by Sarah Chorn
She felt something deep inside crack and knew what it was to be at war. She was facing off against herself across a battlefield of scarred soul, and she wasn’t sure how this particular campaign would end.
She was alone. Alone in a world that was both dying, and being reborn.
She wanted to break apart, to fragment and shatter. She studied Eyad. Her heart hurt. She was mourning, but she wasn’t sure what she was mourning yet. Neryan. Gods above and below, where was her brother? “Have you ever loved?” She asked the man who thought he owned her. In this moment, they were just people staring at each other from broken bodies.
“Love?” Eyad asked. “I suppose I have loved the same way fire loves a dry forest. It isn’t a soft emotion, Seraphina. It is not tender. My love consumes.” He coughed, a low rattle in his chest. He leaned heavily on the wall and dabbed at his lips with a kerchief. It came away bloody. A guard eyed him from the doorway, worry etched on his features.
There was a certain power in asking a question, in wondering and chasing an answer. She’d never asked him anything personal before, but she had to know. He’d been so aloof all the time she’d known him, but there had been flashes of a man under that mantle of power and leadership he wore. Had the man loved? Was he capable of understanding what it was to lose his other half, the way she had with Neryan just now?
Did he know pain?
She wanted to acquaint him with it.
His answer felt like a caress, a whispered dream, or a naked hope. Raw and real, but ultimately empty. As empty as she felt. All she could see was Eyad, his wan face, and how suddenly, incredibly human he was. Not a man in power. Not a man with the world at his fingertips, but a very sick person, wanting something that was far beyond even his grasp. Neryan was gone, and Eyad might as well have been exposing his soul to her. All that water was pouring through the window, the storm was raging, and her brother was somehow everywhere and nowhere at once and it was all suddenly too much. This moment was smothering her.
She tried to stand again, but her legs gave out on the slippery floor and she landed with a bone-jarring thump and a splash that made her bite back a wail of pain as her back hit the wall, and her leg twisted awkwardly beneath her. Agony painted the world scarlet.
It was the pain that did it.
The wound she’d been harboring deep inside, the one she had been holding together for years with willpower alone, finally split open just enough for the fire demon buried beneath to rise up.
It was hungry.
She was hungry and Eyad was looking so shockingly vulnerable. It was hard to hate someone who was just as broken as she was. For a moment, she was overwhelmed by the texture of the world. The soft, covering up all that hard. She felt like she was wearing the universe backward. She dipped her toe into the pool of infinity, took a breath, and jumped. Forever slid over her skin. Stars wove themselves into her hair. She wore the world on a string around her neck. The sun and the moon, earrings.
That darkness inside of her was waking up, and when it did, she would move mountains.
Seraphina rose, burning. The Lady of Fire roared to the surface. She was nothing but instinct and will, and a hunger that was deeper than night.
Eyad’s eyes filled with fear.
She reached out a finger…
Premier Eyad
He pressed himself against the wall across from Seraphina, and heard someone shout, “Seraphina, no!”
A bolt of lightning shot across the tiny space, splitting it in half, pinning Eyad on one side and Seraphina on the other, hanging between them like a sizzling fence. The gout of fire she’d shot at him slammed into the lightning, making contact and hissing before gutting out. Vadden, or the form that had once been Vadden, filled the doorway. Seraphina’s orange eyes fixed on him, leaving Eyad to wonder if he would be the first person to see what happened when gods went to war.
“You cannot hurt him.” Vadden’s voice was different now. Like thunder, full of lightning.
“You cannot stop me, Storm Lord,” Seraphina hissed, except she wasn’t Seraphina anymore. This woman’s voice was deeper, thicker, crackling at the edges like it was smoldering. It sounded like all the notes of the inferno given words.
“I can, because you are just wearing a mask, and I am Becoming. I am stronger than you right now, and he is mine to do with as I please. You will grant me this boon, Seraphina. I have claimed him, and I own him.” Then, as though the argument was over, the lightning snapped from the room, the blinding brilliance fading. Outside, it sounded like a tornado had been unleashed on the city, but in this room, for just a moment, all was quiet and still, like the eye of the hurricane. “Stay outside,” Vadden hissed at the guards who had followed him through the door, swords bared to the world.
“Go,” Eyad said to them. “Wait in the hall. He won’t hurt me.”
He hoped that was true.
“Vladimir,” Eyad whispered once the men left. His heart thumped harder, almost painfully. To the rest of the world he was Vadden, the revolutionary pseudonym he’d assumed when they’d first started their subversive, secret work. To Eyad, to his heart, he’d always be Vladimir.
Outside, a year’s worth of rain was falling in a deluge, washing the city away.
That was love, wasn’t it? A storm above and a war below, souls being torn apart by forces beyond their control. Fates twined together in a uniquely exquisite torture.
Death by a thousand delicate cuts.
Slowly, Vadden turned and faced him, Seraphina forgotten for the moment. After ten years, he’d hardly aged. He looked amazing—tall and strong, unbent by either time or hardship. He wore lightning on his skin and storms in his eyes. Their gaze met across a field painted crimson with blood and shadowed by lives lost, a tapestry strewn by too much time apart and far too many casualties.
It didn’t have to be like this. It never had to be like this.
“You have hurt me ten thousand different ways!” Eyad suddenly shouted, years of emotion bursting out of him in a torrent that rivaled the storm around them. “You have stolen all of my blood and replaced it with this aching emptiness. Love is the only thing that can kill a person, and keep them alive enough to feel that death at the same time. I am tired of this half-life. This, between us, must end. Tonight.”
Lightning sliced through the palace, touching down, landing in Vadden’s palm as though it belonged there. He just looked at Eyad, didn’t move or speak; he just blinked and stared at him like he wasn’t a man, but an obtuse project, something to study. It was like Vadden saw through him, past his skin, to his withered, puckered soul, or what remained of it.
He’d never been so afraid in his life. The light hurt his eyes. His fear made his heart shudder in his chest.
“I had always thought love was supposed to be selfless,” Vadden finally said.
“Love is not selfless! Love is the most selfish force on the planet. I would rip apart the world for you!” Eyad roared.
“You already have,” Vadden murmured. He was a stalking god, more animal than man. “Or have you not seen what you have reduced your subjects to? Have you not heard how they eat their children to survive?”
Suddenly, the storm outside went silent, like an indrawn breath, with Eyad backed up against the wall, and Vadden, panting as though he’d just climbed a mountain. His eyes were unnatural. Surreal. The eyes of a god. His dreadlocks danced around his shoulders as though they were snakes with minds of their own. The lightning bolt on his cheek almost glowed.
“Love is a poison and you drank it all up,” Vadden shouted, making Eyad’s ears ring. “Then you wrapped the world in darkness and good intentions. It is no easy thing to carry the moon in a world with no light. I did what I could to keep something illuminated for the people you were supposed to serve.”
“Vadden—” Seraphina hollered. Her cry, it hurt his ears, bit into them, made them bleed. That wasn’t a human cry. “Vadden! Something is happening to me!”
“Not now, Seraphina,
” he barked without so much as glancing at her, completely uninterested in whatever she was going through.
“Vadden!” She shouted again. She sounded like she was dying. Eyad closed his eyes, clapped his hands over his ears. “Vadden! I am breaking apart!”
“Seraphina, stop!” Vadden shouted, his eyes flicking to the side, finally noticing her again.
And shockingly, she did. She just stopped, went silent and still, face pale, eyes clenched shut, jaw clamped tight. She’d locked herself down tight and looked to be barely holding herself together. She absolutely terrified Eyad, but Vadden seemed unmoved. With him here, Eyad felt somewhat protected. He wouldn’t let Seraphina harm him. Vadden wanted that pleasure for himself.
“You have killed,” Vadden said, staring at Eyad, “so many.”
“And how many people have you killed tonight, Vadden?” Eyad motioned outside. “How many innocents have you drowned, struck by lightning, or washed away? I killed a child, an heir to a throne that had oppressed us for hundreds of years. You levelled an entire city. You think I am terrible? You came here to stop me? Confront me? To carve me out of the world? You cannot snuff out evil, for the darkness you seek to be rid of lives inside of you. We are not so different, you and I. You were just better at hiding it.” He smirked, satisfaction washing through him.
“I—” Vadden began.
“If love was a fire, then I gave everything to it,” Eyad said. “I burnt it all up, never once thinking about what I was throwing away as long as it kept burning. I loved you until I was nothing but a trembling body and empty hands held over cold ashes.” It hurt to breathe. He tasted blood in his mouth. “You are not innocent. You left me. You were a coward and you walked away. You remained a coward because you never came back, never faced me until now, years later.”
He tried to take a step forward then, but his body had been taxed to its limit. He forgot that he was nothing more than a crumbling bundle of bones held together by exhausted skin. He was barely holding onto life. He fell, collapsed in a heap on the floor, his heart beating painfully, his head ringing with thoughts. Thunder boomed, shaking the walls. He laughed. It was a harsh, barking sound.
“You’ll be free soon, Seraphina,” he spat in her direction.
“You’re dying,” Vadden said matter-of-factly. Eyad couldn’t tell what those words hid, but it was complex and deep; two words, and a universe of emotion. They hung like an anchor around his neck.
“The poison,” Eyad admitted, “has no antidote. I should like to die with you beside me.”
Vadden closed his eyes, squeezed them tight, and breathed deep.
“Let him die,” Seraphina snarled at Vadden. “It’s easiest this way. Then neither of us have to do it, and he goes naturally. Let his putrid heart burst.”
She glared at Eyad, a world of resentment in her orange eyes. Her skin wasn’t smoking anymore. Fire wasn’t licking down her body like it had been, but she was a coiled power, ready and waiting. He could feel it in the air around her, the smell of char and the promise of pain. She looked like torment, eager for a lover.
“Evgeny.” Vadden knelt on the floor beside him, using his birthname. It felt like a blessing. His eyes were still white, lightning still forking through them, but he’d shucked off his immortality. He was a man again.
Evgeny.
With that name, his husband had turned back time. He wasn’t Vadden now, he was Vladimir, a man he’d loved before any of this had ever happened. The clock that doled out the years wound back, and they weren’t strangers, or mired in emotion and complexities, but two young men, in love, ready to take on the world and be the change they wanted to see.
“Tell me what happened, Eyad.”
“I was poisoned and it’s eating me up inside. It’s almost over. All of it. It’s interesting timing that you tear the world apart right as I am preparing to die.”
A look of unfathomable pain crossed Vadden’s face, creasing his eyes, flattening his mouth. “I hate you for what you’ve done,” he finally whispered.
“I suppose I deserve that.”
“Kill him, or let him die,” Seraphina whispered. She was almost pleading, her voice so full of pain it hurt to hear. Vadden’s eyes left his, and met hers, something dark swimming in their depths. A moment passed while the two of them studied each other. Tension thickened.
“Kill him!” Seraphina yelled. “Or let me do it. This must end, Vadden. This has to end! I cannot live in a world with him in it.”
Vadden closed his eyes, bent his head, and looked torn in half. Eyad lay on the floor, watching while his fate was decided. It was impossible to move. He’d strained himself too hard today, pushed too far, wanted too much. He wasn’t the man he used to be. Now his heart was pounding in his chest, and everything felt too tight. He wondered if this is what it was to have a heart attack, this choking, crushing, emotionally charged feeling that was both drowning and strangling him at the same time. His vision was going dark around the edges, and he knew that he would die soon. His heart would burst in an explosion of blood and passion, and that would be the end of him. That little assassin hadn’t killed him as quickly as he’d wanted, but dead was dead, and soon the world would be rid of him.
“Kill him!” Seraphina yelled again. He could hear the tears in her words, the pure desperation, and the moment when she realized that everything, absolutely everything, was going to happen differently than she’d anticipated. He knew that betrayal was carving a path through her as all of this sank in. She’d come this far, only to be thwarted by her ally.
He felt Vadden’s arms under his body, lifting him gently.
“You will not interfere, Seraphina,” Vadden said. “You hold fire, but I have embraced the storm. You haven’t broken. You haven’t survived. You are nothing to me right now but a gnat.”
“Vadden,” she breathed. Eyad felt Vadden’s arms hold him tight, heard his heartbeat against his ear, strong and steady. Smelled the scent of ozone on him, and the man underneath. So much was changing. Everything was changing. His husband wasn’t the man he used to be, but now, in his arms, all that mattered was that they were together again.
“Tell me one last lie,” Eyad whispered.
“I love you,” Vadden replied. And if it was a lie, at least it was a beautiful one.
“Vadden!” Seraphina cried, her voice carving out a path of betrayal that would char the heavens themselves. He looked over and saw smoke coming off her body, saw her eyes flash orange, and the woman hiding underneath briefly took shape. Seraphina flickered, overwhelmed by the Lady of Fire.
She was regal, and as cold as she was hot. Her eyes shone with hunger, and her flame was eager to devour. She would burn them all to the ground. She was not a saving grace, but a destroying goddess. She was nothing but anger and an appetite that would require lots of feeding to satisfy.
Maybe he was glad he would die before she changed.
“Vadden!” she cried, her voice turning multi-tonal, at once high pitched, and yet so low it hurt his ears. He felt something in them burst and his head was full of painful ringing. His heart shuddered in his chest. He bit his tongue and tasted blood. Vadden’s eyes flashed to storm before he turned on Seraphina.
“You are close, Seraphina, but you are still holding onto your skin. You can wear all the anger you want, but you cannot hope to stand against me as you are. Evgeny is mine, and I will deal with him as I please. Either ascend, or get out of my way.”
He’d never heard Vadden sound so frigid. His voice could bring snow from the skies, cover the mountains in ice, freeze the moon. His eyes flashed, and his hands dug painfully into Eyad’s bones.
Without another word Vadden carried him out the door, down the hall, past guards and other government workers, all of them moving with frightful purpose. Moving toward a flight of stairs. He didn’t look at him again, just looked straight ahead, his feet taking him forward, ever forward.
“Where are we going?” Eyad asked.
“Somewher
e else. Call off your guards.” Vadden answered.
“Go,” Eyad said to the two burly men trailing after them. His guards looked sick. They’d been fine just minutes ago, hale and healthy, well-fed, as all his personal guards were. But now they looked a step away from death, eyes bloodshot, lips cracked, skin wan. He watched as one of them tore off the sleeve of his uniform, and ate it. The other took one of the medals pinned to his chest, and shoved it in his mouth, swallowing hard. “Vadden, something is wrong. Something is happening.” He’d never seen anything like it. He watched as they ate, and ate, trailing after them, shoving everything they could into their mouth.
It was horrifying. Bone chilling. Unnatural. What was happening?
“It’s fine. I have you. He won’t affect you as long as I have you,” his husband said.
Who? Who could cause people to do this? And how was Vadden protecting him? It was too much. He closed his eyes, and then opened them, fixing them on the man holding him. He heard munching all around him, like the palace was full of people incessantly devouring. Before he could ask more questions, Vadden demanded his attention again.
“I hate you as much as I love you, Eyad. How is it possible to be torn in half like this? You shot an arrow into my soul, and I have never healed. I’ve spent the past ten years trying to fill myself up with something, anything, that would make this hole in my heart make sense—but it hasn’t worked. All I was left with was a gaping wound, raw and empty, and a severed soul. You broke me. I thought love was supposed to heal, but yours destroyed.”
There was nothing he could say to that. It was true. They had broken each other. Vadden had run away with his heart, and Eyad had kept Vadden’s soul.
“You deserve to die, you know,” Vadden continued.
“Yes, I know,” Eyad replied. He’d done horrible things, and while he believed in all of them, believed that sometimes the ends justified the means, he knew people had suffered and he had blood on his hands. Vadden turned a corner, and suddenly they were outside. The storm that had torn Lord’s Reach apart was gone. Stars winked overhead, the sky a diamond-covered dress. Why hadn’t he ever noticed how beautiful the world was? Bare branches, black outlines in the dark of night, reached like fingers toward a sky full of diamonds and dreams. A gasp escaped his lips as Vadden set him gingerly on the ground. Soon, he’d be memories, dust, and wind, but for now…
