by Sarah Chorn
“Fine,” Vadden hissed, obviously forfeiting this particular struggle to the stronger man. “But this, between us, is not over.”
“Oh,” the man smiled, and it made Eyad sick to see that curl of his lips, the knowing gleam in his eyes. “I know.”
The earth suddenly released Vadden and he moved across the room with deliberate steps, appearing beside Eyad again, muscles tense, eyes pinned on the stranger, tracking his every movement.
“Why did you do this?” Vadden demanded. His hands were balled at his sides, muscles tensed, jaw flexing. Lighting flashed down his arms, but it wasn’t as bright nor as powerful as it had been before, a spark to an inferno and the effort it took Vadden to even call that much was obvious in the sweat beading his brow. “He was my brother!”
“It had to be done,” the stranger replied with a shrug. “And you best tuck your lightning away, Storm Lord. You haven’t fully ascended yet, and you’re in my barrow, not yours. You have no power here. It is the nature of things.”
Questions. He had so many questions and not enough life left to ask any of them.
“Who are you?” Vadden shouted, his neck straining, muscles flexing in his arms. He looked like he wanted to punch something, but he wasn’t sure what to hit first.
“You may call me Lyall,” the man replied. He cocked his head to the side and smiled. “You are all converging. You’re almost together. It’s wonderful, isn’t it? I’ve never had a group make it this far before.”
“What are you talking about?” Vadden asked. “I am sick unto death of these riddles!” Eyad watched as Lyall walked slowly across the room toward them.
Instead of answering, he crouched down and studied Eyad. “You have no idea, do you? You think you’re dying, and I suppose this body is, but you haven’t had a clue about any of this this entire time, have you? You’ve been so lost in the minds of others, you haven’t heard me at all.”
That’s right. He hadn’t heard anything. When Vadden wanted to go to the source of the voice, he hadn’t given it a moment’s thought. He was with Vadden again, and too weak to fight. He hadn’t thought it strange that Vadden was talking about going down into the earth to confront a voice no one but he seemed able to hear. There hadn’t been time to ask questions about it. But he had said that, hadn’t he? He’d mentioned going down to the voice, and now they were here, in the bowels of the world with Neryan split open left lying there like yesterday’s dinner, in the middle of a room painted in blood and pictures from the past, facing a man neither of them had ever seen before.
“You started these events tonight,” Lyall continued, his eyes tracing up and down Eyad’s prone form. “Thank you.” Then he stood up again and walked away.
“It was you?” Vadden asked after him. “You’re the one I’ve been hearing?”
“The earth needed me to wake up, so I woke. I put the call into the soil. I am glad you came.”
“You killed Neryan,” Vadden roared, his voice echoing painfully off the walls of the barrow. “Or perhaps kill is too tame a word. You destroyed him! Split him open. You ended him.”
“I’ve already told you he’s not dead! I did what I had to do. Things end, Storm Lord. Everything ends. The seasons end, the rains end, a sentence ends, lives end. You may as well get used to it, for you will see a lot of endings before you find your barrow and rest your weary head. You might not understand now, but you will.” He waved a defiant finger in the air and shook his head, as if offended by the idea that they didn’t understand his reason, couldn’t see the world as he could. He was a child being chastised by parents. “She will Become, now. None of you can fully Become without the twins, and she was holding you back. With her brother here, like this, she won’t be able to stop the change. Can’t you feel it? Her fire? Her rage? It’s incredible!”
Eyad watched as Lyall inhaled, closed his eyes, and moaned, as if he’d just taken a mouthful of the most exquisite dish he’d ever tasted.
“I’ve been waiting so long for this,” Lyall whispered.
“Waiting for what?” Vadden shouted. Eyad noticed that the earth had wrapped around his feet, was holding him in place. All Vadden could do was shout and wave his arms in the air. Lyall had effectively neutralized him without even blinking.
“Only four of us survived our ascensions. Four. We’ve been half a host, less than half, really. That means we’ve all only been half of what we could be. Now, if all of you survive, we will all be what we are meant to be. The earth will have what she needs, and things will start over again, perfectly balanced, unlike the last few attempts. We all get a clean slate.” Lyall ran a hand through his hair, stared at the far wall, eyes scanning the drawing there. “I rested in my barrow until I was needed. My job tonight is to guide you through your final transitions. I am here to help, Storm Lord. It might not seem like it, but I am. I am very invested in all of you succeeding.”
Vadden snorted. “I don’t believe you. Only a monster could do something like that,” he waved a hand at Neryan’s corpse. “I will never forgive you for that.”
“I don’t care if you believe me. Save your energy. You’ll need it.”
There was a shift in the air, something subtle, but it moved over his skin, and he glanced around. He hoped Seraphina would arrive at last. Perhaps she would show up in a blaze of glory and she would be the one who killed him, rather than the poison he’d inhaled all that time ago. It would be a poetic death, he supposed, to find his end at the hands of a woman he’d kept on a silk leash, the woman he’d scarred and twisted in a fit of rage.
His torments had seemed so entertaining once. Not so much anymore. Not now that he was laying on the ground, wasting away.
“Two more are arriving!” Lyall crowed. He was victorious, positively radiating excitement, pacing around in circles, smiling like he’d just won a prize, shoulders thrown back, chest puffed out.
Eyad shifted a little, as much as he could tolerate, and saw a ripple along the far wall near the alter. A doorway appeared, and two people entered the room. No, one person and… something else. He narrowed his eyes. His heart beat so hard he could hardly hear anything over the sound of his pulse in his ears.
One of the figures was a girl. Not really a girl, he realized, but someone on the cusp of womanhood. She was unmarked. He watched as Vadden scanned the newcomers, and went tense all over. He knew them, or maybe he knew of them, that much was clear with the intensity of his gaze, the bunched muscles waiting to be let loose. He wanted to go to them, but he wouldn’t leave Eyad.
The other figure was a skeleton. He wanted to rub his eyes, but he couldn’t lift his hands. Surely not. The skeleton turned its head and seemed to survey the room with its sightless, hollow eyes. Eyad felt naked and exposed as its gaze passed over him. He’d never felt so seen in his life, as though everything that made him up had been observed, catalogued, and subsequently discarded.
“Mouse?” Vadden asked, the word sharp, a stabbing question. “Mouse, what are you doing here?”
“Vadden?” She darted toward him, but the skeleton was faster. His boney hand clamped down on her arm, holding her tight. She tried to shake him off, then gave up and sagged in his arms. “What is this place?”
Then her eyes moved away from Vadden, and toward the middle of the room.
When she saw Neryan, there was a beat of silence, and then she keened with her whole body, tears coursing down her cheeks. The skeleton held her firm, his skeletal form slowly melting, changing, until his flesh grew back and he was a man again. He was a man in the prime of his life, with the look of hard labor about him. He held onto Mouse tightly while she railed, keeping her beside him.
“Fire is coming,” Lyall said. “Slowly, but she’s coming. I can feel her. She’s burning everything down. It must be amazing.” His eyes were glassy. “It’s better that she gets most of her rage out above, better that we do most of this without her present.” He seemed to be talking to himself, muttering his thoughts as though he wasn’t aware he was
speaking out loud.
“It’s going to happen. Finally,” Lyall breathed.
Lyall fixed Eyad with his steady stare and said simply, “It’s time.”
It’s time. That’s all that he needed to say for cold dread to fill Eyad up and anxiety to tear him down. It was time. He could feel it. He was changing, too, wasn’t he? Not just dying, but also Becoming, only he’d Become somewhere else. His body was done.
It was time.
He knew what needed to happen.
Eyad wanted to say, “No one ever asked if we wanted this,” but he couldn’t. His lungs couldn’t capture air. The room dimmed, Mouse was crying, Seraphina was coming and his body was finished.
Then his heart gave out.
Mouse
She’d been nothing but a street kid, one more stray in a city full of them, until Neryan had found her. He’d carved his name into her heart, and now he was dead. Dead, his ribs open, sticking out like fingers in the dim light of that cold, impassive room.
It was wrong. So wrong. In her entire life, the only person she’d ever known she could completely trust was Neryan, and now he was gone. There was no world without him, no life without him in it.
Grief rose up, so raw and powerful it was overwhelming. The souls in her belly shifted violently, frantic fish swimming against the current of the truth.
Neryan was dead.
He was dead.
“Oh,” a stranger said. “How interesting. You weren’t expected.” He stared at her like she was a puzzle he couldn’t wait to figure out.
He didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but that body lying on the slab.
“Neryan!” She called, her voice echoing in the large room.
“Calm down!” the stranger was saying, but she couldn’t calm down. There was nothing calm about her anymore. What did he expect to happen when he ripped the sun from her sky? How did he think she would react when he’d taken all of her hope from her, and cut its heart out?
She broke into a run, but bony arms caught her. She struggled against the Bone Lord’s touch, but she couldn’t shake him off. He was incredibly strong for a skeleton.
“Let me go!” she howled. “Let me go!”
Overwhelmed by grief, choking on terror, she saw Vadden’s lips move, but she didn’t hear his words. She didn’t care what he had to say. She had no time for platitudes, for the comfortable worry and benign sorrow of adults. She couldn’t imagine a world without Neryan in it, his steady guiding presence there to light her way, or to lean against. What kind of world did she live in, where a man who had been so shining and golden could be hacked apart like a tree?
She slumped back against the Bone Lord and realized his bones was now covered in the new, perfect flesh of a man. She was about to turn and confront him when the man on the floor across the room took a rasping, catching breath and let it go in a heavy sigh. His eyes fixed on the ceiling, staring sightlessly at nothing.
“Eyad?” Vadden asked. “Eyad!”
“His body has died, you fool.” It was a stranger’s voice, one she’d only heard in her mind, coming from right behind her, the words so low they vibrated through her back. His speech accented in the sharp way of the east. Taub? “His heart stopped. The poison filled his blood. Couldn’t you see it? I’m surprised he lasted this long. That body’s story is over.”
Taub. How could he possibly know that? She looked at where he gripped her shoulders and saw dark brown, almost midnight black skin covering long, slender fingers. Panic surged through her, and she whipped around to face him. Things were happening, and she was trapped in the middle of it like an animal in a cage, only her cage was his impossibly strong fingers.
She twisted around and caught a glimpse of him. He was a man now, wrapped in skin as dark as Vadden’s, with black eyes and hair. He was covered in muscles earned by hard labor, and looked at her with eyes that seemed to see too much. He wasn’t the Bone Lord anymore. Or was he? He seemed to be both man and god. Like Vadden, he was too big for the room, there was too much of him. His skin was just a decoration, a convenience that gave him a voice.
“Eyad!” Vadden roared, his voice hitting the ceiling and then booming through the room like thunder. Sparks danced along his body going nowhere, beautiful but impotent. He shouted until he was a one-man howling storm pinned above the body of the man at his feet. She’d never seen him so out of control. It frightened her to see stoic, calm Vadden falling apart like that, barely contained.
And there she was, held tight by Taub, who was looking like a man, and a stranger all at once, with Neryan’s ribs sticking out like accusations before her. They were all she could see. Nobody should look like that.
Everything hurt. Parts of her she didn’t know could hurt, were hurting. Her heart. Her lungs. Her skin. Her hair. Everything. She was throbbing, one huge bruise, her heart pumping all that anguish into her system, so much of it she knew she’d never be able to feel it all.
Neryan. Neryan. Neryan.
She tried again to go to her father, but she couldn’t. Taub held her fast and she was no match for his strength. She was a mosquito stuck in a net she couldn’t shake off.
“This is why we’re here,” Taub said in a low voice, just for her. “Can’t you feel it?”
He sounded eager, even excited, and it set her teeth on edge. Vadden was sobbing like the world had ended, Neryan was dead, and Taub was positively vibrating with excitement.
She tried to fight him off, but she might as well have been trying to shake off a mountain. She closed her eyes, ignored her tears.
Vadden held his dead companion in his arms, pressing his lips to his brow, his cheeks, as though those touches would bring him back to life. Then, as though he’d been released, he was on his feet, pacing the room, punching walls, flashing his lightning; though it didn’t seem to be doing much good, sizzling out before it did more than spark.
“Help me!” Mouse shouted at him, trying to pull herself free from Taub’s grip. “I am here against my will! I don’t know this man! Help me! Let me go! I’ll do anything if you just let me go. I’ll leave. I won’t say a word, I swear it.” She babbled, unable to stop herself. She was terrified, submerged under cold waves of panic, her body desperate to escape, but she had no options here. She was a captive.
“Neryan!” she sobbed. He was the only good thing in this world, the only thing worth having. How could someone do that to him? Was that how she would die? Was that why she was here? She didn’t want to meet her end like that, tied to a rock, ribs poking out under ruined skin, eyes seeing nothing at all ever again.
How could one person feel this much before their heart gave out. She would die here, and she didn’t want to die, but her fate had been chosen for her, hadn’t it? She’d made her decisions, and here she was, reaping what she’d sown. Would it hurt? Would Taub torture her?
Did her life have a point? Maybe that was her biggest fear, her true worry. She could die, but she wanted to die knowing that she hadn’t just been wasted space and used air. One more heart in a world full of them. She wanted to have a point. She wanted to go to her end knowing that she mattered to someone—but the only person who could assure her of that was already dead.
She twisted her body like a cat, and finally broke free of Taub’s grasp, darting across the room, and launching herself at the stranger. She punched him in the face, knocking him over, and she leapt on him, straddling his body with hers. His skin was hard. It was like punching a rock. Her fists were bruised, and he was laughing. She felt something reach up and shackle her legs, looked down and saw that she was pinned in place by ropes of earth. Stuck there. Was that how he’d held down Neryan? How could anyone hope to fight the earth?
He shimmied out from under her, looking untouched, still smiling.
“I know what you are now!” he shouted. “I know why you are here! What a gift you are!” He beamed at her but she didn’t feel like a gift. Gifts were wrapped and given. She was stolen and kept. Hunger would have understood, but
Hunger was gone. Now she was just a terrified girl, all snot and tears and a fear so thick she was choking on it.
She jerked and swayed, tried to move, to get away, to hurt him. She wanted a knife. She wanted to make him bleed. She wanted to take Neryan’s heart and stuff it in her own chest. She’d make it beat again. She’d give him another life. Her life for his. It was a worthy trade.
She felt the air shift and knew that Taub was behind her now, calm and quiet. She was kneeling, earth wrapped around her ankles, holding her in place. All she could see was Neryan’s splayed body. She felt like a supplicant, and she supposed she was, of sorts.
Dear gods, any who are up there, please light a path for his soul to follow.
“She is full,” Taub said in a voice that sounded like it had been scraped from the darkest part of the sky.
“Yes,” the stranger said, and though four words had been shared between them, she had an uncanny feeling that they had held more meaning than she could fathom.
Her eyes locked on Neryan’s corpse, on his heart that would never beat again, and she wanted to give up.
“Seraphina will kill you for this,” Mouse whispered, looking at that smug bastard who was still watching her with a grin painted on his face. “She will burn you alive. You can’t stand against her.”
Taub shifted behind her, one hard hand gripping the back of her neck, the other on her arm. She was a sacrifice. She knew that now. She’d been one all along, she just didn’t know it until this moment, pinned between an ascending god and a dead father, shackled by the world itself.
