Towers Fall

by Karina Sumner-Smith

  Shai seemed to truly notice Abelane for the first time. “Xhea, who is…?”

  “Shai, this is Abelane.” Xhea watched Shai’s face—watched as the ghost processed the name and then memory sparked. Her mouth fell open and her magic flickered, her unthinking radiance briefly dimming in her shock.

  “Abelane,” Xhea continued. “This is Shai.”

  Shai blinked and recovered enough to write in the air between them, Hello. I’ve heard so much about you.

  As if this were a normal introduction, rather than a meeting between Xhea’s dead best friend and Xhea’s one-time sister who she’d long thought to be dead, a crowd of staring night walkers as audience.

  “Hello,” Abelane managed. Nothing more. Her gaze flicked from Shai to the walkers and back again in disbelief, as if sure this was a terrible dream from which she might wake. Then she froze, gasping.

  Her hands, clenched tight, fell to her sides; the elevator port slipped from her limp fingers and rolled across the uneven ground.

  “No,” Abelane whispered—and in spite of everything, she moved toward the walkers. It was just a step, but one she seemed to have made without thinking.

  “Sandro?”Abelane raised a hesitant, shaking hand toward one of the walkers.

  It was a man, little older than Abelane herself. His clothing had once been white—not the gray Spire’s uniform that Abelane wore, but a simple shirt and pants that were nonetheless familiar. Ieren’s bondling wore clothing like that, Xhea realized, remembering the screaming man with his vanishing hands. Little of the cloth’s original shade remained; the pants were darkened almost black to the knee, the rest stained and ripped and hanging from a frame hollowed by starvation.

  His hair had fallen out in clumps, and his dark skin was ashen. His eyes were like two gray holes in his face. He wore no metal collar; yet when she looked, Xhea could see scarring around his throat that such a collar would have left.

  As Abelane moved again, Xhea grabbed for her. “Abelane, no,” she hissed.

  The walker she had named Sandro stood on the outside edge of the small group. Perhaps the movement drew his attention, or it was only that Abelane’s magic was a lure he could not resist—for he looked around, eyes questing. He sniffed as if magic had a scent he might pick from the rain-wet air.

  He turned to Abelane.

  His blank stare did not change; no life came into his empty expression. Abelane whimpered nonetheless. Her hand, reaching for his face, froze; she pulled it to her chest as if her fingers had been burned.

  She said, “Sandro. Sandro, please.” There was no hope in that voice, no true plea. She knew what he was.

  Only now did Xhea think to wonder how many walkers Abelane might recognize—how many she had once known. Of all the walkers that roamed the ruins, many would have been strangers; many she would have never seen, even as they passed through that small room and were thrown out in a darkened elevator, cast like a rotten seed to the ground.

  But she would have friends here. People she had worked with and known, perhaps for years. People she had eaten with, laughed with; people with whom she had struggled through unknown daily horrors, side by side. She would have recognized Ieren’s ghost, too, Xhea realized; would have known his name.

  Now that she thought to look, Xhea realized that she too recognized one of the walkers. There, on Shai’s far side, was a pale-skinned man with his hair cut short, crisscrossed scars marking the expanse of his scalp—one of the older kids’ bondlings. No sign, there, of the bruises that had marked the ghost’s face; no sign, either, of the young girl that he’d tried so hard to protect.

  The walker—the empty creature that had once been Sandro—stepped toward Abelane. Abelane stumbled back. Xhea did not know who Sandro had been to her in life; all she needed to know was written in the horrified lines of Abelane’s face.

  As the rain fell, glittering in Shai’s light, Xhea suddenly understood that in those six years there had been more to Abelane’s life than just the dark magic children. More than just those halls, and her responsibilities, and her fears. She, like Xhea, had lived a life the only way she could; she had fought and struggled and loved.

  Xhea had thought that this time, finally, no one had been left behind—and she had been wrong. Yes, she and Abelane were both free—but how many other beloved people had Abelane left in the Spire?

  The walker took another step, leaving Shai behind.

  “Shai? A little help?”

  Shai glowed brighter, beams of magic shining from her like sunlight as she attempted to recapture the walker’s attention—to no effect. For all that she held four captivated, one walker now had eyes only for Abelane.

  Xhea pushed forward, trying to put the older, larger girl behind her—trying, in her growing apprehension, to bid her power to rise. Bound, it had no attraction; even as she forced a thin stream of power up and out through her hand, the walker did not so much as blink.

  “They shouldn’t—I mean, I didn’t think—” Shai’s hands twitched, fingers moving as if weaving a spell; none formed. “I was just trying to lead them away from the refugees’ encampments.”

  Xhea spread her arms, shielding Abelane; yet the other girl grabbed her by the shoulders and dragged her back, their footing uncertain on the wet, rocky ground. The walker followed.

  “And then what were you planning to do with them?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, now might be a really good time to figure it out.”

  Another step, and this time Abelane stumbled to a stop, Xhea all but colliding with her. Xhea glanced back: a ruined wall spread stretched behind them, its broken edge higher than her head.

  The walker came closer.

  Step, step, step.

  Xhea lifted her cane, held it in both hands. It was her only weapon—and would be useless against a walker.

  She looked at the walker and something in his face, something in his eyes…

  “Shai,” Xhea said suddenly. “Give him some magic.”

  The ghost hesitated, surprised. Xhea had no easy answers; it was only a thought, half-formed, that had wormed its way into her head.

  She tried nonetheless. “They’re drawn to magic—their spirits have been stolen, and their own magic with them. Maybe they’re just hungry.”

  It was the wrong word, hungry, but close enough. Because beneath the walker’s slack, blank expression, that’s what she imagined she could see: some need that transcended thought or emotion; a wordless wanting that drove him. Him, and all of them.

  And they moved. They walked. They ate and drank, if poorly. They could, Xhea knew, reach out and grasp things—they could rend and tear—when they should have been helpless. Seeing the emptiness of their bodies, that echoing hollow where a spirit had once resided, Xhea knew: by all rights, these people should be comatose, struggling to even breathe.

  There was nothing left of them; spirit and magic had all been torn away. But perhaps, she thought, there’s a wound. How could one’s spirit be ripped free and leave no hurt behind?

  As the walker raised his hands, Xhea remembered the walker that had reached for her down in the tunnels, months ago. He’d gripped her shoulders as if he meant to tear her apart—and she’d sent her new, uncontrolled magic flowing into him. It had killed him—and yet it had also seemed to ease his pain. The release of death, she’d thought. But what if it had been more?

  Shai frowned—and the walker that had once been Sandro grabbed Abelane by the shoulders. Abelane cried out, a sound that had more fear in it than pain—and then again, louder, as the walker’s fingers tightened.

  Shai’s magic struck the walker like a beam of errant sunlight. He froze, Abelane caught in his grip.

  Shai sent more power to him, brightening the beam until it seemed he stood lit by a spotlight. That magic shone on him like light—and yet, as Xhea watched, it transformed. Magic flowed over him, not like light but water, banishing the shadows from his cheeks and beneath his eyes, running over his bar
e arms and across the rain-slicked expanse of his chest.

  Magic flowed over him, and sank into him.

  The walker—the man—took a long, shuddering breath. His cracked lips parted as if he wished to speak, but all that emerged was a low groan. He blinked, and for a moment Xhea thought she saw something in his face: a flicker of confusion; sadness tightening his eyes, pulling at his mouth’s corners.

  “Sandro?” Abelane whispered again. She leaned forward, peering at the ruin of his face.

  Again he tried to speak, mouth opening as if through movement of lips and tongue he might find a word in the air; as if he might taste it, swallow it down. As if he might ever do anything but walk and stumble and stare, always yearning for that which had been taken from him.

  His bound and broken other half.

  His fingers loosened from Abelane’s shoulders and fell, limp, to his sides. His head sagged, as if his neck had lost all strength. As his knees buckled, Abelane grabbed him and tried to lower his body to the ground. She fell, and yet she held to him, as if he were the one who might hurt upon landing.

  He lay sprawled, staring not at Abelane’s face as she bent over him but at the sky above. His lips moved as if he was trying to whisper, but no sound emerged. Shai’s magic poured into him until it seemed that he glowed from the inside.

  Slowly, slowly, his eyes closed. As they watched, tension left his body, flowing from him as he gave a long, wheezing breath.

  For a moment, there was only silence.

  “Is he…?” Xhea asked.

  But no: he inhaled slowly; and, looking at the hollowed length of his throat, Xhea could see the flutter of his heartbeat.

  “No,” Shai said. “He’s asleep.” A sleep, Xhea realized, from which he would not wake.

  Bent over that gaunt body, Abelane shuddered and pressed a hand to her mouth. She closed her eyes; she struggled to breathe. But never, not once, did she allow a tear to fall.

  The rain slowed.

  Xhea watched as Shai moved to the next walker in her dwindling group and poured her magic into him. The walkers did not fight or jostle, only stared, their unrelenting silence broken by the quieting sound of the rain.

  In the distance, lights flickered in the ruins—spells, maybe, or spotlights. But the Lower City shone brighter, aircars hovering above it, traveling back and forth to the City with their treasures. Even from so far, it hurt to watch them.

  Abelane knelt by Sandro’s side, her head bowed. Xhea had found and brought the elevator port back to her. Xhea wondered, if it flared to life once more, brilliant and shining, would Lane let it take her back? Up to the Spire and the life she’d led, the people she’d known; a life more familiar, if no more safe.

  Abelane did not look up. She only reached, soft and slow, and pushed the rain-wet tangles of Sandro’s remaining hair from his face. He was only sleeping—a sleep that would turn, over the next day or two, to death. No one could last long without water.

  Except his breathing was already slower, the pauses between breaths longer. Xhea was so tired; she wanted to lie down against the mud and stone; wanted to close her eyes and rest. Instead she watched as Sandro’s breathing faltered.

  Kept watching, long after his body had become still.

  A long, quiet moment passed.

  Abelane did not look up, only said, “Near the end of their lives, the children kill a very many people. Sandro was taken four weeks ago.” There was an untold weight in her voice.

  At Shai’s feet, another walker sagged to the ground.

  “Why keep them?” Xhea asked quietly. “When they’re dying. When they’re killing. Why not let them go?” At what point did the cost of the children’s lives outweigh the benefits? How many nobodies did it take to tip those scales?

  Xhea looked at Sandro and the walkers gathered around Shai, and thought, More than this.

  Abelane shrugged, a hopeless gesture. “Some because of their skill, their training. Others, the strength of their magic.” At last she turned to Xhea. “Does it matter?”

  “No,” Xhea said, wishing she had words that might be a comfort. “We’re free of them now.”

  As if anyone could ever be free of the things they’d lived and witnessed. They could only move forward, hoping for a time when memory’s sharp edges would be blunted. A time when all the wounds of the heart and the spirit would turn slowly, slowly, into scars.

  Shai stood before each of the walkers as if she were in a dream. She looked into their faces; she met their bloodshot, staring eyes. Three men and one woman, one of the men so starved and battered that she could hardly believe he could stand.

  She poured her magic into them. Felt as that power flowed through them, filled them; saw their eyes widen, and their mouths try to work. Listened to the sounds they made that were not, could never be, words.

  She watched them fall. One by one, they lay on the ground at her glowing, ghostly feet.

  Asleep.

  Asleep and then… gone.

  At last, she was finished. It should have been a relief.

  Bright magic could kill, she knew the truth of that; and she had given each more than a mere spark. More, truly, than any Lower City dweller might bring to bear, even if they scrimped and saved. More than a City citizen would want to spend.

  As if death, or the rest it might represent, needed to be purchased.

  Shai bowed her head. She was not crying; her tears had stopped some time ago. Somehow, that made it worse.

  She should cry for these people, whoever they had been. She did not know them, would never know them; could only guess at the years that had been their lives. But she knew without question that they deserved better than this, left to rest in the cold mud, abandoned.

  Rest, she thought again. It was a death gentler than that which might be earned with blades or bullets or in tearing, ripping spells.

  They deserved better, and yet she’d given them all that she had. But it had not, in the end, felt like a gift. Neither had it felt like killing.

  It had only felt like an ending.

  Shai turned back to where Xhea waited, and she tried not to think of her father.

  Xhea had fallen asleep, leaning against a broken wall. Her head was thrown back at an uncomfortable angle, and the dark tangle of her hair hung over one shoulder. The strange young woman sat perched on the wall above her, looking only at Xhea.

  Abelane, Shai thought. Even thinking the name felt a surprise.

  It wasn’t that she hadn’t believed Abelane had existed; yet now, seeing her here, Shai did not know what she had expected. Not this woman, young and bent and tired all at once. Not that long, wet hair, or the sodden blue Spire uniform; not even the way she looked at Xhea as she slept, as if she did not know whether the girl was a gift or curse.

  Or perhaps it was only that Abelane had been a figure from Xhea’s stories, someone idealized in thought and memory, when in reality she was just a person.

  Abelane glanced up as Shai approached, squinting as if Shai’s light hurt her eyes, and then looked back to Xhea. Yet Shai did not expect the words that followed.

  “I’m sorry for what she’s done to you,” Abelane whispered. Her eyes did not stray again from Xhea’s face, but Shai knew that the words were meant for her. She frowned, knowing that Abelane wouldn’t be able to see the expression, and moved closer.

  As if that movement was a reply, Abelane continued. “She doesn’t understand what she’s done by binding you. Doesn’t understand what it will mean for you.” A pause, then the woman laughed, a thin and tired sound. “And maybe I don’t really either, but I’ve seen enough. Far more than either of you.”

  Shai wrote in the air, She has not hurt me. Would not hurt me.

  “Perhaps not intentionally.”

  Abelane reached out to brush away the strand of rain-wet hair that stuck to Xhea’s forehead—and then hesitated, drew back. Even so, Shai felt a twist of jealousy. For all that Abelane could not touch Xhea without discomfort, she could touch h
er, flesh to flesh, whole and real.

  She’s my friend, Shai wrote. She’s my family. Both words felt true and right—and yet they were too small to encompass the entirety of her feeling. Friend. Family. As if either were large enough to say the whole of what Xhea was to her, little though she understood it herself.

  She could see that Abelane did not understand—or, understanding, still thought Shai a fool.

  “The binding,” Abelane said. “It forces Xhea’s will upon you—makes her will into yours.” As if Shai’s affection were coerced; as if trust or loyalty could be taken by force, or love twisted from her heart like water wrung from a rag.

  Shai shook her head. No. I have been unbound, the link between us cut. Three times I was alone, and three times I chose Xhea.

  Abelane glanced at Shai, but her expression was different, almost a recognition of futility. She seemed to swallow back her reply.

  A pause, then: “It will kill her, you know. Even weak, even bound, this magic will kill her. But it will destroy you first. Everything you are, she’ll take from you, whether she wants to or not.”

  Abelane tried to meet Shai’s eyes. “My job was caring for dark magic children. Kids far younger that Xhea, and far more powerful. I can’t see ghosts, but I know what’s done to them before the end. People the children loved, sometimes. She will take and take and give you nothing in return.”

  Then, infinitely softer: “Love is not a defense with one such as her. It is only a knife, and it will twist deep before the end.”

  Shai looked at her, this woman who was once Xhea’s everything, and did not know what she felt. Abelane was not trying to cause hurt, Shai realized; she was not trying to pry Xhea from Shai, no matter that it felt that way. She was only afraid. Afraid of what Xhea had become, what she’d done, and what she might do. Afraid, in some way, for Shai.

  Maybe Abelane was right. Shai and Xhea had spoken at length about the link they’d formed, though neither knew the truth of it; it was so new, a joining but weeks old. There was so much they did not know.

  But Shai looked at Xhea and could not bring herself to pull away, nor to nurture that thin thread of fear into something that would build a barrier between them.