by Sara Wolf
“And why not?” Varia laughs. “Someone has to show you she’s no good for you.”
Wordlessly, Lucien looks to Fione. Something passes between them, and she nods her curled head back. She moves aside her cloak, her undercoat, to reveal the thin white muslin of her undergarments just over her heart.
HER HEART, the hunger screams, and I can’t help the lick of my lips. WHICH DO WE LOVE MORE—OURS OR THEIRS?
The faint human side of me watches in abject horror as Lucien raises his hand and places it gently against Fione’s chest. She’s quivering, but her expression is unbreakable, her defiant, tear-studded gaze riveted to Varia.
“Step down from the Tree,” Lucien says clearly. His fingertips grow black, darkness spreading and subsuming the whites of his eyes.
My mind stutters, but my body and the hunger controlling it only lowers itself closer to the snow, ready to strike.
“Step down,” Lucien says again, harder this time, not a grain of pity or softness on his face, in his two pitch-black eyes. “Or Fione will become my Heartless.”
…
A witch.
Lucien is a witch.
HE WILL DIE THE SAME. The hunger doesn’t care what he is, but the fragments of me still left do. When? How? What is his true name? He’s blackmailing Varia with Fione’s safety. Heartlessness is pain. Heartlessness is hunger, unending. She would suffer so much. She has no idea how much, and yet she’s standing there, determinedly holding her clothes aside to make it easier for him to take her heart. She is terrified of Heartless.
And yet she is willing.
He’s doing what I nearly did to him.
With his other hand, Lucien pulls out a bag from his coat. A silk bag. There, stitched with clumsy needlework, is the word friend. Varia’s fury—I can feel the instant she lays eyes on the bag, the instant she understands what’s going on. It’s as if some furious switch has been flipped in my mind.
HOW DARE THEY THREATEN US, the hunger thunders, an echo of her rage. BLOOD WILL RAIN. BLOOD WILL SNOW. HIS LIVER TORN FROM HIM, HIS EYES PLUCKED NEATLY OUT OF THEIR SOCKETS—HE WILL BE THE BIRD PREYED UPON
Varia plays it differently—laughing brightly, none of the nervousness in her voice anymore, each word ribbed by sharp fury.
“Is this what it has come to, brother?” I hear her boots crunching on snow. “Must we fight each other like storybook clichés?”
NOW. The hunger shoves me. I lash forward, my claws outstretched and aimed for Lucien’s hand against Fione’s chest. RIP IT OFF, SUNDER THE THREAT IN TWO.
Broad steel suddenly blocks my vision, my hard claws scraping and screeching against a broadsword’s blade. From over the steel, Malachite’s red eyes glare down at me.
I’m sorry, I want to say.
DROWN IN YOUR OWN BLOOD, the hunger screams.
“At last,” the hunger and I meld into one and say together. “We find a real challenge.”
“Don’t get your hopes up, whelp,” Malachite drawls back at me, looking me up and down as if unimpressed with what I’ve become. “I know I’m not.”
“Was it you, then?” Varia presses. “Who started the witchfire? I had my suspicions. But it seemed far too strong a fire for a barely named witch like you. It was messy, and driven entirely by a terrible wave of emotion. I was almost worried you’d burn the whole city down. But Father was so relieved when your bodyguard brought you back—I suppose you finally passed out from all the smoke. Unconsciousness fixes witchfire just as well as death.”
Lucien simply stares at her, silently, his fingertips still on Fione’s chest.
“And the quake that hit below South Gate?” the princess presses. “Was that you, too? A masterful piece of magic, if I might say so myself. It was so strong and localized I was almost fooled into believing it was a far older, more experienced witch. However did you hide yourself from me? I had every polymath in the Crimson Lady looking for you.”
“How else?” Lucien says. “Gavik knew best, in this case. White mercury, ingested directly.”
Varia laughs. “You drank it? Straight? For days and days? Oh, you poor, stupid thing. You must’ve been in so much pain. But you came prepared to threaten me with Fione’s well-being and everything. So someone must’ve told you what I was planning with the valkerax. With this Bone Tree. And yet I made sure my people kept their mouths shut. I made sure of that more than anything. I constantly checked on them, and I made sure to cut loose ties and looser tongues.”
Fione suddenly darts her eyes away from me, and Lucien fixes his on me. There’s a split second in which a crack in his stone shows, naked and soft and yawning open. Varia’s gaze flickers to me, her face lighting from the inside with a twisted joy.
“No. Brother, you didn’t.”
My brows knit, and I ask him the question our hunger and I burn with.
“What have you done to us?”
Fear courses through me as he opens his mouth, those gentle lips moving. “I—”
Varia’s laugh interrupts him. “Every witch is unique, Zera. But some patterns reoccur in powers. My brother is a skinreader. He can touch someone to see their most recent experiences. Isn’t that right, Luc? You discovered your power by accident, but you used it on Zera intentionally.”
The cold of the peak freezes my unheart solid. “The kiss…our hands entwined… You used us?”
I TOLD YOU; I TOLD YOU. THEY WILL ALL BETRAY YOU. HIS DESIRE FOR YOU, SELFISH
The hunger contorts me around myself, my hands clutching my head shaking so violently I nick my scalp with my own claws, blood oozing down. Why? To everyone else I was a thing—to be feared, to be used. To him, too. He never cared. The kiss, those gentle touches giving me hope—
I was alone, always.
“I believe this is called ‘irony,’ my dear Heartless.” Varia laughs. “Isn’t it just perfect?”
“ENOUGH!” Lucien bellows, deeper and more jolting than any quake.
“No! It’s not nearly enough!” Varia instantly fires back. “I have done this for you, Lucien. To protect you! I have done this all for you, Fione! I have done this because no one else will.” She laughs bitterly again. “You hear me? No one else will! Those High Witches are cowards—they could end the war, they could enact peace, but they think it too dangerous. They are selfish! I!” She pauses, the sound of a thumping chest. “I am selfless.”
“You are convinced, sister,” Lucien says, voice raw, “with delusions of grandeur.”
“I do this because it is a queen’s duty to protect her people!” She continues. “I do this because it is a queen’s duty to change the world for the better! I will not perpetuate the problem, Lucien. I will be the answer. And if I must do that alone—” Her voice suddenly softens. “If I must do that alone…”
ALWAYS ALONE, the hunger clings, resonates her weakness with my own. I push off from Malachite’s sword, and he takes a swing at me, but I dodge below his blade and come up in front of him, my claws raking soft flesh as they meet his face—no. No! Stop this!
Malachite looks up, his face leaking blood in three jagged slices across his nosebridge, over his cheek, and to his left ear, the lobe there torn open. Silence. I must be the silence. I have to Weep, to stop before I hurt him, before I kill him, before she makes me turn on Lucien once and for all—
“How does it feel?” The hunger taunts with me. “Tell me, is your pain ripping you apart, too?”
I can’t Weep. I haven’t been cut by a white mercury blade. No matter how much silence I call up, the image of that kiss in the Moonskemp ballroom, the feel of Lucien’s palm on my palm—the hunger just screams and screams, a constant echo chamber of unending torment.
HE USED US. THEY WILL DIE FOR DARING TO USE US, TO STAND AGAINST US, US, THEY HAVE TURNED ON US AS I SAID THEY WOULD, FILTHY, YOU ARE FILTHY FOR EVER TRUSTING THEM—YOU ARE WORTHY OF NOTHING BUT DEATH BUT
THEY WILL PAY YOUR PRICE INSTEAD—
I lick Malachite’s blood from my fingers, smirking at him with all my sharpened teeth. A massive force suddenly blindsides me, sweeping my legs out from under me and tackling me into the snow. I try to flip out of the hold, but Malachite’s thin arms are mind-bendingly strong—his grip steel and infinitely heavy. I can barely move, but beneath his hands I feel the worst to come. My limbs are elongating.
The monster is coming.
For one brief moment, I flicker in the darkness. I surface above the endless lake of despair the hunger has dragged me into, looking up into Malachite’s face looming above me, bleeding onto me.
“R-Run,” I choke out. “Take them and run.”
The beneather smirks down at me. “Not a chance in the afterlife.”
“Step down from the Tree, Varia, or Fione is Heartless,” Lucien shouts beside us, his darkened fingers digging into Fione’s chest. Fione tenses, her mouth open in a mute cry as blood drips from the entry points. I try to lunge for her, to pull Lucien’s hand out, but the hunger yanks me below once more, enraged at my efforts to break free.
PATIENCE. THEIR TIME IS COMING
“Fione,” Varia says, her voice suddenly gentle. “Step away from him and come here.”
“No!” Fione blurts. “I have made my choice already. This is yours!”
“Then even you—” Varia’s voice cracks down the middle. “Even you would turn against me, beloved?”
From my place pinned in the snow by Malachite’s knees, I can see Fione’s face twist, fracturing with a different kind of pain in the delicate places—her mouth, the corners of her eyes. But she doesn’t move an inch from her place at Lucien’s side. She’s so strong. So sad.
There’s a beat, the Bone Tree creaking between us. And then Varia’s will incinerates my mind.
TAKE THEM APART
The world goes red. Six times.
My eyesight fractures—six points blurring into one just beyond my nose. Heat. Heat above me, cold beneath me, my limbs suddenly longer and strong, faster, fast and strong enough to throw the beneather off me. Beneather. Mal. Mal-what? What is his name?
A CORPSE, the hunger answers, and I fling my body—claws first—into the two heats that stand connected, the ones my witch wants ripped apart. Luc…the prince. Lucien. I remember him, his name ringing like a bell. This one we remember, this one we don’t want to kill—
Metal. Metal flashes in front of my face, slicing my hand clean off. Blood splays over the snow, beautiful crimson heat. A beautiful nuisance. With a low growl, I grab the metal with my other hand and fold it backward, the screech of its resistance deafening as it curls in on itself in a useless spiral. The beneather holding the ruined weapon widens his ruby eyes at my face, at his sword, and I slice at him with my half-healed hand, the bone claws growing back through the stump of my wrist before anything else. The smell of fire, and something hot and burning, collides with my face, the scent of flesh sizzling and the sound of my own roar of pain as I turn to face the witch who threw it—Lucien, his palm blackened to the wrist and held out at me, his eyes midnight orbs.
Run.
RUN, LITTLE SHEEP, THE STARVING WOLF HAS COME TO PLAY—
Run, please.
I reach to tear Lucien from the other heat, the girl. Shouting. Lucien shouts, once, and the girl holds up something in front of me—a dagger, glimmering with jewels, the metal blade glimmering a pure white, and stabs it into my chest. Too high to reach my unheart, too left to reach my lungs, just right. White-hot fire curdles my blood, numbness spreading from my brain to my toes and back again. The stump of my hand stops healing rapidly, the skin reconstructing now with near-invisible slowness.
The smell.
THEY ARE THE TrAiToRs
White mercury.
I look down at the blade in my chest—the metal is surely white. Not a vial of mercury but a blade of it, like the four swords lost in the war. Like the sword attached to Varia’s hip even now, the only one left in the world. The hunger starts to crumble, the silence I’d been clinging to so hard roaring up to greet me, enveloping me like a long-lost mother in its cooling embrace. The rage is not mine anymore, my despair is not mine, and they chip away from me, leaving me light. Silent.
The hunger has stopped singing.
“No!” I hear Varia screech, indignant and furious. “Fione! Dear heart, what did you do?”
“I did what my uncle couldn’t,” Fione says softly.
Lucien’s dark eyes linger on mine, and I see myself in them—my monstrous form bared for all to see. My face is strange; six white eyes where two should be. Like a valkerax. Words and despair circuit unsaid between us as I loom over him. That kiss wasn’t real. His touch—unreal, manipulative. He’s a witch. But all that can wait. It will wait for three years as I have waited, if it must. I am in the silence. The hot tears streak down from my six eyes. Blood tears. I turn my head slowly over my shoulder, the sun throwing my elongated shadow over the blood-smeared snow as I step toward Varia, opening my clawed palm.
“My heart,” I growl, my voice still dark and bestial. “Now.”
“Stay there!” Varia demands, the command slithering through each syllable. But the Weeping has me in its still embrace. It’s so quiet inside me. Nothing moves to stop me—not guilt, not magic, not hunger. I am free.
I stalk toward her, faster now, and her eyes widen. She moves her hand closer to the Bone Tree, and from behind me, Lucien shouts.
“You first, sister. Stay your hand, or Fione is my Heartless.”
Surely she cares about Fione more than the Bone Tree. I’ve seen them so happy together—smiling and golden.
“Surely, Your Highness,” I say, my monstrous voice shredding the air, “your own dear heart is more important than power.”
The crown princess’s fingers hover just above the smooth white of the trunk. I know the Tree has been calling to her for years, infecting her dreams. But the choice is now hers, and hers alone. Behind me, I know Lucien is tightening his grip on Fione’s heart—I can smell the blood oozing from her. The air feels so dense to me, even as a monster, the magic all around us trying to squeeze the life from me, from the moment, from time itself.
“Power isn’t everything,” I say to the princess.
Every sound disappears. Every movement stops except the motion of her hand trembling above the trunk of the Bone Tree. Varia’s proud face wavers, stuck on the edge between timelines. Her, happy with Fione. Her, seizing a power that will destroy her. Two of her selves war with each other in this one moment.
She was ready for five years. I was ready for three.
A snowflake lands on my eyelash. The wind softly moves the Tree, the bone branches clattering together. The princess looks to me, no trace of expression on her face.
“No,” she agrees. “But it is the only thing that matters.”
Varia’s hand touches the bark.
The next thing I see—blue sky. I’m flying through the air, backward and away from the Bone Tree, pushed by some unbelievable force, the claws and vertebrae of the branches spiraling in my vision as I roll countless times in the snow like a thrown doll.
“No!” Fione’s scream pierces the insulation of the moment, and time resumes.
“Varia!” Lucien calls, his tone cracking with worry. “Varia! Varia!!”
She has chosen.
I stagger to my feet, squinting with six eyes as a searing light at the base of the Bone Tree, where Varia once was, grows ever bigger. Her outline is faintly visible—a humanoid shape engulfed by white light, her hand resting on the trunk. She tilts her head up, her mouth opening and light pouring out of it in a concentrated beam. I rush to stand before Lucien, Fione, and Malachite as Old Vetrisian power blurs the snow, the sky, draining all color from the world, from our faces and clothes. It’s sucking in, as if in preparation to expel,
the Bone Tree’s branches now twitching wildly, nonsensically—a mirror image of the way Evlorasin twitched in pain all those days below the city.
“Something is going to burst!” Fione shrieks. I can feel it, too—the heaviness in the air is compressing to that single point of Varia beneath the Tree. Something has to give, and soon.
“Varia!” Lucien’s voice goes ragged, sloughing through the snow to reach his sister. “Varia!”
“Luc, no!” Malachite staggers after him.
The moment slows again. Me, standing with a bejeweled white mercury dagger in my chest, my six white eyes narrowed and crying blood. Malachite, reaching his long pale hand for Lucien, his injured face etched with worry. Fione, tears streaming down her cheeks, five points of blood stained into the skin over her heart, her heart that must be utterly broken. Varia, brimming with light, spilling it, almost consumed by it now. And Lucien.
Lucien, reaching for his sister, his hand outstretched, his legs frozen in a long stride and his expression—so stolid until now—teetering on the edge of crumbling.
To lose someone once—devastating.
To lose them again—the end of the world.
Lucien’s closer to the light than anyone; he’s not going to survive the blast. But neither are Fione and Malachite. This power—it’s like nothing I’ve ever felt—not magic, not machine, but something greater than either could ever be alone.
Silence. In the silence. All that matters is the next moment. Not what Lucien has used me for, not what Varia has betrayed her love for. Not what I have become, with my six eyes. Just the next moment.
In the perfect quiet of my concentration, I can see everything, all the heat on and in this mountain, all the coldness in it—how far the mountains go, how close the abyss yawns all around the peak.
“I am Zera Y’shennria—the Starving Wolf,” I whisper. “And this is never-goodbye.”
Every single moment—one after the other—is the only thing that matters as I sprint with all my speed, all my strength, toward the Bone Tree, toward the nexus of light that Varia has become—
