by Sara Wolf
Eyes. Eyes in the black.
“You,” the valkerax says. “Little you, alone in the darkness. We see. The song can see now. The bones are tied to me. Chimes in the dark wind. The Laughing Daughter is tied to you. Chimes in the dark wind.”
“How—” I start. “How did you know my witch’s name?”
“Everything that chimes has a true name. Everything that is true, we will know.”
I choke on my unsaid words as the pupilless white eyes get closer, so close I can see the gray veins in them.
“You will teach us,” the valkerax rumbles. “But first you will die.”
I don’t quite get my next thoughts out, because every blood vessel in my body goes cold at once, my skin numbing to blank nothingness. Then, a flat heavy pressure in my chest as my lungs collapse, my eyes roll like deadweight back into my head, and the ground rushes up to meet me.
The valkerax is, unfortunately, right.
I die.
7
A Howl
at the
Moon
I come back to life gasping.
“What in Kavar’s left butt cheek—” I press my hand on my chest, trying to slow my breathing. I look down at my body—placed on a sleeping mat of some sort. An eager, yellow-furred face suddenly consumes my entire cone of vision, so close I can see each fine whisker.
“What did it say?” The face breathes heavily.
“Ahh!” I kick at it, Yorl dodging my feet with all the grace of a cat.
“What did the valkerax say to you?” he insists.
“This is no way to wake a lady!” I shove him off and he staggers back, the pad of parchment and quill in his hand clutched defiantly. “Wait—I can see your face!”
I twist my head around, pinpointing the source of light—a faint patch of moss growing on the stone wall next to me giving off a purplish glow. It’s barely anything, but it’s enough. I inspect my body: whole and healed, my green tunic tattered and bloodstained but still mostly intact.
“For the love of the spirits—what did it say?” Yorl presses, completely ignoring my insult. His eager green eyes are made more vivid by the mosslight, all hint of his cold seriousness replaced by the enamored gaze of a child in a sweetshop. “Did it address you by true name? Did it agree to the teaching? Did it tell you its true name?”
“No, yes, and no.” I massage my throbbing temples. “It didn’t say much. Or, it did, but it talks like a drunk poet.”
“To be expected,” Yorl mutters, scribbling on a parchment madly. “In Old Vetris, valkerax, before being bound to the Bone Tree, were said to speak in grandly sweeping stories and metaphors; it was their way of life—” He stops, poking the hem of my bloodstained breeches and wrinkling his nose. “You must go through clothes like a worried minister goes through wine.”
“I assure you.” I sit up. “If I had my say in it, I wouldn’t bleed at all.”
“I’ve heard that from women before.” Yorl sighs.
I gasp. “You know what a woman is? And here I thought all you did was stay down here in the dark and order people around!”
“It’s my job,” Yorl says, inspecting my arm with a prod of his quill.
“Right. Your job is to risk your life walking into a hungry valkerax’s chamber.”
“It was mandatory I go in, because—”
“You were worried about me. How sweet.”
“—my entire life’s work is in there. And not just my life’s work—my grandfather’s, too.”
His grandfather. He’s mentioned him on more than one occasion. He’s really very important to Yorl, isn’t he? Is that why he’s doing all this? I clap my hands.
“I just remembered; you killed me. It was the serum, wasn’t it?”
“Yes. It causes critical organ failure after exactly a half. As you’re Heartless, you are simultaneously the only being in the world who can use the serum and the only being it won’t permanently affect.” Yorl offers me his paw up in a startlingly soft gesture and I take it indignantly, brushing dirt off my pants.
“Here’s a tip from me to you,” I say. “It’s polite to tell someone you’re going to kill them beforehand.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” He holds out another vial. I stare at it in his paw, then at him. He clears his throat. “This is going to kill you.”
“See?” I tease. “Was that so hard?”
We walk to the gate again together, the mosslight fading so that I have to rely on the sound of his footsteps once more.
“You’re sure it agreed to be taught?” Yorl presses.
I nod. “Fairly sure. Although, it somehow knew I was going to die right before I did.”
“As they have little need for their eyes in the Dark Below,” Yorl says, “they’ve developed keen senses for temperatures and the minute vibrations of a living thing’s body. No doubt it sensed your physical systems withering before you did.”
“Good,” I mutter. “Great, even.”
We come to a stop before the gate, and as the celeon guards raise it with clanking effort, I hear the scratch of Yorl’s clawed feet as he ducks beneath it. I scramble after him, reaching wildly and grabbing his tail again.
“Oh no you don’t. What if that thing decides to eat you?”
“You said it agreed to be taught!” Yorl snarls, yanking his tail away from me.
“I can’t control it,” I hiss. “If it gets hungry, there’s no growing back for you!”
Yorl’s voice is suddenly granite determination. “I’ve waited ten years. I pored over every inch of knowledge in the world for this moment; I’ve sacrificed everything to Varia for this. It’s a risk I’m willing to take.”
I hear him walk the rest of the way in. He’s utterly, perilously mad, but it’s not every day I meet a mortal willing to risk their one life for something this strenuously. I’m impressed. And more than a little concerned.
Unfortunately, the celeon have decided against installing lighting in the few minutes I was dead. It’s just as dark inside the chamber as it was before I died. I down the vial Yorl gives me, listening to the deep breathing echoing around the massive room.
“Hi,” I try into the shadows. “Me again. Are you still up?”
“You could talk to an ancient wyrm with a little more respect,” Yorl hisses from across the chamber.
“And you can kiss my very well-developed arse,” I hiss back. The slither of scales suddenly echoes, getting closer, and then an intrusive gust of hot, rancid wind assaults my senses. I backpedal, until my spine is flat against the metal wall, cold fear gripping my throat.
“You,” the valkerax croaks with its ancient, deep vibrato. “You stand here. You have escaped death.”
I put my hand shakily to my empty chest. “You could say I’m an expert at that.”
The valkerax gives a resounding snort, and I can feel dirt swell up beneath my tunic with the force. “This we know. It is like life, like death, like the little cliffs of the bloodeyes—always true. The chimes took our bones, and they took your heart.”
Took my heart— It knows what I am? The fear coursing through me suddenly plummets, and the valkerax and I breathe into the utter blackness together. It feels like it’s just us in this moment—two monsters below the world.
The valkerax shudders in agony, and I feel the ground shudder with it. The worst part is, I can imagine exactly what it’s feeling. Every second must be delirious pain. It’s a miracle I can understand the valkerax at all—serum or no.
“Is going possible?” The valkerax breaks the silence finally.
“If I can teach you, maybe.”
“Then teach with pretty voice-words. Sing us the ways to silence the song. Metal the blade to its throat.”
I close my eyes and cling to the memories of Reginall. The way he taught me—soft and even, calm.
&
nbsp; “There are two parts.” I open my eyes out of habit, not usefulness. “There’s the mental part of it, and then there’s the physical part. But the physical part is…difficult to deal with.”
“Our knowing is unknowing. Sing in child-words.” The valkerax thumps its tail against the ground, a little quake running through the entire chamber.
“Child-words. All right.” I breathe in. “The first part is all concentration, all up to you. But it won’t be enough to make you Weep. You have to be cut with a white mercury sword first.”
“White mercury?” it rumbles. “Cut?”
“The humans invented this substance—white mercury. It can weaken magic. If we cut you with it, the voice gets out of control. Louder. But at the same time, if you concentrate, your silence can be louder than it. You control the voice instead of it controlling you. That’s Weeping.”
“Weeping.” The valkerax’s voice echoes from all directions, accompanied by the sound of it slithering in a circle around me. “Weeping is to control the song? Weeping is the three moons before the tide?”
“Yes. At least I think it is. I’ve done it only once.”
The valkerax suddenly lets out a harsh, barking sound that scares the skin off my bones. Was that a…laugh?
“Only once. Once, the little wolf has howled at the moon,” it says. “Wolves do not lie, but your mouth drips with tar. We will kill you for bringing us hope.”
My body jerks, attempting defensiveness even if it’s useless against such a huge creature. “I-I can teach you. I know how—”
“Death for the wolf is pointless. We will give death to the warmblood instead.”
All the breath pushes out of me at once.
“Yorl!” I shriek. “Run!”
Godsdamn my useless eyes—I can’t see anything. All I can hear is the frantic rush of scales and footsteps over dirt.
useless. The hunger laughs.
The hunger. The hunger knows heat and scents better than I do. I delve deep into it. It’s held far down inside me by Varia’s magic, but I reach in and pull up the barest threatening, taunting threads of it, letting it bash against my brain.
pathetic little girl, can’t lie when she needs to, can’t be honest when it counts. what good are you? how could you teach someone else to Weep when you don’t know yourself?
a liar is what you are—
Varia’s holding the hunger back with her magic, strong and ironclad. But I know the hunger now. I know it loud, and I know it soft. I know it chaotic, and I know it orderly. I focused for these three long years on holding it back, holding it in, but I know now. I know how to bring it forward.
My teeth grow sharp edges—not long like a full hunger but just enough. The darkness of the arena becomes distinct spots of warmth and coldness, the air suddenly sharp with the musk of alive things: sweat, blood, spittle. A huge, warm body lunges for something much smaller and running at its full, desperate speed.
The valkerax, chasing Yorl.
It spreads its maw wide, teeth nipping at Yorl’s heels, and with pumping lungs and legs, I slide between them, slamming my foot into the valkerax’s bottom jaw and wedging my arm against the top, fangs embedding in my palms. I can’t run away or overpower it. It’s too strong and enormous.
The only way to stop it is to endure it.
The valkerax is a thousand stampeding horses; it is a tidal wave to end all tidal waves. It’s angry and hungry and mad and it tells me with its furious shriek close to my ear—so close the sheer volume bursts my eardrums, blood dripping down my jaw—that it hates me. Rank saliva sluices down my arm, one of its fangs indenting into my shin and cracking it.
“We will kill the mortal,” the valkerax snarls. “For the wolf’s lies!”
“I didn’t lie!” I grit. “I can teach you!”
“The wolf has done it once. Once is a fly’s life. Once is a single drop of water in the lake. Once is a mistake.”
“I’m the last Heartless alive,” I shout, blinking saliva out of my eyes, “who can do it! I’m not giving you false hope. I’m giving you your only hope!”
The valkerax snaps its maw shut, taking my shin and forearm with it. Once the limbs are off, the pain is less—less nerves and flesh as hot adrenaline rushes up to stopper all feeling. I fling myself onto the valkerax’s wet black nose, clinging to one of its undulating whiskers with my last good hand. The valkerax thrashes, a sickening forceful whirl to throw me off, but I hold fast, digging my nails into its scales.
“It’s not freedom!” I shout. “It will never be freedom! But for a moment, you can go back to the way things were!”
The valkerax tears off suddenly for a cold wall, and at the very last second I manage to pull my bleeding lower body up onto its muzzle, the wyrm reeling in pain. I know this despair—I was just as hopeful when Reginall first told me about Weeping. But he let me down easier than I let this valkerax down. I didn’t explain well enough, and it’s paying the emotional price. It’s been a prisoner to the Bone Tree for longer than Cavanos has stood, and I’ve toyed with its hope.
“Warmbloods took us into the sky. The song is too loud! THE SONG IS TOO LOUD!” the valkerax cries out, beating its tail against the wall, the stone buckling under the force and a rain of dust pouring from the ceiling. “Warmbloods tore our earth-home apart. We will tear your sky-home!”
“I don’t have a home,” I bellow. “And neither do you!”
we are better off alone, the hunger echoes me in a whisper. The mass of writhing flesh below me suddenly slows its thrashing, its panting harsh. I swallow dust and blood, my broken ears ringing.
“As long as the voice is with us,” I heave with my breath, “nowhere is home.”
The valkerax gives the wall another beat with its enormous tail, but this one is halfhearted. No-hearted. The ground barely shakes.
“We can’t remember who we were,” I start. “We’re always hurting. Always hungry. That isn’t home. This—” I hold my hand to my chest. “This isn’t a home. This is a prison.”
The valkerax’s panting peters off into something like a deep, pained whine. My arm and leg finish growing back, and I let go of its thick whisker, dropping to the ground.
“I can’t give you your freedom,” I say, my teeth retreating, all my senses dulling to a human’s once more. “But I can help you remember what it was like to hold it.”
8
The Man
Without Mercy is
Made to Bow
I never get to hear the valkerax’s answer, because in the next few seconds, I die. And when I wake up again, only one word is on my lips.
“Yorl? Yorl?” I sit up on the mat, the green mosslight glowing down on me as I scrabble past the other faintly lit celeon guards sitting against the wall. “Yorl!”
“Stop shouting for me, Heartless.” His voice echoes as he appears out of the darkness, his yellow ears flat to his head. “It’s unsightly.”
He looks dusty but otherwise whole, and relief floods me. “You’re all right!”
“With mild thanks to you.” He huffs, pulling out another parchment to scribble on. “The valkerax is sedated. I wrote down everything you said, and pieced the altercation together while you were indisposed.” He looks up. “It thought you lied to it, right? According to Grenval Chidon’s analytical texts, valkerax hate being lied to.”
“I would’ve loved to see those texts beforehand,” I chime.
“It’s a fragment of parchment so brittle and old, one touch would dissolve it to dust.”
“I would’ve only folded the page to keep my spot a little,” I egg on. “I’ve Wept just once, and I told it that. The valkerax thought that meant I couldn’t teach it. But I can. I think. I have to try, at least.”
“Maybe instead of saying I’ve done it just once,” Yorl says with a frown, “consider trying, I’ve done it before. It give
s off a better air of confidence.”
I chuckle, the vibrations hurting my throbbing head. “And you’d know all about that. No wonder you’re Varia’s smartman.”
“I prefer the term ‘Crown Princess’s polymath.’”
“Are you?” I quirk a brow and stand on testy legs. “A polymath?”
He scoffs, the sound almost like a purr. “Absolutely not. Cavanosians don’t trust celeon to be anything other than guards and mercenaries. Their distrust of magic means they think us inherently incapable of trustworthy thought, considering the witches gave us sentience. I have no tool belt. I did not study at the Black Archives. I’m self-taught.”
I whistle softly. “Self-taught, and you made this Old Vetrisian serum no one else has managed to in a thousand years? Consider me thoroughly intimidated.”
Instead of proudly accepting the compliment, he glowers. “Grandfather did most of the work and got none of the credit—not from his peers, and not from the Black Archives.”
“Aha. So here you are, determined to get it for him.”
Yorl regards me with his incandescently green eyes, his catlike pupils huge in the dimness, but says nothing. Finally, he turns and walks away toward the spiral staircase leading to the surface, and I follow. He leads me back up the steps, but I’m so exhausted from being masticated repeatedly by the valkerax that I stumble on a stair.
I feel something warm encase my hand immediately, too bulky to be human fingers. Leathery pads, the tips of claws. Yorl’s paw.
“Don’t fall behind.” His voice is gruff.
Secretly pleased, I strut behind him. “You could just say ‘thank you for saving my life’ like everyone else does.”
When we reach the top of the stairs and emerge into the white mercury–lit hall, he tells me to meet him at the same place, same time tomorrow, and then disappears back into the dark stairwell. I can’t stand the thought of being trapped in more stuffy dimness, so I decide to walk back to the palace instead of flagging a carriage, gulping down fresh, warm air the whole way.
One step.
I’m one step closer to my heart. The valkerax can kill me all it likes—but I won’t give up.
