by Brindi Quinn
“SHE HURT ME, EDDY!”
“She did, Pip!” Charmagne incited from the ground, clutching her abdomen. “You know what we do to people who hurt us?”
“Oh no. Not again,” groaned Edius. “Heya Pip? Remember how sad you were after you executed all those soldiers? You don’t want to feel that way again, do you?”
…
Executed all those soldiers?
…
“She deserves it, Pip! Look what she did to me! And she took Windalloy from you, remember?”
“Knock it off, Charm! We don’t need another bloodbath! That was so senseless last time! Letting him demolish—what, forty humans? Not to mention all those deer!”
The way he said it…
It almost sounded like…
The fiend who had slaughtered Beau’s cavalry…
Was Pip?
Well, that complicated things.
Chapter 23
The Boy and the Beast
“Kill her, Pip! Then you can have Windalloy back!”
“Shut up, Charm. Goddess you’re the worst. Don’t you realize that Master Ascian will be here soon? He’ll have our heads if Pip goes haywire before he gets to taste the Nemophilist. Pip, STOP. Keep that creature of yours sleepin’!”
Again with the creature? What creature?!
Windley had said Pip wasn’t normal. He was an ‘early bloomer,’ ‘incredibly powerful,’ the ‘strongest’ of them.
“Listen, Merrín.” Edius’s voice was in my ear. “If Pip unleashes that thing inside him, we’ll all be in danger. I need to let go of your mouth so you can apologize to Pip. But if I do it, you need to promise not to kill me with your smog, mkay? I’m not dying for this shit.”
Charmagne was still yonder, crouched in the sand and egging Pip on, while the round-faced boy was standing unusually tense, fists clenched and entire body shaking with what looked to be white-hot rage.
“Do I have your word?” said Edius.
I nodded.
“And are you a queen of your word?” said Edius.
I nodded.
Edius released the loudest, most indisposed sigh. “You know, we could have avoided all of this if you had just taken me up on my offer and become my pet. Then, you could have helped me free her and I’d no longer be tied up with these assholes. BUT since that didn’t happen, I’m just going to have to trust you, aren’t I?”
Wondering who the ‘she’ was he had referred to, I nodded for the third and final time. Edius slowly released my face, doing so as if he were signing his own death contract.
“What are you doing, you imbecile?!” bansheed Charmagne.
Edius didn’t offer the courtesy of a response as he took my shoulders forcefully. “Don’t make me snap your neck, darlin’. Would be a shame.”
I made efforts to shrug him away.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you, Pip!” I called to the raging boy. “It was an accident, and I’m sorry! You need to stop whatever it is you’re doing, though! Windley, er, Windalloy wouldn’t approve of this! He wants us to be friends!”
Pip didn’t ease up. “You’re a baddie! You hurt me before and you hurt me now! You probably hurt Windalloy too! That’s why he isn’t here!”
“No! I would never hurt Windley, I love Windley. You said I’m his anam cara, right?”
“Anam cara?” Charmagne let out a snide laugh. “Oh come on, Pipsqueak! You’re old enough not to believe in that crap anymore. It’s obvious she’s lying! She’s trying to trick you like she tricked Windalloy!”
Charmagne’s influence was snaky, and Pip wasn’t showing signs of stopping. I needed to try my hand elsewhere.
“Soleil! If you must keep Rafe, then at least release Windley so that he can help me diffuse this situation!” I shouted it to the heavens and was responded nothing. “Come on, Soleil! You’re causing more harm than good! I told you I would take your child if Beau won’t? Well, if I am defeated here then so is the safety net of my queendom!”
“Aw man. She’s crazy,” said Edius, to himself presumably. “Why are the cute ones always crazy?”
“What a lunatic! See, Pip? She’s rabid! End her before she ends us!” spat Charmagne.
I’m sure I looked that way too. With my hair messed from a night of passion and my clothes blown from a day of conflict. With my cheeks dirtied and my feet bare in the sand.
It seemed I had no choice but to call upon Exitium to put an end to whatever Pip was conjuring.
And Windley would likely never forgive me for it.
“EXITI—”
But I was interrupted by a person being thrown from the sea.
Yes, you heard that right. A person was thrown out of the sea.
“Wait, lion queen!”
Please, take a moment to swoon with me, captive ones. I know you can’t actually hear his voice, but you can imagine it, right? All the things that make it so great?
In that moment, the sound of it stopped my heart.
Like an angel backed by the sun, Windley had appeared ankle-deep in the shore, dripping with saltwater and adorned with bits of sinewy seaweed.
I wiggled out of Edius’s clutch and ran to him because I couldn’t stand not to, tackling him with my most ferocious hug, though there was chaos on the beach behind us.
“Thank goddess. She finally let you go.”
“Because I promised to stab Queen Beau through the stomach if she wouldn’t. Sorry about that. You know I would never.”
An easy way to get smote.
“You have no idea how good it is to see you,” I said.
“I expect it feels about how I’m feeling.” Beads of water ran down his fine, fine face. “This isn’t ideal, though,” he said, looking down at his wet body.
Sometimes it’s nice to get frosting wet.
Sorry. Focus, Merrin.
“Where’s Ascian?” Windley made haste to scan the beach.
“Not here yet,” I said.
“Good.” He pushed me behind himself, then to the others called: “Wow, the whole gang’s here, eh? And Charm? Looks like Merrin got you pretty good.”
Lo, she was hugging herself and breathing hard.
“Perfect!” she sang. “Now Pip can exterminate both of you at once—you and your chubby pet!”
Windley ignored her, directing his attention to the boy in question: “What’s wrong with him?” he said, voice low.
The whole of Pip’s body was tensed and quivering, as if he was about to birth indignation.
“I don’t know. I accidentally hit him with the echoes, and it set him off. He thinks I’m a bad guy. Is there a… a monster inside him or something?”
If there was, it was apparent Windley knew nothing about it.
“A monster?” he said, brow cocked.
“Yeah, Edius said it was Pip who took out the cavalry. Or rather, he implied it.”
“Psh. That brute? Don’t believe anything he says. Pip may be strong, but he isn’t dangerous. I’ll go try to pacify him. Mind taking out your echoes for a little shadow dance with the other two?”
“Be careful, Wind. A lot can change in eight years. Edius released me knowing what I’m capable of. Meaning he’s more fearful of Pip than he is of me.”
“I’m always careful,” he said with a rascal’s wink. Then he drew his hatchets and edged up to Pip.
Meanwhile, Edius was watching me from a distance with folded arms, wondering whether or not I would keep my promise not to harm him.
I was a queen of my word.
The only thing I hit him with was a nod as I walked past to where Charmagne was kneeling in the sand, now fully transformed back to her slender, feminine self.
How could such a lovely thing be so snitty inside?
“So kind of you to kneel for a queen,” I told her, towering over her with more regality than I had displayed in weeks—maybe ever.
“If you expect me to beg for my life, you’re even more stupid than I thought,” said Charmagne.
“I don�
�t expect that at all.” I reached my hand out and placed it over her rose gold head.
“Ex—” But my voice was caught in my throat.
For all the times I had called upon Exitium’s power, I had never intentionally murdered a person face-to-face, and certainly not one unable to defend themselves.
“She has no merit!” screamed the echoes.
“Unleash your bloodlust, Merrin,” persuaded Exitium.
“No merit! No merit! The beastling has no merit!”
Even Charmagne herself was rolling her eyes as if to aggravate me into doing it.
I told you before, I would take many, many more lives before I would ever return home, and that’s still true. Though they may not be the lives you assume them to be.
Bear with me.
“Are you serious?” scoffed Charmagne. “You’re too weak to go through with it?”
“I will kill in defense, but I will not kill a defenseless person,” I said. “You are no longer a threat to me.”
“I will be.”
“I will wait to take your life until then.”
But as I turned from her to go help Windley, the white-clad girl shot up from the ground using the last of her adrenaline and shoved me into a cluster of nearby trees.
Edius took a step toward us, but ultimately decided not to interfere. Windley wasn’t so reserved.
“Watch it, Charm! You’re playing with fire!”
“Little sugarplum’s too pious to knock a girl while she’s down. Why don’t I make it easier for her?” Then, in an effort to recover some of her lost stamina, Charmagne pressed her mouth to mine.
It was a funny thing, to be kissed by a girl.
Her lips were softer, her skin too, than any knight’s. And she was wrapped in her own whirlpool of perfume to let you know when you’d gotten too close. Her pointed nail stroked from the center of my neck to the bottom of my chin, as if asserting some amount of dominance.
She held none.
One of Windley’s hatchets split the tree above our heads, cutting her off from however much life force she had intended to draw.
“The next will not miss,” he scathed.
“I think this one may like girls,” she called as she clutched her wound and sank to the ground against the tree’s bark, dirtying her white apparel. “Pretty uncommon for the northland.”
I questioned then how Charmagne knew so much about the north. She had picked up on my royal status during our first encounter in the wood. And she wasn’t wrong—it was uncommon, though not unheard of, for women to court other women in the north.
There’s a good reason for how she knew these things, but we likely won’t get to that until next time.
“Don’t worry, cupcake. It isn’t uncommon down here. You’re free to become mine once you grow bored of Windalloy,” she huffed.
But Charmagne wouldn’t want me for anything Windley would.
“Lay your mouth upon me again and you will not be spared, cupcake,” I told her.
I gladly left her to help Windley, who was, from the looks of it, still trying desperately to get Pip’s attention, but the boy was lost in a sort of white-knuckled trance, staring stone straight through Windley and muttering intangibles.
“Something’s wrong with him,” said Windley, giving him a shake. “He isn’t hearing me. Pip? Pipsqueak! It’s Windalloy. What did they do to you? Snap out of it!”
“Edius!” I called to the quiet observer among us. “What’s wrong with him? You suggested there may be some thing inside of him, didn’t you?”
“I’d like to keep my distance, thanks,” said Edius, arms folded.
“Edius.”
“Ugh. Fine. Apparently, a few years ago he hexed some creature he shouldn’t have. Something the rest of us wouldn’t be able to. The kid’s kind of a freak, you know. Extra strong. Whatever it was, only Ascian knows, but now Pip can use its power. Never seen anything like it. He killed a whole army of people just the other week. Those, uh, weren’t your soldiers, were they?”
“Killed them how?” said Windley.
“Dunno. They sort of boil from the inside. Well, I mean after the spider gets them.”
“The spider?” Windley and I said in unison.
“Well, not really a spider because it’s got a few extra legs. No clue what it is. This massive drippy thing that comes out of his mouth and goes berserk. Something from a nightmare. Scary as hell.”
“And you left me alone in a room with him?!”
“Aw, he doesn’t do it that much—only when someone really affronts him, ya know? Like with those soldiers. They tried to stop us from reaching the forest. And just now, I mean, you did hurt him. He wouldn’t just do it on his own. He has to be triggered.”
“Well, if he got it through a hex, then we just need to get him to drop the hex and it will stop whatever this is,” said Windley.
“Yeah, good luck. Tried that many times,” said Edius. “It seems to have attached itself to him permanently. Taking off his ring does jack too. My advice is to put an end to him before it happens. I mean, I like the kid, but he’s a hazard. He took down all of Abardo on his own. You get how taxing that would be for a normal Spirite, don’t you?”
On his OWN?
So Ascian didn’t have an army of underlings as Windley had suspected. Simply, Pip harbored a monster in his soul.
I knew the feeling.
“Merrín might be the only one strong enough to take him down,” said Edius, “being the Nemophilist and all.”
Windley frowned at me. “You told him?”
Though he had little room to talk, being that he had told Flora the same thing without my permission.
“Exitium told him,” I said.
Edius raised a thick eyebrow. “Who?”
“Never mind. If we cannot stop it, then we must flee from it, right Windley?”
Arms folded, Edius kicked at the sand. “If that’s your plan, I suggest heading north. Master should be coming from the south.”
I knew better than to trust advice given by one of the lackeys. Yet I was starting to build a strong suspicion that Edius wasn’t just another lackey.
I sized him up. “Why are you telling us this? Only moments ago you were restraining me.”
Edius gave a broad-shouldered shrug. “Dunno. Maybe I’m tired… and to be honest, I’m not sure if helping Ascian get his hands on you will bring me closer to my goal or further from it. Might be time for a change.”
Whatever the goal, I believed the tone of him.
He looked away with dryness. “That doesn’t make us allies. You should know I might not be so nice next time.”
“Fair. Come on, Wind.”
But Windley wasn’t so ready to give up. It was a trifle heartbreaking, the way he was pleading with the unresponsive boy. All of that guilt over leaving his friend the first time, added to the guilt of having to do it again…
I put a hand to his shoulder. “I cannot imagine how hard this must be, but let’s leave him until he’s in his right mind. I promise we’ll come back for him. We just need to get Rafe out of the sun realm and regroup first.”
But my touch of comfort had an adverse effect on the person in our midst who was most unstable.
“Don’t touch, Windalloy!” And as Pip opened his mouth, I saw the pointy tip of what looked to be a leg—a giant spider’s leg, black, sharp and with fine hairs sprouting out of it.
“Holy shit!” cursed Windley, leaping back and taking me with him. “Is that a wraith?”
Charmagne subjected us all to her wicked cackle. “You’re too late, bozos! Get them, Pip! Squash the royal and take Windley back!”
Now, I probably should have mentioned sooner that along the south side of the beach, there was an unassuming thicket—a dense place shrouded by the grizzled sort of plants able to survive amidst salt, wind and sand. The reason I didn’t mention the grove sooner is because, unassuming as it was, I only noticed it after a voice came booming from its direction.
And that voice?
“ENOUGH,” it ordered, loud over the wavy dunes.
And to make matters exceptionally worse—
Thwack!
It was accompanied by a snapping sound I had heard only once before.
Windley, on the other hand, had been unfortunate enough to have heard the sound many times before, felt its stinging anger on his back, and because he knew the sound well, instinct told him to duck and brace for cruel impact.
But the whip wasn’t meant for Windley; it was meant for Pip. The three-tailed punishing mechanism smacked into the boy, throwing him to the ground and stopping the beast that had been about to emerge.
After, the whip’s bearer stood dangerously near, the bottom of his whip coiled at his feet like a snake.
At the sight of his lavender eyes, something in me changed.
Chapter 24
The Things That Fell
“Merrin, stop!”
That was Windley’s voice, but I couldn’t see him through the blackness welling up behind my eyes. Dense, oily shadow had come to fill my airways, and the hands that had always rocked me like a lover were now stretching my mouth wide to release choking darkness. I was being overtaken by dark forces I could no longer control.
But how, captive ones, how had it come to be this way?
For the first time in the daylight, I laid eyes upon the oppressor responsible for Windley’s dark, forgotten past and the lacerations painted into his skin—the ugliness he hid.
It was nothing compared to the ugliness before me.
Standing there with his whip dangled lazily, beside troubled Pip whose face was already starting to smart, Ascian wore the vilest smile, dripping of contempt and self-assuredness, with posture puffed like a cock. As he took down his hood, he did so as if offering a gift to the world, one the rest of us should be so lucky to receive.
Yes, he was handsome and looked young for the age he should be. I could tell you about the shape of his face or the feel of his eyes or the fit of his body, but I refuse to dignify him with compliments about his appearance.
For Windley’s sake, I hope you’ll think of him only as a man with lavender eyes.
“What fun you’ve all gotten into,” he said to his flock. “And Edius, I see you’re no help to your brother and sister. Have you forgotten it isn’t you who will be punished?”
