by Emma Hamm
Mercy lifted a hand and plunged it into her own chest. She cracked open her ribs silently, as though the bones no longer existed. Within the safe haven of her breast, he could see the most unusual thing. There was no heart within her. Instead, it was a glowing ball of white hot magma. She slid Ignes into the heat, and he melted away.
“Is he safe now?” he asked.
Mercy nodded, but her eyes were vacant. She lifted her hands and brought them towards the ground. Her palms met the solid earth while the flames answered her call. They funneled towards her in great veins of light until she inhaled them all.
It was then Jasper saw Priscilla’s crumpled form on the ground. Mercy saw it, too, but she remained gravely silent.
Somehow, that was all the more terrifying to him.
Mercy stood on unsteady legs and made her way towards the silent form. Jasper swore he could feel the ground shake as she fell to her knees before the Hag. Mercy rolled Priscilla onto her back, and blood trickled from her beak. Burns covered her body from the soles of her feet to the top of her head, where her hair had been singed away.
Mercy gathered Priscilla in her arms and rocked back and forth. He couldn’t hear her crying, but a ripple of heat warped the air around them. Jasper’s fists clenched through a great wave of fear as he tried to prepare himself for what would come next.
The ground shook again, a large hand wrapped around his waist, and lifted him into the air.
Tiny clutched Jasper to his chest. “We have to leave.”
“We can’t do that!” Jasper struggled against the impossibly strong grip. “We can’t leave them there!”
“You don’t understand, boy. What you’re looking at is something like a nuclear bomb about to go off.”
“What?” Jasper wildly looked back at Mercy. “She’s too weak. Ignes is too weak.”
“I don’t think she cares about that right now.” Tiny hurried backwards. “Just watch.”
And watch Jasper did. Great billows of power rolled off of Mercy. Wave after wave of visible light until she threw her head back and screamed. This time, it was different. This time, there was nothing human left in that sound.
This was the cry of a wounded beast. This was the cry of a woman who wanted revenge.
With the scream, the rolling power grew. Heat blasted out of her body in all directions, and great, fiery wings burst from her back, stretching towards the sky. And still she screamed.
“I cannot let her go through this alone,” Jasper said, pushing at Tiny’s massive fingers.
“You would be walking to your death,” the Giant’s rumbling voice made Jasper’s teeth crack together.
“Then so be it.”
Jasper kicked his legs out and twisted. It loosened Tiny’s grip enough for Jasper to slip free. He hit the ground running.
Although, if Tiny had wanted to catch him, he could have. No man was a match for a Giant that large. But Tiny didn’t seem prepared to run into a situation where death was almost certain.
Jasper didn’t blame him. If he weren’t halfway in love with Mercy, he wouldn’t run into that pulsing wave of anger, either.
But he did.
He hit the first edge of energy with his shoulder and was nearly knocked off his feet. It felt as though he had hit a shield. This wasn’t just fire, it was a wall of heat with physical substance. It was unlike anything he had ever felt before.
He pushed through one wave, then the next, until he stood before the two women. Priscilla’s body was a charred husk. Ashes swirled in the air around Mercy like a blizzard, but she did not seem to notice. Her eyes were squeezed shut, and her scream vibrated through the heat waves.
And in the center of her chest he could see the glowing embers of her heart. The incision she had made was closed, he realized. The glow was burning through her skin.
“Mercy!” he shouted. “Mercy, enough!”
She did not respond.
“Mercy!” he tried again. “Mercy, you will kill them all if you do not stop. Enough!”
This time it was his shout that echoed in the sudden silence. Though her head was still tilted back and her mouth gaped open, Mercy had finally stopped screaming.
Jasper wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. His wings opened and closed in agitation. He had come this far by making foolish decisions, he might as well continue.
One step. Another. Closer and closer he walked towards her, until he could kneel in front of her.
Priscilla’s body had taken the brunt of her rage. Mercy’s fingers had sunk into the scorched flesh so deep that she was fused to the corpse. Hesitantly, he reached for Mercy’s hands and tried to pry her fingers open.
“Come on,” he said quietly. “You don’t have to let her go, but you do have to release her body. You’re hurting her, Mercy.”
That got some kind of response. She tilted her head down to watch his movements. What he saw in her eyes filled his heart with dread. This was not Mercy. This was not a woman at all. Instead, this was a monster watching him with a strange detachment.
He did not bring it up. Asking her what had changed could only result in even more anger. So he busied himself with pulling her stiff fingers open. One of her hands released Priscilla’s crumbling arm.
“One down,” he told her. “One to go. You can choose to release her. I don’t think you really need my help to do this.”
She whimpered.
“Okay. Okay, I’ll help you.”
Three fingers opened and Mercy trembled. She let out a shuddering breath as the fourth was pulled free. When her thumb was pried loose, Priscilla’s body fell into her lap, and opened the floodgates.
She had returned, his Mercy. Just not in the way he had hoped.
Great quakes ran through her body, causing her spine to arch inwards. The shaking sobs were not unlike the heaving movements of vomiting.
“This is my fault,” she muttered, over and over again.
“No, no it’s not. I told you this already, Mercy. You have to listen to me. Blaming yourself for this is only going to hurt you. It’s what he wants.”
“This was me. I did this.” She stroked her hand down Priscilla’s face, which turned to dust in her fingers. “I did this.”
“Mercy.” He cupped her cheeks with his strong hands and forced her to look up at him. “Don’t look. Don’t look anymore. You stare at me. At my eyes, what color are they?”
“I don’t know.”
“You do know. You’re looking at me, and I need you to tell me what color they are.”
This sort of distraction used to help his little sister when he was younger. Jasper’s family had all been delicate creatures, but his sister had been a fragile human to begin with. When she had panic attacks, he would ground her by asking simple questions about the world around them. It seemed to help.
Mercy shook her head. “I don’t know what color your eyes are. All I see are shades of red.”
Another, stronger, pulse of magic erupted from her body. His knees left grooves in the ground as he was pushed backwards, but he held onto her face.
“Mercy, no!”
Tendrils of fire spread over her body like fast-growing vines. They curled around her and bloomed great, blood red bulbs swelling with her magic. The heart within her chest began to glow even brighter.
He wouldn’t let her do this again. She had fallen over the edge, and all he could hear was the Crone’s warning. Control her or you will find a monster at the end of your leash.
Jasper lurched to his feet and caught her around the waist. Throwing her over his shoulder, he sprinted towards the only thing he knew of that might stop her.
The river.
Barefoot and shirtless, he crashed through the undergrowth of the forest. The smell of singed hair stung his nose, and the sound of crackling fire was his symphony. But there was a light at the end of the tunnel. A cool, damp adventure that would potentially ease their suffering.
The sun rose through the trees before them. The sky turned a
soft hue of lavender and rose. And underneath the light, filtering through emerald green leaves, he saw sunspots bouncing off the slow moving river.
He did not hesitate. He plunged into the water and sank underneath the surface. Within his arms, Mercy jerked once and went still, floating in the current..
The water had always offered a welcome haven to him. Jasper wasn’t a creature made for water, but he had been raised among many such creatures. Fairies dearly loved Water Sprites, Nymphs, Mermaids, and the like.
Mercy’s limp form twisted, and he beheld the most bewitching of sights. Red hair floated around her serene face. He had never once seen her so calm. Peace radiated from her as her arms floated at her sides.
He brought them both to the surface and held her head against his shoulder, finding purchase on the well worn rocks below them. The river buffeted them, but he held fast. Jasper was a stone that the river would never move. For her, he would hold the world at bay.
“You should run,” she croaked against his shoulder. Jasper felt her lips move against his damp skin. “I’m not safe to be around.”
“I will help you.”
“You can’t help me. No one can.”
He ran his hand over her head to slick back her wet hair. “That’s not true. You cannot know that for certain.”
“I may not have killed her, but I desecrated her body because I could not help myself. I didn’t know I was that far gone.”
“You have to let me help you,” he told her firmly. “Not too long ago I met with the Trinity, and they warned me about you. That I would be the one to help you.”
“Then they are just as delusional as you are. I am beyond help.”
He pushed her away just enough to stare into her eyes. “No one is beyond help. You foolish woman, look at yourself. You didn’t even think you could survive the water and now you are! Controlling your powers is just another step to learning who you are.”
Something changed in her expression. Her ombre eyes darkened until Jasper was looking at a completely different creature.
“You don’t understand. No one understands.”
She pulled away from him. Mercy slipped on algae once, her entire body dunked underneath the river. He had to fish her back out, but she struggled when he tried to reel her back into his arms.
Jasper finally snapped.
“Then tell me!” he roared. “If you want to hold it over my head that I will never understand you, fine. But you should be able to trust me, of all people!”
“Of all people?” She paused and glared at him coldly. “What do you think you are to me, Jasper?”
“I don’t think either of us have a name for it yet. But I do know that you are a fascinating woman, and I rarely find myself so interested. I had thought perhaps you would want to find out where this could go just as much as I do.”
She breathed in deep and rubbed a hand over her chest. The glow was now gone, and he worried that he had harmed Ignes. In the end, though, it was only Mercy he truly cared about.
“Jasper, I—”
“Before you lie to me again, let me beg you to tell me the truth. Just the truth, Mercy. Nothing else.”
She flinched at his words. Her arms curled around her torso as she turned and walked out of the river. His heart broke a little. She wasn’t going to let him in. And he wasn’t going to let her make that mistake again.
But, strangely enough, she stopped walking once she left the water. Mercy turned, settled herself on the pebble strewn bank, and pulled her knees to her chest.
“Okay.”
He arched a brow. “Okay?”
“I burned off a lot of your hair. I owe you that much.”
Jasper immediately reached up to find half his hair significantly shorter than the rest. “I’d say you did.”
“You already know that I’m not like you.” She gestured at him. “I’m more like Tiny and Priscilla and—” her voice cracked on the name.
“You don’t have to talk about her if you don’t want to.”
Mercy nodded. “Look, I know I’m different. I’m always going to be different. I’m immortal for god’s sake, where did you think this was going? When you’re eighty, I’ll still look exactly the same as I do now. Only I’ll be even less human and more outlandish than you can imagine.”
He shrugged as he made his own way out of the water. “I’m okay with that. We’ll figure it out as we go. Most couples have to do the same.”
“No, Jasper, I’m different. Don’t you see? I will always walk the line between wanting to love you and wanting to watch you burn. It is not a question of whether or not I might hurt you; I will. I will hurt you because I want to. Every time I look at you, I want to.”
He froze. The river lapped at his ankles as though it were trying to sooth the tumultuous thoughts that bashing around his skull. “What?”
“I want to hurt you, Jasper.” At least she didn’t look like she was proud of it. Mercy had receded, curled into a ball with a troubled expression on her face, until she was a shadow of her normal glorious self. “I’m sorry. I know you can’t understand what I mean by that, but you have to know I’m not human. Not anymore.”
“I don’t know how to take that, but we can work through it. If that is what you want, I will… I’ll figure it out.”
“And I will never be fully yours.”
The words hit him like an arrow in the chest. He lost the breath in his lungs. His fingers tingled with cold and nerves.
“Ignes and I,” she paused as though pondering whether or not she should tell him. As Jasper counted his heartbeats, she breathed through her mouth until she began again. “We’re not like you and Bluebell. We’re not like anyone else. He’s not my brother, not my friend, not just the creature that shares my head.”
“Then what is he?”
“Every time he heals my body, every lifetime that passes, he’s changing me. I am becoming less and less human constantly. The reality is that in a few hundred years, I will not have this flesh at all. And after that time…” She moaned. “Jasper, I’m going to eventually walk into a volcano and never come back out.”
He found he had once again lost all manner of speech.
“He’s the last Phoenix. It was once a mighty species that was capable of a great many things. And it would be a shame to see it die. I’m not his host, Jasper. He’s turning me into his mate.”
“Right now?” His question was a raspy whisper.
“Someday soon. I’m not Phoenix yet, so Ignes is not particularly interested in me like that. But I will be, someday, the key to rebuilding my race.”
He shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense. You’re human.”
“Not for much longer. Two, maybe three hundred years, is how long I have to remain human. I will continue to lose all the parts of myself that are human until I am like him. I understand your confusion. I didn’t think it was possible either. But I’ve seen the changes. I’ve felt them while I slept. And it’s getting faster now that I’m awake.”
Jasper’s mind was reeling. She wasn’t going to remain human? He wouldn’t be the only romantic interest in her life?
There were too many questions. For now, he had to push aside his pride and understand who she was.
“So you’re not human?” he asked.
“I told you that.” She stared up at him with those sunset eyes that he found so fascinating. “I can feel it slipping away. And when I do feel human, it’s like those moments are duller than they ever used to be.”
As she stared at her long fingers resting upon her knees, he finally stepped completely out of the water. “Is that what you want?”
Mercy’s head snapped up. “No one’s ever asked me that before.”
“Not even Ignes?”
She shook her head. “It’s a necessity. They deserve a second chance. I am honored to be able to take part in bringing them back to their former glory.”
Though his chest ached and his head felt as though someone was pok
ing around in it, Jasper wanted to fully understand. So he knelt on the ground in front of her, ready to listen.
“Can you explain to me why the Phoenix kind are so great?” he asked. “There is very little known about them, so you can understand why I’m having difficulty seeing this as a good plan.”
“They’re the heart of everything.” She stared into his soul when she met his gaze. “They were the original creations of the Five. The first creatures that crawled out of the lava like blood and took their first breath. The knowledge they held was tied directly to the earth. They knew more than their creators. More than the Gods themselves.
“Ignes tells me stories of them. I’ve seen them in his dreams. They were beautiful and deadly and everything I always wanted to be. But now I can’t see them anymore. I see their great wings, I see the healing they are capable of, but it doesn’t feel the same. Ignes and I are broken. We know that we should feel responsible for creatures that aren’t human. We should want to take care of them.”
Mercy shuddered and fell silent.
He leaned forward to press his palm against her cold shoulder. “What do you feel now?”
“Anger,” she said. “Rage. The neverending need to destroy.”
Slowly he nodded and tried to process what she was saying. The Crone had been right. She really could turn into a monster so easily that he would never be able to toss a leash over her.
“That’s not what I see,” he finally said.
She blinked up at him.
Jasper smiled. “I see a woman who is not afraid to stand up for herself. A woman who was daring enough to ride upon the shoulder of a Giant; yes, I woke up for a while as he carried me. And I see a woman who would dance in flames to make others smile. Yes, you are dangerous, but that does not mean you are bad.”
“You don’t see the world the way I do.” She licked her lips.
“Mercy,” he began, “I believe if you want to be good, then you will be good. We need to take you to the Five.”
“They’re gone,” she told him firmly. “The gods abandoned us a long time ago.”
“They didn’t. I work for them.”
She scoffed. “You do not!”
“I do. I found them a long time ago, when I was incapable of controlling myself. I had lost my way and ended up on the wrong path, protecting some very bad people. And then I met the Five, and I realized there was another choice. I believe meeting them would be valuable for you.”
