centuries.” She didn’t respond and he dropped her, disgusted. “You stole her child and still she didn’t kill you. Don’t you owe her for that?”
Again, no answer.
He left her before he killed her and joined the others he had gathered to help. “We are all here for one reason, and that reason is Devany. To honor her memory and to avenge her death.” He rubbed his forehead. “To avenge all their deaths and pains and torments.” He looked out at each one of them. “She was in the process of freeing all the captives when she was knocked into the cage at the bottom of the Reach. People from countless times, imprisoned for years upon years upon years. She wanted them freed because that’s what she did—she righted wrongs. She didn’t always get it right, but she still tried. And that’s why we’re doing this for her. Gaius Regulus is an Originator who has spent his time since creation causing misery and pain. Now it’s his turn to feel all that and more. All of us here, Wydling, elder, human, witch, Theleoni, carnicus, fleshcrawler, airship captain, Skriven, chythraul, pegnon,” he nodded to Nex, “all of us can find a way to make this Originator pay. He’s wily and strong but he’s not invincible. He got himself locked up in Ravana’s cage, didn’t he? We have to work together to do this, we have to find a way to bring all our knowledge together. He’s done his work tearing people apart. Now we have to come together to make sure he gets exactly what he deserves.”
Kali nodded, her muscled arms crossed over her chest. “I agree. But we are missing someone.”
Tytan raised his eyebrows.
“We need an Originator on our side.”
He looked out over the sea of faces staring at him and felt a weight settle onto his shoulders he’d never experienced before. “I think I know where to find one.”
Baow whipped his branches when he saw Tytan. “Have you come back to torment me again?”
Tytan crossed the field he had been forbidden to step foot on. If it had been on Earth, there would have been a sign that said, “Keep out! Originators only!” He stopped well back from Baow’s limbs and said, “Devany is dead. I’ve come to claim my place as Originator in her place.”
The tree swiveled all his eyes to Tytan. “Is that so?”
“It is.”
“Do you plan to continue that other one’s campaign of destruction and dissent?”
Tytan found himself able to grin. “Yes.”
The tree hissed, branches flailing madly despite the windless Slip. “Of course you do. I cannot stop it. It is so. But may I warn you, brother?”
Brother? That was a new one. He arched a brow, waiting.
“There are those with a sudden interest in learning how to kill us. Inspired by your dead mistress. It isn’t without peril that you take on this role, Tytan Serce.”
“What do you know about Gaius Regulus?”
Three of Baow’s eyes rolled in their sockets. “He has always been ambitious.”
“He wants all the power. Yours, mine, all of it.”
Baow thumped a branch on the ground making the entire area shake. “He is in a hole, trapped by his own idiocy. He has no power and be warned. We will do what we must to keep him contained.” The eyes rolled back to Tytan. “You will not be leaving that hole the next time you fall in.”
“Why did you make her an Originator? Why not send her on her way and choose someone from Ravana’s spawn?”
“She killed Ravana.”
“You could have sent her home none the wiser. Why did you do it?”
Baow swung his branches, thumping the ground with them until Tytan had a hard time staying upright.
“That’s your M.O., isn’t it? To throw a tantrum when you don’t want to answer a simple question.” The branches stilled. “Devany told me how to kill the likes of you. Before she died. She knew I might need to know, and she finally trusted me not to turn the knowledge against her. So think of that next time you don’t want to answer my questions. Unlike Devany, I would kill you gladly and without remorse.”
He left before Baow could reply.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Vasili had never had so many … mouth breathers … in his home before and he didn’t like it. They touched his things without permission, sat where they shouldn’t sit, laughed too loud, talked too long, and generally made pests of themselves. He’d come to enjoy sparring with Elizabeta, had found a certain kind of joy in her sharp mind and even sharper tongue but now there were too many minds and tongues and he was ready to go insane because of it.
He hadn’t yet wrapped his mind around Devany’s death, hadn’t accepted it. How could he get her back? That was his only thought, when he wasn’t glowering at one person or another for getting into his work. He considered the Rend, considered talking Tytan into going through it back in time. Sure, Devany would be angry but that was the way of things, wasn’t it?
Except, he couldn’t wrap his head around how it would work. It would be Devany of before and they needed Devany of now. Yes, they could get her up to speed, but being told and knowing were two vastly different things and perhaps something was working hard to make sure she died, no matter how many times they went back to save her.
His head hurt, his tentacles sore and aching, getting in his way more often than not. They didn’t quite have minds of their own, but close and when they were displeased, they made menaces of themselves. “I will cut you off, I so swear,” he muttered to the unruliest one of the bunch, that kept trying to poke him in the nose.
“Don’t cut them, Vasili. They don’t know what’s happening or why it’s so noisy in here.” Elizabeta had the same sort of growl in her voice that Vasili felt in his head and that made him a little less grumpy for knowing that she felt the same way he did. “We need to have them doing something besides get in the way. I need more illamentary to help Tytan. Do you think I could send a few down there to collect it?”
“Send them all. Give them a map that leads them all over the Slip before they find the river. Give them a map that sends them off the edge of the world.”
“We need them,” she chided, before clapping her hands and issuing orders.
A sky captain and a strangely broken Skriven volunteered for the job. A human followed behind them. Three down, more to go. “Perhaps the rest can go back to Tytan’s manse and sharpen their swords,” he said, unsure why they’d all come over to his home in the first place. Something about needing their input.
Bah. Vasili did not need a chythraul’s input.
“Their blood?”
Vasili tipped his head. “What?”
“Perhaps the input we need is their blood?”
“How did you know what I was thinking?” he demanded, suddenly worried that Elizabeta was more than she seemed. He felt a stinging slap on his arm.
“You’ve been muttering since the first one walked through the door. I will collect it and label it and you can get your head out of your bottom.”
She stormed off, leaving Vasili to rub his arm musingly. She hit him. She wasn’t afraid of him, and she had an ease o
f leadership he’d never had in himself or enjoyed in others.
Until now.
Blood. Blood of her friends, blood of her enemies. Blood was always a powerful ingredient in spell work, at least unless viscera were available. Not too many of them would want to donate their guts, he was sure, and so the blood would have to do.
He smelled the first draw, the sharp, sweet scent of fleshcrawler.
Good, good.
He searched his herb collection for zygord weed and a bit of topsy tail. Stupid name for a deadly plant. Every bit of it poisonous except for a sweet berry in the center of its purple flowers. Many had died trying to taste the berry. Pluck it wrong and the pollen would foul it up or the leaves would brush their hairy threads against your fingers, or the stem wouldn’t come off when pulling away from the plant and would release its toxins into the berry’s red flesh.
Odorless, tasteless—except for that berry—and utterly devastating to a lesser’s system. For a Skriven or Originator, it would render them immobile in agony for a day.
Perhaps, with the right spell, he could extend that agony a bit longer.
Say, eternity?
As he worked—with gloves, always with gloves when dealing with topsy tail—his mind went back to the Rend, to the quest Devany herself had put on him. Send Elizabeta back to her own time. He knew it was theoretically possible. The Slip touched all worlds, all time at once, but Skriven couldn’t just jump to whatever time they wanted. Time moved forward, despite the lack of constraints in the Slip. The other worlds were stubbornly tedious, plodding along into the future like resigned prisoners of war. As far as Vasili knew, the only way to go back was the Rend and it allowed only one-way travel and only to one point in time.
Now he knew Gaius had created it, which meant that with enough time and resources, he might be able to duplicate the effect. If the Originators didn’t kill him for it.
No, there had to be another way. A way for them to go back and keep her from dying. A way for them to return Elizabeta to her time, if she so chose to go back. Vasili ignored the jolt of pain that thought caused him. He’d never needed or mourned for another and he wasn’t sure why he had started doing it now. Elizabeta was just a human, he told himself. Just a human. Beneath his consequence.
And then she would glance over her shoulder at him and smile or touch his arm just so, and he forgot that she wasn’t Skriven and that he wasn’t the kind to fall in love.
Back to work.
The knowledge of rolling back time would be dangerous. Anyone who had that knowledge could go back and change things to their liking. If he knew how to go back, all the Originators would be after him and it was doubtful he would survive their wrath.
He could give the knowledge to Tytan, but he didn’t trust that one with the power. Sure, he had obviously fallen for Devany, had become something more than the soulless killing machine Ravana had turned him into, but what would he become in a year or two? A century or two? Would he forget that he had once been vulnerable enough to love?
If he did, the world could go up in flames.
He felt arms go around him, warm hair pressing against his chin, sweet breath rising to tickle his nose. “We’ll figure it out, Vasili.”
He turned in her embrace and put his arms around her, too, the first time he’d allowed himself to touch her for anything other than work. He wanted to tell her that with her by his side, there was no doubt in his mind they could figure it out, but he couldn’t lay himself so bare, and so he just held her and agreed, alone in his own head.
She let them take her blood. She let them move her to another room. She let them laugh at her and whisper behind her back. She let them do it all and stared down at the floor between her feet and tried not to scream.
She was in the Slip. Again. Caught up in drama because of Devany. Again.
The only good thing about it was she was no longer trapped in that hell hole of a prison on Earth. It had been worse than jail on Midia. At least she had Padrigal to make everything go away. On Earth, she hadn’t even had access to her magic after a while. It had faded, just like her hope that she would ever see her home again. And now, here she was in the place she hated the most with creatures she despised.
And creatures who despised her.
Neutria hissed at her. The sky captain glared. The only one who looked halfway glad to see her was Travis, but he hadn’t come over to talk, either.
That hurt. She missed him, missed him more than she could have imagined.
In prison, she’d had time enough to ask herself if she’d do it all over again, steal Bethany away from her mother. And of course, the answer she had to give was yes. It wasn’t that she didn’t like Devany—most of the time. Her heart was in the right place, but she was ignorant to the ways of magic. Blundering around trying to fix things without the knowledge of the people or place was just wrong. Devany didn’t know what unregulated magic could do to a young child. She hadn’t seen kids burnt out from using up their magic frivolously or triggering magical sparks that blew out their synapses.
Perhaps Arsinua should have tried reasoning with her more, but after having been in her head, she wasn’t sure Devany would have listened and Bethany could have been seriously harmed.
Of course, Bethany had almost been seriously harmed when the Anforsa had taken her but how could she have predicted such a thing? The Anforsa’s involvement had also been related to Devany. It always went back to Devany.
At least, it used to.
She glanced up when she heard Travis, caught a glimpse out the window, and felt her stomach roll. The Slip. She was in the Slip again. With a deep breath, she averted her eyes. And then Travis was there, sitting next to her, his expression neutral.
“Hey.”
“Hello.”
“So, they broke you out of prison, huh? That’s got to be a relief.”
Arsinua shuddered. “I’m not sure what’s worse, to be honest.”
“Right,” he said and in a softer voice, “I forgot.”
She avoided looking at the window as she raised her head to say, “How have you been?”
“All right. Gotta say, clone Devany and clone Bethany and Liam are a lot easier to deal with than the real deal. I mean. It’s weird but they’re perfect. They’re so normal. No magic. No quests. No demons hanging around … until like a few minutes ago, I guess.”
“She’s still using the Formless Ones in her place?” It was disgusting. Skriven magic, the worst kind, and Devany had no idea.
“Yeah.” He rubbed his hands through his hair. “You want to know something? Something you can’t tell anyone else? I’m not too beaten up by her death. Is that bad? I mean, I have my sister and my niece and nephew. Devany was never there. Now she’s fully there, all the time.” He paused. “Is that bad?” he asked again.
“It is bad. Because it’s Skriven magic and Skriven magic is always bad. It sucks you in, deceives you, convinces you to love it and then destroys you. That’s how it works. That’s how they all work.” Arsinua raised her chin. “Even your sister.”
Travis grunted but didn’t answer. She didn’t know if he was mad at her or agreed with her or something in between and she was too scared to ask. Not because she was afraid of him, but because she missed him. She liked him even though he was human. He understood her, or she thought he had.
“They want to avenge her. They’re taking our blood but leaving us to wait. Do you think they’ll even ask us if we want to help? I mean, I hate that she was hurt but … she kind of brought it on herself. This place? It’s like Hell. Why would she come back here?” He shook his head. “You think you could get us out of here?”
She shook her head. “I’ve been on Earth too long to gather any magic and I’m not a Skriven. I can’t get us out of here. We’ll have to stay until they set us free. Or kill us.” At his startled glance, she said, “Tytan is evil. All the Skriven are. If they can’t get what they want with a bit of blood, they can always take more.” He didn’t answ
er and then a Skriven entered the room and Arsinua fell silent too, trying to shrink herself so it wouldn’t notice her.
She wanted to leave, but she feared she’d die in the Slip. And she was afraid Travis would die with her.
Sharps had been so angry with Devany that she’d almost said no when the world-walker came to her and asked her to help. Devany had stolen her chance at revenge. Even though her life had been better without her brother. Even though she would’ve suffered years longer if she’d had to wait until she was strong enough to kill him.
She’d almost said no until she remembered what she had done to Devany, how she had tricked her, the pain on her face when she’d ended the clone of her little boy’s life. Sharps had felt justified … until that look. That look had made her feel ashamed. She wished she’d had the chance to tell Devany she was grateful. That she had thought about it, that she’d experienced the peace long enough to understand how it was to live without her brother’s darkness hanging over her.
So she was here to avenge her because she knew about vengeance.
Beside her sat a man whose aura reminded her of her brother’s. She didn’t like it but the man himself seemed nice. Her brother had never seemed nice, even when he was pretending to be. “How did it happen?” She gestured. “That.”
“I was created this way. Broken and reborn in order to serve my former mistress.”
His name was Mal, and Sharps could see how madly in love he was with the one called Zephyrinia. A sky captain. Sharps had seen the ships from a distance when their carnicus had traveled down to the southern coast. She’d always wondered about the people on board those ships, had wished every night when she heard their mournful horns calling that she could get on one of them and sail away.
“How did Devany help you?”
“Ah. We helped her. She was going to help me but …” He smiled a sad smile. “How did she help you?”
