by A. R. Kahler
leaks against the shore. White sand
dark waves
dark hair. Her body
twisted like the brambles we plucked
berries from, her eyes as white as shells, their mysteries
hollowed and cold.
“Your sacrifices are many.”
But it is not his voice. It is hers. My sister’s. Whispered
in my ear, an echo
of memory.
“I never meant for you to die.”
It sounds like a lie. My thoughts falter. My heart
sings battle.
Death is mine.
Life is mine.
A god does not weep for his domain.
Her body doesn’t answer. Her lips part
only with the pounding waves.
When I turn, the shore is lined with bodies, my sacrifices
to myself, to the Tree, to the god
I was born to be.
Kaira.
My mother.
My sister.
My friends.
My tributes.
“When my dawn rises, even gods will bend knee.”
I say. He says through me.
As my wings spread, as our thoughts
become one.
Even gods will kneel.
Mike shoved me awake the next morning.
It took a few moments for my head to clear, for the dreams of blood and screaming to fade into the pale light of day. My sheets were knotted around me, disgustingly moist with cold sweat.
“You okay?” he asked gruffly. It might have been the first time he’d ever asked me that.
I shook my head, or nodded it. I wasn’t certain what sort of motor control I had.
“You were screaming.”
“Sorry.”
He looked me over, partially like he was making sure I was actually okay, and partially like he was pissed because I’d done something to force this interaction. Then he sighed exaggeratedly and turned and headed out the door.
I looked at my alarm clock. Breakfast was nearly over. My stomach rumbled, but I couldn’t force myself out of bed. Couldn’t keep my eyes open. A migraine pressed in from the corners of my vision, ashes coating the inside of my mouth. I winced, rolled over, and pulled the covers over my head. In light of everything that was happening, who the fuck cared if I got out of bed today?
My dream latched to my awareness like a tick, sucking my energy and my ability to move forward. It wasn’t the promises of bloodshed that filled my veins with ice water. It wasn’t Heru’s insistence that I would cause the end.
It was the scene in the hospital. The scene that felt ripped straight from memory, and not hallucination.
It couldn’t have been real. The woman I’d seen in the hospital bed wasn’t the woman I’d grown up with. The dream woman had been blond, and my mom was a brunette. The woman on the table had willowy, long limbs, like a sylph from a Greek tragedy. My mother was short, muscular, more interested in rock climbing and crunching numbers than paying attention to me.
It was a dream. There wasn’t an ounce of truth to it.
But I couldn’t convince myself of that. Because the idea that she—Lauren Wright, the woman who raised me—wasn’t my biological mother made too many other things make sense. Like the fact that Bri had always looked so much more like her than I did. The fact that she favored Bri, and treated me like I was a pest.
The fact that my father hadn’t treated me any better.
You’re the reason we’re going through this.
My father had said that on more than one occasion.
As though I was the cause of his and Mom’s fighting. As though he blamed me for more than my sister’s death.
There was no way the dream was real, though. No way I’d been lied to all my life. They wouldn’t have held that from me. Right?
There was also no way in Hell I’d ever be able to ask either of them for the truth.
Other dreams clattered in my head like the blades of war, snippets of memory from last night, or other nights—I couldn’t hold them apart. My sister, swinging in the tree behind our house by a noose made of seaweed. Kaira, surrounded by falcons that pecked and clawed at her bloody flesh. And the field, littered with bodies, the sword in my hands dripping crimson. The taste of Kaira’s breath on my tongue.
Her death will be sweet. Sweet. Sweet as our ambrosia.
I pressed the pillow tight around my head, wished it would stuff out the dreams. But even as sleep edged back in, I couldn’t escape the eyes of the falcon. They burned into the corners of my brain. Waiting for me to be weak. Waiting for me to give in.
I focused on my breath. On the blood pumping in my veins. And then I focused on my fingers, on the blood pulsing beneath my skin. I focused on the power.
My breathing slowed. My pulse calmed.
And there, in between heartbeats, I felt the heat build, a slow burn, until the pillow was as warm as an oven against my head.
I kept it there. I kept the heat going. It made me feel real. It made me feel alive.
• • •
I didn’t get out of bed until well after breakfast. I knew I needed to eat something, so I forced myself from bed and downed a double dose of aspirin. Then, changing into the closest clothes I could find, I left. Today I was going to save Kaira. One way or another.
Sun filtered through the clouds, and I winced against the glare of light off fresh snow, at the sounds of kids yelling and laughing and throwing snowballs with the first taste of sun. I didn’t look at them. I didn’t trust what I’d see. Even then, with every few blinks I’d see flecks of blood on the ground, or a spray of raven feathers like some forgotten offering. Then I’d blink, and the hallucinations would go away. Usually.
I stepped into the Dark Note Café and ordered some cheese bread and a froyo shake, fumbling my money over without looking at the guy behind the register.
“You okay, bud?” he asked. I glanced up briefly. Rocker hair, all black, a few chain necklaces. Ike.
“I’m fine,” I lied.
“Good, good,” Ike replied, handing me my change. No blood on this, thankfully. He said something I didn’t catch, then turned and started getting my shake ready. There wasn’t anyone in line with me: no one to avoid eye contact with, no one to feign conversation. I kept my eyes down anyway.
I went to an empty seat in the corner by the windows after Ike handed the shake over. My mother would have killed me if she saw me using this as my only meal.
Would she? Would she even give two shits? I couldn’t imagine what she’d say if I told her, point-blank, that I knew she wasn’t my real mother.
Especially because I still wasn’t certain that was correct.
I didn’t look outside. I kept my head bowed and tried to sip my shake, tried to force down the ache in my head. Closed my eyes.
Took a drink.
I nearly spit it out.
The shake was darker than it should have been. It tasted like iron. Like blood.
It’s all in your head.
But I couldn’t convince myself of that, because even after squeezing my eyes shut and then looking back at the shake, it didn’t change. It didn’t lighten in color. The iron tang in the back of my throat didn’t fade.
It was blood. I was drinking blood.
The worst part was the taste.
The taste. I actually enjoyed the taste.
I pushed the shake away. I didn’t want to drink more. I didn’t want to want to drink more.
Fuck, maybe I am going insane.
I tried to force myself to calm down like I had barely an hour ago, but calm wouldn’t come. My breath became ragged. I felt trapped.
Do not fight what you are, Endbringer, Heru whispered inside my head, his breath on the back of my neck. Blood is your power.
The window in front of me cracked with a bang. My head jerked up at the spray of blood on the pane, a kid’s body slumping to the ground outside while, beyond, hawks and ravens circled an
d screamed like the kids fighting below. Dozens of students, screaming and killing each other in the snow.
It’s all in your head. It’s all in your head.
Maybe I was speaking it aloud. I squeezed my eyes shut. It will go away. Just like before. Just keep breathing.
But then there was another crack, and this time the glass shattered in, and when I opened my eyes, I was surrounded by ravens. Ravens screaming. Screaming in Kaira’s voice.
I batted them away even as they tore at my flesh, ripped through my clothes, beaks seeking blood, eyes, tender skin. The chair fell to the floor and tangled in my feet. I went down, still thrashing, my crash buffered by blood. By bodies.
I can make this madness end, Chris, Heru promised, his voice cutting through the ravens. I can make all the pain go away.
And it was pain, worse than I’d ever known. My flesh sliced to ribbons, my blood choking my lungs, and still the ravens came, clawing and screaming, and through them I saw Kaira’s gaze, her face not sad—triumphant.
I couldn’t stop the scream that pierced my lips. A muffled scream. A hawk piercing through the ravens, prying its way down my throat. Its feathers were burning tar, were sandpaper. It scratched down my neck, my throat, became a sun in my chest. A heat that burned through me, a light that forced the ravens away. A light that forced Kaira away.
Blink.
Together, gods and men shall bend knee.
And the bodies around me were my friends. My offerings to the Tree. To my own immorality. I stood, blood dripping slowly from my hands, down my golden blade. There was no more screaming. Only the silence of the dead.
This was what it felt like to be powerful.
This was how it felt to be loved. Revered.
This was how it felt to be a god.
“Yo, you okay?”
I turned, and Ike was there, holding my cheese bread in front of him. My chair was toppled on the clean floor. The window was whole. Only Ike looked broken. Lines of blood streaked the corners of his eyes. Tears for what I would do. For what he wanted me to do.
“Let my death serve the Tree,” he said, his words flat as bell tones. “Let my death serve Creation.”
My heart beat like a hammer in my chest, a burn that threatened to incinerate me.
Ike didn’t call out when I pushed past him.
But I could hear him laughing.
I didn’t know where to run. The moment I stepped outside, though, I realized the vision had stopped. There were a few kids walking to class or practice or whatever, but the snow was pure white—no stains of blood, no splatters of brains. I paused and tried to catch my breath. Ike didn’t come out from the café and no one approached to ask why I was clearly having a panic attack. My breath was ragged and short and the world was spinning and my mouth still tasted blood.
My hands, buried deep in my jacket, still burned hot with the memory of power.
Then I saw him.
He walked slowly down the path, straight toward me, the snow around him glowing and melting at the rays of his brilliance. His wings were spread wide, and his bloody halo circled slowly. He was a sun in a landscape of gray. He was impossible to turn from. And even I, knowing his true nature, couldn’t look away. I felt the pull. My hands burned. His power. Our power. I took a few steps forward, a tug in my chest pulling us closer. He smiled.
“You see?” he asked when he neared.
His warmth . . . it sank through my clothes. It eased the fear in my heart. In his light, there was no fear, no pain. No ravens or shadows. There was only light. Only power.
“This is what I will give you,” he said. He was only a foot away, and now my heart was hammering with a different sort of emotion. He smelled like lightning, like danger. I wanted to touch him. Wanted him to touch me. I wanted that power to flood through me, for the spark to connect. My chest was fire, my breath short. The heat was intoxicating. I wanted it to burn me alive. “Embrace me,” he said.
He reached out, placed one golden hand against my cheek. A small moan rumbled in the back of my throat as my own limbs reacted, the jolt of his power, his beauty, filling me, compelling me. My hands sought out the sides of his face, his skin smooth and burning, like gold warmed in the sun, his jaw as strong as the current that surged through me. I leaned in, breathed in his scent. His energy. His wings folding around us in a cocoon of light.
Our lips touched.
“Um, dude?”
I jolted back.
My hands were still cupping Ethan’s face. Ethan, who was standing stock-still, his eyebrows nocked in confusion and his lips tight.
“Shit,” I said, dropping back. I looked around. Heru was nowhere to be seen.
Why did that fill me with sadness?
What had I almost done?
“Umm . . .” Ethan said again. He was looking at me like I was crazy. “What the hell was that?”
“I—”
I couldn’t finish the sentence. I couldn’t think of anything to say.
“Why did you just kiss me?” Ethan asked. His voice was remarkably calm. Like maybe I wasn’t the first straight guy to kiss him out of nowhere.
“I don’t—” I started backing up. Panic built in my veins. Heru was after me. Heru was winning.
“Don’t tell me you’re on something,” he said. He stepped forward. “Or that you’re suddenly going to yell ‘no homo’ or whatever.”
I shook my head.
“It’s not that. I didn’t mean . . . I didn’t know . . .” I stopped, and I looked at him. Really looked at him. Was it really Ethan standing there in the snow? Or was it Heru in disguise? How could I tell what was real and what was fake? Now that the visions were more than just blood. They were more than the future.
The visions were now.
“Ethan,” I said. “I think I’m in trouble.”
He looked concerned.
“What do you mean?”
I shook my head. I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t make him believe me.
Instead, I slipped a hand into my pocket and nicked my thumb on the blade of my pocketknife.
Ethan didn’t register surprise when I held my other hand palm up before me, when I channeled that blood into something more potent. My palm burned hot, glowed orange and gold. And then, in a curl, a wisp, a single tendril of flame appeared above my hand, dancing over my flesh like a demon.
“Something’s happening to me,” I whispered. The flame between us was the most terrible of secrets. If others saw, I didn’t care. I couldn’t hide anymore. What did it matter, the illusion of safety?
They will all die in the end.
The thought came from nowhere and snapped me from concentration. The flame winked out.
For the longest moment we stood there in silence, staring at the cold space where the flame had been.
“Shit, man,” Ethan finally said. He drew his eyes from my palm to my face. His lip quirked into a smile. “You are in trouble if you think that’s enough to fight me off.”
I stepped back, just as Ethan’s body curled apart, golden feathers exploding from his skin and rays of light piercing his flesh. I didn’t stay to watch.
I turned and ran.
I had to find Kaira. I can’t. I can’t. Forgive me. I can’t do this.
Behind me, I heard the screams of the falcon. And before me, Islington was covered in ravens.
Ravens lined every surface, cut circles in the air. They cawed from power lines and benches, rooftops and trees. They perched on the bodies of my classmates—some kids fighting, others prone and bloody. They screamed. The birds. And the kids. The ghost of my sister, appearing on benches and in trees. Always sad. Always accusing. Always begging me to bring her back.
I beat the birds away as I ran toward the nurse’s office. Toward Kaira. Blindly. Unable to look up, to let my eyes be vulnerable to sharp beaks and sharper talons. I knew I was screaming. I knew that Heru was never far behind.
He would never be far behind.
I had let him in.<
br />
I had played with his power.
And that power would never be enough to save Kaira.
But I had to try.
I had to try.
The ravens didn’t stop at the entrance. Shadows bled them into the room, dripping feathers like tar, an oil on the surface of everything. Lights flickered, or maybe it was just their wings, a strobe of shadows. Bettie was behind the desk, ravens in her hair, ravens at her lips. She moaned something, a harsh rasp, but I didn’t stop to save her. She was already gone. And I had to save Kaira. I had to find Kaira. She was the only way out of this.
I rushed down the hall, the walls a living mass of black, fluttering wings, the ceiling a warren of charred heads with blind eyes and dripping beaks. The floor a crush of feathers and frail bones.
I followed the cold.
I rushed in, and there she was, lying in her bed, and the door slammed behind me. No ravens in here. Nothing out of place. Just Kaira in her bed, her eyes closed, and a terrible chill in the air.
But it wasn’t silent.
Birds pounded on the door. The locked door. How did I lock the door? Birds calling my name, demanding I open up. Birds stealing Bettie’s tongue.
Kaira didn’t wake when I sat down on her bed. She didn’t move when I put a hand to her icy forehead, when I patted her cheek. She was cold. Cold and gaunt like the dead, her eyes great shadows, her hair a spiderweb.
“Kaira, please,” I whispered. I opened to the power, tried to give her some of my warmth. Tried to keep myself from burning her alive.
Please save me from this. Please help me. Please make it stop.
Because I knew—I hoped—that if she woke up, she’d help me fight the monsters. She’d send the ravens away. We could live normally; all this could be over. This could be okay.
“This will never be okay.”
The birds outside still pounded, but the words were a bell, a clarity in the storm. I looked up at the god, who held the falcon in his glowing hands.
“Don’t you see, Chris?” the god and bird said as one. “This will never be over. She is not your savior. Just as you are not hers. These are not your roles. She is the one who is causing all this. All your pain. If not for her, you would not be here. Your sister would not have died. This girl . . . she is your enemy. She is the pain behind your madness. Only we can make it stop. Only she can make it stop.”
