by Emma Hamm
Lydia was growing tired. But there was work to be done, people to save, a world to recreate, and she couldn’t rest just yet.
Her consciousness twisted and twined until she was barely alive. Time was her veins, her mind was the blood. Her heart pulsed with all the knowledge the world had to share, and still it was not enough.
She couldn’t fix the festering disease. Hatred and fear won consistently although she was helping in marginal degrees. She didn’t know how much more she could do, but she couldn’t stop until she found that one diamond in the rough which could help.
A strand of the past reached out a sticky string. They rarely touched her or even attempted to capture her attention. The past was certainly useful, but Lydia was caught up in preventing a future.
This strand differed from the others. It smelled familiar, the faintest hint of pomegranate sending a shiver down her spine. This wasn’t just any past thread.
It was Pitch’s.
She shouldn’t pry. Journals and books were one thing, but prying into his actual past? It was such an invasion of privacy that she wasn’t certain she could look him in the eye afterwards.
If she had been in her physical body, she would have bitten her lip as she stared at temptation. Would he mind? Pitch was usually forthcoming if she asked him a question about his past or where he came from. Surely, he wouldn’t begrudge her trying to find out more about him?
He had lived centuries. There wasn’t enough time in the world to tell her everything he had lived through. Perhaps there were a few tidbits of useful information. She could find out what happened in the previous dimension so she knew what to look for in the future. She could see what Sil was like through his eyes although she already had a clear picture of what that would look like.
Her mind didn’t reach for the pulsating darkness with clear purpose. She reached with curiosity because he was a book she had not yet read. Lydia had never been able to avoid satisfying her curiosity.
The darkness swept through her. It yanked her out of the cool nothing of Time and deposited her swiftly onto a cliff’s edge.
She caught herself on the harsh stone. A stinging ache in her palms suggested this was no normal trip into the Past. Time stretched thin here, combining present and future in one painful conglomerate Lydia could not control.
Strands of her white hair slid over her shoulder and dangled thousands of feet above the ground. The darkness was an open maw before her, clouds brushing against the sheer edge of the mountain top and Dragons crying out below her.
This was not her world, at least not one she recognized.
“So this is the old dimension,” she said. She did not let go of the edge. Exhilaration thrummed through her veins, making her heart race with the threat of danger.
“You’re here.”
Lydia jumped, the stones slicing into her palms as she spun, teetering dangerously at the edge.
Standing behind her was the Goddess she had been watching for so long. Sil in all her glory, golden and burning so bright she was blinding.
“Are you-” Lydia stammered, “are you talking to me?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t think we could talk with each other.”
“In a way, we cannot. This is our first and last true conversation.”
There was a difference in listening to a goddess and conversing with one, Lydia realized. Sil’s voice had always been laced with power. But all her attention was focused upon Lydia now. The strength of the sound pushed hard on Lydia’s psyche. If she had not been prepared for it, she might have gone mad.
“It’s an honor.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for you,” Sil whispered. “I know you have struggled with loneliness your entire life. I would have liked to live with you.”
“Pitch would have liked that as well.” Lydia felt as though it had to be said. The man was practically standing between them.
“He would have. But it was not the right choice for him, nor I.”
Lydia’s brow wrinkled. “Choice?”
“You’ve already learned that our existence is based off of choices. We are not like the others. Everything I have ever done was a choice for someone else. To better my world, to get you to this point, to prove to Pitch that souls always find each other in the end.”
“Except yours didn’t,” Lydia pointed out. “My soul took its place. And I don’t mind being second best, really I don’t. It’s just… If the lesson you wanted to teach him was that your souls would find each other, they didn’t. He guarded you for centuries and you left him.”
“I should have known it would be you to call me to task for that.”
Sil walked forward, the golden light of her power dimming. By the time she reached Lydia’s side, she was little more than a mortal.
This close, Lydia could see what plagued the glorious goddess.
“You’re tired,” Lydia said.
“I am infinitely tired. I cannot keep saving the world only to see it fall apart all over again.”
“I know that look. I’ve seen it in Pitch too.”
“He is exhausted, but there is much more he can give.” Sil shook her head. “He lost himself, after he lost me. You found him in the darkness he had created, even I could not have done that. I knew you were the perfect choice when you did that.”
“I did nothing. I laid in my bed and slept most of the time.”
“That’s the funny thing about love, it blooms even in our weakest moments.”
Lydia didn’t know what to say. She didn’t think Pitch loved her although she had always thought it could grow. They had created a kind of steadfast trust between them. She considered that just as valuable as true love.
But she wasn’t here to argue, and she could see Sil fading before her eyes.
“Oh, please don’t go,” Lydia cried out. “There are so many questions I want to ask.”
“There is nothing I can answer which he cannot.”
“Why do you love him?”
The question flew from her mouth, bursting like a bubble before Sil.
“I-” it was the goddess’s turn to stammer. Her eyes widened in surprised. “Do you really not know?”
“I’m not sure even he knows.”
“He saw a monster inside himself, but I saw a man who would bend heaven and rip stars from the sky just to see me smile.”
“Thank you,” Lydia said. “Thank you for being honest with me.”
“I wish you the best of luck.”
Sil faded from the past, present, and future. She exploded into bursts of stars that soared into the sky and solidified themselves among her brethren. The only lingering essence of her magic remained deeply embedded within Lydia’s own chest.
Gravel crunched behind her and a few rocks cracked against the mountain as they tumbled off the ledge. This was just the beginning of the goddess’s last lesson, Lydia realized.
She was on the edge already, kneeling still on her knees. Perhaps it had been in supplication. It was the appropriate position for one to take when a goddess was giving direction.
She pivoted, looked over her shoulder to find what she was afraid to see.
Pitch. But not Pitch at all.
Shadows threaded over his shoulders in a great cloak of midnight. His hair was long, billowing in a breeze she did not feel. His hands were tipped in blackened claws, the shadows ringing his neck and wrists like manacles.
He was consumed by the madness within him. His eyes swirled with power and rage, their gaze piercing as they cut toward her. Lydia knew he could not see her, he was in the past and she the present. Still she flinched back.
Meeting those turbulent eyes was like looking into eye of a storm. He wanted to hurt something.
Alone, he stared down into the void of darkness below them and flexed his hands.
“Sisters. Brothers.” His voice echoed. “Come to me.”
They had been waiting for his approval to join him. They slithered up the mountain,
pooling at his feet like puppies. Their dark masses quivered in anticipation of his next words.
“Our work is complete,” Pitch said.
“It is,” one of his siblings crowed. “We have nearly drained ourselves of power. The Dark creatures will overpower the light, and soon we shall see nothing but night.”
“This was how the world was meant to be,” another sibling called out. “You have helped us to see the true meaning of our lives, brother. You have surpassed our expectations.”
Lydia pressed her hands to her mouth. She held back the whimpers as Pitch stood to his great height. A crown of mirror shards jammed into his skull, reflecting his own shadows upon his siblings.
“We have destroyed this world,” he said. “That is my gift to you.”
One of his siblings coiled up from the crowd, a thick strand of darkness pressed against his cheek in a mock caress. “And our gift was removing that woman who made you so weak. You are stronger because she is no longer here. Look at what you have done! Look at how much power you have.”
It was the wrong to say. Pitch lurched forward, wrapped a hand around the shadow, and all hell broke loose.
A storm erupted from her shadow man. No, Lydia decided. Not a storm at all, he did not control the elements. Pitch became a celestial body of ragged bones and nebulous clouds which swirled around his siblings. He created a cage of his body and the key was his power.
His voice echoed around them. It was the harsh beat of an owl’s wings, the steady rhythm of a drum, the cracking ache of metal striking stone.
“A life for a life. The end of all things for the destruction of my world. I rip from you power. I tear from you control. I claw from you life. I consume everything you are!”
“No,” Lydia moaned. “No, please tell me you did not do this!”
She watched his magic shred theirs. Bits and pieces of inky darkness flew into the air only to be caught by Pitch’s night sky magic. The Dark Five had never died, she realized.
He had eaten them.
She spun away, her mind splintering with the knowledge she should not have. The shadows she had seen sinking into his skin. The pain on his face when he allowed them to tear into him. The taste of ink on her tongue.
That was not him. None of that was Pitch, it was his siblings. They were harming him even now.
Lydia couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t take in a complete breath and she didn’t know if it was the overwhelming horror of his moment or if she was dying. Her physical body was still weak. She could die in Time and be stuck reliving this moment over and over again.
“I can’t do this!” She screamed.
A feeling compelled her to turn around. Though she didn’t want to see this madness any longer, she also knew she had to see this through to completion.
She loved him. Every twisted, mangled piece of him. Every bit that had been torn apart by time and life and love. He needed her to see this, to bear this burden for all of eternity with him.
Lydia turned and looked his last remaining sibling in the eyes. The swirling mass was a weak column before her, but she heard its voice loud and clear.
“You will never be strong enough.”
Pain exploded behind her eyes. In the Past, she’d reeled, plummeted off the edge of the cliff. In the Present, Lydia pressed the heels of her hands against her eye sockets and screamed.
Pitch wandered through the twilight, the street quiet all around him. Wolfgang settled into the crypt as though he had preparing to live among the dead all his life. Magicians always were a strange lot. He shouldn’t have been surprised that the boy was pleased with the living arrangements.
Still, a little surprise had seeped through his veins. The crypt hadn’t been cleaned in years. Skeletons lined the walls. It was a dangerous place with grave robbers always wanting to see if a beloved had left a priceless heirloom behind.
Wolfgang hadn’t minded at all. He shrugged when Pitch mentioned the dangers and said it would be a good way to practice his dark arts.
“Magicians,” he said with a snort.
One of these days, he would give up trying to understand magical creatures. They took on minds of their own after they were created. Pitch couldn’t control them if they didn’t want to be controlled.
It was too soon for him to return to Lydia. Pitch didn’t have a reason why he felt that way, every fiber of his being wanted to see her. But a gut instinct told him to stay away if only for a few moments longer.
The strength of the emotions he felt for her made him nervous. He had been bitten many times over although Sil had been the worst of all. And that woman was inside her, a constant reminder of love lost and his own failure.
She had taken his darkness. She had pulled away his angst and pain, absorbing it into herself. The blackness had oozed out of her, dripped down her chin, and he felt himself break.
Pitch didn’t want to corrupt her. He hadn’t wanted to corrupt Sil either. She was meant to stay golden and bright although Lydia was different. She had taken Sil’s power and turned it into something else. Where Sil had been the sun, Lydia was the moon.
He rubbed his hand over the space where her vial once had swung. He still missed it. The closeness of having another soul against his skin had been comforting. It had helped keep his own nightmarish desires at bay.
The city streets were strangely quiet. Perhaps families had felt danger in the air. Pitch could. It was the strange combination of static leftover from Wolfgang’s rage, and the foreboding taste of Pitch’s magic.
Most of the creatures left over were made by the Light Five, and they had always sensed a predator in their midst.
He wandered the city, his feet finding their own path as his thoughts tangled. He might have continued aimlessly if he hadn’t recognized a charge of power.
It wasn’t strong, like Wolfgang’s. It wasn’t sweet, like a Blue Blood. It wasn’t even dark like a Black Blood.
It was his own magic that called out to him.
Brow furrowed, he made a sharp turn down a street he did not know. He rarely left the comfort of the blocks he controlled. But he was curious to find the creature who had licked his senses and left the lingering taste of mulled wine.
Pitch didn’t notice her at first. He wasn’t looking for an imposing figure, a twisted body, or even a mass of magic. He hadn’t expected the little girl huddled at the very end of the alley.
She was scrunched up so tight that many people might have thought she was a pile of garbage. Ratty clothing hung from her body in threadbare strands. Her feet were bare and bloody. Her fingernails dug into her arms, dirty and broken nails he knew would cause infection if she broke skin.
He wished he was as evil as he liked to pretend. Sighing, Pitch slid down the wall of a neighboring building until he sat upon the ground. A cigar appeared out of thin air in his hand, already glowing at the end.
A deep inhalation of the magic smoke did little to calm his nerves. Since when had he become a babysitter? He wasn’t the best choice to look after the next generation.
But here he was. Seated on the ground next to a frightened little girl with a cigar in his hand, wondering how he would approach this conversation.
“Why are you afraid?” Pitch settled on starting with.
She sniffed and tucked herself into a tighter ball. Her hair was as black as his shadows. The length of it reached her waist, but was so tangled he wondered if she might need to cut it all off.
“It’s far too pretty a night to be afraid.” He took in a deep breath of smoke, releasing it with controlled puffs. Rings floated into the air, dissolving when he sent a shadow to twist through it.
“I don’t know where my home is.” Her voice was so tiny he almost didn’t hear it.
“Ah,” he nodded. “That is frightening indeed. Do you know where you came from?”
She clenched her arms so tight they turned stark white.
“Or not. You don’t have to answer my questions now. You can wait until you feel comfo
rtable.”
The whisper of his own magic tingled on his skin. Pitch frowned, turning his head to stare at the little girl. She was muttering to herself. Or perhaps not to herself at all since the other voice coming out of her mouth was far too deep to be a little girl.
“Do you have someone else with you?” he asked.
“No.”
“It sounds like you do.”
Her posture changed. Slumped shoulders squared, she released her hold on her arms and planted her fists against the ground. She looked over her shoulder with such a rage filled expression he might have missed her eyes if he hadn’t been looking for it.
White eyes.
There was no creature in the world quite like that, at least, he had thought there were none left. This tiny girl housed a creature inside her who was so rare, even Pitch didn’t know it existed.
“Ah,” he muttered. “So that’s what you are.”
“You do not know who we am,” the voice was one of thousands. Layers of tormented voices piled on top of each other, screaming, crying, shouting, and whispering. Each a fragment of a person who had once been alive. Each a soul caught within the vast expanse of its mind.
“I didn’t think a little girl could house you.”
“And what do you think we are?”
“I am not so old that I have forgotten you. Legion.”
The girl blinked. He saw the faintest hint of her natural color before her eyes flipped back in her head once more and he stared into milky whiteness.
“Who are you?”
He didn’t have to answer the question. Pitch was satisfied that the little girl was well taken care of. Thousands of souls could keep one little one safe. But the Legion inside her was a call to a different time.
Thick tendrils of shadow coiled from his body and reached for the little girl. They slithered upon the ground, wrapped around her ankles, and seeped underneath her skin. He knew what the creature inside her gleaned from him.
Pitch had more memories than any other creature alive. He was one man, but had lived hundreds of lifetimes. It would feel the death the loved ones, it would feel the rage of battle, but most importantly, it would feel the exhilaration after creation.
