All time slowed. Jonas snarled Regina’s way before furious eyes dropped to the sight of Astral, hovering between the frays of life and death. Jonas produced his bow once more. The creak of a fresh arrow in the yew was loud, jarring, like claws on ceramic.
Regina could only watch, trembling in a little helpless heap at the side of the road, as Astral finally flopped onto his back, only to find himself snout-to-flint with finality. With some effort, he pushed up on one arm. A trembling hoof raised towards Jonas – a silent plead for mercy.
And then the air rippled before Astral with an audible wub-wub-wub-wub, and a wavering force of energy enveloped Jonas like a fierce wind that blew his clothes, fur, even his flesh and all other living tissue off his bones like fire pit ash, leaving only a towering scarlet skeleton behind, standing with its jaw hanging loose in awe of agony.
Regina forgot herself then. It was impossible. The sight – nothing in her little life had prepared her for such a horrific sight. Not even the wickedness of the canines prepared her for such impossible things. A moment passed. And then the skeleton crumbled, leaving only red ash to blow spirals in the wind.
“R – Regina … Regina…”
Her harrowed gaze flicked back to Astral. He fell onto the flat of his back, his hoof still raised with the arrow in his chest stuck straight up like a lone tree upon a heaving hill. His chin tilted skyward until their eyes met. “…Regina … take – take my hoof…”
Regina hesitated, more so from icy fear than any pain or wariness that racked her body in that moment. Shivers of fully-sobered realization rippled through Regina’s body. She’d seen this before. Only days before. The carnage of the canines. The death and the destruction they’d brought to those she cherished and loved. Her father’s lifeless visage flashed before her, where Astral’s ragged form should have lay.
It was happening again.
13. Revelations From Innocence
“Mister Ages … you – you’re dying…” Regina whispered, aware and afraid.
“Yes. S-seems that way.” Blood-spittle flecked the air from Astral’s porcine mouth as he struggled to speak. “But … as Muh…Mana flows … so too does Life. Everlasting Life. Infinite Mana … Only you can … do it … Take my hoof, child … None … none of us has to s-suffer…”
Regina whimpered with pain, fear, and shook her head no.
Astral cringed in visible pain. He tried to suck back fresh air, but let out a silent yelp of agony, instead. His body relaxed, panting shallow breaths.
“Regina, you have to try. You have to. For both our sakes.” His eyes glinted at her with deep knowing. With a grimace, he stretched an arm out across the dirt road towards her. “If you want to survive this day, if you want to forget all of this horror – if you want to get to Keeto Town alive, you have to.”
Despite the beads of sweat that rolled across his brow, despite the chill that crept over his bones, it was the firm, knowing, stare of Astral Ages’ deep and starry eyes that pierced deep into Regina’s wholeness – and in that moment, even though the request didn’t make any logical sense, somehow she knew he was right.
The fear in Regina’s heart loosened into light vapour on the wind. She beat back the guilt in her heart for the immediacy of the bigger situation at hand, and rolled onto her stomach with a cry of pain. Then folding her elbows beneath her body, Regina used whatever strength there was left in her muscles to pull across the road like a creeping, beach-bound crustacean. Astral’s heavy eyes rolled back in his head, squinted shut for a long moment, reopened. His gaze found her again, and hardened with awareness once again. He bit back his own agony and stretched his arm taut towards her, his large black scuffed hoof flexed against the air that craved for Regina’s little paw grip.
She slapped her palm down upon Astral’s hoof.
He squeezed around her little grasp. “Regina…”
Regina met his gaze and, almost at once, felt like her very core was sucked forward into a swirling vortex. She didn’t know if it was the mental whirlwind from being kicked in the ribs, or the emotional trauma, but it was like an inescapable vacuum swallowed her up – not her body, per se, but Regina’s very essence of Self. The glimmering stars and universes that shone within Astral’s pupils drew her towards him until their noses almost touched – and then Regina some how passed through Astral’s firm gaze, and found herself within the eye of a storm, face to face with swirling images, and feelings that were not hers, but that she could embody, like they were her very own.
Great pain enveloped Regina, sharp agony deep within her core, alongside indeterminate urgency. Incoherent thoughts – Astral’s own words, words from other people – Regina thought she could even hear things she and Dwain had said only hours before – and then in the din she saw images through the perspective of somebody not of her own body.
This person was bigger than her, and frailer, and ached with every movement. Ached with every utterance that scratched its way up their vocal chords, the threat of dense-clinging copper, an ever present pool in the pit of their throat. There was the smell of duskroot and blood. Everything Regina saw before her, the upper edge of sight shadowed over by the wide brim of a pointed hat.
She stared back at herself. Laying on her stomach in the dirt. The sound of Dwain shouting something, sounds of scuffling in the far distance. She stared into an empty-eyed visage of herself, the reflection’s little skunk jaw hanging loose. A string of drool had formed at her bottom lip. But she wasn’t dead. The Regina that Regina gazed upon now was alive – it was clear that she was breathing – but she wasn’t there, wasn’t present in her own body – somehow, someway, she knew this.
The sight of herself drew away into a vacuum of its own, leaving only darkness, swirling stars and thoughts and moving pictures, spoken and written words, the painting of the Battle for Bridge Town, and others like it, as well as a still-life image of Regina glaring up into her own towering gaze, pointing with determined naivety at that illustration of Iilif Lylac from Avalon Husk, by Minerva Dench.
“…Histories like this!...”
And then the cluster of thoughts and memories that weren’t Regina’s, but somehow were hers also, became sucked away into far nothingness of the subconscious as well.
There was only darkness then.
And then there was the pounding of focused thought. Sharp, all-encompassing, tremors that shook Regina with such force, that each word uttered in her presence maintained the strength to fault the world of Vida into pieces.
Eydra … Machlavi
Runes appeared before Regina. They were white with edges that glowed like lamplight. In her own body, Regina didn’t know the first thing about reading. Had no idea how to tell one rune from another. But here, in the Storm of Conscious – the runes made all the sense in the world to her.
Then something quieter sounded in the darkness.
“…no… not it…”
The latter rune fell away like shadow. Again, focused thought boomed around Regina as a new rune appeared, taking the vanished rune’s place.
Eydra … Machsova
“no … deeper down … regina … go … farther forward…”
Both runes disappeared, and Regina felt herself pulled towards a new vacuum of the mind’s eye.
New moving images – memories – as well as the buzzing of thousands of thoughts and voices pervaded Regina at every inch of realization. An overwhelming amount of sights and sounds flashed before her, passed her by like she was wandering through a crowded street of Astral Ages’s mind. The memories were drawing deeper into the past.
They’re mine now. So young. Helpless. … Canines devastated Altus Village. … Goodness, not all the world is out to get you … A birthmark, you say? Its design is familiar … There! Feast, milord. Indulge … Bruise my bones why don’t you, and see what fares into your supper bucket tonight ... Why, you’re just a little thing …
Deeper and deeper she went into Astral’s thoughts and memories. She watched Astral come
across her, a speck in the path – a trembling, unsure little child, wary and alone of the new world around her. And then the memory was swallowed up amidst a swath of new memories, recalled thoughts and emotions, all flowing through Regina, clinging to her consciousness in ways that would rend any mammal to states of madness, if not guided by sheer force of will to survive.
“… fading…”
Regina swam deeper within the folds of Astral’s dying consciousness. She saw through his point of view, riding Phalanx through the woods. She saw through his eyes, the realization of something in the shrubs ahead, at the side of the road. She saw Astral dismount and find Dwain, unconscious and near death beneath a huckleberry bush. She felt the weight of her friend as Astral pulled his little body into his arms. She saw Astral’s hoof reach out and touch her friend’s forehead, and felt the exchange of energies, of memories, and learn to know all that there was to know.
And that’s when she knew.
Because in that moment – that dire moment, between the balance of life and death, deep-rooted memories from Astral’s history flooded past her in great waves of thundering realization that drowned and swept away all other insignificant thought and memory.
Regina was then pulled backwards, away from the memory itself, away from all other recollections. The thoughts and memories passed by her in the opposite direction now, playing out before her in the true order of which reality had indeed played out.
Why, you’re just a little thing … Bruise my bones why don’t you, and see what fares into your supper bucket tonight ... There! Feast, milord. Indulge … A birthmark, you say? Its design is familiar … Goodness, not all the world is out to get you … Canines devastated Altus Village. … They’re mine now. So young. Helpless …
And on and on the memories played out until Regina watched through Astral’s eyes the ambush, and the shock and agony of an arrow strike amidst fear and hopelessness. Numbness, distortion, and commotion, and then finally Regina’s terrified little eyes as he called out to her. Then, Regina swallowing her fear, pulling her little body towards him despite the amount of pain she herself was in. Regina grabbing for his hoof – and then –
The memory pulled back, and so too did the eye of the storm. Regina found herself face to face with stars, and moons, and galaxies of another universe, which retracted further to reveal dilated pupils, the bloodshot whites of a desperate stare. The intermingled stench of porcine, duskroot, and blood. Then Astral’s face came into view, and Regina drew further and further away from his body until suddenly she felt her own limbs and thoughts and memories and pain and numbness envelop her again.
“Eydra Mey’rhossoh!”
The words somehow tumbled off of her tongue at the exact moment that Astral strained utterance of them. A last remnant of the connection they shared – the words that Regina had found, that Astral knew were locked away, unable to attain on his own, from desperation.
He squeezed her little paw tight between his hoof, and at once, a duvet of icy warmth enveloped Regina in glittering streams of wavering ivy. The streams slithered around her limbs and face like loose, translucent coils, and she watched as Astral reclined peacefully amidst a similar envelopment as the arrow in his chest wiggled free from his torso, and clattered to the dirt. All pain vanished from Regina’s body, leaving only tingling warmth crawling across her paw digits, and toes, and nose, and ears, and flesh, and fur. Fear became peace. She took in a deep breath of air, and let out a deep sigh of reprieve.
Regina watched Astral rise, and instinctively reached up at him. He took Regina under the arms and helped her up to stand. She hugged him tightly, her mind still a punch-drunken whirlwind of everything that had just happened. Love for Astral bloomed in her heart, and as she started to utter the words, it was Astral who beat her to the punch.
“Thank you, Regina. You have no idea … thank you.”
His arms squeezed tight around her little body. She nestled her cheek against Astral’s portly belly and snuggled deep into his mud-spattered robes, taking in great whiffs of his essence, of the Life and Mana Energies that flowed within and all around their bodies. Regina could sense the Energies, could feel them flowing through her veins and between her ears.
Something deep within her soul had sparked from this event. Something she had never known before had now awakened within her. Maybe it was the connection Astral shared with her. Maybe it was everything. But it was from this moment on that the universe had declared that never, ever, would Regina Lepue be the same little skunk again.
“…Die! Die! … Die!!”
Regina drew her face to the side, crushing her cheek against Astral’s stomach. Her hazy eyes aligned with the horizon, blurry and mashed all together like the acrylics of a painter’s tray. She blinked. Things focused a little. Something appeared on the other side of the road. A small mound of moving limbs, thrusting up and down. Up and down. Dwain’s voice cried out over and over.
“Die! … Die!!!”
Astral’s embrace slacked around her. And then everything became clear. The blood in Regina’s cheeks drained to the tips of her toes. She drew away from Astral’s embrace.
“Regina, don’t…”
But she ignored him, pulled completely away, stumbling forward on numb limbs. With each step forward, the commotion slowly solidified before her very eyes. Spines. Crouching. Arms, gripping around something. Something sharp. Glinting. Bloody. Raising. Stabbing down. Raising. Stabbing down. A limp arm splayed in the dirt, claws curled open skyward, bloodied with broken-off hedgehog quills. Legs and tail splayed in opposite directions, like a star-shape.
“Die! Die! Die!”
Regina’s eyes focused completely. Dwain was straddled over the muskrat, thrusting into his body in a relentless, mindless, storm of knife strokes. Trepidation grew within Regina with each cautious step she took towards Dwain. He was lost in a blind rage, each downward motion more hastened and hate-filled than the last.
No, this wasn’t Dwain, though. In this moment, Dwain no longer existed. For what appeared before Regina, even though she didn’t quite understand it, was a creature made of emotionally raw desolation. What she was seeing – this was pure agony of a thousand injustices, a pure volcanic outpour. The need to let the demons free in a way that no wheda should ever succumb to.
“Dwain…?”
He hesitated. In that very moment, as the knife started to come down for maybe the hundredth time, the sound of Regina’s voice, the quiet fright in her tone, caused Dwain Spikeclaw to freeze in mid-drop. His shoulders sagged forward, trembled.
“Dwain…!”
Regina rushed forward and slid her arms around his body in a great big hug. She found his paw. It was hot and sticky with Life Energy that was not his. Dwain dropped the knife, slid his other paw against Regina’s. He melted into her embrace then, the volcano in his heart subsided to great torrents of agony. His head tilted back as he let out a long groan of pain, and as Regina did her best to rock him, to try to ensure that the nightmare was now finally over, he clutched at her paws, let his chin drop as the agony in his heart superseded rage. All of the sadness he’d pushed way down for the sake of stoic bravery had erupted to the surface.
Regina held him close, crushed her cheek against his back. She wanted to tell him everything was okay. She wanted to take away the anguish that now wracked his body in violent tremors. But she closed her eyes to the urge and let Dwain howl for the deaths of his loved ones, weep for the destruction of all that he and Regina had ever known.
There was no place in the world safer than Altus Village. But not even it was shielded from brutal reality. And now, Altus was gone, and everything they’d known and loved was gone, with it.
Though Altus Village was their world for all their life, it was not the wider world. Regina realized this now. The wider world was not safe, nor guarded by the laws of the Mother Azna, where the threat of power-starved canines kept children up at night, and grownups whispering in secret.
In the
wider world, wheda killed other wheda. In the wider world, danger lurked around each and every corner. No place was safe. In the wider world, the blessing of the wind was a thing of pure luck. Because the truth of the matter was that the wider world was a feral world. And in a feral world, all that mattered to a mammal’s livelihood was survival.
Pure and hateful survival.
14. Astral’s Vow
They found the cart alone and toppled on its side, with all their precious produce trampled and muddied in the road, not but a kilometre down the path from where Phalanx Andromedon had escaped for his life. The mule – as far as the eye could see – was nowhere in sight, smell, nor sound.
“Damn.” Astral let out a controlled sigh and rose to a stand after inspecting a smattering of ruined carrots now floating amidst a murky puddle near the middle of the road. He took another whiff off the wind, but there was only the smell of the blood that stained his robes and the remnants of Regina’s fear that clung without mercy to everything like a reeking protective dome.
He turned on one hoof to face the children. They stared at him a few feet up the road, huddled shivering and scared, unsure of this strange world around them, and the evil it offered behind its walls of firs and sycamores.
The mere sight of them raked pain over Astral’s heart. This was the last thing they deserved to bear witness to. I vowed to keep them safe, but despite good intentions, the universe has called my bluff to keep them blind to further danger…
“Oh, bother…”
Astral looked around until he found the blanket Dwain had used to hide beneath, crumbled and filthy by the rear of the semi-capsized wagon cart. He picked it up, unfolded it at the corners as wide as his arms would go, and flapped the excess mud and grass, and vegetable guts off, like a whip. He then cleanly folded the blanket over one arm and hobbled back towards the children.
Regina was massaging Dwain’s slumped and trembling shoulders the best she could without pricking herself on his spines. As Astral drew near, she lifted her chin at him. Sad and confused eyes penetrated Astral. Dwain’s own gaze had fallen, staring off into the nothingness of his own broken mind.
The Book of Wind: (The Quest for the Crystals #1) Page 10
